Okay so lets take a couple steps (months) back to the "True" beginning of our "Trip Planning"
Thanksgiving weekend 2008:
DH: "I really love Bill's camera it would be a great one for our next Disney trip and they have some on Ebay?
Me: (makes note of HINT and passes onto Hedgehogs who agree)
Xmas Morning
DH: "WOW look at this an Olympus 510 and an extra FLASH COOL"
Me: "Happy Winter Solstice the Hedgies are glad you like you your present:
DS: "The flash is from me Daddy"
Feb 15th a COLD snowy Feb morning DH saids to me "I miss the sun lets do a Disney Trip" so a quick check to the plans for our tax return and we discover we have $1500 that isn't currently ear marked for anything and I answer "Ok lets do it". So then its a fight to who gets to use the laptop and who has to use the desktop to check the Disboards and see when the best time for our trip should be....
(the following discussion was done by IM as we each were in different parts of the house LOL)
DH: "Hmmm Spring break is too soon not enough time to request off for vacation...Your 30th birthday?"
Me: "Nope busy season at L&D won't work plus we did that two years ago.....DS's 9th birthday?
DH: "Hmmm prices seem to get high closer to Xmas...how about Aug/Sept we have a good chance of getting free Dinning?
Me: "Have him miss a couple weeks of school? Has to be at the beginning of the school year then....how about the end of Aug he goes back to school the 17th?
DH: "Hmmm SURE any dates you have in mind..?
Me: "Yep how about Aug 30-Sept 5th?
DH: "Just a week? Hmmm how about longer lets look at a 10 day?"
Me: "Ok also we said we wanted to do Kennedy too so need to add a day for that...and I would LOVE to get wet again (we are a family of Scuba Divers) so how about a day at Cocoa Beach?
DH: "Thats works so what dates do you think?"
Me: "How about Aug 28th we can spend a couple days at Cocoa Beach and Kennedy and then head to Disney on the 30th through the 8th?
DH: "Sounds good to me lets do it"
So then we spent the next week going through the different packages and offers and I receive an e-mail from DH while I am at work...
"How about we go through Small World it doesn't cost anything and they can take care of everything for us? Call me and we can talk"
So I call him back and he goes on and on about how they will do all this and that and yea we know stuff from the Dis boards but we can just put it all into her hands and let her work her Disney magic for us.
So we get in touch with Small World and Tracy (our agent) and ask for a quote. Well she works one up for the Disney Trip (they can't plan anything outside of Disney.?? okay...
) She sends us a quote and it is $50 cheaper then what we were finding on our own. So we agree go to send the deposit...
DH: "How about we just send some of the $1500 but keep some back for other things we have time to pay it off no problem?"
Me: (the money guru in our house) "Nope we are sending ALL of it we will spend it on other things and WE are going on this trip and I don't want to leave anything to chance that could cancel it. So money sent and its back to the Dis boards for more ideas and thoughts...
DH: "Honey take a look at this camera bag it unzips on the side and is more like a backpack then a camera bag
Me: "Can you show me some in person"
(off to the camera store with DS in tow we went where he showed me the ones he was talking about)
Me: (later on that day after DS had gone to work a quick check online to ebay and a call to his mother and that was that)
(walking around the
Disney Store at our local mall)
DH stops at the trading pin displays: "Do we want to do Pin trading again DS so loved it last time and has all those pins from last year?"
Me: "Sure I want to do it too wonder where to best price for pins are?
DH: "Well I had seen on the DIS boards that the park pins had gone up to 6.99-14.99 a pin so not at WDW."
Me: "Well these are 50-70% off lets stock up but we only have $$ to spend"
DS: "I want this pin and this pin and this pin and (you get the idea)
Later on that evening as we are laying out the pins...
DS: "Umm I really want to keep all of these can't we get other ones to trade for cause these are all different and I want them"
DH: "Well I had been seeing Pin Lots on ebay lets check it out...."
Feb 28th at the Italian buffet in our town on DH 32nd Birthday!!!
