Putting it all together

As you count down to your trip date its time to get everything together.

• Pack your suitcase
• Don't wait until the last minute as you might need to stop at the store and pick up some last minute items.
• Pack your park backpack
• Limit what you plan to carry everyday
• Get your mousekeeping envelopes ready
• Get your tipping envelopes ready
• Don't forget your nonstandard staff (tour guides, carriage drivers, baggage handlers)
• Finish your planning binder
• ICE sheet
• Card numbers and 1-800 numbers for lost or stolen
• Have your driving route planned
• Reconfirm your hotel reservations 
• Snacks or dining locations
• Get your vehicle an oil change and check up
• Reevaluate your cost budgets
• Make final plans with your housesitter

Countdown Time

So time is starting to get to a point where I need to decide how I am going to keep a count down process.  My husband agreed to a 60 day countdown process.  I am trying to determine what to use.

I am finally moving out of the triple digit countdown on my phone and log in daily to My Disney Experience to watch the countdown there.

What do you use to countdown your trip?  Let me know if the comments below.

Disney Clothing

I have been looking for Disney shirts to pick up for my next trip and found a couple different places that I was not expecting.  These also might help with your teenager to keep them from "messing up" your Disney themed clothing for photos.

Old Navy just got a whole new line of Disney stuff:

My favorite 

Hot Topic has Disney stuff I never realized before.

My favorite

Wet Seal has some cute stuff you have to search for it a little harder, try to search by character name instead of just Disney or stop by a shop at your local mall.

My favorite

Disney Paper Punches

So I recently placed an order with http://www.stamp-happy.com/ for some Disney Paper punches.

I ordered 4 items and this what the list that was included in the confirmation email:

Ordered Items:
     Item #   Description of Item            Qty  Each
     PP0074   Disney Princess Castle Punch        1 $9.00
     DS0041   Small Eeyore Stamp                     1 $2.75
     AD0007   Double Sided Adhesive Sheets     1 $4.00
Order subtotal:    4 items for  $ 24.75
Payment Choice: PayPal

Note that the first item I placed in my cart Item: PP0075 Name: Disney Eeyore Punch does not show in the list.  I noticed that I also was not able to remove it from my cart when on the site (not that I wanted to because that is the reason I shopped this site and that they took Paypal (I won some Paypal cash online)).  So I am assuming it is something to do with how their cart works.  I sent an email to confirm that is the case hopefully before it is shipped.  However, they did confirm that it had been missed and would be shipped in a separate package.  So be sure to check that before you process your payment with them.

I picked up and Eeyore stamp because it was part of a monthly special.

Wow I just noticed how many Disney Autograph books there are on Pintrest now:  Check them out here!

I saw this one that used paper punches in every other page for a neat look, it is my plan to use these paper punches for my autograph book project. For the complete how to click here

With my Mickey, Eeyore, and Castle punch I should have a good variety for the types of characters that will be dining.

It was a little odd to pay with Paypal as they did not just send me an invoice via Paypal I had to enter their email address and send a payment (risk of typing the wrong email address, especially since Paypal removed some of the characters when I copied and pasted (like the - and the .) So it could have failed (or went to someone else) if I was not paying attention.

The items are being shipped free via USPS (up to a certain weight) so hopefully they arrive in a timely manner.  Looks like it will be coming from CA so might take several days for me to receive my order but for free not bad.

UPDATE: These arrived and are super nice heavy duty punches.  I am very happy with my purchase and have already gotten to use them.

Photographing Letters at Disney

I recently discovered this neat idea of taking photographs of things that looked like letters to create words from the images.  There is a site that you can order "letters" from and frames from but you can also get some ideas there as well (Check this site).

My plan for my next trip is take photos of things that look like letters especially so that I can spell some fun things.  What might be fun to use this process for?

