A queen, her king, a princess, a prince and a MIL? My first ptr

[MickeyManiacMom]

Hello my dear Disney friends! Welcome to my first ever, hopefully widely entertaining pre trip report! I've read a lot of your trip reports and find them to be so much fun to hear that there are other people with the same excitement for Disney as me. Though, I'm somewhat shy so I lurk more than I ever post. I don't know why though - you all seem to "get it" more than anyone else I know. So what if I'm 31 and my entire desk at work is covered in Mickey Mouse? Who says you have to be a responsible grown up ALL the time? Why can't I express myself and still be taken seriously?

Eh - who cares. Most people IRL just don't understand the Disney worship.

Let me introduce my cast:

There's me - Kristy aka - MickeyManiacMom (MMM)
My dh - Tim - the poor guy I've suckered into one trip to Disney after another. (Though I think he loves them as much as me!)
My dd - Princess Riley - who takes that role WAY too seriously everyday.
My ds - Tyler - a boy who could give Stich a run for his money with his energy.
MIL - Terri

So this all started out with a general plan of making our next trip in the summer/fall of 2009 when Tyler turns 5. We took Riley on her first trip to the world when she turned 5 in 2006. However, you know that voice in the back of your head that keeps saying "2009? We can't wait until 2009! DO SOMETHING!" I kept shaking it off, knowing that the budget was set up for 2009 and no amount of wishing would change the truth.

Then like pixie dust floating down and making a perfect day - there started to be rumblings of this magical thing called a stimulus check. George Bush wants to try and save the economy. Do I think it will work - doubtful. But hey I will happily take that check. That little glimmer of hope was enough to make me start thinking "Hmmm. Maybe I CAN do something to stimulate Florida's economy!" I did not reveal my plan to Tim yet, as I had to have a fully developed plan to propose to him. You don't walk into a board room unprepared and just throw an idea out there. You come totally prepared - with flip charts!

So I jump on the Dis and start reading anything and everything I think will help me with my pitch. I see the holy grail - free dining - announced yet again! So I email for a handy dandy, no obligation travel quote from our travel agent. It was in this planning/thought process that I realized perhaps it would be best if the adults could outnumber the kids.

You see, Tyler is a very happy and loving kid. However he has some developmental issues, he's hyper, has sensory issues and general anxiety about some things. For example loud noises - will literally send him into a panic attack. So no WDW fireworks for us. He is a handful, but worth every minute of headache and worry that he causes me.


So I start thinking WHO can I get to come with us and lend us an extra hand with Tyler. See it's things like fireworks. Not such a big deal if you only have one child - you just avoid them. But what about Riley? She loves fireworks - so is it fair to ask her miss out because of her brother? This is where an extra adult comes in handy. One adult can take Tyler to the room, or pool or even just ride the monorail around 10 times! The other 2 adults can stay and enjoy the show with Riley.

As any girl probably would -I immidiately think of my mom as that extra adult. But quickly realize that won't work because she just went to the World with my sister and her family in November and she won't want to use the rest of her vacation time to go to the same place again. Hmmm - so then I think *maybe* my MIL will want to go. She lives 3 hours away and doesn't get to see the kids often. She's fun enough and she just might go for it!

I get the quote back and I tell you if I could I would KISS that girl for the deal she displayed to me in that e-mail! There was no way Tim could say no with this. So I printed everything off, made his favorite dinner, got the kids to bed and started rubbing his back. Asked him if he had any thoughts on where that stimulus check should be spent. He said no.... why? Did I? Well......So I whipped out all the trusty info and comparisons and BENEFITS if we booked for this certain time frame. He knew there was no winning this one. It was "free money" we weren't expecting and he had no reason to say no. Besides it was already in the plans - just a year sooner than we thought we'd go. So he sighed and said "Let me call my mom...."

He should have seen this coming. This is almost the exact same ploy when I convinced him that we should have a Disneymoon when we got married. Only I made it seem like it was all about him. I said well "We will go to Disney World for 5 days and then we will take a 4 day cruise for you." (Right for hiiiim. It was a Disney Cruise sucker!)

(DH wants the computer now to play some stupid shoot em' and kill em' man game, but I promise to continue tomorrow!) Hope you stick around for the ride, I'm sure it will prove to have it's moments of laughter!

