A Baby, Beads, and Birthday; Our Mardi Gras Trip to Disney!!

[cjlemoine]

OK fellow disboard members, I have been wanting to put our trip report up here for some time, and am finally getting around to doing it. Let me start off by saying that we hail from Avoyelles Parish Louisiana, if you are not sure where that is at, it is in the center part of the boot when looking at the map of La.
Our family consists of myself, Chris, my wife Michelle, Wesley (10), Hannah (8), and last but not least John Thomas (1). JT for short was 6 months old at the time of the trip, but can I say a real trooper. We did not know what to expect, and it was very magical, barring a little ear infection the last day.

Now for a little background on our Disney planning:
My wife and I went to Disney for our Honeymoon in November of 1997, and ever since then had been talking about how and when we would return. Somehow when we went in '97 we went to every park, but somehow missed everything, I guess true love does that to you. So for years we have been trying to plan a trip, and either a child would arrive in our lives, or something else would spoil the plans. Well this past December, a great and truly close friend calls me on like Dec 14th and says,"Hey we're going to Disney for Mardi Gras with David and Allison (we'll get to them later), yall need to come with us. With Christmas coming up and all of that, not to mention a baby just born in July, I was like "Man I don't know, we'll see." Granted, for 2 years we had been on mousesavers, allears, etc. So I went home and told Michelle, hey lets just do this. She is a Disney $$$$ saving guru, and found out that we could book a room only, and get discount tickets, and immediately had a plan of attack. (She is an awesome disney planner, I have to say so myself.) So we do it, on Dec 17th I booked our room at POP Century and the ball began to roll.

.....to be continued.....

 

[cjlemoine]

Back where I left off, we had our room booked and tickets in the mail from undercovertourist.com. Ha, we have this trip whipped, but then the wait to leave began. The other couple that invited us to join them on the trip I have yet to tell you about. One couple was a relative/friend, Vincent and his wife Claire along with their three daughters (Shelby, Emma, and Catherine), and the other couple was a great friend David and his wife Allison with their three daughters (Sarah, Josie, and Sophie). So our group alltogether added up to 15. We would get together on weekends and plan the trip and share tips, get ADR's together, etc. This is was shaping up to be a magical trip for all of our families. Out of the 9 kids only 3 of them had ever been to Disney.
Now we are at "go time": Friday Feb. 20th
We had decided to leave at 9:00pm and drive through the night. The trip from where we live is about a 12 hour drive 'easy' (at least with a Disney high'). We all met at our church and left from there.
here is a pic right before we left, on the right is Vincent and Claire, and in front of Michelle and I, are David and Allison.

If you are wondering where the kids are, they are strapped in the vehicles wondering if we are ever going to leave. At this point they are asking "Are we going to go already?" O.K. Pre-trip picture, check, tank full of gas, check, kids, check, now we are off to Disney World! Hooray!!!

 

[cjlemoine]

After 12 hours and a few stops namely, (Daphne, AL; Tallahassee, FL; Gainsville, FL {Cracker Barrel for 6:00am breakfast}) we get to the outskirts of Orlando. You have to realize, I was so excited to show my children the "Welcome to Disney World Sign", and guess what, I took a wrong turn and ended up coming into Disney World through a back route. Looks like they will have to see it on a later trip. Stupid GPS. Well the other two couples where staying at POR and we stayed at POP Century, so at this point the caravan had split and we headed to the resorts of our choice. I looked at Michelle and said "I really hope they let us check in so I can take a shower." Granted I had been up since the previous day at 6:00am. Lo and behold, we get to POP and were checked in within 15 mins, lock, stock and barrell. They put us in the 50's section facing the lake, which turned out to be a quiet place. I am sorry I didn't take pictures of the checking in process, but we were still awstruck with the 'I can't beleive we are in Disney' bug. We proceeded to the room with ALL of the gear. (One thing that I've learned is that when you travel with a six month old, you bring lots of stuff.)
After a quick shower for me, clean the baby up, children exploring the immediate resort, we head off to Magic Kingdom!! Yeah!!! One thing I want to note is that we drove our POV around Disney, in case we needed a quick getaway with JT. We make it to the Magic Kingdom Parking and Voila!

