A Trip to Remember.....I Hope.......

[donaldseeyore]

We are now 10 days from our official first day at the happiest place on earth.!

Hi! My name is Teresa and I will be taking you on our 8 day journey around the world. Let me introduce you to me and mine.

DH-Sean 36. A little bit anal, a little bit child and a little bit country. Works 50+ hours a week as a store director for a supermarket chain in Florida. He is my Donald. You never know what he will say or do.

Me-Teresa 31. SAHM mom (well for 3 more days anyway) to 4 kids. I have a bit of a control issue. I can be very anal. Everything has to be planned in life so that I know what to expect. I like to map things out. I have got to know what I am doing. I am also very Eeyore like. Smilin’ on the inside.

DD-Selah 7. This will be her first full trip to all the parks in her life! She can be quite the smart butt (related to her Daddy!) but just as sweet. But please, do not tick her off, she starts to show her Donald tendancies and they may never stop…..

DS- Seth 3. This will be Seth 2nd trip to all the parks. He thinks he has a button on his chest just like Buzz. He’s as mean as a snake. But you can blame that on his sisters, this child doesn’t walk on water in our home; he runs on it.

As you may notice by my siggy, and what I stated before, I have 4 kids. Why are there only 2 of them on this trip? The oldest 2 have to spend spring break with their Daddy in TN. He wasn’t going to budge on his visitation, and I wouldn’t have either. The 2 that are going, weren’t suppose to be coming in the first place. This is where our trip begins………….

Dh and I schemed and whispered, concocted the perfect escape to our happy place. We decided that we were going to ship off the youngest 2 while their older siblings were visiting their Daddy over Spring Break. DD would spend the week at her grandparents home and our DS would spend the week with my best friend. All the kids would be enjoying the lush greeness of Chattanooga, while DH and I enjoyed some magic. All the plans were set. We booked our mommy and daddy time at the POFQ in October with the DxDDP.

What a lovely escape. No kids for 7 days……I was almost in heaven. I could have actual conversations with my DH without interruptions. I would be able to get a full nights sleep without waking up to a 3 year old staring at me to tell me has to go pee. (I still don’t understand why he has to wake me up and tell me. His room is on the opposite side of the house, he has to go down two hallways to come to me and he passes a bathroom on the way!) I was going to be able to relax.

DH and I also decided that while the kids were in Chattanooga for Thanksgiving, he and I were going to sneak down to Orlando. We got an awesome deal at the Peabody (love the duck march!), bought tickets for one day admission to the parks and did Black Friday shopping in my favorite city. While we were there we checked out POFQ. We decided that just wasn’t our style.

Nothing against POFQ, I didn’t like how crowded it felt. Or the lobby. Felt so small.

We took the kids to MVMCP on the 14th of December. We had a blast. I would have been happy to leave my other family members at home. We finally separated from them 3 hours into the party and the kids had a great time. They cried during the fireworks and the parade, Peter Pan touched my DD’s, I think they love this place just as much as me. We spent the next day looking at the resorts on the monorail. GF won our hearts. When we got home, our ressie was changed to the GF. I could have just died, I was so happy.

Somewhere around New Years during the drive back from Chattanooga to home, DH decided he wanted to bring DD Selah along. He said that he wanted to do something special for her since so many things had happened in the family, and he felt like she had lost who she was before all the changes. It took him 3 weeks to convince me. Do I have guilt? Oh yes I do. Am I going to make it up? Oh yes I am (thus the job). Then he decided that he wanted to bring DS 3. I told him to leave that decision to DD. Of course, the child who runs on water, was not to be left behind. There goes my vacation LOL.

I get the bright idea to show DD how to navigate the Disney World site so she can look at the hotel we are staying at. She saw the ASMo hotel. “Mommy! Mommy! Look! Look! They have TOY STORY rooms!!! Seth will want to stay there Mommy!” she says this to me with most excited look in her eyes and the biggest smile on her face. I tell her to go tell Daddy. Of course, Daddy calls and changes the hotel.

