This Time We're Gonna "Plus It" an April/May 2019 Birthday Trip

otten

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 4, 2015
Background: Back in October 2016 by best friend and I took my oldest to WDW for her 5th birthday (and my friend's 30th). Even though we had an unwelcome visit from Hurricane Matthew we still had a great time and we knew we wanted to do it again for my youngest's 5th birthday. This time we wanted to go bigger. We're going to "plus it" as Walt would say. We've been saving for a year already so that we can stay deluxe and do the magical extras we want to do.

The Cast
Me (Megan) mom of two daughters. Married to a man who is less into Disney and was happy to sit this one out. I will turn 37 on the trip. Favourite character: Maleficent Favourite ride: Everest

Katie best friend and co-worker, Disney obsessed. Partner in crime. Favourite character: Ariel Favourite ride: Buzz Lightyear

Ava – older daughter, 7 at the time of travel. Loves Disney princesses and Star Wars. Favourite ride is Mine Train

Betta – younger daughter, birthday girl. Turns 5 in June. Trip is an early birthday celebration. Also loves princesses and Star Wars and elephants. Favourite ride: Safaris

Dates:
April 24 – May 7th Two days at Universal then April 27-May 7 at Disney World. Staying at Royal Pacific Resort at USO and Poly, Kidani and BLT at WDW. Almost two whole weeks. YES

The preliminary plan is 3.5 MK days (with EMM if it's offered). 2 days at Epcot and 1 each at HS and AK. We have 8 day Canadian resident tickets purchased already which thankfully takes care of a chunk of the cost.

For now we're just counting down until we can get some things booked.
 
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Megan,

I'm new to this entire Disney thing :) ... It looks like you might have a handle on some of the planning. I'm a fellow Canadian and I'm planning a trip in April 2019 with me (then) 5 year old. Any tips you can pass along? How did you get Canadian Resident tickets already? I am also planning on "Plus-ing It", I am thinking Contemporary or GF.. any other things I need to put on the list to "Plus It"?
 
Megan,

I'm new to this entire Disney thing :) ... It looks like you might have a handle on some of the planning. I'm a fellow Canadian and I'm planning a trip in April 2019 with me (then) 5 year old. Any tips you can pass along? How did you get Canadian Resident tickets already? I am also planning on "Plus-ing It", I am thinking Contemporary or GF.. any other things I need to put on the list to "Plus It"?

We bought 8 day Canadian resident tickets last year when they didn’t have an expiry date on them.
 
We haves booked the Poly!

Omg. So excited. Our dvc rental request just came through. Now we are officially booked.

I did discover an issue with our tickets when I went to link our reservation. Apparently in January my youngest’s 8 day ticket was used instead of her 4 day. I called Disney and supposedly it will be escalated to sort out but grr. We did ask GS for the 4days to be prioritized when we did the passport check last trip but apparently that didn’t happen totally properly.
 


We have booked AKL for the second part of our stay. Yay! I stayed there with my family in January and loved it. I could totally see myself booking a resort only trip there. Really glad to be going back.

Plans are starting to come together. Here's what we have so far:

Updated January 7

Day 0 - travel from Vancouver. Alas this is always a whole day affair. Stay at a Universal Hotel. Arrive at 6pm. We ended up getting 4 day for the price of 2 day tickets so depending on the time we may go to a park for an hour or two.
Day 1 - Wizard Day complete with robes and wand buying.
Day 2 - 2nd Universal Day, do some non Potter stuff and some Potter stuff. Park closes at 6 for grad night so early night at hotel
Day 3 - leave US for WDW. Stay at Poly. Late breakfast/brunch at Ohana. This is Dapper Day at MK so we're going to dress accordingly and focus on character meetings and photo opportunities. Afternoon appointments at Ivy Trellis
Day 4 - Epcot Dapper Day focus on World Showcase and Festival of the Arts if it's on
Day 5 - Rope drop Magic Kingdom
Day 6 - transfer to Kidani, break day
Day 7 - break day
Day 8 - Hollywood Studios, hopefully emm
Day 9 - late morning, Epcot in the afternoon hopefully Frozen Ever After Dessert party
Day 10 - Animal Kingdom
Day 11 - Break Day
Day 12 - transfer to BLT, Magic Kingdom
Day 13 - final day at Magic Kingdom, watch fireworks from balcony
Day 14 - departure, ME probably picking up at 3am.
 
