~ A 21 month old, a celebrity sighting, & a whole lotta food~2 week trip~ 2/28 update

[sharonW]

oh the memoires you made on this trip!!
The pics are priceless, what a fun, wonderful
disney time! Magic, just pure magic!!!

 

[jordanyosh]

What great pix from CP!

People always worry about taking young children to WDW because they won't really remember, but it's obvious from your pictures that you created some lifetime memories!

 

[eandesmom]

Oh those pictures are just

Oh!

Priceless.

My favorites by far

Oh! that boy is ADORABLE!

 

[SleepingBeautyOH]

Two great updates!
I love the pictures of POFQ, that is probably my favorite moderate resort
I'm so glad you did a character meal at CP and Dylan liked it! The interactions kids can have with characters at the meals hands down beats the standing in line then being rushed through a picture. The picture of him and Tigger is too cute!
Hooray for getting some family pictures too!

 

[LOVEMY3KIDDOS]

Another update!!! Yay!!!! We are trying the CP breakfast in December...never been. We have had the lunch and dinner and both were great, so expecting good things! Glad Dylan had a good time with Pooh and friends!

 

[Gabes_mommy]

I absolutely love the pictures of your DS with Pooh and Tigger. What a sweetie! It looks like you all had a wonderful time.

 

[LilAnn]

Another fantastic update! I absolutely LOVED the pics you get from CP! What wonderful memories you have form the trip! We tried Chef Mickey's with our DD (she was 22months) but she had a different reaction. She was waving from 6 feet away, but any closer to the characters, and she was climbing up our shoulders in fear. Kind of funny. So I am totally envious of your interactions and pictures! I think it's wonderful that all of the characters really took their time with Dylan and let him get comfortable with him. It sounds like you guys really had a magical trip! Yay!

 

[ptcrn]

I love all your pictures of CP! We have never eaten there (at least not since I was a little kid) and everyone's pictures always look so nice. It looks like Dylan had a great time with all the characters! I love that picture of him hugging Tigger- so sweet! And he is too cute climbing the stairs by himself!

I really like the character meals for the interaction like you said, I think it's worth the money to do at least one per trip. We did Ohana in March and David loved it. I think I am going to start a TR, even though it is a little late. I really want to write the memories down for him!

 

[ladybugmom]

I'm all caught up!! I know what you mean about being busy!! I've not been on in several days because of Ally's birthday festivities and having family in town! Happy Birthday to Dylan. Girl--your updates are great and I got all teary-eyed reading about CP!! That was Claire's favorite character meal that we did and the interaction with her and the characters was priceless!! (just like with Dylan--check out her pic with Tigger in my siggy) Can't wait to read more!!

 

[Fall1]

I love your trip report! Your DS is adorable!!

Do you mind telling me where you got that swim ring? It looks like the perfect size for a toddler!!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Quick update...I have been meaning to get to my responses, but one of my closest friends had a baby on Monday evening. She was 10 days early, so it caught all of us by surprise. We were at the hospital until after midnight on Monday night and then we went back to visit for a while on Tuesday. She had a girl and named her Avery. So sweet. We are so excited for them! Their older son is 2 months older than Dylan. He & Dylan are the best of friends so they had a great time together in the waiting room at the hospital. We took Dylan to see the baby and he was not too sure about the whole thing. LOL So I will try to post an update soon!

i think i have been to that bahama breeze place. do you remember if they had coconut onion rings. they were so good.

Oooh, I don't remember coconut onion rings. I would have wanted to get those if I had seen them. They had a pretty big menu.

I'm loving your TR!!!! We leave on Friday with our DD who is 22 months old, so I am getting great info from you!!!! Can't wait for more!

Have a wonderful trip! I hope that you write a TR so that I can get ideas from you for next time.

That picture of Dylan and Tigger. OMG. That precious serene look on his face is like 'this is what life is'. Amazing. The others are cute because he is so cute but the one is totally one to keep forever.

I love the one with you and whole family. That is so good to have. I don't think we can ever have enough pictures of all of us together having such a grand time.

