May 2015 Disney Planning
Brad and I have just returned from Disney World. This post is the first of many to come in regards to this trip. I have discussed how I plan a Disney World trip in a previous post, but this particular post will breakdown all of the planning and costs regarding this particular trip. I discuss all of the thoughts that I have when making each decision and how I come to my final one. Look for my trip report and restaurant reviews in the next few weeks!
Dates: 5/9/15 - 5/15/15
We decided to plan this trip around our anniversary. We really wanted to go to Disney World again just the two of us, and we both really love Disney in May. If you time it right, you can do both Epcot Flower and Garden Festival AND Star Wars Weekends! Our anniversary is May 11, so we decided to go that week. Our cousin was getting married May 16, so we knew we needed to be back in Alabama May 15 to drive down to Destin for their wedding. So we ultimately decided to go May 9 - 15.
Hotel: Saratoga Springs
We started talking about going to Disney World in May way back in October 2014. We did not decide to actually go until February 2015. At first we had planned to go 5/10 - 5/16 when pricing things. Later we found out about our cousin's wedding and rearranged our dates to 5/9 - 5/15. I did include our pricing for those original dates below, however.
Original Plans
The special offers for our dates were already out in February when we booked, so I started working the numbers to come up with the best plan with our new dates. We knew we did not want to stay at a Value Resort. Our main reason was because of the full-size beds. I really, really wanted to stay at The Beach Club or The Boardwalk Inn. We visit Epcot so much during our trips that this made perfect sense to me. Well The Beach Club was unavailable and The Boardwalk Inn was SO expensive. At that point, I priced various hotels in the Deluxe Category. I also priced a few Deluxe Villas, even though I had never stayed in one or really considered it before. Just for number crunching, I added Coronado Springs, a moderate resort. I researched the ratings for each resort in different categories from the Touring Plans website. I highlighted the best and worst in each category. Below were my findings:
In the end, I just could not justify the extra money to stay in a Deluxe Resort when we could stay at Saratoga Springs for just slightly more than the Moderate Resort. We also love Downtown Disney, but I knew we might not have as much free time on this trip to visit. Being within walking distance of Downtown Disney is perfect for us!
Park Tickets: 6 Day Park Hopper
We are going to be at Disney World for 6 days, including our arrival day. Our plane arrives at 8:45 am in Orlando. So we decided to include our arrival day in our park plans. We also decided not to take a break day as we usually do. We had a list of restaurants we wanted to eat at, and this was really the only way to accomplish that. A couple of the days, we plan to leave the parks relatively early, so that should help with us not having a break.
Dining Reservations
We are planning to eat at many different Table Service restaurants. Unfortunately, a lot of the restaurants we are wanting to try this trip require 2 credits. I have noted the lead time that I used in making these reservations. I do not recommend waiting as late as I did, especially if you have your heart set on a specific restaurant. California Grill was a must for us. So I booked it at the 180 mark. As we talked about things, I made reservations. We did not book our trip until February 11. So I did have to move things around once we nailed down dates. I booked Be Our Guest breakfast so late because that was the first day they started offering breakfast. I was really persistent with Be Our Guest dinner and checked the website almost daily until a spot was available.
Saturday
Hollywood Studios
- Jedi Mickey's Star Wars Dine at Hollywood and Vine, 6:15 p.m. - booked February 4
Sunday
EPCOT
- Rose & Crown Pub & Dining Room, 12:00 p.m. - booked February 4
The Contemporary
- California Grill, 7:30 p.m. - booked November 11
Monday
EPCOT
- Le Cellier Steakhouse, 6:50 p.m.- booked November 25
Tuesday
Hollywood Studios
- The Hollywood Brown Derby, 12:05 p.m. - booked February 4
Wednesday
Magic Kingdom
- Be Our Guest, 8:05 a.m. - booked March 17
- Be Our Guest, 5:25 p.m. - booked April 6
Thursday
EPCOT
- Teppan Edo, 12:00 p.m. - booked November 25
- Chefs de France, 6:20 p.m. - booked February 4
Dining Plan: None
Because of the restaurants we picked the dining plan was not going to benefit us. Here is the spreadsheet I used to determine the best options. There are multiple tabs that breakdown all of the meals we originally planned to have.
Touring Plans
See below for our final Touring Plans for this trip. We changed these numerous times. More importantly, we updated them once we secured our Fastpass+ times to make sure we would still be able to accomplish everything in a reasonable amount of time.
