Christmas? Christmas! POR Dec2015! *Updated 6Aug*

[canadianmom2three]

Joining in on your PTR - we are also a family of 5 making the trek down but we will be there over the Christmas holiday, and our drive is close to 20 hours which is why I'm loving your motto lol...

We went back for what we thought would be our "last" family trip as 5 since our DS will be 18 this year. He LOVED that trip, rode all the corny kids rides, wore his santa hat, posed with the characters and generally had a blast. For that reason alone (plus a lot of great others) we are going back again this year, plus bringing my mom, my sister and her kids along for the ride (metaphorically, because they are all flying, while we drive)

Anyway, can't wait to hear more about your plans!

 

[MrsAyres]

Joining in on your PTR - we are also a family of 5 making the trek down but we will be there over the Christmas holiday, and our drive is close to 20 hours which is why I'm loving your motto lol...

We went back for what we thought would be our "last" family trip as 5 since our DS will be 18 this year. He LOVED that trip, rode all the corny kids rides, wore his santa hat, posed with the characters and generally had a blast. For that reason alone (plus a lot of great others) we are going back again this year, plus bringing my mom, my sister and her kids along for the ride (metaphorically, because they are all flying, while we drive)

Anyway, can't wait to hear more about your plans!

Thanks for joining in! Long haul drives are one of those things that can go either way - really, really good or really, really bad. I'll be sending good thoughts your way for your drive!

And I'm so glad to hear that your DS had such a good time - I think far too many people stress that teens may not "love" Disney and that's so odd to me as I just know my kids are going to have ball! Yes, littles enjoy it on a different level than older kids but the great thing about Disney is that there really is something for everyone.

 

[MrsAyres]

Believe it or not the only part of planning that I have been able to actively engage the whole family in so far has been customizing Magic Bands. Sad isn’t it? They really are missing out…

But, anyway, The Whack-a-loons and I decided on all of our Magic Bands this weekend. They were determined that we each have our own color and they wanted to use funny nicknames rather than real names. This, of course, inspired spirited debate and much giggling.

First up was Grumpy. We decided that we should stay close to his usual color palette & stick with his new nickname. He is NOT a color guy – as a matter of fact I can’t think of a single item of clothing that he owns that is bright and colorful. He’s definitely a neutrals guy. We decided he should get gray!

The Girl decided early on that she wanted a yellow band – deciding which of her myriad nicknames we should go with was much harder. After much discussion we went with l’Ananas – it’s French for “little pineapple” which is both super cute and fun to say.

Boy #1 and I did a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock battle over color choice. He lost so he got our second choice color… Red! For his nickname he went with HerpDerp. It’s a funny thing he says whenever he does something silly – like today when he got out mustard to put on his PB&J. When he realized what he was doing he muttered, “I’m such a HerpDerp…”

Boy #2 is a monkey – so we went with TheMonkey for his nickname. He wanted a bright color. He rejected blue as he says it is “too plain” and didn’t want pink as it doesn’t go with anything he’s planning to wear while in Disney. After much consideration he went with the orange as he thinks it’s “very Florida”.

I got green after the aforementioned r-p-s-l-S battle. After great debate they decided on to use the first part of my “title” for my nickname (whenever my kids ask me “Why?” I respond with “Because I am Mama, The Queen Empress of the Universe.”) So, I am “TheQueen”. I find it very fitting!





TTFN!
~K.


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[teekathepony]

Joining in!

I have already enjoyed reading about all your plans. I love that you're splurging on the Deluxe dining plan and I can't wait to see the final ADR list.
Love the magic bands, especially the nicknames!

 

[MrsAyres]

Joining in!

I have already enjoyed reading about all your plans. I love that you're splurging on the Deluxe dining plan and I can't wait to see the final ADR list.
Love the magic bands, especially the nicknames!

Thanks for stopping by! ADRs are coming up next

 

[MrsAyres]

ADR. In our little world we’ve decided that stands for not only Advanced Dining Reservations but also Appetite Destruction Ratios. Check ‘em out!

Arrival Day
Dinner: Boatwright’s Dining Hall. Perceived ADR – 4:5. We love the look of the menu at Boatwright’s – my boys especially are psyched about the gumbo & jambalaya. Ranked as a 4:5 due to the plethora of delicious proteins & carbs available.

