6 kids under 6, a Night in the Castle, and Barf...A trip report (5/16-5/21)

[tinkercat]

This is my first trip report here on the DIS. I'll try not to get too boring or wordy for you, but I have bad tendency of being long winded at times.

We just returned from a trip to WDW. My crazy parents decided that we should do a Grand Gathering. Now, they decided this at the end of March and told me to plan it for mid-May. Gee guys, thanks for the advance notice! We ended up going May 16th-21st at All Star Music, with a special night for 8 of us at Cinderella's Castle Suite on 5/18.

There were 12 of us all together, so let me get to the cast of characters for this trip....

Mom - My Mom. She's 50 with the energy of someone more like 35. She is super-Grandma, I tell ya! While Dad spends time resting, Mom keeps going all day and is typically a big help with the kiddos.

Dad - My Dad. He's 54 and not as spry as Mom. He has a closed head injury due to a huge auto accident 4 years ago (not his fault) and hasn't been himself since. He tries though and does what he can. He loves the grandkids and the trip was really his idea.

Me - (aka Jen) I'm 27 and the proud Mommy of 3 kids. This trip turned me into a Disney lover (see what a night in the castle can do!!). For me, the trip was all about the kids and I loved seeing them have fun.

Cory (C) - My DH, also 27. Cory is a pretty good Daddy so he gets stuck with poopy diaper duty alot. He goes along with what we tell him and is all about the kids having fun. I think this trip has started to convert him into a Disney lover as well...he was the Castle winner.

Hallie (H) - My DD, almost 4. Hallie loves pretty much everything Disney, but especially Cinderella. The child thinks she IS Cinderella at times. She's our dare devil and couldn't wait to ride some roller coasters. Luckily, she's *just* 40 inches so we were able to get her on a few.

Leo (L) - My DS, 2 years old. Leo is all boy! He loves to run and is into everything. He is pretty much petrified of costume characters though and is a bit iffy on some of the rides too.

Lucy - My DD, 7.5 months old. Lucy is just a happy baby. As long as she is fed and has a place to nap, life is good for Lucy!

Deb (D) - My sister, 23. Deb is my sister so I have to love her. She's more selfish than I am though, so she wanted the trip to be all about what she and BIL wanted to do, rather than the kids. Thats just how they are though, so whatever!

Jason (J) - My BIL, Deb's husband, 24. Jason is like a big kid most of the time. This is good because the kids like to play with him. Its also bad because he's not very responsible. When he's not being a big kid, he turns into Marine man and treats the kids like little soldiers, also not good.

Alexis (A) - My neice, 5.5 years old. Alexis was 11 weeks premature and has been Grandma's favorite from the get-go. She has her bad moments but is overall a good kid.

Krista (K) - My neice, 4 years old. Krista is a spit-fire. She is the sort of kid who will do something naughty, then look you in the face and do it again. She's a fun little girl, but definitely keeps us on our toes!

Baby Jim Bob (BJB) - My nephew 4 months old. Jim Bob is a pretty laid back little guy. As long as he is fed and changed, he is happy...unless he gets hot and then he gets ticked!

So that's everyone...the whole fam. We knew going into this that a trip with 6 adults and 6 kids under 6 was going to be very interesting at the least! It was a crazy ride, but definitely a great experience for all of us!

I'll post Day One in another post, I don't want this to get too long.

 

[tinkercat]

So here we are at Day One...I'm such a dork that I wrote a rough draft on paper before coming to type this all in.

Here we go....

We arrived at MCO around 12:35 on May 16th. Finally, we were on our way to Disney! We made our way to the DME welcome center and I went to check us all in while Mom, Dad, D and J took off to smoke. You'll probably discover in subsequent posts that the smoke breaks annoy me, but back to the trip report. Once they were all done, we got in line for the ASMusic bus and in minutes we were on our way to WDW. The ride was quick and pleasant and the kids were all AMPED and ready to go!

