Disney or Die: One Woman's Quest for the Perfect Trip (Finally completed)

[Jacksmom99]

I found Bogyglide at EMS this weekend. I hope it works for DH and his chafing "issues"

 

[heartsy77]

Welcome! I just wanted to tell you what a breath of fresh air you are! Welcome home to your DIS people!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Did you know there is more than one REI here? The big one near Midway & LBJ and another one in Plano. Not sure exactly where you live, but for future reference...

The other places you might check are Luke's Locker or Run On! if you live near one of those. Or Mountain Hideout if it is more of a hiking product than a running product. Or maybe St. Bernard Sports, though I think they are more for skiing. I am pretty good at tracking things down, and there are very few things on the market that you can't get around here. I usually call first to make sure they have what I want before I drive.

We just bring moleskin and hope for the best.

 

[abbyjoysmom]

It is here; the time is upon us! Tomorrow morning we set sail, okay flight, to Disney. The trip can’t come soon enough, but I promise tomorrow morning at 430 AM I will be singing a different tune.

I have transformed from the amazing Disney planner into the amazing Disney packer. I had more lists of items to take than a family of 16 would need, let alone a family of three. I began packing on Sunday, okay who am I kidding I started packing a month ago, but that was just the bag to take into the World. I spent hours figuring out exactly what I need in the “Disney” bag as it has been named. I am quite confident that if I fit one more item in the bag that the seam will rip. The bag o’ crap was next. I have taken many vacations to many far off places and have never needed a bag o’ crap. What is in the bag o’ crap you may be asking yourself, well at this point I can’t even be sure myself. I know there is a princess crown, a Cinderella dress, extra wipes, sunscreen, and glow sticks beyond that your guess is as good as mine. I packed DD’s bag next. Who ever thought of the Ziploc bag person is a genius, everything fit so perfectly!

So now, it is 9:00 at night. DD has been bathed and is in bed. I have packed every conceivable short sleeve and sleeveless shirt in the house for my daughter and myself. I have put all of the bags downstairs just awaiting their export to the car. With all of this done you would think that DH would be on the bandwagon and would be packed as well; sadly, you would be wrong. DH hasn’t even touched his bag! I am now in a panic. I have shoved his packing list at him to no avail. I have offered to pack him numerous times but have been told, “I will take care of it.” I am on my knees praying he will use the packing list, which I know he will not. Since he will not let me pack for him, there is nothing left for me to do. I have planned, I am prepared, and now it is time to relax and have fun.

Please wish us lots of fun, no rain, great food, and NO waiting in line.

 

[OhMari]

Happy Travels, Godspeed, Arevaderchi, so long, farewell. Have a great time. Hopefully all Florida kids will be back in school. You might run into european's, for some reason, they "Holiday" the whole month of August.

 

[abbyjoysmom]

The trip is over I am happy and sad to say. We had a great trip, great weather, and plenty of drama! I will hopefully begin writing my report in the next day or so before I forget everything. By the way Oh Mari you were right I have never seen more British people in one spot other than actually being in the UK!

 

[lindajoan]

Can't wait to hear more!

~LJ

 

[Nurse_Mommy4]

Yeah your back!!!

Glad to hear you had a great time. Can't wait to hear the rest.

 

[heaven2dc]

We can't WAIT for your report with all this anticipation mounting!!! Hope you took lots of pics

 

[cherokeemamma]

I am glad to hear your trip was great. Cannot wait to read all about it!!
I am getting my snacks ready...so bring it on!

 

[abbyjoysmom]

As expected, the alarm clock going off at 4:30 A.M. was not a welcome sound. I did forgive the hated clock this one time since it was signaling the beginning of our much-anticipated vacation, and to be honest I had already been awake for an hour. I ran to my daughter’s room advising her the time had arrived and she needed to GET UP. This is where the pixie dust begins, just so you will be jealous there was a lot of pixie dust on our trip. My daughter HATES to get out of bed. We fight everyday about her getting up but not today. Before I could even walk out of her room, she was out of bed and dressed. One kid down…now the husband. I will never understand the concept of wait till the last minute but my husband embraces it with every bone of his body. After much poking and prodding, I pushed one husband, one kid, 4 enormous bags, one backpack, and one messenger bag out the door and into our impossibly small Civic. We were on the road.

