MouseVENTURES: Building a Better Mousetrap

Thanks to everyone who has come to our website to read about our wonderful January 2012 trip to Walt Disney World!  You may be wondering about the title.  For over a decade I have been traveling to Walt Disney World and fell in love with the place.  One of the resources I have used all that time is trip reports, which people usually post to various Disney message boards.  The awesome thing about trip reports is they tell of one family’s travels and experiences from wholly their point of view.  What food did they eat, how was it getting there, what resort did they stay in, who are they traveling with, what time of year are they traveling?  It’s the ultimate insider knowledge to the happiest place on earth!

Back when I started reading these little beauties there were only paragraph word postings (kind of like this introduction) and since most people reading Disney message boards already know all about Disney the trip reporter always assumes you know details about this ride or that park.  I am going to tell our story differently.  For one it will be in blog format and not posted to a message board.  Despite that, I invite everyone to still interact with me through the comment section!

Also, pictures were never used on message board reports years ago because of capabilities to store pictures on the internet.  Today they are used much more frequently.  Video is still relatively new to message board reports.  We will be using about 4 or so types of media to tell our story to experiment with fully engaging you into our trip.  Our report is heavily embedded with extra video from youtube because we want people who love Disney to relive it with us in the order we experienced it and people who have not been exposed to Disney World to see a little what it is like.  So we are working to bring you a new better kind of trip report, or we are “building a better mousetrap” to catch that magic Mouse!

Some of you reading this report know us personally others found us on the web or know us through various Disney communities.  Regardless I am going to tell this story for both the Disney insider and the Disney novice.  If you are a Disney expert, you will enjoy our pictures and videos for nostalgic reasons… you will enjoy just following along with the way WE did Disney.  This is just OUR story of OUR travels.  We didn’t partake in all that Disney World has to offer this time around and for those in the know; you will notice a lot of what we ran out of time for or simply just skipped.  This is the account of an adult couple without children traveling to Disney during value season when crowds are lower and the weather is a big giant question mark.  If you read reports of families with kids and grandparents along, or even just a solo traveler your report would be different.  Also, if we had gone at a different time of year, like during October when there are different events going on, OUR report would be different!  Every trip you take and every trip anyone takes is completely unique to that time.  The important thing to remember is that this is our personal account and changing any variables can create a different experience.

We will be posting our story on a weekly basis every Wednesday.  You can sign up HERE to receive a newsletter every week about the new posting.  We hope our story will help you see what we see and feel what we feel and if you are planning a trip of your own or want to, that you will learn some new things!  Please take the time to watch any and all embedded videos and audio whether they are ours or someone else’s to get the full feel of the story.  This is meant to be as immersive experience as I can give you.  The longer you read, the more media you will find!  So sit back and relax, keep all hands and feet inside the “moving vehicle” and enjoy our trip report!

Also important to this report is that we brought only our iPhones with us.  So, if you have an iPhone you too can create a report like this one!

Apps Used: Camera+ ($.99 to $1.99)

Tweetdeck (free)

Voice Memo (comes loaded to phone)

360 Panorama ($.99)

Ustream (free)

Instagram (free)

iPhone Camera App (comes loaded to phone)

Types of Media:

Panoramic 360 photos

Videos (edited and unedited)

Photos

Audio

Live Tweeting/Facebooking

I will of course refer to myself in the first person, but I will refer to my husband as DH or Disney Husband in fitting with traditional message board lingo.

I won’t pretend I am the best picture taker, but DH has the iPhone 4S and he knows more what he is doing.  So, some pictures are better than others!

Here is the pre-report I wrote before we left:

The pre-report is always the most boring part to read but at the same time the most fun to write!  I will still try to keep this part brief and succinct.  As I write this we are just about 3 days away from leaving on our journey.  We booked this trip back in October when Southwest Airlines released $50 each way flights to Orlando in January.  I lined up the flight deal with the cheapest week to travel to Disney World, which meant the 4th week in January.  This also meant a value resort with free quick service dining and NO park hoppers was in the works.  I chose Pop Century, our favorite value resort and plan to request a king size bed in the 50’s or 70’s buildings when we check in.  The trip takes place Monday-Saturday with Saturday being only a travel back home day.

Our itinerary plans:

Monday

Plane lands in Orlando airport around 12:30pm

Eat lunch at airport

Magical Express to Pop Century to check in

Epcot (our favorite park!)

Tuesday

Hollywood Studios

Lunch at Sci Fi Dine in Theatre

Mini Golf at Fantasia Gardens

Downtown Disney for the evening

Wednesday

Animal Kingdom

Mini Golf at Winterland Summerland

Downtown Disney for the evening

Thursday

Magic Kingdom

Possibly Downtown Disney

Friday

Epcot

Dinner at La Hacienda de San Angel

Extra Magic Hours at Epcot (closes at midnight)

Saturday

Morning flight home

The Weather:  So far the weather forecast for Orlando shows lows around 60 and highs around 80 and sunny!  That is absolutely perfect weather and I hope it stays that way.  We are packing some jackets and long sleeves, but if the weather sticks this way we won’t need it!  We won’t even need jeans, shorts and capris will be good enough.

The nighttime:  The 3 nights we are in Epcot or Magic Kingdom there will be fireworks and a little later hours, but the other two nights will be a bit early for us.  Animal Kingdom closes at 5pm and Hollywood Studios at 7pm.  So, I put my thinking cap on and came up with some ideas for the evenings. We eventually settled on mini golf and downtown Disney.  I actually think that it just may be warm enough to spend some evening time in the pool too!  Only on our last night will there be any kind of late park hours.  However, sometimes plans are made to be changed, so you will have to stay tuned to see how it goes for us!!

Shopping:  Like any typical girl, I love to shop, especially where Disney is concerned.  I get roped in by all the Mickey heads and go crazy.  There is some specific merchandise I am looking for but I like to change my mind, so even that is up in the air.  Other than that stay tuned to see what catches my eye!

The Food:  Oh how I love the food at Disney!  Thanks to The Disney Food Blog I love it even more!  We are on the quick service dining plan which means we will be on a mission to NOT eat only cheeseburgers and hot dogs.  Follow along to see how we do!  It is possible to eat well on quick service. We do have 2 dining reservations that are not on our plan and probably a few snacks along the way we will have to pay for out of pocket.

Pictures:  Both of us are purposely not taking any cameras with us, but relying on our iPhones only.  And we do have the Zagg Sparq charger to recharge our phones a few times.  We have a few nice camera apps between the two of us and we both cleared out enough memory to take plenty of pictures.  To get us started, here is my suitcase about half way packed…

And our travel documents!

And yes we will be using those yellow tags this time for Magical Express.  The ease of arriving at Pop Century, checking in and then walking to the resort’s bus stop for Epcot without struggling with luggage should be divine!  If you don’t know about Magical Express, you put those yellow tags on your luggage and when they arrive at the Orlando airport Disney picks them up for you and delivers then directly to your room several hours later.  In the meantime you hop on a Magical Express bus which drops you right at the front door of your Disney resort.  No hassle with luggage at all!!  It is incredibly convenient but a little nerve racking too.  Stay tuned to see if that went smoothly or not!

That should wrap up the introductions and plans.  The next post will be about our first day!

Stay tuned Part 1 of Day 1: Travel and Epcot

Would we make it on time?  Would there be bad weather and our plane get delayed?

Find out Wednesday!

See You Real Soon!