After 12 years, someone finally agreed to keep them...a couples 1st trip w/o kids May '17

[cantoine]

Hello All

Welcome to my Pre-Trip Report, you will laugh, you will cry and you will have a good time reading along with all my parenting humor. I will warn all of you, I am very sarcastic. VERY! But if you like a good read then you are defiantly in the right place. Let's start at the beginning....

My name is Crystal. I am 33 years old. I love all things Disney and Moscato. I recently left my job as an investigator with child protective services, after needing a change. I am from Chicago Illinois, but currently reside in Texas. I am a Girl Scout leader, and a Service Unit Director.



I am married to a wonderful, hard working man, Jason, who leaves his socks everywhere in the house, can never find anything he is looking for, and who vacuums at 2am. However, I could never imagine life without him. Jason works as an Investigator with Child Protective Services. He can cook, clean, and folds laundry!!!!!!! He is an amazing husband and father, and really is the only person I have come into contact with that can handle my bossiness with such love. He also does not get mad at me when I spend a ton of money on Lularoe, which is a great thing.





Jason and I have been together since 2003. I was 19, he was 27. He made fun of me, I told him off, and yeah that is how that story goes. We got married in 2008. I was dead set against marriage, and was very content with what we had. But then I changed my mind. So one day when Jason and Dev were shopping in Burlington Coat factory, I went into David's bridal and tried on a dress. We were expecting our second child, poops, and I decided I wanted to get married. So I text Jason and asked him to come down to David's Bridal. He walked in to find my crazy self in a white wedding gown, he looked a little confused and I said "I have decided I want to get married. Let's not make a big deal of this, the date will be May 11." and that was that. We got married 4 months later. This may we will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary.






We have a total of 8 children. Yes you read that correctly, 8 children. We have an even split of boys to girls. The oldest Tati is 22, Trent is 20, Greg is 20, Jason is 19, Devyn is 11, Peyton (poops) is 8, Isabella (bella) is 5 and then there is Sophia (sophie) 4. Our children mean the world to us. The older ones drive us crazy, and the younger 4 who still reside in our home...(the last leaving in 14 years 8 months and 3 days, but hey who is counting) make our lives full of love, craziness, and laughter. Needless to say our lives are hectic 24/7 and the adventures we encounter make for lasting memories and a large Advil Bill. Sorry I do not have any photos of them all together. It is way to stressful trying to achieve that, and about 2 years ago, I stopped trying


Here are the 4 that still live at home.



So that is a little bit about us, feel free to introduce yourselves and get ready for some awesome stories.

 

[LaBelleVie]

I wish my husband could cook. His idea of impressing me with his culinary skills while we were dating was a Totino's party pizza and microwaved chicken nuggets

 

[cantoine]

I wish my husband could cook. His idea of impressing me with his culinary skills while we were dating was a Totino's party pizza and microwaved chicken nuggets

Your hubby sounds an awful lot like me. We alternate days in our house where he cooks and then I cook. He will be in the kitchen for hours cooking a 3 course meal. On my nights, I order either pizza, Chinese, or we go through a drive through. . He has said that I order pizza better than anyone he knows, so i have that skill going for me!!!

 

[cantoine]

How this trip came about​

one night while my DH was working late, I was home with the kids. It had been the day that would never end. All 4 of the kids were at each others throats, and I felt more like a referee than anything else that day. Finally my youngest punched her older sister in the face, and the screaming started. While dealing with that, the older two were fighting over some video game. So I have the 5 year old scream and holding her face, the 4 year old scream that the 5 year old was interrupting her, and the 8 and 11 year old screaming at one another about some video game. It looked like the scene from the Incredible when Mrs. Incredible was completely stretched out and holding her kids screaming for Mr. Incredible to interject. So while dealing with all of this, DH walks in and looks at me and says, this place is a mess, and the kids are going crazy, what have you been doing all day? I gave him the stare of death he has grown to love over the past 14 years we have been together. I ordered a pizza for dinner because at this point I was to aggravated to cook anything, not like the kids were going eat what ever we put in front of them because lets be honest, my kids only eat cereal and chips 99% of the time. We calmed down the kids, and I started telling my husband that I can not have many more days like today, he brushed it off and told me to suck it up and told me it is not as bad as I am making it seem. So the pizza arrives, we sit the kids down they start fighting over the chairs, the paper plates, and of course the color of cups they each got. Got that quieted down and as I finally get a slice of pizza (the first item of food I had had in front of me all day with the exception of the 6 cups of coffee I had drank) my 4 year old decided to poop her pants at the dinner table. On purpose. She is potty trained, has been for some time. So ladies, maybe you can relate to this, my husband refuses to clean poop from our daughters. He says his hands are too big and he doesn't know how to properly clean their areas, so all poops for the girls are directed at me. So here I am, tried, starving, overwhelmed and ready to cry, cleaning the nastiest poop. Lost my appetite immediately, and had a smell in my nose for the next 3 days. Finally the time had come, the sweet time called bed time. So I started the 2 hour process of bed time stories, hot and cold children, got 8 cups of water, 4 trips to the bathroom, a bowl of cereal, an apple, and explained that there were no monsters in the hallway despite what our 8 year old said. I went into my room and just balled . I balled and balled and balled. Then it hit me, like a ton of bricks in the face. I needed a break. I needed a couple of nights away from my children, my sweet loving, tiny little humans, I needed a break from them. So i got to thinking, where can I go on a moments notice that is far enough away that I can justify not taking them.

