Baseball and Magic! Mar 2014 PTR, Um- make that TWO trips please!

[francis6306]

I'm still here!!! Are you still here? awe thanks!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Okay, so I'm a day late, but you know Christmas lasts for me the whole month, so it's all good!

I'll do a quick "real life" update, but I just wanted to let you know that my trip planning has kinda stalled for right now, since I'm waiting on Shelley's final commitment. I may change things around if things with her trip change at all. Until her hubby is able to finalize his class schedule, she can't finalize their trip. No big deal - December has been CRAZY for me.

So, a little pictorial about how crazy Dec has been for us!

We had to meet Santa at the school Holly Day (yes, that's what they call it! haha ).


Catie wasn't really excited about getting close to him.


EIU made it to the playoffs! Woohoo!


And we had a big banquet for the Marching band!


Then we had to go to MS for Corey's graduation!

Catie did pretty good for being 2.5 y/o and needing to stay quiet!








We also went to a local nature center for a fun day of Christmas activities! We made ornaments:


Played in the "snow" inside:


Got to meet the "Christmas Bunny" and some Reindeer, but I don't have a picture of that, because Catie was FREAKING out about it! But she loved the bunny!


We also had a children's choir thing at church:


And then we had some gifts to open over Christmas Eve and Day! I won't bore you with all the gift opening pictures, but here the girls are with the gifts that they gave each other! Cortlyn got a soccer ball and Catie got a Sofia doll. She LOVES that thing!



Hopefully we will get some planning going again soon! But I'm so happy for the reason for the delay in planning! haha!

 

[sbprincess]

Awe - love the update! Even though I've seen most of those on Facebook, it's nice to see them all together again!

Ummm, you need to call me! I just tried you and you didn't answer, missy. I'm about to book my airfare. Our dates haven't changed, but some of the day-to-day may have. Hard to explain here. But I will say, we're now considering getting APs... Is that enough to get your attention!?!?!?

 

[francis6306]

Awe - love the update! Even though I've seen most of those on Facebook, it's nice to see them all together again!

Ummm, you need to call me! I just tried you and you didn't answer, missy. I'm about to book my airfare. Our dates haven't changed, but some of the day-to-day may have. Hard to explain here. But I will say, we're now considering getting APs... Is that enough to get your attention!?!?!?

That got my attention! Of course, we have actually already talked before I saw this here! Haha. Glad things are working out for you!

 

[khaleesi]

Merry belated Christmas!!!! I'm very sad that you didn't get your Mickey flash drive. Boo. I got mine a couple weeks ago and told everyone at work (who just don't "get" it) that it was because Mickey felt bad for me for having to get more blood work... Your children are probably more grown up than I am. LOL.

Congratulations to your hubby! I love that they reserved camera spots for people taking pictures! That's just such a considerate thing to do. And the holiday dinner with the International students was great as well. I think it would be really rewarding to live in a college town and get to interact in those kind of ways.

 

[francis6306]

Merry belated Christmas!!!! I'm very sad that you didn't get your Mickey flash drive. Boo. I got mine a couple weeks ago and told everyone at work (who just don't "get" it) that it was because Mickey felt bad for me for having to get more blood work... Your children are probably more grown up than I am. LOL.

Congratulations to your hubby! I love that they reserved camera spots for people taking pictures! That's just such a considerate thing to do. And the holiday dinner with the International students was great as well. I think it would be really rewarding to live in a college town and get to interact in those kind of ways.

I thought that was nice as well! Although, as I found, sitting right in front of that bad, because people kept walking in front of us to get to the spot… oh well!



GUESS WHAT!?!?

Today, I got an envelope that had Incredibles on the front- and inside was OUR family's magnet about our upcoming trip! I'm very excited that the Mouse didn't forget me in his useless marketing plan!

 

[francis6306]

Just sharing this little bit of Disney Magic with you guys! New sweepstake for 2014!! Let's get our winning on!

 

[jenseib]

Who knew there was a Christmas bunny? Too cute

 

[emmysmommy]

Goodness I was behind! I've seen so many photos on FB that it felt like I was staying caught up.

