Well.....reservations are paid for, select ADRs are made. Magic bands have arrived. Cash is set aside. Costumes are just about set for the Halloween party. And bags are almost packed. With only 12 SHORT days to go, it's time for our very first pre-trip report!! I wrote this out over the weekend in my Disney journal, but forgot to bring it, so I'm going from memory here......
Jamie & Joe's Pretrip report: Sept 28 - Oct 5
Sat, 9/28: Head out from RDU. A little disappointment here since our flight was bumped back 3 HOURS. We so wanted to get there first thing in the morning. But we're hanging on. We still leave at 10 and the flight is just over an hour, so after hopping the ME, we should arrive by mid-afternoon which means less time to wait before our room is ready. We don't have huge plans for today. Will probably check out DD and get our mouse ears to complete our costumes.
Sun, 9/29: MK day!!!! Have to do MK the first day for sure to set the magical experience for our entire trip. This will definitely be the longest day we plan to have. Will hit as many attractions as possible and have ADRs at Columbia Harbor House (lunch) and Tony's Town Square (dinner). We are also attending MNSSHP this evening. Have not made firm decisions as to whether we are going to bring costumes to the park to change into or if we will try to head back to the resort and change before dinner. Our dinner res is at 6:20 and we booked that before we knew we were doing MNSSHP so we've not got ourseves on a tight time frame. But it's VACATION so we'll figure it out.
Mon 9/30: HS day. We're excited about this. Joe, of course, has never been to WDW being a west-coaster so he has no idea. I've not been here in about 10 years and I know there will be a lot of changes. We're planning to spend most of the day here. ADRs at 50s Prime Time (lunch) and Hollywood & Vine (dinner). I'm a little nervous about PT because I tend to be a picky eater and I don't want to have to stand in the corner. 
The good thing is that it's lunch which means I'll probably get a salad and eat it all, so there will definitely not be grief about not eating my veggies (sadly, I'm more picky about meat than veggies since I don't like red meat much at all).
Tue 10/1: This is an unplanned day for us. We will probably hit one of the water parks this day. I'll do a lazy river, wave pool, stuff like that. But I'm not huge on water slides (had a bad experience when I was 16 at Wet 'N Wild). So mostly, I plan to settle on my butt and get some sun and rest.
Wed 10/2: Today starts in AK where we will find somewhere to eat breakfast (suggestions welcome here). AK is my least favorite park, so we're only planning 1/2 day and only have a few things we want to experience (Everest, safari, rapids). Day ends here with lunch ADR at Yak & Yeti and then we head over to Epcot for the second half of the day. We have a dinner ADR at Coral Reef (and I'm still feeling weird about eating seafood in FRONT of seafood because, again, sharks don't come to my house and eat people on the front yard, but I'm sure I'll get over it - ha ha). I believe we'll get in some attractions, but most of our time at Epcot will be a planning mission for tomorrow. Also today, I will have to check in with work and catch up on my emails and make sure all my trainees are doing ok. This means I will start to get sad because my trip is halfway over. That, in turn, means that I will probably end my evening with a few adult beverages to get myself back into the magic. 
Thurs 10/3: Epcot, all day. Ok, we're planning breakfast here (no ADR - again, suggestions?), lunch ADR at Rose & Crown (hubs is a fish & chips fanatic so he's very, very excited about this), and dinner ADR at Biergarten. In addition, we'll be hitting the F&W stuff that we plotted about yesterday. I look at this and am worried that I might gain 15 pounds today alone, but it is vacation and we all know vacation calories don't count, so I'm trying not to dwell there.
Friday 10/4: Another "down" day. We didn't plan anything except doing a DVC tour. Still not sure if we can swing this right now, but I really want to meet with a Disney rep & be able to sit down and understand exactly how it works. Looking at all we've spent on Disney over the past 2 years, I feel like we could have had a DVC membership mostly paid off and I'm kicking myself for that. If we can swing the down payment and know we could make monthly payments to pay off in two years, I'm pretty sure we're in. Then it would just be the yearly maintenance which is way less than we spend on our vacations now. So, it makes sense to me and it would be nice to know that we have a place to go every year now that we're getting older and wouldn't have to worry about putting aside a huge amount of dollars for vacation. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but I'd say we're about 85% of the way there. If we get a helpful, positive rep, it will be a pretty easy decision for us.
Also on this day, we'll circle back and do anything that we missed that we absolutely have to do. It could be a busy day or it could be a very relaxed day. Playing it by ear....
Sat 10/5: Leaving today. Booooooooo......... Our flight is later in the day, so we will have a few hours in the morning to get out and do some things. I suspect it will be shopping. I always feel better if I shop at the end of a vacation and know I'm taking some of the trip home with me.
So, that's most of it. Somewhere in there, we're going to try to squeeze in seeing the Go-Gos (Joe LOVES Belinda Carlisle, so I may have to put him on a leash so I don't lose him. Ha ha) and Air Supply (ok, come on - I know you are rolling your eyes because I do too, but seriously you know the words to soooooo many songs, you know you do). There will also be parades, fireworks, etc. I'm tired, already, just thinking about it. But it's a good, happy kind of tired. I'm looking so forward to this trip, it's ridiculous. I feel like we have a good mix of planning and playing it by ear. I'm happy with the ADRs we chose, because we did that on our own before finding this board and the feedback I've seen on most of them is really good. So I hope the clock doesn't slow down now, because I'm ready to just get there!
