10 Nights, 9 Days, 2 Birthdays and 1 Magical May 2014 Vacation! **Complete 6-10**

[anniebabymu]

Hey everyone!

After reading some trip reports and pre-trip reports, I've decided to jump in and share my own for our May 2014 trip to Disney World! This will be my 2nd PTR... but hopefully the first I actually finish I started one for our last trip in April 2013, but life got ahead of me and never finished it! Which is a shame because I never shared how we pulled off the great surprise for our two daughters!

Anyways... I thought I'd give it another go and maybe you can all keep me accountable this time

"So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!"

Table of Contents
Crazy Cast and Crew
It all started with a dream...
ADR recap
What to wear... what to wear!?
Gotta love a Glitch!
Help!!!
Great Surprise!
FP+ Selections
Feeling Sentimental... surprise Disney trip video!
49 Days!!!
Packing List
BOG FP+ and Attractions FP+ change!
Outfits Galore... part 1!
Outfits Galore... part 2!
Yet another change... Disney is trying to make me crazy!!!
3 More Weeks!!!
What is momma gonna wear?!?
Finally... final piece of the puzzle!!!
A few updates and a "Mini" November PTR!!!
Single Digit Day!!!
2 More Days!!!
Link the the Trip Report!!


Daily Plan Updates
Day 1 Plans
Day 2 Plans
Day 3!
Day 4 Plans
Day 5 Plans... Happy Birthday Harper!!
Day 6 Plans
Day 7 Plans
Day 8 Plans... plus a little side note!
Day 9 Plans
Day 10 Plans... and going home
Animal Kingdom Touring Plan... critiques welcome!
Day 1 and 2 Personalized Touring Plans
Scratch the above! Well, parts of them at least... below are the links to updated park plans that include our FP+ selections!
*Updated Day "Before" 1 and Day 1 Plans*
*Updated Day 2 and Day 3 Plans*
*Updated Day 4 and Day 5 Plans*
*Updated Day 6 and Day 7 Plans*
*Updated Day 8 and Day 9 Plans*
*Updated Day 10 and Departure Day Plans*
BOG FP+ and Attractions FP+ Change!

Real Life Updates
Real Life Update #1... Christmas!
Happy New Year!!
Dallas, Discounts and Deep Freeze
Real Life Update #2 (Disney Related!!)

Movie Nights
Our first dinner/movie night... Lady and the Tramp!
Movie Night #2... Lilo and Stitch
Movie Night #3... Beauty and the Beast
Movie Night #4... Snow White and Real Life Update
Movie Night #5... Toy Story
Movie Night #6... The Aristocats
Better late than never! Movie Night #7... Finding Nemo
Movie Night #8 and exciting news!!
Movie Night #9... Tinker Bell
Movie Night #10... Monster's Inc.
Movie Night #11... Cinderella
Movie Night #12... Fox and the Hound
Movie Night #13... Mulan
Movie Night #14... The Lion King

 

[anniebabymu]

Where to start, where to start... I guess it should be with the main characters of our trip!



My DH, Derek: He is such a great husband and perfect daddy to two princesses! Although... maybe after almost 6 years he should learn how to put a ponytail in their hair He does everything in his power to give us everything that we want and going to Disney is one of those things! He loves STL Cardinal baseball, the Blues and our Mizzou Tigers!



Brief Disney history: He had been on a few Disney/beach trips during his childhood, but can only remember bits and pieces of it. They never stayed on property so our first family trip back in October 2012 was the first time he had stayed on property We had such a great time that trip and we were hooked. While he's not exactly the fanatic that I am... can you believe that he thinks there are other places to vacation than Disney?? But he does love going there and seeing his girl's faces light up!

Disney Favorites...
Park: Magic Kingdom
Ride: Splash Mountain
Restaurant: Be Our Guest
Disney Movie: He's not really the Disney movie junkie like we are, but he does enjoy watching them with the girls... and it's usually whatever they want to watch
Character: The main man, Mickey Mouse

Me, Andrea: I'm a mom by day and a labor and delivery nurse by night. I love doing things with my girls, sewing, recently running and of course... Disney planning! More than a couple people have told me that I should be a Disney TA and have helped many of friends plan their own vacations! Love it!



Brief Disney History: It's actually very short! I had never been to Disney as a child and maybe that's why I'm so crazy about it now! Reliving my childhood through my children. We took our first family vacation, along with my MIL, FIL, BIL and SIL, in October 1012 staying at Art of Animation in the Little Mermaid Standard rooms. It was a great 7 day vacation that hooked me for life! We then took our next Disney vacation only 6 months later! This time it was just the four of us! We had many points in our trip that made me think we were crazy for taking a 5 year old and a 23 month old by ourselves... but we did have those magical moments that kept us going! We stayed at POR in a Royal Guest Room and our pixie-dusted upgraded river view room was wonderful!

