Celebrating 9 days with my 4 kids(7,6,4,2)May 2009, I know I'm late starting this TR

[smithpack]

Thanks. I have not heard the word brill before, but I like it!

Ahh we use it a lot. Just short for brillant

Love it! I am going to start using that here.

Great surprise! All the decorations are so nice!! How was the cake? It was all so cute and I love how the ears and autograph books were set out waiting for them all!!

The cake ended up just being molded chocolate, it was hollow in the inside. It was alright, but I let the kids eat the majority of it. The Disney Florist does a great job setting up things.

Awwww, It is so bittersweet, isn't it? Do you have any other kids?

My second is due in May, but she was the first, so it's very tearful watching her grow so big.

I always tell people, you don't know love until you have a child. It is unexplainable to people without children. Your kids are going to be close in age! My first two are 18 months apart, and are the best of friends. Do you know what you are having? Congratulations!!

My DH is the 1st person I've ever known who does not like cheese!!! I cheese! It's difficult to cook dinner for him because I love all things cheese!

We plan to take DS to WDW during summer for his 1st trip. We first took DD when she was 6 months. Oh, DD has really grown up since then. She just turned 3 in November. Here she is as Princess Tiana at Halloween!

Thanks so much for including a picture of your beautiful daughter. Seeing her with her Princess Tiana doll just brought a tear to my eye. She has certainly grown up. I loved her first birthday cake that you did at 1900 Park Fair. It was beautiful, and so sweet of Mad Hatter to get everyone to sing to her. It is the things like this that make Disney magical.

 

[smithpack]

The last time we had gone to WDW, in May 2008, they were offering free Waterpark upgrades with our tickets. We had never done the waterparks before, and thought that our kids were probably too young to enjoy it. Well, we decided to take a day and go try out BB and boy were we glad we did. Our kids loved it!! They have an awesome area called Tike's Peak that my kids loved. I had no idea they had waterslides just for beginners like my kids. We stayed there all day that day and then made room in our schedule to go back to BB on an additional day because our kids loved it so much and had so much fun. Just so you know, they have stuff for your kids at all ages. We knew that we wanted to do waterparks again this trip and upgraded our tickets. We had gotten a deal where our kids stay, play, and dine for free so we did have to pay for just the price of the upgrade for the kids. We also didn't do Typhoon Lagoon last time so we wanted to try it out this time and compare the two. We definitely liked one more than the other, but I will get to that when I compare the two at the end of my TR. Sorry, but you will have to wait.

Now, while on the DIS one day I happened to come across something about ticket upgrades. I saw where it said that the water parks were considered separate from the four main parks.I did not upgrade to park hoppers because we don't hop around as it would just exhaust us and the kids with the strollers, and it basically takes us all day to do what we want in the parks anyways. So, when I came across this info on the parks being considered separate, I asked a question on the DIS boards, " Can you do a water park and a main park in the same day if you do not have park hoppers?" and you know what , YOU CAN!!! I was so excited because I was wanting to take the kids to see Fantasmic, but didn't want to do our HS day on a day it was showing because I knew it would be more crowded than usual. So, my plan on this day was to do BB and then head over to HS afterwards for dinner at 50's Primetime, Fantasmic ,and maybe TSM.

The kids slept in this morning until about 7:20. We ate some poptarts in the room , put on our swimsuits, and headed out to the bus stop at 9:20 since we knew that BB wasn't too far. We still got there before they opened at 10:00. I didn't take my camera with me here because I was afraid I would get it wet or ruined. There were Photopass photographers everywhere though, so we got quite a few photopass pics here. The first place we were headed was to the family raft ride. We hadn't done it the year before because I thought Princess(DD2) would be to small to go on it. It turns out your kids can go on it no matter how small they are as long as they can sit up next to you and you can hold them with one arm around them. So, I could have taken her the year before. Oh Well, it gave us something to look forward to this time. We rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain and got in line for Teamboat Springs. There were only a few people in front of us. Let me just say, that ride is awesome!! We loved it so much that once we got off, we turned right around and did it again. Everyone was laughing and giggling the whole way down. Super Fun!

