Have A Stitchin' Good Time!! WDW & The Dream in March '13! NEW 3/20!

[StitchIsOurHero]

Hi y'all! Welcome to my second PTR! I have to say that this is the MOST I have ever been excited for a Disney trip, and thats saying a whole lot! I always LOVE to plan our trips. My DH & I have been on 15 Disney trips together, and DS has been on 4 of those with us.

(This is us from our June 2012 vacation--the TR is in my siggie. DS thought we had to turn our heads because the photographer had turned the camera!)

We love all things Disney, and we are the type of people who plan the next trip on the way home from a trip (even though our trips are usually a year apart). I am a spreadsheet-making, binder-carrying, plan-following Disney Lover (or Disney Freak, whichever works for you!).

This trip is SUPER-SPECIAL, though, and I cannot wait to share it with you! Today is our "4 months out" mark, and I am so excited I cant stand it! I knew my DISBoard buddies would be able to understand that!

We are going March 21-28, 2013. We will be at the Wilderness Lodge (more on that later) from March 21-24, and then on the Disney Dream from March 24-28. I will explain the SUPER-SPECIALness of this trip in another post!

I hope I havent turned you away with my over-excitement! Please read along with us and join us in our planning!

Happy Disney Day, everyone!

I will post another update tomorrow! I hope you enjoy reading along!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

Chapter Links:

Intro. . .Helllllllooooooo, Stitchs!!
The Resort Plan. . .Where Stitchs Sleep!
The Basic Cruise Plan. . .Where Stitchs Will "Chill"!
Real Life Update #1: Stitchs Give Thanks. . .Thanksgiving 2012!
Day 1 Plans--Kickin' Off A Stitchin' Good Time!
Real Life Update #2: Stitchs Meet Santa 2012!!
Back to Planning! Day 1 Dining--Stitchs Getting Some Disney Food!
Real Live Update #3: A New Christmas Tradition!
Day 2 Morning Plans--Stitchs Are Off To a Park!!
Watching that Countdown Move On Down!!
It's 104 Days Til Disney Vacation! A Countdown Celebration!
Real Life Update #4: Birthday Dinners & Decorations!
100 days 'til Disney! Countdown Dinner!
An Anniversary with a Disney Twist!
Day 2 Evening Plans--The Stitchs Try To Stay Out Late!
Hitting Another Countdown Marker!
The Stitchs Pay Off & Check In! A Cruise Update!
A 90 Day Countdown Celebration!
Real Life Update #5: Christmas Eve with the Stitchs!
Real Life Update #6: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year's Eve, and Moving On Down the Countdown!!
Day 2 Dining Plans--The Stitchs Hit Some MK Food!
80 Day Countdown Celebration!
Making the Countdown Calendar!
Day 3 Morning Plans--MK Bound Again!
Another Countdown Marker!!!
70 Day Countdown Celebration!
Day 3 Afternoon Plans. . .and a Disney Trip Down Memory Lane!
Day 3 ADR's. . .More Food!
Real Life Update #7: A Nice Long Weekend!
60 day countdown celebration!!
Day 4 Morning Plans! Breakfast with a Mouse!
Real Life Update #8. . .Another Weekend Update!
Hitting Another Countdown Marker--Just a Little Dancing!!
Day 4 Midday Plans. . .Look Out, Dream! Here are the Stitchs!
50 Day Countdown Party!!
Making Progress--Checking off the "to-do" List!
Some Disney Favorites!!
A Little More Dancing!
Day 4 Evening Plans! A Night on the Ship!
Celebrating 40 Days!!
Real-Life Update #9: Valentine's Day Fun!
Mickey Mail!!
Another Dancing Day!!
Day 5 Morning Plans! Let's Go To Nassau!
30 Day Countdown Party!!
Day 5 Evening Plans! Winding Up The Nassau Day!
Real-Life Update #10: Another Fun Weekend Update!
A Little More Dancing. . .
A Little Disney Shopping!!
Real-Life Update #11: A Weekend Good Time!
Day 6 Morning Plans--The Stitchs Arrive at Castaway Cay!
20 Day Countdown Celebration!!
Mousekeeping, Magnets, and a Monkey. . .Getting Ready!!
Day 6 pm. . .Pirate Night!
Let's Dance A Little More, Shall We?
And Just a Little More Dancing!
Wanna Dance With Somebody??
Day 7 Plans . . .Stitchs on a Day at Sea!
ONE WEEK!!!
Ch-Ch-Changes!!
10 Day Countdown Party!!
Pre-St. Patrick's Day/5 Day Countdown!!
Packing!
Real-Life Update #12: St. Patrick's Day!
Real-Life Update #13: Kindergarten Registration!
1 MORE DAY Dancing!!!
Day 7 PM Plans. . .Last "Planning" Update!
It's HERE!!! (Or almost. . .)