We arrived at ASMusic and sent the kids over to the cartoon area while we checked in. That worked out so nicely! At check-in, I requested rooms for our group in Jazz, because Dad has a bad knee. The CM tried really hard and even waited on the phone for several minutes trying to make it happen, but no such luck. It was a valiant effort though. So, we got our room keys and treked back to Bldg. 4, Rock Inn. My room wasn't ready yet, but the other 2 were so we dumped our stuff in my parents room while we waited 15 minutes for it to be finished. On the walk to our rooms, we had passed some of the redone rooms with open doors. Unfortunately, we got rooms that had not yet been redone which was somewhat disappointing. Our rooms seemed dated and dingy compared to the ones we'd seen. Thank goodness we didn't plan to spend much time in them!

Dad stayed in his room to rest while the rest of us got on the bus and headed over to AK to take advantage of the evening EMH that night. We got to AK just in time for the parade, which the kids LOVED! Once it passed us, we headed back towards Africa because I'd planned on us eating dinner at Tusker House. We were almost there when we ran into the parade again. The kids were delighted! When we finally made it to Tusker House, they were closed. Darn! I had no idea they closed at 4pm and I'd been SO looking forward to eating there. Oh well, we revised the plan and hopped in line for Kilimangaro Safaris instead. We waited less than 10 minutes and we were on our way! We'd never done this ride before and it was really fun! The animals were pretty active and we all enjoyed it. After the safari, we headed up to Flame Tree BBQ for a CS dinner. I was still bitter that Tusker House was closed, but we had to eat so Flame Tree would do. The food was ok, but honestly the best part of the meal was the frozen lemonade for dessert. My DD was not pleased because the only dessert they said she could have with her kids meal was jello. She's not a jello fan so she shared chocolate cake with Mom instead. Meltdown avoided...YAY!!!

After dinner, the smokers went off to pollute themselves while C and I took the kids to see Lilo and Stitch for some pics and autographs. Leo refused and the babies were sleeping, but the older girls loved it. Once we were all done, we headed into Asia for Expedition Everest. A was actually tall enough to ride this one and we foolishly agreed to let her ride. BAD bad idea! The Yeti may have scarred the child for life. She spent most of the ride with her face buried in my moms shoulder screaming. Ooops. D and I thought it was a great coaster though and we loved the theming. We are used to straight up coasters (Think Cedar Point) so the theming was new to us and we liked it. Once we were done, J and C rode using the baby swap pass and then we headed to Kali River Rapids. The line was *maybe* 5 minutes long and the girls LOVED this ride! I didn't get very wet the first time around so when H begged to ride it again, I foolishly agreed. Bad move, Jen! I got SOAKED! H loved every second of it, of course, and since she was riding in the stroller she didn't have to deal with the joys of walking around in wet shorts all night. I was not digging the wet shorts, but it was totally worth it hearing H giggle through the ride.

It was nearing 9pm, so we started heading towards the front of the park to leave. On the way out, we spotted Mickey and Minnie so of course we had to stop and get pics/autographs. Once we were out, the bus came quickly and the line wasn't bad at all. Back at ASMusic, we let the kids take a quick dip in the Piano Pool (Main pool was closed for refurbishing) before baths and bedtime.

All in all, it was a GREAT start to the trip! Amazingly, we had NO meltdowns from any of the kids (or adults!) and everyone stayed happy all day! Surely this luck couldn't last, but it was SO nice to start things out on such a positive note!

 

[Caboosey]

Sounds like a great first day - I'm excited to hear about the Castle stay! Any good pictures?? Bet it's a little less dingy than the All-Star rooms!

 

[VanniGirl]

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[sharonW]

Enjoying your TR so far Another
diser has been writing about her castle stay.
So glad folks are winning and sharing their
magical stay with us! Can't wait
to hear all the details!

 

[ProudMommyof2]

Subscribing!