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We've plussed it again!

Flight prices for our original Sunday return home have stayed in the stratosphere. A 300/person difference when I am paying for 3 tickets so 900 more. At that price we might as well stay another 2 days. So that's what we're doing. We were able to get 2 nights at BLT with a dvc rental. Woohoo!

We've got just over a month before 180 days so we're giving some real thought to firming up our dining plans.

Must Eats:
Ohana breakfast (I know, mixed reviews but I want to try it once)
Bon Voyage Breakfast
Be Our Guest dinner
1900 Park Fare
Sanaa
Perfectly Princess Tea

Hope to:
Narcoosee's
The new Snow White character meal at Artist Pointe
Crystal Palace
 
Sounds like an amazing trip! We will be going about a month after you with similar age kiddos (7.5 and 5.5) but my oldest is a boy. We haven't been with the kids yet so we are still trying to figure out a lot - sounds like you've got a great plan for yours! :)
 


ADR DAY PART ONE

We have three adr days since we have 3 resort stays but the first was today.

I dutifully woke up just before 3am. My travel partner in crime is not exactly a morning person so I was taking one for the team here. Long onto MDE, patiently wait for the clock to tick 3am aaaaand nothing.

No matter what I did it would not allow me to book beyond check in day, even though our onsite reservation was linked. Grrr. Too early in the morning for this drama. I logged out and in a few times to no avail. Then I tried the app. At first that didn’t work either so I went ahead and booked our reservations for check in day. Magically once I got through with that I was able to book for the remaining days of our first resort stay but only on the app. I got everything I wanted at almost exactly the times I wanted but I did not appreciate the aggravation. I really hope I don’t have the same issue or worse when I need to book the next batch on Thursday.

For our first four days we have the following, note, I’m not asking for critique here. This might be too many reservations for a lot of you. That’s fine. This is what we want to do.

Arrival day: brunch at Ohana (we are staying at the Poly), dinner at Narcoosee’s

Day 2: Epcot day, brunch at Bon Voyage (Trattoria al Forno), dinner at Akershus, dessert (Kitchen Sink) at Beaches and Cream

Day 3: Crystal Palace lunch, Be Our Guest dinner

Day 4: 1900 Park Fare brunch before moving to Kidani, dinner at Sanaa

I also called to book character couture appointments for our arrival day. We’re doing this instead of BBB (I think, I’m still debating doing BBB also at the end of the trip). We’re definitely doing character couture though.
 
We got all our remaining ADRS booked! We also booked (and paid for eek) the Perfectly Princess Tea. Now I am going to put the price of that event out of my mind forever. We've done it once before with ODD so I know it's worth it but yikes.

Onto the real news. So I have a bit of a travel curse. Something almost always seems to go awry when I travel. Most recently I ended up stuck overnight in Toronto due to a missed connection. For this trip it appears the curse is making itself known early. When I got home from a recent not Disney related trip I had an email from United advising that they had changed our flights. I was not initially alarmed because I get these notifications for most trips and the changes are usually quite minor, changing the arrival or departure by less than 30 minutes. Then I actually looked at the change.

They had moved our departure time from 4pm to 2pm and given us a 6 hour layover. The new schedule was not at all acceptable and United didn't really have any good alternatives. I suggested two options: refund and compensation equaling the cost of rebooking on a different airline with a similar itinerary to our original or compensation in the amount required to stay an additional night at Universal. They agreed to the latter. We are now departing at 7am our time and arriving at 6pm in Orlando. On the plus side this gives us 2 full days at Universal instead of 1.5. On the downside it is an extra day off work/school.
 
Fellow Canadian here! Our trips will overlap a bit, and I believe we’ll both be at AKL for a few of the same nights!
 
Hi! I am joining in! The Harry Potter stuff at Universal is pretty cool. I was there for Grad Bash earlier this year, and it was the first time that I was able to really enjoy and appreciate the WWOHP! Yay for some extra time at Universal.
Ohana breakfas

My family loves the Ohana Breakfast. We are big Lilo and Stitch fans!
 
Hi! I am joining in! The Harry Potter stuff at Universal is pretty cool. I was there for Grad Bash earlier this year, and it was the first time that I was able to really enjoy and appreciate the WWOHP! Yay for some extra time at Universal.