GRRRRR!!!! Mommy is not happy. Who would have thought that DH would have actually changed the hotel, on a whim. Not me for sure!!!!

I spend the next 72 hours explaining to him that was not cool to me. He tried to change it back, he really did. But GF was now booked for our dates!!!!! Does that mean the Poly? Of course it does!

Now Mommy is doing the happy dance! Oh Lapu Lapu’s! Volcano pool! Lush tropical foliage! I am back in heaven. I spend days drooling over the pictures posted on here. Then I stumble across something…..what is DVC point rental?!?!?!?!!!!

I spend a few days reading. Locate the FL comptroller website. Get the posting guidelines down. I explain to my DH just what it is all about. So he wants to know if we can change resorts half way through our stay. Of course we can! He says see what you can do……..I post what I am looking for and we score! Half of our week is now at a preferred room at Boardwalk Villas…..

I have loved that area of the resort since we visited it last June. I love the ambiance. How peaceful it feels to walk the boardwalk with a person you love.

Now that all the ressies are made, (and we gained an extra day by saving on the DVC rental) it is now time to get down to the nitty gritty. Time to plan how we are touring the world. I already had ADR’s made for just the 2 of us. It was a character breakfast in the morning and then signature dining for dinner. Now I had to replan!

Part 2: Mean Mom Strikes

 

[Nemo32]

What a whirlwind already...I'm anticipating what's to come.

DBF and I are staying at Boardwalk Villas in a little over a month. It's his first time to WDW and my third at Boardwalk- Great choice in resort!

Just don't change it again!

 

[OhMari]

I rented DVC points from an owner and we stayed at BWI. I am renting again in Nov. and this time we are staying at the BC. Trying a different one. It is great walking into Epcot. But take the boat to the Studios, that is a long walk.

I think my son told me he had to go to the bathroom, until he was 12. I finally figured out why. When you potty train, you tell them to tell you when they have to go. I think with boys, it stays with them, my girls never did that.

 

[donaldseeyore]

Part 2-Mean mom strikes…..

So just what would you do for your DD’s first trip to all the parks? I knew what I was going to do!! CRT and BBB! Those were a must. I called and was able to get a breakfast at CRT as well as an appointment at BBB before breakfast!! YES! Well, that meant I just had to find DD a dress for her special day……during one of our monthly visitation trips to Chatt, I found at the now gone (SOB SOB) Disney Store, a Giselle wedding dress for DD.

The wedding dress had been sold out in her size on the Disney Shopping site for weeks. They were outrageous on Ebay. I happened to totally luck out! This was the only dress in the store they had left and it was her size!!! Fate? I think so. Now I hoped that P&PP would be announced for this same night……

Wondering about the rest of our ADR’s? Relatively simple actually! We arrive at WDW at 11:30 in the morning. We will lunch at the food court of the hotel. The rest are like this:

Day 1: Dinner @ O’Hana
Day 2: B’fast @ Kona (OOP)
Lunch@ Hollywood & Vine
Dinner @ Narcoossee’s
Day 3: B-Tusker House
D-Primetime
Day 4: B-CRT
D-Liberty Tree
Another meal @ CS later in the night
Day 5: B-Cape May
D-Yak & Yeti
Day 6: B-Crystal Palace
D- Yachtman Steakhouse
Day 7: B- Boma
L- Coral Reef
D- Le Cellier
Day 8: B-Food Court (OOP)
L-Whispering Canyon
D- Garden Grill

These ADR's that you see were just finalized completely 4 days ago. I have had to make so many changes, I put the dining number on my "my circle" numbers. Friends from Chattanooga, that live by us now, were going to go with us. I changed ADR's around so that we were dining together. Then, the DH of our friends had a manager promoted out of his store. Their goes their plans.....back to the phone I go.

