My Latest Invention: the Traffic-eliminator-inator! *updated 5/31! Completed!*

[Jennifer48]

My new invention: the Traffic-eliminator-inator! Yes, I work part time for Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated. I made this invention because we NEEDED it on this trip! That was the theme, traffic. We have enough of that during our commute to/from work, we didn’t need it on vacation too!

For those that didn’t get the reference, on Phineas & Ferb, the “villain” is Dr. Doofenshmirtz and any type of device he invents, he adds ‘inator’ to the end of it. Love that show.

Any who, welcome to my trip report! Let me introduce the cast of characters:

I’m Jennifer, or Jen. I have been to Disney, um, 10 times? I lost track. I think I have it in my signature. DH & I became DVC members last April and it was one of the best things we have done!

DH: Dan, my BFF and hubby for 1 yr and 5 months. This was our 3rd trip to WDW since becoming DVC members. He was our chauffeur for the journey.

DSS: My stepson Tyler, Dan’s son. He is 9 yrs old and this was his 2nd trip to WDW. We took him on his first trip last June and he is now obsessed as we are. WOOHOO!

Here we are from the June 2010 trip:

We drove down from Massachusetts. Non. Stop. Mainly because we booked this trip in January and it was during February winter vacation for Tyler and the flight prices were OUTRAGEOUS! It was either drive or don’t go so, you could see why we drove. Plus, we were able to save additional money by bringing our own food. I didn’t make any ADRs either.

Our dates were February 18-27th. We were staying at Port Orleans Riverside resort. I put in a request for Magnolia Bend. Did we get it? How horrible was this 24 hour drive? Well, those questions and more will be answered in the next update!

 

[Lady Lallie]

I'm very interested to see how the drive went. I really want to drive down on our next trip!

 

[RachelNinja]

I'm here!!! I'm so excited to hear about your Thursday! Too bad we didn't have our DIS meet, but if you plan future trips with Tyler, it'll probably be during school vacations anyway, so I'm sure we'll have dates lined up once again in the future!

 

[jpmandan]

I'll ride along, our 9.5 hour drive gets to me, but 24 hours.

 

[wdwgirl03]

I'm here!

 

[Jennifer48]

I'm very interested to see how the drive went. I really want to drive down on our next trip!

Thanks for coming over LL! The drive was interesting, thats for sure! Didn't you say you wanted to drive down last time?!

I'm here!!! I'm so excited to hear about your Thursday! Too bad we didn't have our DIS meet, but if you plan future trips with Tyler, it'll probably be during school vacations anyway, so I'm sure we'll have dates lined up once again in the future!

Thanks for coming over Rachel! I'm very sad that we didn't get our DISmeet. I kept trying to figure out a way to make it. I should have just yelled your name out when I saw you in Epcot!
We will definitely be planning more trips with Tyler so I hope we have another opportunity!

I'll ride along, our 9.5 hour drive gets to me, but 24 hours.

Thanks for reading! Non-stop it actually takes about 21 hours but this time, 24 hrs plus!

I'm here!

Yay Sarah! Thanks for coming over! More updates on its way!

 

[Jennifer48]

A little background on this trip...we did not tell Tyler that we were going. We wanted to surprise him. He was going to be with us the week of February vacation and thought he was coming over the Sunday before. Our plan was to actually pick him up after school on Friday and start driving down. He had an oral presentation to do that Friday and he was busy all week practicing it so he was not allowed to have friends over or go over any friends houses. He had asked permission to go over a friend’s house Friday after school so his mother, not wanting to ruin the surprise, said that he could not. When Tyler asked why, his mother told him that there was a surprise for him after school. Well, for whatever reason, Tyler thought the surprise was that he was getting an iPod Touch!

So, Dan and I leave our house

and it was a 40 minute drive to the meeting spot to pick up Tyler. His mother was picking him up from school and we were meeting her at a driving range close by. Tyler gets out of school at 2:50pm and we were about 10 minutes from his school.

Shortly after 2:50pm, Dan gets a text from Tyler’s mother telling him that Tyler is very upset that he was not getting an iPod Touch and that he was crying in the car. They pull in and Tyler refuses to get out of the car. Now he thinks his surprise is to go golfing and then he saw us an thought his surprise was that he was coming over to our house early!