We are on the tram.

My kids were sooo excited, we hop aboard the monorail and get to the front of the park.

I know it may be hard to tell, but the clock on the tower reads, 1:45, I thought that we had made wonderful time and had plenty more to enjoy the wonderful world of Disney.

 

[Jenvenza]

Great start! I am in!

 

[cjlemoine]

I last left off that we had finally made it to MK, so in route I called the others to find out their status, and they told us they were unable to check-in early (Kudos to POP, thumbs down to POR), so they were already in the park. We were to meet them behind the castle by Dumbo, great start I thought. When we get to main street what do we see....

In my mind I am thinking, 'What a great start for the kids." We proceeded down Main Street and get a better glimpse of the castle and hello, the crowds are very little, this is getting better by the minute. I was thinking for a Saturday there would have been more people.

Continuing on, skipping plenty of things to see and do, we make it to the back of the castle and meet up with our friends. They were waiting in line to ride Dumbo, the first official ride of our trip. Michelle was pushing the stroller and I looked down to see this.....

Poor baby could not go anymore. I must say again, like before, he was wonderful, and the baby stations at Disney even makes it that much easier. I'll note about those later, I'm still excited about getting to the park and feeling the magic. Hannah and Wesley rode Dumbo with the others while Michelle and I gathered our thoughts and emotions, and a little supply inventory. By now we were telling the others how neat POP was and how lucky we were to be able to check in, and the decisions started. We learned quickly that you can never get 9 kids to decide where to go to next, but that resolved itself a little later. Being we were close by we all headed over to the Speedway. Somehow on Michelle and I's honeymoon, this was one of the rides we skipped, so I was like cool this is gonna work well. Hannah and I can ride together and Wesley will partner up. Michelle held back and watched the baby.
Here is a shot of David and Sophie

and Claire and Emma

lets not forget about Wesley

I was happy that I got a picture of Claire with her camera, as she is usually the one taking the pictures. She and Michelle are great friends, and when we are together we joke and say that we brought along our personal photographer. LOL Claire is one of the best Professional amateur photographers I have ever known. She just has the 'eye'. Some of the pics I will post will be hers and I will credit her now, and when I post them. Now we are off to Space Mountain.............

 

[longing2Batdisney]

Hi! there, again from the Louisiana thread!
subbing in...great start
the first day looks wonderful and your family is adorable; love the pic of JT sleeping

Kudo's on pics of the photographer--I'm usually the photographer and it really hit me on this last trip that I'm in hardly any pics.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hey! I'm here! Oh my goodness, what a great looking group of people you guys are. I am looking forward to reading all about your Disney adventures. Remember, if I go missing in action next week, it's because we're off to Disney next Wednesday night. It takes us a little longer to drive 'cause we're at the top of Louisiana. We'll break the drive down to Wednesday evening and start up again on Thursday.

 

[cjlemoine]

Sorry about the delay in updating the report guys, I will post the end of day one, which was quite a day begin with day 2. By the way thanks for reading the report.

 

[cjlemoine]

Hey! I'm here! Oh my goodness, what a great looking group of people you guys are.

Thank you!!

 

[cjlemoine]

Kudo's on pics of the photographer--I'm usually the photographer and it really hit me on this last trip that I'm in hardly any pics.

You guys need the credit. You can tell who the photographer of the family is, b/c they usually aren't in the pics. With my crazy family, it's whoever grads the camera.

 

[cjlemoine]

Yes Yes I know, you are thinking "Is he ever going to finish day one?" the answer is yes. But I must say day one was really long being I had been up from friday at 6am, little cat nap at noon, till Saturday sometime around midnight, or would that technically Sunday. Anywho we decided to head over to the legendary Space Mountain. Somehow on my previous trip to Disney I only rode this ride once (dumb hunh). Being we had a baby, we started our babyswap adventures from here. I must admit, our older kids got the better end of the deal with this. As soon as we would get the babyswap pass it was off off and away for us. Lets not forget FastPass also, we would grad those and then hit the regular lines. If I recall, the longest we waited for a ride was 20 mins. The crowd levels that week were great. It was around 2:00p that we made it over to SM and almost walked on the ride. we may have waited 10 mins(maybe) like here. Hannah is still thinking, "Do I really wanna do this??" Wesley, Emma and Sarah are like, "Oh yeah the fun is beginning!"

