62travelDisney
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2004
- Messages
- 155
Since I could not have had such a successful trip without these boards, I am giving back with my first ever trip report. 
Cast:
me (Laurie) 43
DH 44
DS 16
DS 13
DD 10
DD 8
I decided to take this trip fairly late - planned in January for an early March trip. We are DVC members and had some points left to use. We hadnt been to WDW in a few years as we had started to use our points elsewhere (Disney Cruise, etc....) I had limited points and limited time - since my kids are on different school vacation schedules, someone was going to miss school whenever we went, so I had to keep it short and stay within what our points would cover. I called and found we could stay at SSR for 4 nights. When I checked the airline, I got an unbelievable deal on SW, so that was it, we were going!!!
About a week before we were leaving, I started to get nervous. Both of my boys play hockey and their teams made it to state tournaments. Fortunately 
the DS 16's team lost but DS 13's team was playing all the way through the weekend we were going to travel. He wanted to stay! I was torn - yes WDW rules, but my DS 16 has been on a state championship team and that is something not to be missed? What was I to do? I prayed. My answer - my DS 13 tripped over his hockey bag (really) and ended up in the ER w a broken foot and no hockey! We were outa here! (He was fine w all of it and not badly injured at all). So, in order to get that cheap flight, we werent leaving until 8pm on a Sat night, later than we ever fly. So after a day of packing and waiting, we were off
Well, not exactly, bad weather delayed us 2 hours and we didnt get in until 2am which was really 3am b/c of Daylight Savings. We did get on the plane 1st w DS in wheelchair so had the most comfortable place for sleeping, so kids caught a little. When I arrived at SSR at 4:00 am we found that we didnt get the location we requested to make it easier for DS and computers dont work in the middle of the night I guess so there was nothing they could do. At that point, sleeping anywhere was fine w us, and franky, I decided not to do anything about switching because of the limited time we'd be spending at the resort.
After pouring over these boards and deciding to do the DxDDP and making all ADR's in advance, our itinerary was planned based on where we were eating each day!
I did DxDDP mostly for convenience and hoping to save a little, I can expand on that if folks want but we were planning signature dinners anyway since we were only there 4 nights so this made sense to me. In the end, it did work out financially, but lots and lots of food, some of which we wouldnt have ordered or eaten otherwise but glad we did it. All of us came home having had some great food, but completely stuffed.
So here goes: Day 1 Magic Kingdom.
For the 1st time ever I decided to let the kids sleep (a little) and not be there for rope drop. We arrived around 10 and went right to Space Mountain which had a 15 minute wait. We did a couple things nearby Grand Prix, Pooh, nothing had more than a 15 minute wait. We then went to our 1st ADR at Crystal Palace. We found the food to be better than we remembered and the girls enjoyed the characters. It was a good chance to regroup and plan the rest of the day and I was so happy we had ADRs because I saw ma people turned away. The park had extended hours (open till 2am) so we knew we could come back after dinner to do what we missed. We went and got fastpasses to ride Space M again later and made our way through the park doing everything we wanted except 1 or 2 things. The lines were all manageable and even faster at times for us with DS in wheelchair. He couldnt walk but maintained his sense of humor as we kept thanking him profusely for getting through the lines a little more quickly. We left around 5 to get to our ADR at Cal Grille. I had a delicious sushi appetizer that was some of the best sushi Ive had. We all ordered different items and I tasted all - and everything was delicious. Dessert amazing! The best part was seeing the kids try and enjoy new things (DS 13 would always claim he wasnt hungry so I'd always order something funky hoping to eat it an he'd always come alive and eat everything!) What was also great about this and every other meal was the leisurely pace we dined and enjoyed family time - it just doesnt happen too much at home w everybody's busy schedule. Of course, we all ate ourselves silly and could hardly move. After dinner we took the monorail back into the park and did the few things we missed and rode Space M again. We watched Wishes at 10 and even though we didnt really make it a point to see that, we were soooo glad we did. It was close to midnight when we got back to SSR and all were absolutely exhausted so I made an executive decision not to wake anyone up the next morning. We slept until 10!
I'll do Day 2 soon.....
Cast:me (Laurie) 43
DH 44
DS 16
DS 13
DD 10
DD 8
I decided to take this trip fairly late - planned in January for an early March trip. We are DVC members and had some points left to use. We hadnt been to WDW in a few years as we had started to use our points elsewhere (Disney Cruise, etc....) I had limited points and limited time - since my kids are on different school vacation schedules, someone was going to miss school whenever we went, so I had to keep it short and stay within what our points would cover. I called and found we could stay at SSR for 4 nights. When I checked the airline, I got an unbelievable deal on SW, so that was it, we were going!!!