MK Day
Breakfast: The Crystal Palace. Perceived ADR – 3:5. Breakfast with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger & Eeyore = Awesome. We’re putting this as a 3:5 because while it is a buffet it is breakfast – and we don’t do a lot of that ‘round here.
Lunch: The Plaza Restaurant. Perceived ADR – 3:5. Going a little lighter for lunch. We’re ranking this as a 3:5 as the menu has plenty of options but unless we are really off in our guesses about serving sizes The Boys will probably eat the rest of The Girl’s and my meals to fill up.
Dinner: 1900 Park Fare. Perceived ADR – 4:5. This menu seems to be varied and approachable. We’re ranking this as a 4:5 as it is a buffet with plenty of choices – if we leave hungry it’s probably our own fault.

Epcot Day
Breakfast: Akershus Royal Banquet Hall. Perceived ADR – 3:5. This is all about the meet & greets! Like breakfast on MK Day this is rated at 3:5 based on our morning dining habits.
Lunch: Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria. Perceived ADR – 4:5. Oh, the joys of carbohydrates… Pizza and pasta and pastries – oh my! We’re ranking this as a 4:5 due to the sheer amount of deliciousness available. I don’t care what it takes but the Fritto Misto will be mine.
Dinner: Biergarten Restaurant. Perceived ADR – 5:5. I’ve got two words for you: German. Buffet. We’re ranking this as a 5:5 as we are very familiar with German food and there is one thing we know for sure – it will definitely stick to your ribs!

Crazy Day
Breakfast: Not booked. More info to come!
Lunch: Not booked. More info to come!
Dinner: Cape May Café. Perceived ADR – 4:5. The Guys are super excited to dig in to this dinner – AYCE seafood is right up their alley. This is coming in at a 4:5 as seafood is not everyone in our family’s cup of tea but we figure there are enough “other” options to make it work & seafood is not (usually) near as heavy as other protein options.
Bonus Round – Dessert: Beaches & Cream Soda Shop. Perceived ADR – 5:5. A Kitchen Sink Sundae and a No Way Jose please! Yum. Giving this one a 5:5 ‘cause baby – that’s a lotta sugar!

And just because every post needs an image...


Yumminess!



TTFN!
~K.


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[EekASpider]

First post on the boards but wanted to quickly say that I'm enjoying your PTR. We will be heading down (first trip with MY Whack-a-Loons) at the end of January/beginning of February and staying at POR, too!

Thanks for taking the time to do this!

 

[MrsAyres]

First post on the boards but wanted to quickly say that I'm enjoying your PTR. We will be heading down (first trip with MY Whack-a-Loons) at the end of January/beginning of February and staying at POR, too!

Thanks for taking the time to do this!

Hi EekASpider! How honored am I that a post to me is your first on the boards... I'm so glad you decided to say hello.

I'm having such fun writing this PTR - I'm happy to hear you're enjoying it. And yay for being January POR buddies! If you haven't already make sure you check out the Port Orleans Riverside Q&A thread - there's a ton of great info over there!

 

[kaelalala]

woooo driving!! I'm from DC so I'm in the same neighborhood as you guys, and I've made that drive to Florida sooo many times haha. my family is also big on driving places rather than flying so for us long trips are a piece of cake. Last year I drove to Florida 4 times (twice by myself!) and it's long but fun...you guys will do great!

GREAT food choices!! omg so many of my favorites there! Via Napoli is my favorite restaurant in all of Disney and I think you guys are going to love Biergarten. and I'm sooo so jealous of your deluxe dining plan, that's going to be so amazing!! splurging on food is the way to go, in my opinion

your magicband names are so cute! "l’Ananas" is the most adorable thing I've ever heard, haha and the queen is so great and fitting magicbands are the best, I was so excited to get my first one ^_^

editing to add OMG Boatwright's is soooo good!! it's such a hidden gem, the voodoo chicken is amazing

excited to read more!!

 

[MrsAyres]

woooo driving!! I'm from DC so I'm in the same neighborhood as you guys, and I've made that drive to Florida sooo many times haha. my family is also big on driving places rather than flying so for us long trips are a piece of cake. Last year I drove to Florida 4 times (twice by myself!) and it's long but fun...you guys will do great!

GREAT food choices!! omg so many of my favorites there! Via Napoli is my favorite restaurant in all of Disney and I think you guys are going to love Biergarten. and I'm sooo so jealous of your deluxe dining plan, that's going to be so amazing!! splurging on food is the way to go, in my opinion

your magicband names are so cute! "l’Ananas" is the most adorable thing I've ever heard, haha and the queen is so great and fitting magicbands are the best, I was so excited to get my first one ^_^

editing to add OMG Boatwright's is soooo good!! it's such a hidden gem, the voodoo chicken is amazing

excited to read more!!