I knew we were going to be eating lunch in about 30 minutes at Lottawatta lodge, so I suggested we go check out the wave pool until lunch time so we would be in the area of our lunch place. The wave pool was another thing we had yet to try out. On our way over there we passed a photopass photographer here and had our pictures taken.

Then we got to the wave pool. My kids love to swim, so they liked this. They also had a lot of floaties that the kids could wear. Guess what! There was a photopass photographer here as well!

DH and his mini me Donald(DS4)

Princess in her own floatie

We then headed over to Lottawatta Lodge about 11:15, and it is a good thing we got there when we did. When we got there nobody was in line. By the time we sat down there were about 15 people in each line. Sorry, but I did not get pictures as I did not have my camera with me. DH and I both got the cheeseburger, and the kids all got hot dogs for the second day in a row. The food was your typical CS restaurant quality. It was pretty good, but I've definitely had better!!

Now we headed over to the Tike's Peak area. Princess(DD2) and Donald(DS4) loved this because they had slides just their size. Goofy(DS7) and Lego(DS6) were wanting to go over to the Ski Patrol area since they had some stuff that was a little bigger than the kiddie area. So I took the older two over there. Goofy(DS7) headed straight for the ice cap things that you have to cross while holding on to the rope above your head. Then I noticed a photopass photographer, yet again!! Yay!

Goofy(DS7) wanted me to race with him down the slides over in this area, and you know what?? ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPHER!!

On your mark

Get Set!

GO!!

I am having so much fun!

but Goofy(DS7) won. It must have been the bent leg trick.

After a lot of playing in the water and sun, we decided to get some ice cream so we got a big bucket of ice cream and met the rest of the family in Tike's Peak. Now I don't have a picture from this year of the ice cream, but I do have a picture from when we went last year. This is the ice cream we ordered.

It melted pretty fast, so we had to devour it. After eating our Ice Cream we decided to do a few more slides with the kids. Guess What.... another photopass photographer!

It was now coming up on 3:00 and all this swimming had made the kids exhausted, so we decided to go back to the room for a little while and see if we could get Princess(DD2) and Donald(DS4) to take a nap.

On the way out we saw another PP, and of course Donald(DS4) is making us some silly faces for the pictures.

I must say that I regret not going over to the purple slopes. We have never done the slides over there. They don't have height requirements, and I really wish we had gone and done them. My neighbor just went this past September and she said her 2 year old really loved the toboggan racers slide. She went down on her own mat and everything. I know Princess would have loved this, because she loved the other slides. Now I know they can do the purple slopes as well. I have to go back.

 

[MadiMouse]

Another great update! Why do you have me craving some icecream now????? Lol. I never knew the water parks catered to the young ones as well! Great information!!

 

[kcandbella]

I love the surprise in the room. BB looks like a lot of fun! I have been to TL and liked it, but I was a teen. We aren't planning on doing any waterparks this time. That ice cream looks yummy, and I must say, you do NOT look like you have had four kids that are so young!!!!

 

[smithpack]

Another great update! Why do you have me craving some icecream now????? Lol. I never knew the water parks catered to the young ones as well! Great information!!

After seeing how much you like sweets, I knew you would like the ice cream picture. That is why I had to post it.

Blizzard Beach has a great kids area!

I love the surprise in the room. BB looks like a lot of fun! I have been to TL and liked it, but I was a teen. We aren't planning on doing any waterparks this time. That ice cream looks yummy, and I must say, you do NOT look like you have had four kids that are so young!!!!

Thanks for the kind words. My kids definitely keep me busy. They are like little leeches, sucking the energy right out of me. I wouldn't trade it for the world though. And, it has gotten easier the older they get since they are more independent now. I kind of miss the neediness.

