What Do You Do When Your Husband is Deployed? Well, We go to Disney!(1st trip report)

[christypooh402]

Backstory

I had to make the holidays extra special for the kids this year. DH was on a 12 deployment to Djibouti, Africa. We all miss him like crazy and could not imagine him not being home for Christmas. So, I asked the kids…”Do you want to do a small Christmas and go to Disney? Or do we want to stay home at Christmas and do all of our own traditions, or should we go to Aunt Shell’s?” Well, everyone was on board for going to Disney. Going to Aunt Shell’s was another matter. They wanted to stay home for Christmas so things would stay the same. I had to make them realize that no matter what we do, this Christmas is going to be different because we are missing a vital member of our family. So, after more discussions, a few tears, and lots of changed minds later, we decided to have Christmas at my sister’s house. I’m so glad we did too. The kids had a blast and being with their cousins, and my sister really didn’t give me much time to mope around, so that was definitely a good thing. . We ended having a great time with family and even got a phone call from daddy! It was so good to at least hear his voice on Christmas Day.

Two days after Christmas we headed home to repack everything .The next few days went by in a blur and before we knew it, we were getting ready for the neighborhood New Years Eve party. It was fun, but a bit depressing not having my husband there to start the New Year. So, the kids and I decided to add a day to our trip. Originally we were heading down to Orlando on Jan. 2 because that’s when value season starts. Well, we decided to stay off property one night and meet my oldest daughter’s friend and her mom over at City Walk that night. Sounded like a good plan to me! After meeting up with them for a couple of hours, we headed in search of our beds for the night. We stayed at Maingate Lakeside Resort. It was super cheap, and very clean. Also it’s pretty close to Disney property. Plus, there’s a Target and a Publix right up the road from them. We’ve stayed there a few times now and haven’t been disappointed.
Without further ado, here is your cast of characters on this trip, if you so choose to come along with us.

On this trip, we have Me-Christy (the big'un up in the front) Kim the oldest (16) right next to me. Yes, she has that look on her face on all of the rides. Get used to it. I have.
In the back we have Ashley (12) on the left trying to do a blank expression for the photo. And on the right next to Ashley is the baby, the boy, Christopher (10) I think he was trying for the blank look too. They both failed.
We are all thrill junkies, though you can't tell from Kim's looks of absolute terror. I promise I do not force her to ride anything. She swears she really likes it. Our first trip to Disney 2010 was with my sister and we were hooked. I have been obsessed by Disney since then. We took a big family vacation for 10 days before my husband left in May 2011, then this trip with the kids, and in Feb this year I went on a short trip with a friend to do the extra day of magic on leap day. I don't currently know when I'll get to go back but you can bet it will be on my ticker when I figure it out!
I'll post chapter updates in this thread so if you want you can go straight to a chapter. If your'e coming along for the ride, thanks a bunch! I look forward to getting to know many of you through trip reports! TTFN!!



Chapter 1: 1/2/12
Chapter 2: 1/2/12

 

[emmysmommy]

Hi there! I'm so sorry that you and your kids had to have a Christmas without your hubby but I am so grateful for men (and women) like him that perform such a noble deed by serving our country. My youngest son will be deployed to Afghanistan on December 15th so we will have a Christmas without him this year.

On a happy note, I'm looking forward to your review.

 

[christypooh402]

Thank you EmmysMom
I'm so sorry you are having to do it this year. I won't lie, it sucks. But, if you can surround yourself by uplifting people, it will make a whole lot easier. God Bless and I pray for his safe return home!

 

[emmysmommy]

Thank you EmmysMom
I'm so sorry you are having to do it this year. I won't lie, it sucks. But, if you can surround yourself by uplifting people, it will make a whole lot easier. God Bless and I pray for his safe return home!

Awww thanks! I certainly appreciate it and so does our daughter-in-law. But this is about you and your wonderful family so I am looking forward to your trip review. Love that you like the thrills rides too. What's not to love about being turned upside down with some g-forces?

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Hi, joining in. Please extend a thank you to your husband for what he does for our country.