 

[MomofCKJ]

I will happily sign on to hear your tale!

Allyson

 

[MickeyManiacMom]

Yay! My first reader - Welcome Allyson!

As we left it my dh promised to call his mom. So he made the phone call, explained the phenomenal deal we had been presented with. Explained that we were going either way, but wanted to extend an invitation to herself and even her husband if she thought he would want to go. She asked us to give her 2 or 3 days so she could discuss it with her husband. Fair enough. Our quote was good for like 10 days.

**It is now I must interrupt this ptr to put in a side note. I love my MIL. Really, as far as MIL's go I have a pretty good one. But, I would not choose her life. You see has re-married to old school, ex military and retire police chief. ::cop: He still thinks it's 1950, womens work he won't touch (housework), the woman cooks and all that stuff. Never mind that she works a full time job and he sits at home retired. To each their own I suppose - she seems to like it. However, he is rather gruff and very set in his ways. I was guessing he would not like a woman (me) planning his days, so I was hoping and praying he wouldn't want to go.**

(back to our regularly scheduled programming) Turns out my worry was for naught - MIL wanted to go alone with us! So she was on board, told us to book the trip! So book it we did. Paid our deposit to the travel agency and ended up with a room at POR. Yes, we're all sharing a room. I hope this doesn't prove to be a bad idea by day 5! But we really spend so little time in the room, I don't think I will care.

So to recap, dates picked (September 5-9) cast members secured, rooms booked, free dining plan activated. So my next step was, of course, park planning and ADR's. See, we didn't book the trip until I was already 150 days out. I was worried. But first I had to get a gameplan for parks. Day one we won't arrive to FL until 10:30 a.m. - I figure at the earliest we will be hitting the parks between 1:00 and 2:00. So we picked Epcot for that day. DH likes it, dd will like it and I'm not sure what ds will think of it. Day 2 - Magic Kingdom. Day 3 - Animal Kingdom (earlier end to the day so kids can go to bed early if needed), Day 4 - back to Magic Kingdom and our last day we will make a brief pit stop at DHS for about 3 hours in the a.m. - our main agenda there is for ds to meet Lightning McQueen.

After literally hours scouring reviews, looking at pictures of food and making a list of things I wanted to try this trip, I had my choices in front of me and made the call. Palms sweaty, heart pounding. Would I get my choices?

 

[MickeyManiacMom]

Just a few pics so you know who we're talking about. I figured I'd use the ones from our trip in 2006.

First dd Riley - arriving at MK and still clueless at what was beyond that tram ride!

Here is me, Tim and Riley on the monorail - we got to ride in the front! :

A very tired princess after a long day, but still smiling!

Then not to be left out - here is the one and only Tyler:

Pirate Tyler:

Our family:

 

[MickeyManiacMom]

So as we left off - I made the anxiety filled call to do ADR's. Well after the 180 day mark (I think I was calling around 150 days) holding my breath that it would be magical and all work out.

I must have had good kharma going because I was on hold less than 1 minute (I called in the evening) and we did indeed get every ADR we wanted, on the days we wanted with minimal difference in the time I wanted vs. the time we got. I only had to comprimise one meal time. So now we have ADR's booked as follows:

September 5th - Coral Reef 8:20 p.m. (I wanted around 6:30 - but it's all they had so we took it!)
September 6th - Chef Mickey's 8:10 a.m.
September 6th - Tony's Town Square 6:10 p.m.
September 7th - Whispering Canyon 6:35 p.m.
September 8th - 1900 Park Faire 7:10 p.m.

I let each person in our group pick one TS meal. DH favorite food is seafood, and we will be in Epcot that first day so Coral Reef seemed the natural choice. DS two favorite things in the world are Mickey Mouse and pancakes - so we picked CM's for him and we figured it was the perfect way to start our day at Magic Kingdom. MIL loves Italian food, so since we're already at MK that day and we were looking for dinner it just fell into place. I picked Whispering Canyon because I think it will be fun for the whole family and the food looks good and it's something different. DD picked 1900 PF again. Its been almost 2 years since we've been and she STILL talks about eating with Cinderella. So she' on that she gets to do it again. Plus she ate her weight in shrimp last time, the first thing she asked when I told her we were going to eat there was "Do they still have shrimp?"

