Sorry for my absence. I told you when I started this thing, I wasn’t going to be you typical blogger. Since the last post, we sold our house, moved into my Aunt’s temporarily and am about to close on my childhood home to renovate. To be transparent, I forgot this blog existed for a bit. But I’m back.

So let’s do a Disney trip planning recap. When we started planning this trip, and let’s use the word plan loosely, we didn’t have a plan. Everything was based off of price and dates and not necessarily experience. Very different that how I normally plan.

You already know that it was random that I checked Disney. We found out it was relatively cheap because of all of our reward dollars. And I also use the word cheap loosely. Disney is a lot of things, but cheap is NOT one of them. We played with different dates, looked at different resort options, and the price didn’t change drastically. Before booking, we wanted to make sure the flights didn’t price us out.

We used Google Flights to play with different date combinations that did two things: 1) kept me away from Arkansas on Thanksgiving day, and 2) was the cheapest flight option we could find. I wanted it to be direct flight, but that wasn’t in the cards. We picked a United flight that left Sunday and returned on Friday. Did I book the flights then? Nope. Using Capitol One’s travel portal, I selected the flights we wanted and set up a price alert. It recommended to wait to purchase, and I decided to trust it.

We went ahead and booked the Disney portion of the trip. Next up: the park days. Here’s another little thing about me – can I start a trip out at a park other than Magic Kingdom? Yes. Do I want to? No. There’s something about walking up Main Street and seeing the castle for the first time. Instant joy. If possible, I always schedule Magic Kingdom on the first day. Even if we only go there for a bit and then park hop. After some back and forth, we scheduled (by scheduled, in my Excel spreadsheet):

• Monday, November 24: Magic Kingdom
• Tuesday, November 25: Hollywood Studios
• Wednesday, November 26: Epcot & Hollywood Studios
• Thursday, November 27 (Thanksgiving): Animal Kingdom & Magic Kingdom

Since we were already within the dining reservation window, we immediately started looking at dining options. I’m going to divert from the timeline for a moment and add in some thoughts.

Other than Covid years, typically when we book a Disney trip, we book a dining plan. I can’t remember all of the different names over the years, but we’ve always done the one where you get a snack, a quick-service meal and a table service meal per person per night stay. It’s always been wonderful. I don’t eat breakfast. I know, shame on me, but EW. I typically use my snack credit for coffee. Most of the coffee places accept the snack credit for any size coffee. We’d use the table service for either lunch or dinner, and the quick-service for the other. Often, we’d have snack credit left over at the end of the trip, and we’d use those to get a bunch of snacks to bring home and enjoy later.

However, we opted not to do that this trip. We knew we’d be limited on time (we’re normally six days in parks people and this time we were doing four), and we were already so far into the dining reservation window that it would be hard to get reservations at our favorite places. In hindsight, BIG MISTAKE. In reality, it would have saved us so much money. With the dining plan, you know how many credits you have and you use those. It’s a finite number. When you’re paying cash/card, every time we passed a kiosk and someone wanted something, swipe. We. Spent. So. Much. Money. On. Food. It was good food, but it was expensive.

Back to the timeline. When looking at the dining reservations, we know our favorite places, but we like to throw in new ones to try. We decided to attempt one reservation a day, and it didn’t have to be limited to our main park that day since we purchased park hopper passes. Oh, wait. I forgot to talk about that.

Timeline diversion – this time back in time instead of forward in the future. When we were booking the actual stay and tickets, we looked at a lot of options. We quickly decided a Value Resort was the way to go. We spend so much time in the parks, or at Downtown Disney, ahem I mean Disney Springs, that the resort is literally a bathroom and a bed for us. So as long as we have a toilet, a shower and a bed for each of us, we’re good. And let’s be real, Disney themes well no matter where you are. I love the ambiance and convenience of a Deluxe Resort though too. Let’s be real.

When selecting the park tickets, we knew we’d only be able to fit in four park days since our flights mostly likely wouldn’t arrive until late on the first night, so park hopper was a nonnegotiable for this trip. Something else that’s nonnegotiable for me? Adding Memory Maker to my booking. I’m about as horrible at taking pictures as I am about blogging. I forget. Memory Maker forces me to remember the pictures and also forces me to be a participant in the pictures. Not to mention they turn out so dang cute. Maybe when I retire I can get a job as a photo pass photographer. Actually, maybe not. I don’t think I like people enough to be able to do that.

Okay, back to the timeline again. Some of our favorite restaurants are Be Our Guest, ‘Ohana, 50s Prime Time Cafe and Yak & Yeti. I have so many others that I’ve enjoyed and will and would book again, but these are some of our top ones. Like Chef Mickey’s – great experience and the breakfast buffet is good. As mentioned, I’m not a breakfast gal so I’m biased against the food, but even I can find something I like there. However, it’s not a MUST for us.

I started using their tool on the website to find different dining options. We ended up booking:

• A lunch at Be Our Guest
• A dinner at Roundup Rodeo BBQ
• A dinner at ‘Ohana
• A dinner at Jungle Navigation Co. LTD Skipper Canteen

At this point, I attempted to book the Lightning Lanes but those weren’t open yet. Anniston was already in bed by this point and had no idea we booked the trip. Therefore, my tasks for this evening were complete.

Here’s another nonnegotiable for me: Disney Bounding. Or is it Disneybounding? Whichever it is, it’s one of my favorite things. I don’t want to overexplain, but in case you aren’t familiar, Disney Bounding is dressing up as characters. Disney has a rule of no costumes except during Halloween parties, and I’m not sure how strict they are on it, but we don’t push the boundaries. We pick a theme for the day. Then we determine what we already have that can be used for that theme, plan outfits and order what we don’t have. My only rule is this – if you order it, it has to be able to used in every day life. Minus ears. Those are the exception.

Anniston picked our theme each day. We ended up with Mickey & Friends, Toy Story, Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh. I think I’ll do a separate post about outfits. This one is already super long. Sorry about that. I’m introvert and pretty quiet in person, but give me a keyboard and a platform and I become chatty apparently.

Lastly, was the lightning lanes. I researched the different types and costs. We decided to do the Lightning Lane Multi Pass. You select 3 experiences when you initially book. You can choose another one as soon as you scan your first one. There were also some single pass rides we wanted to book. Here’s where I made my second mistake. I read the rules around the day/time you can book wrong.

The last time I did this, on your selected day, you could book starting at midnight EST on that day which is 11 pm CST. So that’s when I logged in to book. HOWEVER, that’s not when you can book. It’s a 7:00 am EST. I moved my calendar event, but failed to reset the reminder. I could have booked it on Monday morning, and I remember on WEDNESDAY. The available passes started late in the day. Sigh. I’m going to do another post on this too because I want to go into pretty in-depth details about this. I have so many thoughts. I got them all booked, but it wasn’t wonderful.

The very last thing we had to decided was how to get to and from the airport and how we wanted to travel when we were there. I’m going to say this publicly and loud. I miss the Magical Express. After discussing Ubers, a driver or renting a car, we ultimately decided to rent a car. It gave us a bit more freedom when getting around. I’ll discuss this more later, too. Probably just within a trip recap.

Once that was booked, we were mostly set. Again, I’m usually much more organized and thorough during the planning process. I usually don’t make all of these mistakes. I learned some lessons and the trip was still loads of fun.

Until next time: Stay curious, stay caffeinated, and stay a little LindSwept.