Ohana breakfast (I know, mixed reviews but I want to try it once)

My family loves the Ohana Breakfast. We are big Lilo and Stitch fans!
 
Restaurants

Our ADRs are pretty firmed up now and I'm feeling pretty good about them.

Day 1 - Ohana brunch, Narcoosee dinner
Day 2 - Bon Voyage breakfast, Akershus (early) dinner, Beaches and Cream dessert
Day 3 - Crystal Palace Brunch, Be Our Guest dinner
Day 4 - 1900 Park Fare lunch, Sanaa dinner
Day 5 - Sci Fi Drive In lunch
Day 6 - Tiffins
Day 7 - Artist Pointe
Day 8 - Chef Mickey's
Day 9 - Tony's lunch, 1900 Park Fare dinner
 
Phew FP over. The split stay FastPass issue caused some problems but I did eventually get what we wanted. I’ll post more detailed plans in a little while.

We’ve booked the Frozen dessert party, the Star Wars dessert party and EMM in MK. Unfortunately EMM is randomly not available in TSL the day we are there, the one Wednesday in May that is missing. So we booked a PPO breakfast instead. It won’t help us for TSL and that’s okay but it will allow us to knock out the Disney jr character meets that are super important to my two girlies. I’m crossing my fingers that Sofia will still be at H and V on May 1st but they love Fancy Nancy too.

Today I made our last prepayment. I paid for the dining plan to be added to our last reservation. After two years of saving and planning we are paid in full.

So what’s an over planner to do once all the planning is done? Well if you are also crafty you channel your Disney energy into making princess dresses. I’m working on an Aurora dress for my youngest and a pink Ariel dress for my oldest. Complete with hand embroidery and Swarovski crystals because nothing exceeds like excess (that’ll probably be the name of my trip report if I do one).
 
I've finished the dresses. I'm so happy with them. Now I have a few more Disneybounding items to make.
 

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The Home Stretch!

It’s hard to believe that after almost two full years of saving, planning and dreaming, that we are little more than two weeks away from our epic trip.

Our plans are pretty well finalized and we’re pretty happy with them.

Day -1

Our flight leaves at the crack of dawn so rather than having to leave for the airport at 3am we are staying the night before in a hotel near the airport. This also saves my husband from having to wake up and drive us to the airport at 3am. You’re welcome honey. Katie is going to meet us at the hotel after going there straight after work. The girls and I will join her once my husband gets home from work to drive us there. I should finish work myself at 3 so I’ll spend those last couple of hours double checking packing lists. We will probably pick up the girls from daycare and head straight to the hotel where we will watch Disney movies and eat Harry Potter cupcakes and try not to stay up too late.

Day 0

Our flight leaves at 6:45 am. Shudder. We’ll take a hotel shuttle to the airport at 4am. That should allow plenty of time for customs and security, especially with Nexus. Our first flight is to Houston where we have a 1.5 hour layover. I don’t really like any less than that. It makes me nervous. Then we have a shorter flight to Orlando which is supposed to land around 6.

If all goes well, our car service will meet us at baggage claim and we’ll head to Royal Pacific resort. We’ll pre check in, drop our bags and walk to Islands of Adventure. Hoping to get 1.5 hours or so of light touring before the park closes. We will hopefully be able to watch the night show.

Day 1

Potter Time! We’ll head to USO for early entry and visit Ollivanders first. We want the best shot at someone getting picked for the show. After that we’ll do Gringotts and explore Diagon Alley, do spells etc. We’ll watch the shows and then have lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. After lunch we’ll hop on the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade. We will use child swap for Forbidden Journey. Unfortunately Ava is not quite tall enough and of course Betta isn’t either. They’ll enjoy the castle tour though. Afterwards we will do Hippgriffs and explore Hogsmeade, do spells, watch shows etc. Dinner will be at the Three Broomsticks. After dinner we will ride the Hogwarts Express back to Diagon Alley so that we can experience it in the other direction. We’ll likely ride Gringott’s again. If we haven’t seen the light show and it’s running we’ll go back to Hogsmeade for that. Then it’s back to the hotel.

Day 2

Early entry is at 7 so we will be up and at em early. We’ll ride Gringotts and the Minions ride and hopefully get over to Forbidden Journey in time to do it standby without a huge line. Hoping to see the whole queue once.

