Celebrating 10 years of marriage - our romantic vacation for 3?!?!?!

[mom2meiko]

Hello and welcome! This is actually my 2nd attempt at writing a trip report. Sadly, my first attempt was never completed but I really do plan to finish this one! (As long as my kids cooperate of course!)

So - a little background for you. 10 years ago dh and I were married. We wanted to have a Disney wedding but unfortunately my aunt refused to travel that far so we stuck with a traditional wedding at home followed by a Disney honeymoon. We loved our wedding - don't get me wrong - but we both always wished we had been married at Disney instead. So - dh decided that we would celebrate our 10 year anniversary by renewing our vows at Disney with our closest friends and family in attendance. Fast forward to our actual anniversary and we realize we cannot swing a big vow renewal - maybe for our 25th? - our friends and family really aren't that interested in our anniversary (can you blame them?) - but we still love Disney so let's a plan a trip for just the 2 of us!

(We had just been in January with our children so we only felt slightly guilty about going back again without them.)

So - we made arrangements for my dad to watch the kids, we booked our flights, scheduled vacation time, booked our dvc and started making our dining reservations - heavy on the fine dining for adults with basically no kid friendly character meals in sight. The perfect anniversary trip was in the works!

Then.... dd (3) starts talking about Mickey and wanting to go back and see him again soon. Then she starts talking about Cinderella and how much she wants to go see her castle again... and on and on and on... and anyone who knows my family will know that dd is a daddy's girl! Suddenly, "Mr. I Want A Vacation Without Kids" has turned into "Mr. Maybe We Should Bring DD Along..." Didn't see that coming did you?

Now before anyone starts yelling about taking one and leaving one behind let me explain. DD is 3 and at that great age where she can do almost anything that we would want to do (with the exception of just 2 rides), she's great at eating in fancy places without issue, she's just all around an easy going, well behaved, sweet natured, lovely little girl. And best of all - she doesn't need to follow a schedule!!!!! This little girl loves the night life and we know she has no trouble enjoying some late nights in the parks!

Then there is our ds. He is 16 months old and is a handful - to put it mildly! I love that little guy with all of my heart - don't get me wrong! He's just not an easy baby. His trip with us in January was a huge challenge because he was miserable on the flight, miserable in the parks, miserable in the hotel room, etc. He still doesn't sleep through the night, really requires a fairly strict schedule and now that he has discovered walking, he is constantly on the move. He would have been a mass of screaming misery on the 2 1/2 hour flight down and back - never mind trying to keep him still on the rides, in his stroller, even on the buses to and from the parks would have been a nightmare with him! We decided for his sake as well as our own that it would be best for him to stay home. And let me tell you - leaving my baby boy home was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life and I've done some pretty hard things! I knew he was in great hands - my dad was watching him and is probably a better caregiver than I could ever dream of being! I just couldn't get past the idea of "what if something happens to us and we orphan him?" I know - morbid thought but that's the way my brain works. I always fear that the worst will happen... it's just my way.

So - a few weeks before we are scheduled to leave and I am now scrambling to change our flights, add our dd's flights, change our dining reservations around, etc. We ended up adding an extra day to our trip which was cheaper than adding dd on to our existing flight down oddly enough so our trip ended up being from Sun, 10/24 - Fri, 10/29.

And now my romantic anniversary trip for 2 has turned into a princess-centric trip for our dd - and we are lucky enough to be going with her. LOL.

Up next I will try to post our revised planned schedule and our last days before vacation...

 

[MErnst]

Looking forward to the rest of your trip report. My husband and I have had a couple of opportunities to take long weekends without the kids and we always feel guilty about it....actually DH more than me, lol!

 

[mom2meiko]

So before we move on to the actual trip itself I thought perhaps we should begin with the week before the trip. We were leaving on a Sunday, so we had a very full week planned for packing, cleaning, etc. Unfortunately, we had a rough weekend (at the 1 week mark) with 2 sick kids. Dd appeared to have a cold - and ds appeared to be teething. Cranky, miserable children all weekend long meant we didn't manage to get a lot done in preparation for our trip but we figured we had an entire week to make up for lost time - plenty of time, right???

Well, fast forward to Tuesday. Dd seems to be mostly recovered but ds is still super cranky and with no new teeth in sight. Hmmm... Met some friends for coffee and discovered toward the end that ds now has red blisters all over his hands! Nothing anywhere else, but his hands were suddenly covered. (We are all 100% confident he did not have anything when we first got there although even I realize that seems impossible.) I took him directly to the ped's office where they promptly diagnosed him with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease! LOVELY!!! So, that explains the misery throughout the entire weekend. My poor little guy. Phone calls are made to rearrange our schedule for the week, begging is done to get coverage for watching my sister's kids since I do that every day for her, and prayers are made that (a) he is recovered in time for us to leave him with my dad for the week come Saturday and (b) that our dd doesn't catch it.