 

[Princess Bette]

Hi! Jumping on board early for this one! We will be on the Dream with you!! How exciting! Can't wait to hear more of your plans, etc.!! We leave a week from tomorrow for our first WDW trip...can't wait!! Oh, and I love that you are using "pink"!! Your son is so cute! Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[PrincessNancy96]

Hi sweetie!!!

I'm here!!!

Can't wait to hear all about your plans!!!

Give my Big D a hug!!!
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!

 

[PrincessNancy96]

D you just crack Auntie Nan up!!!

 

[mommy2mrb]

I'm here too! I made page one! can't wait to hear about all your plans!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

Hi! Jumping on board early for this one! We will be on the Dream with you!! How exciting! Can't wait to hear more of your plans, etc.!! We leave a week from tomorrow for our first WDW trip...can't wait!! Oh, and I love that you are using "pink"!! Your son is so cute! Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi!! Thanks for reading along! That is so exciting that you will be on the Dream at the same time as us! Ooh. . .enjoy your upcoming trip, too! Yes, I am all about the pink. . .being the only girl in my house, we don't have a lot of pink! So, I use it when I can! Happy Thanksgiving to you too!!

Hi sweetie!!!

I'm here!!!

Can't wait to hear all about your plans!!!

Give my Big D a hug!!!
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!

D you just crack Auntie Nan up!!!

Isn't he a mess?? So glad you are here to read along! You rock!! Happy Thanksgiving to you all as well!!

I'm here too! I made page one! can't wait to hear about all your plans!

Hi!!! So glad you're here too!! I definitely have planned and planned on this one!! Happy Thanksgiving to you!!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Have a wonderful day!

Update in next post!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

A little bit of intro (not too much, in case you’ve read our other reports. . .don’t want the boredom to kick in yet!):

I’m Brooke, and I’m 36. I am a high school guidance counselor in the town I grew up in, in East Tennessee. I love Lilo & Stitch, Minnie, Pluto, Donald, and all of the Villains. . .Hades is my favorite!

This is Brian, and he is 39, but he will be celebrating on the Dream! He works for a bank here, and I honestly have NO clue what he does. He works very hard and takes his job seriously, but I don’t know what it is! So, I call him a “transpondster” like Chandler Bing from the “Friends” episode. Brian loves
Donald Duck, Lilo & Stitch, and Buzz Lightyear!

Brian and I have been married for 12 years (it’ll be 13 in December), and we are a matched set. When we’re not at work, we are almost always together. We share a love for all things Disney, and we are both extremely excited for this trip (yes, you knew I couldn’t go 3 paragraphs without mentioning how excited I am).

This is our MAIN MAN. . .our little guy, Dalton:

D is 4, and he will also be celebrating on the Dream! We were married a long time before we were able to have him (you can do the math! ), and we love spending time together as a family and doing fun stuff!

D is a bundle of four-year-old energy! He loves Mickey, Buzz & Woody, Stitch (but not Lilo), Phineas and Ferb, and Donald!


Like all of you, Disney is our happy place! We love our Disney trips, and we are looking forward to this new adventure!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

The Plan!

Every good vacation begins with a plan, right?? Well, I have planned and planned!

This trip has been a long time in the making! I booked the cruise in October 2011, while my co-workers looked at me like I was crazy! They could not figure out why I would book a vacation for nearly a year and a half away. I tried to explain about good rates, etc, but their eyes were still bugging out, so I stopped!

The purpose of this trip and cruise is to celebrate my guys! You see, Brian will turn 40 in March, and Dalton will turn 5 in August. These are BIG birthdays at our house! I knew I wanted to do a HUGE celebration for them, and I wanted to do it in between their birthdays. However, that didn’t fall right with summer break, so we opted to go in March. We will be there for Brian’s actual birthday (or we drive home that day), and we are still going to make it a big celebration for D as well!