Yay! Glad that Shelley and her hubby are able to travel with you guys. That makes the trip super sweet and some more great memories.

Whew! You finally got your Incredibles package. Until I saw that you got yours I was going to keep quiet about the one that I just received for our May trip. I haven't opened it yet so I can extend the anticipation and excitement a little longer.

A belated congratulations to Corey on his doctoral. That is such a huge accomplishment and I know you must be so very proud.

And may is say..... YAY for double digits!!!!

 

[francis6306]

Who knew there was a Christmas bunny? Too cute

Yes, a much lesser known cousin of the Easter Bunny??? Apparently the Christmas Bunny hops up to Santa and tells him what you want for Christmas as well!

Goodness I was behind! I've seen so many photos on FB that it felt like I was staying caught up.

Yay! Glad that Shelley and her hubby are able to travel with you guys. That makes the trip super sweet and some more great memories.

Whew! You finally got your Incredibles package. Until I saw that you got yours I was going to keep quiet about the one that I just received for our May trip. I haven't opened it yet so I can extend the anticipation and excitement a little longer.

A belated congratulations to Corey on his doctoral. That is such a huge accomplishment and I know you must be so very proud.

And may is say..... YAY for double digits!!!!

I am GLAD you waited to tell me! I would have been REALLY upset! Sigh… I just want the cute thumbdrive. Why is Mickey not sending me one? I love my magnet though, so I'll be thankful for that!


So, Shelley emails me this morning and OF COURSE, she has decided to change her WHOLE trip. I suppose I can't be too upset with her.I'll let her come on here and tell us about her changes.

I FINALLY get to go see Saving Mr. banks today!!!! YIPPEE!!!!!

 

[Woth2982]

Looks like you all have been very busy leading up to Christmas! Did Catie ever warm up to Santa? Congrats to Corey on graduating! Did he get is masters or PHD? I can't remember what you had said. Such a cute little bunny! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

 

[francis6306]

Looks like you all have been very busy leading up to Christmas! Did Catie ever warm up to Santa? Congrats to Corey on graduating! Did he get is masters or PHD? I can't remember what you had said. Such a cute little bunny! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

She loves Santa like she loves characters…. at a distance! She WANTS to like him, but he isn't someone she is comfortable with yet. Soon though, maybe???

Corey got a DMA actually. Doctoral of Music Arts. It's a performance degree, rather than a PhD. He concentrated in Wind Band Conducting.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Playing catch-up after the holidays. Thanks for posting the pictures of the family enjoying Christmas and celebrating Corey's graduation. What a nice lookin' family you've got there!

I always hate that lull that comes between planning the trip, booking ADRs and waiting. As we all know the waiting is the hardest part.

 

[sbprincess]

Hello again everyone!

Yes, as Christen said, Brian and I have FINALLY made our plans for March! I feel very good about what we decided so I'm certain they will not change.

Here's the backstory for what took me so long to commit: As you may or may not remember, Brian is a full-time student. He is starting his final semester at a community college on Monday. But because he's ultimately going for his bachelor's degree, there are several classes that he needs that the 2-yr school doesn't offer. So, he does dual enrollment at The University of NC Greensboro for the additional classes. Well, the ridiculous thing is, even though these schools are in the same city, their Spring Breaks are different weeks! So annoying. For us to do this trip, we needed to figure out our dates and which classes he would miss. For some reason, I had it in my head that we needed to go March 7-11, causing him to miss his Friday classes at UNCG. I was SUPER uncomfortable with this though because those classes are Physics, Calculus II and Japanese II. (Yes, my dh is taking those...I do not envy him ) We had booked our package with Disney for those dates but hadn't committed to purchasing our flight. Something always stopped me from going through with the purchase. Well, as I was driving to work on Friday, something clicked and I had an idea. Since Brian's class on Wednesday ends at 9:00, what if we left Wednesday early afternoon (the 12th) and came back Sunday? That would only cause him to miss his one Thursday class (Sociology) and one Friday class (Communications) that week and NONE of his classes at UNCG (the super hard ones). So I search flights - YES, it works! (And we could get a flight out of Greensboro, instead of Raleigh or Charlotte - double excitement!!) I called Disney to make sure we could still stay at POFQ (although I would have moved resorts if necessary) - YES, that works too! All elements seemed to align and I felt 1000 times better about this plan than I ever had about the previous dates.

