A newbie, a nana, two princess, and......the Planner! (Updated 1/4--DTD & head home)

[stagemomx3]

Hi stagemomx3......welcome out of lurkdom .

 

[disneymom1980]

Hi Girldreamer02. It's nice to have you all here. Today I sent my mom (the nana) home with a tentative itinerary and a guide book so that she could start making notes of the things she wants to be sure to see. I don't want to miss anything that some thinks is important. Of course, the 5 year old may have different ideas about that than the rest of us . My mom, who has never been into thrill rides, swears that she's going to do it all this trip, so I have a feeling we'll be using babyswap A LOT! I've never done it or fastpasses before, so that could be interesting.

I looked at the Mickey PDAs because they have a fastpass tracker and a trip report thing, but I read on here that they're kind of crappy . I plan on making myself a trip journal to track everything as well, and I'm pretty much a picture FREAK, so this trip report should have lots of illustrations. I spend my little girl's nap times here and on a mommy message board, so I should be able to keep up (I hope).

I had professors beg me to be an English major in college (I ended up with a social work degree and most of an elementary education degree), so hopefully my writing won't be too awful .

 

[Beana9802]

Hi I am Kathleen. Scott sent me over here...looks great so far!

 

[disneymom1980]

Hi Kathleen......glad to have you. Scott's gathering me an audience, huh?

 

[scottny]

Hi Kathleen......glad to have you. Scott's gathering me an audience, huh?

I am trying.

 

[Girldreamer02]

Hello and thanks for the welcome. I can't wait to hear more. And there are two little darling girls that are involoved so all the better! I love little kids, but I just don't want any for at least 2-5 yrs. I'll be married in 92 short days (july 19th) and I am only 24 so I think that is a reasonable time frame. I digress though b/c this is all about you. Your places to eat all sound good. I can vouch for the CRT breakfast because I did it when df and I went to disney for christmas this yr. It was great fun! I am a big kid. Hehe. Crystal place is also fun and a good time and so was 1900 park faire. All good character meals in my opinion. There are some pics from them on my trip report if you just want to scroll for those in my report its in my siggy. Can't wait to hear more! Oh yea, I think its so cute that your taking Nana too. I heart grandma's they are so stinkin cute!

 

[askelton]

I followed Scott's link over too.

 

[disneymom1980]

Hi Angela! Thanks Scott....I'll do my best to deserve the following .

Girldreamer~I was 22 when my first daughter was born. It was about 7 months after I graduated from college. I am pretty much a big kid too, and Winnie the Pooh is my favorite......hence the Crystal Palace. Dh loves Donald and Goofy, so that has figured into some of the characters meals that I'm planning as well. I'm glad you introduced youself. I've made lots of friends on this and my other message board, and I'd get bored if I just had to talk about myself all the time .

Nana is actually my mom. Our girls are very lucky in that they have several grandparents as well as great grandparents all still around, so we've had to come up with different names for everyone. My grandparents are grandma & grandpa to my girls, my mom is nana, and my husbands parents are grandma & grandpa on the farm. They also have grandma Lilly who is a great grandma and grandma Faith who is a great grandma.......see........it gets kind of confusing sometimes.

 

[Girldreamer02]

That is a little confusing. We just used their last names when i was growing up. Now I just have my moms parents and my dads mom. I also have my great grandparents (my moms grandma and grandpa) so I am pretty lucky too. The greats are getting really old and my great grandpa has cancer. Poor man. He is to stubborn to leave though so he isn't going anywhere until he is good and ready. Thats what my mom always says. My other great grandma was a wonderful woman she was I think 99 when she died. I could be wrong...could be a few yrs off. She was sharp as a whip and didn't miss a beat. It would take her a few minutes to gather everything in her head, but she was 99 so I would expect that. I miss her.

 

[disneymom1980]

My oldest daughter's favorite people in the world are her great grandparents. They spoil her rotten (much to my dismay somtimes). She was the first grandchild and the first great grandchild for my side of the family. We're very lucky in that everyone lives within just a few miles of each other. I truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child, and it's wonderful for my girls to be able to have those influences in their lives.

 

[Girldreamer02]

My oldest daughter's favorite people in the world are her great grandparents. They spoil her rotten (much to my dismay somtimes). She was the first grandchild and the first great grandchild for my side of the family. We're very lucky in that everyone lives within just a few miles of each other. I truly believe that it takes a village to raise a child, and it's wonderful for my girls to be able to have those influences in their lives.

awww I love it!

 

[disneymom1980]

I feel very lucky to have all of them in our lives .

