Woah!!! Way to go, Dad!!
I’m so excited for you guys!! I took my kids, along with my dad, last Spring and it made for some magical memories. It sounds like you have reasonable expectations. I used Genie+ for the first time last week and it sucked. Not a fan at all. But, I feel like you can cobble together a good day with a general plan, LL drop times and a decent expectation of how crowded it’ll be.
Do you guys have hoppers? They are so nice for popping over to EP for dinner or WS wandering in the evenings when staying at BWV or BC.
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MIL has confirmed she’s in town that week!
So I went through the AK, HS, and Epcot chapters of the 2022 book (man, are they not impressed with Epcot these days) and here’s my thinking (do not let the bullet points deceive you into thinking this is at all organized):
- Epcot and MK are the must-dos; not doing Epcot would break my father’s heart.
- My dad would probably prefer HS to AK; the kids should like the Star Wars section of HS and we’ll take or leave the rest.
- That said, we should make a park reservation for HS and at least try to get on RotR, though I would estimate the odds of that as somewhere between miniscule and zero.
- I think AK should be our first day (Sat, April 2nd). That way if we don’t get into Orlando first thing in the morning, we can roll in late and still have a good afternoon at an interesting park.
- The UO day will depend on crowd level forecasts.
- I’m thinking, pay for the hopper ticket, plan to hop to MK or Epcot on HS day after we exhaust the Star Wars offerings.
- (One thing I need to confirm is that if you’re hopping, you don’t need to tell WDW which park you’re hopping to, you only need a reservation for the first park.)
- Plan to designate one day as MK Day and get Genie+ for that day only. If we hop to MK on a different day we’ll take our chances sans Genie+ or use whatever of the other eight other options Disney now has to relieve us of our cash.
To-do list:
- find the old tickets
- write up an itinerary and run it by my dad (it’s a good thing he’s a military history buff, he can appreciate it when I warn him that this is only slightly less complicated than Napoleon’s invasion of Russia)
- once we’ve agreed on the itinerary, book the new tickets
- book the park reservations – I’d like to have that done by the end of this week
- start creating Touring Plans
- start thinking about dining reservations – we probably won’t have many sit-down meals in the parks but it would be nice to get one or two.
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Found the MagicBands and the tickets, woot! (Only K12, K10, and I got MagicBands, for some reason. I think Dad’ll live.) We’re having lunch with Dad this weekend; I told him he gets the honors of telling the kids, though I think K10 was looking at my phone when he texted me “Did you tell them about Disney?” and the cat is thus out of the bag.
Updated to-do list:
find the old ticketswrite up an itinerary and run it by my dad (it’s a good thing he’s a military history buff, he can appreciate it when I warn him that this is only slightly less complicated than Napoleon’s invasion of Russia)- once we’ve agreed on the itinerary, book the new tickets
- book the park reservations – I’d like to have that done by the end of this week
- start creating Touring Plans
- start thinking about dining reservations – we probably won’t have many sit-down meals in the parks but it would be nice to get one or two.
- have Dad tell kids
- tell MIL the plan
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Get your park ressies done ASAP!!!
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Is something up with Undercover Tourist? I called them Friday, left a message with my order number, they never got back to me. I called again this morning and got a recording encouraging me to send an email or leave a voice mail, as they were currently all busy. I may have to buy the new tickets through Disney directly? Or is there somewhere else I can go with them? I don’t know how much credit I’m going to get from the old tickets.
UPDATE: Finally got a UT rep on chat. They’re saying that I can go through Disney and apply the money spent on old tickets to new tickets, but for Universal I would have to purchase new tickets at the gate, I cannot get a refund and I cannot get credit for my old tickets anywhere other than in person. Is this actually true? After two years of coronavirus, such a strict refund policy boggles the mind, and I don’t particularly feel like giving Universal more money if this holds, even if my kids do still like Harry Potter.
UPDATE #2: Trying UO over the phone. Universal officially has the most annoying hold patter in history.
UPDATE #3: UO said UT was wrong and UT can modify the tickets, but it shouldn’t be a problem for me to make the exchange at Guest Services the day we want to show up. So it’ll be a bit of a hassle, but I can go as soon as Guest Services opens and Dad and the kids can join me later. They’re not limiting ticket availability so I don’t have to worry about tix selling out, unlike Disney. (Disney’s phone queue gave me an 84-minute wait; I asked for a callback. A preview of the park experience itself, I guess.)
