Oh my..... Yayyyyyyy
Finished my last day at work this afternoon, and am oscillating between doing the happy "I'm sooooo excited dance", and the "OMG We leave in less than 36 hours" panic dash. It's really freaking out my DDs.
DD13 is all packed (except for 2 pair of jeans I should be hemming instead of checking in on the DISboards), and she's very happy that her bag is only 3/4 full, so has space for shopping. Little does she know, but I plan on getting at least one (or two) extra cases on our travels 'just in case' - I just can't share that with her just yet, else she'd like to fill one case all by herself!! (Probably after the Outlet Mall in Orlando, and that's before Iceland and Paris!) DD15's clothes are all laid out ready to pack - my problem with her is getting her to take enough clothes, or at least something other than jeans and t-shirts. The funny thing is... when DD13 was packing she was having great difficulty in deciding which 'nice dress' to bring along for our dinner at V&A's, and our night at the symphony in Iceland. I told her she could take both, but then she wouldn't have so much space if she wanted to buy a dress on her travels, (needless to say only 1 dress is packed). Well, when I was going over DD15's clothes with her, I noted that she didn't have a Disney hoodie packed (she has 2 NBC ones, but only had a plain North Face Polar fleece out to take) - her response... "That's for the same reason that DD13's only taking one dress". I did have to
- DD15 doesn't like shopping AT ALL, unless there's a Disney logo on the front of the shop that is
I'm off to do my packing now - shouldn't take long as I have it all planned out - 8 sets of clothes suitable for in the parks, 1 fancy outfit for V&A's, 1 nice (but comfy) outfit for dinner. Lots of layers, a couple of polar fleeces, my Disney Hoodie, pj's underwear and shoes. If DD13's bag is anything to go by, we'll probably have 3 bags around 18kg plus one small wheelaboard sized (with toiletries etc in it), that we'll check. I'll have 1 wheelaboard with a change of clothes each in it, plus my laptop & iPad, and then my Pacsafe handbag with wallet, phone & travel documents, and the girls are planning on taking their school backpacks with their onboard entertainment, and they have the small Pacsafe handbags for their wallet, phone & camera. That means we'll be using less than half our luggage allowance on the way over - BIG
It's a far cry from the days when we were living in Southern Africa and I'd travel back to Australia by myself with the girls and have 1 wheel aboard, one gigantic Kapoochi backpack/Nappy Bag, and the girls two small wheelaboards to manipulate around the airport (plus wrangling a 3yo & 18mo). In those days I loved Singapore Airport's little luggage trolleys they had airside - perfect size for a bag and a toddler sitting on top!
Just one other thing I need to share with you (especially if your kids, or you, are into characters at WDW or USO), and this link especially if you're going to
MVMCP -
Kenny the Pirate's Blog Kenny has the scheduled character appearances for each WDW park up on his website - awesome if you're after a particular photo or autograph.
And thanks to miss.potatohead for your advice about the tickets - I bought them online through the DL website - even though they were slightly cheaper on the expedia site here in Aus, the idea that we can save quite a bit of time and just hand over our printed pdf's at the gate won us over
Thanks also to areweindisneyyet for sharing your experiences with your phone and wifi in europe - we aren't even going to bother with the travelsim as my sister also has an iPad, so we'll just facetime with her to catch up with family. My DDs will stay in touch with friends via Facebook, and also with facetime through their iPod Touches.
That better do me for now - have got a suitcase to pack, then tomorrow is a clean the pool, tie down or put away everything in the yard, clean out the fridge etc. sort of day, but only until mid afternoon as friends are coming over to help DD13 have a mini-birthday party before we leave. After that is a Disney movie marathon to make sure we're nice and tired for a quick night's sleep before getting up at 4am to start our adventure to DL.
Hopefully then next time I post here I'll be sitting back in the Qantas International Lounge at Brisbane Airport waiting for our flight to LAX on Saturday morning - Wish me luck