We're on I-95 NOW!! Here we come!

[mom2g3]

So....we woke up this morning and Santa had left a note for my 5 year old DS to go to his room for his first clue (no presents were under the tree and his stocking was gone). In his room, Santa left a Mickey Mouse outfit and an evelope that says "DO NOT OPEN until you Brush your Teeth, Brush your Hair, Get Dressed and Go Potty".

So, he did! LOL! He even said, "THIS IS SO EXCITING!" He opened the envelope and the first clue was there (we put the clues on the Home Depot Mickey Paint Chips). CLUE 1: Go to the Silver Van.

On our Odyssey, there was another clue on the sliding door. CLUE 2: OPEN HERE.

Then, he opened the door and ALAS! Santa had left all of his presents and his stocking in the van. He even strung Mickey Mouse Christmas lights all around his window....hee hee!

It looked like Santa's sleigh exploded in our van!

The next clue was on an Atlas with his name on it. CLUE 3: Go to your state. On the North Carolina page, there is a sticker of a gingerbread house where our house is (right off of I-95). And the route begins.

We said, "Ok...time to go!" He said, "Now? Where?" We said, "you have to figure it out from your Atlas." Then we took off....SOUTHBOUND I-95!!

At the end of North Carolina, there was another clue. CLUE 4: When you see the hat in the sky, go to the next state. (we were talking about the sombrero at South-of-the-Border on the state line between NC and SC). He was SO eager to see it! Luckily, it's only about 45 minutes from our house.

He spent the first 2 hours opening presents and the van was FILLED with wrapping paper, bows, and presents. CRAZY!! It looked SO COOL!!!

What fun! He guessed where we are going, but we just said, "Maybe." Hee! Hee!

THE COOLEST PART: Gramma and Grampa show up tomorrow at the same hotel (AKL--Savannah View) and he has NO IDEA!!! We're just going to "bump into them."

THIS IS THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!! I want to be 5 again!

 

[TravisSch]

What a great christmas present so far. I hope your boy is excited when he sees his grandparents.

 

[DCPrincess]

What a wonderful Christmas idea! Please keep us posted. I wish I were on the way to Disney right now!

 

[TripTime]

I don't think I have ever heard of anyone opening Christmas presents in a car. Much less on their way to Disney. I am 38 and could not imagine a more perfect Christmas than this.How cool this must be.

 

[bonadori]

Aww!

What an amazing Christmas!

 

[mom2g3]

Thanks for the nice comments!

I'm still just SO excited!

So...we got into Disney World at 3:45pm and got checked into the AKL. We are in the Sunset Savannah View Room with the bunkbed. I was worried that DS wouldn't sleep in it because he's afraid of heights (and we took him to DW ), but he jumped right up there and declared he was sleeping there. Then we roamed around the resort to check things out. We saw the pool and the hottub and we let DS play on the playground for about 45 mintues....luckily there were 2 boys his age to play with, so he got some exercise.

We had an ADR for Boma's at 8:40pm. We tried them at 7:45pm and walked right in. The food was good for a buffet, also a lot of the food was really sweet.

BTW....I don't like Zebra Domes...I was disappointed. But, the Passion Fruit thingys were delicious.

Now we're in the room and DH and DS are asleep......DS on the top bunk and DH on the bottom! I get the Queen bed to myself (for tonight only).

We have already arranged for DH's parents to be in the adjoining room tomorrow when they check in (they don't know it yet ). So, we're going to meet in the lobby and see DS freak out again!!!! He loves his grandparents so much and will be so happy to see them.

I could just CRY this vacation is so special. I love my DH and DS and I feel so lucky to have this opportunity to be with them here....especially when DS is only 5 and still believes in the magic of Christmas, Santa and Disney.

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME TELL MY STORY HERE! It's nice to share with people who appreciate Disney Magic!!

 

[maroo]

This is SO awesome!

We JUST got back from a wonderful 6 days at AKL Savannah View Bunk Bed Room and I just can't wait to live vicariously through your report!

 

[Queenofallthings]

Your report has brought a tear to my eye....a joyous tear. Wow...you guys did great!! There is nothing like surprising your child with a trip to WDW...we've been many times, but we surprised her on her 12th birthday in 2004 and it was so magical. You can't buy those kind of memories.\

Can't wait to hear how he reacts when he sees his grandparents. Keep us posted!

 

[LEXAVE]

So...how did meeting the grandparents go?

We have done the surprise trip to Disney and there is nothing like it. The kids talk about it all of the time.

Have a great trip.

