Best Friends and Disney... What More Could You Ask For?! A SURPRISE October 2018 PTR - Updated 10-3

[DISMomma4]

Intro and Life Update!

After taking a 3 year hiatus from the DisBoards, I’m back! It has been a crazy 3 years and a lot has changed, so I decided I needed a new DisBoards name! (Formerly known as anniebabymu... so from Dis Veteran to Earning My Ears! Ha ha!!) The last entry in my last PTR left everyone with some big news and a trip that was in limbo. We decided to have baby #3, and got babies #3 AND #4! We were expecting TWINS!




The twins were due in October and we had a trip planned for December, because we thought taking one baby with us wouldn’t be a problem. The boys ended up arriving in August 2015, 7 weeks early. Anderson was in the NICU for 26 days and Brooks was there for 51 days, coming home after his due date and still requiring oxygen. Needless to say, we didn’t feel comfortable with leaving the babies at home with anyone despite my MIL insisting that they would be okay with watching them. So our early December trip that I was looking so forward to got put on the back burner.


Two family trips and one SIL trip have happened since cancelling the December trip. The last one we took was the boys’ first trip when they were 22 months old. To say they were a handful would be an understatement! After that trip, I wasn’t sure DH would agree to another Disney trip anytime soon…



We had not been to Disney in the fall since our very first trip back in 2012! I’ve been dying to get back, especially after a few friends went last year and I made shirts for them! So I approached DH with the idea of going during the girls’ Fall Break at school. The boys would be freshly 3, so a LOT more expensive. He said he would think about it.


I was then approached by our very good friend, the one who introduced my DH and I back in college, who told me that they decided to go to Disney for Fall Break! She knew that I had been wanting to go then so she asked if we would want to go with them! Ahhhh!!! Disney with friends! I’ve been dying to go with friends!! I told my DH and how could he say no?!? We decided then to ask my parents if they would watch the twins, so we could save some money and enjoy ourselves with just the big girls and our friends. They said YES!


So there is is!! Epcot Food and Wine Festival and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party… here we come!!! And to top it all off... this is a SURPRISE trip!! Hence the reason I needed to start this PTR. I just need to talk Disney and can't at home without a certain 7 and 10 year old asking questions!

​

(Not my pictures!)

Stay tuned for the Cast, Crew and the details!​

 

[DISMomma4]

So here we go! The obligatory who, what, when, where and why!

“Who”

My girls… Addison and Harper



These two are Disney nuts just like their momma! October 2012 was their first trip to Disney when they were 4 ½ and 18 months. This will be their 6th trip because their mom just can’t stay away! Spoiled rotten!



Addison is our 10 year old and the one who is most likely to figure out our surprise plan before October gets here! Ha ha! The one thing I have going for me is that we already have another trip planned for next July for my in laws 41st wedding anniversary! We will be doing WDW and then a 3 night cruise on the Disney Dream. They know of this trip, so I’m hoping that throws them off enough to not think that we’re going so before then! Anyways… that’s for another PTR! Other than Disney, Addie’s other love is competitive dance! She is starting her 3rd season on our competitive dance team and I love watching her dance! Her dream is to dance at Disney some day!



Here are some of her favorites!

Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios
Favorite Ride: Flights of Passage, The Mountains, Rock n Roller Coaster, Expedition Everest… anything that goes fast.
Favorite Character: Too many to count!
Favorite Snack: Churros!!
Favorite ADR: 50’s Prime Time and Bon Voyage Breakfast



Harper is our 7 year old and my little sweetheart. She is going to be SHOCKED when she finds out her little bestie is at Disney with us! She has grown up with Disney. She doesn’t remember her first trips to Disney, but I do and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything! She is my soccer star and my dancing princess. She’s not into dance as much as her sister is, but she did ask to dance competitively this year too. So she is now on the dance team with her sister, but we did keep her in soccer. I think soccer is going to end up being her love!



Here are some of her favorites!

Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Ride: 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, Peter Pan’s Flight, Soarin’, Toy Story Midway Mania, Flights of Passage
Favorite Character: Rapunzel
Favorite Snack: Mickey Pretzel
Favorite ADR: Bon Voyage Breakfast and Be Our Guest (prior to menu change)

DH… Derek



Oh, I could go on and on about my hubs! He’s the responsible one between the two of us and the voice of reason. If I had it my way, we’d visit Disney multiple times a year so thankfully we have him around to keep food on the table and lights on in the house. Ha ha! But please don’t take his voice of reason as a Dis hater… he loves Disney! If he didn’t, I’d have a much bigger fight on my hands!



Some of his favs!

Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom (sensing a theme here?)
Favorite Rides: Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Rock n Roller Coaster, Flights of Passage
Favorite Character: Wreck-it Ralph, Mickey Mouse
Favorite Snack: Anything he can get his hands on
Favorite ADR: ‘Ohana, 50’s Prime Time

Me… Andrea



I am a labor and delivery nurse by night and a momma by day. I was a non-believer, up until 2012 that is! I reluctantly went on our first trip (my first ever trip!) to appease my MIL and little did I know, I’d be hooked! I am now the person that all of my friends come to for Disney advise. I pretty much live and breathe Disney! Derek thinks that I should be a Disney TA part time, but I’m not sure I’d have fun if I knew people were relying on me for everything!