• Your last name or your first
• Your kids names
• Disney
• Character name
• Park 
• Restaurant
• Ride
• Resort

Pretty much the best thing is to find a picture of every letter of the alphabet.  The next best thing is to have a short list for a specific plan (like your last name or Disney).  I am looking forward to doing this almost as a scavenger hunt during our trip.  Encouraging others in my group to be on the look out for letters as well.

Think about how much fun you can have with this waiting in line and then what a great project for when you get home.

Disney Horses

So my husband and I are horsey people and are looking forward to enjoying all the Disney horses.  Since it seems that there are lots of others looking for the same types of experiences I am going to start gathering a list of info of how to incorporate horses into your Disney World vacation.

• Trail riding - Pony Rides
• https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/recreation/tri-circle-d-ranch/
• This is the one that most appeals to us.  Its a 45 min trail ride through the Fort Wilderness area (no exactly sure of where it takes you).  Some of horses used in the trail rides are also some of the horses used by the princesses in the parades.  I saw some post about the trail guides telling riders which princess normally rides the horses in the parades.  Additionally I saw some pictures of Cinderellas's White ponies being used for pony rides.  So the horses server multiple roles (which is common with working horses).  Some of the carriage horses are also ridden in the trail rides.  I would love to ride Maximus or Merida's horse.  We'll have to wait and see how this works out.
• Restrictions: Reservations are recommended, and closed-toe shoes are required. Riders must be over 48 inches tall and weigh under 250 pounds. 
• Cost: $46/45 min
• Times: 8:30 am, 10 am, 11:30 pm, 1 pm, and 2:30 pm (this was what I found, call to confirm)
• Location: Check-in is located at the entrance of Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground
• Carriage Rides and Sleigh Ridge
• https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/recreation/carriage-rides/
• Restrictions: 4 adults or 2 adults and 3 kids 
• Reservations are highly recommended and can be made up to 180 days in advance
• Cost:$45 or $60 per carriage / 25 min
• Times: 5:30PM, 6:00PM,6:30PM, 7:00PM, 7:30PM, 9:00PM,9:30PM, 10:00PM (this was what I found, call to confirm)
• Location:Ride through the lush pine and cypress trees of Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground, or travel along the charming pathways of Port Orleans — Riverside and the banks of the Sassagoula River.
• Wagon Rides
• I am hopping to be able to fit this in as some point as it takes you through the campgrounds and we will be visiting during the Christmas holiday and hear that the campsites will be decorated and that would be neat to experience.
• https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/recreation/tri-circle-d-ranch/
• Cost: $5 or $8/45 min
• Times: 7:00 PM and 9:30 PM 
• Location: Depart from in front of Pioneer Hall
• Main Street Vehicles
• https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/attractions/magic-kingdom/main-street-vehicles/
• Cost: Park ticket
• Times: 9:00AM to 10:15AM
• Location: Main Street - Magic Kingdom
• Visiting Tri Circle D Ranch Area
• https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/recreation/tri-circle-d-ranch/
• Cost: Free
• Times: 7:00AM to 8:23PM
• Location: Fort Wilderness Area

Travel Time Adventure

Put 4 adults in a car for 13-14 hours and what do you get?  Tired, bored and cranky?  Maybe but let's try to prevent that from happening.

Everyone has seen the kid type bucket of stuff for the car or bucket of presents.  So lets take that concept and grow it up.

That being said here is my idea, every hour open a wrapped package.  That package can have anything from  snacks, to games, to maybe a movie or audio book.  What would that look like in list form?