I'm sure glad they didn't have your ressie mesed up. We never had one issue during the time we were there. I was very glad.

I love that picture too. I think I'm going to frame that one and the one of our whole group. The only thing that I was worried about for our ADR was losing our spot, since there were so many people waiting to get in outside. I think we waited about 15 minutes after we got there, so it wasn't bad at all.

Wow! What a great meal at CP! I just love the pic of him pointing at Tigger, "Look Mom! It's Tigger!" and leaning in to hug him! Those are just so precious.

That picture cracked me up the first time I saw it. I was just trying to snap pictures as fast as I could, so when I saw it later in the day I thought it was hilarious. He kept looking at me like, "do you see what I see?" LOL. The hugging Tigger picture is so sweet to me...

…delurking…

I love your TR! We are taking my son (who will be turning 1 on the trip!) in December and it is so fun and helpful to read about other families with little ones. We just got our reservations for Crystal Palace and I’m so excited after reading about your experience! I’m a little nervous about how my DS will react to the characters, but it seems like they know when to back off until the kid feels more comfortable.

The pictures you got are just priceless!!! Dylan is such a cutie!

Welcome! Thanks for de-lurking. The characters really seemed to know how to read the reactions of the kids. Dylan would be so excited until they got really close, then he would pull back. They would recognize it and immediately pull back too. Now that I've been to a character meal, I can't wait to do another one. I hope that you have a good experience there too.

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

oh the memoires you made on this trip!!
The pics are priceless, what a fun, wonderful
disney time! Magic, just pure magic!!!

I agree with you. Thank goodness for digital cameras, right?

What great pix from CP!

People always worry about taking young children to WDW because they won't really remember, but it's obvious from your pictures that you created some lifetime memories!

I'm so glad that we decided to do this trip with him. He obviously won't remember the details of it, but the photos will help him see the experiences when he gets older. He really enjoys looking at them now. Especially these CP pictures.

Oh those pictures are just

Oh!

Priceless.

My favorites by far

Oh! that boy is ADORABLE!

Aww, thank you! He's hard to stay mad at for long because he knows how to be cute. It's going to be harder on us the older he gets.

Two great updates!
I love the pictures of POFQ, that is probably my favorite moderate resort
I'm so glad you did a character meal at CP and Dylan liked it! The interactions kids can have with characters at the meals hands down beats the standing in line then being rushed through a picture. The picture of him and Tigger is too cute!
Hooray for getting some family pictures too!

The moderate resorts are so cute. I want to check out more of them on our next trip.

The CP was definitely a highlight for us. Dylan really had time to adjust to what was going on and I think that made all the difference for him. I was worried he would be too scared but the pace was just perfect.

Another update!!! Yay!!!! We are trying the CP breakfast in December...never been. We have had the lunch and dinner and both were great, so expecting good things! Glad Dylan had a good time with Pooh and friends!

I would love to try the CP for another meal besides breakfast. The food was good, but it would be interesting to try at a different time in the day. I hope you have a great time!

 

[cjackearl]

Aw,what precious, precious pictures. I thought the character at CP was very good and the breakfast was pretty yummy. I wish we would have bumped into one another. We probably were leaving as you were being seated. I love the picture of all five of you, too. You are your father's daughter!

I'm so jealous of the new baby you get to cuddle. Congratulations to your friend!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

I absolutely love the pictures of your DS with Pooh and Tigger. What a sweetie! It looks like you all had a wonderful time.

Thanks so much! It was definitely a highlight.

Another fantastic update! I absolutely LOVED the pics you get from CP! What wonderful memories you have form the trip! We tried Chef Mickey's with our DD (she was 22months) but she had a different reaction. She was waving from 6 feet away, but any closer to the characters, and she was climbing up our shoulders in fear. Kind of funny. So I am totally envious of your interactions and pictures! I think it's wonderful that all of the characters really took their time with Dylan and let him get comfortable with him. It sounds like you guys really had a magical trip! Yay!

