Disney Trip Planning - 30th Birthday
As usual, my mom and I planned to go to Disney World for my birthday. I was turning the big 3-0. Unknowing to my mom, my husband and I were trying to get pregnant, so I found ways to discourage our usual cruise/Disney combo. So we decided we would just do 3 or 4 days at Disney World and fly. I found out I was pregnant September 23rd, but Brad and I wanted to wait and tell our parents after our first doctor's appointment. So I didn't tell mom until October 21st. I put off booking Disney to make sure she would be ok going with me while I was four months pregnant! I hated for her to not enjoy herself and ride everything unless she was truly ok with that. Of course she was good with it, so the planning began!
The first step was deciding dates. We opted to go during the week to avoid the weekend crowds. I personally wanted to be home on my actual birthday, so we decided to go the week before. We looked at the various prices for flights from Birmingham, AL, and we found that going Sunday - Thursday was going to be the cheapest option for flights. So we picked January 10th - 14th. We officially booked our trip on November 12th. I opted to call because I love to speak to Disney Castmembers when booking my trips. I always inform them it is my birthday, and I get my free birthday pin as soon as we check in!
Next was our touring plans. I made touring plans for each park day (Monday - Wednesday) and changed it as the months went by. To get started I always make a general plan of where I want to be each day. This allows me to decide my dining reservations. The discount for our trip included the dining plan, and we paid a little more to get the Disney Dining Plan instead of just the Quick Service Dining Plan. This meant we would have 4 table service credits, 4 quick service credits, 4 snacks, and 1 resort mug per person. So we knew we had to book 4 table service reservations. By having a general idea of which parks to go to each day, we could better plan our meals.
I used the easyWDW website to decide the best parks to visit each day. Then we booked our meals based on that. Our only required meal was Teppan Edo. It is both my mom's and my favorite restaurant. I love going at lunch time, so we booked it first. We of course looked to see if we could get Be Our Guest for any meal and would fit it in if we could. Then from there, mom and I just picked random restaurants we wanted to try and looked to see what we could get. Below is the timeline of when I booked dining:
10/28/15
- Be Our Guest for 1/12/16 at 8:10 am
- Teppan Edo for 1/11/16 at noon
- Boma for 1/10/16 at 6:30 pm
10/29/15
- Cancelled Boma (we decided to spend the evening walking around The Boardwalk since neither of us had been there before)
- Coral Reef for 1/12/16 at 7:20 pm
- Liberty Tree Tavern for 1/13/16 at 7:35 pm
- Cape May Café for 1/10/16 at 6:20 pm
11/13/15
- Moved Coral Reef to 5 on 1/12/16 to try and fit in Fantasmic
We booked our Fastpass+ reservations at 60 days out. As usual, I used Touring Plans to help us decide what we should book. I changed our Fastpass+ times even the day before we were going to use them. As I have mentioned before, I don't stick to these down to the minute or even to the hour. My main use for these is to get an idea of what the best attractions and times are to use our Fastpass+, and it gives me a general idea of a plan.
So that was my planning for this quick trip. It was very basic and easy. We have been to Disney so many times, that I can literally plan a trip within a few hours. Planning is KEY at Disney World nowadays. Without a plan, you could spend hours waiting for rides that are really unnecessary. If you are unsure of how to plan a Disney trip, check out my overall planning post.
I hope to have my trip report and dining reviews up soon. Stay on the look out for those!!