About a week before we were leaving, I started to get nervous. Both of my boys play hockey and their teams made it to state tournaments. Fortunately the DS 16's team lost but DS 13's team was playing all the way through the weekend we were going to travel. He wanted to stay! I was torn - yes WDW rules, but my DS 16 has been on a state championship team and that is something not to be missed? What was I to do? I prayed. My answer - my DS 13 tripped over his hockey bag (really) and ended up in the ER w a broken foot and no hockey! We were outa here! (He was fine w all of it and not badly injured at all). So, in order to get that cheap flight, we werent leaving until 8pm on a Sat night, later than we ever fly. So after a day of packing and waiting, we were off Well, not exactly, bad weather delayed us 2 hours and we didnt get in until 2am which was really 3am b/c of Daylight Savings. We did get on the plane 1st w DS in wheelchair so had the most comfortable place for sleeping, so kids caught a little. When I arrived at SSR at 4:00 am we found that we didnt get the location we requested to make it easier for DS and computers dont work in the middle of the night I guess so there was nothing they could do. At that point, sleeping anywhere was fine w us, and franky, I decided not to do anything about switching because of the limited time we'd be spending at the resort.
After pouring over these boards and deciding to do the DxDDP and making all ADR's in advance, our itinerary was planned based on where we were eating each day!
I did DxDDP mostly for convenience and hoping to save a little, I can expand on that if folks want but we were planning signature dinners anyway since we were only there 4 nights so this made sense to me. In the end, it did work out financially, but lots and lots of food, some of which we wouldnt have ordered or eaten otherwise but glad we did it. All of us came home having had some great food, but completely stuffed.So here goes: Day 1 Magic Kingdom.
For the 1st time ever I decided to let the kids sleep (a little) and not be there for rope drop. We arrived around 10 and went right to Space Mountain which had a 15 minute wait. We did a couple things nearby Grand Prix, Pooh, nothing had more than a 15 minute wait. We then went to our 1st ADR at Crystal Palace. We found the food to be better than we remembered and the girls enjoyed the characters. It was a good chance to regroup and plan the rest of the day and I was so happy we had ADRs because I saw ma people turned away. The park had extended hours (open till 2am) so we knew we could come back after dinner to do what we missed. We went and got fastpasses to ride Space M again later and made our way through the park doing everything we wanted except 1 or 2 things. The lines were all manageable and even faster at times for us with DS in wheelchair. He couldnt walk but maintained his sense of humor as we kept thanking him profusely for getting through the lines a little more quickly. We left around 5 to get to our ADR at Cal Grille. I had a delicious sushi appetizer that was some of the best sushi Ive had. We all ordered different items and I tasted all - and everything was delicious. Dessert amazing! The best part was seeing the kids try and enjoy new things (DS 13 would always claim he wasnt hungry so I'd always order something funky hoping to eat it an he'd always come alive and eat everything!) What was also great about this and every other meal was the leisurely pace we dined and enjoyed family time - it just doesnt happen too much at home w everybody's busy schedule. Of course, we all ate ourselves silly and could hardly move. After dinner we took the monorail back into the park and did the few things we missed and rode Space M again. We watched Wishes at 10 and even though we didnt really make it a point to see that, we were soooo glad we did. It was close to midnight when we got back to SSR and all were absolutely exhausted so I made an executive decision not to wake anyone up the next morning. We slept until 10!
I'll do Day 2 soon.....
!)
After we went on to on to a ride in the Living Seas, ok but not fantastic, then went to watch the Crush show, which I thought was very funny. DH was apparently in the "hot seat" and was put up on screen and ridiculed several times, kids got a big kick out of that. After we went to get FP's for soarin, the wait was 60 minutes, so we got the FP's for later in the afternoon. We walked over to see the countries, DS wanted to get something for his french class, but found them to be selling mostly cosmetics and perfume! We did watch the movie there, very good. We also rode the mexico ride and stopped to watch some entertainment. We went back to ride spaceship earth and it said 40 minute wait but we did get on much quicker with DS in wheelchair. Then Soarin which was great and then time to go back to SSR to get ready for dinner at Jiko. At Jiko, we had to wait about 15 min for our table, but once we sat down, service and food were excellent. DH said best filet ever tasted. Ribs absolutely delicious. All kids tried new things. Again, great family time. By the way, I was grateful we had the dxddp, we could order whatever we wanted, but the other bonus was being able to stop in the parks and get the kids snacks and drinks whenever they wanted. As a fam of 6, we had 12 credits each day so by the end I had to force snacks on everybody to use them, but in the past, I would say no to alot of those snack stops b/c it killed me to pay that much for ice cream or water. I know I'm still paying for it somehow, but trust me, this makes it alot more pleasant. Next day's plan was Hollywood Studios. Will write more later.
