Walt Disney World - 2019 - Prep and Travel Day

Disney Trip Report

May 23 – May 31, 2019

All Star Music Resort

Caleb and Alaina – 34 years old

Adrienne – 32 years old

Hattie – 8 years old

Lydia – 6 years old

We first began talking about going to Disney together in 2014.  The original plan was for us to visit WDW in September of 2015. Unfortunately, unexpected job changes forced us to cancel those plans.  Alaina and family were finally able to take their first trip in March of 2017. Adrienne couldn’t travel during this timeframe due to her Social Worker duties at Dugan. Alaina decided the next trip to WDW would include Adrienne.  So…we started planning this trip in early 2018. Adrienne was yet to fully experience Disney.  Prior to this trip she had only visited the Magic Kingdom three times, one of those times being when she was two.  Alaina wanted her to enjoy the “Disney Bubble” with Hattie and Lydia while they still fully embraced the “magic.” 

Keeping everyone’s schedules in mind, we first thought we would travel in December 2019.  Then it was announced Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge would be opening in Fall 2019, so we decided it would be smart to move the trip up earlier in the year. We then started exploring the possibility of a late July/early August trip.  Crowd levels looked good, but we thought the Florida heat would be a little much during this timeframe. Also, Alaina would be very close to finishing her Masters Degree and the month leading up to travel might be a bit too stressful.  Ultimately, we decided the last week in May would be the best time. The weather isn’t usually unbearable at this point and many schools systems are not out for the summer yet, so crowds would be manageable.

Finding a room to fit five people comfortably would be our next challenge.  After a lot of research, we decided to stay in a Finding Nemo Family Suite at the Art of Animation resort.  As the trip got closer we decided the room wasn’t worth the extra $1000, so we switched to a family suite at the All Star Music resort.  Both rooms were comparable in size, but the AOA room was newer and came at a premium price. We also decided not to buy a meal plan for this trip.  This meant sacrificing a few of the meals we had planned such as Cinderella’s Royal Table, Trattoria Al Forno and Tusker House...but this turned out for the best. We ended up not missing those meals at all.

Just like our last Disney trip, this one was perfectly timed.  Alaina had just finished her first full semester as an advisor for ACONHP. The two and a half months leading up to this trip were filled with back to back student appointments. She was also taking a graduate course.  Caleb was balancing a full time sales position at ACCO and being part time music minister at FBC Red Bay. Easter was late this year, so the last two months before the trip were filled with coordinating Easter music and learning music for our upcoming VBS.  Dugan (Adrienne’s employer) was subject to a state survey visit in the two months before the trip. She was putting in many long days to prepare for this visit.   Alaina and Caleb were also dealing with Hattie’s school performance and were faced with the decision of holding her back in 2^nd grade for another year. Hattie has ADD and has struggled off and on throughout the year.  After much prayer and consideration, we decided to move her on to 3^rd grade.  The decision to promote her and set up a learning plan for the next school year was extremely stressful.  Both Hattie and Lydia were over school by the end of the year. They were arguing a lot and it was obvious they needed a break from reality.   We all needed to escape and this WDW trip couldn’t get here fast enough.

May 22 – Day before Travel

Caleb, Alaina and Adrienne all decided to take off an extra day before the trip.  This was a smart move as there were still many things on the to-do list.  Lydia’s end of school program was the night before, so she was done with school for the year. Hattie had one last day, so she rode the bus to school.  After we got her on the bus, Caleb cut the grass while Alaina and Lydia slept in.  We needed to meet Adrienne in town to pick up her suitcase, so we left about 11AM.  Our first stop was to pick up Caleb’s check at church. From there, we went over to the car wash to make the car look pretty and to vacuum it out.  Adrienne got to town early, so she met us there and handed off her suitcase.  It was lunchtime so we went to Piggly Wiggly to get a deli plate.  Like always, Lydia ate very little but proclaimed she was full.  We took her unfinished plate with us and headed to the bank to cash Caleb’s check.  We had also rolled the spare change in our “Disney Jar” the night before and it was finally time to cash it in. The girls had saved over $50. Their grandparents “paid” them to help with chores over the past few months. After we finished at the bank, we paid our water and gas bill and finally set up bank draft!  We moved on to the electric company and did the same.  We felt so accomplished!  At this point we realized we didn’t get the tarp straps from Adrienne to secure our suitcases on the luggage rack. This caused an extra trip to Alaina’s parents’ house.  It was almost 1PM and we were finally headed back home. 