 

[tinkercat]

Day Two

Ok so I didn't take the time to write a rough draft, LOL. I hope this comes out sounding fairly coherant for you. At some point I'll figure out how to post pictures for you too.

We had breakfast reservations at 10:25 so we got to sleep in a little bit. We woke around 8:00am and started getting ready. We had planned a Princess character breakfast, so of course our little Princesses needed to be dressed as Princesses too! It took a while, but before long we were in the presence of Snow White (A), Belle (K), and Cinderella (H). We were on the bus by 9:00am and on our way to Epcot for breakfast. At this point, I must stop to tell you that the Princesses had also insisted on wearing dress up Princess shoes with their dresses. What Princess leaves the house without the proper shoes, right? This was not such a wise choice. We weren't 25 feet from getting off the bus and the whining started. Imagine hearing "My feet hurt!" "I want new shoes" from the bus stop to the entrance of Epcot. Needless to say, we were thrilled when we got to the stroller pick up place! We loaded the girls up into a double stroller (hey, they are small girls and we made it work! We were too cheap to rent 2 strollers.) and headed back to Akershus for breakfast. On the way back we enjoyed the topiaries and flowers everywhere for the Flower and Garden Fesitval. It was beautiful and it smelled wonderful!

We checked in at Akershus a bit early and waited for our group to be called. Of course the smokers decided this was a great time to pollute themselves yet again so C and I waited with the kids. Thankfully, the Princesses didn't want to get up and walk around because *gasp* it would hurt their poor feet, so it wasn't too hairy keeping them all together. Our name was called shortly, so we rounded up the smokers and the kids and got in line to greet Belle. Once again L didn't want anything to do with the characters so he stayed back. The girls were so excited to meet Belle though, especially K who was wearing her Belle dress. Once the photos were done, we were seated and ordered our drinks. It took awhile for our food to be brought out and the kids were hungry and antsy so it got a little crazy. L had a meltdown about something and was crying and trying to flop himself out of the high chair. Not good.

Princess Aurora came out which was a minor distraction for the girls and we sent C and J along with Dad to get fruit and stuff from the cold bar. Finally our hot stuff arrived and we got the kids plates set up. Mary Poppins came around next. Our tables were in a GREAT spot, right near the door where all the characters came out. This was wonderful because the kids didn't have to wait long to see the characters at all once they emerged. At this point, Lucy decided it was her turn for a meltdown. I spent the remainder of breakfast with Lucy on my lap, giving her little nibbles of table food to keep her happy. Mulan came around last and at that point I decided to give up and left to take Lucy to the baby center to nurse. I didn't get to eat much of breakfast, but what I had was really good, especially the cheesy potatoes. Everyone else said that they enjoyed the food too, and the character interaction was pretty good at this breakfast.

I'm going to backpeddle a bit to the baby center though. On Day 1, I'd nursed Lucy in the AK baby center. The decor was kind of dated and the glider rockers were kind of grungy and dirty but overall it seemed ok. The baby center at Epcot was MUCH nicer! It was very clean looking and the wooden rockers were comfortable. Once again, I was the only person in the nursing room while I was there. My only complaint about this Baby Care Center is its location is back sort of in a corner and I could have easily missed it. Thankfully I saw the signs, though my family didn't when they came looking for me after breakfast.

Once Lucy was fed and happy, I headed out to meet up with everyone and found them in line for Donald Duck at the Mexico pavilion. L actually LIKED Donald!! It was like a miracle! He kept asking to go back to Donald when we were done. Amazing! We headed back towards the front and on the way we saw Minnie's Butterfly Garden so we let the kids go in and check it out. It was small, but there were tons of butterflies and some would even land on you. After the butterfly garden, D, J and Dad wanted to smoke again. Can you tell the smoke breaks were getting annoying already?

