and don’t say “Surprising!”
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Brilliant! Love it.
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Sounds like a fantastic trip!!
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Can you explain what you mean when talking about the FPP by this : “while walking back to Swan from EP, to get an anytime FPP to convert for the next day”.
Thank you!
It was great! And so was the whole trip! I’ll post a trip report soon. Bottom line on the surprise–the kids were stunned (and happy) and took a while to process that we were going to Disney “right now!” “You mean today?” “Yes, right now!” Re-entering the real world today has been tough! 
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Hi! Yes, if you have a FPP during the last hour of park operation and the ride goes down, it converts to an anytime FPP for the next day. So in theory you could look for FPP’s for rides in the last hour of park operation (whether you are actually there or not) in hopes that the ride will be down and it will convert to the following day. This ended up not working for us (but I tried)–there were no more FPPs’ for distribution at MK at 9 pm on Thursday night.
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Amazing!!!
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We are back from our surprise trip to WDW/UOR and had an amazing time. I’ll try to post a bit of my trip report each day.
A bit of background–this was our 4th trip to WDW in the past 5 years. Me, DH, DD8 and DS5 (almost 6). We had a longer trip in October, but DS5 was 43 inches, and also we gave short shrift to HS, I really wanted to get back there to do more of HS and all the 44" rides for DS5 this time around. So it was a targeted strike, not a “we must do everything” kind of trip. We had 2-day park hoppers and planned for 2 parks per day (ambitious!) and a few hours at Universal (we had a seasonal pass and had to pay a fee to get July blackout dates activated). As I mentioned above, we paid for the Swan using Marriott points and used Disney Visa points to cover about half of our airfare. (That’s how I justify returning in less than a year!).
On our departure day, we headed to the airport, purportedly to drop me off for a “work trip.” We told them they would go grocery shopping with my husband after dropping me off (we knew this would totally bum them out–they hate shopping). It was haaaard to keep it a secret and we didn’t even tell any relatives or friends for fear that something might slip. I was bursting at the seams to tell them. When we got to the terminal, this happened (if you care to watch the 2 minute video):
So, I’d say the surprise went well!
Our 2:20 Southwest flight took off on time and landed slightly before scheduled arrival of 4:40 pm. We did have to wait for our car seats to come through baggage, which they finally did, and the used Alamo skip-the-counter (that was great, thanks for the recommendations!) and were at the Poly for our 6:10 Ohana reservation a full 10 minutes early. It was our first time renting a car and I have to say that we really liked having it for this trip. The convenience outweighed missing the Magical Express (Not included for the Swan).
As predicted, we were seated precisely 20 minutes late at Ohana but the time went fast since DS5 had fallen asleep in the car and DD8 and I were able to check us in for dinner while he caught a few extra snoozes sitting in the parking lot with DH. We had a good dinner at Ohana, but the food was not as great as I remember a few years ago. At least for the steak and shrimp, I thougth the seasoning was a bit smoky/spicy, and a few years ago I remember it being more of a garlic/salt type flavor. The chicken was my favorite, and bread pudding up to snuff! It was all still yummy, though, and were done by 7:20; headed to Swan to check in and park; both were easy. Even though staying on points, they upgraded us to a room with a decent resort view (looking out to Dolphin and bridge to Boardwalk). We thought the hotel was really nice. Kids never ever would have noticed or cared that it is not officially a “Disney” hotel.
There were strong thunderstorms and we had a big day coming up, so we finally got our excited kiddos (and ourselves) to bed around 9:30. They still could not believe that we were at WDW! I’ll post about our first full day soon!
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I’d say so too. Cute 
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Well played!
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Well done! Who did you have filming it?
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So cute. I love your son’s practicality – we can’t, because we don’t have our suitcases.
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At the last minute, a friend offered to come with us to the airport and then take our car back home, since I had told her the surprise. I thought the kids might be suspicious as to why she was coming along, but we played it as she was just keeping us company. Worked out great for getting footage!
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What a great surprise!
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