So few people (and especially families) do road trips now - and I think they are so much fun! With the right approach and attitude they really can be a blast.

l'Ananas is one of the few things we all picked up from The Girl's French classes. She's up to French 4 in school - I fully intend to stop at Les Halles and have her order me a pastry! I am so glad we've decided to go big on dining - little extras like that will be delightful. And I'm glad to hear that you enjoy Boatwright's - I haven't found many reviews for it on the boards so it's nice to hear a positive! The menu looks wonderful.

 

[MrsAyres]

More Mickey Mail!

Am I the only one that gets super excited about mail from Disney? The Whack-a-loons are starting to laugh about how happy I am whenever we get some – and the fact that I photo document it. But, hey, you guys get it, right?

*crickets*

Anyhoodle – we got Mickey Mail today! How cool is this…













These are the customizable WDW maps that you can get from Disney. I totally used both of my email addresses to get two sets of these bad boys so that we can each have our own maps for the parks. I’ll be marking our dining locations & FPs on each set with the appropriate times so that everyone will have it in writing and can’t say they didn’t know or got lost.

Organization is a beautiful thing isn’t it?

I love how much detail Disney puts into these. It would be super easy for them to cut corners but they really seem to put in the effort to making even small, at home experiences like these magic. It’s very, very cool.



TTFN!
~K.


Next Entry

 

[GraceMonica]

Mickey Mail is the BEST mail!

 

[MrsAyres]

When we were figuring out the dates for this trip I knew that eventually we were going to have to deal with one major flaw in our plan – the fact that we will have only three days to hit four majorly huge parks. The whole thing made me nervous. When I went to Disney World as a kid my mother scheduled one day for MK and one for Epcot and nearly broke us (this was back before AK & HS existed). She was so determined that we see “everything” that she scheduled us down to within an inch of our lives. It was late April, hotter than health required and by the end of it we were all exhausted, sunburned and sick.

The memories of that trip have played a big part in my planning for this vacation. I am determined not to make the same mistakes. While I want to make sure that we immerse ourselves in the Disney experience I don’t want to make this a race. I know for a fact that there is no way that we can see everything in three days – it’s impossible! Knowing this takes the pressure off so we can tour our way and not stress about it.

The first step in planning how to fit these amazing parks in to our limited time frame was to make a “Must Do” list, a “Maybe” list and a “Don’t Want To” list. Everyone in the family got to contribute to this – with limits. Each person could pick 3 “Must”s and as many “Maybe”s & “Don’t”s as they wanted per park. Anything attraction with 4 or more “Must Do” votes was automatically added to the itinerary – 3 or fewer votes per attraction moved it to that person’s other list – “My Musts”.

So, when everyone was done voting, we had pretty serious lists for MK & Epcot but, surprisingly to me, very short lists for AK & HS. Of all the things to see and do the only “Must Do”s for AK are Dinosaur, Expedition Everest & Kilimanjaro Safaris (all with 5 votes). For HS the “Must Do”s are Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror & Star Tours (with 5, 4 & 5 votes respectively). *

** One of the fabulous things about traveling with older kids is the fact that we can give them a huge amount of freedom while we are in the parks. We are going to have set times for ADRs and Fast Passes (these will be from those “Must Do” attractions) but in between we have the ability to venture out in smaller groups or even as singles – the only one who won’t be rolling solo at all is Boy #2 as he is just young enough that he could potentially lose track of time and himself which would put me straight into panic mode. Panicked Mama = Bad, so we’ll avoid that by making sure at least one of us is with him on his adventures. This means that all of those “My Musts” can be managed in between the “Must Do”s as each person deems fit and “Maybe”s can be squeezed in where there is time without pressuring anyone into doing anything they don’t want to do. ***

With this info in mind we have picked our park days! Day 1 will be MK Day, Day 2 will be Epcot Day and we’re calling Day 3 Crazy Day as we will be starting off at AK in the morning, heading to HS for the afternoon and reserving the evening to head back to whichever park strikes our fancy or, if we’re exhausted, to just head back to the resort and enjoy the room and the pool!



TTFN!
Kathleen

 

[kaelalala]

Your planning strategy sounds great! Trying to do everything just does NOT work - my family has learned that too many times haha. I also think it's great that you're willing to let everyone kinda do their own thing. meeting up for meals is a great way to make sure everyone has a good time without having to do things they're not crazy about sounds like you've got this down!!

 

[MrsAyres]

Um... Hi. Again.

I am so sorry that I disappeared. Our life kind-of-sort-of exploded on us and everything - jobs, homes, schools, everything - changed. The briefest possible explanation would be that due to some rather serious health issues with both myself and Grumpy our entire life got flipped on it's head. I went from being employed full time to being a SAHM to starting my own business, Grumpy has taken on some amazing challenges at work and has really excelled and we bought a house. As heartbreaking as it was we had to cancel our Disney plans - life just would not allow for it.