This:

1 hour in (8am): Something to drink
2 hour in (9am): Snack
3 hour in (10am): Game
4 hour in (11am): Audio Book
5 hour in (12pm): Permission to stop for Lunch
6 hour in (1pm): Something to drink
7 hour in (2pm): Game
8 hour in (3pm): Audio Book
9 hour in (4pm): Snack
10 hour in (5pm): Permission to stop for Dinner
11 hour in (6pm): Something to drink
12 hour in (7pm): Game
13 hour in (8pm): CAFFINE
14 hour in (9pm): Snack

Travel Agent Update

Well, my ADRs are almost finalized.  Took a little more tweaking and work than I had hoped but I think that with the potential of free dining ADRs are just getting harder to book.  Also I was looking for more of the super early entry ones, which my Travel Agent was able to get most of them.  I was surprised  by Tusker house being the hard one to get.  The only one available was on an EMH morning so that did not help much with strategic planning so I let that one go.  We did pick up an unexpected dinner at Ohana.

It is definitely hard to release control but if you have no idea what to plan then get the advise of a Authorized Disney Travel Planer.  I hope that my insistence on a couple specific parks and the days to visit don't disappoint me but only time will tell and I doubt either option would have been crazy different.  We did end up at the park best week out of the year according to yourfirstvisit.net.  So how bad can it be?  Its Disney World waiting in line is supposed to be entertaining.

Disney Travel Agent

OK, so I had to break down and get connected to a travel agent, since my ADRs open on the same day my daughter has college orientation.  So I will be mostly unavailable for the day (especially when the phone lines open up).

The task has several 8 am reservations and Be our guest for dinner, Le Cellier but since the lunch went to 2 credits and fixed pricing all day as well I figure that whole market will have changed.

I have to let her do her job and if she gets them all she will be my Disney hero, and I will tell you all who she is, if not I will remain quiet.

She has already told me some things I did not know and I have been researching for the past 300 days and then had 2 previous trips with plenty of planning.  So we are off to a good start.

I had made my own initial reservation, was able to include Photopass+, Mickeys Christmas party tickets, and insurance.  Note that when I called in the deposit was only $200 vs the higher amount that the website was looking for (I think it wanted about 10%)

Planning is a lot of work and actually booking all those ADRs is even more work, so I am kind of glad to get out of that job.

Touring Plans Info

I just purchased my Touring Plans membership for the year for under $10.  I do believe that will be the best $10 I send in preparation for my next trip.

If you have not heard about Touring plans check them out here.  The customized plans are really nifty.  If you want to follow their plan great if not then you can build one yourself.  I figured I knew what I was doing to I just started playing with one and I love the idea. It automatically knew that the day I was working on was a special event day (usually as the dates are not out yet) so I can adjust my plan to incorporate that info if I choose.  I was using a crowd calendar to pick days but once I do that I can put those choices into the plan and see if it will actually work.

I am going to be working on what park, what days, what restaurants, and what activities this weekend and this tool will really help in that process.  Even better is they have an app for your phone so you can check things off as you do them.

I am hoping it will let you see list later as a record of what you did and what you skipped.

So I will definitely have more info about this later as well so check back.

Have you used touring plans?  If so, let me know you opinion in the comments.

My Trip planning

So, it is getting close to time that I need to start making some real plans.  I am about 100 days out from ADR date so I have to plan my trip specifics over the next couple months and then book with Disney.

I am still having a hard time deciding if deluxe dining is for our group or not.  Then I am trying to determine if Art of Animation Little Mermaid or Pop Century is the way to go.  Then in the back of my mind I am also trying to have a plan for any upgrades and the estimated cost associated with them (weather or not it will be worth it or not).

Big part of decision making process revolves around a couple things:

• Specific dates
• How far can we drive before we need to stop?
• What is the cost if we stay offsite the first night/last night are the savings worth it?

Right now I think the best thing for us will be to drive as close to Disney as we can, then stay offsite maybe about an hour out or so.  I am planning on finding some place for under $90 that has continental breakfast, pool, and hot tub (at my husbands suggestion to help us recover from 13 hours in the car).  It looks like there are going to be some options on I-4 around 30-50 mins from Disney.

Disney Details

We also will be making the drive back at more of a reasonable pace and stopping somewhere about half way through the drive.  For the last day of our trip I still think that splitting our reservation so that the last night does not include dinning or tickets will be the most economical.