 

[mom2shayleeandlogan]

Great update! I might have to add a waterpark day. It looks like you had a blast

 

[smithpack]

Great update! I might have to add a waterpark day. It looks like you had a blast

You should definitely add a waterpark day!Especially since you will be there when it is hot. It was so nice to spend a hot day in the cool water, not sweating for once. How old are your kids?

 

[smithpack]

So we left BB about 3:00. We got back to our room, cleaned up, and changed our clothes. It didn't take long for the Princess to be far away in lala land getting her beauty rest. It also didn't take long for DH to fall asleep and get his beauty rest as well, for that matter. Donald(DS4) was the next one out. They were falling, one by one. But the falling stopped there. Goofy(DS7) and Lego(DS6) were not about to go to sleep. Lego(DS6) started begging me to let him build his lego set, to which I replied firmly but sweetly, "no way". I just knew if he opened it that some of the pieces would get lost because we would not be in our room long enough for him to finish it. I was also afraid it would get destroyed in the car ride on the way home and I would have to listen to a lot of whining. Don't forget how messy my car is and how relentless Lego(DS4) is.

So we sat and watched some Disney on TV and then woke the rest of the family up at 4:45 so we could get going to HS. For some reason I was thinking that our ressies for 50's Prime time were at 5:50. I figured we would get there, eat real fast, and head over to Fantasmic.

We decided that since the kids were well rested that we would only need to take one stroller with us for the younger two. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! (this is sang with an angelic, opera-etic voice with a tad bit of vibrato to it) I wouldn't have to carry a stroller! We got to HS about 5:45. Even though we should have been rushing back to our dinner appt, we stopped and had some pics taken. We had to get our money's worth, right? Let's see if Donald(DS4) cooperates in this one.

close up of Donald(DS4) and Princess(DD2) so you can see his silly face in this one, and her saying "CHEESE"

Stitch popped out of nowhere, and then Mickey stuck his big ears in to say "hi" as well.

I just put this next one in because I am trying to figure out what that guy behind us is doing.

So after our pictures we headed as quickly as possible back to 50's Prime Time. This is where I find out that our dinner appt isn't until 6:50 and they are completely packed so there is no way we were getting in until then. I left rejected. This meant I was going to have to miss Fantasmic because there was no way we could eat at 6:50 and still make it there in time. I grieved for a moment because my plan was lost, but then ! We could go see some of the characters now so we wouldn't have to do it all on our HS day, and now we could ride TSM while everyone else in the park is at Fantasmic! So with my new plan quickly in place we went over to Streets of America. We had to meet Red Ranger and they were supposed to be out until 6:00. We booked it over there.

I just want to back up for a minute and say that Donald(DS4) is a major Red Power Ranger fan(in fact I was going to name him red ranger instead of Donald, I probably should have). I don't even remember how we came across the Power Rangers. I think he saw it on TV first when we was 2 1/2, and then he wanted to watch it all the time. I had to start recording it (what would we do without DVR) because he would throw the biggest fits if he wanted to watch it and I didn't have one available. Now, I believe the first one he saw was dinothunder and one of the rangers on there had his name. From then on out he was red ranger. We even had to call him red ranger for a period of about 6 months when he was 3 because he refused to respond to his real name. He has learned many a great fighting skills from watching this show.

Here were the boys in line. The time was 5:58. Would the boys get to see the Red Ranger before time ran out? Would they get their first autographs in their little books to be the red ranger?

Almost there, I should have had Donald(DS4) hand his autograph book first since red ranger is his hero, but he was a little nervous at meeting the big guy and stood behind his older brothers. First book signed.(It was Lego's)

Then Goofy(DS7) hands his book over, and his gets signed

but right at this time, the rangers are called back to go fight some bad guys. What? They can't do that!! Red Ranger Come Back, your biggest fan is here to meet you!! Red Ranger ran off and left little Donald(DS4) standing there, REJECTED! I know it is not Red Ranger's fault. They have to leave at 6:00, but my little man was so bummed. He didn't want to cry, but you could see the big crocodile tears welling up in his eyes. He held it back though.

