Magic Kingdom

We spent our first day at the Magic Kingdom!

 They were all decorated for Halloween.

 We stopped in front of the castle for some pictures. We were there for Extra Magic Hours so we were able to get a lot done with very minimal crowds.

 I met some characters and we rode pretty much every ride in Magic Kingdom.

I kind of failed on taking pictures the first day, but who can blame me. I had more important things on my mind! For lunch we split a half chicken at Cosmic Ray's. We took a break around 4 PM and came back for the Main St. Electrical Parade and Wishes! fireworks at night. I don't think we ate dinner this day.

My Plans...

I am making sure we have everything ready to go for our trip (we leave 2 WEEKS FROM TODAY!)

I have all of our plans organized in a binder. It looks like this...

Inside I have 5 dividers to keep my info organized. There's General, Hotel, Dining, Itineraries, and Misc. I also have some mini sharpies hooked on one of the rings just in case!

This is our itinerary overview with all of our confirmation numbers and park of the day info.

Flight info and the ever important budget are on another spreadsheet.
Can you guess where we're staying?

(That's my MagicBand!)
I have all of our Dining plans together on one spreadsheet.

I have an organized sheet for each day with an outline of where and what we'll be doing. It looks like I have it planned to the minute, but this is just the "ideal" situation. I am going to be flexible!

Cheat cards to take in the parks so I don't have to bring the whole binder with me. There's a set with "must do's" in each park, a card with all of our confirmation #'s and an abbreviated itinerary card for each day.

And that's everything in one place! So excited!! Disney World playlist playing in the background.. I'm in my happy place!

Loose Ends

We're less than a month from Disney! Everything is planned and I just have to finish printing some documents and pack! 

Our Mickey mail arrived! When I went to the AAA office to pick it up, our travel agent gave us 2 sets of Mickey ears! The luggage tags are super cute and I can't wait to put them on our brand new luggage that should be arriving today! 

  

I got a few more things to take on the trip today as well. Two new Disney shirts and some shorts, because I don't want to go to Florida without shorts! Once the luggage arrives, I think I'll start packing just to make sure I don't forget anything.

While exploring the Disney website the other day, I discovered that we are eligible for FastPass+ while on our trip! I made our selections for each day that we're going to be in the parks. I have to add that info into our itineraries, but then I should be able to print out the last of our documents for the trip. I also was able to customize our Magic Bands for the trip as well! They should be shipping any day now.

As far as printing documents, I'm almost done. One of the things I'm most excited about is giving Erik his personalized "brochure" that I made explaining everything we're going to do on our trip! I put a lot of effort into it, and even got it printed and bound at Staples. It turned out really well!!

My next project is making cards to hand out to friends that want to follow our trip online to see pictures and stuff like that! I think they will be cute and fun to make. 

In an effort to expose Erik to some more Disney movies, we're having Disney dinner-and-a-movie nights! So far we've done Lady & the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, and The Little Mermaid. Tomorrow is Sleeping Beauty. We've also watched Hercules.

Only 28 days to go and I'll be on my way to that magical place!

Hooray for an Operating Schedule!

The Disney September operating schedule has been released! Hooray! It's the same as 2012, so I already have my park days in the right spots. I'm using EasyWDW.com for my crowd calendar.


So here's the Itinerary!

Day 1- Arrive in Orlando @ 11AM, Mini Golf and dinner @ DTD (Splitsville?)

Day 2- Magic Kingdom @ 8AM for Extra Magic Hours. This is our looong day. Stay through the Electrical Parade and Wishes until park close

Day 3- EPCOT @ 9AM, break for lunch @ Beaches and Cream, return for Dinner @ Monsieur Paul's and Illuminations

Day 4- EPCOT @ 11AM, tour World Showcase. Dinner @ La Cantina de San Angel

Day 5- Hollywood Studios @ 9AM. Dinner @ 50's Prime Time Cafe and then Fantasmic!

