April/May 2014 Surprise Trip! Birthday, Princesses and eating with Darth Vadar?!

[jcmaro]

Monday, April 28th!

Today is one of the days that I'm really excited about! We are going to have a little slower start to the day before we get in the car and head about 45 minutes away to...LEGOLAND!!

The kids will have no idea where we are heading and I can't wait to surprise them when we show up there! When I started planning this trip I knew I wanted to take them to LEGOLAND and I have 2 of the free child's ticket but thanks to the Disboards I have found an even better deal! LEGOLAND has Home School days every Monday until the middle of May, and while Monday wasn't the day I originally planned I quickly switched when I found out the deal! Each student is only $8 and the adults are $25! For less than the price of 1 ticket we will all get in!! I'm so excited and thankful for the person who posted that deal.

Unfortunately for you guys I really have no plan for today. The park is only open from 10-5 so we will stay for most of the day, or until we do everything we want to do. We will probably grab something to snack on in the car from the room or food court, eat lunch in the park and grab dinner out somewhere, maybe stopping at Downtown Disney? It will all depend on how the day goes. This is going to be one of the highlights for J. He such a Lego fan and wants to go to LEGOLAND but has no idea that there is one in Florida!

That's all for today! Tomorrow I'll update with our plans for Tuesday, April 29th. We are back in the World and heading to the one park we haven't made it to yet...Animal Kingdom!!

 

[jcmaro]

This new FP+ business has thrown me for a loop! I'm just thankful we're going at the end of May so I have some time to get my ducks back in a row (hopefully) after they roll it out!

We plan to do Pick-a-Pearl this trip! Never done it, but I think my oldest will get a kick out of it! And it will be something fun to do with just us girls... me, my MIL and my oldest! I think our 3 year old might just be too little to "get it" so we'll save hers for another trip!

The waiting and not know when it will happen, or if it will happen before we go is the worst! The only thing it would change for us is the park hopping. I feel like we waste so many fast passes at Epcot because we only really need them for Soarin' and Test Track.

Following along. Super excited for you guys. And what a great idea for your surprise. We are going in Dec and it will be a surprise for our kids, if I can wait that long, and we are trying for the last minute surprise....gonna be hard.

Your plans look great!! Can't to hear more about it.

Welcome! It is so hard to keep it from them but I'm really excited for the reveal! I will probably never keep it a secret again though!

 

[jcmaro]

Tuesday, April 29th. It's Animal Kingdom day! This is our only scheduled Animal Kingdom day so hopefully we can get everything done that we want to do.

Fast Passes!

Expedition Everest - 11:25 - 12:25 pm
(J loved this last time and R has been waiting to be tall enough to ride it. I'm sure it will be a highlight for them!)

DINOSAUR - 12:55 - 1:55 pm
(This is a maybe. J and R both were really scared on this ride last time but have said they want to do it the next time so we will see.)

Kilimanjaro Safaris -4:00 - 5:00 pm
(We've never done the Safari late in the day so we are taking a chance on this. We are hoping to catch the standby line first thing in the morning so we can do it twice!)

Dining!

Tusker House - 8:25am
(We've done this breakfast twice and really enjoyed it so it's no surprise it's on our list again!)


Things to do?
- Nemo show! Must do!
- Pocahontas
- Parade - We've never seen it so we should before it's gone!
- Grab lunch/snack at Yak and Yeti counter service? We've never eaten there.

We'll probably grab dinner somewhere, maybe the resort, and call it an early night. Maybe some swimming before bed? Right now we have an early morning planned for tomorrow so we can't be up too late!

 

[jcmaro]

Wednesday, April 30th!

Today is a bit up in the air and I would love some recommendations! Here is the current plan.

Dining

Chef Mickey - 7:30am
(I'm really not feeling this. It's early! And we have a lot of breakfasts booked and since we see most of the same characters at Tusker House I'm really leaning towards cancelling this one.)


Fast Passes

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - 9:00 - 10:00 am
(As you can see we are planning on heading to HS for the morning and of course I can't pass up my favorite ride!!)

Toy Story Midway Mania! - 10:00 - 11:00 am
(Can't pass this up!)

Star Tours -11:00 - 12:00 pm
(This is a maybe. It makes me sick so I won't ride it but if the kids want to then they can ride it with dad!)


So our scheduled day ends at noon. The rest of the day may be hitting a few shows that we didn't get done on our first day here, or going back to the resort, or hopping to another park. Whatever the kids want to do! As long as I can get a cupcake from Starring Rolls we can do whatever they want!!

That's all for today! I can't wait to share our plans for May 1st. It's N's 4th birthday and there's so many special things planned for her, I can't wait!!

 

[jcmaro]

Well, as I imagined we have had a couple of dining changes already!

Cancelled
- 50s Prime Time on Saturday
- Chef Mickey on Wednesday

Added
- 50s Prime Time on Wednesday

We decided that 6 sit down breakfasts were way too many so we are cancelling our early Chef Mickey which left us with a day with no reservations. It only made sense to switch our 50s Prime Time to that day since we are going to be at HS anyway!