My favs!
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom (we ALL love MK!)
Favorite Rides: Splash Mtn, Soarin’, Haunted Mansion, Toy Story Midway Mania, Flights of Passage
Favorite Character: Belle, Rapunzel
Favorite Snack: Mickey Pretzel
Favorite ADR: ‘Ohana, Bon Voyage Breakfast

Supporting cast… Our really good friends!

Editing to add their info! I told Julie about my PTR and she said she was fine with me including them! Our friends, the "S" family, Stephen, Julie, Sophie and Charlie will be joining us on the 25th! We are so excited that they are joining us!!! They are bringing along Julie's sister, Stephanie as well! They decided to bring along Stephanie because Stephen isn’t the hugest fan of rides. This will be their 3rd trip in 3 years, and Julie still hasn’t gone on some of the bigger, awesome rides! Stephen wanted her to have someone to hang with and then also someone else that could keep an eye on the kids. Stephanie has graciously agreed to watching all 4 of the kids one night so we can have Parent’s Night Out at the F&W Festival! Can’t wait!!!

Whew, the “Who” got a little long so let’s condense this next part!

“What”... our surprise Fall Break trip WITHOUT the 3 year old twin tornados!! The girls have a 4 day weekend, so they will be missing 3 days of school. I’ve told the teachers we will be missing out on parent/teacher conferences and they’re fine with it! I haven’t told them about the other days yet… but they seemed excited for us, so hopefully that goes over well!

“When”... October 24th-30th with our friends being there the 25th-30th. I really wanted to do MNSSHP on Halloween, but then felt guilty about not being home for Halloween with the boys. So we will be home to spend Halloween with the twins! We'll be at MNSSHP the 28th!

“Where”... Disney of course! Since the “S” family has 5 in their party, they decided to stay in a Cars Suite at AoA, so we decided to stay in Little Mermaid standard room so we could hang out with them and use the same pool!


(Not my picture)

“Why”... Because it’s Fall Break, Halloween and good golly, this mom just needs a break from those darn 3 year olds!

There you have it! Can’t wait to share more details with you all!

Links
Surprise!!
Arrival Day, Oct. 24th
Day 2, Oct. 25th
Day 3, Oct. 26th
Day 4, Oct. 27th
Day 5, Oct. 28th
Day 6, Oct. 29th and Day 7, Oct. 30th
Shirts and More!
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[emilyhuff]

This is so fun! Joining in to hear about your trip! We will be there from Oct 26 - Nov 3! You guys will have a blast! You should definitely do a reveal video for the surprise, they are the BEST thing to watch on youtube, IMO!

 

[DISMomma4]

Surprise!!


Oh man, what a crazy week it’s been! Girls both started choreography for the new season so between living up at the studio, work and making 45 (yes, 45!!) shirts for our upcoming trip, it’s been a crazy week! I left off with the basics, so now let’s talk about some FUN!

Our big surprise plan!! So we are surprising the girls with this trip! At least, I’m hoping I can pull off the surprise. They know that we are planning a big WDW/Disney Cruise trip in July so I am hoping all of that works in my favor! So this is how I hope to do it!

My parents are watching the boys while we go on this trip (best parents/grandparents EVER!). I’m not sure if we’re bringing the boys out to their house Tuesday night or they are coming here Wednesday morning, still gotta get those details hashed out. If the boys are going to be there, I will tell the girls they had to go there because we have to take daddy to the airport for his “work trip” before they go to school. Of course, that will be early in the morning so we don’t want to wake the boys up. Ha ha! So Wednesday morning will roll around and my BIL will show up at the house to take us to the airport. At that point, we will tell the girls “Surprise! Since you’re on Fall Break, we decided to go with daddy on his trip!”


(Picture Borrowed!)

Now here’s the tricky part… they are 10 and 7 and obviously know what’s in Orlando. So I’m hoping they buy that we have a “layover” at MCO to switch planes to get to our final destination, “Austin, TX”. The plan is to get off the plane and rush to get to our “next gate”. We will get on the fake-o-rail, to security and cross over the line of no going back and into the lobby where the big Mickey mural is on the wall!



I will then tell the girls, “Oh man guys, I know we’re not going to Disney, but we can’t walk past here without taking a picture! Why don’t you girls go over and take a picture!” I will then have them put on their best sad face and take a picture. Then I’ll be like, “Wait a minute! Let’s do another picture with this!” and I’ll hand them their “Best Day Ever” shirts and say “Because we’re not going to Austin! We’re going to Disney!!!”



Fingers, toes, everything crossed that we can pull this off! We have surprised the girls with trips before and now they’re older so that just adds to the difficulty!! 34 more days… can’t wait!
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[DISMomma4]

Today is 31 days until Disney and it is also mine and Derek’s 12th wedding anniversary! There’s no better present than paying off our October trip! Our TA gets back from Disney today, so she will be doing that when she gets home!! I’m thinking about seeing if Derek will go for putting the $200 down to book our WDW portion of the big family July trip to get that out of the way since she’s already calling about paying off this trip!

Arrival Day, Oct. 24th

Here are the details for our arrival day! I already told you my hopes in how we reveal the big surprise and that’s a HUGE part of this day! Our day will start bright and early with either my BIL or my FIL picking us up and taking us to the airport. We have the earliest nonstop Southwest flight out of St. Louis and will be taking off 8:20 am and arriving at MCO at 11:35 am. We’re obviously making a pit stop by the Mickey wall and then will be racing to get to the Magical Express! Hopefully the lines won’t be crazy and we’ll be heading to Art of Animation!