Then we are at the loading area, which is a hard place to snap good pictures. Of course Wesley got on first:

We all rode, the 1st cycle at least, then it was parent swap time, the kids got to go back with their mom. I wish I had pictures, but when Michelle and the other moms got off of SM here I was tucked away in a little corner of the exit hall with poor little JT laying on the floor and no diaper. Of course they had to exit right in the middle of me changing his diaper. So they are coming down that hall into the gift shop just laughing their booty's off.
By the time the group of 15 had rode SM, it was time for our ADR at Crystal Palace, so we began to meander that way. By this time I was wondering if Wesley was going to live the 'magic' of Disney, and not wanna 'macho' it out. But lo and behold he was coming out of his shell. Hannah was in her glory, what girl wouldn't wanna be in the land of princesses and princes.
We make it to CP and check in (a little early) and take some pre dinner pics on the porch
My family

The Carmouche's

And the other Lemoine's

I wish the castle would have come out in all of the pictures like the last one, I guess that's what a D80 camera can do for you. (which is what Claire uses, while I just have a point and click Cannon A590IS).
After a short wait we were seated and some more fun began. Sorry I didn't take pictures of the food , but I have some fun shots of the adventures.

John Thomas loves Tigger, and it just so happens to be his nickname at his Poppa's house. It took him a second, but he warmed up to the characters.

Hannah was eating this all up, and Wesley was too, even though the Poo characters were not his favorite.

They even joined in on the little walk around parade;

After reading about the different restaurants in the park, I had high expectations for CP, and I was kinda disappointed. Of course the kids ate the usual nuggets, mac-n-cheese, and mashed potatoes. I just found the food to be kinda bland, and not really a great selection. Especially when you pay out of pocket. For the same cost you can have an excellent meal at Rainforest Cafe', and that includes a couple of daiquiri's. (If you go for that sort of thing).

 

[cindy_in_california]

your family picture is lovely.

 

[longing2Batdisney]

your last statement spoken like a true Louisianaian (think I spelled that right); being from LA Danny & I are usually very disappointed in food just about everywhere we go. When we do disney we don't do the food thing--we just CS all over--last trip we ate at ASSp most of the time; we did like "Earl of Sanwich" on DTD: our next trip we plan to dine a little I think I want to do a character breakfast each morning and a few sit down dinners...I agree Claire's camera does an awesome shot--but your point and click takes great pictures...so far a fun day...the children look like the really enjoyed the characters; really cute shot of tigger, you, and JT

and for changing your baby's diaper--I love when daddy's do that--Danny only did/does when I'm not around and HE "has" to.

Have a great day!

 

[cjlemoine]

your last statement spoken like a true Louisianaian (think I spelled that right); being from LA Danny & I are usually very disappointed in food just about everywhere we go. When we do disney we don't do the food thing--we just CS all over--last trip we ate at ASSp most of the time; we did like "Earl of Sanwich" on DTD: our next trip we plan to dine a little I think I want to do a character breakfast each morning and a few sit down dinners...I agree Claire's camera does an awesome shot--but your point and click takes great pictures...so far a fun day...the children look like the really enjoyed the characters; really cute shot of tigger, you, and JT

and for changing your baby's diaper--I love when daddy's do that--Danny only did/does when I'm not around and HE "has" to.

Have a great day!

Thanks,
I guess in Louisiana we are just spoiled, for good food that is. I think when we go back we may do counter service dining. Do you know if you can add dining to ressies after you have booked, but before you check in?

The kids really did enjoy the character dining, but for the $$$$ I don't feel it is worth it, if you are paying out of pocket. We are looking at maybe only doing dinner at Ohana when we go back, b/c we are extreme carnivores.