I'm glad that we did this later in the trip because at the beginning he was the same as your DD - he would be really confident from afar, but get closer and he got much more timid. As the trip progressed and he saw more characters, he got more confident. I give a lot of credit to the characters for being attentive to each child and their reactions. They hire good CM's for this job! Definitely a magical moment!

I love all your pictures of CP! We have never eaten there (at least not since I was a little kid) and everyone's pictures always look so nice. It looks like Dylan had a great time with all the characters! I love that picture of him hugging Tigger- so sweet! And he is too cute climbing the stairs by himself!

I really like the character meals for the interaction like you said, I think it's worth the money to do at least one per trip. We did Ohana in March and David loved it. I think I am going to start a TR, even though it is a little late. I really want to write the memories down for him!

It's funny because I was originally disappointed that we got this character breakfast instead of Tusker House. But this is what was meant to be... Dylan really enjoyed it and that is why we were there, so it worked out for the best.

I really hope you do a TR, even if it is late. The main reason that I am doing this is for Dylan, so that he will have a whole story of his first trip to WDW. If I had not done a journal, etc., I know that I would have already forgotten so many details that are just precious to me. It is a big commitment, but I think it is worth it.

I'm all caught up!! I know what you mean about being busy!! I've not been on in several days because of Ally's birthday festivities and having family in town! Happy Birthday to Dylan. Girl--your updates are great and I got all teary-eyed reading about CP!! That was Claire's favorite character meal that we did and the interaction with her and the characters was priceless!! (just like with Dylan--check out her pic with Tigger in my siggy) Can't wait to read more!!

Happy birthday to Ally!! Yes, birthday activities for a child are so detailed and time consuming. It is so much fun, but I had no idea!

I'm glad that Claire like the CP too! The pic w/ Tigger is so cute. Those moments are why we take our kids to WDW, and when you finally have that "magic moment", it is so worth the money you spent to have it! I love looking back at these pictures and the video as well.

I love your trip report! Your DS is adorable!!

Do you mind telling me where you got that swim ring? It looks like the perfect size for a toddler!!

Thanks for reading! We got that swim ring at Walmart for $1.00. It was a much better decision for Dylan than arm floaties. I think he felt really secure in it after he got the hang of it.

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Aw,what precious, precious pictures. I thought the character at CP was very good and the breakfast was pretty yummy. I wish we would have bumped into one another. We probably were leaving as you were being seated. I love the picture of all five of you, too. You are your father's daughter!

I'm so jealous of the new baby you get to cuddle. Congratulations to your friend!

I couldn't remember what time your ADR was that morning, but I bet we were just getting there as you were leaving. When we went inside, I was looking around at all of the tables for your family, but I didn't see anyone that looked familiar. It would have been really fun to meet you and your family in person.

I love the pictures of all of us together. After we got home I realized how rare that was, and I wish we had made more of an effort to take them. I totally missed the boat on the whole Photopass thing, so I didn't know to look for those people either.

My friend's baby is so cute! Her first baby was 10 pounds (& 10 days late!) so this was much better being early (7 pounds 11 ounces). They didn't know what they were having, so it was a real surprise when we found out it was a girl.

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

After leaving a wonderful breakfast at the Crystal Palace, we headed out into the heat and took a left into Adventureland. While walking by the Tiki Room we saw that a show was just getting ready to start. Everyone headed in while I parked Dylan’s stroller. By the time I got him out and over to the entrance, they had already closed the doors. I told them my family was already inside and they looked really annoyed as they let us in. I thought that was funny since they had literally walked in 30 seconds before me. LOL

We walked right through the waiting area into the theater area. We sat in the very back row so it was a great view of everything going on. We have not seen this version of the show as we have only been to the show at Disneyland (and it has been a few years since we’ve seen that show). It was really cute that they added the birds from Aladdin and the Lion King (I can’t remember their names). It seemed like the show was really short though, possibly around 10 minutes or so. You could tell that Dylan liked the birds but was really confused when the flowers & tiki statues started moving and singing. It was a good experience though since he was so into birds on this trip.