I’m hoping that we will be at AoA by 1:00 with our room ready. If our room is ready, we will head there to check out the room and drop off our carry-on bags. If it’s not ready, we will head to luggage services to check our carry-on bags there because we have parks to get to! Before we hop on those wonderful Disney Transportation busses, we will stop off at Landscape of Flavors to get some much needed lunch and cross our fingers that they have some Halloween refillable Mickey cups in stock!


(Disney Food Blog pic!)

How cute are those?!

After filling our tummies we will be boarding the next bus to our first park… Magic Kingdom!!


(Disney's Pic)

I always love starting our trips out at our favorite park! It doesn’t work out on some trips, but I try my hardest! I know that the girls (and myself!) are going to want to just run right on in, but we have something else we need to check off the to do list before we can have fun… upgrading our tickets to ANNUAL PASSES!!! Woohoo!!!


(Inside the Magic pic)

Because we are going on a trip in July, it makes sense for us moneywise to upgrade our tickets to AP’s! And of course, I already have already been thinking about how I’m going to get Derek to agree to more trips within this year to get the most out of our AP… something he refers to as “shady lady math”. Ha ha!!!

After upgrading our tickets, we will head to our first Fast Pass… Peter Pan’s Flight!


(Chip and Co. pic)

I’m hoping we can get all of our arrival stuff at AOA, lunch and upgrading our tickets done by the time our Peter Pan FP is over! I think we should be good though. Here are our FP’s for the day…

Peter Pan’s Flight 2:40-3:40

Space Mountain (Derek and Addison) 3:55-4:55

Buzz Lightyear (Andrea and Harper) 3:55-4:55

Big Thunder Mtn. 5:05-6:05


(WDW Magazine pic)




(Wikipedia pic)

The Space Mtn. and Buzz FP’s are split because I can’t handle Space! Big Thunder is about the highest level roller coaster that I can do without feeling like I’m going to upchuck and then feeling terrible for the next few hours. Harper is tall enough and does like Space, but I’m going to convince her that hanging out with mom is awesome. She’ll have another opportunity to ride Space this trip!

I’m going to try to do our Big Thunder Mtn. FP closer to 5:05 if we can, because I’d really like to be heading out of MK by 6:00 to make our way to dinner! Where’s dinner tonight?? Well, we’ll be hopping on the Monorail (or boat… going to give the girls the option!) to the Polynesian! I’ve got some Bread Pudding and a Lapu Lapu calling my name!!



‘Ohana is one of our family favorites so it’s a must each trip! Our friends have done it their last two trips and decided to opt out on it this trip, so arrival day was the only day that worked. When ADR’s opened up, I was only able to get an 8:45 reservation. With a little patience and the help of Mouse Dining and Touring Plans, I was able to find a 7:00 reservation! So I snatched that up!

After stuffing ourselves silly, we are just going to play it by ear. Arrival day can be tiring, so we may head back to AoA. Magic Kingdom also has PM Extra Magic Hours, so maybe we’ll head back over there to do rides during fireworks. Who knows! We’re flexible today!​

 

[DISMomma4]

This is so fun! Joining in to hear about your trip! We will be there from Oct 26 - Nov 3! You guys will have a blast! You should definitely do a reveal video for the surprise, they are the BEST thing to watch on youtube, IMO!

Thanks for joining in!! Love that our dates overlap! We're 30 days out right now and it's getting harder and harder to keep this secret! I definitely will have to post their video! Soooooo excited!

 

[emilyhuff]

Your day 1 plans sound great!!! The surprise will be the absolute best part!!! Only 1 month away, it's getting so close!

 

[DISMomma4]

Day 2, Oct. 25th


Day 2 is going to bring more surprises for the girls! This is the day that our friends arrive!! Their two kiddos don’t know that they are going to Disney yet either! I believe they plan to tell them at home the day before or the day of. *** Found out today, 10-1, that they are letting them check the mail today because their Magic Bands are being delivered! They will let them open up the Magic Bands and that's how they'll tell them!*** However, they are not telling them that their aunt is coming (or that we’ll be there!). Their aunt is meeting them at the airport that morning and they will be so excited!

While our friends are getting up bright and early to board a plane, we will be getting up bright and early to hit up Epcot’s AM EMH! This is going to be a long day for us because I am not planning on going back to AoA for “rest time”. We have always taken a midday break with the girls to nap/swim, so this will be a first for them. I’m doing this to minimize the chances that we will accidently bump into our friends when they get to AoA! With my luck, we’d run into them at the resort and our surprise plans would be trashed!

When getting to Epcot, we will head straight back to Frozen. Normally, we run right over to Soarin’ and then to Test Track and FP Frozen. This trip we will be doing a FP for Soarin’ with our friends since poor Julie has been to Disney twice without riding it because Stephen wouldn’t do it and she didn’t want to leave him with the kids! I’m determined to get her on rides she wouldn’t normally get to ride this trip! And then their last trip, her kids were completely freaked out by Frozen and the drop that they absolutely refuse to ride it again. Ha ha!! I guess they have a little more of their dad in them than their mom!