So I got a plan together. Our anniversary was coming up. The perfect excuse to get away. So I called my sister and said hey I am surprising my hubby with a trip away for our anniversary. We have not had a weekend away in 12 years. Since we started having children. Now I called her for one reason and one reason only, she works weekends. So the only time she can watch our children is during the week. During the week, the kids have school and being the responsible parent that I am, I will not pull them out of school for vacation...(yeah right, I pull them out for vacation, however, we have already took our vacation this year and they already missed 5 days of school). She agrees to keep them and tells me that Frontier airlines is having a sale. So I hang up with her and get on frontier. I look at all the dates for the sale. I log into our DVC account and see if there is even any availability. There is literally no studios for the first couple of weeks in May. Then boom I find availability. So I hurry up and book the plane tickets. However, the airline did not have the return flight. So I check into Southwest, and they have a return flight for us, and I had enough points for 2 free tickets on the first flight out of MCO on our departure date. Perfect!!!! Now I just had to figure out how to tell the husband and the kids, I am going to Disney!!!!

 

[ljcrochet]

I can't wait to hear how to spring this on your husband and kids.

 

[cantoine]

Telling the Kids...and Husband ​

After I booked our plane tickets, I had to figure out how I was going to tell my DH that I booked us a trip for our anniversary without the children. My DH is amazing, he is very involved in our children's lives, and enjoys our family vacations at Disney. He really does not like to leave our children over night with people. We both have worked as social workers for along time. You can imagine the amount of stuff we have seen and sadly at the hands of close family and friends. It is an occupational habit that we are very over protective of our children. So I knew that telling him we were going away and leaving the kids in Texas for 3 nights was not going to go over well. Last time I attempted to do this, we changed our entire trip to include the kids, the next time I attempted it, we cancelled. I am determined that this will not happen. My DH rarely ever says no to me. He prides himself on making me and his children happy and providing for us. He will say no to me, on rare occasions and generally it has to do with situations regarding the kids. However, he has such a problem saying NO to our children. It is like he is not wired to say no to them. They get away with everything with him. They know he is the yes parent and I am the no parent. When teachers says they are going to call their dad, they respond with OK with a big smile on their face. When teachers say we are calling mom, the fear sets in and their behavior improves almost immediately.

So I am the rip the band-aid off quickly kind of mother. I am the mom on the play ground who tell them to put some spit on it when they skin their knee. My goal as a parent is to NOT raise children who can not function in the real world. My children are taught that life is not fair and that the only way they can have things is through hard work, and even then, they may fall short. I am not saying raising children this way is the right way and every other way is wrong, but this is my way, and it works for us. So I picked the kids up from school and I bought them Popsicle. My kids probably eat like a box of Popsicle in 2 days. We get home, and I sit them down in the living room. I give them all a Popsicle. Then I tell them how May is a very special month and asked if they knew why? My oldest responded with "It is my birthday month" I said "yes it is, but that is not what I am talking about". I explained to them that May is the 9th wedding anniversary for me and their dad. I then explained that since DS is turning 12 that means for 12 years, I have been in mommy mode 100% and now that they are all older, and gone are the days of midnight feedings and diapers that I plan on going away with their dad this May for 3 nights to Disney". They all started crying and screaming that was not fair. I told them to suck it up and learn to understand that when they become adults, they will be traveling just the same. My DD said she was glad we were going away and that she thinks I need a break LOL.