I think all dad's should change diapers, it builds character. We are on the go so much (Church, baseball, recitals, etc.) that we have to tag team alot. Although Michelle takes on a little more than me.

 

[cjlemoine]

your family picture is lovely.

Thank You!! I tend to think so myself!!

 

[cjlemoine]

We last left off eating a little dinner at Crystal Palace and planning where to go to next. Us people from Louisiana like to talk and eat alot so it tool us like 1 1/2 hours to complete dinner. I told Michelle, "That is just too much time to be wasting eating." Although the kids had a great time. From CP we needed a plan of attack, b/c we wanted to catch SpectroMagic and Wishes. So Claire & vincent decided to come with us to Pirates of the Carribean (Can you beleive they have been to Disney 2 previous times and had never been on this ride!!!! Crazy I thought) Anyway we headed that way and saw the wait was 15 minutes, so we jumped in line. We had about an hour and fifteen minutes to kill and still be able to grab a good spot for the parade.
Here are a couple of shots of waiting and the ride itself:
See if you can tell who is the tired one...

Kids I'm not sure yall should be there

How did I miss the dog???

I've always enjoyed POC, it is one of the few rides I remember as a kid riding. boy Disney World sure has come a long way from the 70's, heck even 1997.
---Little note here, make sure you park your stroller in 'stroller parking', or someone (stroller police I guess) will do it for you. When we went into POC we parked our stroller with a bunch of others that we saw, but when we came out, they were all gone. Luckily I had put my LSU travel tag on the handle and we located it in the 'proper stroller parking area'!!----
From POC we head to the area b/t the castle and Main Street for a parade spot. David and Allison had caught up with us by then, so we all headed to our parade spot.

By 7:15 we began seeing the parade coming near, and Mr. Eagle Eyes noticed:

And noticed.....

I snapped so many pictures, it was crazy, I feel like I missed the parade, but I can always go back and look at the pics. You will not believe me, but I took 1300 pictures while on the trip. Gotta love digital pictures. SpectroMagic is very hard to get good pictures of, i guess b/c of all of the movement.
Does anyone know who this guy represents???

And a few more...

And now the magical event they call Wishes was about to be upon us. My kids were pleasantly surprised at Tinkerbell. I think Wesley had some doubt, but soon it was all satisfied. The fireworks at Disney are wonderful, and I watched mostly, but still managed a few shots.

Although not good ones.
By this time we had burned most of our energy, and it was back to POP for us. We waited for the crowd to thin a little, and slowly walked to the exit still soaking in the sights and sounds. At this point I still couldn't believe we were in Disney World. But I was soooo ready to lay my head on a pillow.
EPCOT here we come.........TBC....

 

[longing2Batdisney]

Thanks,
I guess in Louisiana we are just spoiled, for good food that is. I think when we go back we may do counter service dining. Do you know if you can add dining to ressies after you have booked, but before you check in?

The kids really did enjoy the character dining, but for the $$$$ I don't feel it is worth it, if you are paying out of pocket. We are looking at maybe only doing dinner at Ohana when we go back, b/c we are extreme carnivores.

Yes, when we went in May; I had booked room only (we were able to go on the military discount) I was told anything I want to add to the ressie I had to do 72 hrs prior--meaning the dining plan-they kept pushing.

Because we had planned QS and CS I had allotted everyone $25 a day. (We ate twice a day and it did not cost us quite $12.50 a meal pp.) Which was more than enough for DH, DS3 and I, and DD & DDbf. But, DS17 was buying his own extras. We are thinking of going next year for free dining; but then if you look at my ticker you will see we have three dates we are considering. We are not like most we do not go to disney for food; we go for the family fun...our food is just too good here/and we feel the food is the most expensive part of the trip. But, I really want to do character dining as DS will be 3/4 and he loves characters, so I think this will be lots of fun...I will have to check to see if it is practical to do DDP or go OOP again.

Most people that do the DDP say they would not do it anyother way; I'll have to compare the two again next year. It was not feesiable for us this past year.

Great way to end the first evening ...we missed every parade while there...it rained everyday and not just the heat related type rain...the "Tropical" stuff...next year!!!

till next installment have a great evening!!

