Bibbidi-Bobbidi-BOO and a few Disney Dresses too!~ A Sept ’13 TR

[TruLovesKiss]

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-BOO and a few Disney Dresses too!~ A Sept '13 Trip Report ​

"A few" Disney Dresses ...or ...well....62 to be exact! Yes that's the number of Disney dresses that will make an appearance in this TR. I really couldn't quite believe it so I went back and counted to be sure! Did I really have THAT many?

Yes I'll admit that I have a problem! But I had a ton of fun coordinating our Disney Customs for our very first trip to WDW!

Crazy? Yes! Obsessed? Yes! Completely Magical? You better believe it!! Follow along to see....


My three Little Princesses and my two Princes

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Chapter Links

The 5 Ws

The Surprise

Disney World Bound

Magical Express

The Polynesian

Magic Kingdom ~ part 1 ~ part 2 ~ part 3

Hoop-Dee-Doo

Princess Storybook Breakfast

Soarin'

Via Napoli

Duffy

Fantasmic ~ part 1 [URL="http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=50202550&postcount=77"]~part 2[/URL]

Toy Story Mania

Woody & Buzz

Sci-Fi

Just Keep Swimming...

Epcot Character Spot

Welcome to My Future

Disney on Ice

Tusker House ~ part 1 ~ part 2

On Safari ~ part 1 ~ part 2

Festival of the Lion King

NEMO

One Wild Afternoon

1900 Park Fare

Disney Meltdown

Main Street Electrical Parade

Kona Cafe

Enchanted Tales with Belle

Pirates League

Be Our Guest ~ part 1 ~ part 2

MNSSHP

Make it Pink...Make it Blue!

BOO-To-You

Ghostly Encounters

Elsa's handiwork

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo ~ Jorie ~ Isla

Castle Couture

Our Next Trip!

Cinderella's Royal Table ~ part 1 ~ part 2

Fantasyland Fun

Storybook Circus

Tomorrowland Speedway

Futuristic Fun

An Epcot Evening

Food & Wine Festival

'Ohana ~ part 1 ~ part 2

Downtown Disney ~ part 1 ~ part 2

Torch Lighting Ceremony

'Ohana

Deja Vu

Conservation Station

Wild Fun

Animal Kingdom Lodge

Narcoossee's

EMH

Our final MK morning

Fairy Fun

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah

Jungle Cruise

Pete's Silly Sideshow

Our last hurrah

Goodbye WDW, See ya real soon!

 

[TruLovesKiss]

The 5Ws

Lets start with the details:
WHO?

That's Me! I'm Rachel and I love, love, love reading trip reports! Being a total WDW newbie, they were a huge help in my planning and were also my daily dose of Disney... yes it's a requirement right up there along with food & sleep. I'm the planner. I'm also the photographer, so you won't see many more pics of me.

Favorite things: Well I LOVE Disney! (but who here doesn't, right?), Ebay, Etsy, shopping, knitting, dessert -yes I have quite a sweet tooth!

Favorite Disney Movie: Enchanted... along with almost every other Disney Princess movie! How do I choose a favorite?

Favorite WDW ride: Expedition Everest


My Hubby, Joe
Funny & Easy-Going (well he would have to be to put up with me!)

Favorite things: Sports -especially our Philly teams- the Phillies & Eagles, good food & craft beers

Favorite Disney Movie: Cars

Favorite WDW ride: Toy Story Mania


Donovan, 7
Funny, Inquisitive, and a tad bit Whiny

Favorite things: Soccer, Legos, playing MarioKart on Wii, drawing, Pizza

Favorite Disney Movies: Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars

Favorite WDW rides: Soarin, Test Track, Toy Story Mania (Mr. Indecisive can't choose a favorite. Yes, he gets it from me!)


Marjorie (Nickename- Jorie) 5
Talkative, a bit Bossy, Super Girly but a Daredevil at the same time

Favorite things: Ballet, Princesses, Irish Dance, shopping, French fries

Favorite Disney Movie: The Little Mermaid

Favorite WDW ride: Tower of Terror


Isla (pronounced Eye-la) 4
Quirky- in a good way, Kindhearted, Emotional (you will see plenty of this in pics!)

