Toddler Twins take another Trip Aug/Sept '15 PTR: 3 MORE SLEEPS

[kcpinwdw]

Planning two trips at once is bending my mind a bit. I love reading pre-trip reports and thought it may help to lay things out here, and get feedback from you all!

Cast of Characters: Mom (me; AKA "Planner in chief"), Dad (along for the ride but doesn't want to know the details), DD (turning 3 in July), DS (turning three in July). See my avatar for adorable family photo from our last Disney adventure. DD has an adventurous spirit and loves things "a little bit scary." Her favorite ride is Under the Sea. Favorite Movies are "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "The Little Mermaid." She's a bit nervous about characters but loves to meet them from Mommy's arms. DS is a wild child with a sweet tooth and is happiest at Disney with a big lollipop in his hand. Prone to meltdowns but easily redirected. Favorite ride is "Toy Story Midway Mania." Favorite Disney Movies are "Tarzan" and "Cars." He is character crazy and gives big hugs. They both love fireworks.

Previous trips as a family: October 2013, conference at Disney, stayed at the Dolphin for 7 nights. Very bad check-in/start to the trip had me very worried, but the kids (15 months at the time) had a GREAT trip and I knew I would be bringing them back soon. December 2014: 8 nights, stayed at Silver Lake Resort. This was an extended family trip with the in-laws, there were 9 of us so we had two 2-bedroom condos so we had plenty of space. Loved the proximity to Disney and decided then we would stay on site next time, though the experience here was much better than the Dolphin.

Current Plans:

Trip 1: May 7-10th 2015.

Quick weekend trip because I got a great deal on a direct roundtrip flight from our hometown (in Vermont) to Sanford. Booked at POP! and changed to Animal Kingdom Lodge a week or two later after finding great deal on a standard room. Last minute trip so it's been a whirlwind of planning. Full details to follow!

Trip 2: August 28th-Sept 5th 2015

Booked this from a shall-not-be-named travel agency thanks to tips here on the DIS. Plan is for 4 nights at the Beach Club followed by 4-nights at the Poly. Trying to balance all our favorites with a little more downtime.

I hope to update more soon. Thanks for reading along!

 

[kcpinwdw]

How we ended up planning two trips

I had been planning the Aug/Sept trip for a while when my husband mentioned it would be great to get away this spring, as the weather up here in the Northeast as been awful this winter. Bitter, bitter cold. So I have been watching airfares and found a round trip flight for $135 a person, including fess and taxes. Had to jump on that! So, with flights to central florida booked I started looking at different beach locations... once we factored in driving time and hotel costs, it just seemed to make sense to just stay right at Disney. Just seemed a good value with the kids turning 3 soon to get them in while still free!

Selecting our May Hotel

I booked Pop Century on the Disney website, preferred room, for about $140 a night for the three nights, with 2-day tickets (no hoppers, toddlers don't hop well). I was worried about staying value, though. We typically stay 4.5-5 star when we go places. But this was supposed to be a budget "add on" trip compared to our splurging-to-come, so I was being good. So I kept checking the website, and eventually came across a great rates for Animal Kingdom Lodge standard view, and after a quick call to Disney the change was made!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Joining in! We will be there the same time in may.

 

[kcpinwdw]

Picture time! Here are some of our favorites from our 12/2014 trip.

Ben was a big flirt with Minnie. Her expression is priceless! Note Ben's big lollipop.

 

[kcpinwdw]

This is the family on our first Disney trip, October 2013. Babies were 15 months old. .

 

[kcpinwdw]

Me and the twins ready to take on the world.

 

[kcpinwdw]

The whole gang from dec 2014. Yes, hubby is a twin too, except they are identical. He's the scruffier one.

 

[kcpinwdw]

May trip Day 1: May 7th, arrival day.

We have an afternoon flight out of vermont, so I will likely work a little bit in the morning to tie up loose ends. Plan on heading to the airport by noon. We fly direct to Sanford Field, which is great with the little ones. There are no direct flights to MCO from our airport. SO we are renting a car for purposes of travel to and from, it's cheaper than a shuttle even! We will land around 9:00pm, grab our luggage (only ONE bag!) and head to thrifty. We've flown into SAN before and it is very quiet and fast, so I expect to be on the road by 9:45. Hopefully kids will conk right out if they arent asleep already. We will drive to AKL and probably valet. I dont want to deal with parking and walking in sleeping kids. We arent traveling with our stroller, I prefer to rent one.

