Disney YES programs and 9 students YIKES!!

[newtowdw1]

Cast of Characters

Me (Mrs)—39 female trip planner, biology teacher, sucker
Rick (Mr)—44, male good sport (saint, really), biology teacher, wrestling coach
Maura—10, belongs to me
Connor—6, also belongs to me
Hottyschus—26, second male chaperone, wonderful guy, the girls at school call him ‘hottyschus’ and he is a former wrestler and student of ours, now a teacher at our school
7 high school seniors
Dolphin girl (senior, our sitter, helps clean the house, "adopted" child)
Rottweiler boy (senior, boyfriend of dolphin girl, one of rick’s wrestlers, Connor’s hero)
Firefighter : (senior, wrestler, loves to flirt)
Princess rincesssweet, but definitely a princess)
High maintenance girl (enough said)
Piglet (boy, wonderfully fun and responsible, delightful)
Supersuzy wave2: brings the sunshine wherever she goes)
2 high school juniors
Stitch (second "adopted" child, boy, wrestler, lives down the way)
Leb confused3 what can I say, the only normal one we took)
Pretrip background:
Rewind to May 2006 when I got a flyer in my school mail about the Disney YES programs. The slackers in my room (kids who hang out during studyhalls, see list above), and I threw around the idea of a trip south in 2007. Mr. said “no, well, ok, price it out.” He’s a Disneyphile too!

In June 2006 our area experienced a devastating flood. Over 42% of the homes were damaged, and 26% of the homes were condemned. My family and I spent most of the summer in Orlando, and the students above helped clean up their homes and the homes of their friends and neighbors. When we got home I’d decided that taking 10 kids to WDW would cost too much, and be too difficult to pull off.

September 2006 and Firefighter came to see me the second day of school. Told me about standing knee-deep in water, pumping, and the only thing that kept him going was thinking of us at WDW, having a great time, and that we would all be going in the spring!!!! (picture big brown eyes batting right about now).

Needless to say, I began to plan a trip. Sigh. How painful!!

In six months the slackers (now formally called the STOP (students taking on pollution) club raised over $3000 (enough for everyone’s expenses except food and gas), convinced the Board that WDW was educational, and guilted them into agreeing to Mr and I driving them to Florida, and missing 4 days of classes. The earth trembled at this minor miracle, and it was good.

Originally, we were going to stay at Tropical Palms RV park, as they have cabins. I figured we could have a ‘boy’ cabin and a ‘girl’ cabin. The kids were pretty agreeable, and thought that while we’d be cramped, it would be ok, as we were GOING TO WDW!!!!!! I was pretty excited, and posted here on the Dis boards. A wonderful person, Deb (islabonita) saw my post and offered us her home. Her wonderful 6 bedroom, 5 bathroom, screened in pool/hot tub home. Her home with DVDs and VCRs and Videogame systems, and luxurious master suites. And linens and dishes and a KITCHEN oh my!!!! with laundry too She also offered us an absolutely cut-rate price!!

Well, I’m sure she was stunned when I said I’d have to talk to my kids about it. My concerns were having males and females I was responsible for under one roof. I didn’t want any questionable behavior. And I didn’t want the parents to worry about questionable behavior. So I had Rottweiller boy call his mom from school one day. I figured she and I were pretty much the same in prudishness, and if she didn’t have a problem with her 17 year old son staying in the same house as his 17 year old girlfriend, then I’d tell Deb we’d take her up on her offer. I didn’t tell the others until RB’s mom gave us the go.

Well, RB’s mom said GO!, and we about wore out Deb’s website, gloating over the fantastic place we’d be staying.

The last thing we did was meet at my house March 10 to decorate our Tshirts for our programs. We had Bright Yellow for Animal Kingdom’s Keepers of the Kingdom program, and Seafoam Green for Epcot’s Making Waves program. Almost all of us put our nicknames on the backs, and our slogan “TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP!” Remember the Disney commercial? The one with the little boy on his sister’s bed? And he falls over backward and squawks,” We’re too excited to sleep!” Well, that’s us!!

 

[newtowdw1]

Mr. packed the 15 passenger van we rented, and we all jittered through school Monday, March 19. RB picked up Maura and Connor at their elementary school at 1:50 pm, so we could be on our way at 2:15 (school dismissed at 2:12pm). Everyone piled in, parents came to see us off, and we left the parking lot at 2:28.

We drove. And we drove. And we drove. And we drove some more. And we got leg cramps. There is NO leg room in those enormous vans! And we stopped at least every 45 minutes for High Maintenance girl to pee. I’m not kidding. Hottyschus and I were driving the midnight to 4:00 am shift, and everytime we got in the groove, HM had Firefighter call out, “We need to stop.” Finally, I put my foot down, and told them all “NO MORE STOPPING!! PEE NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEES!!”

