Joy in the World—10 Dec. days with pics!

[wrldpossibility]

Hello Gentle Reader,

Considering this is my first trip report, and I have read so many excellent ones over the past year and a half I spent planning this trip, I am a bit intimidated to give it a try. But I’ll just start and you DISers will have to let me know how I’m doing. I’m writing this for my children, to put in their Disney scrapbooks, so I’ll be using real names instead of cute nicknames. Frankly, it’s easier not to have go back and change them. I’ll start, as all trip reports must, with a bit of backstory.

First me. I’m a 30-year-old mom of three boys. I love having boys. I’m definitely a boy mom. If you’re hoping to find tips on how to get into CRT or Jasmine’s autograph in this trippie, you need to move on, because my boys are young enough to be phobic of all things princess. So no pics with Belle (my favorite) for Mommy on this trip. I have always loved Disneyland, which was 30 minutes from where I grew up, but had never seen WDW. I have English and EMT degrees, but only use the EMT right now. I don’t work, but I am an active Search and Rescue EMT volunteer. We live in rural Southern Oregon, which means that in the last 2 months, I have been involved in two high profile searches involving children—a Crater Lake search involving a missing little boy, and the Kim search, which involved a whole little family. Then of course while we were gone, there was the big Mt. Hood search for the climbers. It’s been frustrating and sad and draining, and a tough fall and winter for my home state. I really was ready for this “escape” from the sadness of the world for a while.

My husband is Charlie, and he turned 32 on this trip (stayed tuned for the part about our Gifts of a Lifetime Event we did for him!). He has a business degree and works in sales at Toyota. He is the kindest man you’ll ever meet. He remembers every name and face, is very friendly and outgoing, and everyone always likes him. He’s the kind who will mow the lawn of his elderly clients or send birthday cards to people he met once (yes, it can get annoying--just kidding, I‘m proud to be married to him). When I told him in Aug. 05 that I wanted to go to WDW, he felt we should save our money until the kids were older and would appreciate it more (which is code for “the kids are still too much work at their ages”). I slowly wore him down, because, as I stated, he’s the nicest guy and usually gives me what I really want. What I really wanted was to go before my oldest was too old to enjoy the characters and parades, and while all three would enjoy some of the same things together. We pushed the trip back to Dec. 06, which was a good compromise.

Nate is our oldest. He is 7. He is sensitive and caring and a worrier. He’s always thinking of the next step throughout this trip and trying to figure out the game plan. He’s a planner like me. He’s hesitant sometimes, but also a first-born parent pleaser. He never gives us a moment’s trouble on this trip, truly.

Calvin is 5. Calvin can be an absolute joy or a huge challenge…sometimes within minutes of each other. He is smart and thinks deeply, but is also stubborn and very quick to anger. He’s the type who will trip over a curb and get mad, kick the curb and hard as he can, and hurt his foot for days. But he also dreams about butterflies, and draws them whenever he can. He also loves to sing. Go figure. He’s an athlete and strong, but we discover on this trip that he gets cranky in crowds. He also gets cranky when hot or hungry. Calvin is high maintenance. We love him.

Tobias (Toby) turned 2 four days before this trip. He is used to traveling around (we travel quite a bit) and used to going along with the lives of his brothers. He is as obedient as a 2 yo can be, but active, active, active. If his feet are on the ground, he is running. If they’re not, he’s asking to be put down. He walked more of WDW than strolled. Most the time, we were pushing the empty stroller just in the vain hope he’ll get in it. Toby has been slow to talk (has anyone else noticed that’s a third child phenom?), but made great strides in WDW. It’s been fun to watch. He loves his big brothers, and they love him. They are both very nurturing and caring of him. If it were legal, I could probably safely let them babysit!

We also invited along my parents on this trip. We travel a lot with them, and they usually pay. Now, we were in a position to be able to afford a nice vacation, so we wanted to give back. Ok, really, we wanted Grandma and Grandpa to come because they will help with the kids at every turn! They are in their mid-50s, active, and consider their grandchildren their “hobby”. They live 10 minutes from us, and spend tons of time with them. My mom, Julie, is a planner like me. Usually she is THE planner. We call it the HBIC in our family (Head Boss In Charge). Sometimes during a holiday or trip and you’re less than thrilled with the leadership, you can exchange the “Boss” part for another “b” word. But this trip is my baby. So I get the HBIC title. It’s both an honor and a curse. My dad, Jerry, is active on the brink of hyper. He has tons of energy. He loves Disneyland--he has a great story about being there for opening day as a child, and being turned away because they were at max capacity, and crying all the way home. Nice, feel-good story! I knew he’d be excited for WDW (he’d never been either).

My first challenge in planning this trip is when to go. No one in my family quite understands how important the time of year is. Charlie and I picked Dec. because Toby would be 2, and with our kids, they always seem to hit the “terrible 2s” at age 1, and are mostly over it by 2. So that was a plus. Also, our kids take a LONG time to sleep through the night regularly, and 2 seems to be the magic number for that too. But when we first broached the WDW idea to my parents, my dad wanted to go in summer. They are both teachers, so that made sense. But they both also hate heat and crowds. I tried to explain that both would be there in number. Then they wanted to go after Christmas, during break. Uh, more crowds, Dad. We finally compromised by going 1 week before Christmas break (my kids missed the last week of 2nd and K before the break and had no problems with teachers on that). That way the trip would flow into break, and my parents would miss less. My dad still couldn’t get away from his job for a whole week, so he joined us on Day 4. My mom had all kinds of comp time, so she was able to come the whole time.

Then I proceeded to plan the whole trip. It’s not that I didn’t welcome help, but no one else seemed to get how many choices there were and how big Disney was. We had a family meeting and I talked for an hour while everyone else just stared. Everyone else was frozen in inaction. I spent countless hours on the DIS and TGM (yes, we are TGMers, and I’ll review how I thought that went for us, too). I changed my mind on the resort four times (WL, then POR, then AKL, then back to POR). Because I knew it was hard for newbies to figure everything out, I used Dreams Unlimited. In hindsight, I did so much research I could have done most of it myself just fine, but my agent, Ann, was great and she did get me a Visa card discount right away for over $500. So I may have missed that. Anyway, bit by bit I settled on the resort, the DDP, and what day to do each park. I collected M&M tubes for quarters and pennies (pressed penny machines), autograph books, pins on Ebay so they could trade, lanyards, quart-sized zip locks, dollar store ponchos, made t-shirts, the whole enchilada. Every DIS trick I read I wrote into my planning notebook. Every pathway TGM described I mapped out. Did I mention I was a planner?

Then fall of 06 hit and I had lots of “real life” events that kept me very busy. School started, Search and Rescue was very busy, I had to prepare for Christmas ahead of time, and we had my dad’s and Toby’s birthday right before the trip. Before I knew it, I was posting that I had only 1 month to go, 1 week to go, one day to go. Whoohoo!

Sunday Dec. 10th: Travel Day

It’s finally here. We’re all packed, the dog is at her dog sitter’s house for her vacation from us, we’re ready for Christmas when we return. I set the alarm for 4:15 am. The good part about leaving from a tiny rural airport is that there are only 2 gates, only one waiting area, and a short security line. You only have to be there about 45 minutes before your flight. The bad part is that you have to take a very early flight so you can connect at a bigger airport. That and little airports = expensive flights. Today we’re flying to Seattle, then to Orlando. I have put the kids to bed in the clothes they will wear today, so all I have to do is get myself ready, push Charlie awake (he is NOT a morning person, I am), and pile the kids in the car. My parents pull up (my dad volunteered to drive us to the airport at this hour so we wouldn’t have to leave a car or call a cab…remember, he has to work and join us a few days later) and we’re off.

The day is uneventful, which is just what you want on a travel day. We lug the Britax carseat through all three airports, even though Toby will not use it for the next 10 days (we’re putting our fate in the hands of Disney transportation). But he needs it on the airplanes to stay put, so it’s worth hauling it around. The flight to Seattle is 1 hour, then we have a 6 hour flight to Orlando. The kids were great. They are used to air travel, and we’ve brought a whole backpack of distractions. We also have our carry-on with pjs and swimsuits, and that infamous little quart-sized baggie with 3 oz. liquids we all have to figure out now. I truly cannot remember anything eventful about the flights, which is a good thing. This time last year, when Toby was 1, we flew to San Diego, had to circle the airport for some reason for an extra hour, and Toby and I spent most the time in the tiny bathroom, where I let him unroll toilet paper. Terrible yes, but I was desperate…and trust me, the other passengers would rather have had no toilet paper than hear that kiddo scream to get out of his seat. Anyway, this trip was much better!

We arrived at MCO at 5 pm EST. So it really only felt like 2 pm to us. I am now officially the HBIC. This is my territory…what I have planned for and studied. I lead my little family through the airport toward ME—and immediately go downstairs on the wrong side of the main terminal. We see the ME buses dropping people off, but no ME desk. I know I’ve messed up. My first mission, and I’ve dragged my whole family (and the carseat we’re still lugging) down the wrong side. Back up the elevator we go, and down the correct side. Is it A or B? I still can’t remember. We finally find the ME desk, and I feel overwhelmed and like a failure already. No one else cares. There’s no line, and I check us in. We get stamped and everything is settled. There are about 15 other people in the lines for the buses, and we only wait about 5 minutes before getting on ours (it is going to OKW, POFQ, and POR). We have our pick of seats, and happily sit down to watch the movie. The kids are thrilled with their first Disney bus ride. Toby is in heaven. No car seat! The adults are not so much in heaven because he is trying to bounce from seat to seat, crawl over the seats, and generally cause mayhem. It will turn out that it takes us the majority of the trip to teach him to stay seated on the buses. But he’s a happy boy.

We arrive at POR by 6 and are the only people checking in. The kids sit down to watch the old Disney cartoons in the lobby (which they continue to love the whole trip…they have never seen those older ones) and I check in. I have to immediately confuse the check in CM (and now you, the reader) because we have a confusing request. You see, because my dad is coming later, and my mom wanted to come now, we have our package for our family of 5, then their own package starting when my dad arrives. In the meantime, we have a room-only ressie for my mom (but in our name). We hope it can be an adjoining room, and that when their package starts, it can remain the SAME room. Does that makes sense? Amazingly, it did to the CM, and she had us all settled in minutes. (The only confusion was that the room-only ressie was in Charlie’s name with my mom’s name as secondary, so the poor CM kept referring to it as “Julie and Charlie’s room”, which made us crack a bunch of jokes about my husband and mother shacking up on vacation before HER husband arrives. Yes, we are twisted like that.) We are in Building 36, which is a hike to the Riverside Mill and pool, but we don’t care much. We don’t mind walking. I also didn’t want to seem ungrateful after the CM helped with the room situation so much. We are adjoining and we are happy. I ask about my Garden Grocer order, and she doesn’t have any idea what that company is. Hmm. But she checks, and it’s all there. Bell services will bring it to the room later. Perfect. We get my mom 2 day base tickets to hold her over until her package starts, and we’re off.

We go check out our rooms, which take a while for us to find. When we find them, we’re happy. (We are generally happy, easygoing people, and something has to be BAD for us to complain.) We have a pool view (we have paid for water view and I was kind of hoping it would be a river view), but it turns out great because the kids love having “their own pool” right outside the door. We are on the bottom floor. I was worried it would get noisy at night, but no one else every used the pool, that we could see or hear. We leave our carry-ons in the room and head to Riverside Mill for our first dinner (and first attempt using dining credits).

We got to RM about 7. It was uncrowned (this is a good trend). At our first attempt, we find it confusing to try to get all the elements of the DP CS meal for all of us, all at once. I am holding too many trays, asking the kids what they want, and trying to corral Toby, who is of course running. Come to think of it, where were my mom and Charlie? Hmm. Probably just peacefully getting their own meals. I quickly learned to have one adult and the kids go sit by the lego/coloring table at the back of RM while I get their meals, then trade and get the other meals. But I did not yet know about the wonderful lego table. So we stumble around and finally have all the CS meals settled. Calvin had a mini-meltdown at one point because he wanted a cheese quesadilla and it wasn’t on the kid menu. I thought we had to stick to the kid menu. I learned that some places they’ll let you order anything for the kids, and some won’t. Luckily, RM would. He got his food he wanted, which he turned out not to like (too crispy). Nate got the mac and cheese, which was fine, and Toby shared. I got the vegetable sandwich, which was pretty bad (but the homemade chips were great). I won’t order that again. I don’t remember what my mom got, but I’ll just do overviews of the meals here (I have a dining review up right now too). The kids and I are vegetarian, and the others eat meat, just FYI.

After dinner we returned to our room and our bags were there. A few minutes later, our Garden Grocer order was delivered. Unfortunately, not all of it, though. Bell services hadn’t seen the additional bag we had in their fridge. I called, and it was brought immediately. Double tip for that guy, at least. Garden Grocer was great. We had bought cereal, milk, juice boxes, granola bars, yogurts, and goldfish. All used and saved us some $$ on breakfasts. Because our bags came so quickly, we could have skipped bringing the extra carry-on on the plane, but oh well! We changed into swimsuits and all went to Ol Man Island. Yes, from Oregon, the Florida night seemed very balmy. We were some of the only people at the pool. We had fun, and returned to the room by 9. My kids (and I) are early-to-bed, early-to-rise types (the kids are usually up by at least 6 at home), so the time change was working in our favor. (That would turn ugly when we went home, the kids are adjusted to EST, and get up at 3:30 am for 2 days in a row…but that’s everyday life report, not a trip report, and who wants to read that?) Still, we had gotten up at 4 Pacific time, and were beat from the travel day. The kids had a surprise waiting for them from Pluto (he’s their favorite character and left a note in the door every morning of our trip). On this first night, he had left Mickey pajamas and their first note. (To picture it, all the notes were typed in Disney font on parchment paper and sealed with candle wax. They also had Pluto‘s paw print for a siggie and Mickey head punch outs along the bottom. Very official-looking, if I do say so myself.) This is what he said:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

I am so glad you’re here! Welcome to Disney World! You are three of my favorite kids! Calvin, do you remember when I licked your face at Disneyland?! I hope you had fun seeing your hotel room, exploring Port Orleans, and eating some dinner! Now, I want to remind you of some rules here at my house:

1. Try new things! This means new foods, new rides, and new places!

2. There’s no whining or crying at Disney World! Say “ok” the first time!

3. Always stay near your family! You should be able to see your Mom, Dad, or grandparents ALL the time!

4. Spend your money carefully! There are lots of treats here, so wait to make sure something is what you REALLY want!

I’ll be writing to you every day! I can’t wait to see you. When you read your letter from me tomorrow, you’ll know exactly when that is!

Pluto


I should explain that the boys’ Christmas present from mom and dad was $100 each to spend at WDW. (Of course that does not include Santa.) Also, Calvin can be a wanderer, so we’d drilled them with safety rules—they also each wore a silicone bracelet with our cell phone # engraved on it. Here are the kids in our room with their new pjs:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN8963copy.jpg


We were all in bed by 10 (7 our time). My plan was to NOT race out to a park first thing in the morning in case the kids slept in due to the time change. Will it happen? Stay tuned…

Up next, Chef Mickey’s, our first monorail ride, and Epcot!

[nicolemarie]

I don’t work, but I am an active Search and Rescue EMT volunteer. We live in rural Southern Oregon, which means that in the last 2 months, I have been involved in two high profile searches involving children—a Crater Lake search involving a missing little boy, and the Kim search, which involved a whole little family.

I don't remember hearing about the Crater Lake search, but the Kim search saddened me SO MUCH. It hit too close to home.

On a MUCH happier note, I love your report so far! We are in the process of planning a May trip with my parents and I'm looking forward to hearing how it goes for you!!

And this is BRILLIANT!!