We plan on checking in around 10:30pm. I booked a standard view room. On my room requests I put higher floor and Kudu trail, since it was an option. Maybe we'll get a little pixie-dusted view! I will pick up our stroller and groceries from the bell desk and then we are going right to bed. I rented a Citi mini double from Kingdom strollers, we have used them before. I also had pull-ups and some dry goods delivered from garden grocer, which should be there when we check in as well. I wonder how "direct to room" will affect us, but I guess even if we get texted a room number i will have to check in the lobby to get our things. I may also run to Mara to get some milk for the morning, and maybe a pack of zebra domes.... well, who are we kidding, definitely some zebra domes. GOod night arrival day!

 

[kcpinwdw]

Day 2: May 8th, Magic Kingdom

Because this was a late booking, I really wasnt expecting anything fabulous in terms of ADRs. Low and behold, a couple days after we booked our room Disney announces a breakfast trial at Be Our Guest! I was up bright and early to score the first two ressies for our trip, 8 am breakfasts on both mornings. So, we start of Friday the 8th with a morning feast and hopefully some delightful less than crowded park pictures. I think for Rope Drop we will head to Under the Sea, since it is right there near Be Our Guest, and after that go to Barnstormer. My kids want to try their first roller coaster. Then we will hit the big top and meet a couple characters, probably Minnie and Daisy since we did the other side last trip. Then a ride on the carousel and It's a small world, which should bring us about up to our first Fast Pass for Winnie the Pooh, which we will hopefully hit at the end of the window. Then we have a FP for 7DMT that we will rider swap, so DH Will ride and I will take the kiddos to meet Cindy and Rapunzel with my FP. Then he will likely grab a light QS bite for the kids as I ride, and we will and see if we can get them to take a snooze in the stroller while we walk. If DH wants to he will ride some "big boy" rides while they sleep, if it is too hot or too crowded we may take a stroll out of the park, I'd like to explore the Grand Floridian. We may consider going back to Animal Kingdom Lodge too, if they wont seem to settle, and go swimming instead. But my little ones are great nappers so I doubt it! Plan to go back in the early evening for our last FP and to have dinner, we had reservations at THe Plaza for 6:30. Then last week I found a Liberty Tree Tavern for 5:45, so I switched to there since we have never eaten there before. Our FP is for ENchanted Tales with Belle, right before dinner. After we eat I want to do Monsters, INc Laugh Floor, People Mover, and anything the line is relatively short for. Not sure we will stay for fireworks tonight, because we have an early start again in the morning, and we did a lot today!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Plan to go back in the early evening for our last FP and to have dinner

We will be in MK this evening as well!

 

[kcpinwdw]

Day 3: May 9th, Magic Kingdom

ADRS: Our plan was to start the day with another pre-park ADR at BOG. I was really hoping for a CRT reservation, though. I discovered Disney Dining buddy and signed up for some alerts, one for a CRT breakfast, one for a BOG dinner, and one for a dessert party. Low and behold I get a BOG dinner scheduled within the week. No luck on the others, though. Then about a week ago I was doing my usual obsessive website search and a lunch ADR for CRT popped up at 2:20! I grabbed it, even though it is in the middle of naptime. You never know! Then, a few days later, I get the coveted text from Disney Dining Buddy that a reservations is available for a CRT breakfast. I was at work at the time and right on my computer so the timing was perfect and I scored an 8:05am reservations! Whoo hoo! I was happy to pass on the lunch to someone in one of my planning groups, and the 8:00am BOG breakfast as well. Interestingly the system let me book both breakfasts at the same time, and cancel the BOG later. So now our day in May is looking fine with a 8:05am CRT and at 6:15pm BOG all lined up. My fingers are still crossed that I will get the dessert party, we did it in December and it was great, especially having Tink go right over our heads. I have had two alerts from Disney dining buddy but missed them both. So sad.

