Cars, Planes, & Trains Oh My!! My first PTR

[ashw100]

So this is my first attempt at a PTR. I have been really sick all week (Happy New Year to me) and so I have been reading TONS of TRs. It is nice to read about other people's trips and their love of Disney. Pretty much my family is going on this trip for my two boys and I am the only one who is truly excited for it. After months of them not caring about my plans for our trip and having no one to really talk about I decided to write this PTR. Even if no one reads it, its good for me to have a place to gush about my upcoming trip. Yay!

SO let's get started. First, the cast:




That's me, Ashley. I am 25 years old and a stay-at-home mom. I have loved Disney my whole life. I went to Disneyland a few times when I was little because we lived in Southern California. My family went to WDW when I was 13. I loved it and have always wanted to go back. My favorite Disney movie is the Little Mermaid and my favorite character is Winnie the Pooh.


The amazing guy with me is my DH Joe. He is also 25 and is a retail store manager. We have been married for 5 years (yes we got married at 20 ) I wanted to go to Disney for our honeymoon but it wasn't in our budget . He doesn't have the same love for Disney that I do. He didn't grow up with it like I did and he doesn't really get why I love it so much. He went to WDW with his family when he was 2, so of course he doesn't remember. I am hoping this trip will help him understand why I love it and make him want to go back.



This is my DS Connor, he is 3 years old and in preschool. He is the happiest child I know. He is almost never in a bad mood and just loves life. I have only exposed my children to Disney Junior and Disney or Pixar movies so he loves everything. His favorites are Cars and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, hence his Halloween costume.



This is James and he is 16 months old. He is a Mama's boy and takes life very seriously. I call him my sidekick because he just follows me around the house all day. I don't really let him watch tv yet but when his brother watches Mickey Mouse he stops whatever he is doing and rushes over. He LOVES Mickey, that mouse just makes him so happy.

The last two people in our travel party are my parents. Sorry no pictures of them, they hate having their picture taken. We used to live next door to them before we moved two states away and Connor is really attached to them. They didn't want to miss out on their grandchildren's first Disney World experience so they are tagging along.

That is it for my first post of this PTR. Seeing as I am still sick as a dog and my trip is less than 4 weeks away I will probably be posting a lot right away. Like I said in the beginning, this is pretty much just for me but if someone is reading this leave a comment

 

[ashw100]

Are We Going on vacation or to boot camp?

Party of 6 is now a party of seven

Travel Day X2

Saturday and Sunday

Monday and Tuesday

Wednesday and Thursday

 

[jrj]

Following along and looking forward to hearing all about your plans

 

[ashw100]

Following along and looking forward to hearing all about your plans

Wow thanks. I didn't think anyone would care about my plans. It looks like you'l be there same time as me. Yay for February trips , I hope the weather is decent. Thanks for following along.

 

[jrj]

Wow thanks. I didn't think anyone would care about my plans. It looks like you'l be there same time as me. Yay for February trips , I hope the weather is decent. Thanks for following along.

Yay for February in the happiest place on earth I too am hoping for decent weather... Let's keep our fingers crossed

 

[afwdwfan]

I had to stop by and check your PTR out. I hope you're feeling better now.

Connor reminds me of our DS. Same age. Same love for Jake (and same Halloween costume). Both Cars fans.

I hope you have a great trip. I'm sure your boys will both have a good time!

 

[ashw100]

I had to stop by and check your PTR out. I hope you're feeling better now.

Connor reminds me of our DS. Same age. Same love for Jake (and same Halloween costume). Both Cars fans.

I hope you have a great trip. I'm sure your boys will both have a good time!

Thanks, I am getting better hopefully this is will last so we can all by healthy for Disney. I started reading your PTR it sounds like both our kids are close in age. Disney does know how to get those preschool boys with Cars and pirates. Thanks for reading!

 

[ashw100]

I am starting to feel a little better so thats good but I am going stir crazy from being in the house for so long. When you combine being a stay at home mom, -40 degree weather, and being snowed in it is the perfect recipe to dream about my upcoming trip. Also, my magic band came yesterday So excited!!!!




Planning this trip to Disney had been super stressful. See I felt that I had enough exposure to Disney and it wouldn’t be that complicated. Book hotel, flight, and tickets. Then all you have to do is show up and go on some rides. Obviously, you guys know this is not possible nowadays but hey I hadn’t been to the world in 12 years. Luckily, I have type A personality and LOVE to plan so I bought a vacation guide e-book and decided to read up in case anything had changed .