 

[skywaywaver]

Wow...I couldn't imagine my favorite holiday getting any better than to be going to Disney WHILE I opened up presents!
Great idea, I can't wait to read about how your little guy meets up with his grands.

 

[mom2g3]

So.....I feel like I have lived a lifetime today!

First, we got up at 6am and were at the Mara Cafe at 6:50am....they were open, so we ate and headed out to Animal Kingdom for Extra Magic Hours at 8:00am. They opened the gate at 7:50am, so we RAN to the Safari ride. We wanted to make sure that we didn't have to wait very long.....and WE WALKED RIGHT ON!! We sat in the very back, so it was almost like riding a roller coaster. We saw TONS of animals because of the cool weather and it being early in the morning.

Then, we went to see the Tree of Life and moved on to Expedition Everest Roller Coaster. DS5 wanted to ride it if he was tall enough (we banked on him NOT being tall enough), but HE WAS!! Remember...he is afraid of heights and is a bit squeamish. So, we told him ALL about it being fast, VERY high, and VERY scary. But, he insisted that he was good with it. So....off we went. NO LINE AGAIN!!! WOW!!! DH reminded him that if he gets scared, that the ride ends quickly and he would be fine. I held his thigh tightly the whole time to remind him that I was keeping him safe and I spoke to him the entire ride (you're safe, it's okay, go ahead and scream, it's almost over, etc.). HE COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT!!!! FOR REAL!! I'm surprised he didn't puke...or worse! When it ended I asked him what he thought and he said, "that rollercoaster wasn't cool." He was so white with horror! I felt so bad that I let my darling gentle hearted 5 year old little boy on that ride. So, I took him into the gift store and bought him a T-Shirt that says, "Fear the Height." (am I rubbing it in?) My poor little guy who is already afraid of heights. But, I also got him his first pin and it's for that ride and it says, "Go ahead and Scream." He LOVED it! He said that he didn't like that he was so scared that he screamed, but now he knows that he's "supposed" to scream. WHEW!! The color did finally come back to his little face.

No more bad Mommy moments....at least not today.

Next we took him to Dinoland and let him blow some steam on the playground to help him get back to normal...and then we headed back to AKL to meet up with the Grandparents.

When we drove up to the parking lot of AKL we saw the Magical Express Bus and knew they had to be there. We scoped out the lobby and saw them in line for check-in. SCORE! We hid where they couldn't see us and DS5 couldn't see them. After they checked in, we came around a pillar and ran up and hugged them. DS5 was SO EXCITED to see them! We all had a big group hug. We walked them up to our room and another surprise....the concierge put them in the adjoining room, but agreed not to tell them so we could surprise them!

I LOVE SURPRISES!!!

WHEW! Seems like a big day already.

BUT THEN...we ate lunch at the Mara Cafe and headed out to the Magic Kingdom. That was all status-quo. DS5 fell for every "magic" trick in the book, which makes it SO much better! We saw the Mickey's Once Upon a Christmastime Parade (verrrrrrrrrrrrry long) AND we got to see the Celebration Parade. We rode the Carousel and It's a Small World (ok...that was TORTURE!!! It must have been my paybacks for letting him ride the scary rollercoaster). Then we headed back to Animal Kingdom to eat at The Rainforest Cafe. Fun restaurant! It has "thunderstorms" every 22 minutes and all of the animals freak out. The food was excellent....not like park food at all. Nice!

We dragged our exhausted butts back to AKL and everyone is asleep except for me. I'm the tourguide and have to make our plans for tomorrow. Plus, I had to report to y'all! This is SO COOL!

ONE LAST SURPRISE....Tomorrow morning we start out with a charachter breakfast at Cape May Cafe and then head out to The Magic Kingdom.

 

[maroo]

awesome reporting!!!

Great job on all of your planning!

Don't feel too bad about EE...sounds like you tried to warn him!

So funny that we did a very similar thing just last week...Surprised the 4 year old in our group with her trip the morning of...and then met up at the AKL lobby with the grandmother... simply magical!!

I hope you write a full trip report! It will be really fun to see yours unfold!

Can't wait for more!

 

[Queenofallthings]

Your TR just keeps getting better and better!!! We took my DD17 for the first time when she had just turned 6 and made her go on everything....at least you tried to talk your little guy out of it....and when we went back when she was 8 she wanted to do nothing. I regretted what I had done when she was 6, however, by the time she was 10 I couldn't keep her off anything...she's like that to this day, the only difference now is she makes me go on things over and over and over....karma right?

