8 (possibly 9) is enough - Look out world here we come!

[Mickeys_n_me]

I mostly am a lurker, I have been lurking for months in preperation for my family trip in October. I enjoyed reading many tips and trip reports.

All the plans are completed, tickets purchaced, house booked and almost paid off! ADR's made, park touring schedule complete. So what is there left but to start a pre-trippie in hopes that it will kill the last of the 92 days before we begin our journey. Of course there is shopping and taking advantage of the end of summer sales to get some more clothes for the balmy 80 degree weather we will be enjoying in October, but you can not spend 92 days shopping (well I could, but then I would have too many clothes and the bills that come with them )

The cast:

My Mom (Grams) - She raised us daughters to be the Disney freaks we are today. She would take us to WDW as much as she could, which being a single parent to 3 girls was not a lot, but each trip we did take was magical as only a WDW vacation could be.

My Step dad (Pops) - I am not sure he knew that getting married to my Mom required him to take a family vacation at least once a year. But he goes along with the flow and is getting quite used to it after 10 years.

Me (Auntie Michelle) - As described above a Disney freak, not big into Princesses but will do anything for a picture with Mickey, including standing in line for over an hour if necissary. Yes a kid at heart (aren't we all at WDW?)

My DH (Uncle Andy) - Mr. Laid back. He is not very excited about this trip, but he doesn't get excited over much. I will be able to gage whether or not he is happy the day the plane lands, so hopefully he will enjoy himself. He has never been! Yes a Disney Freak married someone who has never seen a Disney movie after the age of 10! That changed once we met - he actually enjoyed Cars, so that is a good sign.

My Sis (Mom Diane) - She started planning this trip 5 years ago when her twins were in utero and I am not exagurating either. The Dr told her she was pregnant, and she called me saying we will be going to WDW in 5 years! So yes, she is just as excited as I am (if not more so) for this trip.

Her DH (Dad - Mike) - He calls this trip The Year of Incredible Spending. Is looking forward to Mickey Head Ice Cream and Mickey Head Ice Cream, maybe even a Dole Whip! Men do not seem to get excited and are not planners, well not as much as us anyway.

My younger sister (Meagan) - Meagan works across the country from us. So she will (hopefully if she can find the time off) be flying in and meeting us. She has been to WDW and Disneyland (including France and Tokyo) more times then both Diane and myself combined. So I can almost garuntee she will find a way to be at our Family Gathering.

And the reason for this trip:

Dianes Twin Sons, two twins that are night and day from one another:

Jack (5) - Jack loves cars, trucks trains. He is everything you think when you think of boys. And if you get him talking, he very rarey stops. He has quite the imagination! His favorite Disney character of course is Lightning McQueen or as he used to call him when he first saw the movie - Lighting the queen.

Ryan (5) - Ryan is the complete opposite of Jack. Very quite and shy. Loves to swim and hang out with the adults. He enjoys board games. His favorite chacter is ... Bambi! Do not ask me how or why he loves bambi, just one day at The Disney Store he picked out a stuffy of Bambi and carries him where ever he may go. He is really looking forward to roller coasters like TBTRR, which tall Ryan is tall enough to ride - Jack needs a growth spirt for! We really hope that happens, because jelousy will over come little Jack if his younger by 3 minutes brother gets to ride and he does not.

 

[Mickeys_n_me]

Now on to the planning.

As was stated earlier, we pretty much knew we would be going 5 years ago when Diane got pregnant. It was just the excuse we were looking for. The last excuse to go was a family friend getting married in Tampa back in 1998. The year the Animal Kingdom opened, a month after we visited. So we have never seen the Animal Kingdom, although when we were last there they were doing "Sneak peaks" of the park, but we did not know about that until our last day there

The excuse before that was in 1989 when I graduated High School - I went with three of my friends, non-disney freaks who did not get the facination with getting an autogragh from a girl dressed up as a mouse! The horror!
Of course I could have had the excuse to Honeymoon there or even get married there, but remember Disney freak wife meets non Disney anything husband. So that was not an option, for him anyway.

So to the planning. Which really got underway after this past Christmas. We started looking into lodging options. Our ideal spot would be The Animal Kingdom Lodge, a savannah view room. But with 9 of us going that option is not very economical, so we settled on a five bedroom home. We only had 3 requirements in a home. The kids bedroom be Mickeyish, so they could have the feel of being in WDW without being in WDW, a pool and a jaccuzi.
We narrowed our choices down to 25 by the end of February.

Yes, 25. And norrowing it further down was not an easy task. Each home seemed almost perfect. So we decided to add to our list of must haves, a game room. I am sure we will never use this option, but if we need to - it is there! After all the homes without a gameroom cost just about as much as the the ones with. So we narrowed it further down to 10 options. Getting closer!
I started reading the Dis at about that time and hearing people rave about Windsor Hills. So that helped narrow the field down further. Now to five!
Then it screamed at us, Mickey's Paradise! How could we not book a home named after the mouse himself!
My sister got on the phone the next day and we had it! 10 days at Mickey's Paradise in Windsor Hills! Perfect!