I just have to say real quick, I did not put socks on with my son's crocs. Daddy must have gotten Donalds(DS4) shoes on him. I am not a fan of socks and crocs so I am sorry if I offend anyone who is a fan of them. Now, even though DH made this mistake, I must say that he is one heck of a dad and a husband. He is also a quick thinker(and obviously a good signature forger) because at this moment of looking into his rejected sons eyes, he quickly grabbed Donalds autograph book runs off around the corner and runs back. He told Donald that he had caught up with the Red Ranger, and the Red Ranger said to tell Donald he was sorry he had to leave and he signed his book. I will admit that this signature that my husband got looked just like the signature in my other boys books. Once again, Donald had a big smile on his face and we headed over to the Monsters Inc area since we were right there.

We walked in and there were two people in front of us. They also closed the doors right behind us because Mikey and Sulley were getting ready to go on break. It was so nice of them to let us in!! Princess(DD2) was not to sure if she liked the monsters or not.

What a good dad

Princess and Donald were scared

The older boys were not afraid

We still had about 30 minutes until our ressie, so we just thought we would take a leisurely stroll back. We saw this Club Penguin area. My kids are members of Club Penguin, so they were excited to see this area. These pictures crack me up becaues Lego(DS6) was constantly hiding and then right when I would say ,"say cheese", he would pop his head out or up somehow end up in the picture last minute. I didn't realize he was in some of them until I uploaded them.

Ha ha. We continued our walk back to 50's Prime Time and I must say I was starving. I was really excited to eat here to because this was a new one for us. Up next, dinner at Prime Time and, Do we make TSM?

 

[mom2shayleeandlogan]

You should definitely add a waterpark day!Especially since you will be there when it is hot. It was so nice to spend a hot day in the cool water, not sweating for once. How old are your kids?

I have a daughter that turned 4 in Nov. and my son will be two in May! They love waterparks, we just got back from an indoor one!It was very hot when we went last Aug. I am sure it would be a refreshing day in the sept. heat

 

[JLR]

Your kids are truly adorable! Great pictures at the waterpark. We are not planning to go to the waterparks this trip (that was my concession for staying at the Beach Club) but they are for sure going to be on our list for the next trip with everybody.

What did you do about Fantasmic?

I can't wait to hear the rest of the story.

Julie

 

[gallmcduck]

We r definatley doing water parks this trip for the kids. We plan to do TL and may pop into BB for some cooling off one day. The ice cream looks soooo good would be gone in seconds with us :

 

[MadiMouse]

Socks and crocs! Too funny! I'm sorry to hear about the character having to leave. I know that hurt his heart! I hope you took some pictures of the food...if you made it to your ADR. Lol.

 

[smithpack]

I have a daughter that turned 4 in Nov. and my son will be two in May! They love waterparks, we just got back from an indoor one!It was very hot when we went last Aug. I am sure it would be a refreshing day in the sept. heat

What fun ages to do WDW. I wish we had an indoor waterpark around here to go too. That would be awesome. I also wish we had some of the Chicago Deep Dish pizza.(I saw you are from Illinois) I went to Gino's when I was a teenager, and have always wanted to go back just for that pizza!

Your kids are truly adorable! Great pictures at the waterpark. We are not planning to go to the waterparks this trip (that was my concession for staying at the Beach Club) but they are for sure going to be on our list for the next trip with everybody.

What did you do about Fantasmic?

I can't wait to hear the rest of the story.

Julie

Well, at least you get to stay at the Beach Club.

We r definatley doing water parks this trip for the kids. We plan to do TL and may pop into BB for some cooling off one day. The ice cream looks soooo good would be gone in seconds with us :

How old are your kids? Have you done BB yet? Definitely add a day for BB.

Socks and crocs! Too funny! I'm sorry to hear about the character having to leave. I know that hurt his heart! I hope you took some pictures of the food...if you made it to your ADR. Lol.

