Compromise is a Disney word: Taking one for the team over Thanksgiving 2016* August PTR link! 5/28

[kastoney]

I'm here, late as always, but I can't wait to hear all about it!!!!!!!

 

[ariane37]

This is what happens when I take my 25 (17 of which are boys...lol) 1st graders on a field trip...I'm late to the party. Ugh! Oh well. I'm here and looking forward to the whole kit and caboodle!

I did skip right over you, now I feel even worse than I did when I'd only fallen behind on your PTR lol! You know I love you And I am very, VERY glad you're here!!!!!

 

[ariane37]

I'm quiet but I'm here

I see you

I bought the same one for my DH to wear in June. Oops!

LOL don't let him see this thread!

Joining in! Can't wait to read all about your trip!!

Thank you for coming over! I need to catch up on yours Going on vacation sure puts you behind!

 

[ariane37]

I'm here, late as always, but I can't wait to hear all about it!!!!!!!

I've been waiting

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Hello there! Can't wait for more about your trip!

 

[buzzrelly]

Joining in! Can't wait to hear how it all worked out!

 

[ArielSRL]

I did skip right over you, now I feel even worse than I did when I'd only fallen behind on your PTR lol! You know I love you And I am very, VERY glad you're here!!!!!

Don't feel bad! I'm not worried about being skipped over, just wanted to make sure you knew I was here!

 

[Saphire5742]

Here!

Can't wait to read all about it

 

[Britbrie]

I'm joining in! Can't wait for you to post more!!!

 

[ariane37]

​

Hello there! Can't wait for more about your trip!

Hi and Ooohh you have a trip approaching fast!!!

Joining in! Can't wait to hear how it all worked out!

Hi, so nice to see you!! Thanks for coming by!!

Don't feel bad! I'm not worried about being skipped over, just wanted to make sure you knew I was here!

Oh I saw you, I just went to fast Trying to get too much done to quickly, story of my life lol!

Here!

Can't wait to read all about it

Hey Odelia, and while there's still a couple hours left, a VERY Looks like you had a wonderful day

I'm joining in! Can't wait for you to post more!!!

Thanks for joining and a great big

 

[ALEXandFAB]

Hello! So happy you started a new TR! Been having some major technical problems on the disboards site so can only log in on a very spotty basis and posting is near impossible . But somehow I'm able to post right now...

Looking fwd to your report!

 

[fallonkendra]

I'm so late, I've been relegated to the second page. The fact I'm here is what matters though, right?

Can't wait to hear all about the trip! I loved following along on Facebook

 

[AnnaGiselle]

Excited to join in and read along! I lurked on your PTR so I'm caught up on all the backstory. I'm headed down next week so getting in the WDW mood! Did you get to try any of the Holidays Around the World food booths?

 

[ariane37]

Departure Day!!!
For Some Of Us......​

Oh boy, I've started this post like 4x, trying to explain how our trip got a little......%@**^@! up before we even left without it being a novel, and I've been unsuccessful. I can't help it, I like to talk, guys! I'll do my best to give you the condensed version, and then I promise the rest of this TR won't put you to sleep.