That afternoon I begin to get a sore throat but didn't worry too much about it. I assumed it was either allergies (unlikely but I can hope) or I caught my dd's cold (definitely more likely...) Wednesday comes and my throat is still miserable, I am barely able to even swallow a sip of tea and by evening I have a fever, chills, headache, bodyache, etc. Dh panics, assumes it's flu and sends me to bed - yes, another day of packing lost to illness... Thursday morning dh wakes me up just to shower and see the doc. Turns out it's not strep or the flu - it's Fifth's disease! Apparently this is the grown up version of ds's HFM disease... Sick back and enjoy the ride she says, because there is not a single thing you can do. Get past the fever, sore throat, etc., you will have about a week of feeling ok and then the joint pain and swelling will kick in... LOVELY!!!! I head back home with strict orders of bedrest, fluids and advil - or as much as you can manage with 2 small children and a lot of packing to do...

Well, it was a crazy weekend with not quite as much rest as I should have had, but somehow I made it through. Dh was working all day and well into the night on Friday and Saturday so I packed what I could, dropped off ds to my dad on Saturday, brought dd back home, left lists dh for last minute things and got dd to bed by 8:45 pm. (This is early for her - she's still up and going strong as I type this now at 10:15 pm.) Dh still hadn't returned home from work but our taxi was scheduled to pick us up at 4 am which meant we had to be up by 3 am at the latest. Bed was the priority at this point with instructions for dh to get me up as early as needed in the am to finish things up...

Next up - getting there. Will we actually manage to get up on time???

 

[mom2meiko]

Looking forward to the rest of your trip report. My husband and I have had a couple of opportunities to take long weekends without the kids and we always feel guilty about it....actually DH more than me, lol!

thanks for joining me! this was my first time being away from one of my babies with the exception of when i had my ds and was in the hospital for those few days - but even then dd got to visit us each day! this was a new experience and i really struggled with it... the guilt and the missing him were both really tough. i'm told it gets easier each time you go though, so who knows? maybe i'll become a pro by the time they are 18????

 

[mom2meiko]

Just taking a moment to fill you in on what we thought we would be doing during our travels...

Sunday, 10/24:

• Travel from Boston to Orlando
• Magical Express and Check in at Saratoga Springs
• Magic Kingdom
• Lunch at Crystal Palace
• Dinner at Kouzzina by Cat Cora

Monday, 10/25:

• Disney's Hollywood Studios
• Lunch at 50's Prime Time Cafe
• Check in at Bay Lake Tower
• Dinner at 1900 Park Fare
• Magic Kingdom

Tuesday, 10/26:

• Breakfast at Chef Mickey's
• Bibbity Bobbity Boutique at Downtown Disney
• Lunch at Sanaa
• Dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table
• MNSSHP

Wednesday, 10/27:

• Breakfast at Kona Cafe
• EPCOT
• Dinner at CA Grill

Thursday, 10/28:
(Our Official Anniversary!)

• Breakfast at Whispering Canyon Cafe
• Park Hop througout the day
• Lunch at Akershus
• Dinner at Artist Point

Friday, 10/29:

• Breakfast at 1900 Park Fare
• Magical Express to MCO
• Fly Home

I should mention that we are typically lazy WDW travelers. We go often enough that we rarely feel the need to cram a ton into each trip. We usually take days off to just chill, only do 1/2 days in the parks, etc. For some reason on this trip - probably because it was such a short trip - we were really aggressive in our plans. It's very rare for us to plan so much - the big question was... can we do it???

 

[mom2meiko]

The big day has finally arrived! The alarm - and by alarm I mean my dh - wakes me up at 3 am and the mad dash is on! A quick shower, racing around the house to pack last minute items, zip the bags, grab the muffins, etc. No sooner do I finish - while dh is finishing up in the shower - than the taxi arrives! I went outside to install dd's carseat, dh came out with the bags and then we grabbed dd right out of bed and directly into the carseat. We hit the road and dd managed to sleep the entire way into the airport. A definite win in my book!

We arrive at the airport, the lines at curbside are pretty long so I suggest we go inside (out of the cold) to check in. Big mistake - as I'm sure you all realize. The only excuse I can offer is that I am not a morning person and it was still definitely very early morning.

We headed back outside and did curbside check in. We then proceeded directly through security with visions of Starbuck's in our heads. We traveled throughout the terminal, past our gate only to discover that Starbuck's was no where to be found. Dh settled for coffee elsewhere, picked up a fruit cup and juice for dd and a water for me. We used the restrooms and then it was time to board the plane!!!

Dh and dd waiting to board the plane:

The flight was fairly uneventful. Dh caught up on some much needed sleep (although he deleted those pics on me) and dd watched tv, played and colored. For the most part she was really good and didn't disturb people around us too much.

Dh and dd on the plane:

We touched down, changed into our Florida clothes and headed to the ME check in. Along the way, we found this guy:

We boarded ME (after a fairly lengthy wait during which we called and checked in on ds) and headed to Saratoga Springs Resort to check in.

 

[mom2meiko]

Offering up apologies for the pics I just loaded. I tried to resize them on photobucket but it's not reflecting here. I will continue to try to fix it and will refrain from posting more pics until I figure it all out.