We’ll spend the rest of the day doing the non potter stuff that interests us. The park closes at 6 for grad bash so we’ll leave than. Probably have dinner at Cowfish and then back to the hotel.

Day 3

If we feel like it we’ll go back to the park for one last hour in the morning. We have buy 2 get 2 promo tickets so if we don’t use the extra day it’s no big deal. If we do we’ll ride whatever last rides we choose and then we’ll go back to the hotel to wait for the car service.

The car service is going to pick us up at 10 and drive us to the Polynesian. We’ll check in and leave our bags then go to Ohana. After Ohana we have character couture appointments. After our makeovers we’ll go to Magic Kingdom for the first time. It’s Dapper Day so we’ll be focusing on photo opportunities more than rides. We have late afternoon fastpasses to meet the princesses and Mickey Mouse. After a few hours in the park we head to Narcoosee for dinner then we’ll head back to the hotel. The plan is to watch the fireworks from Poly beach that night. The park is open until midnight so once the girls are tucked in I may leave them with Katie while I go enjoy some solo late night park time.

Day 4

Rope dropping Epcot. We’ll walk over to the TTC to get the monorail. We’re planning on hitting TT at rope drop (if it’s open) then doing some minor future world attractions. Then we’ll head to brunch at Trattoria Al Forno. After brunch we’re going to use our FEA fp, meet Anna and Elsa and then spend some quality time touring world showcase and checking out Flower and Garden. I have a snack and beverage list to accomplish haha.

We’ll be doing dinner at Akershus and then later on the Kitchen Sink at Beaches and Cream.

Day 5

Rope drop day. We’ll arrive in time to get a good spot for the Welcome show. We have fp this morning for Mine Train, Space/Buzz since not everyone likes Space and Peter Pan. We’ll mostly tour Fantasyland and Tomorrowland this morning. We have lunch at Crystal Palace after which I will take the girls to GF to drop them off for the wonderland tea party. I’ll spend the hour of the party enjoying the ambiance of the GF lobby. After tea we’ll return to the hotel for a bit of a break then we’ll change for dinner at Be Our Guest. This is our big group Disneybound. We have Belle, Mrs Potts, Chip, Cogsworth and Lumiere. After dinner we’ll do rides and pick up FP and then watch the fireworks from the hub somewhere.

Day 6 Break/hotel transfer day

We will leave our bags with bell services then visit Poly pool. We’ll have a bit of a swim then head over to 1900 park fare for brunch. After brunch we go to Kidani! We will spend the afternoon enjoying Kidani followed by dinner at Sanaa and then a movie.

Day 7

HS Day

We have a PPO breakfast at Hollywood and Vine. Mostly to get meeting the dis jr characters out of the way. We will hopefully sign up for the first JT show and do that right after breakfast. Then we’ll watch the BatB show, the Disney jr show and the new lightning McQueen attraction. We have FP for Slinky also. We have lunch at Sci Fi after which we will leave the park for a break.

Back at the hotel I have the Jiko wine tasting while the rest have well, a rest and perhaps a swim. We will return to the park around 7 for the Star Wars Dessert party and then we will do After Hours. We plan on hopefully riding SDD once or twice, the other two TSL rides, ToT, and character meets. Curious what the ‘special offerings’ for the anniversary will be.

Day 8

We will sleep in this morning to recover from the late night. We’ll do some of the activities at the lodge before heading to Epcot around 1. We have test track fp as well as Mission Space green and Journey into Imagination. This is our Inside Out outfit day so we’ll do that m&g as well. Then we’ll do pick a pearl in Japan and whatever other activities or rides we haven’t done or want to do again. We have dinner at Coral Reef as well as the Frozen Dessert Party later on.

Day 9

Animal Kingdom

We will rope drop AK to get on Navi River then use FP for FOP. After that we have Caring for Giants at 10:30. We have FP in the late morning, early afternoon for Safaris and Everest. We plan on watching the Up show, the Nemo show and we have a Lion King package. We will be doing the 3pm Lion king show. We also plan on riding Dinosaur and KRR at some point. Then we have dinner at Tiffins and plan on watching ROL. The park closes at 10:30 but I’m not sure we’ll stay that late.