Disney Favorites:
Park: Magic Kingdom
Ride: Soarin' and Splash Mountain
Restaurant: Too many to list
Movie: Beauty and the Beast
Character: Belle

DD, Addison (almost 6): She just started kindergarten this year and is LOVING school! I knew she would because she's my little smarty pants She loves everything Disney... I'm raising her right! She can't wait to go to back! Although, she wants me to surprise her with another scavenger hunt and I told her that can't happen because she'd know the moment we started it! She's very excited because she's now tall enough for some new roller coasters!



Disney Favorites:
Park: Magic Kingdom
Ride: BTMRR and Splash Mountain (but I'm sure she'll have some new favorites after trying out new rides this trip!)
Restaurant: Any Princess meal and Hollywood & Vine
Movie: All of them!!
Character: All of them!!

DD, Harper (2 1/2): Not many people can say they've been to Disney 3 times before turning 3! This girl gets to! We will be traveling down to Disney 4 days before she turns 3 and I cannot wait to celebrate her 3rd birthday down there! I can't wait for this trip because this will be one that she is going to be REALLY into! She knows all the characters now and it is just going to be magical!



Disney Favorites:
Park: Magic Kingdom
Ride: Peter Pan's Flight, It's a Small World, Nemo ride
Restaurant: Any character meal
Movie: Finding Nemo and Toy Story
Character: Woody, Jessie, Buzz, Bulls-eye, Nemo... and of course the princesses!

MIL and FIL, Mike and Connie: My in-laws will be returning with us this trip! We can't wait for grandma and grandpa to be there with us! They really missed not going with us last April and my MIL is most definitely ready to go back to the World! My DH is much like his father, my FIL will do anything to make my MIL happy... and fortunately for us, that too is going to Disney World!



And last, but not least... we have friends that live in Miami who will be spending Memorial Day weekend with us! We can't wait to spend time with Sean, Chelsea and Chase! They came up and spent a day with us on our first Disney vacation so I can't wait to spend a few with them! Their son will be a few months shy of 2, so he should be fun too!

Continued in Next Post​

 

[lovethattink]

Following over from the May fb group.

Great intros and pictures! Your girls are so cute, love their matching shirts. Did you make them? Can't think of a better place than Disney to celebrate a birthday!

 

[STLMickeyMom]

i'm here! can't wait to read all about your plans! so glad you started a PTR!

your family is so cute! our girls are about the same age. our oldest turned 6 in September and our youngest will be 4 at the end of December. they were both born at your hospital, but I don't remember if I saw you there. if you do become a Disney TA, i'll be your assistant! I think that sounds so fun! I actually looked into it a tiny bit, but not too seriously.

we are staying at POR in a royal room in just a few weeks! did you love it? i'm so excited--for the royal room and for our first time at a moderate.

I love all the cute outfits on the girls. did you make them?

great start on your PTR!!

 

[toottifruitti]

I ♥ the tshirts the children have on. I would ♥ for our whole family to have some for our May trip. Trouble is DH is 6xl. I've been looking everywhere for some and we live in Australia to make it even more difficult. Can anyone help

 

[anniebabymu]

Following over from the May fb group.

Great intros and pictures! Your girls are so cute, love their matching shirts. Did you make them? Can't think of a better place than Disney to celebrate a birthday!

Hi! Thanks! I think they're pretty cute, but I think I'm a little partial

I'm a fan of the matchy matchy shirts... and I'm pretty sure they'll hate me one day for it! Ha ha! I have bought some of their shirts off of ETSY, but the purple and pink Minnie head ones that look like a popsicle I bought from Miss Morgan Designs and made them myself! She sells vinyl iron-ons that you can put on whatever you'd like! They're very reasonably priced, so if you can find a cheap shirt you are good to go! I'm most definitely going to be getting more for this trip!

 

[anniebabymu]

i'm here! can't wait to read all about your plans! so glad you started a PTR!

your family is so cute! our girls are about the same age. our oldest turned 6 in September and our youngest will be 4 at the end of December. they were both born at your hospital, but I don't remember if I saw you there. if you do become a Disney TA, i'll be your assistant! I think that sounds so fun! I actually looked into it a tiny bit, but not too seriously.

we are staying at POR in a royal room in just a few weeks! did you love it? i'm so excited--for the royal room and for our first time at a moderate.

I love all the cute outfits on the girls. did you make them?

great start on your PTR!!