Only one thing left to do - break the news to Christen, womp womp. I felt terrible that she had already done some work to include us in their plans and now I went and changed everything. But it is still early. And we hadn't selected our FP+ times yet. If she was irritated with me though, she didn't show it We were able to move things around pretty easily.

Now Brian and I are able to do CRT breakfast with them on Thursday and Teppan Edo on Friday. We are so excited about both! Oh, and Christen, I was right about two things: 1) As much as Brian and I wouldn't do CRT (again) just the two of us, he completely agreed that he didn't care about the cost. He was glad I made us the ADR for that morning. And 2) he said there is absolutely NO WAY we could get there Wednesday night and wait until Thursday at 10 to see y'all. I told you!

So, my thought is this - Our flight lands at MCO around 5:30. I think we should get to POFQ around 7-ish. I know Wednesday is your break day right now. I would love for us to eat dinner at DTD that night (not with y'all, of course). What if we check-in, go drop our stuff in the room, and either y'all be in DTD for a meet-up (around 8) or we come to your room???

 

[francis6306]

Hello again everyone!

Yes, as Christen said, Brian and I have FINALLY made our plans for March! I feel very good about what we decided so I'm certain they will not change.

Here's the backstory for what took me so long to commit: As you may or may not remember, Brian is a full-time student. He is starting his final semester at a community college on Monday. But because he's ultimately going for his bachelor's degree, there are several classes that he needs that the 2-yr school doesn't offer. So, he does dual enrollment at The University of NC Greensboro for the additional classes. Well, the ridiculous thing is, even though these schools are in the same city, their Spring Breaks are different weeks! So annoying. For us to do this trip, we needed to figure out our dates and which classes he would miss. For some reason, I had it in my head that we needed to go March 7-11, causing him to miss his Friday classes at UNCG. I was SUPER uncomfortable with this though because those classes are Physics, Calculus II and Japanese II. (Yes, my dh is taking those...I do not envy him ) We had booked our package with Disney for those dates but hadn't committed to purchasing our flight. Something always stopped me from going through with the purchase. Well, as I was driving to work on Friday, something clicked and I had an idea. Since Brian's class on Wednesday ends at 9:00, what if we left Wednesday early afternoon (the 12th) and came back Sunday? That would only cause him to miss his one Thursday class (Sociology) and one Friday class (Communications) that week and NONE of his classes at UNCG (the super hard ones). So I search flights - YES, it works! (And we could get a flight out of Greensboro, instead of Raleigh or Charlotte - double excitement!!) I called Disney to make sure we could still stay at POFQ (although I would have moved resorts if necessary) - YES, that works too! All elements seemed to align and I felt 1000 times better about this plan than I ever had about the previous dates.

See what I mean? There was no way I could explain all of that madness to you people! MUST easier if you heard it (uhhhh…. read it?) from the horse's mouth! I am SO glad things worked out so well for them and really, I think this works out BETTER for all of us. Gives them more time in the parks with us and still gives them some days without us around.

Only one thing left to do - break the news to Christen, womp womp. I felt terrible that she had already done some work to include us in their plans and now I went and changed everything. But it is still early. And we hadn't selected our FP+ times yet. If she was irritated with me though, she didn't show it We were able to move things around pretty easily.

I wasn't irritated at all! I was just worried about making things work with the "new" plan! lol

Now Brian and I are able to do CRT breakfast with them on Thursday and Teppan Edo on Friday. We are so excited about both! Oh, and Christen, I was right about two things: 1) As much as Brian and I wouldn't do CRT (again) just the two of us, he completely agreed that he didn't care about the cost. He was glad I made us the ADR for that morning. And 2) he said there is absolutely NO WAY we could get there Wednesday night and wait until Thursday at 10 to see y'all. I told you!