Day 6- Universal's Islands of Adventure @ 9AM. Leave park early. Dinner @ Victoria & Alberts (HOPEFULLY!)

Day 7- Animal Kingdom @ 9AM. Dinner @ Sanaa

Day 8- Magic Kingdom, lunch @ Be Our Guest

Day 9- Depart for San Fransisco @ 1:40PM

Dining Ideas

I have looked through many menus and restaurant reviews in anticipation of our upcoming Disney vacation. Since Erik and I are both major foodies, I think this is one of the most important parts of planning our trip. It's especially important since the food is probably the part that Erik is going to enjoy the most. That being I said, I'm trying to keep of dining plan varied and try to have at least 1 sit down meal per day. This is what the plan looks like as of right now. The order is probably going to change, based on what the recommended parks are once the official hours have been released. (Speaking of... I have been using EasyWDW.com for most of my planning and will be using that crowd calendar to decide which parks to visit each day)

Here's the line-up as of right now. Instead of saying Day 1, 2, etc. I will label the days by which park we are visiting, because the dining will stick with the park, even if the parks change order. Breakfast is B, lunch is L, and dinner is D. I will list the restaurant, location, and maybe a reason.

Arrival Day
B- We will be in flight! So maybe a snack on the plane
L- Landscape of Flavors at The Art of Animation resort (AoA). We'll probably eat as soon as we arrive and check in
D- Raglan Road in Downtown Disney. This one Erik helped pick! Thought it sounded like a fun/unique time

1st Magic Kingdom Day
B- Main St Bakery at Magic Kingdom (MK). There are morning extra magic hours today and we will be arriving at park open, so we will not want to get up even earlier to eat at the hotel, plus I think that the food court at the hotel will not be open yet.
L- Cosmic Ray's at MK.
D- Plaza Restaurant at MK. We will eat before the evening parade and fireworks and stay near the restaurant to view those things.
We will also be getting a Dole Whip this day... I can't wait to try one!!!

1st EPCOT Day
B- Landscape of Flavors at AoA before bus to park
L- Beaches and Cream at Beach Club resort. ICE CREAM!
D- Monsieur Paul's in the France pavilion at EPCOT.

2nd EPCOT Day
B- Landscape of Flavors at AoA before bus to park, maybe
L- Eating (and drinking) around the world at EPCOT! This is why we might skip breakfast.
D- La Cantina de San Angel in the Mexico pavilion at EPCOT.

Hollywood Studios Day
B- Landscape of Flavors at AoA before bus to park
L- A quick service that sounds good, probably Starring Rolls or one of the Sunset Ranch Market locations (all in Hollywood Studios{HS}) Depends on what we feel like eating
D- 50's Prime Time Cafe at HS. This sounds like a fun experience =]

Universal Studios Day
This day we take a shuttle to Universal's Islands of Adventure (IoA) park to visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
B- Landscape of Flavors at AoA before shuttle to park
L- The Three Broomsticks at IoA. Because of Harry Potter, obviously. Will definitely be trying a Butterbeer.

D- Since this is going to be an early park day, we are going to do our fancy dinner to celebrate our anniversary this night. We are really hoping to get a reservation at Victoria & Albert's Chef table. I will rearrange our schedule for whatever night I can get this reservation. Located at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort.

Animal Kingdom Day
B- Landscape of Flavors at AoA before bus to park
L- Flame Tree BBQ or Yak and Yeti depending on what we want to eat and where we are when we are hungry. Both located in Animal Kingdom

D- Sanaa at Animal Kingdom Lodge. Really excited about eating next to the savannah.

2nd Magic Kingdom Day
This and the first MK day will probably stay in their current positions with the middle days possibly changing.
B- Something in MK
L- Be Our Guest Restaurant in MK. I saved this for our second day at the park because of the wait.
D- Columbia Harbour House in MK. There aren't really any sit down meals today. Maybe I'll make a breakfast reservation at a location in the park? We don't have any sit down breakfasts yet.