Favorite things: Dance class, Music, Disney Princesses AND Disney Villains!, Pizza

Favorite Disney Movie: The Little Mermaid

Favorite WDW ride: The Seas with Nemo & friends


Bronwyn, 22 months
Silly, Miss. Independent, Full of Energy

Favorite things: Minnie Mouse, Duffy, Ariel, shoes (yes, she's not even two yet and she has a shoe obsession)

Favorite WDW ride: Jungle Cruise (definitely the most reaction from her on this ride!!)

Who else?
My Mom, Janet
She couldn't miss her grandchildren's first trip to Disney!! She'll be along for the ride Sept 25th - Sept 30th. Where was she staying? AOA ~ in a Little Mermaid standard room.

Joe's Parents, Joe & Teresa
Of course they couldn't miss their grandchildren's first trip to Disney either! They booked their stay for Sept 27th- Oct 1st at Wilderness Lodge.

WHAT? Our First Family Disney trip!!

I had been bugging my hubby for months about taking the kids to Disney. He was convinced that they should be older when we took them for the first time, but Jorie and Isla were soooo into the Disney Princesses that I did not want to miss taking them to Disney while they were in that "Princess" stage! So I finally got the OK from hubby back in March 2012, and I dove right in. Any free time that I had I totally immersed myself in Disney planning. I had to make this the BEST. TRIP. EVER!! And any overtime that I got offered at work, well of course I said "Yes" because in my mind that was another custom outfit that I could buy! haha (yes, like I said.... I have a problem!)

WHERE? With 4 small kiddos, we knew that we would spend most of our time in Magic Kingdom. The convenience of the Monorail was definitely something we wanted to splurge on. So where did we decide to stay? The POLYNESIAN!! Whoo hoo!!! We just loved the theming of this resort. Its like a vacation within a vacation! The 6 of us would still fit into a standard room because Bronwyn was still considered an infant. And with the larger room size and daybed, it seemed like such a great choice! Although I kept reading rumors about pool closures and DVC construction, so I was constantly questioning this decision. In the end it was PERFECT!! I couldn't have been happier with the Poly.

WHEN? September 25th-October 3rd
We really lucked out...our arrival day was the LAST day of the Free-Dining promotion so we were able to get Free Dining for our entire trip! Whoo hoo!! And with the amount of character/signature Dining that we were planning on, we decided to pay the difference and upgrade to the DELUXE Dining Plan! Yeah!!
We had originally thought about doing a 7 night trip. But that would have had us flying home on Oct 2nd, and with that day being our Wedding Anniversary, we had decided to add on the extra night (having our Anniversary dinner in a nice Disney restaurant sure beats out the airport, haha!) So it was final ~ a 9 day, 8 night trip. AWESOME!!!

WHY? Ah, because we NEEDED to go to Disney!!! That's why!! My kids had never been there and I hadn't been there since I was 5 (1986 people!!!)

HOW? The "how" was the big question! How were we going to take 4 small kids to Disney?! Well you're going to have to read along to find out!

So lets get on with this TR why don't we?!

Continued in NEXT post

 

[maryr1oz]

Sounds like a fun trip!

Can't wait to hear more

 

[familyabgar]

Excited to follow along!

 

[littlenellbell]

Joining in....your family is adorable!

 

[redhed7588]

following along

 

[Mousemommy1]

Your family is adorable!!! Following along...

I was down there during the same time period from 9/27 - 10/2 for a quick girls trip!

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Sounds like a fun trip!

Can't wait to hear more

Yay, you're first to post!! Thanks for joining in!

Excited to follow along!

I'm excited that you're following along!

Joining in....your family is adorable!

Thanks, I think so too! But I'm a bit biased. I'm glad you're here

following along

Welcome!!

Your family is adorable!!! Following along...

I was down there during the same time period from 9/27 - 10/2 for a quick girls trip!

Oh fun! It was such a great time to be there, wasn't it? And we really lucked out with the weather!