We will book it back with the masses to Frozen and then to Test Track after. Hopefully the line will be manageable, but even if it’s not we have plenty of time to kill here today (thanks to not leaving the park!) that I’m sure we’ll be able to fit in everything we’d like. After Test Track, on the “To Do” list is the rest of the Future World. Most likely we’ll skip Mission Space unless the girls really want to ride it. My hopes is that we can hit up Spaceship Earth (with our Fast Pass), Joy, Sadness, Baymax, Turtle Talk, and Journey into Imagination with Figment before 11:00. May be ambitious, but whatever we don’t get to we can do after lunch!

As of now, lunch plans are for right at 11:00 at La Cantina de San Angel but that could change to Sunshine Seasons depending on where we are and what everyone feels like eating! After lunch I would like our time to be devoted to the World Showcase and the Food and Wine Festival! Touring the World Showcase in the past has always been met with groans and whining, and not from the adults! My girls claim they are bored out of their minds so to *hopefully* this time they will have fun! I’m in the process of coming up with a scavenger hunt/amazing race type activity for them to do in the World Showcase that incorporates some of the shows and food booths. I’m hoping that this will keep them engaged and will also allow Derek and I to enjoy some food and adult beverages! Crossing my fingers!

While we are curing boredom in the World Showcase, our friends will have arrived at AoA and basically do everything we are doing the day before. Checking out the room/dropping off bags, eating lunch and then hopping on a bus to Epcot. We scheduled their first FP for 3:10-4:10 (Turtle Talk), so they will see what time they get there and attempt to do their FP closer to 4:00 because EVERYBODY has a FP scheduled for Nemo for 4:30-5:30.

The plan is to have our friends do Turtle Talk and we will “accidently” bump into them when they’re done! I think I may be more excited for this moment than the moment they find out they are going to Disney! The kids are going to be BEYOND excited! I’m not sure there are words to describe how excited they will be! Can’t freaking wait!!!


We will all do Nemo together and then we’ll check out the Seas Pavilion a little. Then Stephen will take their kids to their FP at the Character Spot while Julie and Stephanie join us for our FP at Soarin’! After the Character Spot/Soarin FP are finished the two of them may take off to find Daddy and the kids or they may stick around with us and ride Living with the Land. I always love to ride LwtL before dinner at the Garden Grill… and that’s where we are headed to next!

When planning ADR’s there were two places that the “S” family requested because they loved them from past trips… Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast and the Garden Grill! We love both of those, so those definitely made the cut! When making ADR’s I could not find one for a party of 9, but I could find a party of 5 and a party of 4 at the same exact time. I know it’s not guaranteed, but we are planning on arriving 15-20 minutes early and request being seated together or next to each other. I’ve only done this once before at Be Our Guest and it worked, so I’m hoping for the same outcome! If it can’t happen, then it’s really no big deal. We’ll have plenty of time with them the rest of the week!


After dinner is over, the plan is to skip out on Illuminations and just go back to AoA together. It will have been a long day for everyone!

Fast Passes and ADR’s for the day

Spaceship Earth (My Family) 9:50-10:50

Turtle Talk (S Family) 3:10-4:10

Nemo 4:30-5:30

Soarin’ (My Family, Julie and Stephanie) 5:35-6:35

Character Spot (Stephen and kids) 5:40-6:40

The Garden Grill dinner 6:50
​

 

[DISMomma4]

Your day 1 plans sound great!!! The surprise will be the absolute best part!!! Only 1 month away, it's getting so close!

It is!! Can't believe that in 1 month from right now, I should hopefully be eating at AoA! Create your own pasta... here I come.

 

[DISMomma4]

Day 3, Oct. 26th

If you can’t guess by now, I’m a pretty “go, go, go” person at Disney. Fun Fact… I work nights and have for almost 14 years now. Needless to say, I am NOT a morning person! All things change as soon as I step off of that airplane! When starting to plan our trip, Julie said to me, “I have no problem with getting up bright and early and going hard all day… Stephen on the other hand might have a problem with that.” On both of their past trips, they did not make Rope Drop once and that’s just not how I roll! Ha ha!

Knowing all of this, we decided to plan our morning around Stephen and the kids not being with us because we knew that this morning HAD to be an early one! We have plans that we knew none of those three would want to do/could do, so we decided to ditch them! We will be at the bus super early to head to Animal Kingdom! Why? Flights of Passage of course! When deciding on FP’s, we decided to just go ahead and FP Na’vi River Journey so we could all ride together. So booking it to FOP is a must!

We plan to be at the bus no later than 7:15 for the 9:00 park opening. We will not have any strollers to deal with this morning, so hopefully we’re close to the front of the pack and can race to FOP, get on and be done by 10:00. Fingers crossed! We have a breakfast ADR at Tusker House at 10:10, so Stephen and the kids are planning on meeting us there. This will allow them to get a few extra hours of sleep!

After breakfast we will go on our Safari FP, then my crew will be headed over to Expedition Everest and praying for a decent standby time! Both Derek and Addie can ride single rider, but Harper cannot. So standby line it is for them. I will grab a drink and happily wait for them at the exit. Ha ha! I’m sure our friends will probably enjoy themselves on some of the trails, hunt down some characters or hang out in Dino Land. Their plan was to take the train out to Conservation Station, but we found out within these past couple of days that it is to close permanently just 5 days before we go! Their kiddos are going to be bummed!

After Everest, I’m sure the girls will want to head to Dino Land to ride Triceratop Spin so we’ll do that to kill time before our next FP, Finding Nemo the Musical. Our friends haven’t seen either show at Animal Kingdom so they decided their kids would probably like Nemo vs. Lion King. Then after Nemo, we will head back over to Pandora to ride Na’vi River Journey together.