We arrived at about 6:00 A.M at the airport. I was so happy that we had an early morning flight on a Saturday I just knew the airport would be empty; boy was I wrong. Apparently, the entire Dallas Metroplex also thinks that it is a good idea to take a 7:00 A.M flight on a Saturday morning. Of course being the masterful business traveler, I suggested to DH that we use curbside check in, 9 people and 20 minutes later we were checked in for our flight. As we walked into the airport from curbside check in I could not help but smile as we pass the 40 people waiting in line at the American counter ***pixie dust***. Security was uneventful, thank goodness, and then we were on the plane. This was DD first trip on a plane and I was very nervous but she did wonderful. She was much more intrigued by how the plane worked and did not seem to care that we were 30,000 feet in the air, and of course the fact that I let her eat an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies at 7:30 in the morning made the flight that much more exciting.

Here is a picture of DD on the airplane.

After the plane landed, we were off to find the Magical Express. We went down the escalator, skipping baggage claim. That is the weirdest feeling, walking out of an airport without your luggage. Once we were down stairs we saw our first cast member smiling and giving directions. Already smiling faces!! I walked right up to the counter with no waiting and validated our passes. After that, another cast member walked us to the Caribbean Beach line and 2 minutes later, we were escorted to our shuttle that then promptly left for the World ***pixie dust***. I must say that I was very impressed by Magical Express and it was wonderful not to drag bags through the airport.

About 30 minutes later, we arrived at the Caribbean Beach Resort. There were about 4 people in line and it went very fast. When we were called to our cast member my heart sank, a newbie, my vision of an upgrade disappearing before my eyes. Anxiously, I asked to be in Trinidad North or Martinique. The cast member’s response was you did not book a premium room only a water view room, my heart was officially crushed. Then ***pixie dust*** the cast member helping the newbie said “I bet we can find you something” and that is just what they did, Trinidad North was to be our new place of residence for the next 7 nights. As I was basking in the glow of pixie dust, I barely heard the next statement from the newbie “your room is ready now.” Okay at this point I felt drunk on the pixie dust; I hate waiting for my room to be ready anywhere.

View from room.

Me and my daughter.

To be continued….

Next stop Animal Kingdom!

 

[Nurse_Mommy4]

Off to a wonderful start. Your DD is beautiful BTW. My DD8 would love a box of cookies at 7:30am (heck she'd love a box of cookies anytime)

More please.

 

[mumom95]

I can't wait until the next installment, this has been such an enjoyable thread!!

 

[BeautyNBeast]

Subscribing. I love your report so far. It is fun hearing it from someone who has never been to WDW before. I cannot wait to hear more!

 

[mara61]

Subscribing, you are doing an awesome joB!

Tracy

 

[jdtopgun71]

Subscribing... can't wait to hear more!

 

[abbyjoysmom]

So we drop off backpacks and the blankie and head out the door. I have the official bag o’crap slung over my shoulder and we are ready to make our mark on the Animal Kingdom.

Here is my first official “World” photo.

We get our tickets and make our way into the park. The park is not very crowded which makes me very excited. The first thing we see is the Tree of Life. I was fascinated by the animal carvings, and obsessively took at least 20 photos of the different animals. We figured since we were already at the tree we would go ahead and see the “It’s Tough To Be a Bug” show. Now I had spent the last six months explaining to DD that everything at Disney World is pretend and nothing will hurt you, so I was confident that she would love her first Disney experience. As we walked further and further into the tree and ignored every warning we saw, I continued explaining the show and DD continued to act excited about the show. The lights went off and beautiful cartoon butterflies began to flit through the sky. “This is good,” I thought “DD is going to like this,” but oh, I spoke to soon. The minute that Hopper appeared, it was all over. DD began screaming at the top of her lungs and no sooner than I got her comforted giant spiders came down from the ceiling and she started all over again. I am truly sorry to all of the people for which we ruined this experience.

DH next to the Tree waiting in line for the Tough to Be a Bug show.

I thought it was time to experience something more cheerful so we made our way to the Safari to see some wild animals but of course being one of the main attractions the line went on for as far as the eye could see. This is when we got our first taste of Fast Pass, the most wonderful godsend ever created by Disney. I stuck in our tickets and this magical piece of paper came out that said we could ride in just over one hour!!! Where to go when you have an hour to kill, well Camp Mickey and Minnie Mouse of course. This was to be DD’s first character experience and I don’t know who was more excited me or her. First stop Mickey Mouse. We patiently waited in line and then it was our turn. Let me stop here and brag for a minute. I made all of my own autograph pages and they turned out pretty good. All of the characters loved the autograph pages. Each character spent extra time with her, acted extremely silly with her, and gave her attention that the other kids in line did not get just because of the autograph pages. If your kids are really into the characters, I highly recommend doing this. Okay enough digression...so we were about to meet Mickey. DD immediately fell in love and I had never been so happy. Okay so I cried like a baby. I completely experienced my child hood fantasies of Disney in one moment through my daughter’s eyes. It was completely magical. I will never forget this moment for the rest of my life. We then met Minnie and Goofy, unfortunately Donald was out fishing.

