We Survived Freshman Year...So We're Going to Disney! - A May 2018 PTR *New TR Link 6/3*

the2ndstar2theright

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jan 7, 2017
We Survived Freshman Year…So We’re Going to Disney!
A May 2018 PTR


To all who come to this happy place, welcome!

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Hello, all, and welcome to my PTR! If you’re a first-time visitor, hi there! If you’re a returning guest, welcome back! :wave:I am so happy you’ve decided to join me for this planning process. This trip was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I am SO excited! Let's get started! :D

First things first: introductions!


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Wait a second.


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Better.:thumbsup2

Hi there! I’m Lindsey, and I will be your narrator, tour guide, and commentator for this planning adventure. I’m a 19-year-old college student obsessed with all things Disney. I’ve been to WDW 11 times, making this trip number 12! My favorite character is Tinker Bell, and my favorite park is MK.


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Next up is my cousin Kelsey! Kelsey and I are the same age and have been best friends our entire lives. Last summer, we went on our graduation trip together (the TR for which can be found HERE). This will be her 4th trip to WDW. Her favorite character is Kiara, and her favorite park is DHS.

That’s us! We’re so excited to have this chance to go to WDW, just the two of us! Some basic info about our trip…

Who: Kelsey and me

What: A Girls Trip to WDW!

When: May 7-11

Where: TBD…probably Art of Animation

Why: We survived our freshman year of college!:banana:



We quite literally just decided in the last few days to go to WDW after our finals. Freshman year has certainly been an adjustment, and we decided we needed something to celebrate the end of it. Plus, do you ever really need a reason to go to WDW??

So that’s the bare minimum about our trip. Since we’re coming into this kind of late in the game, the planning is happening rather quickly. I can’t wait to share this adventure with y’all!

Table of Contents
Some of the Details
More Decisions and an Extra Day!
Changes and Checking Things Off the List
62 Days Out
FastPass Day!
RL Update 3.21.18
Is It Really a Disney Trip If Nothing Changes?
Mickey Mail and a Whole Lot of Chaos!
What's in My Park Bag?
7 DAYS TO GO!
Packing in a Carry-On
 
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Some of the Details

Hello, all! I hope everyone has had a magical week. My week has been a bit insane, and every spare thought has been dedicated to this trip. Kelsey and I are getting SO excited about this trip.


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We’ve actually gotten a good bit of our planning done. Right now our plan is pretty vague, but this is what we have so far.

Monday: 9:05am flight to MCO; MK in the afternoon/evening

Tuesday: Epcot

Wednesday: DHS; 12:10pm ADR at Beaches and Cream

Thursday: MK; 1:30pm ADR at Tony’s

Friday: 8:55am flight out of MCO

This is what our spreadsheet looks like right now.


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We have officially booked our flights, and we will probably buy tickets and book our resort this weekend. We’re still leaning towards AoA, but that could change if AP discounts come out for our dates.

I think that’s all I have for now, so please enjoy this picture from the first time Kelsey and I went to WDW together.


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by the2ndstar2theright, on Flickr

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!:wave:
 
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More Decisions and an Extra Day!

Hi there! I have to laugh a little because our plans, of course, changed almost immediately after I posted my last update. Kelsey and I talked, and we decided to take a later flight on Friday. This means that we have another park day!

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We also bought our tickets: a 5-day ticket for Kelsey and an AP for me!

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We also booked our room at AoA!

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I was so excited to see this pop up on my screen.


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Whew. That’s a lot. So this is what our plan looks like now.


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I’ve also been working on our packing list to see if it’s possible for us to just pack in carry-ons. My mom and I did it for our trip in 2013, but that was back before I used a liquid foundation, etc. I’m hoping to avoid checking a bag if at all possible, just to make our lives easier. My plan is to do a packing trial run over my spring break to see if it’s even possible.:thumbsup2


I think that’s all I have for now. We are officially
83 days out, which means our FP+ day is just a few weeks away!:banana: It’s finally beginning to sink in that this trip is actually happening. We are so excited!