Along the way we invested in the Passporter and the Complete Guide to Disney World. Reading along I stumble across some things I had heard of, but didn’t think they existed. Kind of like the bears in the Smokey Mountains I thought were mythical until I actually saw them, and then proceeded to follow them in the forest. Yeah, dumb me. Anyways…….I decide to make DD’s trip a little bit more magical. I book her in the Grand Adventures of Cooking, the Wonderland Tea Party and the GF Pirate Cruise.

I was all excited for the different types of Mickey ears she would get from the cooking and pirate experiences. Then tea with Alice and the Mad Hatter…oh I wish I was a little girl. I want to throw grapes!!! But then, this is where mean mom steps in.

See the rules in our house are pretty simple. If you make the mess, you clean it up. I cook dinner, you do the dishes. You want clean clothes, put the dirty clothes in the laundry room. You want to keep your toys, keep your room clean. When you take your shower/bath, clean the bathroom back up. Pretty simple right? For some reason my kids aren’t grasping this. My job as their mother is not to be their maid. My job is to teach them how to be responsible, take care of themselves and their homes and to contribute productively to society. Until then, I am mean mom, not their best buddy.

DD wasn’t doing what she was suppose to. So she lost the cooking experience. Caught DD in a major lie, she lost the tea party and the pirate cruise. I don’t know who was more upset………but there are consequences for your actions. She was told today that if she keeps up with a bad attitude she will lose BBB too. Hopefully she can make it the next 9 days without any major slip ups.

Lets go back to around the times ADR’s are made. I get this nifty little e-mail that tells me RT airfare from Chattanooga to Sanford/Orlando for $39 each way PP. WHAT!!?!?!?!!! Oh I have just got to check this out. Sure enough, it is true (before taxes and fees of course) . I had been looking at flying since we booked our trip, but airfare was around $500 a person to fly directly into Orlando International (MCO). I had never mentioned this to DH of course. I immediately call him at work and tell him about this little gem. We buy 4 RT tickets for $446. Why are we flying if we live in FL? I’ll fill you in….

In the custody agreement between me and the ex, I take them to Chattanooga one time a month for visitation. That drive from where we live is 6 ½ hours, if I hit Atlanta at the right time. So this is what it would have been like if we drove:
Pick kids up from school, drive to Chattanooga, arrive around 10 pm. Do the visitation switch that night or the next morning. Drive the 415 miles home. Pack up the car. Drive the 4 hours to WDW. Spend 6 days at WDW. Drive 4 hours back home. Unload the car. Wake up next morning, drive 415 miles to pick of the 2 oldest. Drive right back home the 415 miles.

I would be one VERY cranky woman. Not to mention in a lot of pain. Are we saving any money? No. The RT tickets were equal to what I would have spent on gas. We got a rental for our time there. WHAT!!!??? Yes, that is right. We don’t do Disney transport. Plus, DH and I both like to shop while we are there. Did it save everyone’s sanity and time? YES!!! Is that important? YES!!!!

The catch to the flight times was that if we left on Saturday, we would be leaving at 7:30 in the morning. I wasn't willing to do that on a weekend, with another day left. So we fly out on a Sunday at 7:30 in the morning. Of course that meant I needed to find a room for our last day/night. So I found us a hotel up in Altamonte Springs. DH decided 3 days ago he didn't want to stay there at that hotel, back to the searching I go.

Originally our car rental was through Enterprise. I searched Hotwire and was able to get a car for $25 cheaper then I was getting it through Enterprise. $25 is more money for souvies to me. So I got it. Car is now paid for. Then DH decides to look for a hotel room. He finds one claiming to save over $50. We decide, hey, why not. We've always had good luck in the past with Hotwire. He clicks the book now button. We ended up staying at the Hilton in the Altamonte Springs area for our last night. For $72 dollars!!! WOOHOO!!!!

So lets recap what is paid for before we arrive: Hotel on and off property, car rental, food, tickets. So that leaves me with tips, upgrades to AP's, the DxDDP when we check in at BWV, the 2 (maybe) OOP meals and BBB. Not too bad! Why am I so happy about this? Let me give you a little background.