Here are the pictures of DD meeting Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy for the first time.

Because there was almost no line to for the characters and we still had over 40 minutes to kill and the Festival of the Lion King show was about to begin we decided to stop and watch the show. We were lions. I am pretty sure DD and myself were the best lions in the bunch; I definitely know that we were the best hand jivers. This show was spectacular. I loved it and could have watched it over and over. In fact I tried to stay and watch it again but DH was not having any part of that he was ready to see Red. We started making our way back to Africa when we stumbled across Flik and Stitch. These were two of my favorite character interactions; they took extra time to make sure that their autographs looked extra special.

DD with Stitch and Flik

By this time, we were exhausted, every inch of our body was wet, and so it was time to cool off. We stopped in Pizzafari to have a drink and a lemonade chill. DH loves lemonade this was to be one of about 100 stops for some form of lemonade during our trip. By the time we bought out lemonade, explained we are not on the dining plan for the first of 40 times, and took a bathroom break it was time for the Jungle parade. This would be my first of numerous “vacation fouls” as my husband called them. I completely forgot about the parade, even though it was on my laminated itinerary hanging from the bag o’crap. Everyone had already taken their spots and while the park was not crowded for a 5 year old there might as well have been a million people in front of her. She caught a glimpse of Minnie and the whine was on. She wanted to see the parade so bad and of course, I wanted her to see it so bad that now I was whining for DH to pick her up. Finally, DH picked her up and we finished the parade, but we had still yet to make it to Africa. As the parade ended apparently, the entire park wanted to walk behind it and we wanted to go the opposite way. I felt like I was in NYC walking toward Wall Street at 5:00 P.M. We made it through the throng of people and to the Safari. Right when we walked up a cast member asked us how many in our party, why only three, and then we were whisked away onto the ride. ***Pixie Dust*** no waiting again.!!! FAST PASS rocks!!

Even though it was 4:30 P.M. and hot we saw tons of animals on our Safari. We also saved Big Red from poachers and Little Red was safe as well, wow, that was a lot of hard work. Once we were finished with the Safari we decided to try Everest. Okay that was not happening; the line was at least 90 minutes long and there were no fast passes. Definitely not waiting for that one, but we decided to come back on one of the mornings so that we could ride it. We had reservations for Boma and decided to start heading toward the Animal Kingdom Lodge. This is where I committed vacation foul number 2. I assumed we would want to stay in the park until closing so I booked our dining reservation for 7:30 P.M. but by 5:30 P.M. we were starving. I had the bright idea that we would just head over early and maybe they could “fit” us in. DH liked this idea too, so off to the Disney bus we went. We walked right up and the bus was there before we made it to the front of the line, once again no waiting. We got to Boma at 6:00 P.M and checked in for dinner. 3 stout drinks later and at 7:30 P.M we sat down to dinner. I guess you don’t get to be “fit” in at Boma. Our waiter was from Ethiopia and was very nice. I liked Boma very much the short ribs and desserts were amazing. DH thought it was just okay, and DD ate chicken strips so she doesn’t count. After dinner, we were too exhausted to take a bus so DH had bell service call a cab. That was the best $16.00 we ever spent.

We made it back to our room and hooray, our bags were waiting for us. I was exhausted but because I have a AAA personality had to unpack before I could settle down for the night. Once the luggage and room were all nicely situated, it was lights out because there were still 6 more days to go.

Next…Day 2: Cinderella Here We Come!!!!

 

[NEWEARS2006]

Can't wait for day two

 

[averill94]

I am loving every word- please keep it coming.

Why are the zip locs so important?

To have outfits prearranged? I "know" I am going to use them - I just want to know why before I do!

 

[abbyjoysmom]

I am loving every word- please keep it coming.

Why are the zip locs so important?

To have outfits prearranged? I "know" I am going to use them - I just want to know why before I do!

Ziplocks can be used for many different reasons. I put one outfit each day for my daughter in a gallon bag. She was able to easily grab her outfit that included everything she needed that day. I also carried a gallon bag in the bottom of bag o'crap in case DD's clothes got wet during the day. Also when you go on wet rides you can put your camera in the bag so it doesn't get wet. I also used the extra ziplocks in the "bag" to get ice when we were coming back to the room. It is much easier to use a ziplock then getting back to your room and then having to leave again. Finally, on the last day our bathing suits never got dry and there was sand all over everything, I used the bags to pack up these clothes for the return trip home. Hope that helps.