Hopefully, I'll be back soon with another update.
Have a magical week, everyone!:wave:
 
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Omg I'm so jealous of your dates because MY BIRTHDAY IS MAY 9TH!!! You're literally living my dream trip. Unfortunately, a trip during that time could never happen until after I graduate because it always falls during my school's finals week BLECK. This is such a fun idea though! I can't wait to hear about more of your plans (YAS to Beaches N Cream)! :mickeyjum
 
The spreadsheet is looking good :thumbsup2 Great news that you will have extra park time on your departure day!

Thanks!! We're really exciting to have that extra time, especially since MK has morning EMH that day!

Omg I'm so jealous of your dates because MY BIRTHDAY IS MAY 9TH!!! You're literally living my dream trip. Unfortunately, a trip during that time could never happen until after I graduate because it always falls during my school's finals week BLECK. This is such a fun idea though! I can't wait to hear about more of your plans (YAS to Beaches N Cream)! :mickeyjum

Hopefully you'll make it for you birthday one day! There's nothing like being in WDW ON your actual birthday! :)
 
Changes and Checking Things Off the List


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circa 2007

Hi there, friends! I hope everyone is having a magical Tuesday. The last two days have been around 75 degrees and sunny here, which has been absolutely wonderful, while also confusing (the high was 40 less than a week ago) :flower1:. Anyways, there are quite a few exciting things happening on the trip front.

First and foremost, we are officially
75 DAYS AWAY!!:cool1:

This means that we are just
15 days away from FASTPASS DAY! :banana:

I’m hoping to have some sort of FP+ plan soon (if Kelsey and I can find time to sit down and have a Face Time planning session), and I’ll post that here as soon as I do.

My second piece of news is that I
scored a lunch ADR at BE OUR GUEST!party:

There’s a little bit of a funny story that goes with this. I had been obsessively checking MDE to see if I could grab a lunch ADR pretty much from the moment Kelsey and I decided to go on this trip. Then, one day last week, I happened to check, and a 2:15 ADR popped up for our first day! I booked it, and then thought about the logistics of actually getting there. I figured that since our flight is supposed to land at 11:35am, we’d have plenty of time. …Until I remembered that I have to go to guest services to activate my AP.

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I was on the phone with my mom, explaining my plan to her, when I remembered that my AP had to be activated before I could enter the park. That combined with the fact that BOG is a little more than a hop, skip, and a jump away from the entrance made me look for another day/time.

And lo and behold,
THERE WAS ANOTHER ADR AVAILABLE.

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Actually, there were several available. The only one that worked for us, though, was at the time I had booked our Tony’s ADR. So, very quickly and carefully, I pulled up the MDE app on my phone, cancelled the Tony’s ADR, and immediately booked BOG.:faint:

But the fun wasn’t over yet. When I started looking for another day for Tony’s, I found a later one for that first day! This means that we got all of the ADRs we wanted, just shuffled around a little.:thumbsup2

This was definitely a lot of excitement, and there may or may not have been audible squealing that made my roommate roll her eyes.

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So this is what our planning spreadsheet looks like at this point.


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Since my last update, Kelsey and I have also customized our Magic Bands and ordered decals from Etsy. Unfortunately, those were sent to my home address, so I don’t have them to post a picture just yet.

I also just ordered a shirt and a baseball cap, and I’ll post pictures of those as soon as I have them as well.

I’ve spent a lot of time on our packing list and have been adding things as I think of them. I’m still determined for us to pack in carry-ons, but we’ll see how that goes. We’ve pretty much determined that we’ll have to do a grocery order of some kind, so that at the very least we have some snacky-breakfast-things in the room. I’m hopeful that we won’t have to order more than a small thing of waters, some peanut butter crackers, and poptarts.

I think that’s all I have for now. I can’t believe how quickly our FP day is approaching! If I don’t have an update before that, I’ll definitely be back then.

Until next time! See ya real soon! :wave:
 
FOLLOWING ALONG NOW THAT I'M BACK ON DIS LOL

I freeeeeaking love that text convo between you and kelsey. Sounds like me and my friends "... okay, we can do this super fun thing only on this one condition (and the condition is also super fun!)" whenever we try to justify doing anything together :rotfl:

Also that spread sheet is SO organized and beautiful!!!
 