 

[cjlemoine]

Thanks,
I guess in Louisiana we are just spoiled, for good food that is. I think when we go back we may do counter service dining. Do you know if you can add dining to ressies after you have booked, but before you check in?

The kids really did enjoy the character dining, but for the $$$$ I don't feel it is worth it, if you are paying out of pocket. We are looking at maybe only doing dinner at Ohana when we go back, b/c we are extreme carnivores.

Yes, when we went in May; I had booked room only (we were able to go on the military discount) I was told anything I want to add to the ressie I had to do 72 hrs prior--meaning the dining plan-they kept pushing.

Because we had planned QS and CS I had allotted everyone $25 a day. (We ate twice a day and it did not cost us quite $12.50 a meal pp.) Which was more than enough for DH, DS3 and I, and DD & DDbf. But, DS17 was buying his own extras. We are thinking of going next year for free dining; but then if you look at my ticker you will see we have three dates we are considering. We are not like most we do not go to disney for food; we go for the family fun...our food is just too good here/and we feel the food is the most expensive part of the trip. But, I really want to do character dining as DS will be 3/4 and he loves characters, so I think this will be lots of fun...I will have to check to see if it is practical to do DDP or go OOP again.

Most people that do the DDP say they would not do it anyother way; I'll have to compare the two again next year. It was not feesiable for us this past year.

Great way to end the first evening ...we missed every parade while there...it rained everyday and not just the heat related type rain...the "Tropical" stuff...next year!!!

till next installment have a great evening!!

T/Y for the feedback on the ressies, that will give us more time to decide what we are going to do. We are kinda like yall it seems, the food is not the reason we go to Disney. If we want great food, all we need to do is stay home, heck we are Cajuns after all.

sorry yall had to miss the parades, they are really fun to see.

Thanks for reading!!

 

[cjlemoine]

Can you believe it, I am starting Day2..... I know just get on with it. When we finally made it to bed Sat night/Sun morn. we never really got the plan nailed down, thus a lot of indecision when we woke up at 6:30, not by choice. Babies tend to determine sleep pattern no matter where you are. All we knew that we were going to attend church, and then head to Epcot. After getting our bearings straight from being awaken by JT, I gave him a bottle and Michelle hopped in the shower. The older two where like, "It's time already, we just came to bed." And I was like "Hey yall we are in Disney World." I actually got Wesley to pick up his head :\

John Thomas was ready to go, especially after a full belly. "Pssss, so was Dad."

Just had the little matter of getting park bags packed, which was a considerable achievement, getting everyone dressed, and actually getting out of the door. You can tell from the pics that space was valuable, we squeezed a Pack-N-Play between the two beds at night and probably used every square inch of space for everything else. While DW and I got ready we schemed a plan of attack, get to church (The National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe), grab a bite to eat on the way to Epcot, and then begin Day 2 adventures. Easy right. Wrong.
As I am getting ready I begin to search for my walking shoes, after awhile I ask about them and everyone drew a blank. Then I remembered, when I was locking up the house I set them down and forgot to pick them up and put them in the car. Oh well, slight addition to the plans, going to just find a WalMart and get a somewhat decent pair of shoes. Your wondering, "What did he wear the day before?" Well us people in La. don't wear shoes, LOL, nah I had been wearing my Crocs and after a nice blister I decided to wear real shoes.
We got headed to the car after a few resort shots:
They are actually next to the bowling pin, just that it is the largest pin you will ever see:

Here:

Yes that is a knit hat on JT's head. The mornings were cool (40's) just it warmed up quick and became perfect.

So we load up and headed to church, which is only about a 10 min drive from POP. This is where the GPS came in handy. So we get to church and notice a lot of parking available, still positive we unload and head inside, hardly anyone there. Guess 8:30 am is too early for Orlando, till a nice lady tells us Mass isn't till 9:30. Michelle was like "No problem, we'll head down the road to WM and get shoes, by that time Mass will be getting ready to start. Cool.
Head to Wally World, and find some cheap (15.00 on sale) shoes, which I must say were very comfortable and light, and head back to the MQOU church. By that time the church was packed, but we got a pew anyway. If you haven't been there, it is worth a visit, choir was great and Mass was beautiful. Have to say, there were a lot of LSU fans there that day, wonder why. We would find out in a few hours. After Mass, we head to Epcot to continue Day 2.......