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

I am so glad you’re here! Welcome to Disney World! You are three of my favorite kids! Calvin, do you remember when I licked your face at Disneyland?! I hope you had fun seeing your hotel room, exploring Port Orleans, and eating some dinner! Now, I want to remind you of some rules here at my house:

1. Try new things! This means new foods, new rides, and new places!

2. There’s no whining or crying at Disney World! Say “ok” the first time!

3. Always stay near your family! You should be able to see your Mom, Dad, or grandparents ALL the time!

4. Spend your money carefully! There are lots of treats here, so wait to make sure something is what you REALLY want!

I’ll be writing to you every day! I can’t wait to see you. When you read your letter from me tomorrow, you’ll know exactly when that is!

Pluto

Great report - You sound like my kind of planner!!

[MomofCKJ]

Looking forward to your report! We were there Dec 15-22 and I recognize you from TGM (TGM-er here too!). I am planning to start my report later today, need to upload pictures!

Can't wait for more!
Allyson :)

[wrldpossibility]

Thanks guys! I can't wait to read your report too Allyson! It's fun to read different prospectives on the same time period!

[wrldpossibility]

Monday, Dec. 11th:

Note from Pluto left in the door:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

I hope you got a good night’s sleep last night! Today is going to be FUN!

Today you’ll ride the monorail when your adventure begins,
Then eat lunch with me and my friends!
Next head to Epcot (there’s so much to do),
You can eat with fishes and and talk to a turtle, too!

Pluto

So we were hoping to sleep in. Did we? If you go by Eastern time, yes! Toby woke at 7:45 (4:45 our time). Could we have still gone to a park at rope drop? Yes, but it was still nice to relax. Nate and Calvin woke at 8:30, so we were glad to have stayed put for the morning. We gave the boys a bowl of cereal, since it would be a while before eating at 10:30 at Chef Mickey’s. We let them watch TV, and rolled out the door at 9:15. We wanted to have plenty of time to try out the transportation. We looked at our map and discovered that the North Depot was very close to our room, so we tried that one out. It was great. Hardly anyone waiting, so no stress (I get stressed out when I see a big crowd waiting for something.) The MK bus came right away, and we enjoyed seeing the WDW grounds in the daylight. I should stop for a moment to say how impressed we were with POR. It was lush and quiet and peaceful. We loved the pool area, but I especially enjoyed the theming around the main buildings. One reason we (I) chose POR was the theme. We were tempted by WL, but that’s the architecture we already see (and love) near our home. We wanted something that spoke of the south, and we got it. For our entire stay, we had nothing bad to say about POR; the grounds or the service.

We got in line for the monorail, and I remembered that we could ask to sit in the front section with the driver. I asked, but when the monorail came, the compartment was full. No biggie. We enjoyed zooming into the CR for the first time, and easily found Chef Mickey’s (you’ll quickly learn that while I studied WDW as if I were back in college, I am still very directionally challenged—a cross I have to bear in life).

We checked in at CM and took our picture. We were given a buzzer and waited only a few minutes before being seated. The boys could spot the characters across the room, and were SO excited. We didn’t know what Toby would think, but he was waving and yelling “hi” and “here” over and over. We went to the buffet and the boys settled on Mickey waffles, fruit, and eggs for the most part. I liked the breakfast pizza and some kind of frittata. I didn’t eat much, because I spent all my time getting the kids to eat something and getting my camera out. We saw all the characters pretty quickly, and the kids loved it. When Pluto came around, the boys gave him little notes they had written him to thank him for the letters. He played it off well, and kept the notes in his pocket. Very cute. Toby loved the characters, but got very shy when they came close. He was excited to give them his autograph book to sign (he must have had no idea what this is about), but then couldn’t look them in the face when they were hugging him or taking a pic. So in all my pics, he’s looking down at his feet. He looks miserable, but in fact was having a great time.

We were done at CM’s by 11:30, bought our family picture (you’ll see we’re suckers for these) and made our way around the monorail to get to Epcot. Before leaving the CR, I asked again about the front compartment, and the CM told me to ask at the Ticket and Transportation Center. Charlie and my mom looked at her blankly, but I, our source of Disney knowledge, did not drop the ball. I filled everyone in that we were headed on the monorail to the TTC (I even said TTC…the DIS has gotten me in the habit of using acronyms for everything), then switching monorails. At this point, I’m still trying to make up for my ME desk blunder in MCO.

We get to the TTC, and low and behold, we are able to ride in the front. Well, four of us—so the kids and I do. Here’s a pic:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN8971.jpg

The monorail driver (or is it conductor?) is great. He gives the boys “transportation cards” that look like sport trading cards. They have the monorail on one side, and stats about it on the back. He tells us these are new, and there are cards for buses, monorails, boats, and trains. We can collect them all! That’s all the boys need to hear: they love to collect things.

At Epcot the monorail wraps around through the park and the kids are eyeing all the attractions. I’m just scanning the crowds…how crowded will it be? While planning, I was very worried about this day because we were getting to our first park in the afternoon. I didn’t want our first experience to be with crowded rides, but I also didn’t want to force the kids (or Charlie) up early. So as I scan the crowds, I’m wondering, “How long are the lines?” “Is mid-Dec. really less crowded like the UG says (oh yes, I‘ve read them all), or getting more so like the wise DISers say?”

At this point, I have to pause and explain to you readers why we’re headed to Epcot instead of MK. It’s because I’m trying to be a faithful follower of TGM. Epcot is a “green” day (I think I can reveal that here because this day has already passed, right fellow TGMers?), and MK is not. I figured if I had to enter a park in the afternoon, it had better be a green one. Our plan is to try to do Nemo at least, then whatever we want until dinner at Coral Reef. No strict plan, since I didn’t know how crowded it would be.

As it turns out, there are very few crowds, and as we head to Nemo, it states there is a 15 minute wait. It turns out that this first line will be the longest we wait in all trip. Not bad, I think! We wait a moment for Charlie to get FP for Soarin’, then jump in line. I think it’s really less than 15 minutes. Just enough time to enjoy the line, then we’re on. I thought it was cute. Not blow-you-away awesome, but cute. The older boys enjoyed it (it was a great first ride to start with), and Toby LOVED it. He was the kiddo we didn’t think would get as much out of WDW, and he’s proving to love everything the most!

We exited and checked out the line for Turtle Talk. It looked long, and I knew we wanted to be in the front to get a good seat, so we decided to come back later. I just wanted the kids to not have lines as much as possible. Instead, we went over to M:S. The older kids, my mom, and Charlie all decided to do the “easy” version. They all loved it. The boys got very worried about pushing their buttons (they really thought they could mess it up). Toby and I played in the tubes at the exit of the ride by the video games. I hate dark video game areas (and Charlie loves them as much as I hate them), but the playspace was nice. When the others came out, the older boys wanted to stop and play, and Charlie tried a few games (told you).

At this point, there was no wait for Test Track, so I tried to talk the boys into it, but they both chickened out. I have to stop and say that Calvin had me measuring him every week since summer to make sure he’d hit the 44” mark before our trip. Watching the planning video, he was determined to go on Test Track, Tower of Terror, and Splash, to name a few. Well, let’s just say we needn’t have bothered. He opted out of all those rides. Charlie, my mom, and I didn’t really care much about TT, so we skipped it altogether this day and headed in search of a snack. It was in the high 70s, and we Oregonians were not used to it. The boys were hot and getting hungry after eating next to nothing at CM. I knew Sunshine Seasons would be a good bet for our family, so we headed for The Land. (You notice we keep crossing back and forth in the park, which is a no-no and gets you very tired.) We are just not oriented yet. On our way, we passed the character connection, and the boys wanted to get autographs. We stopped to do that (no lines), and the boys traded pins with Cms, which was fun, but still should have eaten our snack first. By the time we got to The Land, Calvin was losing it he was so thirsty, and darn it, I can’t find Sunshine Seasons. I have this thing I do sometimes when my kids are super hungry or thirsty (or what have you) and I can’t meet their needs. I seem to go into this super maternal mode. I get very stressed and borderline frantic. I try not to, because it’s ridiculous…they’re not starving. But I can’t seem to help it. So we’re at the upstairs entrance to The Land, so you experienced DISers know that SS is right below us (out of view). All I know is that I read SS is in here, and I can’t find it. Toby is starting to cry. I start getting frustrated and frantic looking at the map. Charlie calmly walks to the other side and looks down. There it is. He’s practical like that. I’m not. We head down and use 7 snack credits right off the bat. It’s worth it. I got these great pesto wraps, the kids get fruit bowls and lemonade, and the others get drinks. All is right with the world. After that, we learned to take breaks before we’re about to lose it.

We had a few minutes until our Soarin’ FP started, so we went on Living with the Land. It’s peaceful and perfect for us. This is the kind of ride my kids like. They’re weird that way. They loved seeing the mickey ear pumpkins. Toby loved riding in a boat. Win-win. After the ride, Toby is ready to fall asleep, so my mom takes him on a little walk-around in the stroller so he can nap, and the rest of us ride Soarin’. Charlie and I had done this one at California Adventure, and loved it just as much this time. Nate and Calvin also loved it (they were worried). Then, with the help of our cell phones, we found my mom and sleeping Toby (he sleeps easily) outside The Land and gave her her FP. She went on Soarin’ and the boys explored a store with Charlie while I sat with Toby. Nate used $20 of his money to buy a huge trading pin, which he wore with pride for two days before it grew too heavy. That’s how big it was. We called it his “bling”. I know we could have used the baby swap for Soarin’, but we were content with this system. It turns out we’d only use the baby swap once in the trip. As a side note, I noticed a lot of Cms educating people about baby swap, especially when kids were going on rides “against their will” (which is a sin as a parent, IMO). There are even signs saying “Let them decide” or something like that. It must be a big problem.

We walked over to Figment, and they loved that one too. By this time Toby was awake, and we all went on Spaceship Earth. It was walk-on (as was Figment), and the kids wanted to know what was in “the ball”. This again, was their type of ride. They went twice (snooze). Luckily we had to tear ourselves away to make our 6:10 dinner ADR at Coral Reef.

Now I have to apologize. I read all the bad reviews of Coral Reef, and yet, I still kept my ADR. Why, oh why didn’t I listen, oh wise DIS board? Why didn’t I follow my instincts and eat CS? We had our worst meal (maybe ever, really) on that first day. I know some of you love Coral Reef, but we really hated it. And remember, we don’t complain easily. We got there and were seated within 10 minutes. I have to say I expected the aquariums to surround all the tables in a circle, not just in the front, but it was fine, because we got a pretty good table in the second tier. We enjoyed watching the huge sea turtle and the divers for a while. Then we began to wonder where our waiter was. It was 20 minutes before he brought menus, and when he did, he literally slapped them down and walked away. We were stunned. Charlie wondered aloud if this is how DDP costumers are treated everywhere, and I started to worry too. He eventually came back for our drink orders, and we did notice that he didn’t speak English very well. We tried to excuse his behavior, which was sharp and rude the whole night, based on the language barrier, but I don’t think that was it. But it’s a consideration, anyway. We ordered, and got our salads (and veggies for the kids) fairly quickly. But then we waited, no joke, 55 minutes for our entrees. By this time, Toby is DONE sitting here, and I don’t blame him. I take him outside to look at the “mine, mine” seagulls outside of Nemo. We check every once in a while for our food. When it comes, the boys’ pizzas have chicken on them (we ordered just cheese, which he seemed to understand at the time). We can understand the language problem, so this would have been no biggie, but it had taken so long to get here! By now Toby is whimpering with hunger, and I have to send the pizzas back. They won’t eat them with the chicken, and it’s too much to pick off. Meanwhile, my mom eats her salmon, and it is raw in the center. She cannot eat it. Charlie’s steak is also raw (he asked for well done). I am still playing with Toby waiting for the pizzas. 20 minutes later, they come, and the boys eat. Toby eats, then wants out of his seat again. My mom takes him out and I eat. I have to be fair and say the veggie strudel was very good. Usually the veggie dish at a seafood or steak place is terrible, and I was expecting that, but it was good. We had to wait for dessert, because we’d promised the boys the make-your-own sundaes. When ordering, the waiter asks about the steak and salmon, and we explain they were raw in the middle. He tries to say salmon is supposed to be. No. We are from the northwest…we know how to prepare salmon. He offers to bring a new one, but we decline…it just takes too long and the kids need to get going. We get dessert which is good. Meanwhile, Toby has ridden Nemo two more times, so bonus for him! The other boys are wilting in their seats after almost a 2 hour meal at the end of the day, but they are good and hang in there. In the end, the waiter comped my mom’s salmon, even though we didn’t ask him to. That was nice. Maybe it was just an off night with an off waiter, but that meal made us very worried about the rest of our TS meals. As it was, my poor mom was sick all night from the salmon.

We headed out and home on the bus. We were frustrated, because before that long meal, we were feeling pretty rested and together. Now, the kids were beyond tired. To make matters worse, we got off on the wrong bus stop, got disoriented in POR, and walked forever to find our rooms. Duh! So our first day seemed very long and tiring toward the end. We vowed to make sure we took breaks BEFORE we thought we’d need them from then on. And in a moment of panic about TS, I cancelled our ’Ohana ADR for the next day. I thought we’d rather just eat two CS meals. In the end, it was a good decision for other reasons, but we never had another bad TS meal, so we probably would have been fine!

Up next, MK and Wishes!

[icebrat001]

can't wait to read more.

[OhMari]

TGM-Member here too.

I was so tempted to try to the Choral Reef, but I have not made my ADR.

Anyway, I to heard about the climbers and I know they stopped looking for the last 2 climbers. How sad-it seemed to be in the news everyday with hope and now we don't hear anything.

[wrldpossibility]

OhMari,

Yes, that search was sad. It wasn't in my county, so I would not have been a part of it even if we were home, but I read the paper every day in WDW to get news on it. There comes a time when searches must end, for the safety of the searchers, when all probable chance is gone. It's a tough situation. :sad1:

[Backstage_Gal]

Wonderful report so far, can't wait to see how the rest of your trip went.

Thanks!

[wrldpossibility]

Tues. Dec. 12th:


Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

I loved seeing you yesterday at Chef Mickey’s!

Today head straight to the castle and ride some rides!
Fight some pirates and learn how to fly.
In the evening there’s something new to try:
race with coconuts and see fireworks light up the sky!

Pluto


We had vowed to take it a bit easier today, not criss-crossing through the park or pushing it too far. I’d say we did well. We were able to get up earlier, thanks to going to bed early the night before and being a bit more adjusted to EST. We had breakfast in our rooms and were ready to catch the MK bus at 8:15 for rope drop. We did this morning by the book…any book. They all say to get there by rope drop and get to Fantasyland ASAP if you have little children in tow. We arrived in time to see the opening ceremony at the train station, which nearly made me cry. Why? I have no idea. I never got to DL in time to see this as a child, and I was just so glad my kiddos got to. They enjoyed it, but I don’t think anyone else shed a tear. Their loss.

Anyway, we got to Fantasyland and headed straight to Dumbo. Why? Because you have to, that’s why. It’s a staple of the Disney canon, and must be done. There was a 5 minute wait. No problem, except that I’m constantly stressing about the OTHER FL rides, you know, the good ones, that are completely empty right now. Toby loves Dumbo. It turns out that he loves all the circular up, down, and around rides. Aladdin and Triceratop Spin are high on his list too. Once we’ve taken the obligatory picture of Toby waving from high above FL in his little elephant, we cross Dumbo off our list and head for Pooh. Another winner. I love this ride. At the exit, my mom subcombs to the Disney marketing pull and buys Toby a Pooh baseball hat with Pooh ears. It’s very cute. As a side note: my mom has very specific rules pertaining to the buying she can do for the kids. Otherwise, she will spoil them rotten…and I do mean rotten. They have their aforementioned spending money, and in addition, my mom is allowed to buy hats, t-shirts, and any stocking stuffers. That’s it. She tries to break the rules many times, but Charlie and I are cold as stone. We have very specific categories of souvenirs, and a budget for each. Otherwise we know we’ll buy too much junk and have whiny, spoiled, entitled kiddos. And THAT’S not a picture I want to see in the scrapbook.