As we originally planned it, we were going to stay at the Polynesian for a few days before the trip. I had it all set in my mind—I wanted to stay 3 nights before the cruise, and I had planned to stay club level.

(photo from wdwinfo.com)

We are all about the island lifestyle (though there’s not so much of that in East Tennessee), so I thought this would be an awesome fit.

Brian was originally leery of staying at Poly. It’s always been his dream resort, but he kept saying he didn’t know if he wanted a short stay there. Plus, there were rumors of it opening a DVC section, and he thought he might want to wait and stay as a member. I finally got him talked into it, and we were good to go!

Now. . .fast forward to June 2012. We went to WDW for a week, and on the way home, I was already looking for when 2013 package rates would come out so I could book my Poly stay. We used our 2013 member points in 2012, so I knew it would be a cash stay.

In July, when the rates opened, I priced the Poly. Then, my sweet son looks at me and says, “Mommmmmmmmmmy, pleeeeeeeeeease, don’t ‘make’ me stay at the Polyneeeeeeeeesian. I wanna go back to my Wilderness Lodge!” I had to laugh, because it made it sound like Motel 6 vs. Taj Mahal, but he made his point!

So, in July, we booked our March 21-24, 2013 stay for. . .

Dalton’s FAVORITE place! The Wilderness Lodge!

We were originally booked in a standard-view room, which I have changed twice. Now, we are set, though. . .we will be staying in a CLUB LEVEL room!

(photo from AllEars)

We have never stayed Club Level before, so I am SUPER-excited!

When I originally booked our package, I booked it with Deluxe Dining. Now, we have Deluxe Dining AND Club Level. If it was a longer stay, I would worry, but you know what? I’m not going to! I’m so looking forward to everything!!

We have two-day base tickets as part of the package. I had originally planned to do AK & MK, but there’s a new plan now! More about that in our daily plans!

So, that’s our resort plan for now. . .in the next post, there will be more info about our cruise!

 

[mommy2mrb]

such a wonderful way to celebrate your guy's b-days wow you are going all out with Club Level and Deluxe Dining....plus the cruise...you are going to have to do a TR just about the food

 

[PrincessNancy96]

Whew!! I hadn't missed too much!!

Sounds like a great plan coming together!!!

I need to start planning my 2014 grad party trip...but I'm hoping to sneak in a trip before then if I can and things go right in the next few months!!!!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

such a wonderful way to celebrate your guy's b-days wow you are going all out with Club Level and Deluxe Dining....plus the cruise...you are going to have to do a TR just about the food

I know!! This is definitely a go-all-out trip!! But they deserve it! I am so excited about it!! Yes, I think I may have to lose weight just to compensate for how much I'll eat! there will definitely be lots of food in the TR!

Whew!! I hadn't missed too much!!

Sounds like a great plan coming together!!!

I need to start planning my 2014 grad party trip...but I'm hoping to sneak in a trip before then if I can and things go right in the next few months!!!!

You should definitely sneak in another trip!! Like say, for a few days in March???? . Can't believe it'll be time for another grad party in 2014!!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

So, that was all of the resort goodness. . .now on to the cruise! Or, as D likes to call it, “Mickey’s ‘Fotel’ On The Water”!

We are booked on the Disney Dream from the 24th of March through the 28th of March. We are in a Deluxe Family Oceanview Room, with two portholes. I think I have read that you can sit in them and look out, so D will love that!

We are so excited about the cruise part! D doesn’t really know what to expect, but I think he will love it! Our room is #5522, so it’s above one of the Theaters (sort of). I think we’ll be ok, though. . .we’ve got a white noise machine and we’re not light sleepers!

When we originally booked, I had to take Second Seating because Main was not available. Well, I have worried about that since that point. I knew there was no way that D could wait until 8 pm to eat, and I was pretty sure we’d never make it that long either.

So, I made it my mission to see if I could get it changed. One of the DCL people I talked to when I booked said to call every so often to see if it could be changed—he said, “Remember the squeaky wheel?” So, I called a couple of times this summer, but they would always say, “you are waitlisted, but there isn’t anything”. About 4 weeks ago, I started calling every Tuesday. That is usually a lighter day at work, so it’s easier to call. Every week, they would assure me we were waitlisted and tell me that even if it didn’t come through, I could maybe do it on the day we got on the ship. I was more than happy to do that, but I am such a worrywart, I like to have things taken care of beforehand!