 

[Mickeys_n_me]

Some pictures of Mickey's Paradise:

Our only concern is that we didn't make sure the pool was south facing, and as you can see the pool area looks rather shady. But it is heated and maybe after being in the sun all day the shade will be a nice refreshing change.

 

[Mickeys_n_me]

Hmm.. feels as though I am talking to myself. But I am enjoying the writing (and entertaining myself), so I will continue.

It is set! Our itinarary is now complete. "The Boat is secure".

We were banking on getting an IllumiNations cruise for our first full day there. We of course had to wait until the 90 days to book. So we booked all our ADR ahead of time at the 180 day mark and hoped with all our might that we could secure the cruise.

So this morning, bright and early at 7am (after I worked until 3am last night) My husband, sister and myself were calling WDW to try to get one of the boats. I believe there is 5 in total.
We thought with 3 people calling it would increase our odds and we NEEDED this cruise or all of our itinarary would be shot to hell.

Well thank goodness all three of us were calling because only one phone worked to complete the transaction. My husband was on our landline, but for some strange reason when he went to pound in the phone number, it was not recognising the phone number (we figured out later he was pressing the 1 with the area code and he shouldn't have )

Next, me on the cell phone got a wonderful CM... "Yes there is a boat available that day" and then she went over all the instructions - time to meet the boat, where etc etc. Then she asked me for the booking name and...
Yep my cell phone dropped the call. Makes you wonder why they can not get all the booking info FIRST and then explain the where when and why's.
So as I feverishly tried to call Yolanda back, yes swearing the whole way my sister called on my land line. She got it! YAY!!!!

Of course my cell phone story is funny now, but had she not got this cruise my cell phone would be flushed in the toilet as we speak!


So now for our itinaray:

10/19- Arrive in Orlando - playing it by ear that day. We may go into Downtown Disney or just relax in pool and order in. Early to bed.

10/20- AM: Magic Kingdom
-break-
PM: Dinner at Spoodles - Illuminations cruise

10/21- Full day at Animal Kingdom
Dinner at 'Ohana

10/22- AM: Epcot
-break
PM: Epcot Dinner at Teppanyaki

10/23 AM: Magic Kingdom-lunch with Pooh at the Crystal Palace
-break-
PM: Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween party

10/24- Pool and shopping day, maybe some Mini golf
Dinner at California Grill

10/25- Full day at Universal Sudios/ Islands of Adventure

10/26- Full day at MGM with Fantasmic Dining Package at Mama Melrose

10/27- AM: Epcot
-break-
Dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe- MK for Spectromagic

10/28- Departure Day- Breakfast with Mickey at Chef Mickey's.

 

[Mickeys_n_me]

The park before the Park...

When my nephews were younger, I think when they were 3 my sister had brought them to Seseme Place. As all 3 year olds are (at least the ones I know) they were scared of the big giant birds and stuffed creatures. As a matter of fact, even this past christmas they were afraid of Santa Clause.
They also have been to amusement parks, but hated anything to do with water.

So this summer, my sister and I decided to do a trial run at Six Flags New England to see if the boys grew out of any fears. It is better to know what to expect going in rather then spend an hour in line to meet Mickey and having them bolt the other way.

Yep, we are planners and everything we have done since May has something to do with Disney (obsessive planners? Perhaps). Buying summer clothes = how well will this work for our WDW trip. Shoes = are they comfortable to wear all day in the park. Fireworks on the 4th of July = will the kids get scared at Wishes? Well, that went over with a huge success - they both loved the fireworks, although one was more interested in getting an ice cream 5 minutes into the display. Check: buy a mickey ice cream BEFORE wishes goes off.

So back to our day at Six Flags. We picked a great day to go. It was 90 degrees, so the majority of the people were in the water park. We hopped from one line to another relatively fast.

We only had to wait for one ride. That ride was a key "can they substain" ride. The River Rapids. This was the test for the Kali River of course. The line was about 45 minutes long, they did fabulously. Were very patient, even though they were hot. That worked to our advantage as well, because they wanted to get wet and weren't concerned that they would be. And they had a ball. Laughing the whole ride through! Success!!!

Meeting Characters. They loved it. They do not even know who Bugs Bunny is (they do not watch anything Looney Toons) and they were hugging, high fiving. Posing for pictures. I can not wait until they actually KNOW a character they will see. They know everything Disney. Love Mickey, Donald etc...

The anticipation is building...

 

[mvazul]

Great report!!

It sounds like you have everything in place and will have a great trip. I would love to rent one of those vacation homes. They look so nice and relaxing. The thing that I really like is the private pool. I think that would be awesome!!

Anyway, wanted to let you know you have a reader!!

Michelle

 

[Mickeys_n_me]

Yes the home does look awesome from the pictures, and from what I have been reading people have been really pleased with staying in this area.