 

[disneymom1980]

Well, today is officially six months from our trip. Unfortunately our 180 days isn't until Wednesday. Guess what I'll be doing before I get the little one ready for school in the morning........making ADRs. I'm not really a morning person, but I'll get up early for that .

 

[Girldreamer02]

I am so not a morning person either. The other day I woke up at twelve thirty and I layed there for a minute telling myself I'd get up and then I fell back asleep until two thirty. Opps. Hehe. I love my sleep! What can i say?! I was so glad we didn't have to both with adr's in dec. We booked our trip through Dreams Unlimited and they took care of all our adr's for us. It was great! We took them where we wanted to eat and gave time frames we would like to eat within and they did the rest. Everything worked out well. Who did you book through? Good luck with your adr's I can't wait to hear what you got!

 

[Beana9802]

Well, today is officially six months from our trip. Unfortunately our 180 days isn't until Wednesday. Guess what I'll be doing before I get the little one ready for school in the morning........making ADRs. I'm not really a morning person, but I'll get up early for that .

Sounds like a sacrifice I would make....what time do they "open" anyway?!

 

[disneymom1980]

Beana9802~I believe they open at 7:00 eastern time which is 6:00 my time. Not too early since I have to get up at 7 to get my oldest ready for school.

Girldreamer02~I actually did all the booking myself. I asked around on the boards, and that seemed to be the easiest way for me to go. We live in a pretty rural area, and the travel agents around here don't really know much about Disney. I probably know A LOT more than they do.

I like to sleep in too, but it's not something I get to do very often. Not with my girls. My youngest has been getting up around 6:30, and my oldest has to get up at 7:00 to get ready for school. Sometimes I can sneak in a nap with my little one while the older one is at school though. Unfortunately, she only naps for about 1/2 an hour at a time .

 

[Girldreamer02]

Aww well that sucks. For future reference you might want to book with Dreams Unlimited. They rock and they are only disney as far as I know. They do a great job. We used them for our Christmas trip in dec and we booked our honeymoon disney cruise with them too.

 

[disneymom1980]

Girldreamer02~I will definitely keep them in mind. I'm really in to the planning part of things, so it doesn't really bother me to do it myself. Hopefully I won't get there and realize I've forgotten something . It would be nice to have someone else make ADRs though.

Dh wants to take a cruise someday, but he can't swim, and I have this fear that he'll get in the middle of the ocean somewhere (where he can't see any land) and he'll freak out . We probably will sometime though. He wants to go to Alaska, but I'm trying to convince him that someplace warm (like Mexico) would be nicer. I've been to Cancun and loved it.......I'm not much for the cold.

 

[Girldreamer02]

Girldreamer02~I will definitely keep them in mind. I'm really in to the planning part of things, so it doesn't really bother me to do it myself. Hopefully I won't get there and realize I've forgotten something . It would be nice to have someone else make ADRs though.

Dh wants to take a cruise someday, but he can't swim, and I have this fear that he'll get in the middle of the ocean somewhere (where he can't see any land) and he'll freak out . We probably will sometime though. He wants to go to Alaska, but I'm trying to convince him that someplace warm (like Mexico) would be nicer. I've been to Cancun and loved it.......I'm not much for the cold.

Yea I know all about the cold. I lived in ohio all my life and then in Nov the same company that df works for offered me a job as his assistant and I moved to WI to live with him and work for the company. Talk about cold. My God I have no desire to ever relive those kind of temps again! It would be like 40 below and it ALWAYS snowed. There was snow on the ground the whole entire winter. Now we moved to Va (travel for work) and we are living about 20 mins from d.c. So much nicer! I love it here! You still get to plan even though you use Dreams unlimited and I do believe you can still do your own adr's, but df and I were busy working so we just let them do it for us. Not to mention they had a few tricks up their sleeves to get some of the adr's we wanted, but were hard to get. So they were useful in that respect. I do believe they are slightly cheaper too. I'm not trying to sound pushy or anything. They just rock is all and I want as many people to know about them as possible. I am scared for our cruise. Boats and I don't have a history of getting along, but our alternative was to not take a honeymoon since he couldn't get a lot of time off work. The cruise is four nights and we pretty much just booked it and said okay I'm taking off these four days and thats final. I mean come on its our honeymoon people. I understand business is business, but his dad was trying to say no honeymoon at all. I should mention his dad is the v.p of the company, but works out of ohio. Its all settled now though. its all good

 

[Beana9802]

Aww well that sucks. For future reference you might want to book with Dreams Unlimited. They rock and they are only disney as far as I know. They do a great job. We used them for our Christmas trip in dec and we booked our honeymoon disney cruise with them too.

Thanks for the advice, even though it wasn't for me necessarily! I am getting a quote from them as we speak!