After this, we will be heading out of the park and back to AoA. Why? Because tonight us parents are ditching the kids with Stephanie and getting our Food and Drink on in the World Showcase!

Stephanie will be hanging out with all the kids at AoA, grabbing dinner there and swimming. Thankfully, my girls are older and will actually be a big help to her with the little friends (who are 5 and 4). We will most likely be converting Quick Serve credits into 3 snack credits (or maybe we'll do a QS there, depends on what they'd like!) and most likely grab a few drinks! I’m sure we’ll watch Illuminations since we don’t have little people with us!

After that, we’ll head back to AoA where hopefully the kids are all sleeping… and then Derek and I have to figure out how in the heck we’re going to get our heavy, sleeping children from the Cars Suite to our room in the Little Mermaid section. That could be fun…


Fast Passes and ADR’s for the day

Tusker House breakfast 10:10

Kilimanjaro Safari 11:00-12:00

Finding Nemo the Musical: 1:30-1:45 (2:00 show)

Na’vi River Journey 3:15-4:05 (Yes, I know this isn’t a full hour. The two families have overlapping times!)
​

 

[DISMomma4]

Day 4, Oct. 27th

Today takes us to the one park we haven’t done yet on this trip, Hollywood Studios and Toy Story Land!! We are so excited to check out TSL! Of course, I’ve seen tons of pictures and read reviews about it but I can’t wait to get in there myself to experience it!

This is another morning where Stephen’s presence is up in the air. Kind of depends on how wild and crazy we get the night before. We will be splitting up a few times today to keep both sets of kiddos happy. Our friends kids (4&5) definitely have different interests than our kids (7&10). We knew going into this that there would be days where we weren’t together all the time, but made sure we planned all of our meals together!

We will arrive to Hollywood Studios well before park opening because I know everyone else there will have the same agenda as us! My crew will be going straight to Slinky Dog Dash and the "S" Family will be going straight to Alien Swirling Saucers. Julie would like to do Slinky Dog, but she wants to be with the kiddos when they do Aliens so she made the decision to stay with them instead of coming with us. Depending on wait times, my family may try to do Aliens after Slinky Dog but if we don’t get around to doing it we will just make sure we do it on our July trip! After doing those two rides, we will use our FP for Toy Story Midway Mania.

Hopefully Stephen has joined us by then because we hope to use our FP as early as we can so we can try to fit a couple of other things in before our next FP! After kicking the poo out of my daughters on TSMM (but making Harper believe that my score is actually hers so my super competitive drama queen doesn’t flip her lid) we will try to catch a show of Voyage of the Little Mermaid. After that we may or may not have time for anything else before our next FP, we’ll just have to play it by ear!

Our next FP is for the 11:30 showing of the Frozen Sing-a-long. I remember watching this show for the first time on my trip with my SIL for the Wine and Dine back in 2014. I booked the FP, but was kind of hesitant thinking that it was going to be totally geared towards kids and we were going to look super weird in there. All those fears were for nothing because there was so much adult humor and we had a BLAST!! So it’s a nice win-win for both parents and kids!

After belting out some “Let it Go” and enjoying the fake snow, we will be splitting up to cram in our last FP before our lunch! Derek and my kids will go one way, Stephen and their kids will go another and myself, Julie and Stephanie will go our own way! My crew will be heading to their Star Tours FP, Stephen and his will be headed to Muppets and us adult girls will be going to Tower of Terror! This is the one FP that I’m hoping doesn’t make us late to lunch! The Star Tours and Muppets crews will make it no problem, it’s the ToT ones that will need to book it! Sometimes that FP line can get out of hand, so I’m just praying we get right on and off and can race to lunch!

Lunch is at 50’s Prime Time today! This is another one of those restaurants that I really try to do every time! I just can’t get enough of that meatloaf! I love me some meatloaf, but it’s one of those things that my kids will act like I’m trying to poison them if I feed it to them. So I must get it at Disney! Ha ha! I don’t believe our friends have ever been there and it was one that they wanted to try! Worked out perfectly!

After lunch, Stephen will most likely take his kiddos back to AoA to rest up for the evening portion of our day. I’m not sure if Julie or Stephanie will go with him as well, but I would like to stick around so Derek, Addie and potentially Harper can do Rock N Rollercoaster and I would love to watch the Beauty and the Beast show. Neither of my girls have ever seen it and I know they would love it because they get their love of BatB from me! We will just have to see how long it takes to get through RnRc for them!


Then we’ll head out of the park and back to AoA to rest up/maybe swim. I think dinner will most likely be at Landscape of Flavors tonight before we hop on a bus to the Magic Kingdom!

Stephanie was like, “Wait… I have to wait until our 3rd day there to see the Castle?!?” Ha ha! So maybe on their arrival day, if us adult girls are feeling up to it, we may hop over to MK so she can see the Castle. But that is a BIG maybe. We’ll just have to see how crazy we’re feeling that day!

Once we get to MK, we really have no set plans! After using our 3rd FP, I’ll log in and grab us a FP for the evening at MK and then we’ll just do whatever the kids want! Not sure that we’ll watch fireworks tonight because we’ll be back again and may just ride rides during it for the lower wait times. We have to be up decently early the next day, so we’ll have to keep that in mind!


