A century to go...100 days
Have a safe and magical trip Scooby!
Michelle
offsite '86, ASMo '01, POR '02, CBR '05, POR '08, POR '10, BCV '10, Pop '11, BC '14, DL offsite '15, POR '16, FQ '17, POR '18, SSR '19, POR/BWI '19, BLT/BWV '20
To you who are on the short list of days, enjoy.
For myself it is 240 sleeps until I am back in the campgrounds of Fort Wilderness
Promo Man we just missed meeting you by hours last time! 4 sleeps for us now. I’m so busy at work it doesn’t seem real yet!
If no-one out there understands, start your own revolution and cut out the middle man (Billy Bragg)
Just "pushed the button" so to speak on first of two reservations. early May, 2019. Our first May visit.
So here is where we are:
Beginning of May, which I think puts us at approx. 295 +/- days.
- May isn't my first choice, or my second BUT it was then or wait about another year for schedules to jive. We say schedules because we (Eric & I) are meeting up with BIL & SIL w/ a 2 year old and different
schedule. We actually live near and see these family members often, and my husband dotes on our niece so we went with when they can go. We far prefer early December or mid-late January for our trips.
Anyway, early May it is and I'll shut up about that now !
Me? Travel with others?
- This will mark the second time in recent years we've done WDW with other family members, with the last time being a quick weekend in August (I know, I know and we swore never again) with my cousin &
her husband. That was totally doable as we all have a similar touring style, that is everyone stayed where they wanted and did what they wanted and we all met up for dinner and drinks and Disney Springs.
This time the plan is to spend one day at Harry Potter with them, then one day at Magic Kingdom. Then they are headed home and we will spend rest of the week at WDW by ourselves. ALL THAT being said,
we by far prefer to travel to WDW w/o others. It will be very different for us to be at the whim of a toddlers schedule - we didn't take our own kids to WDW until they were over 5 years old! But we are
mentally prepared to tour this way for 2 days.
You want to stay where?
- We are hotel snobs a bit, we usually only stay at BC or BW because we really enjoy both resorts and lovelovelove the option of walking over to EPCOT to Studios. We often walk over to EPCOT for the evening.
BUT - as many folks who frequent WDW w/ some regularity, we find we need to "spice" it up once in a while, and keep it fresh. To that end we have decided on a split stay at two new to us DVC resorts:
BLT w/ a theme park view studio for the first two nights***, followed by Saratoga Springs standard studio for the next 4 nights****. Why Contemporary? Well it's been on my husbands bucket list - the
park view room that is - for years. We are not at ALL stay late at the parks for the fireworks types. Not sure in all our trips there we've seen the MK fireworks more than once. We are sit on the balcony with
a glass of wine in our pajamas and people watch and maybe catch the fireworks/great views people though!! Why Saratoga Springs? Well because of the proximity to Disney Springs - odd choice for folks
like us who more often than not are in bed by 9 PM on any given night of a WDW trip, agreed. However during our last stop there we realized we were missing a chance to really absorb some of the
atmosphere and hadn't tried many of the new restaurants - so we decided to leave our comfort zone of the Boardwalk or Beach Club properties for the convenience of walking to Disney Springs from
Saratoga.
How are we getting there?
- Flying I presume - I'll worry about that later. Slight possibility we might drive down and take auto train home for the fun of it. Again, I can't be bothered right now, trip seems so far away, and we travel
a lot so I'm comfortable enough letting it ride for a while.
What kind of way is that to do WDW?!?!
- Eric & I - neither of us finds it very easy to stay up late, so we often don't see fireworks or make late night dining reservations. Last several trips have been at BW or BC and I don't think I saw Illuminations
once (although for the record yes I have seen them before, and I could hear them from our room!) We have no problem getting up early though, and while I refuse to stand at a line and run thru like a idiot
to get to ANY attraction, we often do arrive at or just before opening. We enjoy the parks for the morning/early afternoon before starting one of our favorite actives at WDW - cocktails and people watching!
This factors into where we stay also, as we aren't huge fans of disney buses, we place a lot of value on being able to walk to a park or Disney Springs if we want to have a few drinks. Uber works great for us
as well in WDW.
Going to Universal?