I can't wait to hear all about your trip.

 

[christypooh402]

Thanks for joining Grumpy's Wife!
And another thanks for the Thank You! haha
I'm happy to have you along and I'm just about to write the first update!

 

[christypooh402]

Day 1

Well, I guess officially it’s day 2, but this is the day we check in at Pop! We were all super excited as we’ve never stayed at a Disney resort before. On our family trip in May ’11 we stayed at SOG. It was super nice, and I love how close it is to MK, but it’s just not “disneyfied”. (I tend to go off on tangents, and make up my own words sometimes)
Anyway, we arrived at Pop, and the only pic I have is from the entrance.

Our room wasn’t ready, so we parked the van and hopped on a bus to Hollywood! We were hoping to get there in time for the early EMH but it took a little longer than we thought to check out of the offsite room and get over to Pop.
What do we see as we’re walking up to the entrance? The Christmas Tree of course!

We did see the one at Pop, but this one was so huge! I love the theming around it too. So cool.
Now that we’re in the park, it’s just before 9am, where do you think we’re headed? If you’re thinking TSM, you are WRONG! No offense to all of you who make the mad dash, but we just aren’t feeling it. It’s fun and all, but remember, we are thrill ride junkies! I bet now you can guess. Well, if you guessed RnRC or ToT, you’d be wrong again.

First we had to get pics in front of the hat! Duh, then Ashley wanted to watch the Disney Channel Rocks! show. It was pretty short, probably because we missed the beginning, but it was super cute. The kids knew all the songs, even Kim who thinks she’s too old for some of those shows now.

Ok, seriously, it’s time for thrill rides. RnRC baby! I personally would have chosen ToT, but for some reason we went to meet Steven first instead. This is the ride that I got my intro pic from. (you know, the picture of a picture!) Loved it as we always do, though I can never remember what song was playing when we get off.

After that ride, and I assure you we didn't force Kim on it!, I think we must have gotten fast passes for ToT because we didn’t ride it yet. (don’t worry, we end up getting our fill before this trip is over)Instead we went down the Streets of America went on the Backlot Tour. We’ve never been on this. Actually, this is only our 2nd time in this park, ever. So, there’s lots we haven’t done yet.

Thoughts about the Backlot, eh. Catastrophe Canyon was cool, and with it being cold out, the fire was great! but it just seemed really long to me. Christopher thought the cars were neat though.
We wandered through the villans and into the dump shop.

Yep, that's me, World's Greatest Mom! It says so on my award! Oh, and if you're wondering what I'm sitting on, I am in a scooter. You see, I'm a big girl, and I have a bad knee from a car accident a few years ago, not a good combo. So you see, for me to be able to keep up with these 3 balls of energy, I rented a scooter. I figured I'd enjoy myself way more if I weren't in a lot of pain each night.
We headed out to see what we see. No real plan yet. And look what Kim found.

Well, I guess we are in Hollywood!!
That is where I'll leave you. Gotta upload more pics!

 

[emmysmommy]

I love the Streets of America!! Doesn't that big coke bottle have water that spews out of it?? I remember seeing it last trip and I thought it squirted me?? (Maybe not in the winter.)

Anyhoo...what a great time of the year to go to WDW!

 

[christypooh402]

That is the first time I've seen it so I wouldn't know, but it didn't then. It was actually pretty warm that day, but that all changed soon! I think we had record cold in Orlando that week. And FYI, we only live 3 hours away, so I had a few frozen plants when I got home.

 

[jmskinner]

Hi! Thought I would follow along. What a great idea to get your mind off of the DH being deployed.

We are a military family and know how those holiday's feel. We lived in Tampa for 3 years and the last Thanksgiving, my DH was in Afghanistan, so me and DS drove to WDW for the day.

And that coke bottle does normally have a mist, but not in the cold weather months like you said.

Love your pic of the water tower!

