nkjzmom
<font color=purple>and baby Samantha, too!<br><fon
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2001
- Messages
- 2,124
Travelers:
Me--28, Disney visitor since the ripe old age of 1 month old!
DH--31, I know that I am wearing him down....he's falling in love!
DS--Nicholas, celebrating his 8th bday at MK!!
DD--5, Katelyn aka "Danger Girl", that's all I have to say about that
DD--3, Jennifer, thought she was a danger girl, turns out she's the princess that could feel the pea under 50 mattresses!
DS--1, Zachary Zebra, gotta love him, he's the baby
Cocoa Beach, Friday and Saturday
Orlando, Sat night-Tuesday afternoon
Let me start by saying that we are cheap, cheap, cheap.....we have to be with me as a SAHM with all these munchkins! We were going down to Cocoa Beach for my best friend's wedding and knew we couldn't be that close without at least a day at WDW. So DH got online and found a timeshare offer for a free stay in Orlando with free tickets to a WDW park. So we were set. The wedding was great, except for the kids asking every 5 minutes, "NOW is it time to go to Disneyworld?".
We stayed in the Holiday Inn Kidsuites in CB which I was nervous about after reading not so wonderful posts about the one in Orlando. This one was clean and neat. The kids thought it was great to have their own "room" and TV.
In Orlando we stayed at the Amerihost which had a great location. It was pretty neat inside as well, having a great center courtyard with a restaurant, karaoke, and a decent pool. The timeshare covered a regular room but we "donated" an extra 30/night for a room similar to the kidsuite at HI. It was much bigger though, with the kids area extending across the whole room, not just a corner of it. They had their own dresser and the crib fit in that side as well. So we really did have our side to ourselves.
Sunday am we went off to hear the mandatory schpeel from the TS people. It was Calypso Cay...nice place...too expensive. If we're going to spend that much money it will be DVC. The kids enjoyed the playroom and ended up meeting up at MK with other kids who had been there.
Now we can get to the fun stuff!!! Downtown Disney here we come!!!! Take out the Disney Club card, my Visa, and my ID....so they're nice and accessible!!!! And off we went....
We had never been there before and I was very impressed. We could have strolled there for hours longer than we actually had. We arrived around 1pm and stayed until 9-9:30. The World of Disney took hours just by itself. We hit the Lego store where Nicholas built this awesome lego car and raced it against some other kids for awhile. Then headed back in the other direction to find Studio M....what a great place. We will NEVER stand in line in Toontown again!! We walked right in, asked for a picture with Mickey and within 10 minutes we were there in the room all alone with the big cheese himself. He played with the kids and they told him how much fun they had at Chef Mickey's during our last visit. Why didn't I discover this sooner?
Next it was on to Team Mickey's for Christmas presents then all the way down to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. This was delicious. DH had the Alaskan King Crab and while he is a very picky eater, he really enjoyed it. I know because he said hardly two words until he was done. I had the Tuscan Chicken....it was to die for. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The kids all had pizza, surprise, surprise, but they said it was great. For Nicholas' birthday we got the VOLCANO!!!!! It was huge and chocolatey and too, too good. Our server, Max, was fantastic. The kids asked all about where he was from and he was so funny with them. The restaurant itself was a show with all of the rain and animals...Baby Z screamed with joy every time the gorillas or elephant would start up. Since his nickname is Zachary Zebra, he knows a zebra from a mile away and he found every single zebra in the place! I hated to leave.
We went around to the carousel for a ride and it was here that we had the worst moment of the trip. Nicholas let Zachary out of the stroller to get onto the ride, so while we were trying to keep him from running away, Jennifer "escaped". We searched for a good 5-10 minutes, calling her name, talking to everyone we saw...DTD has NO system for networking to look for lost children. We had split up and after I returned back to the carousel I saw that Rich had found her. She had met a little girl and wandered over to the little playground just around the corner. Jennifer had no clue. Her first comment was, "Taylor's mom and dad were watching us to keep us safe." I was in tears....one of those, I want to pick you up and shake the heck out of you, but I'm so grateful I want to hug you to death.
After we gathered our senses, we headed to the mother of all stores....Once Upon a Toy Store. Need I say more??? The Potato Head station was the best. The kids and Dad played there while I did some more Christmas shopping. I found two of the perfect gifts....a Chef Mickey beanie that I'm giving to my sister and her DH today for their surprise dinner at Chef Mickey's next week and a Mickey dressed up as a ZEBRA!!! Zachary's new favorite!!! We did enjoy a bit of CM magic here. The girls were in awe of the big Cinderella castle playset and wanted so much to get it down and play with it. One of CM's noticed and asked if they would like one to play with while I shopped. Of course they said YES...so the CM let them come back behind the cash registers to play with one that was on the counter. They had a blast and felt so important standing back there with the CM's. I wish I had gotten their names.
We were on our way out and decided to hit WoD one last time for a sweatshirt DH wanted....did I mention it was COLD?!?!?!? Well, now the kids (and parents) have had it...we're all tired, cold, tired some more. Zachary finds his way out of his stroller...still don't know how, he'd NEVER done this before...and now he's lost. I'm almost laughing because it's so wild that we've now lost 2 of our children in an afternoon. I promise we are good parents. We've never lost our children before...okay, there was that incident in Walmart a few years ago....but almost never! Turns out he climbed into the window display to play with the Christmas trees. So really he was safe in there....no one else could climb in and he couldn't climb back out. So if you were in DTD Sunday night around 9pm and saw the live window display in WoD....that was US!!!!