- yes, we are going to Universal for a day at the beginning of the trip. Have never been, and we agree that we could live & die without going HOWEVER we made a deal with the BIL & SIL, we'll do
Universal for the day and you all do MK w/ us for a day. My husband is 100% WDW, while his brother is 100% Universal. It's like a civil war with the barbs (good natured) back and forth between
the two of them Truth be told we are huge Harry Potter nerds, so I'm sure we will survive, and dare I say completely enjoy that area of the parks over there. In fact, it's the only area of Universal
we plan on going to see. Another reason for the BLT room - place for niece to take a nap mid day convenient to MK. BIL & SIL staying at Universal, we are staying at WDW. Everyone is happy!
Dining-
- yes, and lots of it. Where? I dunno, I can't stand pre-planning that far in advance, and refuse to be pressured into doing so. Plenty to choose from, I've never Not gotten into where we wanted to be so I'm
letting that ride for a while, too. Besides, I'm no where near being able to book even if I wanted to. You know those irritating people who wait till the morning of to make a ADR someplace and irritatingly get
them? Yeah - that's us. Sorry. And if it's not us, we don't sweat it. Eric will want to take the kiddo to Cinderellas Castle for a meal presuming she's keen on characters at that point in time.
when again? -
- beginning of May, 2019. Somewhere in the vicinity of 295 days I think. Ugh, I have never booked more than 6 months out, and usually it's more like 2 months or 6 weeks out (last minute? spur of the
moment? us ? you know it!) and frankly I find it very hard to worry over the details or look forward to it when we have so much time between now and then to get thru. A family wedding, a major
anniversary, a long-hoped for trip to Europe, harvest time at our farm, hunting season (bigbigbig around our area)the holidays, a so coming back from deployment, and all of a cold, miserable stretch of
winter to get thru before this trip. Glad for this website & thread to help me along to make the wait seem bearable!
***** what's this mean? This means that I've submitted my DVC rental request and I am TOTALLY jumping the gun on presuming I'll get BLT theme park, but hey. I'm optimistic, keep your fingers crossed for me!
Should know by tomorrow morning.
Last edited by ericles; 07-09-2018 at 11:00 AM. Reason: geez this is obnoxiously long...sorry all.
Sounds like a good plan. I am a DVC member, so getting a theme park view at BLT may not be that difficult at the beginning of May. I just checked online and there is availability for the whole month of May 2019. If the rental place can find an owner of this resort, they can book now, or you have to wait until the 7 month window which is around October, depending on your dates. Good luck!
Oh great - thanks for that bit of info. We LOVE renting DVC points, buying didn't suit our lifestyle, but renting really does. And we get so much more for our $$$.
2 sleeps
If no-one out there understands, start your own revolution and cut out the middle man (Billy Bragg)
BLT Park view was pretty awesome. The higher the floor, the better.
(I did read your other posts too - didn't want to quote them though )
If it helps, I've been (or I'm becoming) a decent fan of early May. It started with me back when there were Star Wars Weekends still going on (for me 2012 through 2015) - I used to do the overlap of the 1st SWW with the end of Epcot Flower and Garden. I enjoyed getting 2 events as good "bang for my buck" for a trip. (those maybe were more mid to late May, I guess)
I forget exactly when I went in 2016, but in 2017 and 2018, I ended up going right around the first week of May (end of week for 1st dates in May and for roughly a week). I know the weather is always a bit of a gamble in FL, no matter the time of year, but I had very good experiences both trips. I think in 2017 it didn't rain at all while I was there. In 2018, there were initially some threats of rain on both Saturday and Sunday, but we only had a little bit of serious rain happen a few times on Saturday and that was it for my whole trip (amazingly it didn't interfere with an outdoor tour I was part of that day ).
Enjoy your trip! You will most likely love the Harry Potter stuff at Universal. I'm not a particular fan of the series/books, but the lands there are very well done.
-Dave
Thanks Dave for your thoughts on May, appreciate the viewpoint. I think I will be great-
And, Ive just got my confirmation that we got BLT room, so its a sure thing now!
Thinking of you Scooby! Sweet 16 sleeps for me
Michelle
offsite '86, ASMo '01, POR '02, CBR '05, POR '08, POR '10, BCV '10, Pop '11, BC '14, DL offsite '15, POR '16, FQ '17, POR '18, SSR '19, POR/BWI '19, BLT/BWV '20
10 days!!!
Michelle
offsite '86, ASMo '01, POR '02, CBR '05, POR '08, POR '10, BCV '10, Pop '11, BC '14, DL offsite '15, POR '16, FQ '17, POR '18, SSR '19, POR/BWI '19, BLT/BWV '20
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