 

[CdnDisneyLover]

Great TR! I love how you surprised your 5 year old. I would love to do something like that with my almost 5 year old but I don't think I could keep my mouth shut. LOL!!

 

[mom2g3]

Hello, again!

Today we started with our ADR at Cape May Cafe for breakfast...with NO WAIT! Goofy , Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck were all there. It was VERY organized and the breakfast buffet was TERRIFIC! The food was fresh, abundant, and a wide variety. DFIL and I had bagels with Lox, Cream Cheese and Capers. I also had some fresh cut fruit. All of the fruit was gorgeous and fresh. DH had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and a cinnamon bun. The bacon looked a little like microwave bacon, but that was the only complaint. I wanted to snack at the parks, so I kept it pretty light.

DS5 was so shy with the charachters. We got photos and autographs with all of them and they were very friendly. GREAT PLACE!!! We also got to see the Chocolate Carousel and got a family picture in front of it...fun! The only downfall with the place is that Mickey isn't there. We couldn't get reservations for Chef Mickey's, and this was definitely the second best option.....HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Next, we went to Disney Hollywood Studios. We saw Indiana Jones' Stunt Spectacular-----SUPER COOL!! My only recommendation here is to GO AT NIGHT INSTEAD! We passed it later that night and could see in a little bit and I think that the fire effects would be WAY cooler in the dark!

Then...on to Star Tours with a 30 minute wait (not too bad and I think that it went faster than that). DS5, DH and DFIL are all Star Wars NERDS! I went on it with them...including DMIL, but it was just to be a good sport. I went on it during my honeymoon and was SO SICK that I had to go back to the hotel room for the rest of that day....UGH! Then, we went to see the 3-D Muppet Show thing. WAY COOL!!!! All 5 of us loved it. Great for ALL ages....only about a 10 minute wait.

Back to the hotel for a regroup! IT WAS SO COLD HERE TODAY! BRRRRR!

Next...we had ADR's for Teppan Edo, but decided to make coordinating easy for us and the inlaws by switching to Boma again. DS5 and the grandparents ate at Cafe Mara together.

Then.....off to Disney Hollywood Studios again for the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights. WOW!!! DMIL LOVED it....and everyone else, too. I tried to explain it to them to get excited, but they were not expecting how truly amazing it really is. You MUST try to see this sometime!

Now...we're in bed (I'm not ). I'm SOOOOOOOO tired!

Tomorrow morning.....Extra Magic Hours start at Magic Kindom at 7am. YIKES! But, I think that we'll have the best chance of seeing everything if we start that early...at least I hope so!

Stay tuned....

P.S. MY FEET HURT LIKE CRAZY!!!

 

[SKWDW]

Your trip sounds amazing mom2g3! What special memories are being created.

 

[mom2g3]

Sorry for the lapse in reporting! I was in the Disney Addiction Recovery Program!

So, Monday morning (12-28): we got up at 5am to take advantage of the Extra Magic Hours at Magic Kingdom. They were open at 7am all week. We met the in-laws at Cafe Mara for breakfast at 6am and then rushed over to MK and were there when the rope dropped at 7am! I KNEW that it would be crowded that day because there were TONS of white rope up for lines just to board the monorail to the park! We walked right on the monorail and into the park. Daisy Duck and Pluto were in the Town Square with a tiny wait, so we got their pictures and autographs...then on to the rides. We walked straight through the castle (I took pics of the gorgeous mosaic artwork...WOW!) and went to Fantasy Land. We walked right on all of the rides...NO WAIT...Cinderella's Golden Carousel, Mad Tea Party, Peter Pan's Flight, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, Jungle Cruise and then on to Tommorrow Land's Speedway. THEN...we ran back up to the Mad Tea Party for DH and DMIL to ride one more time. WOW! The crowds were starting to get bad by then...it had a 15 minute wait.

WHEW!!!

We were outta there by 11:30am and never a single wait! BUT..we had a hard time getting out. We saw the Celebration Parade again and we stopped at some of the stores to look for souveniers. Then...on to the monorail. The line to both enter the park and to wait for the monorail and boats to get to the entrance were OUTRAGEOUS!!! I've NEVER seen such a crowd! By the time we left MK...they had closed the park to the General Public! The line to get into the parking lot was 2 miles long! I was VERY glad that we went early or I'm sure that we all would have ended up having a nervous breakdown.

We went back to AKL and had Cafe Mara for lunch. DMIL and DFIL took DS5 to swim and hang out and DH and I went to sleep...for 5 hours!!