You make me laugh with wanting pictures of the food. I was just mad at myself for not having him go first and letting the older brothers go first. He probably doesn't even remember it now, and it still bothers me.

 

[gallmcduck]

What fun ages to do WDW. I wish we had an indoor waterpark around here to go too. That would be awesome. I also wish we had some of the Chicago Deep Dish pizza.(I saw you are from Illinois) I went to Gino's when I was a teenager, and have always wanted to go back just for that pizza!



Well, at least you get to stay at the Beach Club.



How old are your kids? Have you done BB yet? Definitely add a day for BB.



You make me laugh with wanting pictures of the food. I was just mad at myself for not having him go first and letting the older brothers go first. He probably doesn't even remember it now, and it still bothers me.

We have three our eldest DS is 7 then DD1 is 3 and DD2 is 6 months. Yeah we've been to BB but not for a couple of years so we plan at least two water parks this year. We r staying an POR for our first 7 days so looking forward to it. At the moment we are just about complete with our ADRs.

 

[smithpack]

We have three our eldest DS is 7 then DD1 is 3 and DD2 is 6 months. Yeah we've been to BB but not for a couple of years so we plan at least two water parks this year. We r staying an POR for our first 7 days so looking forward to it. At the moment we are just about complete with our ADRs.

"We r staying at POR for our first 7 days"

How long are you planning on staying, you lucky duck? and where are you going after POR? I am so jealous.

I bet your son is thrilled that his chances of seeing a Princess at some point in this trip are pretty high, considering your DD1 is 3. I know you have to have a Princess visit squeezed in there somewhere?

 

[lovemyzoe]

I haven't gotten past the 2nd page of your TR yet, but I just wanted to say I'm so glad to see you just starting one for May 2009! I have just started my June '09 trip report on blogspot, just to have it to look back on, and thought about posting it here as well, but figured a 7-month old trip was probably a little too old for the boards. But now I know I'm in good company!

 

[smithpack]

I haven't gotten past the 2nd page of your TR yet, but I just wanted to say I'm so glad to see you just starting one for May 2009! I have just started my June '09 trip report on blogspot, just to have it to look back on, and thought about posting it here as well, but figured a 7-month old trip was probably a little too old for the boards. But now I know I'm in good company!

It's never too late. You better post it here! I would love to read it.

 

[smithpack]

We made it over to 50's Prime Time hoping to get in early, but it was still packed. So we let them know we were there and made our way to the waiting area. Here is what the waiting area looks like.

We saw this and I had to take a picture

My DH's mom used to have that same bull figure in her house. Both of his parents have been dead for about 10 years, so this made his day to see this. Now DH had been complaining about thirst for about 30 minutes and I kept telling him that we would be eating soon. His behavior started reminding me of Lego(DS6) with the lego store, so I finally was like, "fine. go get some drinks, but I bet we will be seated and have our drinks ordered by the time you get back." Well, I will admit... I was wrong. He went and got a couple of slushie drinks that he had been eyeing before we even walked in to Prime Time, and we were still sitting in the waiting area. The kids were definitely thirsty. You will notice that I am not getting a sip out of any drinks for myself, because this would add salt to my wound. I would have to admit that not only was DH right, but that I was actually grateful he had brought back the drinks. So I sucked up the thirst and held out for dinner time, determined to prove that I could wait.

So, as hard as it was to say, I admitted to my DH that I should have let him get those drinks 30 minutes earlier. While thus admitting my guilt, I heard the angels singing again, LAAAAAAAAAAA. Because as I admitted to my husband of his greatness, I noticed the family behind him get up off the sofa. Yeah, you know it.... I found a place to sit my butt down and watch some tv.

We continued waiting, and waiting, and waiting. With every minute that went by I kept thinking maybe there is still time to eat real fast and get to Fantasmic. 6:50, 7:00, 7:10, 7:20 Then we heard it. Our name. They were calling us back. Could it be? Was it real? IT WAS!

