The Photographer's Wife Parenting, Disney, Travel, Reviews & Other Randomness
Recently, I posted about how we plan our Disney World trips and I eluded to the fact that we were considering a trip in the Spring. Well, I thought it would be fun to actually share the details of our planning as we go along, as opposed to just giving you a trip report after we go. I need someone to talk to about Disney stuff anyway…my family and friends have heard enough!
These posts will be very informal. They will be a “Hey, this is what’s on our minds lately regarding our trip and this is what we did or didn’t do about it!” with the more likely of the two being what we didn’t do about it. But eventually, it will all get done and we will be there having fun…so until then, let’s plan this thing!
First up…dates.
We have picked dates! I won’t be giving exact dates on here just yet, but I will say we are going in April.
How did we arrive at picking April? First thought process of the trip planning experience went like this:
When do our passes expire? (Even though we’ll renew at some point)
Answer: Beginning of May.
That leaves January, February, March and April.
January = too soon, no time to plan or prepare, kinda cold (although it’s been in the 70′s this week), got stuff going on at work
February = still too soon to accomplish all of our planning, still kinda cold, super-duper busy at work
March = this was an option, but spring break season is pretty much the entire month of March which equals crowd level 10 most days = no thanks
April = ding ding ding we have a winner! The weather will be nice, work will be slow-ish and Trent will be 10 months old
Included in thinking process but not typed out above to prevent confusion was: Well maybe we can go this weekend? No Trent’s first trip needs to be planned out and special. Well maybe we can just go to Downtown Disney and shop? Do you really think you can go all the way down there and not go in the parks with your annual pass? Ok, maybe Hollywood Studios, that doesn’t count right? They all count and Trent won’t have much to do there. But I don’t want to wait until April…it’s so far away and we haven’t been since May of last year! Whaaahhh! {pouty face}
Yes, folks, that conversation was in my head with myself. I told you I ran out of people to talk to about Disney. I’ve resorted to crazy talk with the other Disney-obsessed people in my head.
The weather in April should be pretty nice. It shouldn’t be too hot and rainy just yet.
Right after we picked our dates, Disney released information regarding the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival that will be occurring when we are there about the food that will be offered. Top of my list of things to try? Pineapple Dole Whip with Spiced Rum! Dole Whips are already good enough, I’m interested to see how the spiced rum tastes with it.
As you will come to find out, I am a list-lover – it soothes the OCD in me. So here isour Disney World Spring 2013 trip planning list.
-Pick dates Done!
-Pick a hotel
-Book hotel
-Request off from work
-Create an Excel sheet with all the information we’ll need
-Decide where to eat and when and make ADRs
-Make special event reservations
-Decide which park to go to each day
-Pick specific things to do in each park
-Schedule house/pet-sitter
-Make a packing list
-Write a pre-trip report to share on the blog and various Disney forums
-Make a list of must-do photos and videos
-See ya real soon!
-Brett: edit thousands of photos; Me: write up our trip report and reviews and everything else we have planned to share (so excited for this part! We’ve got some surprises in store…including videos and giveaways!)
-Get ready to plan the next trip!
Are there any other Disney fans reading this? I’d love to hear your trip planning techniques in the comments! Do you make a list like this or just wing it?
The Photographer’s Wife fans, be sure to:
Subscribe by email | Like us on Facebook | Follow us on Pinterest | Follow us on Twitter
Oh there is no winging it when it comes to Disney. There are lists and charts and diagrams and spreadsheets. When we went for our honeymoon my husband realized that he was going to need a vacation from his vacation.
Haha – Brett picks on me for it, but he always asks for reservation times and our plans because I have them handy! I think he secretly loves it.
We are going in August and it’s all kinds of crazy colored spreadsheets around here!! I’ve been before 3 times, but this is my first time completely in charge of everything. It may be 7 months early, but I’m ready for day 180 to make reservations (and I may or may not be ready to pack…)
We’ve never been able to make the decisions early enough to make the 180 ADR date…that’s awesome. I hope you get the times and places you want!