Fast Passes and ADR’s for the day

TSMM 9:40-10:30 (overlapping times)

Frozen Sing-a-long 11:00-11:15 (11:30 show)

Star Tours 12:00-1:00 (Derek and my kids)

Muppets 12:05-1:05 (Stephen and his kids)

Tower of Terror 12:10-1:10 (Me, Julie and Stephanie)

50’s Prime Time lunch 12:45​

 

[shannie102]

Looks awesome so far! Wondering more about how you planned all of this- like did they just give you full control? I too am the Disney planner for everyone i know, but haven't yet had to plan my trip and anyone else together!

 

[DISMomma4]

Looks awesome so far! Wondering more about how you planned all of this- like did they just give you full control? I too am the Disney planner for everyone i know, but haven't yet had to plan my trip and anyone else together!

Hey! When we started planning and thinking of park days and ADR's, our friends pretty much put it in my hands but I consulted them A LOT! They did say that they wanted to do Epcot on their arrival day because it was the park they thought their kids would want to spend the least time in, so I planned the other days around that. Then I asked them if there were any ADR's they definitely wanted to do and thankfully they didn't stray from what we like! ADR's were set in stone after many texts back and forth! FP's proved to be more difficult than ADR's because of the difference in interests and age between our kiddos. I sent our friend a list of all the FP opportunities and told her to send me the ones that she knew her kids would want to do and I did the same. Needless to say, there weren't very many that overlapped. We knew that we were going to have to get creative with them and knew we needed to sit down together to look at them all without our kids around! We then went out for a "Frozen Pepsi" (our code name for FP, so the kids didn't catch on, ha ha!) date at a local restaurant and spent hours in there eating, drinking some adult beverages and hashing out our days. We came up with a good plan for each day and just prayed that we were able to get everything we wanted at the times we wanted!

I worried because we didn't do our FP's the same day since we have different arrival days, but it all worked out! I went in and made all of ours on our FP day and then the next day our TA went in and made them for our friends. She managed to get the same times as ours and if she couldn't, she found times very close!

So yeah, long story short (can you tell I'm a talker?) I was the brain child for our daily plans, but I made sure we did everything that they wanted to do!! ​

 

[DISMomma4]

It's October!!!! We go to Disney THIS month! Only 23 more days until I'm in my happy place! So excited!

Day 5, Oct. 28th

Finally… today is our “break” day! I usually like to schedule a break day after 2 full park days, but that wasn’t possible this trip because of one thing… Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party!! Our break day was really dependent on party dates! The dates available were Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Thursday is our friend’s arrival day, so that was a no go for them and then we thought a Friday party may be crazier than a Sunday party (although, this close to Halloween I’m sure they’re all going to be crazy!). So Sunday it was!

On our “break” days I usually like to schedule a late/brunch’ish breakfast, but this wasn’t possible today. We both wanted to do the Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast this morning and the only time I could find a group of 9 or a group of 4 and 5 was 8:45 am. Yikes! But we all knew we really wanted to do that breakfast, so I went ahead and booked it. I also made sure that I scheduled an alert in Touring Plans and Mouse Dining for a later time. About a month ago, a reservation opened up for 8:55 am. Only 10 minutes later, but 10 minutes is 10 minutes! So we now have an 8:55 am ADR. But I’m for sure keeping an eye out for a later time!

My only worry about today is getting there! We ate here during our last trip and we had our own car on property so we drove. This time we are flying so we’re relying on Disney property! With Hollywood Studios parking lot being a mess, I wonder how much more time that’s going to tack onto our already early day. Then I’ve also been toying with the idea of getting a “Minnie Van” to take us there. I really wish that we could just take one, but we would need two. So, I’m going to have to do a little more research into it!

After breakfast, I believe the plan is just just go back to AoA and chill! Kids can swim and the pool bar sounds like a great plan for the adults! Dinner is up in the air, but will be either at Landscape of Flavors or a QS option at the Magic Kingdom.

Our friends do not have a park ticket for this day, so they plan on getting there at 4. I’m not sure what our plans are quite yet. It all depends on what the kids feel like doing. We will have upgraded our tickets to Annual Passes, so we can get in whenever we’d like. If we decide to get there at 4 with our friends, we may do a super early dinner/late lunch at AoA, but if we decide to go to MK before 4, we may do a 4:30’ish dinner there. We will just play it by ear!

We have no real set plans for the party! I know our friends daughter would love to meet Moana and I’m sure Harper would love to as well. Addison being a cool 10 year old now may not want to meet any characters, but if she does we'll see who she wants to meet! If she doesn’t, we’ll probably leave Harper with our friends (if they're cool with that) and then take Addison on some rides. We did make two FP between 4:00 and 6:00, but we’re not married to them. If we do them, awesome. If we don’t, then that’s fine too! Just wanted to have them as an option to do if we wanted!

Our “musts” for the party are the Boo to You parade, Hallowishes and the trick or treat trails! I think our plan is to skip out on the first parade and do the second one. We would like to take that time to do some rides in hopes that most people will be watching the parade! And then we’re planning to close out the party!!

We went to the Halloween Party on our very first trip back in September of 2012 and we haven’t been since! We had so much fun and I’ve been DYING to go back! This will be our friends first MNSSHP and they are super excited! Can’t wait!!!