Departure Day
B- Landscape of Flavors at AoA
L- We leave for the airport at 10ish, so either bring something from the hotel or eat at the airport
D- Home. So sad.

And that's all of it!

Planning Update

I haven't posted in so long! That's primarily because nothing major has happened. That is until a couple days ago! We booked our flights using Erik's credit card points. We were able to get both of our round trip tickets for no cost out of pocket. This is SUPER exciting, because it saved us around $800!! We fly out of San Fransisco on September 17th at 10:40 PM and arrive in Orlando the next morning at 11:10AM. Our return flight is September 26th leaving Orlando at 1:40PM and arriving in San Fransisco at 8:40PM. Both flights are with JetBlue.

The day we leave for Disney I am going to get a mani/pedi before we leave for the airport, I'm really looking forward to it!

I have emailed the AAA travel rep to add our flight info to our reservation but have not heard back from her yet. If I don't hear anything in the next week, I might call Disney myself to add the information.

I have begun putting together my binder for keeping all of our travel information together. It's a Mickey binder! Once I have more stuff printed to put in it, I will post some pictures. It has dividers for general info, itineraries, dining info, hotel info, and other miscellaneous paperwork.

We have also received of customized Disney maps and the new 2013 planning DVD. Our Universal park tickets have been ordered (2 1-Day 1-Park tickets) and have shipped. All that's left to do is finalize touring plans (operating schedule is released on the 16th), book dining reservations (March 22) and plan shuttle transportation (to/from airport and to/from Universal).

I have a list of our dining plans, but since there are a lot of places we will be eating, I'll post those separately.

215 days and counting!

Ready, Set, Disney!!!

We've decided we can go in 2013!!! SO EXCITED!!! Hopefully booking next week. =]

Disney Dining Deals

It's incredible how much you can save if you're looking for deals. For Erik and I to eat at Disney, it'll cost around $1000, not including drinks or snacks. With the free dining they have going on right now, we could upgrade from the free quick service to the plus dining plan for under $300 and then only have around $200 worth of food left to pay for. The plan includes 1 quick service, 1 table service, and one snack per day. All of the meals come with a drink and you also get a refillable travel mug! That will cut our dining budget in half. I just have to monitor when it becomes available for the time that we want to travel so that when the time comes to book, I can!

DIY Disney!

I've been making some stuff for the trip. I figure if I spend a little bit here and there it will be a lot easier than spending a bunch right before we leave. I know it's still far away, but I want to be ready!! One thing that I made though is definitely useful now.

 

A Disney Dollar jar! I had a couple of buttons in the house that I used to make Mickey. The little Mickeys are just fabric paint. Then I threw all of the change I found laying around inside of the jar! Any change I find between now and when we leave is going in that jar! Although, it looks like I might need another...

 

Next I took 2 containers from mini M&M's and decorated them with colored paper and ribbon. Erik and I both like pressed pennies, and it's a cheap way to get a souvenir. The Pressed Penny Money container is full of sets of 2 quarters with a penny on top of each set for easy access. (I got this idea from The Disney Diva http://www.tipsfromthedisneydiva.com/2012/05/pressed-penny-souvenirs.html)

 

This way a really cheap white board I got from Target ($1, seriously). I covered the edges with ribbon to make it look nicer and covered the marker body in colored paper. This will be great for playing games on the plane. Tic Tac Toe, Hangman, and Pictionary!!

I won a deck of cards a few years ago at Warped Tour, and re-purposed them as Disney cards for Pictionary and Hangman. I tried to put labels on the cards to cover the pictures, but they didn't fir in the box! I was going to use Disney paint chips like the blogger I got this idea from (http://acreativeprincess.blogspot.com/2012/05/draw-somethingdisney.html), but my local Home Depot didn't have any! And then I realized I would probably take a deck of cards anyways. This way we can use the cards for other card games. (Including Old Maid, since one of the Jokers is Lady Tremaine!!)

Now I have to start collecting stuff that we'll actually NEED instead of just fun stuff. It's obvious my priorities are in great order =].