That’s required hair for the 14-17yo group
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That sounds more appealing than mommy boards! There are benefits to getting older I guess…
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Made it to MCO! Reunited with FBIL, all our luggage made it with us, and now waiting for our Sunshine Flyer 
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Yeah! That was so funny to me. You were full on dad mode, the kids were crazy excited, and DW was like “Jeff I think that woman knows you” 
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Literal lol
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Stupid hotel alarm clock had been set by previous guest, so I’m up earlier than expected.
Sunshine Flyer bus was very nice. Unfortunately, we were the 4th (of 4) drop off. The younger kids were getting pretty tired, so I regretted not just grabbing a couple Ubers. Oh, well.
We got adjoining rooms, like we requested (yay!). But they are literally are at the farthest possible point away from the lobby. You win some, you lose some. We’re in the Palm wing, last time we were in the Magnolia wing very close to the “fun” (aka loud) pool. I’m happy to not be so close to the noisy pool, until DH pointed out that being at the far end of the Palm wing, with the pools being at the far end of the Magnolia wing meant we had twice the long walk to the lobby to get to the pool! There might be a shortcut across the grounds, I don’t have a good mental map in my head yet.
The rooms are nice, and famously the largest standard rooms on Disney property. They are HUGE! I’ll get a picture once the whole fam is up.
No drama with the kids on who was sleeping where. YDS is an “active” sleeper, so usually no one wants to share a bed with him, and he dislikes being banished to the sofa sleeper - not because it’s uncomfortable, I think it just hurts his feelings a little but that no one wants to share with him. But the boys resolved the sleeping locations quickly, and without any parental involvement, win!
Got G+ purchased. Since it’s a late start for us, there’s really no pressure on the 7am picks, since I’ll be modifying whatever we get to the afternoon, I’m still nervous!
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Grocery delivery this morning between 8 and 9, plus a wheelchair should be at bell services for us. This is our first trip with a wheelchair. DH has pseudogout, so walking too much causes a flare up in his knees, which makes walking absolutely miserable and can take easily 3-4 days (of basically total rest) to subside. So we’re planning on using the wheelchair to keep his step count down. I know he’s going to resist using it, he’s embarrassed, but there’s no way we’ll survive 8 park days if he doesn’t spend most of his time in the chair!
Since he can walk, and there’s several adults and older kids in the group to push, a wheelchair seemed easier than a scooter. Especially with Shades of Green being cut off from walking to the Poly to catch the monorail. We’re 100% bus based out of Shades now 
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GotG VQ was gone before TRON?!?!? I thought GotG VQ was open nearly all day? Have they moved to standby - did I miss a change while traveling yesterday? I booked Remy, the popped over to snag GotG and while I could have still gotten TRON, Guardians was closed!
Guess I’ll snag it at 1:00. Was hoping to not have to purchase an ILL$.
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The 7:00 GoTG is usually gone as fast as Tron. If you want to get you virtual line early it has to be first. Have a wonderful day, and trip.
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Whew! Like I said, we’re totally fine grabbing from the 1:00 - but I totally panicked that the GotG process had changed.
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For future reference, the 7am VQ drop is about 2.5-3 seconds long for both Tron and GotG. It lasting longer than that is unusual.
So the order of operation should be:
- Virtual Queue (you can only get this for the park you have reserved)
- LL (best to have a second person book this if you want the first return window)
- ILL (these tend to last for quite a while, with some times often available till late afternoon)
It’s pretty easy to get into the 1pm VQ, but you have to have tapped into the park where that attraction is, so if you’re hopping there, you can’t join till around 2pm (technically they let you enter at 1:47pm) at the earliest.
Good luck!
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Also another important point: for GotG you can report for your BG any time after it is called, up until park closing.
But for Tron you need to report during your actual window or they will reject you. There is a grace period but we haven’t confirmed 100% what it is. Working theory is about an hour after the official return window ends (so you have maybe 2 hours to report once you’re called).
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What a great day at EPCOT! Started a bit later than I expected, but worked out just fine. It was pouring rain when we arrived to the park, it cleared soon. Crowds seemed very low.
We walked on Nemo, explored the aquariums, Turtle Talk, lunch at Sunshine Seasons (vegetable korma was very good), LL Soarin’, walk-on LwtL, walk-on Figment, LL Remy, DuckTales France missions, LL Spaceship Earth, LL Mission: Space (nephew and I skipped MS and got a Mickey pretzel and churro), GotG (amazing and we got the song I wanted!), dinner at Connections, LL FEA, walk-on Gran Fiesta Tour.
As we came out of the Mexico pavilion, EPCOT forever had started and all the kids wanted to stand in the rain and watch. So we did
I was not able to snag a single LL from the midday drops for our big group, so that was a bit of a bummer, but we rolled with it.
Tomorrow? Late start Hollywood Studios, focusing on Star Wars and Toy Story.
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How big is your group? I have found that splitting the group in two (each 6 or less) and booking separate Lightning lanes for 5 minutes apart makes it easier to modify during a drop. (Or book in groups of 6 at a drop if you don’t already have a LL.)
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9 - I think I’ll try to do 4 and 5 on different phones for the HS drops today.
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Bit of a hiccup this morning - G+ purchase got hung up during final step and didn’t go through. So I tried again using different payment method - went through, but checked and both payment methods were charged 
Ended up cutting it closer than I would have liked, but still got the ILL$ and LL that I wanted.
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Sigh.
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If you go to a blue umbrella they should be able to reverse the charge for you. That stinks.
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I found it helpful to book a LL right when I was eligible to make sure the 2-hour clock started as soon as possible, and also so I wasn’t rushed when splitting my party. When you book the LL, you have to select the 4-5 members of your party you want in group 1 and book that LL, then book the LL for the second group, and make sure it’s not for the same exact time or it will be merged with the other group.
Then at drop time, start refreshing and modify group 1 to the desired attraction. Then modify group 2 to the same attraction. It will likely be for slightly different windows, but the drops last long enough it shouldn’t be an issue to do it sequentially. But having two phones would bring peace of mind.
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