Now that you know the reason behind the trip, let's look at the particulars of this trip.  

We originally booked a room only discount with the military discount at All Star Sports.  Booking it only 15 days before we decided to go was a bit daunting for me.  Only our first trips were taken with such little planning!

At the two week mark (yes, just one day later) we decided to add the dining to it and made our dining reservations.  Knowing how hard it is to make dining reservations at the 180 day mark, I knew there would be problems at the 2 week mark!  I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to get most of what we wanted.  The only character meal was Crystal Palace, but my kids are all older now, and character meals are actually more for Mom than the kids now!

Our meals were:
Tusker House
Crystal Palace
Tutto Italia
Hollywood and Vine

Of these, two were new to us (Tusker House and Tutto Italia).  One we really did not like much (Hollywood and Vine) and one was so so (Crystal Palace)

I knew I had until 36 hours before we checked in to add the dining plan to our Military discounted room, so I was in no hurry.

Since, of course, I was unable to get Be Our Guest, my plan was to try and snag Be Our Guest for lunch.  Every day I would play around with the 'secret site' to try once to snag the lunch time Fast Pass.  

When I finally was able to snag it I was so excited!  It would be a perfect trip!  I had Be Our Guest!

Then, less than a week before time to go I read online that a lot of dinner Be Our Guests were being released.  At the same time I realized that I had forgotten that the fireworks were going to be at 8 instead of 9...and our ADR at Crystal Palace was going to prevent us from seeing them!  

While trying to get a better time for Crystal Palace...an ADR time for Be Our Guest popped up!  I grabbed that thing faster than you can say "Go for it!".  I cancelled that Crystal Palace and felt very happy that my trip would be perfect.

So, to recap,
Our first park would be Animal Kingdom with Tusker House @ 6:15 with the park closing at 6.  On Tuesday we would be in Magic Kingdom with Be Our Guest @ 8:30.  Next would be Tutto Italia in Epcot @7:30 with Illuminations at 9:00 and ending our trip with Hollywood and Vine @6:20 at Hollywood Studios.

It felt like everything was falling into place.

In February, we decided to take a fact finding trip to Disney.  We had never stayed in a Value before.  I admit...I am a Moderate snob.  We have never thought about staying anywhere other than a Moderate.

But I realize not everyone can afford a Moderate, and there are some people who just prefer to stay at a Value.  Their argument is how much time do you actually spend in your room except to sleep.

Using the military discount, and the military salute tickets, we took advantage of the kids being out of school for a week to take a quick trip to Disney!  The next few posts will be my thoughts and ramblings about the trip, including the impressions that a Value made on me as well as some additional information about the FastPass+ and the DAS pass.

Sit back and relax, it is going to be a long ride!