Now I love to plan but having to book ADRs 180 days in advance and touring plans just sounded ludicrous to me. However, if what the book was telling me was true than if I didn’t do these things I was in for a pretty miserable trip. The thing is while I am off making plans for every second of our trip my family thought I was nuts. They actually didn’t believe me that I had to plan this far in advance. This is when I lost them, from here on out they didn’t want to hear about our plans because the trip was just too far away. So I had to decide everything on my own and they would just have to deal with it.

I had the idea for this trip a year ago and have been doing research since then so by the time booking became available I knew exactly what I wanted. I booked the Cars family suite the day 2014 package rates came out. I booked the 6 of us 6 nights at AOA with 6-day park hopper pass and the dining plan for January 31 to February 6. My family of four is flying out of the Grand Rapids airport very early in the morning and my parents with fly out of Chicago after work later on that day. As I stated before, I'm type A and a control freak so I didn't want to rely on Disney transportation so we are getting a minivan.

Our original plans looked like this:
Friday, Jan. 31- arrive at MCO at 11:30 head to AoA to check in then straight to MK.
Saturday, Feb.1- MK day
Sunday, Feb 2.- (Super Bowl) morning at AK, night at DTD
Monday, Feb, 3- HS
Tuesday, Feb 4 (DH’s bday) Morning off for boys, DH & I go to IoA for Harry Potter (I LOVE Harry Potter ) night sat EPCOT
Wednesday, Feb.5- morning finishing off EPCOT and evening at MK
Thursday, Feb 6- relax until flights

Obviously, my ideal itinerary was not going to work but more on that in my next post.

 

[afwdwfan]

I know what you mean about planning and ADR's. I love planning but I'm not a fan of locking in specific plans that far out. I know I'm going to change my mind anyway! I can't just stop thinking about and planning the trip after that 180 day mark.

I hope you do a TR or at least have some feedback to share on AoA. I look forward to seeing how a Cars suite works for 4 adults and 2 kids since we're considering that. My biggest concern about it is whether the folks out beds are big enough and comfortable enough.

 

[ashw100]

So I know people like pictures and I can never get enough of showing off my kids.


Here is our countdown calendar. Each day there is an activity that we do to get ready for Disney, it usually a movie or activity such as decorating our Tinkerbell bags.


Another picture for good measure


So first my ADR’s. First up was going to be CRT. Now I know that this place is way overpriced, it doesn’t have the best food, plus I have boys who don’t really care about princesses but I didn’t care. I have always wanted to go inside Cinderella’s castle. When I went to MK the first time I remember being SO disappointed that all you could do was walk through that tunnel. Now the dining experience may have been available at this time but I didn’t know about it. So that was the one thing other than our half day trip to check of Wizarding World of Harry Potter that I did selfishly. Plus if you booked breakfast you could be in MK before the park opened and I just thought that was too awesome . The rest of my ADRs I booked with the boys in mind. I have two small boys who don’t have the attention span for a sit down dinner so I had to pick places that had something else to them. I chose Rainforest Café because Connor loves it there, Coral Reef for the fish tank, Play N Dine lunch for the Disney Junior characters, and O’hana because I know they have fun activities for the kids.


So before I get into each days planned activities there is one little thing to get to that made a HUGE impact on our trip. But first, I switched up two of the days because I wanted the “rest”/IoA day to be in the middle of our trip. But other than that everything was set. Up until the fall I was just thinking that I have to wait to see about FP+ (at this point I still had no idea whether we were going to get to do it) and try and get a reservation for the desert party, which at that point didn’t open up until about 60 days out. So back to that little thing that will change everything…oh yea turns out I was going to be pregnant for this trip. While this is definitely not ideal for my first trip in 12 years, I am just too happy about out new baby on the way . The first thing that had to go was IoA. I have wanted to go see WWHP since it opened but there is just not a point to go if I can’t do anything other than drink a butterbeer. Oh well, I guess I will just have to go back. I also got rid of the park hopper because it just didn’t make sense to have it. Other than that our plans didn’t really change except I could do any thrill rides which sucks because I LOVE thrill rides but James couldn’t do any of them and Connor still can’t do a lot of them so that just meant I could take them while everyone else rode. Ok now that that’s out of the way on to the itinerary.

 

[jrj]

You're pregnant? CONGRATULATIONS

That's exciting...#3 on the way... Yay!

Am so happy for you!

 

[ashw100]

I know what you mean about planning and ADR's. I love planning but I'm not a fan of locking in specific plans that far out. I know I'm going to change my mind anyway! I can't just stop thinking about and planning the trip after that 180 day mark.

I hope you do a TR or at least have some feedback to share on AoA. I look forward to seeing how a Cars suite works for 4 adults and 2 kids since we're considering that. My biggest concern about it is whether the folks out beds are big enough and comfortable enough.