Now that we had everyone’s luggage, Caleb could start the process of loading the car.  We had purchased a rubber mat to protect the roof of the car. He put it under the luggage storage bag. Everything was strapped down and ready to go, so we moved on to loading the inside of the car.  Alaina had purchased a couple bags of groceries for the ride down and for the week.  We made sure to pack travel blankets and pillows for everyone and activity boxes for the girls to use.  Caleb had also fixed the girls phones where they could watch movies on trip down.  Alaina had purchased a mattress pad for Adrienne’s bed, but space was at a premium, so we had to leave it at home. Other than that, everything else fit perfectly and everyone had enough room to be comfortable for the 11 hour drive.

The bus brought Hattie home about 3:40PM.  Since this was a Wednesday, tonight was the Team Kid fun night at Sky Zone in Florence.  The girls were looking forward to this outing just as much as the Disney trip. They love Sky Zone.  The plan was for Alaina to take the girls to Florence at 5PM. Caleb was going to take a shower and get in bed by 6PM.  We were planning to leave our house the next morning at 3AM!  To make sure the girls didn’t disturb Caleb, Alaina took them to her parents’ house to spend the night with Adrienne after the jump time at Sky Zone was over. Adrienne is like a kid waiting for Christmas morning the night before a trip, so she and the girls could be excited together.  Alaina got back to her house by 9:30PM.  Caleb was sleeping…after all the work he had done today, he had no trouble falling asleep! After watching TV for a while, Alaina finally drifted off to sleep around 11:00PM.

May 23 – Travel Day and Arrival to WDW

The day had finally arrived! Caleb and Alaina got up about 2AM.  They loaded the last minute bags and cooler in the car, made sure all the doors were locked and the appropriate lights were left on.  As they were getting ready to leave, Caleb misplaces the car key.  After searching for about five minutes and retracing steps, it’s found in the back of the car. Caleb had laid it back there when he loaded the cooler.  They were finally headed for Banner/Bounds at 3:10AM.  As we were approaching Hwy 24, we started hearing a weird sound on the top of the car. Caleb stops to check everything and it all looks fine.  The sound becomes louder and louder the longer we are on the road. When they arrived at Alaina’s parents’ house, Caleb figured out what the problem was.  The rubber mat under the luggage was flapping in the wind.  Like all redneck men, he solved the problem with some duct tape. 

Hattie and Lydia were not yet awake. Adrienne said they probably all got about an hour and a half of sleep. Hattie was pretty quick to hop up once we got there. Lydia was another story.  She was her usual sluggish self and had no interest in getting ready to leave.  After a few spanking threats she decides to get moving. We get loaded in the car and are on our way by 3:45AM.  Alaina, Adrienne and the girls sleep off and on the first couple hours of the trip.  We go through Birmingham at day break.  Everyone plays a couple rounds of Road Trip Bingo.  The girls find this fun.  Alaina Bingos first, then Adrienne.  The girls lose interest after a while. 

Our first stop is in Prattville, AL. Caleb fills the car up with gas while Alaina and Adrienne take the girls to Burger King for a restroom visit and breakfast.  Hattie decides she just wants to sit in the car, but she’s forced to get out anyway.  Everyone uses the restroom. As were walking to the counter to order food, Hattie begins to cry.  Caleb has rejoined us at this point.  We order food. Lydia tries her best to talk us into letting her play in the play area.  We all say no several times.  Hattie is still upset and decides she needs to return to the bathroom.  Alaina takes her and she goes again.  We wash our hands and leave again, only to return immediately for round 3.  After this visit, we make it to the car.  We were in the car a total of 2 minutes and Hattie proclaims she needs to go to the restroom again.  Alaina takes her again and finally after this visit she feels like her stomach has settled.  This pit stop lasted much longer than intended, but we are finally on the road again.  Hattie is afraid to eat her breakfast, so she only drinks her water. 