FPs: This one seemed simple at first but now I have changed things (of course). Initially we booked Peter Pan, Under the Sea, and MSEP. Then two weeks ago my DD started talking about Anna and Elsa again... so I just popped on ONCE to see if it was a possibility and it showed up! So I switched my Peter Pan to A&E, and DH can take the kids on PP alone and I will take them into A&E. This is one of the biggest perks of having both kids under three: you all get to go in on one FP. I can see how things are going to be more difficult in my fall trip when everyone will need the same one. At this point I have pretty much given up hope of getting a dessert party booked for the 9th, so I ended up changing our Under the Sea FP to Wishes. The reason for this is we will definitely be staying for the fireworks, as it is our last night, but I HATE being in the crowd at the hub. Hopefully we can sit down and have some space. I will be checking into the situation and little closer and if it looks like they are packing people in more tight, I will change it to something else earlier.

I'll get to my touring plan for this day later!

 

[kcpinwdw]

I am a crafty person so I have made some matching outfits for this trip. Mickey TIe-dyes for our two park days. I think we will do the matching set first, then the black ones on sunday:

 

[kcpinwdw]

I also made spray bleach shirts, maybe for last day. My husband gets Lumiere, and I have a Mary Poppins one. I made a few for my daughter but only the Tinkerbell one came out great. I will have to take pictures later. Here is my son in his Tarzan one.

 

[kcpinwdw]

Here are the grown-up's spray bleach shirts. Basically i found a shape I liked on the internet and traced it with freezer paper. Cut it out then iron it onto a bright all cotton shirt. THen use bleach in a spray bottle, just a couple squirts at a time, and watch it fade out. Rinse in cold water and peel off the paper, and voila! Super easy and fast.

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Cute shirts!!!

Yay for getting the adrs you wanted!

 

[hockeyprincess25]

We will be at MK on the 9th as well! It is our first night so we are going a little slow but have CRT at 9:15

 

[kcpinwdw]

Cute shirts!!!

Yay for getting the adrs you wanted!

THanks! I'm excited to try a couple new things.

We will be at MK on the 9th as well! It is our first night so we are going a little slow but have CRT at 9:15

See you there!

 

[kcpinwdw]

Day 3 (cont) touring plan et al (May 9th). Looks like a crowded day, probably.

So the day after I booked our early CRT I realize why someone dropped it... the park hours changed for that day and now start at 8am. I've decided I don't care. I am actually happy we will likely be able to see the Welcome Show, because we missed it on our last trip. So not going to change anything. Made my daughter a Rapunzel dress for today. She LOVES tangled. She says she will wear it to breakfast but who knows, she wouldn't wear the Cinderella one I made last year. My son says he will wear her Cinderella dress, though! Don't judge him! The boy's got style!

Assuming we finish breakfast around 9:15 or so. Lines will likely be starting to build at some big attractions so what we will do first depends on wait times. I'm thinking we will head to adventureland first and go on the Jungle Cruise, as it is reopening from refurbishment (hopefully). We will do a few things walking from there back to Fantasyland over the next two hours, no concrete plans. Then DH will take the kids on Peter Pan alone (since I traded mine for an A&E FP). Then we will break for naps. Same plan as the day before, if weather is horrible we will head back to AKL, if it is manageable we will plan on walking around for the duration. Return or wake up by 4, then we have our A&E FP. After that we will probably have time for Mickey's Philharmagic and maybe one more ride. 6:15 dinner at BOG. After that we will likely go get some sugary treats to help keep the kids up and maybe go see if we can meet Mickey or Tink with a reasonable wait. Then we have a FP for the MSEP. Then Wishes if we can make it!

 

[azarine]

Joining in, looking forward to hearing how it goes!

 

[purplekicks]

I'm taking my 2 year old twins in June to celebrate their 3rd birthday. Watching to see how your family does!

I got a 4pm CRT dinner out of the blue yesterday. I was looking for an Akershus but I lucked out and now I don't have to park hop. I hear toddlers aren't good at that type of thing.
My only issue is I have a 1:10 lunch at Crystal Palace. I may do DisneyDiningBuddy to see if I can get it earlier. I keep checking (which is how I got CRT) but no luck so far. We will need some type of afternoon break.