Me/DS Parents: Happy birthday Hon (he opens up to find the backpack he wanted with the camera, laptop, extra flash and an extra wrapped smaller present...opens it to discover a trading pin lanyard with 4 police pins and a Mershu Pin (we love the saying "D RAN GON NOT Lizard I DON"T do the Tongue Thing)
DH: "WOW thanks everyone DISNEY here we come"
March
A few loss auctions later and we win two lots of trading pins one for 140 and one for 70 so now everyone has 77 pins to trade each or there about.
March 20th
DH calls Disney to see if we had gotten a Pin Code for Free Dinning and it told that Nope but that the CM would be happy to add one n for us. So DH of course happily agrees but the then CM can't find our Small World Ressis so he ask DH if he just wants him to make a new one for us and we can add it to our SW one. So DH tells him that we want POP for 10 nights so the CM does Aug 30-Sept 9th (yes you read that right DH unintentionally added another day to our trip) YEA GO DH (of course he didn't realize it until I told him later DS is still thanking DH all the time for the extra day and night at Disney)
However when we contacted Tracy she was pissed. Appealing we AREN'T surpost to call and talk to Disney that is "HER" job and that the CM SHOULD NEVER have given us the Pin Code or made the new Ressie. So she calls Disney and talks to a Sup and gets everything straighten out and tells us that the CM will be "Talked To" about his actions but that the Sup said for our inconvenience he would ALLOW us to keep the code pin.
Well needles BOTH of us are PISSED at this time as the CM was just trying to help us out and HE gets in trouble for it??? Needless to say DH got a hold of Tracy & Disney and made it VERY Clear that WE DON'T want the CM talked too and if it means we can't have the CODE then take it back cause we are not repaying a favor by getting someone in trouble. So in the end the CM is "NICELY" explained Disney Policies and we kept the pin and the CM didn't get any Marks down for his actions.
And our RESSIE with SW got changed to Aug 30-Sept 9 for the same price as our old one on for Aug 30-Sept 8 (which worked out JUST FINE for us LOL)
April
DH: Hey have you heard of TourGuide Mike?
Me: "Nope whats that"
DH: Explains what TGM is and we decide to sign up for one
later on DH brings up
MNSSHP that he learned about from Dis boards and TGM
DH: "This looks like a lot of fun we should see if it happens when we are down there"
Me: I look at it and am like you want to spend $150+ to go to a Halloween party? If we are going to spend that lets take out Waterparks and more and add Unv S and AL to the list?"
DH: "Nan I want to do those on the next trip"
Me: "Okay but I am not thinking this is a good choice for that much money.
DH: "Here check out TGM input about it at work and we can talk later"
Later on that day
Me: "Okay so it is more then just a party we will have to seen when it falls and also have to talk to DS as that would take away from his B-Day Party when we get back."
May 5th
DH: "MNSSHP will happen when we are there ask Tracy about the tickets when you send her our ADR.
ME: "Will do"
Aww yes the ADR part of our Planning ummm lets just keep this short and say that we tried to give Tracy our ADR 180 days out and she wouldn't take them even just to "save" them so when our 90 day showed up we were good to go
(we were/are that anal we had it all worked up where we wanted to eat and when) And when she did it was HORRIBLE and if it hadn't been for me and DH calling Disney and working with the people on the DIS boards we would have been eating at only (2) out of 15 restaurants we wanted instead of all of them...
We LOVE the DIS BOARDS PEOPLE YOU GUYS SOOO ROCK!!!!
So hear back from Tracy that NO she can't add our MNSSHP or Pirate Cruise Adv for DS unless we want to pay for them that day.
Yea we don't have $200 just sitting around.
The next day I checked flights and found Round Trip for 3 from MCI to ORL and Back for $357 or $405 with flight insurance which of course we brought so now our flight is done.
June (during a raining thunder storming day)
DS: "Mom how are we going to know what pins we want to keep or trade down there? And is there a way I can have them so I can look at them whenever I want?"
Me: "Hmmm let's look on the Disboards and see what we come up with?"
DS: "Okay I really like how that lady had her in her foam book last time."
Me: "Foam book? That's right she had them in a 3 ring binder with foam pages that had little pockets like for stamps."