Yes, I need to share the new schedule, because what you thought you knew about my trip means NOTHING anymore! …. well, not nothing! It's just changed a few things around, which is good. Just a lot of change.

So, my thought is this - Our flight lands at MCO around 5:30. I think we should get to POFQ around 7-ish. I know Wednesday is your break day right now. I would love for us to eat dinner at DTD that night (not with y'all, of course). What if we check-in, go drop our stuff in the room, and either y'all be in DTD for a meet-up (around 8) or we come to your room???

The only thing we have planned for Wednesday is breakfast at the Grand Floridian. I want to take the girls to the pool during the day at some point and I want to go to DTD- but we have no locked in plans. We were considering having dinner at Boatwright's this night, but I wasn't even going to make a ressie for it, in case we ended up going to DTD.

 

[francis6306]

Okay, I think something is wrong with Safari, because it has been dragging SO much when I've been trying to type anything on the Dis. I mean, I can type a whole paragraph and it take at least 2-3 minutes to actually show the typing. AWFUL! I decided to try it out using Firefox, and BAM! normal typing again! I'm not sure why it's suddenly dragging so much, but for today, I'll use firefox. The internet is so weird sometimes!

Okay, so now that we kinda know the other plans, I can actually start to feel confident about my own trip plans! Not everything has changed, but there has been a MAJOR flip in some of my days/ressies.

Sunday- MK, 'Ohana dinner- Nothing changing here. We ALWAYS start in Magic Kingdom for our trips, so this is just normal! Park is open until midnight, but I doubt we will be there past 8 or 9. I'm REALLY hoping to get to watch Wishes though, so MAYBE!!!

Monday- AK, Tusker House Breakfast- THIS is changed! This had been the EPCOT day, but, Shelley isn't a huge fan of AK so this was a fairly easy flip for us. I called and I was SO excited when they said that TH had a ressie for 8:05 on Tuesday. This makes me happy, because we may just go STRAIGHT to the Safari and forget about getting a FP for this ride.

Tuesday- HS, Hollywood and Vine Breakfast- Nothing changed here. I was fairly sure I'd be canceling this breakfast and either try something else, but... it looks like I'll be keeping this because they are adding Sofia and Doc McStuffins to the character line-up! So excited about this addition, because we LOVE Sofia at our house. Catie even got the dress for Christmas. I'm thinking I could create a Doc outfit for Cortlyn on this day. FUN stuff!

Wednesday- Break day, 1900 Park Fare Breakfast- Nothing has changed here... yet... as Shelley and I brain storm, this could change a little! I want to make sure that we are able to swim at the pools this day for SURE. I really hope that the weather cooperates with this! Port Orleans has two fun pools, and Catie LOVES going on the slides. We have a pool slide at the public pool in our town and Catie wants to ride it solo, since Cortlyn can ride it solo, but Catie is too little and so she has to ride on my lap. She gets so mad about that! lol

Thursday- MK, CRT breakfast- This has changed a little... we already had CRT booked, but when Shelley decided that they would join us for CRT. I'm really excited that they are joining us! It will be a lot of fun for the girls to have Brian and Shelley there with us, since they didn't join us on our first trip.

Friday- EPCOT, Teppan Edo dinner- This has changed a lot! THIS was suppose to be our AK day. But I think we will all have more fun at EPCOT together. The only downside is that the ONLY ressie they had left for TE on this day was 7:10. I'm a little worried about this, since that is SO late and Catie's bedtime is 8 o'clock eastern time. Now, I don't hold hard to bedtimes while in Disney, but you just never know how kids are going to be that close to bedtime. We will certainly have some heavier than usual snacks this afternoon though, since we will want to keep the tiny humans happy! But I PROMISE to all of those in EPCOT and planning on TE this day. I will NOT be the mom that drags her small child into a restaurant unhappy. I do think that Catie will enjoy the show that they put on while cooking. Cortlyn loves hibachi, so it will be fun for her. And I know that this is one of Brian's favorites.