BUT pixie dust was with me last week! I called the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and the really sweet CM told me we were still waitlisted, there was no availability, etc. Then she said that if we couldn’t get it switched, we could always eat at Cabanas (the buffet place). I said, “Yes, I know, and we’ll do that, but I so wanted to try the dining rooms.” She gave me the same spiel again that I could try on the first day. Well, about 10 minutes after that call, I got an email from Disney Cruise Line telling me we had been updated and CHANGED TO MAIN!

I tried to go be excited and share this news with people at work, but they didn’t “get” it! I am already so excited I can’t stand it!!

I can’t wait for the AquaDuck, the dining, the time to relax, and all of that fun stuff!

*photo from AllEars

*photo from AllEars

We have one day in Nassau, one day in Castaway Cay, and one day at sea! Lots of fun will be had, for sure!

I will have more info about our daily plans on that section, but I cannot wait to just see the ship and step on it for the first time!

 

[PrincessNancy96]

What a great email to receive!!! I just don't understand why your coworkers don't get it!!! LOL


Sounds like a very fun filled vacation.. I wish we could make March...but the boys don't have break til the following week... and PJ is off the first of March... nothing jives with anyones schedules!!!

 

[mommy2mrb]

yay for getting first dinner! that your school friends don't get the excitement...but you know we do
you have to eat at the restaurants for dinner...buffet is for lunch
you will have a great time, does D plan on going to the kids club?
so is your cabin more to the front of the ship? you will feel the movement more up there, hope you don't have issues with getting seasick

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

What a great email to receive!!! I just don't understand why your coworkers don't get it!!! LOL


Sounds like a very fun filled vacation.. I wish we could make March...but the boys don't have break til the following week... and PJ is off the first of March... nothing jives with anyones schedules!!!

I know, right?? I kept saying, "But it worked! We got first dinner!" and they kept looking at me like they were going to call the white-coated people! Bless them, they don't know what they're missing!

You just need to tell the boys' schools and PJ's college that they need to coordinate calendars with ME! That way, we could all go! Yeah, I'm sure they would understand that necessity!!

yay for getting first dinner! that your school friends don't get the excitement...but you know we do
you have to eat at the restaurants for dinner...buffet is for lunch
you will have a great time, does D plan on going to the kids club?
so is your cabin more to the front of the ship? you will feel the movement more up there, hope you don't have issues with getting seasick

I'm so glad y'all understand the excitement over getting the dining! I totally agree with you--dining rooms for dinner! That's why I was sorta floored when she kept saying I could just "grab something" for dinner every night!

D isn't sure yet about the kids club. I definitely will take him in there on the first day so he can see everything. I also hope we can do some of the open house type activities where parents can go too. He wouldn't worry about it then!

We have been lucky--neither of us gets seasick, and D doesn't seem to get motion sick. Fingers crossed that that holds out for this trip!

 

[mommy2mrb]

hello, why wouldn't we "get it" official disney freaks here too

that's good you don't get seasick....have you joined the cruise thread yet? when we went I met a couple of families and our girls hung out a bit in the kid club, megan wouldn't go if the other girls weren't there...was nice for us too to have the other adults to hang out with if we wanted to!

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

hello, why wouldn't we "get it" official disney freaks here too

that's good you don't get seasick....have you joined the cruise thread yet? when we went I met a couple of families and our girls hung out a bit in the kid club, megan wouldn't go if the other girls weren't there...was nice for us too to have the other adults to hang out with if we wanted to!

Exactly!!! You all speak the language!! I have joined our cruise meets thread, but I have to admit, I've been a slacker at keeping up with it! I will have to do that better! That would at least give us people we sort of "knew"!

Update coming below. . .

 

[StitchIsOurHero]

A Real Life Update:

Just a few pics from Thanksgiving last week. . . We had my inlaws over for lunch. Before they got there, we had some fun outside taking Thanksgiving pics.

Even Mickey & Minnie wished us a Happy Thanksgiving:

Thanksgiving Day was 17 weeks until we leave for our trip. . .today it is 16 weeks!!!! The Countdown is ON!!!