Celebrating our 10th anniversary at the World...without the kids!

[pixiefairy]

Ok...this is my very first Pre-trippie on the Dis....I am new to all of this so be gentle with me, ok?

My dh and I took our 5 kids to WDW back in June for our VERY first family trip. It was a trip in the planning stages for years and years. But due to my dh being tight with the purse strings, we put it off and put it off. Of course...we seemed to be doing alot of *ahem* procreating over the last 8 years, and we always seemed to have someone who was just a tad too young to bring with us. Last February, dh finally decided that he'd had enough of his own attitude and within 10 minutes we discussed it, and let the troops know we were going! 4 of our 5 kids had never been, our eldest went when he was a 4th grader with his bio dad and step mom plus her family. He had a great time, and was extremely excited to be going back...this time with all of us!

While in the planning stages for that trip...we started to kick around the idea of heading to WDW for our 10th anniversary....alone. It started out as a 4 day, long weekend trip, and has since morphed into a 6 day 5 night trip. That left us with a dilemma....who would we sucker..er...ASK to watch our crew for a decently long amount of time. Who could we trust??? Enter, my mom...gramma. She now swears that she must have been drinking when I asked her to do this . No...she's not a drinker, but she swears she misunderstood me.

Our last trip was completely planned down to the outfit...um yeah...I apparently became THAT mom. We went with a travel agent who is strictly Disney on the recommendation of good friends of ours who went the previous year. At first...all was well. But, once she knew we hadn't gone in 9 years, and that we hadn't had any kids with us that time, she took the liberty of making our adr's for us. Um..yeah...and I went with the flow instead of doing some research and changing things around to make our pace more leisurely. On top of that...she was always unavailable and had me hyperventilating for the last month before our trip...seems she was on vacation when our final payment was due. Luckily, it was all sorted out, with the help of a good friend of mine, who is a former CM. She worked in travel and was able to check and make sure that our reservations still existed.

This time...a travel agent found me on another board that I frequent. She is fantastic! I seem to lose my train of thought when presented with Disney decisions...so she has been a lifesaver. I gave her where I wanted to make adr's and she has done everything for me and much more quickly than I could ever hope to accomplish half of it. Even if it was only a question and I told her I'd take care of it myself, this lovely woman, who was on a cruise, still got back to me immediately AND she has gotten a bunch more accomplished with a concussion, no less, over the last two weeks. My dh is afraid she's going to cut her internet connection if she sees my name in the "from" line again, lol.

I'll introduce my cast in a few...and take you on a mini tr from our June trip. Hope you join me!

 

[pixiefairy]

Ok....the cast of characters for our upcoming trip are just.....

Dawn (pixiefairy) - I'm the 34 year old mom of 5 kids...4 boys and one girl. We Disneymooned 10 years ago and went to the World with all of the kiddos back in June for the very first time. We cannot wait to take them back, but we decided to go back for our 10th anniversary sans kids. Am I sad? Yes...but in a way, this will be a nice vacation to remind me that while my kids may drive me bonkers from time to time....there's no place I'd rather be than home with them...unless it's at Disney World with them.

Marty (dh) - he's the mac to my cheese....my hubby of nearly 10 years. His persona is Grumpy with some Sleepy and some Star Wars geek thrown in. He's as much of a Disney nut as I am....someone needs to take a look at his desk covered in multiple toys at work and see if he has room for his computer under it all. He's a wonderful husband and father who doesn't give himself enough credit and who really needs a break from work to hang out with me, his loving wifey.

We starting planning this trip back in June...but didn't finalize the plans until October/November. We were debating staying in a Deluxe this time, something special. As my quotes came back..we decided that we would stay at a Mod. Which one though? Our only experience has been in the values. We stayed at All Star Music for our Disneymoon and then at the Pop in June. After looking at pictures of all of the moderates, we decided to go with Port Orleans Riverside. I'm looking forward to seeing a different resort...but we know that we won't be spending much time there. Our time will be spent in the parks...soaking up every bit of magic we can before returning back to snowy, freeeezing, Illinois.

Up next.....out line of our plans for the week and a revisit to our June trip.

 

[hansel1]

You will love port orleans riverside. We have never had a bad stay there. The grounds are beautiful and the amenities are great.