Next we headed to Pirate of the Caribbean. We stood in line for about 10 minutes and the CM’s kept announcing for people to fill in all of the available space in the line. They said, “If a whole family is not moving, go ahead and go around them to fill in all of the space.” (!) All this accomplished was a lot of people crowding and pushing, and people were literally trying to squeeze around next to the walls so that they could move forward 2 feet. It was really hot & stuffy in there because of all of the bodies standing so close together. Not sure why they were doing this because the line did not go out past the entrance to the building.

We kept trying to explain to Dylan that he was wearing a pirate shirt and we were going on the Pirate ride but I don’t think he got it. LOL

The ride was great, as always. It felt nice and cool in the ride after it was so hot in line. When we got off the ride and walked through the gift shop, Dylan stopped in front of a display of different lollipops. He has never had a lollipop in his whole life, but he REALLY wanted one. He didn’t even know what they were. He especially liked the candy with the Mickey head on the top. Darn those Disney marketing people who know how to set up a candy display! They obviously know what they are doing when it comes to merchandising.

We managed to leave the store without buying anything and we headed over the BTMRR to get a FP for later. The time was not until 1:30 and it was 11:45. Not too bad of a wait but it was extremely hot and Dylan was getting close to his nap time. We decided to try to kill some time and make Dylan happy at the same time. We went to see the Country Bears again since he liked them so much the other day.

This time it was a FULL house seeing the show. I can’t remember the last time this show had a full room of people…to the point where they were asking everyone to slide to their right so that more people could be fit in. I honestly think it was because it was so hot outside that people were looking for some air conditioning. Whatever the reason, it was nice to enjoy the show with so many other people. We sat back farther from the stage than the first time, so it was a little harder for Dylan to see everything but he still enjoyed it. He clapped right along to the music and got excited each time a new animal came out. I really wish they still had this show at Disneyland.

After the show, we headed over to the Haunted Mansion to see if we could get another ride in. Unfortunately it was shut down and they didn’t know when it would be coming back up. We decided to start heading towards the exit. We all were hot and Dylan was getting cranky and we didn’t want to push him too hard if he was tired.

We shopped our way down the right side of Main Street on our way out. I found a few key chains for some friends at my work and we finally found a onesie for our friend’s baby. At the time we did not know what she was having so we needed to find something unisex (BTW – if you saw my note from a few days ago, she just had the baby last Monday and it was a girl!!). The onesie we got her is SO cute. It is green and had a lot of the characters on the front with all of their “signatures” on the back. I loved it!

Dylan was really starting to lose it by this point. We had gotten separated from my parents while shopping and it took us a while to get reunited. By that point, he was crying a little and I could tell that he was just hot & tired. So we took the express monorail over to the TTC. I was trying to get some pictures and video of the ride but Dylan had other plans… We had a confused baby on our hands. He would get really happy and laugh, but then start crying and trying to take off his shoe. He managed to get one off and threw it across the monorail. Then he thought he would be funny and stick his fingers up his nose (this is something he thought was so funny during the time of our trip. Thank goodness he has forgotten all about it by now!). I will let the following pictures tell the story of the monorail ride.

We were lucky that a tram was waiting to go, so we loaded up quickly. Dylan was looking pretty tired on the tram.

We got him in the car and he started to fall asleep on the way home. In light of his mini-nap in the car from a couple of days previously, we did everything that we could to keep him awake. It was actually pretty funny all of the ways we came up with trying to keep him interested enough to stay awake. About 5 minutes away from the condo, he gave up and fell asleep. He went right down for his nap at 1:30 without any protesting.

My parents were going to take a nap as well, so Todd & I decided to take a walk around the resort. Todd had broken his glasses the day before while wrestling w/ Dylan on the floor so he needed to replace them. The plan was to go to the general store on property and see their selection.

