Using fastpass+ online!

I recently received my new magic band and learned how to use the fastpass+ system. If you have your band at home and have it linked to your account, I recommend booking your fastpasses in advance. It gives you more time to decide what you want to do and gives you a greater chance of getting to do those things earlier in the day. On our trip to HS, we booked our fastpasses in the park as we bought our tickets that day. It gave us late times and we decided to just wait in line for our favorite ride to go through earlier. For our second trip, this time to EPCOT, we booked our fastpasses online and got much earlier times. The process is quite simple, but a bit long for a first time. I took some screenshots of a typical booking to show how it works.



First, pick your day. Then click on next. Both icons will be green after you click on your desired day.

Next, select your desired guests. I have Hayley in my account, so I can select fastpasses for her as well as myself. Click on any person you will travel with and have attached to your account. Again, your selections and the next button will appear green after you click your guests. Click next.

You will now get to choose your park. The site makes it easy to see the park hours and if extra magic hours apply for any of the parks that day. Choose your park and then select the next button.

Now comes the fun part! Choose three things you would like to do on your day at Disney World! I will be choosing attractions and shows at Animal Kingdom, my favorite park!

Notice how the selections turn green and the next button turns green after you have made a selection. Choose next when you are ready to choose times!

The screen will fade to blue and give you a chance to prioritize your choices. I left the order they gave me, but you can move the choices up or down, depending on your preferences. Click next.

Now is where thinking about your timetables comes in. Think about meal times and other activities you might want to do at the park because you will only have one hour to use each fastpass. You will have options to choose from. I have two images for this next section, showing how the times will change. They gave me four choices, A, B, C, and Best Match. I actually liked Option A the Best, so I selected that one. You click next to go on to the last step.

On the final page, you are given a confirmation of the choices you made and the option to book another day. If you are finished, you click done and then get ready to enjoy a fun day at the parks!

I hope this has been informative and will help future trips to the parks! If you do want to wait to book your fastpasses, just find a fastpass+ kiosk and an attendant will be able to book all of your passes right there!

First trip back!

After being in Florida for a month, I finally made it back to WDW! My first trip back had the honor of being hosted at Hollywood Studios!

I just love seeing that giant hat waiting for me! Not to mention the ride we fondly call tot. We were full of smiles after our first drop on ToT! It took a good fifteen minutes to stop laughing!

We then stopped for popcorn, and as it was my birthday trip, Mickey paid for it! What a mouse! :)

Later we tried a new restaurant for our trips, the 50's Prime Time Cafe. What a cute little place! The staff is your "family" and is sure to make you laugh. They call for Mom and even sing the birthday song off key! We had to set the table ourselves and be sure not to get caught with your elbows on the table or wasting food! We also enjoyed the parade of children... taking their dishes to the kitchen to be washed! I will definitely make the trip to this restaurant again! (Mom even made me a cupcake for my birthday!!)

The waiting room at the Prime Time Cafe! A 50's living room!

We ordered desert before we knew about the cupcake. Good thing we shared a meal!! 

The day was quite nice and we didn't have a long wait for most rides. We tried out the fastpass+ system, but I will post more on that later! I will admit, going to WDW on your birthday is one of the best things to do! I loved the number of people that called out "Happy Birthday" to me! It was funny when groups would keep calling it, sometimes with my name included! Until next time! 

The Blessings of Broken Dishes

Last week, I had the honor of teaching crafts at our church's Vacation Bible School. The main topic for day two was "Sin Broke Our Relationship with God." I thought about the best way to show this to the kids and remembered a couple of dishes that didn't make the trip from Japan to Florida in one piece. The set had 1/3 of the dishes broken, but still had some whole. It was wonderful to see the look in the eyes of children who understood what sin does to our relationship with God when they saw that broken cup. I don't tend to worry about things like broken cups or things of that variety very often, but I was blessed to be able to use them in a teaching moment with the children. I hope that they will remember the broken cup and how our relationship with God was repaired on the Cross with Jesus.

Back in Florida

First off, let me apologize for being a horrible blogger. I admit that I don't get on as often as I should after creating these things. On another note, I don't expect too many people to actually read it. I try to do it when I remember. I'm hoping that I will post a little more often, and hopefully about trips to the World! :)

We're home!

After quite the experience traveling for almost 2 months, we made it back to Florida. I was ready to hit the parks right away, and then house happened. It has been refreshing, seeing the house look more cheerful with each coat of paint, but that was quite a bit of work I hadn't been counting on! I have taken this opportunity to try some new colors for the house. Like a purple bedroom wall! It should look nice when it is done and will match the quilt I started just after getting married.

Went for a ride in SC. Please pardon the lack of helmet, this is very uncharacteristic of me. I will say that no helmet was available (to the best of my knowledge) and I am familiar with this horse and we were in a closed ring. Accidents do happen though, so I was very careful and kept the ride short. 

After a week of painting, I had the honor of attending my former roommate's wedding! It was a great time and quite a reunion! I then made my way back to Florida from my trip to the midwest to get prepped for VBS.

This fellow was our greater at the fishing pier! I love seeing all of the wildlife down here in Florida!

What a blessing VBS is for me each year. Seeing the kids grow in their knowledge of Who God is and what a wonderful Lord and Savior we have makes me happy. Today I was happy to come home covered in dirt and paint after planting flowers with the 4 year olds and throwing paint with the oldest class. I love seeing the joy in their faces as they get to do crafts with me and the love they show for Jesus. Today, our theme was Creation. What a blessed reminder we get when we look around each day!

I love all of God's creation (unless it likes my blood) and this guy was really cool to see under the bridge! He was easily 8 feet long and he was fast!

Next week I plan on headed out to the parks for my first trip since I've been back. It will also be my birthday trip! I'm pretty excited about this upcoming trip and thankful for the time I've had since I've been back!

Dreams

When I moved to Japan, I never dreamed that the part of home that would make me homesick would be Disney World. For some reason, just seeing Mickey Mouse makes me homesick! I miss my family and friends a lot, don't get me wrong, but it is the Disney aspect of my life that makes me really aware that I'm halfway around the world. I seem to associate WDW with home and when I see the Disney things here (they do love Disney here!) I guess I just realize how far from home I really am. I hope now to share some of the love I have for Disney, as well as some of the wonder I've discovered living in a place so far from home on this blog. One thing I have learned with greater appreciation is "It's a small world after all!"

This image is a map of Florida labelled in both English and 日本語(Japanese.)