We just booked last night! We too, are going in April. It came down to the fact that Disney was offering discounts on resorts, we decided to do moderate with magic your way tickets plus dining and park hopper. Splurged a little there but it’s makes it so much easier to enjoy all the food there and park hopper takes some of that extra planning out. I just downloaded the Disney app and they have reminders you can set and check reservations and check fast pass tickets and maybe wait lines? I haven’t looked into that far, it was just last night that I did it. It also showed event times that day for the park. I think this is going to be a great planning tool. We went 2 years ago and missed some areas so that is priority for us, ran out of time. I’m really excited about the International Flower and Garden event. I read on a dad’s guide to Disney world and said that the crowds are suppose to moderate and good weather. We live in Iowa so we are in the middle of frozen tundra with wind chills below zero. We would love to go now but airfare is spendy and that is the other reason why we are going April. I’m not sure what we’ll get for reservations, but we had luck just showing up to the restaurant early and would get seated within a half or so. I haven’t been keeping up with the Disney news so I’ll definitely be reading my AllEars newsletters. OH and I’m definitely excited to see the new FantasyLand!!! Sorry this post is so long but I too really don’t have any one to to just rattle off too. So I’ll be planning right along with you! (I have the first 4 done
)That dole whip looks amazing!! That’s also something that I didn’t get to have the last time. Ok I’ll stop now. Thanks!!
Don’t apologize – I LOVED reading this! Which Moderate did you choose? We used the TouringPlans.com app the past few times we went, mostly to see event times and wait times for rides, maybe we’ll look into some more just to see what’s out there. Oh boy, I’m sure you are looking forward to Florida weather lol! We just booked the hotel, so I’m working on that post to share soon! I look forward to hearing more about your trip!
We are staying at Port Orleans Riverside. It was the cheapest of the moderates. I’m also going to see if I could get by with just a carry-on and a personal bag. The tsa now how this search box for items you can pack in your carry on and I can take my mini flat iron, I really need it. I had to go talk to my pet sitter also. They are going on a trip to the west coast in May so it worked out that we can trade. We also have a pretty good idea what days we want to visit the parks based on the last trip. Magic Kingdom is like a Tuesday or Wednesday. We went on a Friday and it got really busy since I think people were making it a long weekend. I also can’t miss Fanstamic. They had it one time that week and now they have it twice a night when we are going. It didn’t look like they had much for magic hours and I don’t if the parks are open longer? I also want to have plenty of time for Epcot and World Show case so that too might be earlier in the week and maybe go check it out on the weekend, but it will probably be crowded. Do you need special tickets to do some of the events that HGTV is hosting?
POR is nice, we stayed there once…very pretty. We use the crowd calendar at TouringPlans.com to pick which parks to go to each day, you should check it out, it may help. There isn’t a charge for the HGTV events as far as I know. https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/epcot/epcot-international-flower-and-garden-festival/ Sometimes the parks will stay open longer than what the calendar says, but you won’t know until you’re there…this happens at Magic Kingdom a lot and is always a nice surprise.
Lists! I’m an OCD list maker too. I think I have 12 or 15 lists for our Disney trip. We are also going in April, end of the month. I’ve been planning since last April. Besides lists, I have little cards that I’ve been making with park info, and little cards with out dining info, schedules, dining cost spreadsheets. Some days I worry that my computer is going to refuse to do anything else, or start singing Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.
Any advice on good websites for Disney planning?
I’ll be following along!
That’s so good to hear! Isn’t the anticipation so much fun? I like looking at Allers.net for menus, disneyfoodblog.com for all things yummy, and WDWMagic.com for news and forum chat. I also read the official Disney blog.
To start our planning, we usually get a disney planning guide with all the rides and food…everyone gets a different colored marker and alone time with the guide. There are 5 of us , so it makes it easier on me when planning, I don’t have to constantly hunt people down and keep asking what each one liked or wanted to do, or wher they wanted to eat. They doulbe highlight one thing in each park they don’t want to miss, so I can plan the day accordingly. Create a key in the front of the book, and I’m all set for unintterupted list making. Also I get some index cards and write down park and dining info, one for each day we are there and laminate them so everyone has the same info, and it won’t get hurt by getting wet. We also pick a spot and time to meet in each park (also on the cards) incase we get seperated.
That sounds like a great idea for families with older kids that want to do different things! I’ll have to remember this for when Trent is older! Thanks!