C, L, Lucy and I waited on a bench near the big fountain while my mom let H, K, and A play at the playground near the garden. After a few minutes, L had ANOTHER meltdown because he wanted out of the stroller. So we let him out to run a bit since it wasn't very busy. Of course he fell and skinned his knee and meltdown #3 ensued. (Thats 4 meltdowns total so far, if you are keeping count.) At this point, my mom came up and started having an attitude about what we were going to do next. Apparantly my sister had all these plans in her head of things she wanted to do at Epcot and she hadn't shared these with anyone. We'd thought we would go to Nemo since everyone could ride, but she was pitching a hissy fit because she wanted to do Test Track or something like that. A little drama ensued and I ended up winning so we headed to The Seas with Nemo and friends. Mom, D, and I were all cranky at this point and H got mad about where she was sitting the in the stroller so she decided to have a meltdown too. (#5 for the day). We finally got in line and 15 minutes later we were riding in Clam Mobiles. We'd never done this ride before either and it was nice. The EAC tunnel made me a bit icky in the tummy feeling, but it was still a good ride since the kids loved it. We exited and did pics of the kids in Bruce's mouth before heading out. We then wandered around Innoventions a bit and tried some of the soda flavors at the Cool Connection before deciding it was time to go back to ASMusic for a break. It took about 15 minutes for a bus, but soon we were back at the hotel for a little swimming and then a nap.

We had dinner reservations at the 50's Prime Time Cafe in MGM for 6:45. We left ASMusic around 5:30 and headed over to MGM. On the way in, H once again flipped out about something and had another meltdown. (Thats #6, btw). The smokers went off to pollute themselves while I checked us in and we then waited in the "living room" for our names to be called. They were busy and it took awhile but about half an hour later we were seated in the Sun Room. Dinner here was GREAT! The food was really good and our server was wonderful. After dinner we went to watch Fantasmic before calling it a night.

The kids were uninterested at best in Fantasmic, until the show started! The same kids who'd been whining that they didn't want to stay for the show were transfixed. They got a bit scared at times but all in all, the were glued into the show. The adults enjoyed it too, and I'd call it a must see at MGM. It took a LONG time to walk to the front and the bus stop after Fantasmic. We had to take the "stroller route" and it sucked! It was this long curving road kind of down a hill. Not fun! Once we were out the line for the bus was HUGE! Lucy was hungry and I had two choices. Let her scream or feed her. So, I found a park bench and managed to feed her enough to tide her over before the bus arrived for us. We only waited through 2 busses which wasn't bad at all for the amount of people in line. The bus was crowded but soon we were back at ASMusic and it was time for baths, then bed.

It was a hectic day and if I had to plan it again, I'd have done things differently for sure. I don't feel like we got much done at all and with 6 meltdowns, it was obvious that the day was hard on the kids. It wasn't horrible though and there were good parts so I guess it all worked out in the end.

 

[momofdbsdc]

Great start!!! I can't wait to read the rest!

 

[lbwalsh101]

Sounds like an interesting vacation! I can't wait to hear the rest and see some pictures of the castle suite!

 

[canwegoagain]

We can appreciate what you were going through. We did a Grand Gathering about 2 years ago with my family, my sisters family, my brothers family and my parents. What you learn quickly is that each group has different ideas about "must see" attractions and shows. It becomes quite a challenge to get agreement on a plan amongst all members. It seems that all the pre-trip planning quickly goes out the window when you get on-site and everyone wants to go seperate ways. It also becomes clear, as you found out, that the adults frequently want to experience things that exclude the little ones. What we did was try and do mostly stuff for the little ones early in the day, as they get worn out towards late afternoon they are much easier to contain. And much more likely to grab a cat-nap in the stroller. With the herd of little ones easier to maintain, the grown-ups went out in rotating groups to hit some of the big-kid attractions. We operated like that for about 6-days, then on the last couple of days we just broke up the group and each family did their own thing for a day or two. Of course we kept in touch and crossed paths now and then. We also met up at meal time.

Enjoying the TR so far. Keep it coming!!