The resort is so pretty. Everything is spread out, but it really doesn’t take that long to get from one place to another while walking. We walked from our condo over to the main pool by the Cascades section. It took us about 5 minutes to get there and we walked into the pool area because they have little mini-stores set up by each of the pools that sell items needed for the pool. Todd checked out their sunglasses and let’s just say that they were not his style at all. LOL. No, they are what I like to call “flash & trash” style. Lots of sparkly junk, animal prints, flames, etc. You would think that they would have a normal pair of black sunglasses, but that was not the case. Of course, Todd tries to make the best of it (since he really needs some glasses) and starts trying on all of the styles. This makes me start laughing and I was trying not to offend the person working in the shop but he looked so ridiculous. In the end, we didn’t buy anything there, but we did leave with some good pictures.

The pond outside our condo.

The main pool in the Cascades section.

Todd shopping for sunglasses.

Some of the rejects.

We walked over to the Marketplace to see what they had. We were pleasantly surprised to find this had been remodeled since the last time we were there. The inside is really nice now, and they have a deli, coffee area, supermarket area, a clothing area and an area for an internet café. It all felt so neat and clean. Unfortunately, their sunglasses were worse than the previous ones we looked at.

We ended up visiting every pool on property (I think there were 5 or 6) and each had its strengths. When you stay there you can use any pool that you want to, so that is a definite benefit as there are some smaller pools and some with the sloped entry, which are great for little kids. In my opinion, the pool that we were going to was the best for us because it was really big and not a lot of people so we had room to spread out. Here are a couple of last pictures from our walk.

Zimmie’s restaurant

Smaller pool with a sloped entry.

Todd finally found a pair of glasses that worked, but that I thought were still pretty bad. They were black on the front and the sides were white. He used them for the rest of the trip and they are his spare pair of glasses in his car now that we are home. Whenever he has to use them it makes me remember this day on our vacation and how funny the sunglass shopping was. On our walk back we were talking about how nice the resort is, and our little tour had reconfirmed to us that we really do enjoy staying in a timeshare, even though we feel like we miss out a little bit by staying off-property from Disney.

When we got back, Dylan was still sleeping so Todd called our friend Chris who was working at our house, and I wrote up my TR.

Up next….what did we do with the rest of our day? Did the ADR at O’hana work out for us?

 

[wdwgirl03]

Wow, that's crazy that it was full at the Country Bears! That is one thing we haven't done in sooooo long. But it does make sense if it was so hot outside.

I love that little onesie you found! What a great gift.

 

[ladybugmom]

What an adorable onesie!! LOVE it!! And your resort looks beautiful--VERY nice!!! The sunglasses had me laughing out loud!! Too funny!!

 

[loribell]

Well I have to come out of lurking and tell you that Dylan is absolutely adorable!

I took my now 17 yo and now 10 yo when they were 18 months old. I have to say those were our best trips ever. It is great to watch them soak it all in.

It really seems to me that Dylan handled it all real well.

Can't wait to read more!

 

[Sunset Cliffs]

Wow, that's crazy that it was full at the Country Bears! That is one thing we haven't done in sooooo long. But it does make sense if it was so hot outside.

I love that little onesie you found! What a great gift.

I've never seen it that full in the Country Bears. But it was kinda fun with so many people enjoying it together.

What an adorable onesie!! LOVE it!! And your resort looks beautiful--VERY nice!!! The sunglasses had me laughing out loud!! Too funny!!

I loved the onesie. I can't wait to see it on her. I'll try to take a picture of her when I see her in it. Todd was trying to make the best of a bad situation, and it was SO funny. I couldn't stop laughing and each pair got worse & worse. The lady selling the sunglasses said, "Hey, you are supposed to be wild & crazy on vacation." It almost seemed like they bought them on purpose so their guests could be "wild & crazy".

Well I have to come out of lurking and tell you that Dylan is absolutely adorable!

I took my now 17 yo and now 10 yo when they were 18 months old. I have to say those were our best trips ever. It is great to watch them soak it all in.

It really seems to me that Dylan handled it all real well.

Can't wait to read more!

Hi! Thanks so much for reading. Every time that I write an update, it makes me so happy that we decided to take him on this trip. It was so special and it was such a fun stage in his life.