So now Toby has his parent-approved hat and we go to Peter Pan. Another favorite. IMO, you really can’t go wrong at FL unless it’s really crowded. It’s not. We walk on all these rides. Next we see Small World, and Nate wants to try it. All the adults make cynical, sarcastic comments. We all hate Small World, but for Nate we go. And go again, because he has fallen in love with it. I told you he’s sensitive and sweet. We even bought the ride music later in the trip (that fell under the “family souvenir“ category, if you‘re wondering). Now you know we really are insane.

We moved on to the teacups and Pooh again. Still no lines at all. I don’t know if this is because it’s a “green day” or just the time of year, but we’re loving it. I try to get everyone to go to Philharmagic, but no one gets what it is, and since DL doesn’t have it, everyone balks. Not a very adventuresome group, I tell ya. It’s almost 10, so we decide to head over to Toontown.

On the way, we see Chicken Little. Nate and Calvin liked that movie, so we stop and get autographs. Toby loves characters and autographs, so he gets his little book out and is game. They were wearing cute Disney shirts with their names on them (thanks NickandJuliasmom!!) and Chicken Little made a big deal about them. Here’s a pic of their shirts, taken that morning outside our room:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN8987.jpg

We arrived at Toontown just a few minutes after 10, and Charlie, Nate, and Calvin go on the barnstormer (we don’t have that at DL either, but we do have the Go-Go Coaster, which I told them is similar, and they love that). Barnstormer is a hit. In the meantime, Toby, my mom and I have toured Minnie’s house (Toby was annoyed that he couldn’t move any of the objects in her house) and were playing at the little play area. My kids love play areas, and I spent a lot of time convincing them we needed to do rides when the lines were non-existent instead of playing. They didn’t want to get autographs, since we’d gotten this group’s twice already, at character connection and CM. Instead, we headed to the railroad station to take the train around to Frontierland. Today, we’re following our touring plan almost to the letter, and it’s working for us, baby.

When the train arrives, the boys decide they want to sit in the very back. It turns out to be a wise choice, because the conductor back there asks them if they’d like to yell “All Aboard” into the microphone. Of course they do! They do a great job.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN8995.jpg

They ask if she has the transportation cards, and why yes, she does! Now they have two of the four, if you’re keeping track along with them. It doesn’t take long to wrap around to FL, and we get off. First we check out Splash…wait time, 5 minutes. Then Thunder…10 minutes. We decide to try the baby swap at Thunder. It works great. First Charlie, Nate, and I go (Calvin just couldn’t get himself to go, which is too bad, because I know he would have enjoyed it. He said, “My brain is telling me I’ll fall out.”). Can’t argue with Calvin’s brain, so off we go with my mom watching Toby and Calvin. The line is more like 5 minutes, and we’re out in no time. Nate loved it. It’s his favorite from DL when he was 4. Still a top 5, I’d guess. We swap, so that my mom goes with Charlie and Nate again. This time they go through the FP line (baby swap). It works great. Charlie and I want to do Splash, but we get no takers from the others. Nate and Calvin took one look at the drop and crossed it off their lists. My mom isn’t a big ride person. So she takes them over to Aladdin and the treehouse and Charlie and I ride Splash alone. Not the most mature date activity, but we’ll take it. We love Splash, and don’t even get very wet.

We meet back up and head to Columbia Harbor House for lunch. It’s 11:30. When we get in line, there’s hardly anyone there, but by the time we have food it’s getting full. I conjure up my Disney knowledge from the deep recesses of my brain, and tell them all to go upstairs. There, it’s empty. Literally. We grab a table and relax. Nate and I liked the veggie chili, but the first thing I do is spill it on my white tank top. Lovely. To this day I’m trying to get the stain out. Calvin gets his tried and true mac and cheese, and Toby shares it. The kids all love the sugar-free jello they give them for dessert. They end up eating that all vacation. Go figure. In fact, we have no complaints about the kid menu in general. Some places I ordered them adult choices, but when not, they always got mac and cheese or pizza. No biggie when you’re on vacation.

After lunch we force ourselves to head back “home” to POR. We’re not too tired (yet), so we fight it, but we march ourselves out of there. It was a good decision. It doesn’t take long to get back to POR at that hour; the bus is nearly empty. We arrive back and I lay Toby down for his nap. As long as he has his sippy of milk and his beloved paci (judge away, but we can’t get it away from him yet), he’ll fall asleep whenever and wherever. The other boys put on swim suits and we all hit the pool (Charlie stays back and naps with Toby…he can sleep anywhere and anytime too). I spent almost an hour in the hot tub, loving life. Toby woke after about 1 ½ hours, and Charlie brought him over to swim (Toby loves to swim…can’t do it, but loves to try). The baby pool there was great. We bought a few noodles ($3...a Disney bargain!) and he played in there most of the time. It was warm enough for us as long as we could take breaks in the hot tub. At 3 we dragged ourselves away from Ol Man Island, changed and grabbed a snack. We were at the bus stop by 3:30 to head back to MK.

I’ll stop here and say that one mistake I made when planning this trip was to purchase park hoppers. I love park hoppers at DL, where the two parks are so close, and for some reason I envisioned us hopping a lot here too. We didn’t. In fact, we hopped only twice. So with a little planning, I could have saved money on that. Live and learn.

Getting back to MK took a little longer than anticipated, because there were several scooters they needed to load. I will not get into a handicapped/scooter debate with you fine people (I have seen the aftermath of that before on the DIS), but I will say that regardless of whether they are abused/needed, the problem to me seems to lie in how long it takes the driver to get the scooters loaded. It does seem like there could be a faster system. That said, we developed our own system for reducing our wait time if a scooter is loaded at a park heading back to POR. We simply get off at the first stop at POR (we are the 3rd stop usually) to avoid waiting on the bus while it’s unloaded. Sometimes it took over 10 minutes. We walk further, but don’t wait with a squirmy toddler on the bus. If we didn’t have said squirmy toddler, it wouldn’t be a big deal to wait at all. IMO, the whole thing is not a big deal, but maybe that’s because we didn’t experience really crowded buses or long wait times.

Anyway, we’re back at the MK, it’s about 4, and we know we want to see Wishes at 6 that night. So your trusty HBIC is running the numbers in her head: Wishes at 6, find a spot at 5:30, eat dinner at 5, hmmm. Charlie teased me the whole trip for constantly looking at my watch and doing math while walking through parks. But hey, someone had to do it. We decided we had time for Pirates and Jungle Cruise (another family favorite). There was no line for Pirates, and Jungle took about 10 minutes. I will stop here to say that we all really enjoyed the changes to Pirates. It was just enough--not enough change to truly alter our beloved Pirates, but just enough to update it. We are fans of the movies, though, so take that into account.

Turned out we had time for Aladdin again for Toby before going to eat dinner at Peco Bills. This was the night we were supposed to be at ‘Ohana, but now I was glad I cancelled it because we would not have had time to do any other rides or even re-enter MK. We would have tried to see Wishes from ‘Ohana, which would have been fun, but since we have never seen it (gasp, I know…we never stayed for it in DL, because we were there during spring break when we took the kids and it was too darn late…and pre-kids, fireworks were just not on our radar) we wanted to view them in the park. Peco Bills was ok. I know lots of people love it, but the veggie burgers were pretty bad. It’s not hard to make good veggie burgers…you just have to get a decent brand. You can’t mess them up after that. But Charlie and my mom liked their burgers. I made the boys eat half their veggie burgers just so they wouldn’t be hungry. The topping bar was good though, I have to say.

We were done at 5:40 and headed for the castle. I know you’re not supposed to view Wishes right there if you’re a savvy DISer or TGMer. I had been properly trained to go elsewhere, but when we crossed by the castle, the show was just starting. What this show is called I can’t remember…Dreams or Magical Dreams…I’m just guessing here, but it must have the word “magical” in it somewhere, right? Anyway, the kids plopped down right in front of the castle to watch it. All the characters, even princesses (the only ones we’d see all trip), music and dancing. Perfect. I gave up on finding the perfect viewing location and went to get Mickey bars. See, this is one of those times you have to roll with the punches. I had a place I wanted to go to watch, but I hadn’t anticipated the kids would want to watch that show. Even though I’m a planner at heart, I really tried to let the kids be spontaneous when I could…and I was so glad I did. They loved the show and the bars. We used a LOT of wet wipes. After, we moved down the street with everyone else a little bit, and settled down for Wishes. I should mention that the whole time we were finding a spot for the show and getting the snacks, Charlie was begging me to go with him on rides instead, particularly Space Mountain. He views shows, parades, and fireworks as a great time to ride rides. I view them as a great time to take pictures of the kids with rapture on their little innocent faces and cry softly to myself with joy. So thus we differ.

Once Wishes started, even Charlie was amazed. We’d never seen them remember, and now we wonder why we always left before they started. We ended up buying that soundtrack later too, and we listen to it in the car. We decided to leave the park when it was over, along with everyone else. I know lots of people recommend waiting and browsing shops or sitting down until the crowd lessens, but they don’t have Toby in their group. He doesn’t do “browse” or “sit” very well. It didn’t take long to walk down Main Street though, and when we arrived at our bus stop we were amazed to get on the first bus. We were home by 7! We gave the kiddos baths and went to bed early again (yes, we’re pretty boring people—or at least pretty tired people).

Up next, Disney Studies, DTD, and Grandpa arrives

[sharonW]

What a great report!!! I'm lovin it!!:thumbsup2

[champagne27]

Great trip report - can't wait to read more!

We are going next December and my husband is giving me "that look" as I started our planning and jotting down notes already!

Looking forward to the next installment!

[kokotg]

enjoying your report! I have three small boys, too, so it's bringing back lovely memories of our september trip...

[Bari]

I'm really enjoying your trip report--I have a 7 year old who seems to be quite similar to your sweet Calvin. Am I allowed to ask a dumb question--what is a TGMer?

[swankybeth]

I'm enjoying your report. The boys are such cuties! :goodvibes

[Cory's Gal]

Amy,

Great trip report! I love hearing about what Toby likes, we will be taking my son in January and he will just be 2 years old! Your boys are so sweet, thanks for sharing your adventure!

Beth

[Nanook]

Great trip report so far - looking forward to our trip next Dec.
Thanks for the news!

[kaysmommie]

Subscribing, love your trip report so far. I want to take a December trip next year and take DD out of school a few days before break. I guess this is a good time to go. Your boys are very cute.

[wrldpossibility]

I'm really enjoying your trip report--I have a 7 year old who seems to be quite similar to your sweet Calvin. Am I allowed to ask a dumb question--what is a TGMer?

A TGMer stands for TourGuideMike. It's a planning website that gives you detailed touring plans and tells you which days (specifically) are "green", the best days to visit each park. I found it very useful. There is a $18.00 or so fee to join. Some DISers like it, some don't. Check out the website for yourself and see what you think! www.tourguidemike.com.

[wrldpossibility]

Thank you everyone for your kind feedback! We were hit with the stomach flu a few days ago, and I didn't get anything done! Yesterday I came down with it (seems unavoidable when you're caring for everyone else!), but my sweet parents took the boys to their house all day to play, so I got to lie on the couch, read a scrapbooking magazine, and get the next trippie installment done. I feel better today, so back to life as usual! :goodvibes

[amy2girls]

Great Report!! We Are Going To Por In April!

[wrldpossibility]

Wed. Dec. 13th:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

Did you have fun at ‘Ohana’s? That place is yummy!

Today Disney Studios is waiting for you!
Go in a haunted tower if you think it’d be cool!
Have lunch in a car and sing with a bear,
Then watch things explode; you won’t be scared!

Pluto

Unfortunately, Pluto didn’t get the memo that we skipped ‘Ohanas, but I explained that away pretty easily. Calvin and Toby truly believe Pluto is leaving the notes. Nate has a suspicion, and in his heart, I’m sure he knows. He even asked if it was me, but I have learned my lesson about those things. You see, last year, right before Christmas, Nate began asking all sorts of tough Santa questions. Eventually, I sat him down and asked him what HE thought. He said he thought maybe Santa wasn’t real. I didn’t want to lie outright to my son, and I could tell he was anxious about it, so I confirmed that he was right. Well, I have never heard the end of it, from anyone in my family. Nate was devastated. He cried that “all he wanted was for me to tell him Santa was real” and that “Christmas was forever ruined”. Yes, he was dramatic. Charlie and my parents shook their heads at my insistence on spoiling his holiday. I felt TERRIBLE. He wanted to believe a little longer even though his head was telling him the truth. In hindsight, I should have given him that, but at the time, I truly thought he wanted the truth. It was a rough moment. Since, he has announced the he wants to believe in Santa, and will. Mommy was wrong. Good for him. That’s his official stance for this year, and I’m not about to question it. So when he hinted around about Pluto, I kept my mouth shut.

Today we were headed for Disney Studios. First my mom had to go check out of our room-only room and check in for her package. It all went smoothly. My dad was arriving on a red-eye later that morning, so it was nice to have the room ready for him to take a quick nap.

We ate breakfast in Riverside Mill as a change from cereal, and were at the bus stop by 8:30. We were a little late for the opening ceremony, but it worked out fine. We were there just after 9. Now, when most people think of the headline attractions at DS, the ones you must get to first thing, they think of ToT or RnRC, right? Not us. Our children are bona-fide 100% Star Wars freaks. They have the figures, they have the books that describe every starship and character, they have the video games and the movies (but Mommy doesn’t let them watch them all yet). They have every light saber you can imagine, and both were Star Wars characters for Halloween the last 2 years. So you guessed it…we were making a bee-line to Star Tours.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9009.jpg

The park was not crowded, and you could see streams of people that were there heading right toward ToT and RnRC. We went left, and the first thing we saw was Lightening McQueen and Mater pull up, with music blaring and horns honking. Now, my boys’ hearts belong to Star Wars, but Cars runs closely behind. They were thrilled. Since we were the only people crazy enough to go left, we were alone with the Cars guys. We took a bunch of pictures, then they could wait for ST no more. We went over, and they rode three times in a row. Toby stood outside and ran back and forth between the Cars and the giant AT-AT (one of his first words was AT-AT…he’s being raised to love the JedI forces). The older boys then spent a good deal of time in the gift shop. They knew all along they wanted to spend a good amount of their money there. They both picked out storm trooper guns then went in together for an 8x10 photo of the Return of the JedI cover with their faces in it. The only problem was that they also needed a Princess Leia. Guess who had to fill that role? The pic is hysterical and well worth it. We asked that the guns and pic be sent to POR for us, and that was a very nice service.

Our plan was to get to the first Playhouse Disney show at 10, but we got hung up too long at Star Tours. We just missed it. Instead we went on The Great Movie Ride. Oh boy, did that ride cause us problems. In all my research, I had no idea it had a scene from Aliens in it. So if you have sensitive kids, consider this a public service announcement: The Great Movie Ride has Aliens in it. Why would Disney do that to us? For all the Star Wars love in our house, my kids are otherwise very cautious about movies and frightened very easily (which is why they haven’t seen the majority of the Star Wars movies either). They are fans of Wizard of Oz (we’ve read all the books aloud), and I knew that one was in there, so I encouraged them to go. Long story short, the alien coming out of the ceiling scared them silly, and Nate had to have an adult fall asleep next to him in bed for the next three nights. Thank you Disney.

By this time we need to meet up with Grandpa, who had arrived without problems. We see him in front of Playhouse Disney, and head with him back to Star Tours because the boys want to go again with him. When they come out, low and behold, we see Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper outside. We are in line in a flash. Our lunch ADR for Sci Fi is fast approaching, but this takes precedence.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9025.jpg

My dad ate breakfast late and isn’t hungry, so he offers to take Toby back to Playhouse Disney while we eat (Toby can eat a little later). So they head off, and the rest of us go into Sci Fi.