I'll be back tomorrow with another update!

 

[anniebabymu]

Wednesday, April 30th!

Today is a bit up in the air and I would love some recommendations! Here is the current plan.

Dining

Chef Mickey - 7:30am
(I'm really not feeling this. It's early! And we have a lot of breakfasts booked and since we see most of the same characters at Tusker House I'm really leaning towards cancelling this one.)


Fast Passes

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - 9:00 - 10:00 am
(As you can see we are planning on heading to HS for the morning and of course I can't pass up my favorite ride!!)

Toy Story Midway Mania! - 10:00 - 11:00 am
(Can't pass this up!)

Star Tours -11:00 - 12:00 pm
(This is a maybe. It makes me sick so I won't ride it but if the kids want to then they can ride it with dad!)


So our scheduled day ends at noon. The rest of the day may be hitting a few shows that we didn't get done on our first day here, or going back to the resort, or hopping to another park. Whatever the kids want to do! As long as I can get a cupcake from Starring Rolls we can do whatever they want!!

That's all for today! I can't wait to share our plans for May 1st. It's N's 4th birthday and there's so many special things planned for her, I can't wait!!

Looks good! Can't wait to hear about the fun birthday surprises! We'll be there over my DD's 3rd birthday and I can't wait!

Well, as I imagined we have had a couple of dining changes already!

Cancelled
- 50s Prime Time on Saturday
- Chef Mickey on Wednesday

Added
- 50s Prime Time on Wednesday

We decided that 6 sit down breakfasts were way too many so we are cancelling our early Chef Mickey which left us with a day with no reservations. It only made sense to switch our 50s Prime Time to that day since we are going to be at HS anyway!

I'll be back tomorrow with another update!

I think this was a good call!

 

[dreamer17555]

Surprising my 12 yo with a Disney trip just a bit after yours (May 10-17th). Following along. Think the Easter Basket reveal will be great!

 

[jcmaro]

Surprising my 12 yo with a Disney trip just a bit after yours (May 10-17th). Following along. Think the Easter Basket reveal will be great!

Welcome! I'm so glad Easter is only 11 days away because I'm about to burst!

 

[jcmaro]

It's Birthday Day!!

Thursday, May 1st, N's 4th birthday! The birthday that we will never, ever be able to top!

We are heading back to the Magic Kingdom for a day filled with stuff we have never done in honor of the birthday girl!

First up...Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique! Both girls will be visiting here for the first time. I have their costumes already, Cinderella for N and Aurora for R, but I'm leaving the hairstyle up to them.

After the primping we will head upstairs to our 9:35am breakfast reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table, another first for us! And just in case we aren't princessed out at that point we will head to our first fast pass of the day...


Meet Anna and Elsa with a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall - 10:55 - 11:55 am
Meet Anna and Elsa with a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall - 11:05 - 12:05 pm

Anna and Elsa!!!! It took a lot of time to get it all worked out but I'm soooooo excited that we got fast passes!!

We've also have fast passes for Peter Pan in the afternoon and Big Thunder Mountain after dinner. Although I might change the Big Thunder Mountain one to a fast pass for the afternoon parade instead. Still thinking about that one! But let's get back to dinner! Where would a princess want to spend her birthday dinner at? None other than...

Be Our Guest!! I'm so excited about this too! It was barely open during our previous trip and when my husband and I went in October I didn't want to go without the kids. I will probably be in awe a little, ok a lot!, since Belle is "my princess" and I grew up singing the songs and quoting the movie. This also works perfectly since N keeps trying to plan her birthday party (and I keep trying to change the subject!). She is determined that the girls are going to have strawberry cupcakes and the boys have to have chocolate. And she gets really mad at me when I say I want chocolate. "But mommy you can't be a boy. Strawberry is good!!" LOL!! Since I've heard such good things about the cupcakes at BOG she, and everyone else, can get whatever they want!

I have looked into getting a cake for her since it's her birthday and having it delivered to CRT or BOG. But I really want to have the cupcakes at BOG and since that's what she's asking for then I should just save the money, right? It just seems "wrong" not to have a birthday cake. I've also thought about doing the chocolate slipper at CRT. It would be special and a LOT cheaper than a cake. I don't know. I'm all up in the air about that decision!

That's all for today! I'll update soon with what was supposed to be our original last day and what happened to have us add on 2 more days worth of tickets and another night, at a different resort! All of this happened in the last few weeks!!

 

[jcmaro]

Friday, May 2.

This was supposed to be our last day so I had planned a pretty laid back day. Sleep in, pack a little, do a few fast passes at Epcot, eat lunch, do a few more things, go back and pack and do the Pirates and Pals Fireworks Voyage that night to end our trip. Well, most of that changed a few weeks ago but more on that in the next update! Here are the plans for today!


