Counting Down to the Mouse!

Wheee!  The day is quickly coming when Hannah and I will board a plane and fly to the Happiest Place on Earth!  It’s no surprise that we’re ‘Disney Freaks’ and we enjoy the family time visiting Walt Disney World offers us.

This is a busy year for family and friends to visit Disney and we’re in the first group of many who will be headed south through the months of August and September.  During our trip Nana will be there with her grandkids Tor, Josh and her nephew Daniel.  Neither of the boys have ever been before and to say they’re excited would be an understatement! 

When the upcoming free dining offer was opened up I helped 7 families book trips.  I think I know what I want to do when I retire!  Truly, it would be wonderful to help people book Disney trips as a profession.  Something to look into anyway as retirement eligibility can now be counted on my fingers!  (Yes, I started working as a toddler!  )

I found out 2 weeks ago (Thanks Bridge!!!) that our 2 groups have been chosen to test drive Disney’s new MyMagic+ system.  SOOO excited about this!!  I’ve read about others experiences with this and am super excited to be a part of it!  (OK, maybe we weren’t exactly ‘chosen’ since everyone staying at our resort in August was ‘chosen’ but still…we’re in! )

The first thing I did after downloading the ‘My Disney Experience’ app onto the iPod is personalized our MagicBands.

Hannah and I both chose pink bands that will have our names imprinted on the back.

After that we were able to select 3 FastPasses for each of the 10 days of our trip!  FastPasses have been available for years at the Disney parks but the FastPass+ (FP+) program offers guests the ability to select their FastPasses up to 90 days before their visit.  Some people are not too excited about the change but we’re embracing it and running with it!  I’m a planner when it comes to our trips and I’ve known for months what park we plan to be at each day of our visit.  I check the anticipated crowds using touringplans to do this and coordinate it with our dining reservations. 

When I was given the option to select FastPasses I went in and selected our favourites rides or character meet ‘n greets.  I couldn’t get any parades or fireworks this trip.  The FP+ option is already working in our favour.  Hannah’s chosen first ride of our vacation is ‘The Pop Pop Ride’ which is known as Toy Story Midway Mania to the rest of the world.  Normally this would have meant a lengthy wait as DHS is anticipated to be a crowd of 9/10 that day and we won’t get to the park until sometime in the afternoon.  With the FP+ option we will be able to arrive at the ride anytime during our 1 hour window booked for later in the afternoon and bypass the majority of the line.    Soon this option will be available for all but for the month of August it is limited to visitors at 4 of the Disney resorts and one of them is our resort.  Yay!

I’ll be sure to post my experiences using FastPass+ and how it goes.  So far the only challenge I had was adding Hannah’s Annual Pass to our account but a call to Disney IT and working with one of the call centre staff fixed the problem eventually.  It was worth the hour+ we were on the phone to know that Hannah has all the same FP+ booked as Mommy.

So, our countdown to the Mouse is officially on and we can’t wait!