I love this place! How fun. We get seated right away and get a good car in the middle. The kids are quiet and sitting still, watching the screen. (Remember, I just said how they get scared easily with movies…that will come into play.) We order sandwiches and burgers, and we all like our food. The boys get their pizzas. I loved the onion rings. The kids had shakes instead of their dessert, and all was good. Toby and my dad show up, having seen Playhouse Disney. They sit down and share our meals. About ¾ through, Calvin suddenly stands up and says “Get me out of this scary restaurant!”. Nate quickly seconds it. I have to get them out so quickly I think our waiter thought we were dining and dashing. I gathered everyone up and threw my card to my mom to pay. Our waiter was so nice when he realized the kids were scared by the movies, and packed up our desserts to go (their cheesecake is awesome). It’s funny in hindsight, but I just never thought they’d think those old trailers were scary. Movies then were so poorly made compared to today, I didn’t think the realism (or lack thereof) would bother them. Oops. Bad mommy moment.

After lunch, my dad and Charlie went on ToT and RnRc (I had gathered FP during the last Star Tours visit). I have no desire to go on ToT, but I was curious what they thought of RnRC. They loved it, and I vowed to go on it later. Meanwhile, my mom and I took the kids to the ITTBAB playground. It was the best play area we found all trip. The kids loved it. We didn’t try to shadow the older two, but chased Toby around. Without any other exits, we trusted the older ones to stick together (they always do) and we eyeballed them every few minutes, telling them to meet us at the giant ant if they couldn’t find us. If anyone has a better idea of how to keep track of kids in that place, let me know!

Afterward, my mom volunteered to take Toby back to POR for his nap. It was about 1 pm. We decided to push the older ones a bit more today because they wanted to see the parade. Once Toby left, we had time to see the Lights, Motors, Action show before getting a spot for the parade. Charlie and my dad loved the show. The kids enjoyed the car scenes, but got a little bored when they were explaining things. To be honest, so did I. I would have liked it better if it were half as long. When we exited, my dad took the boys to…you guessed it…Star Tours AGAIN. There was still no wait. Charlie and I slipped off so I could ride RnRC. I should stop and say that the reason we were able to get FP for both RnRC AND ToT earlier was because we have 6 tickets, but only 3 people ever want to ride those types of rides. So we use the kids and my mom’s tickets for FP. Just to clarify. In this case, there was no wait for RnRC, so we just went right on. I loved it. Very similar in feel to California Screamin’ in CA, I think. I enjoyed the dark and the music, though.

We found a nice place for the parade across from the old aqua colored theater building on the main street. We grabbed popcorn and waited only a few minutes for it to start. It was fun to see, and the boys enjoyed taking pics. Calvin’s a regular paparazzi with his camera and those characters. Our only negative experience was the poor little boy (about 3) sitting right next to us. He was in his stroller, with his mom sitting away from him, behind, on a railing. He was SOBBING, and continued the entire parade. She completely ignored him. I’m sure it was a “time out” sort of thing, but who gives a sobbing 3 yo a 20 minute time out? It was very obvious that this was a very tired and sad little guy. He should have been napping, and it broke my heart. Of course I don’t know the whole story, but it appeared that she wanted to see the parade, and would not even comfort him. Very sad. I do have to say that we saw very little of those types of moments in the parks or resorts. I was worried I’d see lots of parents yelling and punishing tired kiddos, but I didn’t, thank goodness. Overwhelmingly, we saw polite, happy people. Just my experience. It probably helped that the weather was nice and the parks weren't crowded yet.

We left after the parade, so the kids could have some swim time. The temps were in the high 70s, and we enjoyed the pool so much. I was worried when picking a resort that we wouldn't get our "money's worth" out of a moderate or deluxe since we wouldn't be there much. But we actually used the resort a lot. I understand now why people can justify the expense of deluxes. If you are going to be there to enjoy it for at least a few hours a day, it's probably worth the money. We We left again at 5:30 to take the boat to DTD. The kids enjoyed the ride, and I loved how peaceful it was compared to the buses. We immediately ate at Earl of Sandwich, which was very yummy. The kids liked the pizza sandwich. Afterward, the kids went on the merry-go-round and watched a great street performer do magic with the Grandparents, and I snuck off to Once Upon A Toy. I had gotten each son a Star Wars potato head for Christmas, and I wanted to pick out a box of Disney parts for them to share (to put in their stockings). It was fun to pick them out, and the CM helped me get the max use out of my box.

The boys were excited to try trading pins at Pin Traders, but my mom was with them and didn’t realize that the people trading outside the shop are serious collectors and not interested in trading with kids. She said they were less than kind telling them so. That’s too bad. The kids happily went inside and traded with the CM, but the point is that the adults outside could have at least said they had nice pins and invited them to trade inside with the CM instead of blowing them off completely.

Everyone wanted to check out World of Disney, but we first stopped at the little train ride that you pay $2 to go on for little kids. Toby loves “choo choos” and wanted to go on. This is a tiny little train ride that goes in a circle, like you'd see in a mall. What proceeded was one of the most bizarre things we witnessed in WDW. We waited in line and I got on with Toby (I‘d rather have not ridden, but I was afraid he‘d fall out). Behind us, a girl who looked about 7 got on with her dad. He was a big man, probably 250 lbs and over 6 ft. Next, a mom and her 1-yr-old got on. The CM running approached the man and explained that only 2 adults can ride at a time due to weight limits, so could he please step off and watch his daughter from the side. Technically, the other mom was the last on, but she clearly had to be on to help her baby. The man refused. He said to the CM, “You’ll work it out.” He asked again, very politely, explaining more about the size of the train, etc. (To give you an idea, I am 5’4” and 130 lbs and could barely get myself in the seat.) The man then says, “Just pretend I’m a 5-year-old or I’ll begin acting like one.” It was the strangest threat I’d ever heard. And so ridiculous. His daughter just sat there like she’d seen this before. I’m not sure what the story was or why he wanted to ride at all. The CM clearly didn’t know what to do, and couldn't start the ride until it was resolved, so I offered to get off (with Toby) and wait for the next ride. The CM looked relieved and accepted, but before I could get off, the man got off in a huff. The girl rode alone with no problem. I don’t know what that was all about, but it was strange.

We went into WofD and the boys played a game of “rock, paper, scissors, CARS” with the CM. They got certificates for participating. Things like that show that special extra Disney touch. After that, we quickly realized that WofD was too overwhelming for us right now. It was getting busy, and we were getting tired. We aren’t big shoppers, and I knew we’d be back, so we headed home. We boarded the boat and I got out the glow sticks I had bought at the $ store before the trip (I try to have 3 necklaces, sticks, or wands every evening). It occupied them most the way. Toward the end of the boat ride, the captain noticed Calvin was wearing a hat with Dale on it (Grandma’s hat purchase for him). He reached out and squeezed the nose, and at the same time, he honked his airhorn. I thought Calvin was going to faint! They thought it was very funny, and the captain did it again and again. telling Calvin he had bought the "magic" Dale hat. I’m sorry if you were on that boat, because it was loud! When we reached the dock, Toby reached up to Cal’s hat and tentatively squeezed the nose. He was surprised when nothing happened. The captain noticed and did a big Honk Honk for Toby. It was great!

It was a great ending to a fun day. Up next, Animal Kingdom and our best meal of the trip…can you guess what it was?

[erikthewise]

Enjoying your report!
Our boys are 13 and 10 now, and it's fun to read about boys that are about the same age they were their first time (8 and 5).

NEXT time you go to Epcot the first day, have your table service meal at Garden Grill. We've gone there every year, and have never been disappointed. And Pluto is there!

[wrldpossibility]

Enjoying your report!
Our boys are 13 and 10 now, and it's fun to read about boys that are about the same age they were their first time (8 and 5).

NEXT time you go to Epcot the first day, have your table service meal at Garden Grill. We've gone there every year, and have never been disappointed. And Pluto is there!

And to think I almost made a GG ADR! :headache: I opted for Chef Mickey's instead, then decided I shouldn't do two character meals in one day. I wish we had done GG though...the kids couldn't get enough of the "main" characters.

[tinawv]

I see why you are partial to boys; yours are adorable. Can't wait to read more. :)

[dundeehunter]

"The boys were excited to try trading pins at Pin Traders, but my mom was with them and didn’t realize that the people trading outside the shop are serious collectors and not interested in trading with kids. She said they were less than kind telling them so. That’s too bad. The kids happily went inside and traded with the CM, but the point is that the adults outside could have at least said they had nice pins and invited them to trade inside with the CM instead of blowing them off completely. "


I had the same exact feeling last year when we took our daughters there for our 1st pin trading experience. I wanted to go back and tell the short little guy off, but my DH held me back. Thanks for the report. We leave in 19 days with my 2 DD. Sorry that you had a bad experience with Coral Reef. I'm not going to make an ADR, we are going to try to wing it.

[OhMari]

"The boys were excited to try trading pins at Pin Traders, but my mom was with them and didn’t realize that the people trading outside the shop are serious collectors and not interested in trading with kids. She said they were less than kind telling them so. That’s too bad. The kids happily went inside and traded with the CM, but the point is that the adults outside could have at least said they had nice pins and invited them to trade inside with the CM instead of blowing them off completely. "


I had the same exact feeling last year when we took our daughters there for our 1st pin trading experience. I wanted to go back and tell the short little guy off, but my DH held me back. Thanks for the report. We leave in 19 days with my 2 DD. Sorry that you had a bad experience with Coral Reef. I'm not going to make an ADR, we are going to try to wing it.


I don't want to hijack the thread, but I just saw "dundeehunter" you are my neighbor, I live over in Lomira. Make some ADR's, at least to your favorite resturant.

[wrldpossibility]

Thurs. Dec. 14th--

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

Did you do any shopping last night? Did you play with legos?

Today you’ll have jungles and animals on the brain,
And go down a mountain on a runaway train!
Dinosaurs will chase you; make sure you duck and dodge!
Then eat dinner in an African lodge!

Pluto

This morning is our Animal Kingdom day. Since we’re Disneylanders, we have never seen anything like AK (we don’t count the Animal Safari a few hours from our home). We are very excited for this park. We eat in our room and are there for rope drop. We keep getting to the North Depot bus stop right when the bus we want is arriving. The others call it amazing luck, and I keep trying to tell them their awesome HBIC does not need luck. In reality, yes, it’s luck. We get to the park and I have to get a picture of everyone by the AK tree. This is my favorite tree the whole trip. I have to admit that I made my family, or whoever I could grab at the moment, take a picture by every Christmas tree I saw. I was envisioning a breathtaking scrapbook layout of Disney Christmas trees and my beloved family--in reality, I cut the tops off most the trees and Toby is trying to run away out of every frame. I still plan to scrapbook it. Here’s one of my “winners”:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9045.jpg

We go through the turnstiles and go left. Our plan is to walk together through the Oasis area, veering left, and then head to Safari after the opening ceremony. While we did that, Charlie was running (I mean walking quickly) to EE to get FP. My original plan was to go to EE first with everyone, ride standby, then get FP, then go to Kali, but this was before I realized what wimps my boys would be with rides. So we want to start with something they will enjoy.

I love the opening ceremony with the characters on the bus in their safari gear. I have a sinking feeling I’m the only one in our party who loves these little shows, but this will not stop me from dragging everyone out of bed to see them. When we arrived at Safari, there was a 10 minute line. We moved through very quickly, and enjoyed it. The kids worried about the poachers, but survived ok. Toby was squirmy, but we saw a lot of animals, and it kept his attention well.

We then met up with Charlie outside Safari and all walked over to EE, by going through Asia. We are loving this park! The theming, vegetation, architecture…it’s all wonderful. My sister and her husband just honeymooned in Africa, so we take some pics of the African village near Safari to show what a “cleaned up” Disney version looks like. Secretly, I’m just jealous, because I’d love to go to Africa. As we pass Kali, Charlie wants to try it. It’s still only about 9:30, and kind of cool, but there’s no wait. In the surprise of the week, Calvin says he wants to go too. The kid who is afraid of falling out of rides wants to go on a water inner tube? Huh? We show him the people going by, and he’s still game. I get out one of my $ store ponchos, and put it on him. I know he may get mad later if he’s wet all day. Charlie, and my dad who decided to join the Kali team, are too manly for ponchos. Whatever.

We watch them go by (at the end of their ride), and Calvin is beaming. Go figure! We enjoyed watching the monkeys in their habitats while we waited for them.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9053.jpg

We head on our way to EE (oh, and Charlie and my dad were both soaked from Kali…serves them right), and take turns riding it with our FP. The standby line is 30 minutes, and while that doesn’t sound terrible, it still makes us wonder why anyone would waste 30 minutes of their day when there is FP to be had. We wonder that a lot. We all ride EE (the adults anyway) and we all love it. Love it, love it! Here is one of our groups going down:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9054.jpg

I’m not a huge fan of intense steel frame roller coasters, but if you add a good theme and some creativity, I love it. So I’m happy with EE. It’s all of our favorite ride all trip (RnRC comes close, though). We head next to DinoLand. What a dump. Seriously, with all the rest of beautiful AK, this land stands out in a bad way. Maybe it’s because I hate carnivals and arcades, though. Unfortunately, my kids love carnival games, so while my dad and Nate go on Whirl, Calvin, Toby and I play a few games. I pay $6 to throw 3 balls in a b-ball hoop because Toby loves b-ball, and the guy won’t even let him throw it (he’s not tall enough to do it without standing on the counter, which is a no-no. So I kind of hold him up so he can throw. Big waste of $, of course. Meanwhile, Calvin wins at the horseracing game, and has a stuffed frog. We wander back over the Whirl to see if Nate and Dad are off yet. There was no line when they entered. We notice that the line is now backed up, and no ride vehicles are going. Great…it’s broken, we think. But in a moment it starts going again, and Nate and my dad come off beaming. It turns out the line was stopped because when Nate got to the front, the Dream Team (or whatever it’s called) decided to give them Dream FastPasses! They are very excited (especially because I didn’t tell my kids about the whole “dream” theme of the year…I didn’t want them to start expecting a prize).

The kids wanted to play in the Boneyard, so we did that for about 30 minutes. It was luckily not crowded. At 11:15, we decided to beat the lunch rush and head to Pizzasafari. I don’t know if we were just very hungry, but this was one of the best CS meals we ate. We all loved the pizza. The only downside was that I used too many CS credits, because I didn’t realize each meal was a whole mini pizza…I thought it was just a slice. The kids could have shared.

At this point, Nate wants to go on Dinosaur. (We grabbed FP on the way to lunch, and used two of the Dream FP tickets.) Now, I know what you’re all thinking…that I’m insane if I think this kid can handle Dinosaur. But you have to know two things: first, we’d never been, remember, and second, my kids love dinosaurs almost as much as Star Wars. These kids who are afraid of parts of The Lion King will watch Discovery Channel documentaries on T-Rexes devouring Stegosauruses. I figured it couldn’t get any more violent than that. Of course, I was wrong.

Calvin wisely opted out (this was apparently one of those rides he could fall out of) and Nate, Charlie, my dad, and I all went to Dinosaur. We enjoy the pre-show, and Nate figures out that we’ll have to fight through the meteor (or whatever) to get back to present time. Everything is good. We get on the ride, and we love how it moves…it reminds us of Indiana Jones from DL (WDW needs to get that ride!). But then the procession of super scary dinos start, and Nate literally hits the floor. He is in a fetal position the whole ride. I would have enjoyed it myself if I hadn’t been so worried about him. In the ride pic at the end, you see my dad, Charlie, and me, but no Nate. He is completely out of view on the floor. Poor guy. His assessment: “This wasn’t like watching a dinosaur movie. It was like being IN one.” Lesson learned.

We next met up with the others (they had returned to the Boneyard) and went to see the Nemo musical. We waited in line about 5 minutes before being led into the theater. I guess we timed that right. I was worried that it would be too long for Toby, but he loved it. We knew the rest of us would, because we had all gone to Portland (OR) to see The Lion King musical designed by the same composers, and it was breathtaking. This wasn’t as big a production, obviously, but it was very good. Our only problem was that ¾ of the way through, an announcement was made that there was a technical problem and the show would have to end. So we never saw the end.