Yay! Glad you made it over! And thanks for convincing me to start a PTR! I can't wait to share all of the plans we have so far!! It is most definitely going to be one fun trip! May can't come soon enough!

We did love POR!! I'd love to stay back there again this time, but we traded it for a few extra days at the World. Your girls are going to LOVE it! Addison was crazy about the room and the grounds are beautiful! We loved being able to hop on a boat for a night at DTD one night and Addison loved the pool with the slide I think we're going to have to take my in-laws over there to show them where we stayed and take a boat to DTD again!

Some of the shirts were bought from ESTY and others I "made" a.k.a. bought the shirts and ironed on the vinyl! Ha ha! I will definitely be doing that again!

I think our girls would have a good time together... if I ever get to meet up with you guys

 

[STLMickeyMom]

I ♥ the tshirts the children have on. I would ♥ for our whole family to have some for our May trip. Trouble is DH is 6xl. I've been looking everywhere for some and we live in Australia to make it even more difficult. Can anyone help

I don't know how easy this would be for you being in Australia, but....I ordered iron ons and just bought plain tshirts to put them on. that way you can get whatever shirt you need/want. I got the iron ons from the website missmorgandesigns.com and they were super easy to put on the shirts (I have some pictures of them on my PTR "first trip do over"). they look super cute on the shirts and she has tons of different ones. I found her website through etsy, and there are lots of other people on etsy that make different ones. I ordered ours through her website, because she offers sparkles and more options on her website than she does through etsy. if you're feeling crafty, there are tons of directions on pinterest on making iron ons with freezer paper or bleaching or all sorts of stuff. if I can help you with anything else, just let me know. I love doing that crafty stuff!

I also found some 6xl tshirts on amazon.com by fruit of the loom that are about $7 each and have quite a few color choices.

 

[anniebabymu]

I ♥ the tshirts the children have on. I would ♥ for our whole family to have some for our May trip. Trouble is DH is 6xl. I've been looking everywhere for some and we live in Australia to make it even more difficult. Can anyone help

Thanks! I wish I could take all of the credit for them! Maybe you could look into doing what I did with the ones I made with the iron on Vinyl. That way you could buy your own shirt and just iron them on! I know she makes custom ones, so she may be able to size up the vinyl so it's not the same size as they are for a Small-X Large shirt. Worth a shot, right? The vinyl was really easy to put on! We had ones that matched the girls one day...

 

[anniebabymu]

I got the iron ons from the website missmorgandesigns.com and they were super easy to put on the shirts (I have some pictures of them on my PTR "first trip do over").

That's where I got ours too! Love her stuff and it really is so easy to put together!

 

[anniebabymu]

Now that we know the who... here is the what, where, when and why! Here's how our 3rd Disney vacation came to be!



Let's be honest... our last trip, one that we tackled by ourselves with our two girls had it's less than magical moments. Ahhhh, thank you 2 year old tantrums I had serious reservations about when we'd be coming back, but of course I got home and proceeded to suffer PDD and knew we had to go back ASAP!



So the big question was when. For obvious reasons, we needed to go back before our youngest DD turns 3! So it had to be before Memorial Day since that is her 3rd birthday this year! Then it had to be after our oldest DD finished school for the year. My DH and I are both products of parents who are/were teachers, and pulling her out of school just wasn't an option for us... well, I was willing to entertain the idea a bit more than the DH was . This gave us a very short window to work with! End of school, May 20th... Harper's birthday, May 26th.

Soooooo... An arrival day of May 22nd it was! And this just so happens to be my FIL's birthday So we will be there for his birthday on the 22nd and Harper's birthday on the 26th!

Before Derek gave me the "official" go ahead to book this trip he told his mom that he was going to tell me that I could book another trip. Her reply? "Well, you better tell me when and where you are staying because if you don't we are going to show up anyways!" Ha ha! So it appeared they were in for another trip!

In deciding where to stay/how many nights there was some discussion. We both would have loved to stay back at POR like we did in April. Knowing that his parents where going with us, I thought we should stick to a value to make it more affordable for everyone. But by staying at a value, I also had another angle I could work Of course we could add a few days to our trip by staying at a value vs. a moderate... and knowing that this was the last trip that we didn't have to pay for Harper, I knew it was probably the only and last time that a 10 day trip would be possible for us!

I armed myself with all the numbers and approached DH with the 10 night trip idea His first reaction was exactly what I thought it would be. He thought I was nuts. So I then explained all of the above and provided good points so he decided to think about it. Well, by the title of my PTR, you can see I won We will be there for 10 glorious nights!

