Our 5 Year Anniversary Trip: 2 weeks, a wedding and a baby! - in AUGUST!!! Updated 6/11/16

[TinkLoverSam]

Hi all! I'm mostly a lurker on the boards and I've never written a "real" trip report before, though I did do a planning journal/trip report for our wedding trip back in 2010 (link is in my signature) however I took crappy notes (read no notes) and felt I didn't have any readers so I reported the first half of our trip and then did a wrap up post, so I'm hoping to do better this time! Of course this time I won't be going to university full time while working full time when trying to write the report so that might help!

But I'm getting ahead of myself! Who are we after all?

I'm Samantha sometimes called Sam


And this is my DH Wes


I am currently 38 weeks pregnant with our first who is due two days before my 30 birthday and just under two months before our 5th anniversary and our trip to WDW!

Why would we choose to take a 2 month old baby to WDW for our anniversary? Well because I'm a Disney freak but also because my twin sister @Disney_Alli is getting married!

What's the plan, Stan? Dates August 8th to 22nd, 2015

We are flying in on Saturday, August 8th on a direct flight from Calgary (only one takeoff and landing with an infant... I'm trying to do this as smart as I can!) where we will be joined by my parents on the flight as they are connecting through Calgary from Kelowna (yay extra hands for baby... See I am trying to be smart)

We are staying the first 4 nights at the Sheraton Vistana Villages with my parents in a two bedroom villa, then moving to POR for DH, baby and I and the Swan for my parents.

Sunday the 9th is our first day in the world and our anniversary. I'm planning a slow morning as we have dinner with my sister, her soon-to-be in-laws and everyone else down for the wedding on Saturday night. Also we are not planning on flying 2 weeks worth of diapers and other baby essentials so we will have to make a Walmart or target stop that morning. I have tentative plans to hit a park around lunch time and then my parents will watch the baby while DH and I have dinner at Yachtsman's Steakhouse that night for our anniversary dinner.

Monday the 10th is an MK day and we will be touring with my parents during their (shorter) stay. We have a late lunch planned at The Plaza at 2:15pm and then we will take a break. We might try and return to the park for the evening depending on if we get any rest and how baby is doing with the heat.

Tuesday the 11th is an AK day with my parents. We have a Yak and Yeti lunch reso at 2ish and then we'll probably be done for the day.

Wednesday the 12th we all switch resorts and my parents have to return their rental car so again we may hit a park in the afternoon but we also have the rehearsal dinner for my sister's wedding at Garden Grove and then mini golf at Fantasia Gardens starting at about 6pm.

Thursday the 13th is the wedding day! My sister and her fiancé had their first date on a Friday the 13th so my sister wanted to get married on the 13th and as her inlaws are ranchers she asked them what month worked best for them and they said August so August the 13th it was! The ceremony is at 5pm at SBP on the Boardwalk with a dessert party watching Fantasmic! soon after.

Friday the 14th is either an off day or a universal studios day... My sister and her family will be going to US both Friday and Saturday but with the baby I think we will need a down day plus I don't feel US has a ton of shade but I do want to see Diagon Alley and as much as DH was against going to US at all due to lack of shade and having gone on our last 2 Disney trips I think he'll enjoy the new Simpsons' area as well.

Sunday the 16th is my parents last day in Disney. We will be going to MK and they, DH and I (and baby) along with @Disney_Alli and her DH are going to Hoop Dee Doo Revue. DH and I saw it on our honeymoon and I think it will be a great last night all together for our family.

My laptop is currently dead so I'm typing all this out on my iPad so I think that is enough for today. Stay tuned for more plans... And for baby!

 

[NeedaDisneyFix]

Congrats on the little one! Sounds like you have a great plan to have an extra set of hands with you. Just go on baby's time as much as you can! Ill be joining in!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Congrats on the little one! Sounds like you have a great plan to have an extra set of hands with you. Just go on baby's time as much as you can! Ill be joining in!

Thanks!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Plans Continued:

Monday the 17th will be DH and I's first park day alone with baby we are planning an Epcot day with lunch at Coral Reef at 1:45 a break and then back to the park for illuminations in the evening.

Tuesday the 18th will be MK again with a (hopefully) pre-park opening ADR at Crystal Palace at 8am. And a Be Our Guest dinner at 6:45pm... There will probably be a break somewhere in there. We may be touring with @Disney_Alli and her DH that day hitting the kiddie rides with the baby and as many Fp+ as we can get.

Wednesday the 19th is a Studios day with lunch at as Sci-Fi Dine In at 2pm also with @Disney_Alli and her DH.