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Tuesday September 24th ~ THE SURPRISE​

So our kids had NO CLUE that we would be leaving for our Disney trip later that afternoon! They asked us ALL of the time when they could go to Disney World. Our answer was always, “We will go to Disney someday, but not until Bronwyn gets bigger” and they seemed to be fine with that answer. Hehehehe How did we keep it a secret from them for so long? It was hard! I wanted to spill the beans so bad!

While Donovan and Jorie were at school, the plan for the day was for Joe and I to finish up some last minute packing and do a major house cleaning. I had done a children’s clothing consignment sale two weeks before (so clothes and bins were everywhere!) and had spent pretty much the week before packing for the trip (with more clothes and more bins everywhere!- hence why the kids did not think something was up when I had all of the Disney clothes out to pack.) So the housework had definitely been neglected. Well who wants to come home from vacation to a dirty house? Oh and we were having a friend come over everyday while we gone to feed our cats. So we really needed to clean! And that's what we did. ALL day!

So the house was finally clean. The bags were all packed. The time that I could actually tell the kids that we were doing to DISNEY was finally about to come!!!

Annnnnndd I realized that I hadn’t thought of how we were going to do it! Whomp, whomp

After 1 ½ years of planning, I had thought of everything, right? Well I thought that I had!
So no clever reveal here! No fun Youtube video. No scavenger hunt. Nothin'​

Oh well, the kids didn’t care (or know any different!) They were about to find out that they were going to WDW!!!!! (warning... I only have one pic of the excitement and it is down right awful!!)

So as I waited at the bus stop, (I was trying hard not to burst with excitement) Joe was going to be bringing all of the suitcases down and putting them by the front door to "hint" to the kids that we were going somewhere.

Donovan and Jorie had gotten off the bus and ran down the street, and through the front door and what did they notice? The clean house! “Who’s coming over?” was the first thing they said. Lol With 4 kids, our house is rarely clean! “No One.” we answered. Then they must have noticed the luggage (there were 8 suitcases/bags right there in front on them! Hello!!) “Where are we going?” they asked next. We made them take some guesses.

“The Beach?” shouted Jorie.
“Nope”
“Sesame Place?” asked Isla.
“Nope”
“Great Wolf Lodge?” was Donovan’s guess.
“Nope”
Then I swear they all said it at the same time. “Disney World?!”
“Yup!!!”
“When?”
“Right NOW!!!” Let’s go!​

Here is the world's worst Disney vacation reveal photo.

The kids started jumping up and down! They could not believe we were finally going to DISNEY WORLD!!! And poor Bronwyn had no idea what was going on, haha.

Well it took us a good hour to get out of the house. I’m not even sure what took us so long or what we even did. I do know that Joe hadn't showered yet for the day so he ran upstairs to do that. Thanks, hun! Our plan had been to be in the car and on our way to Newark, NJ by 4:30. Well it was 5:38 by the time we were pulling out of the driveway.

We are always late…. It’s pretty much the story of my life. An alternate TR title could have been “We’re late, we’re late for a very important date!”

I texted my mom, who was meeting us halfway, that we were just leaving. She was not surprised, haha.

We stopped for a quick dinner at Sonic and arrived at our hotel at 8:50. We had reserved two rooms at the Wyndham Garden Newark Airport Hotel with a park ‘n stay package. We could leave both cars there while we were gone and there was a shuttle service right to the airport that ran every half hour. We had requested connecting rooms and a crib and we were told at check-in that both requests were granted. Well we had two connecting rooms ....right next to each other, the problem was that they were not connected to each other! Oh well, not a big deal. But there was no crib in either room. So Joe had called down to the front desk to ask about it. We were told that they would bring it right up. We had an early flight and the kids needed to go to sleep…umm like two hours ago! So we got them all in their PJs and ready for bed. Jorie and Isla slept in my mom’s room and Donovan and Bronwyn would stay with us. So after what seemed like forever, at least 30 minutes. Joe called the front desk back about the crib. We were told again that it was on it’s way up to our room. Then about 15 minutes later the phone rang. The lady from the front desk apologized that they were having a hard time finding us a crib. No, really? She explained that they were not able to locate one for us. She had offered us breakfast the next morning to make up for the inconvenience but I told her that we would be leaving very early for the airport. (Funny thing was, that my mom’s phone rang too and she had picked up her phone and heard our whole conversation. Guess our rooms really were connected, haha!)