We exit the theater and it’s pouring rain. All of a sudden, everyone is completely worn out. My kids seem to combust quickly and with no warning. It’s only 1:30, and I had planned to spend the whole day at AK without a break, since it closed at 5 and we had a dinner ADR at Boma. But out of nowhere, everyone was just DONE. I wanted to view the animal trails, go on EE again, and see the characters, but it’s clearly not going to happen. I have to let it go.

We head to the exit, and we find a deserving-looking family with older kids to give the Dream FP to…we figured older kids would get more use out of the EE ones. After going through the turnstiles, we see Baloo and Turk, and the boys get a second wind. We get great pics with them, since we’re some of the only people there at 1:30 pm. We take the bus “home” and take a swim break. Toby naps. I had time to do two loads of laundry, which was necessary since we’d brought equal amounts of shorts and pants, and were only wearing shorts.

We left for AKL at 4:45 for our 5:40 ADR. We got there in time to look at the animals from the lobby overlook. It was dusk, and we could see giraffes, zebras, birds, and those little deer (what are they called?). We walked over to Boma, and had the best meal of our trip. We all loved it. I especially loved the peanut rice and falafel balls. The waiter offered to let me talk to the chef about vegetarian options, but I am pretty familiar with ethnic foods and I could see there was plenty to choose from, so I declined. We brought little containers of playdoh for Toby to occupy himself with when he was done eating, and that worked great. We just put it on a plate, and there was no mess. I find the homemade stuff makes a sticky mess, but the store bought containers don’t. The kids all loved the milk bars and zebra domes, and I loved the coconut trifle. We loved this meal!

Afterward, we wandered back into the beautiful lobby and there was a CM doing a Christmas ornament craft with the kids. For a donation to a wildlife fund, the boys could each pick out a paper animal, cut it out, decorate it with crushed, colored ostrich shells, and add an ornament hanger. They turned out very cute, and are hanging on our tree now. The lobby was peaceful with the big fire and the crafts, and we fell in love with AKL. This may be our next resort to stay in.

This isn’t a good pic, but here’s Calvin’s finished turtle ornament:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9073.jpg

In hindsight, if we had stayed at AK all day, the kids would have been tired, and we may not have had such a nice evening in AKL. So I am slowly learning to listen to my family’s needs and go with the flow. I’m glad I did that today.

Up next, Crystal Palace breakfast, MK, and WL!

[soxnation]

what a great trip!!! can not wait to hear more about the adventures with the boys!!

[peacelovemickey]

I just LOVE Pluto's notes to the boys! I am planning on stealing your idea next trip!

[Hendoendo]

My wife and I stayed in Bldg 36 on our honeymoon in October and loved the pool right outside our door. We also loved the quiet and seclusion at POR. I initially wanted to stay in the Mansions but loved Alligator Bayou

[Cass]

Your boys are so sweet, I had to smile when they were scared at the Sci Fi restaurant and wanted OUT!!

I love the notes from Pluto too, I wish Pluto would leave me notes LOL

Thanks for the detailed report, I'm really enjoying it

[wrldpossibility]

Fri. Dec. 15:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

Did you eat a Zebra Dome last night? See any animals?

Wake up early this morning; there’s lots to do!
Go straight to the Magic Kingdom and eat with Winnie-the-Pooh!
Ride rides, then the monorail; there are Christmas trees to see!
Have dinner in a wild place, and ask for ketchup please!

Pluto

This morning was our first justified opportunity to use the wake-up call feature. We needed to be up by 6:30 for our 8:05 ADR at Crystal Palace. The night before, I explained to the boys that it would be a character who was on the phone. When it rang at 6:30, they were actually still asleep, and Nate told me, “Can you get that, Mom?”. It figures that kids who get up before 6 am at home, when I want to sleep, will sleep-in at Disney. I hit the speaker-phone button and we all listen to the wake-up call. Stitch. Ugh. We are not Stitch fans.

I eventually get everyone out of bed at to the bus stop by 7:20. No other people, and no buses. I knew I had read that buses start coming by 6:30 for early character breakfasts, but as my mom pointed out, the sign hanging in the North Depot clearly stated that buses begin running 1 hour before park opening. I start to worry that I was wrong. We wait. It’s now 7:30...a long 10 minutes. No buses have come by. I start to devise a plan where I run to the main depot, see if there are any buses running there, then call the others to run over. Not the best laid plan, but it’s all I got. Just when I’m starting to really panic that the “lesser” depots do not do early service, low and behold, the MK bus comes. Whew.

We were at Mk at 8, which is cutting it a little close for our 8:05 ADR. However, I still made the family pose for a few pictures in the almost empty MK. Now, I don’t know why my family is phobic of Photopass people, but they all acted like they had the plague. Even though I explained the Photopass system, no one would ever stop to have our photo taken by them. My dad is a photographer, and insisted he could get better shots. Maybe, but the whole point is that everyone is IN them! This is a battle I lost, and which I still regret. I have exactly 3 photopass pics. Here is one of us in MK, minus me, of course:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9074.jpg

I got a few other good pics of the kids by the castle, and we still made it to CP by 8:05 (we are a family of speed walkers). I gave our name, and we’re called right away. We are seated in the center of the left room, which is a great place to see all the characters walk around. The only bad part is that the characters circle the outside of the room first, and then come into the middle. Which meant that Toby had to see them pass right by us without stopping for us over and over until they finally made it to the center. It was hard to explain that to him! But we got our food right away, and yum! I loved that breakfast lasagna. I’m glad I had read about it here, or else I probably wouldn’t have tried it. (It’s custard with a muffin base, berries, bananas, a caramelized topping, and more that I can’t recall.) Yum, yum, and yum. The boys liked the fried “French toast”, which to me seemed just like a donut. This was a very good breakfast buffet. Piglet came right away, followed by Tigger. Then we waited for a long time for Pooh, while Toby watched him circle and called and waved pitifully. Luckily Eeyore came over and did the parade thing, which Toby loved. We marched around. Here’s a pic of Toby and me. (I know when I read trip reports I like to see a pic of the poster, but we moms are usually not in many photos. So I’ll be brave--here’s me.)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9082copy.jpg

Finally we get Pooh, and Toby is in heaven (he still looks down at his feet, though). In the intersest of full disclosure, should stop and admit that during this breakfast, Calvin was being a pill. I don’t know if it’s a middle-child thing, or just his stubborn personality, but sometimes he simply decides he’s too old for something. He always wants to be big like Nate and separate himself from the “baby” things that Toby enjoys. Nate was happy to get the Hundred-Acre-Wood gang’s siggies and pose with Toby, but Calvin refused. Pooh bear was “Baby”…which is Calvin’s B word. He sat in stony silence and refused to be in a single pic or get a single siggie. Basically he acted like a mini-teenager. When he does this stuff, we completely ignore it, but I was annoyed none the less.

We are done at CP at about 5 til 9, and by the time we’ve walked over to the castle hub the park is opening. Since we’d already done FL, our plan was to go straight to Tomorrowland. Remember how badly Charlie’s been wanting to do Space Mountain? It’s because we both went on it as kids, but ever since, whenever one or both of us have been to DL, it’s been closed for repairs. He remembers it as his favorite ride. We get into Tomorrowland and Charlie gets FP for Space while the rest of us go to the Speedway. I have to say I hate the Speedway. It always has an ineffective loading system and breaks down. Today does not disappoint. The kids love riding in these cars, though, so I want to knock it off early before there’s a long line. We are second in line today. It still takes 10 minutes to get on. Enough said.

After breathing exhust for 20 minutes on the lovely Speedway, we meet up with Charlie and all go to Buzz. We have not been to DL since this opened there, and all the boys’ little friends who have gone rave about this ride. It has no line, and does not disappoint. Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is, but the kids all love it. We go again. We compare scores (Daddy: 250,000 or something, Mommy: 500). Mommy sucks at anything and everything video game or shooting related. I think Toby outscored me. It was fun though!

We know we don’t want to try Stitch (this one I’d actually been warned was scary), and the boys want to go back to the Pooh playground area (told you they love those things). My mom offers to take them there, and ride a few more FL rides with them while my dad, Charlie, and I go on Space. We’ll meet up on Tom Sawyer’s Island, a family favorite. We head to Space and there’s a 20 minute line. We use our FP of course. Did it live up to Charlie’s expectations? Let’s just say that we got off that ride feeling OLD. My hip hurt, Charlie’s knees hurt, my dad’s neck hurt. We never remembered that ride being so jerky and bumpy! I guess when you’re 8 you just don’t feel it. I still like the ride, but it was basically just painful. Poor Charlie; he was so looking forward to it!

I go to join my mom and the kids and my dad and Charlie go ride Thunder, since my dad wasn’t with us when we did it the other day. I’m lucky my dad and husband get along so well. They really are good friends. I have to explain that Charlie and I grew up together in a very small town. We’ve known each other since the 3rd grade, believe it or not. My dad was a teacher then at the local jr/sr high school (our town was so small there’s wasn’t a junior high). He was Charlie’s 7th grade history teacher. Let’s just say Charlie hadn’t quite matured back in the good ole 7th grade…he was an obnoxious class clown. He drove my dad crazy on a daily basis. If someone had told him then that this little punk would someday be his son-in-law, I don’t know what he would have done. Luckily for all of us, Charlie grew out of the punk phase, and all was well by the time we started dating. But he is very much like a son to my dad, since he saw him grow up.

Anyway, I find my mom and the kids by checking for our stroller at every ride (I put a lime green bandana on the handle, which really helped distinguish it from the other million navy and red Macs in the parks.) We all head to Tom Sawyer’s Island. It’s not crowded yet, and I tell the kids about the paintbrushes they hide. It’s only 10:30, so I think we may have a chance at finding one. We don’t, but we have fun looking. We all love the caves and fort, and Toby is in heaven to be able to run, run, run.

By the time we’re heading back, more people are pouring onto the island, so we wait a while for a raft. The older boys find checkers and play. This is one of my favorite pics because it shows them enjoying the moment and not running to the next thing:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9092.jpg

When we arrive back on the “mainland”, the kids want to go back to Aladdin (remember Toby loved those circular rides). My dad and I want check out Haunted Mansion, and see how it differs from the DL version. I don’t know if it’s just been awhile since I’ve been on it, or if the WDW version is different, but I don’t like (or remember) it being so dark (physically). It’s a little scarier than I remember, and I’m glad the kids opted out. We meet up yet again, and see The Country Bears. The boys love the Country Bears movie, and they love this too. Except Toby: it’s only 11:30, but he falls asleep. So much for napping at POR. We get him into his stroller asleep, and decide to eat lunch in the park before heading back on the bus. We walk to Cosmic Rays. By this time, it’s almost noon, so we’ve broken our “eat before 11:30” rule that works so well for us. It’s crowded, and I’m surprised to see there are not veggie burgers. In fact, there’s nothing the kids want to eat. I order the veggie wrap for myself (it’s good) and run over to FL to find something from another CS for the boys. By this time, I’m hungry and tired, and don’t remember that Pinocchio place is over here. I grab the candied almonds and some smoothies from a snack cart and head back. The boys are more than happy with their lunch, so go figure.

We eat, and Toby is still asleep in the stroller. The others want to go back and swim, but I know the bus ride will wake Toby early. So they go back and I decide to push Toby around MK and take in the sights. I am happy to do this…I plan to look in a few stores on Main Street and maybe get a Dole Whip before he wakes. Um, no. No sooner have the others waved goodbye, and he’s up. And cranky. So instead of a leisurely walk through MK, I am hustling to the buses with a crying toddler. We get back to POR and he enjoys swimming. This refreshes him. He especially loves the toddler pool, because he can crawl through with his head up and call it “swimming”.

Our plan for the evening is to eat at Whispering Canyon Café, but to take the monorail loop around to see the decorations at the resorts beforehand. We leave POR at 4 (our ADR is at 6:40). It doesn’t take us long to get on the monorail. We skip the CR, since we’d seen it when we went to CM. We ride around to the Poly and get off. I don’t know if we missed something, but we didn’t see any impressive decorations here. It was kind of blah. We’ve been to the real Hawaii several times, and the Poly just didn’t do it for us. So at this point, everyone else is wondering why I got them out of the POR pool to do this. I promise them it will be better at the GF.

We get off there, and it is. We love it…very impressive. The kids enjoy seeing the gingerbread house, and we get some good pics by the tree. I love the GF right away. We see a bride and her bridesmaids, which is fun. We look around, but it doesn’t take us long. We’re back to the boat launch for WL by 5:15. I was hoping to time it around 6, so we could see Wishes (at 6) from the boat. Timing all this stuff is harder than it looks! I remember that I had read on the DIS that you could see Wishes from some 4th floor outlook at WL, so I decide we can see them there. We jump aboard (the captain has the transportation trading cards, score!) and we’re at WL by 5:45.

The kids play on the playground on the beach while I go ask about this mysterious overlook. I go past the pool and into the lobby. I am loving these grounds. The theming is very similar to the “real” lodges we have out West, and it reminds me that I want to take the kids to Crater Lake Lodge and Hood Mt. next summer. I go to the concierge desk, and ask if there is a location to see the MK fireworks here. She confirms that, yes, you can view them from the “4th Floor Overook”. Just take the elevator to level 4, and “you can’t miss it”. Ok! I gather my family and we head up. We get to the 4th floor, and see two decks, on opposite sides of the building. We proceed to have a family argument about which direction MK is from WL. Basically no one really knows. Now it’s 6. What proceeds is a comedy sketch of us running from side to side trying to see Wishes. The bottom line: we can’t see them from either side. We see there’s now a line at the concierge desk, and we’re too proud to go back and ask again anyway. Finally, Charlie thinks he figures out where MK is, and takes us on an unofficial tour of the corridors of WL, twisting and turning through the halls until we find a single window that looks out over MK. If we peel the blinds back, we can see Wishes. It’s all very pathetic. I should have remembered the room numbers nearby though, because those would be the views to have at WL. We quickly tire of holding the kids up to the window to peer through the slats, and go back down into the lobby. So now it’s time to ‘fess up: what DISer told me I could see Wishes from an overlook, and where the heck is it? We swear they were not visible from the two obvious decks. Or are you all (and the concierge) having a good time laughing at me right now?

At any rate, my family sure had fun laughing at me, and they got a lot of mileage out of that one. I told them it was my early Christmas gift to them. We had some time before our WCC ADR, so the kids watched some cartoons in the lobby, then played with the tinker toy table by WCC. I checked in early, but no luck getting seated early. We sat down at almost 7. We got out the playdoh for Toby again, which was a lifesaver since he was getting cranky. We had a great waiter—I wish I could remember his name. He took the kids under his wing and prompted them to ask for all kinds of things, from straws to ketchup. The boys loved it. Nate wanted to order a skillet because he loves mashed potatoes and corn. I figured he could just work around the meat. When we ordered, Charlie asked that the meat be left out so it wasn’t wasted. Our waiter said he was a vegetarian too, and brought Nate an awesome skillet with extra mashed potatoes, veggies, and corn. We all loved the cornbread and salad, and Charlie ordered the nachos, which he said were good. I got the veggie stew, and that was good too. Calvin and Toby shared their usual mac and cheese.

By the time we were ready for dessert, Toby was tired and squirmy, and Calvin and Nate were tired. I ordered our dessert to go and took the kids back to watch cartoons while the others finished. While we were watching, this little girl (18 months, it turned out) came over and began kissing Toby over and over. She was basically attacking him. It was really funny, but all I could think about was whether she was going to get him sick. By they time everyone else was done, it was 8:30, and we were all so beat we decided to call a taxi instead of taking the boat and bus back. We asked for one at bell services, and instead of calling us a cab, they had a WL van pull up outside and drive us back at no charge. Again, only in Disney would you get that kind of customer service. In the end, we got our wires crossed and my mom and I both tipped the driver generously, so we way overtipped, but we were glad to. It was so nice to get back to POR in 10 minutes! I don’t know if WL does this a lot, or if we just looked really tired, but it was so nice.

