jvz82
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2013
Hello all!! This is my first DTR (not my first Disney trip though!) and I loved reading the DTRs before my own trip so I thought I would give it a try!
First to tell you a bit about me and my family!
I'm Vicky and I LOVE Disney. My family took trips every couple of years when I was growing up and I've had many magical Disney moments. I'm 34 now and this was my 3rd trip with my own family (our last trip was 3 years ago, and the trip before that was about almost 6 years ago).
My husband is 39 and he basically tolerates Disney. He knows I love it and agrees to go, but has yet to really enjoy it the way that I do. His first trip was with me about 10 years ago. He is 7 feet tall and there are some rides he can't go on because of his height, not to mention he doesn't like crowds because people always ask him how tall he is (it's really annoying actually).
I have 4 kiddos. My oldest son is 7.5. He likes Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and hates princesses. My only daughter is going to be 6 next month (I'll just refer to her as 6 to make it easier!) and she LOVES princesses and pretty much anything Disney. My next son is turning 4 tomorrow and he adores Mickey Mouse (in fact he's having a Mickey Mouse birthday party with his brother tomorrow). I was worried about him with Disney World because he has ZERO patience (I mean it's ridiculous) and I didn't know how he would handle waiting in the lines. Then my youngest son turns 2 on January 1st. He is a busy boy!
Our trip was scheduled to start on Friday December 16th after school and work ended. We would start our long drive from snowy Minnesota and be there Saturday night! Instead, we heard rumors on Wednesday that a huge blizzard was coming. By Thursday, it looked like it was definitely coming. We were in a storm warning from Friday at noon through Saturday at 6 pm! We were really nervous about waiting until Friday evening to leave, especially since the storm system was going to hit all the way down through Illinois. It would have been either an impossible drive, or a really long one. So we made the decision to pull the kids out of school and leave Friday early morning!
Here are the kids at 6 am on Friday morning, all excited for the trip!
It took my 4YO about 45 minutes before he started asking if we were there yet. He then proceeded to ask every 10 minutes from that point on if we were there yet or not. It was wonderful.
I have to say though, despite that, my kids were rock stars in the car. They got out at gas stations for bathroom breaks and got back into the car with zero complaining. We drove straight through the night so my husband and I took turns sleeping. We didn't want to eat out at all, so we had a cooler full of food and a basket full of snacks. We also wrapped DVDs and gave each kid a turn opening a present throughout the drive to make it more fun for them. This back fired a little, as my 4YO kept wanting it to be his turn! Oh well.
We constantly checked the weather and were literally staying JUST head of the snow storm the entire time. It was the right choice to leave early!
We made AMAZING time and arrived in Orlando at 7 am Saturday morning! It was 24 hours of travel, plus the time change.
All along the way when my 4YO asked if we were there yet, I would say "Do you see any palm trees yet? We're not there until you see palm trees!" So when we parked the car and saw palm trees in the parking lot, we decided to take a picture in front of one.
Unfortunately, arriving earlier than planned did have some downfalls. I'll be back later to write about our first couple days in Orlando! Thanks for reading along so far!
First to tell you a bit about me and my family!
I'm Vicky and I LOVE Disney. My family took trips every couple of years when I was growing up and I've had many magical Disney moments. I'm 34 now and this was my 3rd trip with my own family (our last trip was 3 years ago, and the trip before that was about almost 6 years ago).
My husband is 39 and he basically tolerates Disney. He knows I love it and agrees to go, but has yet to really enjoy it the way that I do. His first trip was with me about 10 years ago. He is 7 feet tall and there are some rides he can't go on because of his height, not to mention he doesn't like crowds because people always ask him how tall he is (it's really annoying actually).
I have 4 kiddos. My oldest son is 7.5. He likes Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and hates princesses. My only daughter is going to be 6 next month (I'll just refer to her as 6 to make it easier!) and she LOVES princesses and pretty much anything Disney. My next son is turning 4 tomorrow and he adores Mickey Mouse (in fact he's having a Mickey Mouse birthday party with his brother tomorrow). I was worried about him with Disney World because he has ZERO patience (I mean it's ridiculous) and I didn't know how he would handle waiting in the lines. Then my youngest son turns 2 on January 1st. He is a busy boy!
Our trip was scheduled to start on Friday December 16th after school and work ended. We would start our long drive from snowy Minnesota and be there Saturday night! Instead, we heard rumors on Wednesday that a huge blizzard was coming. By Thursday, it looked like it was definitely coming. We were in a storm warning from Friday at noon through Saturday at 6 pm! We were really nervous about waiting until Friday evening to leave, especially since the storm system was going to hit all the way down through Illinois. It would have been either an impossible drive, or a really long one. So we made the decision to pull the kids out of school and leave Friday early morning!
Here are the kids at 6 am on Friday morning, all excited for the trip!
It took my 4YO about 45 minutes before he started asking if we were there yet. He then proceeded to ask every 10 minutes from that point on if we were there yet or not. It was wonderful.
I have to say though, despite that, my kids were rock stars in the car. They got out at gas stations for bathroom breaks and got back into the car with zero complaining. We drove straight through the night so my husband and I took turns sleeping. We didn't want to eat out at all, so we had a cooler full of food and a basket full of snacks. We also wrapped DVDs and gave each kid a turn opening a present throughout the drive to make it more fun for them. This back fired a little, as my 4YO kept wanting it to be his turn! Oh well.
We constantly checked the weather and were literally staying JUST head of the snow storm the entire time. It was the right choice to leave early!
We made AMAZING time and arrived in Orlando at 7 am Saturday morning! It was 24 hours of travel, plus the time change.
All along the way when my 4YO asked if we were there yet, I would say "Do you see any palm trees yet? We're not there until you see palm trees!" So when we parked the car and saw palm trees in the parking lot, we decided to take a picture in front of one.
Unfortunately, arriving earlier than planned did have some downfalls. I'll be back later to write about our first couple days in Orlando! Thanks for reading along so far!