Pretrip Report: First Solo adult trip!

Yes I was aware. I thought it was strange when I looked and saw that Epcot randomly didn't have an EMH on Friday night. I'm not expecting it to be a huge issue as we aren't old enough to rent a car, so we won't have one, and the earliest we ever get started is 11 am. I don't do mornings I'm avoiding Epcot except for dinner on those days though. I'm not giving up my Chefs de France reservation.

Today when I went to my account, I found that on my second hotel reservation (in order to get the AP rate, we had to split the reservations) and I found that it listed my friend's name twice!!! I called and got the reservation fixed. Had to relink it, but anyway...

My friend's pass arrived in the mail today! So that means we can now make FP+ reservations. I've got Fastpass+ reservations for 6 out of the 9 days (the days where we know for sure what we're doing). It's nice to know we'll definitely be able to get on TSM and Splash Mountain. Those were the big two. And because we both have cards, we'll be able to use our passes for regular Fastpasses. I booked times for the first weekend, so we should be good since I'm expecting larger crowds

I've eaten there before; it's just been a while. I let my friend pick where we eat that night. I only let her pick two places.

Magic Bands arrived in the mail! We got the first set on Thursday and the second set on Friday! We also got our Magical Express tags!!!




We have two sets of Magic Bands since we are on two reservations and have received them both. We also got our Magical Express tags.

It's all really happening!

Made our FP+ reservations. Here is the schedule:
Friday, Jan 3 DHS
Star Tours 2-3 PM
TSMM 3:34-4:45
TofT 5:20-6:20

Saturday, Jan 4 MK
Splash Mountain 1-2
BTMR 2-3
Space Mountain 4:30-5:30

Sunday, Jan 5 AK
DINOSAUR 11-12
EE 12:55-1:55
Safari 4-5

Monday, Jan 6 DHS
2-3 Rock 'n Roller Coaster
TofT 3:10-4:10
Great Movie Ride 4:40-5:40

Tuesday, Jan 7 MK
Space Mountain 1:55-2:55
BTMR 3-4
Peter Pan 5-6

Wednesday, Jan 8
No FP, we have not decided what park to do that day yet

Thurs. Jan 9
1-2 Star Tours
2-3 TofT
3:45-4:45 TSMM

No FP+ for rest of trip as we have not decided on plans for Friday or Saturday

DHS has a tiered system. Epcot is the other park to have this system. Basically, you can select one FP from the first tier and two from the second tier. I will only get FP+ for rides, and TSMM and Rock 'n Roller Coaster are first tiered attractions. In the second tier are Great Movie Ride, Star Tours, and TofT. Since I can't repeat TofT, I'm doing Star Tours and Great Movie Ride. Star Tours I know I will pretty much not need a FP+ for, so I have a just in case one on the most crowded day. I've been during this time of year before, and I know Great Movie Ride can get crowded since it's a ride little kids can get on. I can always change it. We both have regular card passes, so we can "double dip" with paper Fastpasses if the crowds are terribly heavy anywhere except Animal Kingdom.

They are actually pretty active in the afternoons as well. It's been my family's trick for years. We are not planning on being there before 11 am. We have always found it to work quite well to hit the Safari last. They know they are about to get fed and taken in, so they are excited.

It's one of my least favorites for religious reasons, though I will get on it if others in my group want to get on it. Last August I never saw it longer than an hour wait, and in the evenings is when we like to be there, so we could hit it later if necessary. We'd rather do the big stuff, and for later in the week, I know what a pain in the butt Peter Pan can be to get on. I'm not expecting it to be crowded after Saturday. January crowds are generally light. Heck, last year I got on Space Mountain four times in a row because it was a ten minute wait. It's mostly little kids who aren't in school.

Yeah, I knew we wouldn't do TSM without FP+. Funny thing about that ride: in Disneyland, middle of the day in June, it was 45 minutes. It went down later in the day. Peter Pan is just as ridiculously long out there. I don't get it. To me, it's a cool ride, but I would not wait more than 15 minutes for it. I could do without it, but Splash Mountain is closing after Monday, and that is the other attraction I would use a FP for, so we might as well do Peter Pan.

They just started it a couple of weeks ago for Epcot and Hollywood Studios. So for Hollywood Studios, Tier 1 attractions are Fantasmic, Rock 'n Roller Coaster, Toy Story Mania, and Beauty and the Beast. The rest are tier 2. In Epcot, Illuminations, Soarin', Maelstrom, Test Track, and the character Meet and Greet are tier 1 while the rest are tier 2. They haven't started a tiered system at MK or AK yet, though they are currently testing no paper FPs at all at AK, so I don't think they are going to start something new for now. We got lucky because I'm an annual passholder and she purchased her ticket separately, so we can get both FP+ and paper FP. Resort guests right now normally only get FP+.

Yup. And you also can't get a FP for multiple parks. So if I am in Animal Kingdom on Sunday but then we hop over to MK, we won't be able to "split" it and do two attractions at AK and two at MK. I'm just hoping that a lot of people are leaving that evening and the crowds won't be too bad.

So there may be a change in plans. Some family friends of ours are coming over on Monday Jan 6. They live in Florida and wanted to see me. That being the case, we're probably going to change our FP+ times. Probably just going to use Rock'n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror and skip the third. We'll do maybe Star Tours a few times and mainly shows as one member of our party can't do anything intense as she has vertigo otherwise. I don't know if she can do Star Tours, but We'll do that one for sure. Her son (24) and I bonded over Star Wars (he said he never met a girl who "got it" before) so there is no way we'd skip riding that one together. We may change dinner reservations around too. They aren't sure how late they can stay or if their other son and his wife will come too. I'm supposed to hear back by the end of this weekend. Also, the husband worked for a radio station affiliated with ABC, so he's a retired CM and therefore gets a 40% discount. We're going shopping.

Yup, I know. The only place where I won't be able to do that is Animal Kingdom as they've gone to 100% FP+. Non resort guests make reservations at a kiosk on the day they arrive.