Up next, more AK and Spectro!

[tinawv]

I see where your boys get their blue eyes. ;) Can't wait to read more.

[wrldpossibility]

Sat. Dec. 15th:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

Now you’ve seen all the parks! Which park is your favorite?

Today ride in a race car and fly like a hang glider!
Learn about gravity and feel a little lighter!
Rest by the pool if the weather is nice,
Then head for the castle for a parade with bright lights!

Pluto
As you can probably deduce from Pluto's note, today we had planned to head back to Epcot. However, since we felt we did most of FW the first day (I don’t know how I could have forgotten to mention that we also fit both Innovations in…my kids’ cup of tea--they loved the fire safety house), we decided to head back to AK. After getting up early the morning before, we let the kids sleep in and walked to Riverside Mill for breakfast. We were at the depot at 9, and strolled into AK at 9:30. It was nice to have done most of it already; my blood pressure was normal, and I wasn’t sweating to get to rope drop.

We went straight to Africa (with my dad getting FP for EE). The rest of us grabbed two FP for Nate and Charlie go on Safari later, and we hit the Africa animal trail (I know that’s not the real name, is it?). At this point, I have to stop to give a bit of exposition. You see, while we all ate a nice breakfast at Riverside Mill, Toby refused to eat anything. Sometimes he does that. So he hasn’t eaten all morning. I do have one pancake in my backpack I saved from breakfast. Trust me, this will come into play.

We start down the trail and everyone loves the monkeys (yes, we read the signs at the time and knew the correct names of the various species, but out of laziness, in my trippie, they will all be called monkeys). We get to the hippos, and Toby suddenly loses it. I mean LOSES it. At this point in my report, anyone who has not ever had a 2-year-old will shake their head and wonder what kind of animal I’m raising. The rest of you will understand if I simply tell you this was a mother of a toddler tantrum. I don’t remember what started it at the time (not getting to the underwater hippo viewing area quickly enough, perhaps?), but he started screaming in frustration and running away from us. I chase him. It’s definitely embarrassing. I pick him up and hold him to calm him down, and he begins hitting me. Now I’m embarrassed and in pain. By this time he’s hysterical, and I just need to get him out of the area. I walk out the door from the hippos, which places me directly into the aviary. I don’t know that though. All I know is that he is hungry, and if I feed him, he’ll stop behaving like a monster. I quickly reach into my backpack and get out the pancake. Just as I’m tearing off a piece, a CM approaches me and tells me I can’t have food in the bird sanctuary. Toby is still squirming hysterically in my arms. I can bearly hear her, but I do look around and notice for the first time that I’m in a netted aviary. Opps. I tell her I didn’t realize, and of course I shouldn’t have food in there, and put it away. At this point, she’s moved past the food violation and is sizing up Toby. I begin to wonder if there’s a noise ordinance, too. But no, she’s very kind, and proceeds to try to distract Toby. She gives him a bird guide, and tries to point out the birds. I kind of just wish she’d leave us alone, since Toby is still sobbing, and I just want to take care of it, but amazingly, her distraction works. He calms down and begins pointing at the birds. She wanders away, but I wanted to run after her and explain that I usually don’t have an out-of-control child whom I’m trying to illegally feed in an animal habitat. I doubt she’d believe me anyway!

I still decide that Toby is unstable at best, so when the others walk into the bird area, I tell them I’m going to speed through with Toby so I can give him a snack, and would meet them at the end of the trail. We do that, and as soon as we’re sitting on a bench by the Planet Watch sign, Toby devours the whole pancake in about 30 seconds. I also had a juice box, and he downs that. The kiddo was just starving, but didn’t realize it. I wish he wouldn’t pull that fasting/tantrum stunt, but it still seems to be a favorite trick of his.

The others emerge, and my dad is back from getting EE FP. We notice that it’s decidedly more crowded in AK today. We figured the crowds would pick up today (Sat.) and so far it seems to be true. We decide to all go on Rafiki’s Planet Watch to the Conservation Station. (Nate and Charlie go on Safari with FP and meet us.) Now, I had heard this area was just a glorified petting zoo, and a waste of time, but I figured my kids would dig the educational stuff. They’re goofy that way. I was right. They love the talking trash can (is that other places, or only at Planet Watch?) and Conservation Station. The vets there were doing a live surgery to remove a tumor from some animal, and it was cool to watch. We saw Rafiki (the kids are Lion King fans) and Toby loved the petting zoo. (The zoo was probably a waste of time…you can do that anywhere, but he loved it, so we stayed none-the-less). We spent a good deal of time here, then decided to eat lunch early (11:15).

We took the train back from Planet Watch and decided to eat at Tusker House. We literally had to wade through crowds to get through Africa. I was worried TH would be crowded, but it was almost empty (eating before 11:45 is the best tip I can give!). We really loved the food here. My dad loved it so much it became a running joke on our trip. He just couldn’t stop fawning over his salmon (best green beans he’d EVER eaten, he claimed). I got the veggie sandwich, and it was yummy too. The boys probably had mac and cheese, so it was lost on them, but we all enjoyed it. It was a nice break from the usual unhealthy stuff. (Although I must say, I can count on one hand the number of times I ate the typical fast food type fare on this trip…we were pretty healthy. Now dessert was another matter.)

After eating, we walked to EE and Charlie, my dad, and I went one more time on EE while my mom took the kids back to the Boneyard. At EE, the standby line was now 60 minutes. We had our usual insightful (not) conversation about why more people don’t use FP. We met up with the others quickly and decided to go back to POR to swim and nap.

Going back to rest every day truly saved us this trip. I don’t think we could have gone day after day without it. For that reason alone, staying onsite is worth it, I think. Toby napped, then we all swam. When we entered our room, mousekeeping had come and set up all the kids’ new stuffed animals to look like they were watching TV. It was very cute:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9114.jpg

Charlie and my dad had a Gonzaga basketball game they were hoping to watch that night (big fans…Charlie and I were both in college in Spokane WA when Gonzaga first broke through as a top basketball team, and Charlie‘s followed the team ever since). I wanted to go see Spectro Magic that night, so my mom and I let the guys off the hook and take the kids ourselves. We decide to eat a quick dinner at Riverside Mill first, to avoid crowds at dinnertime in MK.

We get to MK around 6. Spectro is at 8 tonight. My mom “secretly” takes the kids to the little kiosk that makes silhouette portraits, and gets them done as the boys’ Christmas gift to us. They are very cute and hanging in our entryway now. That takes until about 6:30, and by then, I notice that people are already getting spots for the parade. We wanted to watch it on Main Street for the ambiance, and didn’t plan to ride any rides, so I take out a couple ponchos and save some seats in front of the Emporium. For the next 1 ½, we take turns holding our spot while the other shops in the stores and walks around with the kids. I thought that would be a nightmare, but they surprise us by sitting on the curb in our spot for a good 45 minutes of that time, just waiting. I’m shocked that Toby would sit there. I think the rice crispy mickey bars we picked up at Riverside Mill helped.

Spectro finally starts, and the kids love it. It’s definitely worth waiting for, and we’re not big parade people. Here’s my favorite float, and as close to a princess as I’ll get the whole trip:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9132.jpg

When it was over, Calvin, Toby, and my mom were tired, but Nate wanted to stay for the 9 pm Wishes. I was happy to stay with him, and sent the others home. We walked to the front railroad station, went up the stairs, and found a good spot with only a few other people. It was nice to have some one-on-one time with my eldest son. He truly appreciates music and performances, and we both loved seeing Wishes a second time. He fell asleep on the bus back (he denies it to this day), and for a minute, I thought I was going to have to carry him off the bus, he was so hard to wake. But we made it, and he crashed on his bed at 10 pm, a late night for one of my kids!

Up next, our rest day…my mom and I want some adult-only shopping time at DTD…will it happen?

[javamom]

And in a moment of panic about TS, I cancelled our ’Ohana ADR for the next day. I thought we’d rather just eat two CS meals. In the end, it was a good decision for other reasons, but we never had another bad TS meal, so we probably would have been fine!

Up next, MK and Wishes!

Oh I am so sorry that you had to cancel Ohana's it was one of our favorites the whole trip, if not THE favorite. Good for you though, looking out for your family. We stayed at POR too!

[javamom]

sorry duplicate post

[MomofCKJ]

Enjoying your report! I wonder if we ever crossed paths? I guess time will tell as I read your report and see where you were. I had to make some on the fly changes to the plan too. It is hard but when you realize that people need a break it is the best thing to do!

Allyson

[wrldpossibility]

Sun. Dec. 17th:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

Did you like SpectroMagic? It’s one of my favorite parades!

Take a deep breath, relax, and rest.
These last few days have put you to the test!
In the evening go see a show called the Hoop-de-Doo,
It has singing, dancing, and jokes that are perfect for you!

Pluto

We made it to our rest day! We woke up, and had a peaceful breakfast at Riverside Mill. I should stop for a moment and comment on our sleeping arrangements and how much we loved the POR trundle beds. We had a routine every night of putting all the kids to bed in my parents’ room, and then moving one or two into our room when we were ready to sleep. (We traded off who we had in each room…my parents help even at night with our kids! Yes, we know we’re lucky.) That way all the adults could watch TV, etc in our room at night. We always fell asleep pretty early though! We put Toby in one trundle, and Calvin in the other. Nate shared a bed with an adult (usually Charlie…I cannot sleep with Nate; he loves to cuddle all night, which is cute and all, but I don’t get any sleep!). We had seriously debated getting a villa for this trip by renting DVC points, but since our dates spanned two weekends, and we didn’t want to move resorts, it was just too costly. This arrangement with two rooms worked well for us as a second choice. Even if my parents hadn’t been there, we were still planning to get two rooms or go with a FW cabin. The space is worth it, in our opinion!

Anyway, we ate breakfast and the older kids wanted to go fishing at the POR fishing hole. If you asked them, swimming and playing at POR was one of the best parts of the trip, so they were pumped for their rest day! Charlie took them fishing, and my dad offered to take Toby to the playground by the pool. The plan was for my mom and I to take the bus to DTD for some shopping sans kids. My dad was to come later with Toby. We gave him explicit instructions to not show up with him until 11 am.

We get to DTD right at 9:30 when the stores are opening. Now this is nice! No one around yet (it’s Sunday, remember), the stores just opening, and we have 1½ hours to ourselves. We split up and I begin some serious shopping. My mission is to get small souvenirs for the two little girls I babysit a few days a week, the two kids of my friend who is “babysitting” our dog while we’re gone, my 4-year-old niece, and four other little boys (family friends’ sons). Plus I want to see if I can find any other stocking stuffers for my kids.

The first store I enter is the scrapbooking place (World of Memories?). Hmm, you’re wondering: I wonder which little boy or girl wants scrapbooking supplies? That’s right: the big one. I love scrapbooking. Unfortunately, the reviews of this store I’d read are right--it’s a disappointment. I have better selection at my local store. I quickly move on to the Days of Christmas store. Yeah, yeah, this one is for me too. I want to find some family ornament souvenirs. There are just too many to pick from in this store! I should add that I’m not a die-hard shopper. I usually start out strong, and get blurry-eyed and dizzy within the hour. So the Christmas store is overwhelming to me. I finally settle on a set of ornaments with the main Disney icons: a castle, Spaceship Earth, Tree of Life, etc. You get the drill.

I head next for World of Disney. I know I’ll get almost all the rest done there. I find cool pirate flags for the boys, suckers and candy, a Star Wars Mickey (maybe I found that at Once Upon a Toy, come to think of it), and plastic mickey cups for the stockings. This is also where I find the Magic Kingdom ride music for Nate. Then I enter the princess room. Suddenly there is pink as far as the eye can see. You have to remember I’m a mom of boys. My retinas are only adjusted to all things primary-colored and camo, so the sparkles and glitter in this room are making my head spin. I think I go into pink shock. I see the line going into the Bippity Boppity Boutique, and I pause for a moment to reflect on all the cash I saved by not giving birth to girls. Maybe I should post that tip on the Budget Board. I then remember my mission, which is two-fold. I need a Cinderella tiara for the 3 year-old I babysit, and a Snow White playset for my niece. When I find the Cinderella stuff, I momentary contemplate whether I have room in our luggage to get the whole Cindy outfit…she’d go crazy for that! Then I see the price and about have a heart attack. Suddenly the dozens of light sabors and dinosaur costumes I’ve bought over the years seem downright cheap. Honestly, I think my high school prom dress cost less than that little light blue number. No joke.

I make one more stop at the kitchen store, find a few more stocking stuffers, and meet back up with my mom at 10:30. See, I told you I don’t shop for long. We have a whole half hour before Toby shows up with my dad, so we decide to check out Goofy’s Candy Kitchen. No sooner have we stood up, and the cell phone rings. My dad is here with Toby. Now, I know I should be glad to have one toddler-free hour to get my shopping done, but certainly some of you other moms of toddlers can understand why I was feeling stingy about my last half hour, right? I really wanted that time, darn it! But my dad’s done his duty, and so we take Toby to ride the carrousel . My dad heads off to do his own shopping. He’s going to meet us at POR later. By the time Toby’s ridden, it’s 11:15, and we want to be back at the resort for lunch, so we start heading to the boat dock. Of course, we pass Goofy’s. We can’t resist. You have to know this: my mom and I are both freaks for caramel apples. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I remembered Goofy’s would have them. We went in, pretending to see if they had cute wrapped cookies for the boys’ stockings, but of course, we’re really only there for apples. Lo and behold, they have them. But wait, there’s more! You can custom order them with any combination of toppings. All you wise Disney veterans knew that already, but it’s news to us. We’re sold. We fill out the little cards with our selections (I’m all about the dark chocolate, if you’re wondering). We then learn that these babies will take 10 minutes to prepare. By this time, Toby’s getting hungry and tired, but we push on. We’re so close, we can almost taste it (wow, bad pun…sorry). I find cute Cars cookies while we wait. See, not totally a selfish detour after all. We finally get our bad boys, and have them packed up to go. We hurry to the boat dock, and…the boat is just pulling away. I know, serves us right. At this point we make a rookie mistake. We decide that 20 minutes for the next boat (per the CM at the dock) is too long, and the bus will be faster. We walk to the bus stop, and wait. And wait. And wait. Do buses not begin to come on Sundays until noon? Are there fewer POR buses because anyone with any sense takes the boat? Enlighten me, wise readership, because we endured our longest wait for a bus at that moment. It was 45 minutes before one came (and we were the only ones waiting). Once it came, it stopped at West Side, then at many traffic lights, then at Typhoon Lagoon. It took us 1½ hours to get to POR. We were really regretting our decision to eat when we got back.

But of course we made it, and Toby immediately fell asleep back in our room. We bailed on lunch altogether and ate cereal. Then we sat outside by “our” pool while the kids swam and, you guessed it, ate our caramel apples. Were they worth the long agony of missing the boat and waiting for the bus, you ask? You better believe it.

My dad returned, and offered to stay with Toby (he was still napping) while the rest of us walked over to POFQ and tried out the dragon pool. On the way, I stopped at the concierge desk to pick up our Hoop de Doo tickets for that night. Now, maybe this doesn’t happen to everyone, but it turned out that the ADR had been charged to my CC, which I thought was just holding the ADR. I wanted to use the DDP instead. I’m glad the concierge pointed that out, because it really would have messed up our TS credits. This was toward the end of our trip, and I planned to use 12 credits in this one night. If we didn’t, there’s no way we would use 12 extra before the end of our trip. It would have been such a waste. (I didn't mind dropping that many credits at once, because we didn't want to eat TS every night.) Hoop is not cheap, and I was happy to use 2 credits each on it. It took awhile to get straightened out, and if I had waited to deal with it when checking in at Hoop that night, I would have been sunk. So just something to keep in mind.