DH and I had never been to WDW before April 2007. That was an interesting trip. You know those people that you wonder how they didn't know what a fast pass was or how they could go without knowing ANYTHING? Well, that was us then. We booked off property lodging at a Radisson through bookit, bought our tix through undercover tourist and went to WDW. It took me 4 days of being there, until I found out about ADR's and decided to stick my park pass into one of those FP machines and see what happens. I am so glad my children will never have a trip like that. But we had fun!!! So much so, we were back 2 months later!!

Some of my Fav pics from June trip (DS was 2 1/2)

 

[donaldseeyore]

What a whirlwind already...I'm anticipating what's to come.

DBF and I are staying at Boardwalk Villas in a little over a month. It's his first time to WDW and my third at Boardwalk- Great choice in resort!

Just don't change it again!

I rented DVC points from an owner and we stayed at BWI. I am renting again in Nov. and this time we are staying at the BC. Trying a different one. It is great walking into Epcot. But take the boat to the Studios, that is a long walk.

I think my son told me he had to go to the bathroom, until he was 12. I finally figured out why. When you potty train, you tell them to tell you when they have to go. I think with boys, it stays with them, my girls never did that.

I've started telling him when I have to go to hte bathroom now He thinks its great My girls didn't do it this late either.....i think the 3 girls before the one boy is really throwing me for a loop......

 

[Nemo32]

If I had kids I'd run my house the same as you. Good discipline.

I like the picture of your DS hugging Winnie the Pooh! Adorable!

 

[donaldseeyore]

We've all seen and or read those posts.....Is it too early to pack??? I am never a person to tell you no.....I don't understand too early to pack thoughts. To me packing starts the minute you start your "list". You know, the list that includes everything you plan on bringing so you don't forget something......

I started the list over 4 months ago. It has everything on there from q-tips and toenail clippers to how many outfits for each person. I will still forget something, thus........

I have had 3 suitcases, 2 backpacks and the hanging garment bag being loaded up for over a month. Nicely lined up on my bedroom floor. Now add a 3 yr old son who sleeps on our bedroom floor after his 3 am potty trek with a stuffed pooh bear twice the size of him to the suitcases. DH gets up at 4 in the morning practically everyday. Imagine, if you will, a 6' 2" 200 lb man, half asleep and not happy to be awake, stumbling through a darkened bedroom. While stumbling, somehwere in the deep corners of his mind is the memory of the suitcases, and a 3 yr old son, somewhere on the floor. I've have been startled out of sleep many times in the last month to some not so very nice words.....DH will be so happy when this trip is over and he has a clear path to the bathroom. Either twist your ankle on a suitcase, or step on your son.....

Last night I made my DH go through the packed kids outfits with me. I keep thinking I have overpacked....wait....I know I overpacked, I always do. So as I pull out 6 prs of shoes for DD and 7 prs of shoes for DS he asks how many outfits are in there? He counted the 45 ziplocs of clothes I pulled out. Each ziploc holds an outfit, including hat and socks to match. We didn't downsize......he just loves their clothes and didn't want to leave anything behind...just in case I forgot to mention the 4 dresses for DD that aren't in the suitcase

Why am I packing so much for them? Well......last year for an 8 day trip I packed DS 20 outfits....he wore all of them...... I don't like to see dirty, stained, sweaty, smelly clothes on my kids. Besides,heat sets a stain, and FL is heat.

Over my month long packing, going through the closets, I decided that I just didn't like what I owned. I also realised that almost everything my DH owns is business casual. DH and I also started dieting at the beginning of the year, we have lost almost 40 pounds between the 2 of us , so that means SHOPPING!!!! But I have a problem........

Almost all extra money has gone to paying all the credit cards off to use in Orlando for souvies and what nots. I was not going to dip into the cards that were reserved for our trip......so what did DH and I decide to do? You probably won't believe we did what we did

 

[Nemo32]

I'm the same with packing. Maybe not as many clothes but I gather things way before the trip. I find it soothing and it keeps me excited for the trip.