 

[christypooh402]

Yay!! Another follower!
Welcome!
I'll be posting an update soon, so stay tuned! It takes longer than I thought to resize and upload photos! I like the water tower pic too. I hate having to resize as some of my photos aren't that great to begin with, but I'm pretty proud of some of them!
Hopefully your husband will be home this year for the holidays. We got orders a couple of weeks ago and he'll be at the naval hospital in Jax, so we get to stay where we are. I'm just hoping he isn't stuck with duty on the holidays since he transfers early Nov. Fingers crossed!

 

[christypooh402]

I know, my titles are boring. I'm not the most creative person.

I left off with Kim noticing an odd statue. Now, I’ll start off with another statue.

The Muppets! Yeah baby! Again, another new thing for us, but hey, it’s the Muppets so I was sure we couldn’t go wrong here. And I was right! If you haven’t seen this show, you really should. It’s so adorable and I didn’t even get any pics because I was so caught up in the cuteness! I was more impressed than the kids though, maybe because it was so nostalgic for me. Oh well, I loved it. They’ll do it again just because I say so, haha.

Coming out of the show, we saw these guys:

We didn't get in line for pictures though. No one was interested in them enough to stand in the long lines.
Next up, something definitely geared towards Christopher.

The stunt show was cool. Not my favorite, but the kids really liked this. Christopher definitely thought it was cool when they revealed some of the secrets. I won’t say just in case you haven’t seen it, but it’s definitely a must see at least once. And if you have a boy, he is sure to love it. I have way more photos than this, but they’re pretty much the same thing.
I’m going buy pictures for this first day because for some reason I didn’t start my trip notes until day 2. I can’t remember what we ate in Hollywood Studios, but I’m sure we ate something somewhere during the day. I just don’t remember where. I do know that sometime after the stunt show we headed down Hollywood Blvd for my absolute favorite ride of all time! The Tower of Terror!!
Oddly enough, I have no pictures of the queue this time. Redneck ride photo…of course!

After an amazing ride we decided to head out. This is when we actually went back to the resort to unload the van and see our room. It wasn’t ready earlier. We caught a bus back to Pop to check it out.
And…again, no pictures. I guess I was just focused on getting our luggage in the room and hitting up another park. I do know where we headed next!

EPCOT!
While I was picking up my scooter, one of the girls took some photos.

My goofy boy.

Kim hates this picture.

And my sweet not-so-little-anymore Ashley

I retrieved my transportation and our first stop was of course something exciting!
Mission: Space!

And this is where I leave you again. Hanging out on Mars!

 

[jmskinner]

Yay!! Another follower!
Welcome!
I'll be posting an update soon, so stay tuned! It takes longer than I thought to resize and upload photos! I like the water tower pic too. I hate having to resize as some of my photos aren't that great to begin with, but I'm pretty proud of some of them!
Hopefully your husband will be home this year for the holidays. We got orders a couple of weeks ago and he'll be at the naval hospital in Jax, so we get to stay where we are. I'm just hoping he isn't stuck with duty on the holidays since he transfers early Nov. Fingers crossed!

Wow, you get to stay where you are? That's fantastic. Hope he doesn't have to work all the holidays.

My DH is up for deployment next year, we shall see.

Great pics! I will say LMA! has ruined some shows for me. Especially anything with a chase because I now I know how they are shot.

 

[christypooh402]

Wow, you get to stay where you are? That's fantastic. Hope he doesn't have to work all the holidays.

My DH is up for deployment next year, we shall see.

Great pics! I will say LMA! has ruined some shows for me. Especially anything with a chase because I now I know how they are shot.

I am shocked we get to stay. We may have anyway. I have a junior in high school, so it would be really hard to pull her out. The kids have done really well here and we bought our first home almost 5 years ago when we got here. So, we are very excited that we don't have to move.
I hope when you DH is deployed that he stays safe and isn't gone very long!

And I know what you mean about LMA. It kindof does ruin some of the magic.

 

[emmysmommy]

I hope all is well with you and your family. We just said good-bye to our son and DIL when they were on leave for a couple weeks before deploying mid-December to Afghanistan.

I've never seen the LAM show so I totally believe that they are endangering their lives in the chase scenes! ToT is one of my favorite rides as well - love the random drops!