Glad you could shuffle your ADRs around more accordingly!! Good luck making your FPs!!

Thank you so much!

Joining in! I love all the throwback photos of the two of you growing up at Disney together. So sweet :cutie:

:welcome:

FOLLOWING ALONG NOW THAT I'M BACK ON DIS LOL

I freeeeeaking love that text convo between you and kelsey. Sounds like me and my friends "... okay, we can do this super fun thing only on this one condition (and the condition is also super fun!)" whenever we try to justify doing anything together :rotfl:

Also that spread sheet is SO organized and beautiful!!!

Yayy welcome back!! We are so excited that most of our conversations end up in all caps!

Thank you thank you! I'm probably just a little too proud of it lol.
 
*Disclaimer* I wrote this update last week and apparently forgot to post it! So we're briefly going to go back in time for this update!

62 Days to Go!



Wow, I can’t believe it’s FP+ week! This semester is flying by, and this trip will be here before we know it!

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I just have a few things to share before my FP+ update later this week. First, our magic band decals came in!


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Mine is Tink, and Kelsey’s is Maleficent. We ordered these from SimplyByMarie on Etsy. They were really inexpensive and came in basically any character or color you could imagine.

Second, one of my shirts came in! Now, I had really intended to not buy a whole bunch of shirts for this trip, but I absolutely could not resist when I saw this one.


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This is from BlairLambDesign on Etsy, and I am obsessed. I have a shirt with a quote from Wishes on it, so of course I had to get a HEA shirt, too!

Thirdly, I have officially put together my Disney planning binder.


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I definitely got a little Disney font-happy in this binder, but it’s okay. It’s really convenient to have everything clearly marked in that one place. I’m a bit of an organization freak so this was a fun weekend project for me.

Lastly (I think), I have slowly started gathering things for our trip. I’m planning to do most of my shopping over Spring Break, mostly because I won’t really have another opportunity after that. I’ve mostly been buying up little travel-sized things as I think of them, and I have actually found that I already had a lot of it from a goody bag I had gotten at the beginning of the semester.

That’s pretty much all for known. I make our FP+ selections on THURSDAY, so I will definitely have another update after that. I’m also planning to do a Disney Park Bag update and maybe something about packing in carry-on.


Until then, have a magical day everyone! :tink:
 
FastPass Day!

Hello, DIS friends! It’s so hard to believe that this trip is less than 60 days away! Last week, I got up very very early and booked our FPs for this May adventure! :cool1:


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This is what we got:

Day 1:

7DMT 4:15-5:15pm

PPF 5:40-6:40pm

BTMRR 7:00-8:00pm


Day 2:

Character Spot 11:30-12:30pm

Soarin’ 4:45-5:45pm

Spaceship Earth 5:50-6:50pm


Day 3:

Frozen Sing Along 3:00-3:15pm (3:30pm show)

ToT 4:10-5:10pm

Fantasmic! 8:20pm


Day 4:

7DMT 12:40-1:40pm

Splash 3:30-4:30pm

BTMRR 6:10-7:10pm


Day 5:

Haunted Mansion 10:15-11:15am

Buzz 11:35-12:35pm

Space 12:35-1:35pm


Unfortunately, the FP suspension for TSMM seems to still be in effect on our DHS day. Thankfully, we had planned to go there first thing at rope drop anyway. This is what our spreadsheet looks like now.


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In other news, I now have all but one of the fun things that I’ve ordered for this trip.

I got Kelsey and me these decals for our refillable mug lids.


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These are from Craftyourhome on Etsy. I love how they turned out and can’t wait to use them!

I also ordered this baseball hat, and I am OBSESSED.


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This is from kreationsbychristine on Etsy. I absolutely love it, and I can’t wait to wear it in the parks!


I think that’s all I have for now! Have a magical week everyone!
 
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First of all I'm OB-SESSED with everything you've bought for this trip so far! The decals, that HEA shirt, that gorgeous hat... they're so beautiful!

All of your FP+ look amazing! I'm so happy and excited for you!

And that excel sheet is still perfect. This trip is going to be awesome!
 

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