Dan gets out and literally has to talk Tyler out of the car and into ours. I was in our car thinking that Dan was not going to be able to get him out and he was going to have to tell him that we were going to Disney just to get him into our car! Our car is packed with all the luggage in the back, cooler and food in the backseat next to Tyler and his stuffed animals. We brought his Figment and Stitch.

Tyler gets in, I asked him how his presentation went, he has a sour face on the whole time. Picture the biggest frown on a child, that was Tyler. So Dan asks Tyler, “do you know what your surprise is?”
Tyler pauses and then answers “Disney?”
Dan responses with “yes! We are leaving RIGHT NOW! We are driving the whole way!” A small smile begins to form on Tyler’s face, no big hoopla that we were hoping for but, he was happier.
“Now isn’t that better than an iPod Touch?!” Dan asked Tyler. Tyler just shakes his head, still not completely out of his mood yet.

So Tyler kisses his mother good by, calls his friend to tell him he wouldn’t be around this weekend, and off we went! It was now about 3:30pm.

Tyler now happy and excited!

Only about 30 minutes into our drive, we hit the first of many traffic jams. I mean, dead stop. Finally crawling along, two right lanes had to merge into the left lane. We saw the accident. There was a pickup truck on its side. Seems that he was towing a tractor and must have lost control. Not pretty.

The truck is behind the hitch that he was towing

Sick of being stuck in traffic, we got off the highway and decided to eat at McDonalds. It was about 5pm at this point anyways and we were still in Massachusetts!

We made sure that Tyler’s mom packed his Flat Stanley so we could have many adventures with him! For those of you that are not familiar, Flat Stanley is literally that, a flat image of a boy named Stanley. Tyler has to take a picture of or with Stanley and do a small paragraph write up of the adventure.

Here the boys are enjoying their hamburgers. No hamburgers are better than Disney hamburgers, according to Tyler!

Finally our first state!
Connecticut

Tyler settled in and started to watch Star Wars Episode III on the portable DVD player that we packed

I loved this billboard in Connecticut. Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies and one of the characters in part III is Maggie McFly!

In New York now, the Tappen Zee Bridge!

Once into New Jersey, we decided on a pit stop for a bathroom break and gas. Plus it was about 9-10pm and we wanted to get Tyler settled and comfortable to sleep. We stopped at one of the big rest stops off the NJ Turnpike where we got out, stretched our legs, used the facilities and got back in the car to fill up. Well, it took us 30 minutes to get through the line to the pump! These traffic stops were putting a crucial dent in our time.

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm joining!

When I was growing up, we used to always drive on our vacations. Even all the way to California.

 

[Kimberly815]

Yippee for Disney! Boo for driving for 24 hours! But then again, I do not like road trips. I am just not a fan of being stuck in the car that long. Every minute that we aren't moving along annoys me! So your traffic issues would drive me bonkers!!! Where can I pick up a Traffic-eliminator-inator?

Suprises can be so great! I mean, look at the Mickey Pizza Box one that ended up in so many of Disney's commercials . . . but I guess you just never know exactly how people are going to react! I am glad Tyler was happy/excited once he relaxed a bit! I will have to make a metal note to never mention suprises to my Munchkin so he doesn't do the same thing!

P.S. It is TOTALLY better than an Ipod Touch. Just in case anyone is checking!

 

[vicceja]

How exciting! Can't wait to read more. I'm planning our first drive to Disney this August

 

[Jennifer48]

I'm joining!

When I was growing up, we used to always drive on our vacations. Even all the way to California.

The longest we ever drove when I was little was about a 3 hr drive. You must think I'm complaining too much about this drive if you drove from IL to CA! Thanks for reading!

Yippee for Disney! Boo for driving for 24 hours! But then again, I do not like road trips. I am just not a fan of being stuck in the car that long. Every minute that we aren't moving along annoys me! So your traffic issues would drive me bonkers!!! Where can I pick up a Traffic-eliminator-inator?

Suprises can be so great! I mean, look at the Mickey Pizza Box one that ended up in so many of Disney's commercials . . . but I guess you just never know exactly how people are going to react! I am glad Tyler was happy/excited once he relaxed a bit! I will have to make a metal note to never mention suprises to my Munchkin so he doesn't do the same thing!