A quiet night at the pool, kids sleeping in their room and a few beers is what the Dr. ordered after a long hot day at the parks =)


Thanks for reading and letting me know that you are!!

 

[Mickeys_n_me]

Well I haven't updated in a while, probably because starting a pre-trippie 3 months ahead was a bit too eager. What can I say I was excited! Still am actually, but now there is 37 days to go... that's right. Almost just one month! Yippee.

Can I start packing now? Well the weather here is turning. So I will be packing up my summer items and will eventually be needing all my sweaters soon. Yep, wishing away the summer to bring a trip in October closer has it's downfalls. So I plan on getting my closet ready, probably this weekend. So that means deciding what summer outfits are deemable to wear at WDW and putting them aside. I won't actually put them IN a suitcase yet, but it is pretty close to packing.

Alot has happened in the past couple of months. My sister, who was not sure she could go has commited to half the trip (arriving the day we get there and leaving on Wednesday). She booked her plane ticket and chose a flight that landed in MCO as close to our flight time as possible... well that was what was originally planned. Two weeks after she bought her plane ticket, we got notification from Delta that our flight was cancelled and they rebooked us to an earlier flight. We now get to Orlando at 11am. My sister is not due to arrive until 4:30pm. So much for well layed plans.

That means one of our groups with the car (we are renting two cars) will need to head BACK to the airport 4 hours after already being there to meet up with her. Sure she COULD take a cab or a shuttle, but that would be too easy (at least for me) because I have been deemed the picker upper. You see, she is on a tight budget, we had nothing planned until after she arrived anyway, so technically I guess it is the right thing to do... I am excited to see my sister, who I have not seen in 6 months BUT I hate driving in airports, espescially airports that I am not familiar with.

I also need to add that they also rebooked our return flight. We originally had a 3pm return. We are now leaving at 7:00pm on Sunday. Some people in the party (my H mostly) are not thrilled with that, since they need to be in work the next day and now will not be getting in until about midnight. But had my H listened to me in the first place and took one day off after we returned it would not be an issue. You see I always tell him he will be tired after a trip (because he always is) and he should have one day downtime before returning to work. He never listens and then when that day comes around he is Sir Grumpmunster. I have the day off though so it doesn't effect me just the people he works with.

The twins are so excited for this trip. Last week at the labor day cookout Ryan kept asking why we couldn't go today. We eplained to him that Mickey set our date, so we couldn't go early because Mickey would not be expecting us... That kept him at bay for a couple of days.

They recieved their fairy godmailer postcards. That was bit of a disaster, because of the US mail system (not the Godmailer - God Bless her and anyone who does this, it is such a cute idea). You would think that if 2 postcards were sent from the same place to the same place, they would arrive at the address the same time as one another. NO that would be too easy!

You see, Jack and Ryan go with there mother every day to get the mail. The day the postcard (notice how I said card not cards) came my sister got the pile of envelopes, saw the card addressed to Jack and handed it to him saying "Look it's from Mickey" and reads it to him. It says something along the lines of "Jack, I can not wait for you to come, I am so excited to meet you" And then it invites him to the MNSSHP...

Then she riffles through the other mail and notices that Ryan's is not in there. MAJOR MELTDOWN Ryan now thinks that Mickey has not invited him to MNSSHP. This is remedied 24 hours later when his postcard comes. My sister of course tried to tell him the mail is messed up and he will be getting one, but to a 5 year old mind, sence this does not make...
And of course now Jack exclaims everytime Mickey is mentioned that HE got his card FIRST Brothers love the competition I guess.

So that brings us to today. Itinerary, ADRs, Illuminations cruise, all set. House paid up. Dogs are all booked for their "vacation" at the neighborhood puppy bed -n- breakfast. Countdown calander prepared and waiting to be used upon 30 days out.

MNSSHP costumes bought and we are waiting for them to be shipped. All 9 pf us originally wanted to do a theme, but none of us could decide on one thing we all wanted to be so.
My H and myself - Jack and Sally from A nightmare before Christmas
Ryan and Mike - Aniken Skywalker and Obi Wankanobee (forgive the spelling)
Meagan - Tinkerbell
Diane and Jack - Cruella and a dalmation (Jack has chosen to be some form of a dog every halloween he has been old enough to decide)
Grammy and Pop - The mad hatter and Alice ...

And the waiting continues...

 

[Phedre]

Your trip report is so fun! It's going to be great with so much family there. I think it's so cute how you and your sister started talking about the trip 5 years ago

 

[Mickeys_n_me]

Your trip report is so fun! It's going to be great with so much family there. I think it's so cute how you and your sister started talking about the trip 5 years ago

I hope it will be great. I get nervous every now and again thinking there is just way too many of us going. We all get along well, but sometimes we get on each others nerves

When my sister started talking about everything, the original "plan" was for me to have a child to bring along as well. That has yet to be in the cards for me (hoping tinkerbell will work her magic while I am there )
But I do get to enjoy the wonder of it all through my nephews, so I am really looking forward to it!