A couple hours later we stop at a rest stop outside of Dothan, AL.  Caleb met a family from Montgomery who were also on their way to WDW.  He chats with them for a couple minutes while the rest of us use the restroom. The next leg of the trip was relatively uneventful.  The drive down was very smooth. We didn’t see a lot of road construction, so we weren’t delayed much due to traffic.  We stopped at a Chick-Fil-A in Lake City, FL for lunch about 1PM and got gas again while we were stopped.  While at Chick-Fil-
A, we let the girls play in the play area to burn some energy. They both enjoyed this. Lydia asked this same question a lot: “Are we almost to the Walt Disney Sign?”  She started asking just before breakfast, so by the afternoon it was getting a little old.  We stopped a couple more times before taking the WDW exit. As we took the Orlando/WDW exit, we saw the aftermath of a terrible car wreck.  Our lanes of traffic were clear, but traffic going the opposite direction was basically at a standstill for miles.  It was so bad, news crews were in helicopters above us shooting footage. We finally passed under that illusive WDW sign about 4:30PM.  As we passed under it, Be Our Guest was playing on the radio.  We couldn’t have timed that better!

It didn’t take long after passing under the sign for us to see our hotel sign.  The All Star Resorts are conveniently located next to the only McDonald’s on Disney property.  We were staying at All Star Music, so our resort was in the middle of the property. All Star Sports was first and All Star Movies was after us.  Alaina had been waiting on the “room ready” text all day.  She had also been waiting for an hour and a half for a grocery delivery notification. We preordered a grocery delivery of bottled water, Gatorade and some cold items from Walmart. The delivery was supposed to take place between 3PM – 4PM.  Since we hadn’t gotten our room ready text, we had to check-in at the front desk.  There were a couple of people in front of us, so we had to wait a few minutes.  The cast member who checked us in was very friendly and helpful.  Alaina had requested a room on the bottom floor in the Calypso building. We weren’t able to get a room on the 1^st floor, but we did get in the Calypso section – so a win!  After we got our room number, we double checked with bell services to see if our groceries might already be there and they weren’t.  Caleb moved the car closer to our building while Alaina and Adrienne took the girls to the room.  The adults quickly unloaded the car and discussed our options for the evening. We were supposed to head to Hollywood Studios. We weren’t sure if that was going to happen.

At this point it is almost 5:30PM.  Our Fast Pass window for Alien Swirling Saucers had opened. Our grocery delivery is still MIA.  Caleb calls to inquire and suddenly the delivery is in route to our hotel. We had a dinner reservation scheduled for 6:40PM at 50’s Prime Time Diner.  It wasn’t likely we’d be able to make the Toy Story ride, so Alaina released those FPs.  She then rescheduled the dinner reservation to the other planned HS day.  We decide to let Bell Services accept our grocery delivery while we make our way to the HS.  This cost us $6, but it was money well spent.  As we are walking to the bus stop, Caleb gets a text from the grocery delivery and they are in the lobby. He goes to accept the order while everyone else gets in line for the bus. Bell Services takes everything to our room and puts our cold items in the fridge.  We waited about 20 minutes for a bus to HS.  We were afraid it would be like this every time at the bus stop, but thankfully this was just a one-time occurrence.

Adrienne and Caleb decided last minute to go to Cape Canaveral to see the Space X launch on this night.  This would mean they would have to leave the park by 8:30PM.  When we arrived at HS, we were able to get through the bag check line relatively quickly.  We all scanned our magic bands to enter and were on our way to Sunset Boulevard.  Since we had purchased the Memory Maker, we stopped a couple times for pictures.  The first stop was in front of the Chinese Theater, the second stop was on Sunset Blvd with Tower of Terror in the background.  The photographers were able to get several really cute shots.  Our Fast Pass window for Rockin Roller Coaster was open, so this was to be our first ride of the trip.  At the ride entrance we noticed another MM photographer, so we waited to get a shot under the RR sign.  Well, the people in front of us would not stop asking the poor guy questions. The lady kept asking questions and would not let the photographer move on.  Finally they moved out of the way.  The photographer apologizes several times and starts up a conversation with Caleb. We were the only people in line at this point, so they talk for a bit. The photographer asks us if we were planning to see Fantasmic tonight. Caleb explains his and Adrienne’s plans but then says Alaina and the girls plan to stay for the show. The photographer says, “let me see if I can score you some FastPasses.” To our surprise, he’s able to get FPs for Alaina and the girls for Fantasmic.  This was our first “magical moment” of the trip.  We thanked him repeatedly and made our way into the FP line for RR.  