We made it to our table

What the heck??!! I have no idea what Donald(DS4) is doing in this picture. Honestly, I had never noticed his hand up his pants until this picture was blown up on the big computer screen. Geeeez kid, that is embarrassing. I would go back and crop this picture, but I am entirely too lazy and don't want to take the time to do that. I am guessing that maybe he got tired of the socks and decided to take them off and stuff them in his pants? Yikes. He ate with that hand too. Glad I didn't share food with him.

and out came our Uncle!! If you haven't eaten here, everybody is family. So the servers are your Aunts, Uncles, or cousins. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that they sure do share the same rugged, handsome, good looks. It runs in the family.

Our Uncle was very funny. I wish I could remember his name. He had everybody say hi to us when we sat down, and introduced us to the rest of his family sitting at tables near us. I knew what I wanted before we even were sat. I had seen pictures of it here on the DIS, and caught myself drooling while licking the computer screen........the pot roast. I had heard a lot about it and there was no way I was going to change my mind.

or was I?

First we ordered some drinks. DH and I got some Chocolate milkshakes with our waters because they come with your meal on the ddp. Then we ordered our food. You will never believe what the kids got. Give up? Hot dogs. What? you may be thinking, didn't they eat those for lunch? The answer is , YES. They ate hot dogs a lot on this trip. I couldn't believe they wanted them again for the third time in 3 days. Especially when they had so many choices. I thought about making them choose something else, but we were on vacation so I really didn't care. Their hot dogs came with an appetizer of either chicken noodle soup or salad. They all chose the soup. They said they liked it, but DH ended up eating all the soups. DH loved them though so that is good news. DH ordered the meatloaf, and I ordered..............the pot roast of course. You knew I wouldn't change my mind after seeing all the pictures, and I must admit, the pot roast did not disappoint. It was delicious. DH loved his meatloaf. Now I am sorry to say that I did not get any pictures of the dinner food, but I did of course get the best part...dessert.

Uncle came over and informed us that we had to eat our veggies or else we would not get dessert. Good thing my family likes veggies, at least the boys do. I will tolerate them, but would much rather have some, you know, dessert. Our uncle then made one of our cousins from the table next to us get up and hold her napkin to the wall with her nose for putting her elbows on the table. Goofy(DS7) loved this place. He decided to put his elbows on the table and Uncle came out with a big hat folded out of newspaper. He put it on Goofy's head, which thrilled Goofy(DS7). It was about this time that our dessert's came out. Our Uncle didn't even let DH order. He said he knew what he would want, and here it is with Princess(DD2) stealing a bite.

Here was my dessert

and the kids all had ice cream sundae's.

By the time we got done with the dinner and the show at Prime Time, it was 8:30. We knew we had missed Fantasmic. Oh Well, we decided we would go and see what the wait was like at TSM.

 

[smithpack]

So off we went. We got there and the wait time was 30 minutes. Yes! We could wait that long. That wasn't long considering it was a new attraction. Here are some pictures from the line.

Then we got our ever so cool and stylish glasses.

DH and Donald(DS4) were right across from me so I snapped their picture. I know you can't see Donald(DD4), but he is right there behind that huge gun.

Princess(DD2) was sitting next to me with her own gun. You better believe I was not about to share my gun with a two year old. She would have to shoot her own. Then we saw this.

I must admit that it is hard to try and take pictures at the same time. Here is the end score for me.

Then Woody said goodbye

This was the end of our 3rd day. We made it back to our bus stop where we waited for 45 minutes, then we all made it to bed by 10:30.

 

[A&Bmama]

Yay an update!

I'm so jealous. 50's Prime Time is the only table service restaurant I wanted to go to, but alas, I never got there. Good excuse to plan another trip it think..

So, as hard as it was to say, I admitted to my DH that I should have let him get those drinks 30 minutes earlier.

Don't I hate it when DH is right about something (not that it happens often ) Every time it happens I tell DH go write it on the calendar so we can always remember the day that you were right and I was wrong.