Picture borrowed

Since we decided on a value, we decided to stick with the theme of trying a new resort... so Pop Century is what we decided on! This will be our first time there and I hope we love it! What I do love is that we can walk over to AoA and get some create your own pasta Love me some AoA!



After we decided what we were going to do we approached my MIL. I told her that we decided on the dates we were going and where we were staying... and I said, "We decided to stay for 10 nights... but you guys don't have to stay all 10 with us! I know it's a crazy long time!" She replied with, "Are you kidding?!? Mike may not want to stay the whole time, but I'll be there!" I think all she needed was the excuse and we gave it to her

So there you have it! We will be staying at Pop Century May 22nd to June 1st. And celebrating two birthdays while we're at it!

Continued in Next Post​

 

[kansasdisneygal]

Hi! Here to follow along from the May FB page! I have been wrestling with starting a PTR also. I did one last time and started a TR...which I never finished. Still embarrassed by that, so didn't know if I should try again. Love all your pics! Your girls are adorable! Love the outfits! We will be there the 27th through 3rd of June at POR.

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[anniebabymu]

Hi! Here to follow along from the May FB page! I have been wrestling with starting a PTR also. I did one last time and started a TR...which I never finished. Still embarrassed by that, so didn't know if I should try again. Love all your pics! Your girls are adorable! Love the outfits! We will be there the 27th through 3rd of June at POR.

You should! I started working a million and a half hours at work so down went the internet time and therefore, the PTR got neglected! I'd love to read it if you make one

You will love POR!

 

[anniebabymu]

Following along!

Yay! Happy to have you along for the ride

 

[blueangel2]

following from fb

 

[anniebabymu]

following from fb

Awesome!

 

[anniebabymu]

Well, I guess since I started this PTR a little late I can skip right to our plans with ADR's included! Maybe it's a good thing... if you would have "met" me before our ADR date you would think I'm one big neurotic nut bag! Well, you still may. Only time will tell

But in all honesty... I really don't see our plans changing all that drastically! I'm VERY happy with how it's all worked out! I'm even more happy that my Disney loving MIL gave me full reign over ADR's and "schedule"! They enjoyed their trip so much that I pretty much planned October 2012 that she really didn't even want to give me any input! The only thing that she requested was to eat breakfast at 'Ohana... perfect, done. I wanted to do that too!

So here we go... A jam packed, we're probably going to want to kill ourselves, 1st day!

Thursday May 22nd

Ahhhhh, departure day. The day that we pack the kiddos up in the middle of the night to coop them up on airplane for 2 1/2 hours... then torture them some more by freeing them from the plane only to make them sit still for another 30-45 minutes on DME! Ha ha!



We already have our flights booked through Southwest... just waiting for some sales to get some money off! They currently have a sale going on through May 21st. Too bad we're leaving the 22nd! That means I'm going to have to wait even longer... dang! Anyways, I digress. Our flight is slated to leave here at 6:10 am. Yes... 6:10am. What were we thinking Unfortunately it was one of the only non-stop flights that got there early enough to be able to enjoy a park that day!

We will be arriving at 9:25, so we'll stop to use the potty and head to the Magical Express! I'm hoping we'll be on a bus by 10:30 and at our resort by 11:15 or so. And I'm REALLY hoping that our room is ready

Plan is to check-in, grab some lunch and relax/nap in our room for a bit... then we will head to EPCOT!



Once we get to Epcot I don't really have any set touring plan. We'll just see what the waits are/make FP+ and probably just hang out in the Future World until we travel all the way to Norway for our 6:30 dinner ADR at... Akershus! That's right, Grandpa not only gets to hang out with his two princesses on his birthday... he gets to hang out with REAL princesses too! What a lucky man



After dinner plan is to just go back to our resort and hit the hay... it will have been a VERY long day and with another park calling our name the next day we will need all the sleep we can get!

Continued in Next Post​

 

[alan_renfroe]

Subscribing! Some of our dates overlap. We will be there May 30-June 5. I started a PTR also! This will be our first trip in five years and we'll be staying at POR!

I think your family will love Pop Century! And that walk over to AoA is a lot of fun!

 

[STLMickeyMom]

That's where I got ours too! Love her stuff and it really is so easy to put together!

That's cuz all the cool people live in St. Louis! they really are super easy and cute. We have the mom and dad ones in your picture too! Great minds, I tell ya!

Neurotic nut bag?!! well, you're in good company!

Your day 1 plans sound good. We also got one of the nonstop, crack of dawn flights this trip too. Ours is at 7:50 so I told DH we should leave around 5:30 for the airport. That went over really well.....my hope is we all sleep on the plane!

Love the pic of Harper sticking out her tongue! Too cute!