So the whole reason I told the kids before my DH was because these kids keep secrets like I keep 100,000.00 cars. It is non existent. They can't hold in a secret to save their lives. They tell everything to everyone. Never tell these kids anything that you do not want the entire community to know. So as planned, as soon as DH walked through the door that night, they ran up to him like the little spawn that they are and said "daddy daddy, mommy is taking you to Disney for your anniversary". He paused and said "what"? My 8 year old said "yeah mommy is taking you to Disney and we are staying with Titi Nani for 3 nights" . He looked confused, and my 5 year old said "mommy needs a break". Then my 4 year old said "please daddy, don't you want to take mommy to Disney"...and just like that, he accepted the defeat and said "YES"....

 

[cantoine]

The Details ​

I was very limited on availability with DVC. Generally our trips are booked 11 months out. I was looking at weeks out, so availability was slim. I was able to find a studio for the dates of May 22-25. However, when I went to book them, the website crashed. This issue continued for the entire night. So I gave up and figured I would try again in the morning. Yeah right. Same issue. Finally I contacted member services and they explained to me I needed to clear my cookies. Several other members had reported the same thing and had success once they cleared their cookies. I was like clear my what? When I finally figured it out by asking my husband where the cookies were in the computer and him having a good laugh at my expense, he helped me clear the cookies. Sadly, once the issue was resolved the studio's for the 22nd were all booked Luckily my ninja mom skills kicked in and I was able to improvise...
I was able to secure a 1 bedroom unit for one night and a studio for the next 2 nights. Thank you Disney Gods
Where I was a little pissy that I had to spend for 1 night what the other 2 nights cost me in points, in the end this little mishap is responsible for the entire theme of this vacation. As you can see in my signature we go to Disney a lot. Being DVC owners we have the flexibility to take 1 long trip a year or several smaller trips. We do both, but needless to say we go about two-three times per year. We have stayed at almost all of the DVC resorts. There are only a few we have not stayed in. So with the little mishap that happen with the availability I decided this trip we will only be doing things we have never done. We will stay in a resort we never stayed in, eat at places we have never eaten at, with the exception of 1 place, and do activities that we have never been able to do. So with all that in mind here are the details so far for our trip....

Dates

May 22nd-25th 2017

Travel
Frontier Airlines to MCO
Southwest to AUS

Resort
Check in May 22, 2017





one bedroom unit near hospitality house






May 23-May 25
Deluxe Studio

​

I would have preferred to have finished out my stay in the 1 bedroom but that was not possible with there not being a studio available on the 22nd. But I am actually excited to stay here. We have never stayed here, due to the lack of kid appeal. But with it being just the 2 of us, and the theme of this trip of not doing what we always do, it is the perfect accommodations for us. So our flights are booked, our resort is reserved...now it is time to get a plan together...

 

[cantoine]

Things have been so crazy for us the past couple of days...I feel like I haven't had time to plan anything at all. I have managed to select our magic bands, a nice red for myself and blue for DH. Our Disney's Magical express has been set up. I completed our online check in, we requested a top floor close to elevators in hopes it will get us into one of the 3 buildings with elevators. Not that we mind at all if we do not get those buildings. I purchased a 1 day park ticket to one of the 3 parks that are not Magic Kingdom. We are having a disagreement on which park to go to. So no fast passes have been made yet. We are also going back and forth about whether we want a dining plan, or not. DH is a big eater, and I love food. We are just unsure if we want to be on such a tight schedule like always or if we want to go with the flow. Hopefully we will have all this figured out by the weekend. But most likely not. Decisions Decisions

 

[cantoine]

Accommodation Update​

My 11 month booking window opened up yesterday and while I was in the resort availability tool, I rechecked the May dates DH and I will be there. We still could not find any studios for the 22nd, but we did see that 2 new resorts had opened up for the 23rd and the 24th. DH was home sick yesterday as well, so I was able to wake him up, and discuss the options with him. We called up member services and had our accommodations changed for the 23rd and 24th. So now our trip looks like this:

22nd- 1 Bedroom Villa at Old Key West​

23rd- Deluxe Studio at Board Walk



24th-Deluxe Studio at Poly


​

I am pretty excited about the new resorts. We figured because we will not have the kids with us, resort hopping would be a lot easier. We started making a plan for what exactly we would like to do while we are out there. We are trying to figure out if we want to have a set schedule or if we just want to go with the flow...

 

[once_upon_a_melora]

Following along!!