Oh and while we're at it I'll list our park plans:
9/5 - plane arrives 10:30 a.m. - take ME to POR and attempt to check in, or at least check the luggage in so we can hit the parks. We will do Epcot this day. I anticipate being in the parks by 1:00 or 2:00.

9/6 - Magic Kingdom!! My favorite. I have so many things I want to do with the kids I think I'm more excited than they are if thats possible!

9/7 - Animal Kingdom. DH and I went here once for about 3 hours in 2000 on our Honeymoon. Then we decided it was a little TOO laid back for us, so we ditched it and went to a water park the rest of the day. However, we think the kids will really enjoy it, AND we will enjoy it more now that we have kids so we're giving it another try. We do also love the fact that we will have an "early" night at this park since it closes at 5:00. After 2 days of non-stop itinerary - we liked having this evening free. Chances are after we do dinner at WCC we will go back to the hotel and either let the kids crash out early - or hit the hotel pool.

We have also considered making this a date night for DH and I. Let MIL and the kids hang at the hotel while DH and I head out on our own for a few hours probably from 9:00-midnight. (Anyone have any ideas on things to do? We were thinking of taking the boat from POR to DD. But we're open to options. We don't have park hoppers - so hitting any parks is out. ) Oh and since we're rooming WITH mil - a little romantic moment would be nice!

9/8 - Magic Kingdom again. I can never get enough of this park! If dh would let me we'd be here every day of our trip.

9/9 - MGM (or HS but I always call it MGM first) for just a couple of hours in the morning. Our flight leaves out at 5:30 p.m. - which means ME will be around 2:30. Really the only thing on our agenda here is to let ds meet Lightning McQueen. I would like to get in a ride on Rockin Roller Coaster - but if it doesn't happen I won't be too upset as I know I can do it next time. Anything else we manage to do here is cake.

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention. I'm one of THOSE moms. Yes - I'm taking my 2nd grade dd out of school (for the second time) to go on a trip to Disney. <gasp> I really don't care. It will be her 2nd or 3rd week of school, she's an honor roll student in advanced classes and I'll have her do the homework before we go on our trip. A few days out of school won't ruin her. DS is only in pre-school so a few days won't even affect him.

 

[MickeyManiacMom]

Yes, just to increase the disapproving looks and proving I am in fact "THAT MOM" - let me show you what Riley and I did yesterday. Now first before the pics I want to stress that this was a priviledge she earned for the last year. She had certain standards she had to meet at school, as well as certain things each week that needed to be done at home. When I made this deal I figured she would never last an entire year. Well she proved me wrong, did it for the entire year so I kept up my end of the bargain.

YEP. I let her get hot pink highlights in her hair. She is only allowed to have them for the summer and they will be gone before she heads back to school (and before we head to Florida). However, she thinks they are the coolest thing ever! What do you think?

 

[kadesha]

Can't wait to read more!

I think the pink highlights are so awesome! My kids would LOVE that, but I think DH would kill me!!

Oh, and my DD has the same Mickey ears!

 

[MickeyManiacMom]

Luckily, my dh is pretty laid back about hair. We agree that it's just hair, it grows back, can be changed back. Just not something that we worry about too much. Probably because In the last 11 years that dh and I have been together I have changed my own hair about every 6 months. Just last week I cut all mine off really short, and colored it with red and blonde highlights.

This past weekend we took the kids to a drive in movie. We had not done that in years! We saw Kung Fu Panda and Hulk. Kids fell asleep during the intermission between the 2 movies. Worked out perfectly. We all got to see a movie together and then it was almost like dh and I had a date night after they went to sleep.

It is in my plan to hit the Disney store tonight after work. I'm hoping I can find some things and set them back for the kids for the trip. DS spills on every item of clothes he wears so if I want to get him anything to wear on the trip I have to buy it and just put it away until we go.

We were talking while waiting for the movie to start and do you know what my kids are excited about? They want a funnel cake. They are asking me if we can get a funnel cake as soon as we get to Epcot the first day. Of all the things Disney to get excited about - they picked funnel cake? Oh well - at least that is easy enough to accomplish during our trip. At some point I will indeed get them a funnel cake.