We got up at 6pm and went to DTD for dinner. We had ADR's for Portofino....AMAZING DINNER! We had great bread with olive oil and whole roasted garlic. I had 4-cheese italian style pizza, DS5 had cheese pizza, DH had Chicken Pasta, DMIL had Spaghetti and DFIL had fish and veggies. VERY nice and well done! It was a nice change from all of the park food since it was a "real" restaurant. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed early to get ready for Tuesday!

Tuesday (12-29): This was our last whole day at Disney. We ate breakfast at Boma's buffet breakfast---NICE! Their breakfast buffet is very well done. They had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, corned beef, ham, pancakes, Mickey Waffles (a MUST HAVE!), fruits and tons of muffins and pastry. NO CHARACHTERS though, but that's okay since we had ADR's for 2 charachter breakfasts during our stay.

We waited for the Magical Express with DMIL and DFIL until they boarded at 10:35am and we took off for EPCOT. We visited the cool fountain by the Honey I Shrunk the Audience and took some pictures. Then, we headed to Germany for our ADR at the Biergarten. We shopped a little on the way and we checked in early at the Biergarten. Since I spent 11 years in the real Germany, I think the food was awful! But, DH and DS5 loved it! The pretzel rolls were terrific and the Chicken Schnitzel were good. The salad was good, too. I also LOVED the cream pastry desert. So, it wasn't a waste, just not very German. The entertainment was fun and jovial. The Oompa band was fun and they sang a lot of German Christmas Carols that I haven't heard in almost 20 years....brought back a lot of fond memories of my childhood.

Then, we kept walking around through all of the countries and stopped to visit with Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins in England. Then we rushed over to the Charachter Meeting Place to visit Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Pluto. This was THE LONGEST WAIT EVER since we had been at WDW. We waited for 2.5 hours! My FEET WERE KILLING ME at the end of that wait. UGH!

Then....we jumped over to DTD. A COMPLETE AND TOTAL MADHOUSE! We wanted to shop and then go to Fulton's Crab House for our ADR's. We could barely walk through the crowd. There was no point in attempting the Lego store because there was a line just to enter the store! YIKES! So, we just tried to hide it from DS5 so he wouldn't miss it. We shopped in the World of Disney Store and I FOUND the DOONEY & BOURKE Disney Purses. They had 1 white tote left. They were behind the counter, so I decided to wait until DH and DS5 were ready to checkout. By the time we got in line....THE LAST PURSE HAD SOLD!! They only had the black ones left, and I don't really like those. I just bought a wristlet instead. OH NO! The customer next to me told me to go to the GF store because they have a nice selection. So...we checked out and took a side trip over to GF. I wanted to see the Gingerbread House anyway, so we lucked out! We got there and even that lobby was mobbed. I've NEVER seen so many people in my life! But, the gift shop was empty and had about 6 of each of the white purses and a bunch of the little wristlets. So, I bought one of the tastle bags and another wristlet (for my friend). We skipped our ADR at Fulton's just to get out of the crowds, so we ate at Cafe Mara---again. And then....BED!

Wednesday (12-30): Our LAST DAY!! We headed out to Poly to have breakfast at O'Hana's. NICE! Mickey, Pluto, Lilo and Stitch were all there. The "family style" breakfast is really nice. They give you sweetened Hawaiian bread, fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, and Mickey Waffles! You can have as much as you like, but we didn't need any seconds. The charachters did a wonderful job with the children and took plenty of time with them. Pluto was especially funny. The view was AMAZING from the restaurant. I could see the castle and Space Mountain from my seat.

DH really didn't want to go to any parks even though we still had another day on our Park Hopper tickets. Oh well....no big deal. He did want to go back to GF to shop at their Men's store for some nice Tshirts. They sell the Ed Hardy Tshirts that are hard to find. He found a couple that he loved, so that was good. He also bought a MM scarf. Then I got the Medium Dooney & Bourke tote (couldn't resist having the whole set!) to use as a laptop bag. My co-workers will be green with envy! We called DMIL to see if she wanted one and we ended up calling 1/2 of the female population of Michigan! DMIL wanted one and that was it.

We said our goodbyes to WDW and headed home to North Carolina!

The traffic on the southbound side of I-95 was atrocious! It was stopped for miles and bumper to bumper for miles after that.....at least 3 hours worth!! WOW!!

ALL IN ALL.....A ONCE IN A LIFETIME MAGICAL VACATION!!! It was even more special because of all of the information and help from you on these boards! I never would have been able to plan this as well and we would have ended up in more crowds and terrible dining situations and a less wonderful room. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!!