After our filled-with-flaws-yet-still-fun-and-memory-making-2015-Thanksgiving-trip at the Boardwalk, we decided pretty much right away to have a redo this year. By April we had our flights and resort via renting points (minus a few days we were wait-listed for but that eventually came through) -and we were set! Until say, late July.
Ricky plays basketball. LOTS of basketball. Year round including for school with like, 7 or 8 weeks off at certain times. He started high school in Sept. and in 7th/8th grade, basketball tryouts weren't until after Thanksgiving break, thereby our trip last year didn't interfere at all. But I failed to consider high school basketball might be different, which unfortunately it is. So late July it was brought to my attention that tryouts would be PRIOR to Thanksgiving, with games also possibly starting prior. And so going away for a week was not acceptable to Ricky and if any of you are familiar with HS sports, wouldn't be acceptable to the coaches without Ricky being penalized in some way. Steve doesn't agree with this and so, while I suggested at this point trying to see if the person we rent points from would switch us to late August-he didn't want to deal with it until it became a problem. I on the other hand prefer dealing with things before they become a problem. But hey, things like that make relationships fun, right So the way I saw it at that point was we had a couple options: 1. cancel the trip right then and most likely lose some of our resort $, or 2. wait and see if Ricky actually made the team (he did!!) and then cancel and lose all our $. Suffice it to say the end of the summer wasn't very magical for me!
Fast forward to the end of Sept. at which point we'd considered Ricky and Steve changing their flight to the Tues. night before Thanksgiving if he made it, thereby only missing 1 practice the Sat. after Thanksgiving when we find out tryouts begin 11/14-FIVE DAYS BEFORE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO LEAVE! UGH! THAT MEANS WE WOULDN'T KNOW IF HE MADE THE TEAM UNTIL LIKE, THE 17TH! We'd been watching the flights they could take, watching the available seats go down and the prices go up. No way there'd be seats left a week before the holiday, and no way the price would be decent. Still, I was the only one who wanted to make the change with things being up in the air. Steve's thought was that if Ricky made the team, Chris and I would go down while he and Ricky stayed behind, but I wasn't going to spend Thanksgiving split up.
FINALLY around the middle of Oct., Steve agreed the best thing to do would be to book an additional flight for him and Ricky-yay! I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. So now we were all booked to leave on the 19th, but those 2 had another flight leaving at 9pm on Tuesday the 22nd just in case.
You'd think my stress would end here as far as trip planning, right? Except now I needed a plan A and B as far as park days, fast passes, ADR's, and what I would pack!! If they'd only be down for 4 days I wanted them to be able to do all the things important to them and get to all the parks which meant lots of switching from my original plan. But if we all went down the 19th I could keep that plan. And all the fast passes. And pack like I do for any trip. But if they'd be down there for a shorter period of time I didn't need to pack as much for them. And if they were staying behind I needed more groceries in the house. And how often would I need someone to check on the cats??
ALL QUESTIONS I WOULDN'T KNOW THE ANSWERS TO UNTIL 2 DAYS BEFORE OUR 11/19 DEPARTURE DAY!!!!!
So there it is, in a big, wordy nutshell. I spent the next few weeks leading up to the trip replanning and revamping, filling out index cards marked A and B, throwing them out and making new ones. Adding ADR's Chris wanted that Ricky wouldn't like but holding on to some original ones (don't be mad!). Frantically trying to organize myself on the 17th! Obviously it all worked out, and for the most part worked out well, but here and there things would have been just a tad bit easier if I didn't have to change at the last minute.
I will continue with our actual departure day in the next post so you all can rest your eyes and regroup!!!!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

That made me tired. LOL!

 

[ariane37]

Departure Day, For Real!​

Now that we knew Chris and I would be going down for some mother/son time on the 19th with Ricky and Steve following on the 22nd, I could be excited again for this trip! I was looking forward to spending time with just Christopher as that hasn't really happened since he was a toddler and Ricky was already in school.
Nov. 19th dawned bright and early as we got up around 3:15 am to catch our 6:30 flight down south. Ricky wasn't all that sad not to be leaving yet since he was more excited he'd made the team, and we were happy for him, but Steve was definitely bummed. I wasn't, but I tried not to seem too happy to be going, for Steve's sake lol.
Despite not being a morning person, by the time we were settled at the airport Chris was looking wide awake and in pretty good spirits!