So Joe had gotten into the bed with Bronwyn trying to get her to settle down and go to sleep, while I got all of our clothes set out for the next day. Our flight was the next morning at 6 AM. YIKES! I figured we needed to catch the 3:30 shuttle if we were going to get to the airport by 4 AM. (I was taking NO chances being late! Since we have a bad habit of being late for everything!) After a few minutes, I looked over and both Joe and Bronwyn were asleep in one bed. Donovan was asleep in the other bed. I still had all of the luggage tags to write out. Ahh! I remember it being 11:15 when I finally climbed into bed. I set my alarm for 2:45. Uggg! No rest for the weary.

Favorite Quote of the Day
“The next 10 days are going to be the best days of my life!” ~Donovan

I apologize for the lack of pics. I only have the one above and this one below from this day:


I'm not even sure what was going on with Jorie here. But it sure doesn't show the excitement of the day!! MAJOR TR PHOTO FAIL. I promise to make up for it on the rest of the trip. (I did take over 3000 pics!!)

Our Magic Bands





Shows how to make them "kid-sized"

To help make up for the lack of pics. Here are a couple fun things that I made for the trip!


My Buzz & Woody Toms. They took a looong time to paint, but I love how they turned out!


And these are our Autograph Books. Upcycled Little Golden Books! The kids picked pages from old (and some new) Disney Little Golden Books. We added paper to the opposite pages and had them bound at FedEx Office. Voila!

UP NEXT .....
4 AM at the Airport with 4 kids! Oh my!

 

[katt789]

I'm joining in!! Your kiddos are adorable!

Looks like a great trip so far minus the missing crib, I'm excited to read more!!

 

[RatherBeInAK]

I'm in! I want to see those dresses!

The shoes you painted are super cute. I especially love the Woody one. And what a great idea for the autograph books! Did you make them before or after the trip? Since the trip was a surprise and the kids picked out the pages I got a little confused. I love the idea. I'm going to have to scour my local Goodwill for Disney Golden Books now!

 

[Mousemommy1]

Your "reveal" photo is like something I would get! I always seem to miss the moment.

I also agree that our house is the cleanest right before we leave for vacation...alot of good that does us!

Sounds like you are off to a great start! Can't wait to read more!

 

[TruLovesKiss]

I'm joining in!! Your kiddos are adorable!

Looks like a great trip so far minus the missing crib, I'm excited to read more!!

Yay! I'm glad you're here!

I'm in! I want to see those dresses!

The shoes you painted are super cute. I especially love the Woody one. And what a great idea for the autograph books! Did you make them before or after the trip? Since the trip was a surprise and the kids picked out the pages I got a little confused. I love the idea. I'm going to have to scour my local Goodwill for Disney Golden Books now!

The dresses are coming, I promise!

We made the autograph books before our trip. The kids thought that they were just making "Disney Books" with their favorite characters (not knowing that they were really going to be autograph books for our trip! ) Yes definitely check out your Goodwill, that's where I found a bunch for cheap! And consignment stores and Ebay too!

Your "reveal" photo is like something I would get! I always seem to miss the moment.

I also agree that our house is the cleanest right before we leave for vacation...alot of good that does us!

Sounds like you are off to a great start! Can't wait to read more!

That's the ONLY good thing about coming home from vacation... the house is clean! But it sure doesn't last long!

 

[Mousemommy1]

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Wednesday, September 25th ~ Disney World Bound

2:45am and my alarm was going off. Ugh, I felt like I did not even sleep a wink. But it was okay!

Because today was the day when we were going to DISNEY WORLD!!