Thursday the 20th is an AK day with a character dinner at Tusker House at 4pm... I'm thinking a slower paced day at AK without a break and then dinner and leave.

Friday the 21st is our last park day and it will be MK with lunch at BOG at 12:55.

Saturday the 22nd we don't fly out until 5:50pm and we are taking DME to the airport (my first ever ride on DME) we have breakfast at 1900 Park Fare at 11:05am then we will head back to POR and hang out until our pickup time.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Our Disney History:

So have we been to WDW before? Well if you've seen my signature pics you already know we've been to WDW at least once!

My first trip to WDW was as a 12 year old. My dad decided we should take a family trip to Disney and as we lived on the east coast in Ottawa, Ontario he decided we were going to Walt Disney World! He bought an unofficial guide and started planning. He decided the best time to go was October so my sister and I were pulled out of school for a week and went to WDW! We returned about every other year for the next 10 years or so until my sister and I moved out and moved across the country.

When I met my husband he had never been to a Disney theme park (!) so I had to rectify that! Our first trip together that wasn't to visit family was 10 days in Orlando the first 3 days at the Swan and the next week in a rental house with my parents and sister.

In 2009 after getting engaged we were discussing wedding locations as we knew we were looking for a destination wedding. We threw around a few ideas and finally DH asked if you could get married at WDW. I said of course and we were off! We were married 8.9.10 at the Yacht Club wedding gazebo and spent a total of 3 weeks at Disney (with a few days at universal mixed in to see WWoHP for me). We had an amazing time.

For our first anniversary we spent a week at DL followed by a Mexican Riviera cruise on DCL. Our second anniversary was a DCL cruise to the Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy again with my parents and my sister.

In 2013 we spent the first week of December in DL enjoying the Christmas decorations with my parents and my sister and her fiancé for his second time at DL.

We did a DCL cruise to Alaska in May 2014 for our most recent Disney experience!

We can't wait to head back to the world, though we know it will be a much different kind of touring with a 2 month old!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Here I am in our Dumbo themed nursery. Of corse it had to be Disney and I loved that dumbo worked either way before we knew if we were having a boy or a girl. We decided to paint to the room a lemony yellow (ok DH painted... Fumes are bad) and then we got all of our furniture from Best Buy (Who knew they sold baby stuff?) when they had a sale where the more items you ordered the more you saved so we ordered the crib, a dresser with a changer top and a glider chair with matching footstool. Since all the furniture was black I wanted a bright colour on the chair so we went with turquoise, which started our theme of turquoise for everything... Including the dumbo quote decal on the wall.

 

[KathyM2]

Following along here!! Congrats on your sis' wedding and your impending arrival!! It all sounds really exciting!!

Just a few words of caution for a fellow mom...I'd be careful about planning too ambitiously for touring with a newborn. You will still be not quite yourself physically, and also,....likely EXHAUSTED from getting used to life with a baby.

It's wonderful when they are young because they are portable and can pretty easily go where you go...but sadly...you may not have the energy...or perhaps that is just me lol...but I could barely manage a trip to the local mall much less a theme park when my kids were that young!!

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer here...You will have tons of help I'm sure from your family, and you probably have more energy than I did, so hopefully this is all irrelevant! I just would be careful about commando planning like you were perhaps able to do on your pre-baby trips!! I wouldn't want you to be really disspointed if you couldn't keep a lot of the plans you are making.

I'm very excited to follow along on this journey!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Following along here!! Congrats on your sis' wedding and your impending arrival!! It all sounds really exciting!!

Just a few words of caution for a fellow mom...I'd be careful about planning too ambitiously for touring with a newborn. You will still be not quite yourself physically, and also,....likely EXHAUSTED from getting used to life with a baby.

It's wonderful when they are young because they are portable and can pretty easily go where you go...but sadly...you may not have the energy...or perhaps that is just me lol...but I could barely manage a trip to the local mall much less a theme park when my kids were that young!!

I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer here...You will have tons of help I'm sure from your family, and you probably have more energy than I did, so hopefully this is all irrelevant! I just would be careful about commando planning like you were perhaps able to do on your pre-baby trips!! I wouldn't want you to be really disspointed if you couldn't keep a lot of the plans you are making.

I'm very excited to follow along on this journey!

Oh I have no idea what I'm doing so any thoughts are appreciated. I am planning afternoon breaks every day and I know touring will be very different with the baby... I've been pretty active due to working at a little hotel throughout my pregnancy and I hope to be able to do some "Disney training" walks once baby is here to get us all ready and used to the stroller and the carrier. Even at over 7 months pregnant I've been going on 5km walks with my hubby on his days off so I'm hoping to keep my energy levels up as best as I can!