I think I will do a TR . Doing this PTR is kinda therapeutic and fun. I am nervous about the sleeping arrangements for this room. We did this for two reasons my DS3 is OBSESSED with his grandparents he would have a meltdown if he had to go to a different room than them. Also, I had my heart set on the Cars suite at AOA and once I set my mind on something nothing is going to change that. Thankfully my parents are super laid back and don't really care about the sleeping arrangements. Our plan for now is to sleep in the bedroom with DS1 since he will sleep better with us than in a pack n play. Dad will get one bed and mom will get the other and share with DS3. I will report back on how comfortable it is.

 

[ashw100]

You're pregnant? CONGRATULATIONS

That's exciting...#3 on the way... Yay!

Am so happy for you!

Thank you! We were quite surprised but so happy for our third baby. We get to find out the sex 3 days before Disney so we can buy baby something cute.

 

[ashw100]

So I don't have any pictures for this update, not much going on just the first two days of our trip.


Thursday, January 30

So, we won’t be in Orlando until the 31st but we decided to start our vacation a day early. Our flight is at 6 am and we live an hour away from the airport. It just didn’t seem like a good idea to start the day that early and expect the kids to be in a good mood and want to do things. We opted for a different approach. We are going to go to Grand Rapids a day early and get a hotel for the night. We opted for a stay at the Country Inn & Suites. It was a good price and they allow you to park your car there so you don’t pay parking at the airport and they have shuttle to the airport. Sounds like a deal to me. We are going to try and leave around 5 because DH has to work. We will eat dinner on the road. I thought the boys could go swimming for a bit and then we would turn in early for a flight the next day. Not very exciting but I am counting this as our first official vacation day

Friday, January 31
I plan to leave the hotel at 4:15 to get to the airport. I know this is a small airport so security shouldn’t be too bad but I have never flown out of here before so better safe than sorry. We have a layover in Atlanta because there were no direct flights from Grand Rapids to Orlando. Our layover is only an hour so hopefully our flight is on time. We had to run through Atlanta’s airport in June due to flight delays and we had a half hour that time. We are supposed to arrive at MCO at 11:30. We’ll head over to get our rental car and then drive straight to Disney.

Since, I have been talking about this trip forever I wanted to make sure the first thing we do is meet Mickey Mouse. We’ll have to stop at AoA so our MBs are activated but then its straight to MK. We don’t plan on doing much this day because I know the boys will be tired and I don’t want my parents to miss too much so I ended up getting a FP+ for Mickey. I know we probably won’t need it but I figured I might as well. I also have FP+ for Jungle Cruise and Magic Carpets of Aladdin. The only other rides we plan to do are liberty riverboat and the railroad. I knew these were things that my parents wouldn’t care to miss. I also made an appointment for both boys to get their haircut at the Harmony barbershop. This will be James’ first haircut and I really hope they cooperate because I think this is such a cool idea. I made an last minute ADR for Crystal Palace since I wanted to see Winnie the Pooh and I had to cancel an ADR later on in the trip. Next, we plan to just go back to the resort to relax and check it out. I can't tell you how excited I am to walk around "Radiator Springs". Cars 2 was the first movie Connor ever saw and he watches is once a week at least. I am sure the boys will fall asleep from the airport to WDW so this will probably be his first time seeing everything. I can't wait I have to go back to the airport at midnight to pick up my parents. That should be about it for this day because we have an early day next.

 

[jrj]

Thank you! We were quite surprised but so happy for our third baby. We get to find out the sex 3 days before Disney so we can buy baby something cute.

Awww that's awesome! I'm so happy for you

 

[afwdwfan]

Congratulations! DW was pregnant when we went in 2011, and we had a great trip. I'm sorry it is your first time in 12 years and you're going to have to miss out on a few thrill rides though.

 

[wiigirl]

Following along.

 

[ashw100]

Congratulations! DW was pregnant when we went in 2011, and we had a great trip. I'm sorry it is your first time in 12 years and you're going to have to miss out on a few thrill rides though.

Being pregnant is definitely not ideal but I am really grateful because even though I can't go on thrill rides, this will force me to slow down and really take everything in. If you or your wife have any pregnant at Disney tips let me know.

Following along.

Thanks for following along, glad you're here.

 

[ashw100]

So, I wanted to share some pictures of my “surprise” of this vacation to our boys for Christmas. Connor already knew about it so it wasn’t really a surprise but this was our big gift to the boys.


Despite the look of utter joy, he was disappointed with this gift. He wanted more toys


This was they're favorite part of the gift, the balloon popped out at them when they opened the box.