Now, Saturday, is all dependent on HOW we get to Disney and how we plan on LEAVING Disney. Honestly, right now, it is looking more and more like we will be driving. Flights have just not come down enough for me to justify the cost for 4 seats. Plus, since Catie is no longer a lap baby, we'd have to be split up some. Not sure how I'd want to do that right now. If we drive down, then of course, we'd drive home and that means we'd leave sometime on Saturday and drive to Atlanta and then drive the rest of the way on Sunday.

 

[caralyn817]

Fun! I'm loving your plans so far. I'm going to be starting our Pre-Trip Report tonight hopefully. We are planning on doing several of the same restaurants as you guys are. Hopefully, I'll get to see pictures from Hollywood & Vine before we go. Can't wait for more!

 

[francis6306]

Fun! I'm loving your plans so far. I'm going to be starting our Pre-Trip Report tonight hopefully. We are planning on doing several of the same restaurants as you guys are. Hopefully, I'll get to see pictures from Hollywood & Vine before we go. Can't wait for more!

AWe! I'll try and make sure to get those posted as soon as possible for your trip so you will know how it went for us!

 

[francis6306]

So, tomorrow is my Fastpass+ picking day! I'm trying to figure out WHAT I could do with this and I was lucky enough to find this thread about the system.

These are the ones I'd LIKE to be able to do. Granted, I'm picking more than 3, but I am just beginning this process! I copied from the list in that link, you lose the "tiered" highlights and colors, but know I am aware of them and trying to make my decisions!


MAGIC KINGDOM
~Cortlyn seems to be my "rider" and I can see the two of us doing rides that Corey would want to do, so we may do some FP+'s for him that would work for Catie… Is that possible or would he need to create an account and do his own FP's?
** We do have two days for this park, so we can have more options...
A - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ~ Cortlyn is really excited about this ride, since Splash Mountain is going to be down.
A*- Enchanted Tales With Belle
A - Space Mountain ~ If BTMR goes well, then SM could be a go for Cortlyn as well!
B - Meet Rapunzel and a Princess Friend at Princess Fairytale Hall
B*- Pirates of the Caribbean
B - The Barnstormer ~ I can't wait to take Catie on this ride!
C - Mickey's PhilharMagic ~ Since I love MY conductor, I love this show…

EPCOT (Tiering In Effect)
** This just sucks. No good way around it.
A - Soarin'
A - Test Track ~ I have NEVER rode this ride! However, if Catie is close enough to ride Soaring, I can't make the poor kid wait in a two hour long line!
C*- Meet Disney Pals at the Epcot Character Spot ~Maybe… maybe not…
C*- Spaceship Earth
C*- The Seas with Nemo & Friends~ anyone know how this works? Seems like this would be a hard location for a FP, but we usually ride this later in the evening and there hasn't been much of a line!

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS (Tiering In Effect)
A - Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
A - The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
A - Toy Story Midway Mania~We will be in the park early… We will just sit in line to ride first thing and hope for the best? I may use a "wait and see" approach with TSM and Star Tours?
B - Star Tours
C*- Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage~ I haven't seen the B&TB show yet. Amazing, right?
C*- Voyage of the Little Mermaid *Priority Access

ANIMAL KINGDOM
A - Expedition Everest
A - Kilimanjaro Safaris~ I MAY book one and then change it depending on how the wait looks…
B - DINOSAUR~ Cortlyn may or may not want to ride Dinosaur, so I may or may not book that for us. It's so dark and she doesn't like that...
B*- Festival of the Lion King *Priority Access
B*- Finding Nemo *Priority Access
B - Primeval Whirl

 

[jenseib]

I am so worried about our stay since we are going offsite. No FP+ till we are in the parks and it sucks!

I think Festival of the Lion King closed ...which sucks.

 

[francis6306]

I am so worried about our stay since we are going offsite. No FP+ till we are in the parks and it sucks!

I think Festival of the Lion King closed ...which sucks.

You are right! I meant to delete that.(I literally just copied and pasted and then deleted things I didn't want and added notes!) I'm so bummed about that being closed, because we skipped it last time.

I hate that for you as well! I was hoping you'd still have the regular options, but it doesn't seem like you will…