Did UT say you could get credit for the original tickets? Are the original tickets expired or still showing in your Universal app?
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I never entered them in the Universal app (which I think helped my case). And yes, they did say I can apply the cost of the old tickets towards the new tickets, I just have to present them in person.
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Update #4: So I asked Disney to give me a call back, and when they did the recorded voice said, “Please stay on the line for the next Cast Member,” and then… zilch. For ten minutes. Finally I figured I’d been kicked out of the phone queue and hung up. Tried again, got as far as “Your estimated wait time will be 43 minutes,” and Disney hung up on me. Have now been on hold for 51 minutes, and I’m going to have to hang up again soon to go pick up K10 from school.
#5: So I finally got a CM on the line, we had ten minutes’ worth of trying to figure out what number she needed on the tickets, and while we were in the middle of confirming the last ticket the line went dead. 
I’m going to see if there’s a chat option.
WE ARE GO!
Park reservations:
4/2 AK
4/3 EPCOT
4/4 DHS
(4/5 UO)
4/6 and 4/7 MK
If you ever get a chance to talk to a CM named Jonathan, take it.
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Well, the post we-have-tickets-and-park-reservations! high has worn off and now I feel like the easy part’s over.
I started making dining reservations today. Y’all, it’s going to be ugly – there were zero reservations for any MK restaurant any day of our trip. BUT I just got a Jiko reservation for 6:45 on our AK day! It popped up, disappeared, I checked again, it reappeared, YAY!
The only other dining reservation I have so is La Creperie de Paris on the 6th. I have no idea if that place is any good; I just know my picky kids will eat crepes.
…and wait a sec, I just got Be Our Guest at 6:30 on Sunday 4/3? Is BOG even worth it these days? I have no idea. We’re not even supposed to be in MK that day but that’s why I got the hopper pass. Also got Biergarten at 12:20 since our reservation is for EPCOT that day – I figure we’ll go back to the hotels and nap after lunch.
I have the MDE app on my phone, I’ll have to make sure Dad downloads it too, he was complaining about logging into Disney yesterday.
I definitely don’t think BoG is worth it. Especially if you’ve been before. As for the crepe place, I’d look up reviews and pics before committing. I love crepes and did not enjoy my meal there at all.
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thanks for the info! I’m just going to keep checking for new opportunities. Snagged one for lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern on the day we leave. We have never done BoG; Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite Disney movies, so I’m going to be the one getting a kick out of trying the gray stuff, but the kids and Dad might not.
Updated to-do list:
- make a packing list
- start creating Touring Plans
- make sure we have rain gear and backup shoes for everyone, also maybe better socks
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Oh if it’s your favorite movie and you’ve never been then I would definitely go. The setting is gorgeous and the food is good.
This is starting to actually feel real?!??!!
Latest updates:
- I only just now realized that Jiko is at Animal Kingdom LODGE, not AK proper, when I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t include it in an AK TP. Go me!
-
Also I need Dad to check the Jiko menu to make sure he’s up for it (I forgot he’s not eating red meat these days, and he’s not the most adventurous eater to begin with) he’s good for Jiko!
- also I am a TP-making n00b generally
- swapped out that crepe reservation for Chefs de France
- also now have a Grand Floridian Cafe reservation for 8:30 Monday night, though I will look for an earlier time, that’s pretty late if we’re getting up early Tuesday morning to maximize Harry Potter time
- I am presently worrying about whether I should get the kids “water shoes” for possible rainy park wear + hanging around the pool this summer
- do I want Genie+ for Saturday? We are almost certainly not going to be able to make rope drop Saturday morning. K12 gets out of school at 4 pm Friday, so the earliest we could make it to Macon would be 6 pm, given usual ATL traffic patterns. (Dad is requesting we leave earlier, school be darned.) I’ve been planning to spend Friday night in Ocala or somewhere and not roll into AK until 10 am at the earliest, at which point the major lines will already be bad. I’m not planning on getting Genie+ for the Epcot or DHS days, definitely think I should get it for the first MK day.
- CL forecasts holding steady at 5-7 for all days, 7 for our UO day. I saw more reservations available for dining when I checked today than I have previously. Going to keep fiddling 'cause why not.
- I feel like I’m not being detailed and neurotic enough about this?!?!!??
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G+ is actually great for people who don’t rope drop. You can stack ll up before you arrive.
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