We decided we preferred Ol Man Island to Dragoon Lagoon (was the hot tub added on later at FQ, because it’s in a very inconvenient location to the pool?). The kids enjoyed the dragon slide more than POR’s though. I’m not sure why, but they went on it over and over at FQ. It was nice to be able to try both. We got back to our room at 3, fed Toby a snack, and got cleaned up. We were at the bus stop for MK (to transfer to boat) at 3:30. You’re probably wondering about our fast turn-around times in our room (30 minutes is not much time to get 7 people ready for dinner), and yes, we do shower. We’re just not high maintenance people. Remember how much the princess room scared me? Yeah, I wouldn’t even know what to do with half the froo-froo hair clips and bands in there. It’s all lost on me.
We had a peaceful boat ride, and collected more boat cards. We were at FW dock by 4:30, and I checked us in. We let the kids play on their playground, then had our picture taken. Another winner (“winner” meaning it has all 7 of us in it), so we buy it later. We are seated at 5, and we have the first table for seven, one row back from the stage, in the center. A great spot. Yes, I called exactly 365 days before, and I spent the first five minutes beaming at all the other people at the tables around us who must have done the same. We smiled at each other and gave knowing looks. We were a very smug bunch.

I had spent a lot of time on the DIS asking whether this show would hold my kids’ attention. When we’re seated, we get out the playdoh, get the older boys cornbread, and hope for the best. I need not have worried. The show starts, and literally, Nate never stops laughing. He laughs so hard I’m afraid he’s going to get sick. It’s that deep, can’t-catch-your-breath, doubled-over laughter. Every joke in that show is perfect for a 7-yo boy. Calvin enjoys it too, but most the puns go over his head. He’s happy enough with the slapstick humor though, as long as the cornbread keeps coming. Toby is mesmerized. He loves the singing and dancing right in front of him. The rest of us are loving that the kids are entertained.

We all like the food fine. Nothing to write home about (or in our case, expand on much in a trip report), but it’s all good. The Hoop people had actually called me at POR earlier that day to ask what veggie meals the kids and I would like (I had said we were vegetarian when I made the ADR). The kids had pizza and I had roasted veggies and a baked potato. Calvin devoured the strawberry shortcake, so I’d say that was a thumbs-up for him. The highlight for our family was when my dad was picked out by the redheaded girl to sing with her. He had to do a bit with the phrase “Toot Toot”. That made the kids laugh even harder. I have a great pic of my dad turning a few shades of red:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v387/happyfeather/DSCN9134.jpg

That made getting up at 3 am (Pacific) on Dec. 17th, 2005 to call Disney Dining all worthwhile. After the show, we had a fairly long wait for a boat back to MK, but the kids were in good moods, and I broke out three new light toys to occupy them. We were “home” by 8 pm, and ready to crash.

Up next, the Pirate Cruise, Epcot WS, and Charlie and I watch IllumiNations alone…find out how we did it, and how you can too!

[MomofCKJ]

Great installment and what a nice day (except for the bus thing, man that is LONG time to wait for a bus!)! Hoop sounds really fun! I have never been and wondered too if my kids would like it. Sounds like something to put on the list for next time for sure!

Allyson :)

[wrldpossibility]

Allyson, I'm really enjoying your trip report too! You have beautiful children. :)

Can you remind me how to post a link to my trip report under my siggie? I used to know...thanks! :rolleyes:

[swankybeth]

I've just caught up with your report and I'm really enjoying it. You have a beautiful family! :goodvibes

[wrldpossibility]

Thank you everyone for hanging in there and continuing to follow our story! It's so fun to write these reports, isn't it?!

I'll try to write another installment tonight (that's right...no big New Year's plans here). I've slowed down because we've finally seen some nice weather here in Oregon, and we've been skiing as much as we can before school starts back up on Tues. Well, everyone but Toby...he has to wait until next winter!

Also, I've been distracted reading MomofCKJ's great trippie...stop writing for a while Allyson so I can finish! ;)

[wrldpossibility]

Quick update: I'll have the next chapter up by 1 pm Pacific, I promise. Life is trying to get in the way of finishing my trippie, but I won't let it! ;)

[MomofCKJ]

You make me laugh! I am enjoying your report too! Thanks for checking mine out!

To get the trip report link you go to your User CP where you set your siggie. Then I think what I did was type in the name and set a hyperlink to the address of the actual trip report. KWIM?

Allyson

[wrldpossibility]

Mon. Dec. 18th:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

What was your favorite joke at Hoop-de-Doo?

Yo Ho, yo ho, it’s a pirate’s life for me!
That’s right! Today Nate and Calvin sail the seas!
Toby gets to swim and play, and then we all go faraway:
We’ll visit other countries and see fire on a lake to end our day!

Pluto

We’ve been looking forward to this day! This morning the older boys have the pirate cruise scheduled at the GF. Our plan is to leave Toby at POR with my mom and dad, and slip in a little kid-free time while the boys are digging for treasure. We get on the bus by 8:15. We’re supposed to check in at 9 at the GF dock, and set sail at 9:30. Well, we keep forgetting that the crowds are picking up a bit. Being good TGMers, we’re still missing most of them, but today we’re traveling to MK in order to get on the monorail for GF, and MK is NOT a green day. I took care not to put us in any non-green parks when I was planning the trip, but I didn’t consider that the pirate cruise puts us in the MK “morning commute“. We get the first MK bus, and when we get on the monorail, we’re one of the other parties going away from MK. However, as we circle around CR, TTC, and Poly, that changes. The monorail gets very crowded and stops for what seems a long time at every stop. Now it’s 9:05 as we’re getting off at GF.

We walk quickly, and find the dock with no problem. I really do love this resort. I know it’s almost a cliché to say so, because it’s the one you’re supposed to love, I guess, but the theme really works for me. We see the pirate captain in full costume, and some other little mateys on the end of the dock. My boys are excited-nervous, especially Nate. He gets nervous and homesick easily; we spent most of 1st grade devising strategies to help ease his separation anxiety. Let’s just say that if Calvin weren’t going with him, there’s no way he’d be there. Sometimes I wish my kids were more daring with these sorts of things (and the rides), but when it comes down to it, I’m glad they’re deep thinkers and sensitive.

I sign them in, and the pirate cruise people are very organized. When I say my name, they have a CC slip and a waiver all ready for me to sign. I am given a pager in case of emergency, and told to wait until they sail off at 9:30 before I split. No problem—Nate will never let me leave a moment earlier. By this time, most the kids are there. I think I counted 18 on this voyage, and three adult pirates. Most the kids seemed to be in the 5-8 age category. I noticed one older sister who looked around 12 who was less than enthusiastic, and a few 4 year-olds. One definitely seemed a bit young to be going—he wasn’t able to stop wrestling around with his brother and was very hyper. I was glad it wasn’t my problem.

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9:30 comes around, and they’re off. We hug and wave, and wander back toward the main lobby of GF. We decide to stop and see how long the wait is at the GF Café. We’re not really very hungry, but hey, we’re kid-free so we have to take advantage of it. The wait is 20 minutes, so we grab a pager and browse through the gift shop for a while. When we’re seated, we’re put right next to a family with a 2-year-old who proceeds to throw everything she’s given off the table. It doesn’t bother us though. Other kids rarely do. I think it’s the possibility of our own kids acting up that makes it stressful to eat in public, not the noise or flying objects in and of themselves. So we sit happily drinking coffee (no, it’s no better in the GF than anywhere else) and eating frittatas and fruit. Yummy. Breakfast was uneventful, so I don’t have much to report. In fact, I’m afraid if we didn’t have kids, our entire trip report would be pretty boring. Boring in a relaxing, peaceful way. We sit in the sun by the boat dock, and I eat a gingerbread shingle. Yes, I know I just ate breakfast. Stop judging. We people-watch and wait for the boat back. We hear them before we see them: a chorus of “yo ho, yo ho” echoes across the water toward us. When we see them, all the kids are beaming.

They ate lunch onboard (PB&J, goldfish crackers, rice crispy treats, and juice in case you need to know), and get their loot bags as they exit the boat. These consist of plastic chests with gold coins, mardi-gras beads, and plastic rings. They love them. They’re pumped about their adventure. Apparently it involved a mutany, several islands, and finding treasure following a map. They had so much fun! We get back on the monorail heading for Epcot and call Grandma. The grandparents and Toby spent their morning renting a surrey bike and pedaling around POR. Now Toby is napping. They will meet us in Epcot later.

Our plan for the afternoon is to do WS. First though, we hope to see Turtle Talk (remember we never got to it our first day). When we enter FW, we immediately notice how crowded it feels. Charlie splits off to grab FP to Test Track, and we head straight for Living Seas. We notice that Nemo has a 50 minute wait (in comparison to the 15 minutes we waited just 7 days ago). The Turtle Talk line is just filing into the theater, so we have to wait one show. That’s ok with me, since it’s only 10 minutes and ensures we’ll be one of the first in the next time. The boys get a seat in the front of the carpet, and I sit on the first riser. Crush narrows in on Nate right away, asking where he’s from. When he says Oregon, Crush pretends he’s never heard of it, which makes Nate laugh. He talks to him a little more, and just when I think I’m off the hook, Crush asks Nate to point out his “parental unit”. Great. Crush talks to me a little about how great being a parent is, and I can’t think of one witty thing to say. I’m completely boring. We loved the show though, and wished Toby had been there.

We meet up with Charlie, who got TT FP for 3:30. At this point I get the first of several phone calls. I walk away from Charlie and whisper into the phone. You see, tomorrow is Charlie’s birthday, and we have a Gifts of a Lifetime event planned for him. It’s Jane on the phone, verifying some final details. When I hang up, I attempt to lie to Charlie, saying it was a search call from home; an elk hunter is lost. Elk? Yeah, I have no idea what I was thinking. Why the heck did I say elk? Do we even have elk in southern Oregon? I don’t know. That’s how bad a liar I am. But Charlie doesn’t question it, and we’re off the WS.

As soon as we’ve gone through the gateway to WS, the crowds visibly lessen. Whew. It felt very crowded and hot in FW. Maybe it’s all the concrete. Calvin was starting to wilt, as he always does when he’s hot. When he gets hot (which is any time it’s over 75 degrees) he walks slower and slower, bending his knees more and more until he’s practically crawling, then starts tearing at his clothes. He’s almost at that point when we get to WS and buy some water. We start with Canada, and the boys start their masks. This perks Cal up right away. They love projects like this. They start coloring, and get their first charm. We watch the Canada Santa for a while, and my parents and Toby meet up with us. The boys are excited to continue their masks, so we don’t see the Canada show. We hustle on to the UK.

I have to say WS was one of the areas I was most looking forward to, and it didn’t disappoint. I loved looking through all the countries. In the UK, we explored the toy store and watched a performer (not the Beatles band though…they were no where to be found, which is good, because we’d never have gotten my dad to leave again). We found the KidCot station easily, and I have to give props to TGM for that. His listing of all the KidCot stations and where they were (in detail) really helped. We walked right to them all with no problem…even with me, the directionally-challenged in charge. Toby fell in love with the rugby balls in the toy store, and in hindsight we wished we had bought him one. My sister and brother-in-law live in Dublin, and he plays rugby. For Christmas, they bought the boys each an Ireland rugby shirt. They are so adorable in them, and that ball would have made a great photo prop.

We moved on to France, and all the way around the world finishing those masks. The kids never lost interest. Well, Toby did, but then he just ripped the mask off the stick, and used the stick as a sword. That kept him occupied for another few countries. We loved Morocco, and the boys had their names written on their masks in Arabic. We also loved the fruit smoothies there. We watched the drummers in Japan, and the acrobats in China. I loved that the KidCot Cms were all from their respective countries. The kids got a kick out of talking to them. They still had a little money left, and they bought dragon puppets in China. They’re very cute, but the strings get tangled constantly.

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3:30 (Charlie’s FP time) rolled around when we were in Germany (we loved their pretzels, yum), and he and my dad went off to TT. I spent the entire trip trying to convince my family the could use FP after they expired, as long as it was the same day, but they never believed me. Anyway, they returned when we hit Norway, and said TT was a disappointment. I don’t know if that’s the general consensus or if they just expected more out of it. Anyway, I was excited for Norway because Toby was getting restless in his stroller (the mask “sword” had been confiscated by now) and I had read there’s a Viking ship in Norway kids can climb on. We arrive, and kids are crawling all over it. I turn the kids loose on it, and about 2 minutes later, a CM comes running up and yells (literally yells in panic) that everyone must get off and that children are not allowed on it. She’s so intense that Nate begins to cry, thinking he’s done something terribly wrong. The CM says that the ship is no longer a play area, since there have been accidents on it. I don’t know if it’s always off limits now, or if we had a bossy CM on duty that day, but it was news to me.

We loved Norway though; man those sweaters are spendy, but beautiful. The kids opted out of Maelstrom (trolls are not on their approved list of ride attractions) and we decided to go on the Mexico ride instead. That was more our speed. We enjoyed Mexico, too. I really like the marketplace set up they have.

By the time we’ve completed WS, it’s 5 pm and the boys are getting tired. We have a 6 pm ADR for Merrakesh, but at this point, it doesn’t look like they’re going to make it. My parents, saints that they are, offer to take them all home to POR and eat at their beloved Riverside Mill, have a swim, and go to bed. Secretly, I think they’re tired too. At any rate, there’s no way any of them are going to stay for IllumiNations. Charlie and I want to try Merrakesh though, so we part ways. We wave goodbye and head back to Maelstrom. We grabbed FP earlier, hoping we’d get a chance to try it. It’s a fun little ride. It was even more fun to listen to the reactions of three teens who were riding behind us: one told the others there was a HUGE drop on the ride, and they were in a panic the whole time.

We wandered back toward Morocco, stopping at the Candlelight Processional and watching. It was Doogie Howser that night (that poor man could garner 20 Oscars and I think I’d STILL call him Doogie). We loved the music, then wandered on to Merrakesh. That place was hopping. People were being turned away left and right. We got in right away, and the belly dancer was performing. It was loud, but we enjoyed it. It would have entertained the kids, but when she went away, I think they would have gotten restless with nothing else to look at, so we were glad they decided to bail. We enjoyed our second kid-free TS of the day. Moroccan food is one of Charlie’s favorites, and Merrakesh didn’t disappoint. We went to college near a very good Moroccan place, and Merrakesh was very similar.

By the time we were done, we had plenty of time before IllumiNations. I was curious about the Boardwalk area since I’d never seen it, and we walked out the International Gateway to check it out. Charlie played games in the ESPN area and I looked through the boardwalk and BWI. It’s very pretty, and I love how close it is to Epcot (and only a boat ride way from DS, right?) but I think it’s too busy an area for my taste. I looked through some gift shops, and watched a magician. It was very nice…a beautiful night, and time to explore and see some of the areas I read about but hadn’t seen yet. BC and YC looked pretty with their lights across the water. I eventually dragged Charlie away from his video games and we returned to WS. We got chocolate crepes in France and settled on our second choice spot for Illuminations, on a bench to the right of the pagoda in Japan. Our first choice was between the two green kiosks in France, but those little tables were already filled. We took turns walking around Japan, and waited. I got another call from Jane, and played it off like the smooth liar I am. (I probably said it was a wrong number after talking for 2 minutes, knowing me.)

We liked IllumiNations, but didn’t love it. Why? I’m not sure. It was impressive, for sure, especially with the added Christmas fireworks. But it was as if all the pyrotechnic guys decided to just pull out all the tricks and shoot off every firework they have all at once and call it a show. It didn’t seem to flow well. They should just give up the pretense of having a storyline, because it seems to fumble. Or maybe it’s just me. I’m a Wishes kind of girl, I guess.

We were still glad to have seen it, and glad the kids were already tucked into bed as we followed the mob out of the park afterward. The crowd seemed huge (I think WS is so spread out you don’t feel it there, but FW is terrible), but we moved quickly through. We only waited a few minutes for a bus, and were home before 11. Everyone was sound asleep in our rooms.

Up next, our last day, and Charlie’s birthday event at DS!