P.S. It is TOTALLY better than an Ipod Touch. Just in case anyone is checking!

Doofenshmirtz should have the 'traffic-eliminator-inator' on their website soon. Copyright issues going on right now.

Thats the reaction we wanted! Unfortunately, it blew up in our face. We told him next time we aren't even going to try to surprise him, we are just going to tell him straight out when we book it!

How exciting! Can't wait to read more. I'm planning our first drive to Disney this August

Thanks for reading! Your drive should be about 2-3 hrs less than us, barring any traffic issues! Good luck! I hope you write a TR so I can compare the drive!

***I hope to have another update up tonight but unfortunately we had flooding in our basement last night due to rain/snow melt so I might be busy cleaning/purging items. I promise to update as soon as I can!

 

[BookTrout]

Our kids are grown and gone and if not for you I might never have heard of Phineas and Ferb; can't wait to watch them....inator.
Loving your trip report so far and really looking forward to more.
Sharon

 

[pinkxray]

I just found your trip report and love it already. Growing up my family made the drive from CT to Disney a few times. Torture!
My DH hates traffic and insists we fly. I think that if we hit traffic 30 minutes in he would turn the car around and go home.

Love the title I have to say I never mind watching Phineas and Ferb when DD is watching it.

Poor Tyler, no I-pod Touch. Kids come up with the craziest ideas sometimes. You tell them you have a surprise for them and they think they are getting an i-pod. When I was a kid a surprise was going out for ice cream or something.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Found you all by myself

OK so you left out the IPOD Touch story the other night. Aisling probably would have reacted the same way. Wonder why he thought that??? Although it's now a really good idea for Santa

 

[Jennifer48]

Our kids are grown and gone and if not for you I might never have heard of Phineas and Ferb; can't wait to watch them....inator.
Loving your trip report so far and really looking forward to more.
Sharon

Thanks for reading Sharon! I think you should try to catch a few episodes of P&F, hilarious! DH used to make fun of me for watching it and now he watches it too!

I just found your trip report and love it already. Growing up my family made the drive from CT to Disney a few times. Torture!
My DH hates traffic and insists we fly. I think that if we hit traffic 30 minutes in he would turn the car around and go home.

Love the title I have to say I never mind watching Phineas and Ferb when DD is watching it.

Poor Tyler, no I-pod Touch. Kids come up with the craziest ideas sometimes. You tell them you have a surprise for them and they think they are getting an i-pod. When I was a kid a surprise was going out for ice cream or something.

Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip.

Thanks for reading pinkxray! I hate driving so I'm thankful DH doesn't mind it otherwise, I'd insist on flying too!

Found you all by myself

OK so you left out the IPOD Touch story the other night. Aisling probably would have reacted the same way. Wonder why he thought that??? Although it's now a really good idea for Santa

HOORAY! I thought you forgot about me! Thanks for making it over!

**Sorry no update last night. We cleaned up the basement and we have no standing water now. We did have to go through everything down there and there were only a few things that had enough damage to get rid of but it could have been MUCH worse! Thank goodness for tupperware bins!

As for the iPod, I had asked Tyler later on in the trip why he thought that he was getting one. His answer was something like "I don't know. I just really wanted one for a long time so I thought I was getting one." He's only 9 yrs old! Its such an expensive purchase and he doesn't take the best care of his things so I don't think he'll be getting one. Even "Santa" agrees

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Love the title of your TR! Phineas and Ferb is such a fantastic show, DBF always laughs at me when he sees me watching it.

Disney is definitely a great surprise! Hopefully you didn't hit too much more traffic on your way!

 

[Jennifer48]

Love the title of your TR! Phineas and Ferb is such a fantastic show, DBF always laughs at me when he sees me watching it.

Disney is definitely a great surprise! Hopefully you didn't hit too much more traffic on your way!

yay for another P&F fan! Thanks for joining in!

I just saw your TR in your signature. Open-heart surgery you look too young for that! I'm heading over to read....

 

[Hixski51]

I am here too now!!

 

[15isto2]

I think its considered child abuse these days if by 10 you dont have at leist one apple product

 

[Hixski51]

Can you believe it is 4 years since your trip report about your stalkers!!