 

[Dizmom0923]

We can appreciate what you were going through. We did a Grand Gathering about 2 years ago with my family, my sisters family, my brothers family and my parents. What you learn quickly is that each group has different ideas about "must see" attractions and shows. It becomes quite a challenge to get agreement on a plan amongst all members. It seems that all the pre-trip planning quickly goes out the window when you get on-site and everyone wants to go seperate ways. It also becomes clear, as you found out, that the adults frequently want to experience things that exclude the little ones. What we did was try and do mostly stuff for the little ones early in the day, as they get worn out towards late afternoon they are much easier to contain. And much more likely to grab a cat-nap in the stroller. With the herd of little ones easier to maintain, the grown-ups went out in rotating groups to hit some of the big-kid attractions. We operated like that for about 6-days, then on the last couple of days we just broke up the group and each family did their own thing for a day or two. Of course we kept in touch and crossed paths now and then. We also met up at meal time.

Enjoying the TR so far. Keep it coming!!

You couldn't have said that better. My family went last Easter(total of 13) and we went through the same things. While it was great to be there with everyone, we always get so much more done when its just my kids and myself.

Can't wait to hear more about the trip.

 

[Goofyluver]

I'm in!!!

 

[tinkercat]

What you learn quickly is that each group has different ideas about "must see" attractions and shows. It becomes quite a challenge to get agreement on a plan amongst all members. It seems that all the pre-trip planning quickly goes out the window when you get on-site and everyone wants to go seperate ways. It also becomes clear, as you found out, that the adults frequently want to experience things that exclude the little ones.

How right you are!! Before we left for WDW, everyone told me, "Oh Jen, you are the organized one, you plan it all and we'll be fine with it." Again and again I asked for input and the DAY before we left my sister handed me a page long list of "must-do" activites for she and BIL, and 75% were rides the kids couldn't do...um yeah, like THAT was happening!

 

[tinkercat]

So I finally got some photos uploaded from the trip! YAY!!

I thought I'd post some pics here from Day 1 and 2 so we'll be all caught up when I get to Day 3 (when the real magic happened!). I tried to keep the number of "kids posing with characters" pics down because those probably get old quick. Anyways, enough typing...onto the pictures!

Day One - Animal Kingdom

Mickey's Jammin Jungle Parade was really fun to watch. I really thought the "animals" like this one were neat.

My DD, Hallie, on DH's shoulders during the parade

Figured I should post a real animal shot too, so here is a baby giraffe from Kilimanjaro Safari

Day Two - Epcot and MGM

My DD Lucy and my Dad on the bus to Epcot

My cast of characters, DH, DS Leo, Me, DD Hallie and DD Lucy

The Whole Gang! Back row: Me, DH, Dad, Mom, My sister D, BIL J
Front Row in strollers: Lucy, Leo, A, K, H, BJB

A cool topiary

The Princesses, K, H, and A (in their uncomfortable shoes, of course!)

I like this picture of DS. This was right before he fell down, skinned his knee, and had a meltdown.

The whole gang again at MGM before dinner. It was raining a bit so we hauled out the pretty yellow garbage bags, I mean, ponchos. Lucy thought it was very fun. DD Hallie was pouting, remnants of a meltdown on the way in. BJB was totally digging poncho land.

So thats all for the first 2 days. Its late now, so I'll save Day 3 and its pictures for tomorrow. With 3 kids and dial up, I need to get my rest when I can! LOL

 

[princessjv]

I'm in! I love hearing about the challenges and triumps of Magical Gatherings, as I would love to plan one. I also can't wait to hear anout the castle. You are the 2nd DIS'r that I have read about who won a stay! Go DIS'rs!

Thanks for including the pictures, it is great to see the faces with the names.

 

[LITTLEKID58]

Subscribing TFS

 

[carri5317]

Great start, can't wait to hear more!

 

[gcrw11]

Great job so far, keep it coming

 

[Andrea34]

Great report so far..........can't wait to read more!!

 

[packerbeth]

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