I quickly and quietly got up and showered and got myself ready. Joe got up next. I heard a tap at our door. There was my mom, with Jorie and Isla in the stroller all ready to go! We had brought along our Baby Jogger City Mini Double (best double stroller ever!) and my mom had an umbrella stroller that she was bringing along to use if she took one of the kids back to her resort. We still had the rolling rack in our room from the night before and it was loaded up with all of our luggage. I woke up Donovan and he quickly got dressed. We saved waking up Bronwyn for last and we did not even bother getting her dressed, I figured that was something I could do at the airport. So down to the lobby we all went. My mom and I each had a stroller and Joe had the rolling rack that was full to the top with bags. (I wish that I would have taken a photo of it!) Once down at the lobby, the shuttle driver was right outside the door. He helped us load the bags and off we went! He mentioned that since we were the only family on the bus that he was taking us right to the JetBlue terminal. Awesome!


Crowded, huh?

So we had gotten dropped off and we were the ONLY people in the airport! The JetBlue counter was not even open yet, haha. Guess we could have slept a little longer. Oh well! We WEREN'T late!!



So the counter finally opened and people were quickly coming in and filling up the line. We got our first taste of handling 4 kids, 2 strollers, and 8 bags. Ahhh! Thankfully we were checking 5 suitcases and soon would not need to deal with them. And they were ALL less than 50 lbs. ~ I was totally stressing over that since they were packed full! Yay for Space Bags!
The lady at the JetBlue counter mentioned that if everyone arrived for the plane that it was due to fly out 20 minutes early. Nice! Getting to Orlando early would be a bonus!


I had not been on a plane since 2005 and this was the kids’ first time. I had no clue how the whole airport/flight was going to go!

We made it through security with no issues. Another thing that I had been stressing about! I was really looking forward to the trip but this was the part of the trip that I was NOT looking forward to. I always got a knot in my stomach when I thought about the "travel" part of the trip. The airport/luggage/flight with 4 kids made me really nervous! But so far it was going fine!

We grabbed a little breakfast and took a seat by our gate.







So my mom mentioned that Isla would not use her bathroom at the hotel that morning. She had her “try” to go but she refused. Isla is definitely NOT a morning person AND Isla has a “thing” about using public restrooms… yeah she won’t! Great, this was going to be interesting. So I spotted the bathroom in the terminal and took Isla in with me. She had a complete meltdown shouting that she “did not have to pee!” It was her first of many "I don't have to pee!!" moments of the trip (and then having to go about 10 minutes later!) Ugh! So I just had her sit there on the toilet…. and waited and waited…. Nothing. I told her that she was not getting on the airplane until she peed. Still nothing. So we went back out to the gate. After giving her some time, it was Joe's turn to try with her. Success! Thank goodness!





We all look a bit tired!! It was way too early to be awake!

By now it was almost our boarding time! But then we hear an announcement that there was a problem with the current plane and they would need to change planes. So there would be a delay. So much for leaving early. AND the plane that they finally replaced it with had no working TVs. What? 2 ½ hours on a plane with 4 kids and no working TVs? This was going to be interesting. Haha. It really was fine though. I had brought coloring & activity books to keep them busy. The kids did great! There were no issues except for having to change Bronwyn’s dirty diaper in that tiny airplane bathroom! FUN!







We landed in Orlando at 8:40am. YAAAAAY! We were in Florida!!!!!!!!!



NEXT:
Magical Express & Poly check-in...

 

[familyabgar]

Very cute outfits! I'm glad you had a smooth airport experience!

 

[familyabgar]

Double post. Sorry!

 

[strmtroopr96]

Hi there!! I'm so excited to see a trip report from a fellow customs Mama!! We were down there at about the same time (9/24 to 10/2) and am now curious if you might have been the family we spotted at Animal Kingdom on 10/2? There were a bunch of us down there at the same time (we ran into one family a few times and my youngest was able to spend time with their little one).

We were flying home that day but spent a few hours at AK and as we sat snacking on a Mickey pretzel, spotted a family going in and out of the new character spot, Adventurers Outpost? The kids were dressed in I think Safari character outfits?

Can't wait to read more of your trip report!!

 

[RunningthruDisney]

I am in. Great start!!