Day 10

Break day. Most of the day will be spent doing resort activities, swimming and enjoying the animals. The girls love the bead activities at AKL so we will make sure we do the ones they haven’t already done so they can get their Mickey head bead. We have dinner at Storybook dining at Artist Point. We will likely head to Wilderness lodge a bit early so we can check out the resort.

Day 11

We will need to get up pretty early to leave our bags with BS before going to EMM. At EMM we plan to mostly do the original 3 rides. Following that we will go to Frontier/Adventureland for rope drop and ride BTMR before returning for breakfast. We will be spending this morning on the Frontier/Adventure side and have FP for Splash, BTMR and Haunted. Hopefully we pick up FP for pirates also. We’ll also ride Magic Carpets. We have lunch at Be Our Guest and then we’ll leave MK. We’ll head to BLT which is where we are finishing off our stay. We have dinner at Chef Mickey’s and then the Pirates and Pals fireworks cruise.

Day 12

We will leave the hotel around 8:15 to head to GF for the princess tea at 9. The event lasts until 10:30 and then we will head to MK for the girls’ BBB appointments. We have lunch at Tony’s for the parade package. I know it’s not anyone’s favourite but my girls will enjoy it. We will watch the parade from the reserved area. We have FP this day for Buzz, Mine Train and Dumbo.

Dinner will be at 1900 Park Fare. After dinner we will return to the hotel and watch the fireworks from our balcony.

Day 13

Magical Express picks us up at 3am (ugh) and we return home.
 
I can't believe your trip is almost here. Hope you and the girls have a great time!!!
 
Let’s talk about clothes!

Because we are ridiculous, we have a theme for clothing each day of the trip. Some days are full Disneybounding and some are group tshirts but we do indeed know what we are wearing everyday. Yes, I know a lot of people, even in this group will find this insane. It is and we like it that way.

So here are the plans:

Day 1 is mostly a travel day so the theme is group shirts that mash up Harry Potter and Disney and whatever comfortable pants people choose. I am making marauder map leggings for myself

Day 2 Potter day. Robes and tshirts that are made to look vaguely like Hogwarts uniforms.

Day 3 Minions of us are bounding Minions and 1 of us (me) is Gru. I’ve made a basic black knit dress and I'm looking for a scarf. The minions are doing blue skirts and yellow tshirts

Day 4 Dapper Day at Magic Kingdom. Princess disneybounds/costumes. I am wearing a lilace dress sewn with a vintage pattern with a purple petticoat and I have a pascal to attach to myself in some way. K is bounding Cinderella with a blue dress and she has a little Jaq stuffy. The girls are wearing their ridiculous mom-made dresses. We’re doing character couture this day.

Day 5 Dapper day at Epcot Frozen DBounding. K and I are Anna and Elsa post freeze. I’m again wearing a me-made Elsa inspired dress and K has put together an Anna inspired outfit. The girls are doing coronation dresses for Anna and Elsa.

Day 6 Epic Beauty and the Beast Dbound day. We are joined by another friend of mine this day and we have dinner at Be Our Guest. By day I will be village Belle. By night yellow dress Belle. K is Mrs Potts, A is Lumiere, B is Chip and Andi is Cogsworth.

Day 7 Mostly a pool/hotel day but we are doing 1900 Park Fare so I am Dbounding Alice. The girls are doing Red Queen and White Queen from the live action.

Day 8 Incredibles. 3 Incredibles and 1 Edna. Sorry Mr Incredible and Dash but you’re out. Using the same black dress as for Gru. The Incredibles are red tshirts with logos

Day 9 Inside Out. Coloured Tshirts with faces of the emotions. Joy, Anger, Fear and Disgust.

Day 10 Lion King themed shirts. B's says Just Can't Wait to be Queen and A's says NOT YET!

Day 11 Villain Day: Maleficent and Evil Queen Disneybounds plus the girls as Mal and Evie from Descendants.

Day 12: Sleeping Beauty. Aurora, Maleficent, Flora and Merriweather. To bound the fairies we’re doing dresses in the right colours. (Red not pink for Flora tyvm) and diy ears.

Day 13: departure at 3am. Group shirts that say Another Glorious Morning Makes me sick

Pictures of all this nonsense will be in the trip report that I swear I really am going to write this time haha.
 

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