Now that life has settled down a bit we've rebooked and are very excited to say that we are going to be heading to WDW for Christmas. Obviously all our plans were completely thrown out so we're starting from scratch - hopefully we can make it a completely celebratory trip!

 

[MrsAyres]

So, before we dig any deeper, I thought a new sum up would be helpful.

Cast of characters: Same... Grumpy, the three Whack-a-loons and me.
Date of trip: Changed... We're now going to be in Disney from December 21st - December 26th.
The resort: Same... Port Orleans Riverside.
Transportation to the world: Well... Still driving but probably using personal vehicles now.
ADRs: Many changes.

The biggest challenge with the change of date is, of course, the ADRs. Being a planner, and having some idea of exactly how crazy Christmas week can be at WDW thanks to this board I kind of had to jump right straight into making reservations. And we're also now staying for an additional day which adds even more to the ADR plate.

As this is the first trip to WDW for our boys - and the first trip back for Grumpy and I since we were kids - I knew that I wanted to start off our trip on the 22nd in the Magic Kingdom. I grabbed a 11:00 am reservation at The Plaza and a 5:30 pm spot at Tony's Town Square. There was zilch available for breakfast but I wasn't stressed about it - if all else failed we could always grab a QS something or other.

I didn't know what we wanted to do on the 23rd initially so I skipped over it.

Then we were to two big days - Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I knew I was going to be fighting a uphill battle for ADRs so I went into it with zero expectations. I used the "Make A Dining Reservation" function on disneyworld.disney.go.com and just sat back and hoped for the best...

December 24th - 7:10 am - The Crystal Palace
December 24th - 1:30 pm - Be Our Guest
December 24th - 9:35 pm - Cinderella's Royal Table

Guys, can I tell you? I nearly lost my dang mind. How in the world these were available is just... Well, it's just beyond me. I have never, ever had so much Pixie Dust hit me at the same time. I am so, so grateful that my kids are older and will be able to hang with an all day schedule like this because it never even occurred to me that I would be able to get all three of these. I was so happy about Christmas Eve that I wasn't even worried about Christmas - I mean, it's Christmas at Disney - how can you not be happy? No matter what, it would be awesome. I just let the Make A Dining Reservation doo-dad do it's thing...

December 25th - 8:00 am - Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
December 25th - 1:00 pm - Via Napoli
December 25th - 6:25 pm - Biergarten

I am so blown away. How amazing is that? My husband, Grumpy, had only one request for the whole trip - Biergarten - and I landed it for Christmas dinner. Akershus for breakfast? The Girl is going to be beside herself. And Via Napoli - you are going to make Boy #1 & Boy #2 so, so happy.

With all of this amazingness going on I went back over my notes and decided that since no one in the family has much interest in anything outside of MK & EPCOT we would just stick to those two parks for all 4 days meals (we do have the Park Hopper so as long as the crowds aren't too insane we can pop to other parks if we feel the pull) so I pulled the trigger for lunch at Teppan Edo (12:10 pm) and Rose & Crown for dinner (7:50 pm) on the 23rd and then... Tinkerbell struck again. The Teppan Edo reservation was available with the Candlelight Processional. I am SO excited. And the 5:00 pm show works perfectly with our dinner reservation!

I added an arrival night meal at Boatwright's Dining Hall and patted myself on the back. I had totally stuck the landing on a round-off, back handspring into a 2 1/2 twisting layout back flip of a ADR line-up and I was pleased as punch with myself. I was only short 2 meals, both of which were breakfasts and both of which were on days that I felt would be perfectly fine grabbing something quick.

Then, I heard that BOG was taking breakfast reservations. I only checked it out on a lark - I mean, I had already totally gotten my share of pixie dust, there was no WAY I'd grab more.

December 22nd - 8:05 am - Be Our Guest

Stick a fork in me Mickey... I'm done.




That's actually not true - if Liberty Tree Tavern opens up for reservations I'm totally going to try to swap our lunch on Christmas Eve at Be Our Guest since I locked down the BOG breakfast

 

[vleeth]

My dd's first ever trip started on Jan 6th. It was great weather and great crowd levels. We got to see Animal Kingdom and Studios still decorated for the holidays.

I was the captain of my Flag Team in high school!

And how does one loose at rock, p, s, l, spock? Spock beats everything....so how did you win???

 

[MrsAyres]

Rock smashes scissors & lizard, paper covers rock & disproves Spock, scissors cuts paper and decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper and poisons Spock, Spock vaporizes rock and bends scissors!