[MomofCKJ]

We were at Epcot that night too on our Illuminations Cruise!

We didn't spend as much time in WS as I had wanted, one thing I regret. Next time I guess. Sounds like you had a nice amount of time there. My kids masks are pretty sad. We have one that they started one day in Mexico and another started another day in Canada and that is it. No other countries on them.

Your boys are so cute and look like they enjoyed the Pirate Cruise! Glad you caught yourself some alone time too with your DH! That is always nice!

Allyson :)

[wrldpossibility]

We were at Epcot that night too on our Illuminations Cruise!

We didn't spend as much time in WS as I had wanted, one thing I regret. Next time I guess. Sounds like you had a nice amount of time there. My kids masks are pretty sad. We have one that they started one day in Mexico and another started another day in Canada and that is it. No other countries on them.

Your boys are so cute and look like they enjoyed the Pirate Cruise! Glad you caught yourself some alone time too with your DH! That is always nice!

Allyson :)

That's kind of funny about the masks. My oldest is a bit OCD...he'd have gotten upset if his mask wasn't completed. Calvin would not have cared one bit. I'm curious to hear how the cruise went. We thought about doing that, but ended up spending the extra $$ on the Gifts of a Lifetime event. I'm looking forward to reading about the cruise! :)

[wrldpossibility]

Tues. Dec. 19th:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

Say Happy Birthday to your Daddy!

This morning you should have slept in,
Then pick your favorite thing to do again!
This evening tour the most Christmas lights you’ve ever seen,
Then see a show with Mickey and a dragon that’s mean!

Pluto



Today is Charlie’s 32nd birthday. I had thought long and hard about something special to do for him. I knew he’d refuse to wear “birthday button” and would hate to have a fuss made over him at a character meal. I thought about golf, but he didn’t want to go by himself (he’s the only golfer in our family). I considered the Petty Driving Experience, but when I pitched the ride-along (i.e. cheap) option, he thought it would be “lame”. He only wanted to do it if he were driving, and that price was out of our budget. Next I researched an IllumiNations cruise or a private dining experience, but both those options seemed like something I would like to do, not him. I almost signed him up for fishing, but since he’s a serious fisherman, I worried it would be too “easy” to catch fish—you know, with those magical Disney fish and all. I know that doesn’t make sense. I even tried to re-work the schedule to fit in a day at Universal, which Charlie would like to see. But it just wouldn’t fit, and didn’t make any financial sense, since we already had Disney tickets. Bottom line—I eliminated all my ideas, and I was at a loss.

Then I came across a post somewhere about Gifts of a Lifetime. At this point I was just planning to have a cake ordered during our Mama Melrose Fantasmic Dinner Package. GOAL said they could decorate our room or present a cake and balloons to us. That was festive, without causing too much stress on the schedule. I filled out the questionnaire for a “budget” event, and waited. About a month before the trip, I got an email from Jane, the owner. She described a few budget things she could do, but none of them wowed me. I bet you can see where this is going. Then she presented another option. It was an “Amazing Race” for our family through a theme park. Uh oh, Charlie and I love The Amazing Race, and even though we agree we’d be terrible on it together, we strategize our own race whenever we watch it. Jane describes it in more detail, and I’m sold. The price tag is steep, and I debate it in my head for days. I finally pitch the idea to my parents, who wanted to go in on a gift for Charlie. They love the idea (but they’re not exactly the most frugal, either). I finally decide that while expensive, this is something the entire family can participate in, and that hopefully Charlie will remember for a long time. And it’s not something you can buy anywhere else (as far as I know). I contact Jane, and we set the plan into motion.

I can’t go into too much detail in this report about the actual event, since GOAL would like their plans to remain special for other customers. If you want more info about it because you’re trying to plan one, please PM me. I will say that I was nervous about this. It’s a pretty big plan, and Charlie doesn’t know anything about it. I am normally terrible about keeping secrets, so it’s rare that he doesn’t know what’s going on. He likes to know what’s going on. He also doesn’t like to be put on the spot (who does?) or do anything embarrassing in public (again, who does?). He’s outgoing with clients and people he knows, but is not the type to show off or enjoy the spotlight. I passed all my fears on to Jane, and she promised me our event would not draw attention or cause Charlie to “perform” in any way.

But it’s still morning, and we have hours before we meet up with Jane for our event. We don’t have much planned. We eat a leisurely breakfast, then my mom and I pack up the rooms (a daunting task after 9 days of Disney) while all the boys go swimming. We debate renting the “water mice” boats and cruising the river, but time slips away and before we know it, Toby is down for an early nap and the rest of us are grabbing lunch. We have to meet Jane at the sorcerer’s hat in MGM at 1:30, so I want to leave at 12:30 (I don’t want to be late). Of course, Charlie doesn’t know why the time is important, and throws a wrinkle in the plan by asking to go on the backlot tour first thing. Uh oh. We’ll never have time for that. He looks at me, mystified why I’d deny him this small token on his birthday. He continues to argue, and I quickly realize that I’ll never get him to the hat at 1:30 without coming clean. I have to reveal to him that I have something planned at 1:30. I refuse to disclose anything more. The poor thing is now completely nervous about what I’ll make him do at MGM, and proceeds to guess. His favorite idea is that he’ll get to be a guest driver on Lights, Motors, Action. Um, no, and thanks for one-upping me. I am confident he’ll never guess it, since he has no idea GOAL exists (one plus to doing all the planning). I still want him to go on the backlot tour though, so I send him and my dad early. I pull my dad aside and remind him that the duty now falls on him to get Charlie to the hat by 1:30.

The rest of us wait for Toby to wake and give him his lunch, then catch a bus to MGM at 12:45. We’re at the hat by 1:15, and I’m certain Charlie and my dad will be late. We browse in a few shops, and I think I’m being savvy keeping an eye out for Jane. Before the trip, I told her the kids would be wearing matching red and green tie-dye shirts, so she could spot us easily. It was a good plan, but I hadn’t counted on the 80 degree weather. The shirts are long-sleeved. So now the boys have the tied around their waists.

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Charlie and my dad appear at 1:20, to their credit, and a few seconds later, I’m looking at pins, and someone behind me says my name. I jump, even though I was expecting it. I can cross CIA agent off my list of potential careers. Jane tells me to gather my family us (some are in the bathroom, Charlie’s eating a pretzel) and she’ll come over when we’re ready. I get everyone, but Charlie’s still eating his darn snack. Jane is standing a few feet away, watching and waiting for him to finish. I’m staring at him, willing him to eat the last bite. He finally clues in that something is amiss, and Jane says Happy Birthday and presents his event to him. I wish I had a pic of him at that moment, because he was about 10 shades of red wondering what this would involve.

As I said, I can’t go into detail, but we spent the next 2 hours on our own “Amazing Race”. It was a blast. We all stayed together, and worked through the clues together. Charlie was never in the spotlight, and he had a great time. The whole thing was very clever. As I mentioned, my parents were in on it, but I had sneaked in another call to Jane to add a little something for them to the mix. I wanted to thank them for coming on this trip with us, and helping us so much with anything we need every day at home. They were surprised! The whole thing ended with a huge basket of rice crispy mickey treats that I had chosen, and a card I had written (and emailed to Jane). Here’s what it said:

Dear Charlie,

Happy Birthday! Thank you so much for giving us this vacation! I know it wasn’t your first choice for how to spend your money, but you never hesitated to give me the gift of planning it and doing it. It means so much to me that time and again you not only put my needs above your own, but my “wants” too. Every year, you amaze me more as a man, a husband, and a father. I hope you’ve had as good a time as I did, and are as proud of our family as I am.

Love, Amy

If you’re considering GOAL, go for it! It was one of the highlights of our trip. We had some very funny moments, and the kids loved it. It’s the first thing they talk about when asked about our trip (which means no one has any idea what they’re talking about…Amazing Race? No, Disney world, right?). The only thing we would have loved more would be to split our group and race against each other instead of a clock. We’re weirdly competitive that way, though.

We finished by 3:30, and went back to the bug playland before our 4 pm ADR for Mama Melrose. Toby needed to get out of the stroller and play after being strapped down for most of our event. The food at Melrose was very good we thought, but the meal took a long time. It was one of the few times we wished we had scrapped our TS plan and eaten somewhere quicker. But that’s just because the kids were restless…because the food really was yum.

After MM, Calvin had his heart set on getting his face painted like Darth Maul outside Star Tours. Unfortunately, we had waited too long (i.e., tried to talk him out of it for too long), because the kiosk was closed for the day. Darn. Calvin doesn’t ask for much, and I should have let him do it earlier. I distracted him by walking over to the Spectacle of Lights. It was 6 pm, and they were just being turned on. This holiday light display is amazing. To bad for me, the rest of my family was getting tired, and weary of the crowds that had been increasing all day. We hadn’t been waiting in lines, but we found the sheer numbers wore us out in these last few days. As soon as that street got packed, my little group wanted OUT. So I only watched for a short time, but was so glad I got to see it.

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It was a bit early, but we decided we were ready to sit and relax, so we headed over to Fantasmic. Getting there early kind of defeats the purpose of the FDP, which saves you reserve seats, but we didn’t care. This was our last night, and we were pretty much running on empty. We used the last of our snack credits on drinks, and sat down to eat our MM desserts we had packaged up to go. Toby hiked up and down the stadium stairs over and over. Where he got the energy, I don’t know. When the show was ready to start, I warned the boys for the millionth time that it might get too scary. I have very sensitive kiddos; remember how they couldn’t sleep after The Great Movie Ride? I was worried about Fantasmic, very worried. It started, and Toby immediately cried out about the loud noises. We retreated to the top of the stadium. After a few minutes, he got used to the noise, and wanted to go back to our seats. When the images of the villains filled those water-projected screens, I was near panic, sure my kids were freaking out a few seats over from me. But no, they loved it. “It was intense, but worth it,” Nate said. They loved the part with Mickey fighting the dragon (that was much less scary to them than the movie images) and the boat of characters at the end. I am so glad we stayed for it.

It was a good ending to our Disney experiences, for sure. We left the park (there was another Fantasmic that night, so it wasn’t a mass exodus, thank goodness), and went to bed early. Once again, the kids had to sleep in the clothes they we wearing the next day. We had a 5 am ME bus waiting for us.

Up next, our ME experiences, the flights home, and a few last odds and ends! Thanks for sticking with me through all this!

[MomofCKJ]

The GOAL event sounds so cool! We are huge Amazing Race fans too! How neat that you got to do your own special event! I just might have to PM you for a little more info, I am very intrigued!

Have loved your report! Sad that we are winding down.

Allyson

[wrldpossibility]

Wed. Dec. 20th:

Dear Nate, Calvin, and Toby,

Boo Hoo! I’m going to miss you!

Today we have to say goodbye,
Pack your things and don’t cry!
Go back home; there’s someone to look forward to:
In a few days, Santa will visit you!


Merry Christmas!

Pluto

Well folks, this is it for me! A little on ME, and a few last random thoughts: we had a 5:30 am ME bus to catch, and a ton of luggage all the way out at Building 36, so I called bell services for someone to help with the bags. They said they'd be there at 4:30. Ouch! I let the others sleep, set the alarm for 4:15, and met the bell services man outside the door with all the bags. He said he'd take them all to the front lobby, and that I could come later, since the ME desk isn't even open until 5. I was a little nervous not to go with the bags, because he didn't speak very much English, and I didn't want to have to find my bags again in a few minutes. But I trusted, and they were waiting perfectly when we arrived at the ME desk just after 5.

I decided to get the bags checked at POR and get boarding passes, and that was great! Not every airline does it, but it seemed most do. The ME airline check-in guy we had seemed to be a bit confused, and it took him a while, but he got it done. We waved adios to all our bags, which was great. Anyone who travels with three kids, a stroller, 2 carry-ons, and a carseat can appreciate not lugging the checked luggage into the airport!

We had plenty of time at the airport, had breakfast, and were on our way home. I think we were all ready. Any less than 10 days at WDW, and we would have left feeling that we didn't get to enough, but any more and I think we would have started to get worn down. 10 days was perfect for us, especially since the parks and buses were picking up in crowd levels.

We had two flights, the first from Orlando to Seattle, which is 6 hours, then Seattle to Medford, which is 1½. I won't bore everyone with a run-down of these flights, but I do have to share one funny thing. Charlie and I usually trade off sitting with the older boys or sitting with Toby, since the older boys are a dream when we travel, and just read or watch movies, and Toby is more of a, shall we say, challenge. On this flight, Charlie offered to take the first Toby shift. We were seated in two rows: Nate, Calvin, and me in one, and right behind us, Toby, Charlie, and another passenger (on the isle). The carseat always has to go by the window, as you all probably know, so that put Charlie sitting in the middle. Well, the flight was not full, and there was a whole row of empty seats not far from us. We assumed the older, very large woman who had the isle seat would move, not wanting to sit by a toddler and dad if she didn't have to. She didn't, which is no biggie, but then, about 20 minutes into the flight, she fell asleep, and remained asleep the whole flight! Charlie was too polite to wake her to get past her to trade places with me, which meant that for the entire 6 hours, he had Toby duty, and I was off the hook! I even offered to poke the woman myself, but luckily for me, Charlie is too kind, and thought it would be too rude.

Poor me, I read my entire book, then just as I was getting bored, as luck would have it, a passenger in front of me pulled out her laptop and began watching my favorite TV series on DVD. (Gilmore Girls, if anyone is dying to know.) She saw me watching over her shoulder (rude, I know!), and turned on the closed captioning so I could read the dialogue! Gilmore Girls fans are loyal to one another! We watched 4 episodes together. I didn't dare even look at Charlie, back there playing cars and making airplane noises, while I sat back and watched TV for 6 hours! Poor guy!

We were delayed in Seattle for 4 hours, which is par for the course in the NW in winter. We expected it at some point. Better to be on the way home. With the time difference, the kids were starting to get very tired, and ended up falling asleep on the last flight (only 6 pm Pacific time). They ended up waking at 3:30 am for the next three mornings, they were so adjusted to EST!

That's about it! We didn't have withdrawls too badly, since we had Christmas coming right around the corner, and I could come here and start writing about the trip! Unfortunately, the day after we got home, Calvin began throwing up. Over the next 3 days, all of us got the stomach flu (except Toby...he seemed to avoid it). It was a bummer being sick for Christmas, but we were just so glad we didn't get it in Disney. We had a relaxed, simple Christmas planned, so it didn't matter that we were all sick!

A few other thoughts:

Crocs were great! I am normally a Merrell fan, but Crocs worked so much better for park touring. I never had sore feet, and never had a blister. The kids wore them too.

TGM worked well for us, as did skipping EMHs. We got everything done, and saw no need for it. Which meant we could have done without park hoppers, so that was a waste for us. We loved POR, and would stay there again. The pirate cruise and GOAL were highlights too! But more than anything, it was the little things, like collecting cards, or riding in the front of the monorail, that made the trip for us. The small, slow-down things. So I have to thank these boards for that. I wouldn't have known about many of these things, or had the right attitude of appreciation, if not for all of you! Thank you!

Feel free to ask my anything! (Do I need to ask someone to move me to completed reports?) Hmm.

Thanks for reading!! :)

[KangaFan]

Hi! I've been reading you on the TGM board, just found you here. I really enjoyed your TR and am glad the stomach bug held off until you got home! Thanks for sharing your wonderful trip! :thumbsup2

[erikthewise]

Really enjoyed your review! When are you going back?

The Viking ship has been off limits for over a year now. It's really a pity as Epcot is the only theme park without a playground*, and this was the closest thing, however small.

* MK: Tom Sawyer Island, Poohs Playful Spot
* MGM: Honey I Shrunk the Kids
* AK: Boneyard

[wrldpossibility]

You're right...it needs a playground! I guess I should have realized it would be off-limits if it had been for over a year! :rolleyes1 Where were you on that one, TGM?! ;)

[Bibbidi]

subscribing. This is a GREAT report!