Of course, I can’t talk about the party without talking about what we’re wearing… we couldn’t decide on a big group costume because we were worried that the kids would be ticked that they didn’t get to decide what they were wearing. So all of our kids will be wearing their Halloween costumes they plan on Trick or Treating in on Halloween back home. Addie is going to be a cute “Nerd”.

(Spirit Halloween's pic, not my pic and not my kid! But this is her costume!)

Harper will be dressing up as Ladybug from her favorite show (that’s she’s obsessed with!), Miraculous.

(This is actually Harper... she's so excited!)

Us adult girls have matching(ish) Halloween shirts that I made. The adult boys on the other hand… they decided they want to dress up!!! Say what?!? Wait for it… they’re going as Wreck It Ralph and Fix It Felix!! I’m dying. Stephen is tall with a large stature (definitely bigger than my husband!), so he’s going to be Ralph and Derek will be Felix. It's perfect!

(Thank you Pinterest for the pic!)

I haven’t gotten the stuff for Derek’s costume yet, but that’s on the to do list! They’re going to be awesome!


Fast Passes and ADR’s for the day (our families have different FP times today)

Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast 8:55 am

Jungle Cruise (my family) 4:10-5:10

Peter Pan’s Flight (my family) 5:25-6:00

Meet Ariel (S family) 4:30-5:30

Jungle Cruise (S family) 5:30-6:00​

 

[DISMomma4]

Day 6, Oct. 29th

How is this our last day already?! I’m sure I will feel the same way while we’re there. You plan and plan for these vacations and they are over in the blink of an eye!

Our last day takes us back to the Magic Kingdom all day! And it just so happened to be PM EMH today, so we plan on closing the park down. Might as well because all we have planned for the next day is the dreaded flight back home.

Our two families will be spending the first few hours separately today and will be meeting up for our 2nd Fast Pass! I don’t know exactly what our friends have planned, other than their Enchanted Tales with Belle FP, but we plan to head left into Adventureland! This is kind of my “go to” when it comes to touring MK! I feel like we can get so much done in the first few hours this way! We will most likely skip Jungle Cruise since we have a FP the night before and will hit up Pirates, Magic Carpets and Big Thunder before our first FP, Splash Mtn. After our Splash FP, we should have time to do Haunted Mansion. We’ll have to check out the time and wait times, but we may try to do some of the other Fantasyland rides before meeting up with our friends for our next FP, Peter Pan’s Flight.

After boarding our Pirate Ships and sailing over London, we will have to check the time to see if there’s anything else we can do before our lunch ADR. Where are we off to for lunch?? Be Our Guest! Be Our Guest was one of our favorite dinner ADR’s prior to their menu and TS credit change. Thankfully, we enjoy lunch there so we will still have an opportunity to get in that glorious castle that reminds me of my childhood and my love for Beauty and the Beast! Also, because I have a Strawberry Cupcake calling my name!! Unfortunately, I’m not sure we will ever do dinner there again so I’m not sure if we’ll ever get to meet the Beast again. So sad! Our friends haven’t done lunch at BOG (not sure if they’ve done dinner either!). So I’m glad they get to go inside the Beast’s Castle!

After lunch, we may have time to hit up a couple more things in Fantasyland/New Fantasyland before our last FP. The plan is to do our last FP and then head out for a few hours to rest up for our late evening! Our last FP will take us in 3 different directions. Stephen will take Charlie to Jungle Cruise, Stephanie will take Sophie to meet Tinkerbell and my family will take Julie to the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train! After the “S” families different FP’s are up, they will meet back up towards the front of the park and leave. We may stick around and try to do a few more things, or we may head out of the park with our friends. All depends on how we’re feeling!

After our quick jaunt back to AoA for a little rest time, we will come back to MK for our dinner ADR. This is a new ADR for everyone! We tend to find restaurants we like and we stick to them. So venturing out with new ADR’s doesn’t happen very often. When deciding on this ADR, I sent Julie menus for Liberty Tree Tavern (which we love!) and The Plaza Restaurant. We decided together to give The Plaza a try! So The Plaza it is!

Our evening is really up in the air. Will we stay together, will we separate? All I know is that we’re all going to want to watch Happily Ever After and Once Upon a Time. I *think* we will try to do most of Tomorrowland during PM Extra Magic Hours, but that really is up to the kids!

We are going to try our hardest to stay until the very end before turning around and waving goodbye to my beloved Castle! But it’s not really goodby, it’s more of a until I see you again! Knowing that we have another trip booked already is sure going to make the separation anxiety much more bearable!


Fast Passes and ADR’s for the day

Splash Mountain 9:40-10:40 (my family)

Enchanted Tales with Belle 10:00-11:00 (“S” Family)

Peter Pan’s Flight 11:10-12:00 (overlapping FP)

Be Our Guest lunch 12:15

7 Dwarfs Mine Train 1:20-2:20 (my family and Julie)

Tinkerbell Meet and Greet 1:30-2:30 (Stephanie and Sophie)

Jungle Cruise 1:35-2:35 (Stephen and Charlie)

The Plaza Restaurant dinner 6:00


There’s not much to talk about as far as our Day 7 goes, so I’ll just add that here!


Day 7, Oct. 30th


We will head back to AoA after PM EMH and I know the kids will crash… let’s be honest, so will Derek most likely! But of course, mom will be the ones that stays up to finish up the packing! I will try to get some packing done on our “rest” time so hopefully there isn’t much to finish!