Fast Passes

Test Track -10:00 - 11:00 am

Spaceship Earth - 1:00 - 2:00 pm

Mission: SPACE - 4:10 - 5:10 pm

All of these fast passes are dependent on whether or not we get to do Test Track earlier in the week. Like I said in my previous post I'm not a huge Epcot fan so I'm pretty disappointed in the fast pass selection and feel like they are kind of a waste here. Especially if N doesn't magically grow 3/4 of an inch in the next two weeks. In the end this day may completely change! We will see!

Dining!

We do have a reservation at ...

Via Napoli!
(We have never ate here so I'm really looking forward to it! This is one we are planning on paying out of pocket for and just splitting a couple of pizzas and trying an appetizer. And stopping somewhere else around the world for dessert!)

Pirates and Pals?
After booking several girly things I wanted to do something that J would enjoy and I like trying something new every time so the Pirates and Pals Fireworks Voyage seemed perfect. However, we ended up cancelling this to shift some money in a different direction. More info coming on that in the next update!


So there you have it! A currently minimally planned day that will probably change a lot! The one thing that won't change is we have to pack up to get ready to leave POR Saturday morning. But where are we going? Are we heading home? Find out when I update tomorrow!!

 

[jcmaro]

Yay! It's only 1 week until we tell the kids! I can't wait!!

But back to the update!

Saturday, May 3rd, Part One!

The original plan was to get up, pack the car, and drive the looooooong road home. (A side note but I "work" part time at my church with the majority of my hours being on a Sunday, hence the reason why we were returning home on a Saturday.) But a couple of weeks ago I caught wind of the possibility of a Star Wars breakfast at Sci-fi. We had contemplated going a couple of weeks later when we originally planned our trip to catch Star Wars Weekends but decided we didn't want to go any later in the spring and I thought it would be nice to go over N's birthday. So I was a little disappointed when I heard about these meals. And then they announced the dates. May 4th! Really!! Were we going to miss it by one day? So I had the bright idea of seeing if we could get a reservation early in the morning on the 4th. Would you believe we caught an 8:15?? Then I looked online to book another night at POR. Nothing. Uh oh! Messaged our travel agent. Nothing. Options were AoA, a cabin at FW, and a lot of deluxes way out of our price range. I was so disappointed. And then I looked online and saw that there was availability at the Yacht Club for a lot less than most of the other deluxes. Yes, its definitely a splurge but we decided to book it! And add 2 more days worth of tickets! This is most definitely going to be the most expensive meal of our lives! But it will be worth it especially since no one knows if this is a one time only thing!

That's all for now! Stay tuned for May 3rd, part 2 coming soon! And feel free to say hi if you are following along!!

 

[brookewalker]

Funny...we are staying at por april 23-27 for my daughters 4th birthday!
Still have decided our reveal yet...
Probably gonna let her open magic bands day we leave....

 

[DexLabDeeDee]

Like requested, I'm saying . I've been really busy with work and my brain is toast at the end of the night so I don't have anything to add to your plans but I love to hear about them. Just the thing to get work off my mind.

I do very much agree with your plans to cancel the Chef Mickey's breakfast, especially since you are going to be doing the Star Wars breakfast now. It would just be too much.

Epcot is great - I'm glad that you have an open mind and are going to slow down and take it all in. I don't know how you feel about your children having sugared drinks (I personally LOVE them) but in Japan they have those Ramune drinks in just about any flavor. And they are fun to open!

Oh - btw - your son has great taste. Star Wars rocks.

I keep coming back and editing - lol - my brain is definitely fried from work. Easter is only 5 days away!!!!!

 

[jcmaro]

Like requested, I'm saying . I've been really busy with work and my brain is toast at the end of the night so I don't have anything to add to your plans but I love to hear about them. Just the thing to get work off my mind.

I do very much agree with your plans to cancel the Chef Mickey's breakfast, especially since you are going to be doing the Star Wars breakfast now. It would just be too much.

Epcot is great - I'm glad that you have an open mind and are going to slow down and take it all in. I don't know how you feel about your children having sugared drinks (I personally LOVE them) but in Japan they have those Ramune drinks in just about any flavor. And they are fun to open!

Oh - btw - your son has great taste. Star Wars rocks.

I keep coming back and editing - lol - my brain is definitely fried from work. Easter is only 5 days away!!!!!

My brain is quite fried by the end of the day as well so I completely understand. Hence the reason I haven't updated in a few days. Hopefully I will be able to update tonight!

 

[jcmaro]

In 1 week we should be arriving at my parent's house around this time, hopefully settling the kids down for bed and then crashing on the couch completely too excited to sleep!

But back to the update!

Saturday, May 3rd, Part 2

We have a few fast passes set up for the morning but we are hoping that maybe we will be able to ride the Seven Dwarfs Coaster. Wishing and hoping and... That afternoon we plan on checking into the Yacht Club and spending some time at the pool. I keep trying to grab a reservation at Beaches and Cream for dinner but no luck so far. And then after dinner we will go somewhere, but who knows where?! Honestly, as the week goes on I have fewer and fewer concrete plans since it will all depend on how the beginning of the week goes. And I have to say I'm really excited to have the time there where we don't feel like we need to rush, rush, rush to get everything done. That's all for now!

Next update will be our last day, for real this time!