We moved through the line pretty quickly.  As we entered the loading room, both girls started to second guess their decision to ride.  They weren’t sure about the fast take off. We all assured them they would love it once we got started. Hattie rode with Alaina. Lydia rode with Adrienne and Caleb rode solo. This was to be how we divided up most of the trip.  Alaina, Adrienne and Hattie all LOVED the ride. Lydia and Caleb were a little on the fence. They enjoyed parts of it, but other parts, not so much.  Our next FP was for Tower of Terror.  We had talked with the girls a lot about this ride. We stressed the fact that everything was fake and nothing they would see was real.  They were both uneasy the whole time we were in line.  It didn’t help that we were in line with some random, awkward British guy who kept trying to make conversation with us.  He kept saying he was scared too…I don’t know why he thought that would be comforting to an 8 and 6 year old.  We finally get loaded into the ride and both girls are nearly in tears, but they power through. Then the ride starts…to say they weren’t a fan was an understatement.  Both girls were crying when the ride was over.  Alaina and Adrienne loved it. Caleb did not.  The picture from the ride said it all…there was no question how everyone enjoyed the ride.  It took several minutes for us to get them calmed down.  It was now time for Adrienne and Caleb to leave for the hotel.  They take a Lyft back to the hotel, then take the car to Cape Canaveral to meet Alaina and Adrienne’s aunt Susan.

Alaina and the girls were ready to use their newly acquired FP for Fantasmic.  Because we literally had to rush from one thing to another, we hadn’t had time to stop and eat supper.  Lydia and Alaina were hungry. Hattie just wanted water. So, after we tapped in we looked for the nearest popcorn stand.  We finally find one and we purchase some cotton candy, a refillable popcorn bucket and 3 waters.  This is what supper on vacation looks like. We finally find seats with about 10 minutes to spare. Because it took so much time to buy snacks, we really had no advantage with the FP.  It didn’t matter though, there really wasn’t a bad seat in the theater.  We all enjoyed the show.  Alaina was glad they stayed because that show totally saved the night for Lydia. She was the most upset with ToT…and that would be a theme for the rest of the trip.  It took several minutes for us to exit the theater.  As we were walking out of the park, we were able to see some of the Star Wars fireworks.  The girls wanted to stay, but Alaina assured them they would get to see them in their entirety later in the trip.  At the bus stop the girls made friends with a little girl close to their age. She had a cell phone and they were taking selfies together as they rode the bus back to the resort.  We were back in our room by 10:30PM.  The girls took a bath, watched a couple of Mickey shorts and had a snack before going to bed.  They were asleep in no time.  It also didn’t take Alaina long to fall asleep.  Caleb and Adrienne made it back to the hotel by midnight.  They were able to get some awesome video and pictures of the launch.  It was a long day, but a good one.

Notes for the day:

The rubber mat we purchased for the top of the car was unnecessary. It was more of a nuisance than a help. We ended up not using it on the trip home.

Traveling to WDW in one day was not bad.  The early start allowed us to miss a lot of traffic and the girls slept a lot.

We should have used a different grocery delivery service. Walmart was terrible.  Our delivery was 2 hours past the window we paid for.  They substituted the quantity of yogurt Alaina ordered, so we got half of what we were expecting. Also, they substituted different Gatorade flavors than we ordered. The flavors we got were ok, but not what we wanted.  The driver could not communicate with Caleb when he met her to pick up our delivery.  The money we “saved” on this delivery was quickly lost because we had to get Bell Services to take everything to our room.  We had planned on taking it ourselves, but we literally had no extra time to spare because the delivery was so late.

We liked the location of our room.  It was very close to the pool, lobby and bus stop.  It would have been nice to be on the first floor, but our room was very quiet.  We did online check-in and arrived an hour and a half past the beginning of check-in.  Our room should have been ready since we didn’t arrive early.  This cost us some valuable park time.

The room itself was nothing fancy, but it was clean and everyone had space to spread out.  We really liked having two bathrooms and the mini kitchen. The décor was dated, but it didn’t look completely worn out. It had been maintained well.

Going to a park on arrival day was not a bad experience.  It was actually nice to walk around after riding in a car all day.  HS was not overly crowded.  We wished we could have arrived at our planned time, but it didn’t ruin our trip to lose that FP for Swirling Saucers.  We were able to eat at 50’s Prime Time later in the trip, so we didn’t miss out there either. 

One regret: Alaina should not have planned ToT for arrival day.  This ride set the tone of the trip for Lydia. She was overly dramatic about almost every ride after this one.  Most of her “anxiousness” was for attention and very annoying.  She ended up loving everything else she rode on the trip, but it was after she had us “reassure” her nothing was like ToT.  We should have done rider swap on this ride…but now we know.