 

[cantoine]

Day 1 May 22, 2017 ​

We will be arriving in Orlando at 4:05 pm pending we have no flight delays. Since there is only 2 of us on this trip, we decided that we only will need 1 bag. We plan on checking our luggage at the airport. Hopefully we will be on Magical express by 4:20 pm. I figure we will arrive at OKW at around 5:15 ish . Since we are getting in later, we decided to not do our park day this day. One of our favorite quick service places to eat is POFQ. We have a quick service dining plan on this reservation. So we plan on heading over to POFQ to eat a quick dinner and then walking over to Riverside to do a carriage ride. We have never taken a carriage ride together, I have been on the carriage ride with our DS and with all my daughters, but never with DH. So I am looking forward to it. We have the ability to pool hop, being DVC owners, so we are trying to figure out if we want to head back to OKW for a drink or 5 at the pool bar, or if we want to head back over to POFQ and have a few drinks there. Either way I plan on spending the better part of the evening with a drink in my hand, my hubby by my side and some good ole fashion conversation with out interruption!

 

[cantoine]

Following along!!

Thanks for following along!!!! Welcome to my craziness known as Disney Planning

 

[cantoine]

Day 2 May 23, 2017 ​

After we check out of OKW, we plan on grabbing some breakfast. I generally do not cook while on vacation, I barely cook when I am not on vacation . Then we are dropping our bags off at bell services to transfer to BWV. We decided this will be our park day. As of now, we will be heading to HS for the day.

I have fast passes for: Rock n Roller Coaster and Star Tours.

We have a Deluxe Dining Plan for this night reservation, so the plan is as follows:

Breakfast- QS from the following evenings dining plan

Lunch- Mama Melrose- 1 TS

Dinner- Cape May- 1 TS

After we hang around the park for a few hours, we plan on heading to BWV to check in. I want to spend some time at the pool before getting showered up for Dinner at Cape May. I ordered an awesome bathing suit and I can not wait to lounge around in it.



Then I would like to order some ice cream from Beaches and Cream to go, then head back over to BW and go to either Jelly Rolls or the Atlantic Dance Hall. My goal is 3 margaritas for the evening. We shall see how that works out. I figure since I am staying at BW it will be easy for me to get back to my room with out incident.

 

[cantoine]

An Indecisive Wife and a Dress ​

I ordered this dress not to long ago, and when I saw it I instantly thought Animal Kingdom. So I bought the dress, and of course I have no where to wear this dress to. Yesterday, I was in my closet and I see the dress, and I say to myself I think I am going to bring this dress to Disney and go eat at AKL in my dress. Well that prompted a complete re planning of the entire trip and a very annoyed husband

Let us start at the beginning:

The Dress


Isn't it pretty? Doesn't it totally scream Animal Kingdom?

We were supposed to go to Hollywood Studios. But to be honest, I really did not want to do Hollywood Studios. I wanted to do Epcot, but the husband did not want to do Epcot. I wanted to eat at Jiko, wearing my dress. That prompted me to look into Animal Kingdom park, where I discovered this whole night time stuff, which I fell in love with and just absolutely wanted to do. But then I came back to reality and figured I would be spending so much time on buses to get from OKW and BWV to AK and AKL. So I told DH I think I wanted to change resorts again . He about killed me!

I called Member Services and after a 20 min conversation I was able to get the following resort changes

May 22 -May 24th

1 bedroom Savannah View Kidani Village





​

DH was very cranky that our resorts had changed for the 3rd time. But I showed him the Jacuzzi Tub and he was all better and on board with the change. Especially when I told him we can order room service and eat a meal on our patio with the animals in the back ground...And just like that I was his Bubbies again

and I get to wear the Dress!!!!

This change was a much needed change. I found all of our plans were going into default mode of all our other trips. I was not happy that we were doing the same things, and eating at the same restaurants. Now, we are in all new territory. We have spent literally 5 hours over 7 trips in Animal Kingdom Park. We have only eaten at Boma, and have never had the King size bed to ourselves! I can not wait to...stretch out and not have a kids foot in my butt. I am making ADR's and Fast Pass selections this evening.

What is every ones MUST DO's in AK and places to EAT!!!!

 

[cantoine]

ADR'S​

We finally have ADR's!!!! We are trying all new restaurants and are completely going out of our comfort zone on these. We decided on a deluxe dining plan, for the first 2 nights then no dining plan for the last night.

Our plans are as follows

May 22-Arrival Day

Dinner- Yachtsman (4 TS)

May 23- Park Day

Breakfast- Rainforest Cafe (using gift cards we got for free)

Lunch- Sanaa (2 TS)

Dinner- Boma (2 TS)

May 24- Resort Day

Breakfast In bed!

Lunch- QS from Mara on the patio

Dinner- Jiko (4 TS)

30 more days!!!!