In case you were wondering, gift included a lanyard with 2 pins, Cars bathing suits & flip flops, 2 homemade shirts, cars shoes, a personalized fleece blanket, and a Lightening McQueen shaped backpack filled with goodies for the plane ride.

Now on to the PTR


Saturday, February 1-
On this day, we will be spending all day at MK. I have a pre-RD ADR at Cinderella’s Royal Table. I am beyond excited to eat inside Cinderella’s castle, I can’t even tell you. After breakfast, we plan to hit the major fantasyland attractions before it gets too busy. We will take our midday break from noon-4. We will finish up any leftover rides in Fantasyland. As far as FPP goes I have them for Peter Pan’s flight, Winnie the Pooh, and Dumbo/Barnstormer. These were the only ride that had a predicted wait time of more than 15 minutes. I am hoping to be able to score a FPP for MSEP when/if this option opens up. For dinner, I really wanted go to Casey’s corner but that is closed during our trip so we will just go to whatever counter service is close by.

Sunday, February 2 (Super Bowl Sunday)- When I had originally planned this vacation I had no idea we would be here for the Super bowl. My husband is a huge football fan and will need to see the game. If anybody has any suggestions for viewing the game, I would appreciate it. We will go to Animal Kingdom at RD and head to the Safari first thing. This is pretty much the only ride the boys and I can do. We plan to spend the rest of the morning at Rafiki’s Plant Watch while the rest of our party does EE and Dinosaur. We will meet up for a spin on triceratops spin and to see Finding Nemo the Musical. I have heard really good things about Flame Tree BBQ so I think we will go there for lunch. I would like to spend more time here but the baby will need his nap so we will leave after lunch for good.
I originally had an ADR for Rainforest Café for dinner in DTD but I decided to cancel it. We had 3 more meals than TS credits and I neede to cut out some things. Plus, I would rather eat at Earl of Sandwich or WPE because I have heard good things about them and I can’t easily access them at home where as Rainforest I can. The guys will head somewhere to watch the game, worst case scenario would be the room, and my mom, the boys and I will go shopping in DTD. Also, my in laws called me last night and SURPRISE they are coming to join us for three days starting Sunday night! Now, I had originally invited everyone (grandparents, DH’s brother and sister with kids) to come while we were there. My parents were the only ones who booked so we counted everyone else out. So to find out 2 ½ weeks out that they wanted to suddenly come was a little off putting. I have been planning this trip for over a year and now I have to try to add them to our plans. I have a pretty commando style of touring for this trip which I have pre-warned everyone about but I have a feeling they are going to be VERY resistant. I should also say that I don’t now get along with my MIL very well so I am very apprehensive for this leg of our tip. Also, when I was trying to explain something my MIL’s response was, "I have been to WDW before." Their trip to WDW was 24 years ago when my DH was 2 so she obviously doesn’t need my help. Ugh I want to scream (pregnancy hormones don’t help LOL). They are arriving at MCO at 9pm so I didn’t have to include them in any of this day’s plans.
That’s it for now.

 

[afwdwfan]

Being pregnant is definitely not ideal but I am really grateful because even though I can't go on thrill rides, this will force me to slow down and really take everything in. If you or your wife have any pregnant at Disney tips let me know.

I can't really think of any specific items. Just take it easy and take breaks... you'll probably have to do that for your kids anyway, so just rest when they do. That's really all we did that made it any different for DW from any other trip. I'm not a napper so I'd go back to the room with DS and DW, get them settled in and leave them alone to nap while I'd find something to do for a couple of hours. At least you're picking a good time of year for it so you shouldn't have to worry about getting too hot or anything.

I love the way you revealed the trip to the boys.

Good luck with the extended family. All I've got to say about that is that it is difficult to tour the parks with a huge group anyway, so if they don't want to be RD commando park goers, tell them they can meet you at the park when they get up and are ready. You'll get more done without them anyway.

I think your plans to do Flame Tree and either WPE or EoS at DTD are great. Whatever you do, you'll be getting 2 QS meals that are pretty much on par with a TS meal as far as quality and quantity goes anyway.

Your DH's best option to watch the Super Bowl is probably going to be in the room. If this will be too much of a distraction for others trying to go to sleep before it is over, I'd say to check and see if there are TVs available around the pool bar there or at POP. I mean, anyplace that would be a good place to watch the game will be packed. He'd need to be in line at ESPN Club when they open and sit there all day if he wanted to go there to watch it. If he wanted to, he could really go to any other resort lounge as well if he wanted to maybe sit inside somewhere or check out another resort while he's at it.