Steve obviously couldn't follow us past security, but he did wait at the airport until we boarded. Here he is watching over us

from way, way up!
Let me stop here and apologize for my huge pictures. I know there's a way to make them smaller but 1. I'm too lazy to figure it out and 2. I'm too lazy to figure it out.
I'll probably jinx myself for our next couple trips, but our flight down and our travel to our resort couldn't have been more perfect. We were scheduled to leave at 6:30 but left 6:20; scheduled to land in Orlando 9:15 but landed 8:45. Score! Here's the tree in MCO for those of you who don't fly:

Then to top it off we walked right on to a full ME bus ready to go I was texting Steve the whole time and he kept texting back "unreal" and "unbelievable", because our last few trips have been filled with delayed flights and long ME waits either in line or once on the bus. We even got to sit in the front "reserved" seat of the bus because all the other seats were filled!
The bus to our destination, Beach Club, made 3 stops first - Caribbean Beach, Boardwalk, Yacht Club and then us. While stopped at CBR I decided to continue my picture taking and snapped this shot of the Christmas decor there:

I know I know, great picture right? Makes you want to rush down during the holiday season to see all the decor I promise, the pictures get better!
My plan was to grab something to eat at the resort and then head to MK, since it was so early in the day. I didn't really expect our room to be ready - we arrived at 10:00 - but it was! However before we found that out we had a bit of a scare when the CM couldn't find our reservation. I'd done online check-in but hadn't received a text so I went up to the desk, gave my name 3x and he kept telling me he couldn't find it. Since we'd rented points from someone new this time my first thought was OMG, did she cancel the reservation????!!! And then I happened to glance down at his Ipad and saw our name So we were golden!
We walked over to the Villas building which, while separate from the main building, really isn't far or inconvenient at all. Every day during "normal" business hours, there was water with lemon out by the Villa elevators:

Made it onto the 4th floor! That was our request, along with near elevator which we also were.


Some room pictures, which I'm sure you'll be able to tell were not taken when we first went in the room:




Love Donald!




The room was identical to our studio at BWV last November and was clean, which was NOT identical to either of our BWV studios last year so overall I was very happy. I do have pictures of our view but I'll post them later.
After a quick change from jeans to cooler clothes we headed down to the Marketplace in search of something to eat. We were both starving; we'd had stale tasting muffins and banana bread at the airport and wanted something substantial before hitting the park.
I'll save the pictures and main review for my dining report that I plan on starting one of these days, but we each got a breakfast platter and it was good! With full bellies we headed towards the bus stop, but I made Chris pose for a picture with one of the trees in the BC lobby first:

UP NEXT: LET THE MAGIC BEGIN!​

 

[disneyAndi14]

Great flight, ME, and room mojo to start a trip. Love seeing all the different decorations so festive. Glad your husband and son are still coming to enjoy the trip.

 

[LovePug]

Subbing...I only just decided to try to make it to WDW for Thanksgiving 2017, so very interested in your report!

 

[ariane37]

Hello! So happy you started a new TR! Been having some major technical problems on the disboards site so can only log in on a very spotty basis and posting is near impossible . But somehow I'm able to post right now...

Looking fwd to your report!

Hi there! Ugh, been there with the Dis technical problems I still can't use the multi-quote function for some reason. I hope you guys had a great trip! Are you going to do a TR?

I'm so late, I've been relegated to the second page. The fact I'm here is what matters though, right?

Can't wait to hear all about the trip! I loved following along on Facebook

You're not late! I only did my first real post today Thanks for coming over Fallon!

Excited to join in and read along! I lurked on your PTR so I'm caught up on all the backstory. I'm headed down next week so getting in the WDW mood! Did you get to try any of the Holidays Around the World food booths?

I hope you enjoyed my PTR and since you know the deal, I hope you went ahead and skipped my 2nd wordy, boring post lol. We did actually try some of the food booths at Epcot! Not until our 2nd to last day and I'll do the full reviews in my dining report, but we enjoyed the Alpine Haus and Festival of the Three Kings. The only negative is that, unlike F&W and F&G booths, these booths were full servings so we couldn't eat as much and they cost more

 

[xlsm]

Hooray for an easy travel day!

I love it when we get to sit in the "reserved" seats...it feels like you're a VIP!

I actually think the garland-y stuff at CBR is pretty cool. I like those big flowers.

Your room is nice! I love the little Murphy bed things. X wants to stay in the Poly studios for that very reason...the murphy bed with the Stitch scene in it. He's taller than me so I'm not sure if he'd fit. Are they a good size?

Woohoo!! Excited to get this party started with some time at the MK!