I was hoping to take the nonstop flight that is the one just after our flight (that our friends ended up booking) but Derek preferred the earlier one to get home and “rested” before work/Halloween the next day. Our flight leaves Orlando at 11:30, so we will be picked up by the Tragical Express bright and early. I’m sure we will all get a good nap on the plane on the way home! We land at 12:55 and will be jumping right back into life with picking the boys up from their grandparents and taking Addison to dance at 4:00 for solo practice and class! Oh man, she’s going to be exhausted and so are we! We’re going to be paying for all the fun we had, that’s for sure!

Up next... my crafting adventures!!
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[Lancemidtx]

Sounds like fun...can't wait to hear if your surprise plan works out!

 

[emilyhuff]

WHAT A TRIP! It is coming up so quick! It sounds like it will be amazing! I can't wait to see your crafts!

 

[DISMomma4]

Sounds like fun...can't wait to hear if your surprise plan works out!

Me too! Ha ha! It's getting harder and harder as the days go by!

 

[DISMomma4]

WHAT A TRIP! It is coming up so quick! It sounds like it will be amazing! I can't wait to see your crafts!

3 weeks from right now we'll be in the air!! Can't even believe it! And I just realized that you have a PTR as well... I'm going to have to check it out after I get all these shirts figured out! Want to take new pictures of what we're wearing each day so I can hopefully post them today!

 

[DISMomma4]

Shirts and More!

Before I jump into showing you all the shirts I made for this trip, a little update on the whole surprise part of the trip! The girls had been bugging me nonstop about taking them somewhere and buying them random stuff they don’t need. I was so over it. So I kind of slipped up and muttered under my breathe to the little one, “In a few weeks you’ll understand”. Well, she heard me. “What are we doing in a few weeks?!” Ughhhh child, leave it alone! I already had written on our calendar “Dad Work Trip” at the end of the month…

So I sat them down and said, “Well, mom and dad have something to tell you guys. When dad goes on his work trip, we’re going to!”. Addie was immediately like, “Where?!?” and Harper immediately didn’t believe me, still doesn’t. So I told them we were going to “Austin” for a few days. To which Addison grabbed the computer and started researching Austin. Well, she is unbelievably excited to go to Austin. She was like, “Mom, we can go to the Austin Zoo and this Wildlife Sanctuary so I can do research for my Horizon’s project!” She has even told her Horizon’s teacher that she is going there and is going to do research! (She has an independent project to do over a controversial issue and she picked “Zoos”. Oh man. BACKFIRE!! What was I thinking?!

Let’s just hope that she isn’t too upset when she finds out that we’re headed to Disney and not Austin! I’ll just have to take her to Animal Kingdom to do her “research”.

So they know that the boys are staying with Grandma and Grandpa and that we’re leaving for a few days. Hopefully I can keep my big mouth shut these next 3 weeks! Our friends also told their kiddos that they’re going to Disney! They just got their magic bands and let the kids help open them up. Little Sophie was SOOOOO excited and it makes me even more excited to surprise all the kids at Epcot!!! They still don’t know that their Aunt is coming (she’s meeting them at the airport the morning they leave) or, obviously, that we will be there!

I have also been tying up some loose ends. We decided to add the “Early Bird” option to our Southwest tickets.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Southwest has an open boarding procedure, so when you board is determined by when you check in so you have an “A” “B” and sometimes “C” group. I have never really worried about when we checked in because I knew that we’d be able to get on with “Family Boarding”. If you have a child 6 and under, you can automatically board between the “A” and the “B” group. So even if you have a “B” ticket, you can board before all of the others in that group. Well, this is our first trip without a kid 6 and under!! And we will have to check in myself/Addie and Derek/Harper separately because we got our flights with points on my card and then points on Derek’s card. So the hassle of that and worrying about getting decent seats together, we decided to spend the extra money and get “Early Bird” so they automatically check us in and it’s one less thing to worry about!

I’ve also been researching grocery options other than Garden Grocer. We’ve always used GG, but prices seem so much higher now!! Like almost twice as much as Instacart or Amazon Prime Now! Ridiculous!

Now… onto the crafts!

I had intentions to dabble in making my own ears, but alas, I’m quickly running out of time and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to do them without the girls seeing! So I may just have to wait for our July trip to try those. I still have plans to make a couple of pillow cases for our bonus room couches for our “autographs” this trip, but I haven’t done them yet! So, my crafting consisted of making 45 shirts for all of us!!! Still can’t believe I was able to do them all without the girls knowing! Get ready for picture overload… because here they are! First up is all of our shirts for each day, then I will post our friends by person!

Our Arrival Day

Our Epcot Day

Our Animal Kingdom Day

Derek will be wearing one of his shirts that I got him on a past trip that's the Genie and is says "I'm here, what are your other two wishes?" Ha ha!

Our Hollywood Studios Day

Our Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast

My MNSSHP

Our Final MK Day

Now onto our friends!

Stephen’s Shirts

Julie’s Shirts

Stephanie’s Shirts (minus a matching “Core Memory” shirt like Julie’s)

Sophie’s Shirts

Charlie’s Shirts

And then Julie bought Charlie a Three Caballeros shirt because he loves them and is obsessed with the boat ride in the Mexico Pavillion!

There you have it! All my hard work! Now I need to work on finding Derek’s costume pieces and starting my packing list! I’m working all weekend, so hopefully I’ll have time to do that!


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