To bed and next day....Magic Kingdom.
Me--28, Disney visitor since the ripe old age of 1 month old!
DH--31, I know that I am wearing him down....he's falling in love!
DS--Nicholas, celebrating his 8th bday at MK!!
DD--5, Katelyn aka "Danger Girl", that's all I have to say about that
DD--3, Jennifer, thought she was a danger girl, turns out she's the princess that could feel the pea under 50 mattresses!
DS--1, Zachary Zebra, gotta love him, he's the baby
Cocoa Beach, Friday and Saturday
Orlando, Sat night-Tuesday afternoon
Let me start by saying that we are cheap, cheap, cheap.....we have to be with me as a SAHM with all these munchkins! We were going down to Cocoa Beach for my best friend's wedding and knew we couldn't be that close without at least a day at WDW. So DH got online and found a timeshare offer for a free stay in Orlando with free tickets to a WDW park. So we were set. The wedding was great, except for the kids asking every 5 minutes, "NOW is it time to go to Disneyworld?".
We stayed in the Holiday Inn Kidsuites in CB which I was nervous about after reading not so wonderful posts about the one in Orlando. This one was clean and neat. The kids thought it was great to have their own "room" and TV. In Orlando we stayed at the Amerihost which had a great location. It was pretty neat inside as well, having a great center courtyard with a restaurant, karaoke, and a decent pool. The timeshare covered a regular room but we "donated" an extra 30/night for a room similar to the kidsuite at HI. It was much bigger though, with the kids area extending across the whole room, not just a corner of it. They had their own dresser and the crib fit in that side as well. So we really did have our side to ourselves.
Sunday am we went off to hear the mandatory schpeel from the TS people. It was Calypso Cay...nice place...too expensive. If we're going to spend that much money it will be DVC. The kids enjoyed the playroom and ended up meeting up at MK with other kids who had been there.
Now we can get to the fun stuff!!! Downtown Disney here we come!!!! Take out the Disney Club card, my Visa, and my ID....so they're nice and accessible!!!! And off we went....
We had never been there before and I was very impressed. We could have strolled there for hours longer than we actually had. We arrived around 1pm and stayed until 9-9:30. The World of Disney took hours just by itself. We hit the Lego store where Nicholas built this awesome lego car and raced it against some other kids for awhile. Then headed back in the other direction to find Studio M....what a great place. We will NEVER stand in line in Toontown again!! We walked right in, asked for a picture with Mickey and within 10 minutes we were there in the room all alone with the big cheese himself. He played with the kids and they told him how much fun they had at Chef Mickey's during our last visit. Why didn't I discover this sooner?
Next it was on to Team Mickey's for Christmas presents then all the way down to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. This was delicious. DH had the Alaskan King Crab and while he is a very picky eater, he really enjoyed it. I know because he said hardly two words until he was done. I had the Tuscan Chicken....it was to die for. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The kids all had pizza, surprise, surprise, but they said it was great. For Nicholas' birthday we got the VOLCANO!!!!! It was huge and chocolatey and too, too good. Our server, Max, was fantastic. The kids asked all about where he was from and he was so funny with them. The restaurant itself was a show with all of the rain and animals...Baby Z screamed with joy every time the gorillas or elephant would start up. Since his nickname is Zachary Zebra, he knows a zebra from a mile away and he found every single zebra in the place! I hated to leave.
We went around to the carousel for a ride and it was here that we had the worst moment of the trip. Nicholas let Zachary out of the stroller to get onto the ride, so while we were trying to keep him from running away, Jennifer "escaped". We searched for a good 5-10 minutes, calling her name, talking to everyone we saw...DTD has NO system for networking to look for lost children. We had split up and after I returned back to the carousel I saw that Rich had found her. She had met a little girl and wandered over to the little playground just around the corner. Jennifer had no clue. Her first comment was, "Taylor's mom and dad were watching us to keep us safe." I was in tears....one of those, I want to pick you up and shake the heck out of you, but I'm so grateful I want to hug you to death.
After we gathered our senses, we headed to the mother of all stores....Once Upon a Toy Store. Need I say more??? The Potato Head station was the best. The kids and Dad played there while I did some more Christmas shopping. I found two of the perfect gifts....a Chef Mickey beanie that I'm giving to my sister and her DH today for their surprise dinner at Chef Mickey's next week and a Mickey dressed up as a ZEBRA!!! Zachary's new favorite!!! We did enjoy a bit of CM magic here. The girls were in awe of the big Cinderella castle playset and wanted so much to get it down and play with it. One of CM's noticed and asked if they would like one to play with while I shopped. Of course they said YES...so the CM let them come back behind the cash registers to play with one that was on the counter. They had a blast and felt so important standing back there with the CM's. I wish I had gotten their names.
We were on our way out and decided to hit WoD one last time for a sweatshirt DH wanted....did I mention it was COLD?!?!?!? Well, now the kids (and parents) have had it...we're all tired, cold, tired some more. Zachary finds his way out of his stroller...still don't know how, he'd NEVER done this before...and now he's lost. I'm almost laughing because it's so wild that we've now lost 2 of our children in an afternoon. I promise we are good parents. We've never lost our children before...okay, there was that incident in Walmart a few years ago....but almost never! Turns out he climbed into the window display to play with the Christmas trees. So really he was safe in there....no one else could climb in and he couldn't climb back out. So if you were in DTD Sunday night around 9pm and saw the live window display in WoD....that was US!!!!
To bed and next day....Magic Kingdom.