Day 1 - Hollywood Studios
Day 1 - Hollywood Studios
Day 2 - Epcot
Day 2 - Magic Kingdom
Day 3 - Animal Kingdom
Day 3 - Animal Kingdom
Day 3 - Epcot
Day 4 - Hollywood Studios
Day 4 - Hollywood Studios
Day 5 - Magic Kingdom
Day 5 - Magic Kingdom
Day 5 - Magic Kingdom
Day 6 - Epcot
Day 6 - Epcot
FastPass+ Reservations
As I have mentioned in a previous post, I prefer to do my touring plans prior to making our FastPass+ reservations. This gives me the best idea as to when the best time is to use a Fastpass. We did have to rearrange a few things. For instance, I found out the day before that Space Mountain would be closed on our Magic Kingdom day. Therefore, I had to fit this in before. Since we are eating dinner at California Grill one evening, I decided to spend that afternoon at Magic Kingdom and ride both Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean since both would be closed on our full day. (We later found out that Pirates would be opened). I was not sure if the Space Mountain closure was true, it just wasn't available. So I still left it in our plans for that day, just not as a Fastpass.
Here were my original plans for Fastpass+ options:
Saturday
- Tower of Terror - 3:15
- Toy Story Mania - 4:30
- Star Tours - 5:30
Sunday
- Space Mountain - 3:15
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - 4:15
- Meet Cinderella - 5:15
Monday
I actually did not plan this one. It was a last minute decision.
Tuesday
- Tower of Terror - 9:35
- Toy Story Mania - 1:15
- Star Tours - 2:15
Wednesday
- Peter Pan's Flight - 1:30
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - 2:30
- Space Mountain - 4:35
Thursday
- Soarin' - 3:00
- Figment - 4:30
- Spaceship Earth - 7:25
Here are the actual Fastpass+ reservations I was able to make:
Saturday
- 3:05 pm - 4:05 pm Tower of Terror
- 4:20 pm - 5:20 pm Toy Story Mania
- 5:20 pm - 6:20 pm Star Tours
Sunday
- 3:10 pm - 4:10 pm Space Mountain
- 4:15 pm - 5:15 pm Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- 5:20 pm - 6:20 pm Meet Ariel at Her Grotto
Monday
- 10:05 am - 11:05 am Kilimanjaro Safari
- 11:30 am - 12:30 pm Meet Favorite Disney Pals at Adventure Outpost
- 1:20 pm - 2:20 pm Expedition Everest
Tuesday
- 9:40 am - 10:40 am Tower of Terror
- 1:25 pm - 2:25 pm Toy Story Mania
- 2:25 pm - 3:25 pm Star Tours
Wednesday
- 1:20 pm - 2:20 pm Peter Pan's Flight
- 7 pm - 8 pm Jungle Cruise
- 8 pm - 9 pm Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Thursday
- 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm Soarin'
- 4 pm - 5 pm Journey into Imagination with Figment
- 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm Spaceship Earth
Online Check-in
Online check-in is available at 60 days out. I did not complete this until about 30 days out. During online check-in you are asked what your arrival and departure times will be, you are required to attach a credit card to your room for any MagicBand purchases, and you are also given the opportunity to place any special requests. You also will want to setup pins for each MagicBand for purchases made. Lastly, you have the option to get room notifications if you want. Below are some screenshots of the process:
Extras
We did decide to get the Memory Maker. We had it on our last two trips and loved it. It is really great if you have people you can split it with. By linking it with your My Disney Experience and using your Magic Bands, all of your on-ride photos and videos are automatically linked to your account. Any pictures you take with a Photopass photographer you can have scanned by your Magic Band. The photos usually appear within an hour or so of taking them. You can view them on your phone or computer.
Fun Leading Up
As usual, we love to do fun things leading up to our trips. It really keeps us super excited and makes the time pass by quicker. Below are a few things that we did:
- We continued our normal countdown on our Disney Plate. This plate lists how many gym days, work days, and full days until our Disney Trip. Read about this countdown, and many others, here.
- A new countdown that I crafted together was a Mickey Mouse head that we hung on our wall. Each day I would change the numbers out to reflect how many days we have until our trip. The neat thing about this countdown is that it can be used year-round. The wooden letters are attached with velcro and the felt is removable. After our trip, we plan to replace that felt with pictures! I plan to do a post about this craft real soon!
- Lastly, we wanted something that could keep us active and entertained throughout the days leading up to our Disney trip. For our trip in September, we each had a fact that we would read each day to one another. Well, I didn't want to do that again because it was hard enough coming up with the facts the first time! Instead we had an Activity Countdown. Again, I will do a post about this soon with a lot more details, but the basic idea is we drew an activity out of a jar each day. We knew how many activities we needed so we split them. It was really fun because you never knew what you might get to do!