DS: "But Mom remember that she complained about the pockets when she was trying to get that pin out for me when she tried to trade for my Black Cauldron Pin?
Me: "Your right say how about we do a craft project?
DS: "Cool"
So off to Micheal's we went, we found Foam Sheets 3X5 ( I believe the size was) 30 foam sheets all different colors for $4.99 and Disney Stickers sheets for $.9-.99 each. DS Picked out Chip and Dale for himself, I grabbed Mickey for DH and Tink for myself. Then DS showed me Pooh and Friends Alb as well as Different Colored Mickey Heads Alb so we of course grabbed those.
Then it was over to Office Max to get little notebooks (Purple for Me (YES MY FAV COLOR) Lime green for DS and Black for DH) that the foam sheets fit perfectly into and last stop to Kinko's to use their three hold punch but umm that didn't work to well since the sheets were both foam and smaller then 8X11 so we grabbed a single hole punch and headed back home.
DH was up and saw us come in and wanted to know what we were up too and I explained we were making our own Trading Pin Foam Collection Books. He joined in and then DS and him decided to switch since DH fav color is Lime Green and DS thought Chip and Dale Showed up much better on the Black.
So we all decorated our books and then I spent the next hours punching holes in the foam sheets. DS and DH helped put their colors into their books and then we filled the pages with our pins. Now before you ask, NO we didn't put the 240 pins from e-bay (that are only 14 different kinds 15 of each one umm except for one kind the person messed up and shorted us two pins so sent us $3 back instead I REALLY wish she had JUST sent us a couple of pins they could have been the same kinds we already had but oh well) we put those into sand which bags labeled with our names.
DH then saw on the Disboards about our congressmen giving out free tours of Kennedy so contacted him and we got enough tickets for all three of us YEA KENNEDY FOR FREE
DISBOARDS
Got to looking and found a great deal on a hotel 5 mins from Coca Beach for the two nights and a rental car for 3 days for $133 yea we booked that in a NY min so now Cocoa Beach HERE WE COME!!!!
So we talked with DS and he decided that he wanted to do MNSSHP (Sept 4th) for his birthday. So we will be having DS Unbirthday Party at MNSSHP (he turns 9 Nov 3). DH and Myself decided we "may" surprise him with a Pirate Cruise down there.
irate:
July
DS and I went to our local Disney store and found that they were having a HUGE sale got DS 9 different Disney T-Shirt and Myself a Mix of Disney T-Shirts and Tank Tops only found one T-shirt for DH but he had gotten a couple for his birthday as well so he at least has 3 (am going to check Disney Store tomorrow cause they mention they may have adults shirts on sale (keep fingers crossed for us or else DH has to be "normally" dressed for Disney rather then decked out in Disney Gear)
DS also got the Kids Guide Book to Disney that he is reading out loud to us every night getting everyone even more hyped up for our trip.
Aug
Sat down with DS and had him pick out which journal pages he wanted for his "Disney Journal" and after printing them out at home took them up to Kinkos to get them bond. A great use for $5 it looks wonderful!!!
DH & I sat down and changed to fit our trip the school excuse letter for school and I gave that to his teach at the end of first day as well as cleared it with his principle.
Have uploaded and changed the Ultimate Packing List to match us!!!
We are counting down the days, every time I find something that I think "Should" go with us to Disney I toss it into our "Big" suitcase which will be the only checked bag and we will have all our clothes, camera, laptop, in our carry-ons just in case.
Tomorrow is the BIG TRUE packing day when we pack everything up for the trip, go and pick up the items we are missing and have the suitcases,carry-ons sitting next to the door taunting us as we wait for the next 6 days to go by.
and realized we didn't have enough shorts so went up to the thrift store and they were having shorts for $1.00 so we each found a few new (to us) pairs of shorts. Yes we could have gotten them at the store but this saves us some $$ for WDW.
. But they will be spoiled by our pet-sitter and we will give them tons of love when we get back.
headache: had to fight with insurance but it was worth it since now I don't have to find the Walgreens in Orlando gotta have my insulin
)