 

[KathyM2]

Oh I have no idea what I'm doing so any thoughts are appreciated. I am planning afternoon breaks every day and I know touring will be very different with the baby... I've been pretty active due to working at a little hotel throughout my pregnancy and I hope to be able to do some "Disney training" walks once baby is here to get us all ready and used to the stroller and the carrier. Even at over 7 months pregnant I've been going on 5km walks with my hubby on his days off so I'm hoping to keep my energy levels up as best as I can!

Well that sounds good...as much as you can "plan" for having a newborn lol. And some people handle it really well and just can roll with the new flow of life as a new mom...hopefully you will be one of those...I just know for me...it took me a long time to not be so exhausted that all I cared about what when might be the next time I got to sleep!! But...at least if you are gonna be tired and on that roller coaster...you will be at Disney!!!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Well I am still pregnant and officially due tomorrow so we'll see when the little guy arrives. I was happy to not have the baby yesterday as last night was my FP+ booking night I was able to book for all of our offsite and our onsite portion so I'm happy. I also did online checkin and requested corner room top floor for our POR stay. I already had my TA request the mansions section and I told them we were arriving early so hopefully our room will be ready when we get there after switching hotels that day. I can't believe that we are less than 60 days from our on-site stay which means we are less than 2 months out and baby still has to arrive so I can fit into my bridesmaid dress and build up my walking stamina again.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

So baby arrived 5 days late and much bigger than expected... 9lbs 9ozs to be exact (!) so I might not be getting as much Disney training walking in as expected due to the ouch factor!

Here is Arthur Scott



Now we just need to get his birth certificate and his passport so we can go to Disney!

 

[KathyM2]

Wow!! Congrats!!! I hope you are recovering well and getting used to the crazy life of a mom with a newborn!!

 

[Disney_Alli]

Okay the first time I looked at this the picture of Wes and Art didn't show up... SO FREAKING CUTE!!!!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Unfortunately I've developed a bit of an infection and been put on virtual bed rest... Healthy and active throughout my pregnancy and I get put on bed rest postpartum!

We called and added Arthur to our flights as a lap baby. When we booked our flighs we obviously did not have his birthdate so westjet advised us to book ourselves and add him later.

We are still waiting on the birth certificate so that we can get his passport... We can get it in as little as 24 hours but that is a big extra cost so the sooner we get the birth certificate the better.

 

[Disneychix]

Congratulations! I hope you recover quickly! Remember your body needs time to heal

Arthur is beautiful and great job delivering that big boy!!

 

[elphie101]

I'm following Alli's PJ, and after she mentioned you had a PTR I came over here too! It'll be fun to read two different sides of the trip (plus we'll be at WDW 8/15-8/22, perhaps we'll cross paths!)

I'm sorry about your bed rest - I hope you have a quick and speedy recovery!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Congratulations! I hope you recover quickly! Remember your body needs time to heal

Arthur is beautiful and great job delivering that big boy!!

Thanks for the well wishes! I'm trying to remember that healing takes time but it's frustrating to not even be able to sit comfortably let alone move around.

I'm following Alli's PJ, and after she mentioned you had a PTR I came over here too! It'll be fun to read two different sides of the trip (plus we'll be at WDW 8/15-8/22, perhaps we'll cross paths!)

I'm sorry about your bed rest - I hope you have a quick and speedy recovery!

Yeah Alli and I will probably have some different experiences but we are planning some time together so it will be fun to read her perspective on our time.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Arthur's health care card arrived in the mail this afternoon which means that his birth is officially on record with the province! This means we were able to go in and apply for his birth certificate (our province is really weird with how we register births). Once we get the birth certificate we will be able to apply for his passport. We should have the BC in about 2 weeks which leaves us 3 weeks to get the passport before we fly to Orlando!

Since we were out we decided to get his passport photo taken today as well so we would only have to fill out the forms and go to the passport office as soon as we have the BC in hand.

Ever try to get a 10 day old infant to open his eyes? Not easy but we managed! Poor Arthur has developed Baby acne his face is so broken out right now I hope the picture is accepted but they do guarantee them at the photo studio at Walmart so if it gets rejected we can get a free retake.

Also Arthur has learned how to roll onto his side in the last day or so, so he now sleeps like this most of the time

 

[Disney_Alli]

Such a cute nephew I have!!! Can't wait to see him in a few days!

 

[KathyM2]

OMG adorable pic!! I totally remember with both my kids trying to get their passport photos done when they were that small. It was NOT easy at all. In fact, we ended up having to do them several times because they were not acceptable...it was quite an ordeal....trying to get an awake not crying but not smiling baby who can't even hold up their neck...Kudos to you for getting it done!