 

[cjlemoine]

We left off last with us attending Mass at a very beautiful and fulfilling church in Orlando, and are headed to EPCOT. Wesley and Hannah have been wanting to see the big 'Golf' ball up close and personal for some time now. We arrived at the park around 11:00 with full bellies thanks to Wendy's near the church, so we could hit this park head on. After talking to the other couples the previous night, we decided that it would be difficult to keep the whole group together, so we decided we would all do our seperate agendas and catch up with each other at some point in the day. I was really ready to see what this 'Soarin' was all about, and the kids too. ever since we discovered the disboards and other Disney websites we have been bombarding each other and the kids with Disney knowledge. we arrive at the park to beautiful weather:

Off we go into the world of EPCOT. I was ready to attack the park in style with JT on my back in his Snugli. We headed straight for Soarin to see how bad the line was, and discovered a little wait, then just grabbed some FastPasses for a ride later. We headed over to Nemo and made it our official first ride of the day. I don't normally count the tram, although my kids do.

Michelle and Hannah hamming it up for the camera.

We tried to take some shots of the screens along the ride and this is what we got:

I did notice that my camera had an aquarium setting thus the following shots.

And then we stumbled upon the diver giving a demonstation of a proper lock in/out sequence. I thought this was cool b/c I used to do come SCUBA Diving while in college.

One last picture of the dolphin:

After a little wondering around I felt the weight shift in the Snugli and realized that John Thomas had fallen asleep. He did that alot, I guess the carrier was comfortable for him so he got himself some shuteye. Here we are attempting to lay him in the stroller, which till now was just a fancy gear buggy.

For a little while we just sat around and enjoyed people watching and getting a game plan together for the rest of the day. For some reason, we all were kind of just aimlessly walking around, I guess we were still tired from the day before. We had already decided that we would not attempt to go around the world, we would attempt that on Tuesday.

Now we began to head over to Honey I shrunk the Audience. When Michelle and I had come here for our honeymoon, the lines for this attraction were ridiculous, so we skipped it. Now here we are 11 1/2 years later to check it out. Overall it was OK but with the advances in technology, Disney could maybe bring it up to par with the rest of the world.

Yeah JT's gonna really enjoy this one:

We did the experience and headed over to Soarin, our fastpasses had just become good. For some unknown reason, I did not take any pictures. We loved this ride, the kids loved it even more, I guess because of the 2 for 1 baby swap deal. I couldn't believe that they even pipe in the smells, that was wonderful. While JT and I waited for the second round to complete I found me a very nice CM selling beer and had my first Disney beer of the trip. Boy was it good.
When Michelle and the kids got out of Soarin, we began a slow trek over to Test Track. I had read some mixed reviews about this ride, but I have always been a speed fan and really wanted to ride it. And it was also a good time to feed JT. I wonder if people thought we were crazy. She pulled out the baby food and be ate like a little bid in a nest. I wish we had pictures. I heard one little girl say "Mom there is a baby in there!" I figured the Snugli's where more popular than they were. {Little side note: I know it sounds crazy, but I 'trained' for Disney with the Snugli by playing Wii with him on my back. Crazy hunh, but determined.} Michelle would feed him while we waited in line, and when we got to the part where you enter the briefing room she would just go wait outside. Here are a few shots of the wait:

After the riding and baby swapping, we kinda just wondered around and stopped by some shops and looked at the Spaceship Earth line and decided nah. The kids wanted to go back to POP and swim in the pool. It was late afternoon, and we said what the heck, JT was ready to nap again and we were too. We headed back to POP and grabbed dinner, and the kids got to enjoy the pool of the 50's. Sorry for the blurry pics:

What a great day TWO. We were in bed for 11:00 and were going to get a good nights sleep and be there for rope drop at Animal Kingdom!!!!!
After letting JT sleep a little while we