Well, we made it to Orlando in 18 hours from 3 miles north of the PA state line. I’d say we made excellent time!! We stopped at Perkins along I4 to get a hot breakfast and breathe some Florida air. Then wheeled into Downtown Disney around 11:00 am. I took our confirmation paper to Guest Services on the West side (why is that now so hard to find?) and picked up our “Ticket Media.” SO EXCITING!! Some of us were wearing our Too Excited shirts, and since 14 of us were parading around DTD, gawking and shrieking, we caused quite a stir. I passed out the tickets (boy are they cute this year!) warning them NOT TO LOSE THEM until I recorded the numbers on their backs!! (warning: foreshadowing). I explained that once they used the tickets they could be replaced, if necessary, but that these tickets did not go along with the finger scan, so the numbers were really important.

With that, we saddled up and went to La Bonita!!! After a couple turn arounds (we always have trouble navigating the first day). And the house was wonderful. Better than we had hoped. Dolphin Girl and I kept turning to each other saying, “I can’t believe we’re really here!” Mr. threatened bodily harm if anyone went into the pool before the van was completely emptied, and within 10 minutes everyone was in the pool (without bodily harm). I copied all the ticket information down, folded it up, and tucked it into the little plastic case with my extra digital camera memory card, and put that into my park bag. We were gold!

There were so many cups and dishes and towels and robes…so many bathrooms and bedrooms…so many movies and videogames. Connor stayed with his hero, Rottweiler boy in the 2nd master, and Hottyschus was to stay there too, but he mostly slept in the family room. The girls took the front bedrooms, and the other boys took the 2 twin bedrooms. Maura stayed with Dolphin girl and Supersuzy. Rick and I stayed, obviously, in the master suite.

Firefighter’s grands met us and took us out to dinner that night. So nice of them. We went to the Golden China across from Milemarker 4 on US 192. Yeah. It was pretty bad. Really bad. But it was nice to meet his grands. They came back and oohed and ahhed over the house. Mr. and Hottyschus and Rottweiler boy went to the grocery store (only 1mile away). We all agreed on a variety pack of cereal, milk, poptarts, and Diet coke. HM girl needed hot pockets for breakfast. And pickles. And root beer. Oh!! And popsickles.

And I held a war council in the family room.

 

[newtowdw1]

Cast of Characters

Me (Mrs)—39 female trip planner, biology teacher, sucker
Rick (Mr)—44, male good sport (saint, really), biology teacher, wrestling coach
Maura—10, belongs to me
Connor—6, also belongs to me
Hottyschus—26, second male chaperone, wonderful guy, the girls at school call him ‘hottyschus’ and he is a former wrestler and student of ours, now a teacher at our school
7 high school seniors
Dolphin girl (senior, our sitter, helps clean the house, adopted child)
Rottweiler boy (senior, boyfriend of dolphin girl, one of rick’s wrestlers, Connor’s hero)
Firefighter (senior, wrestler, loves to flirt)
Princess (sweet, but definitely a princess)
High maintenance girl (enough said)
Piglet (boy, wonderfully fun and responsible, delightful)
Supersuzy (brings the sunshine wherever she goes)
2 high school juniors
Stitch (second adopted child, boy, wrestler, lives down the way)
Leb (what can I say, the only normal one we took)

As I was getting ready for bed, Hottyschus casually asked, “So what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

I, equally casually, replied “We’re going to AK. Mr. will take all your tickets once we enter the park, and get you FPs for Everest. We’ll do our program, then we’ll get something to eat and …” I broke off as I realized the house was dead silent and noone was nodding or looking at me in any way to signal comprehension.

I sighed. I’d tried to do this in New York, but obviously there was no time like the present (10:30 pm, to be exact). I normally go to bed around 9:30, and get up at 5:30 am. I hadn't slept the whole way down, and didn't sleep well the night before we left, so I was running on almost 48 hours without sleep. Stitch was the only one who slept as little as me, and had been pounding Monsters for 48 hours.

“Okay, anyone who wants to no what we’re doing tomorrow, come sit here at the coffee table in the family room, RIGHT NOW!”

I settled myself on the leather sectional (the short end), and Hottyschus settled in under one elbow, Stitch settled in under the other, Leb sat catty corner, and Rottweiler boy leaned over the back of my neck. The others politely took seats on the floor, sectional or rockers. HM (High Maintenance girl) did not attend the war council. The ones I mentioned were all on the short section. Did I mention that Mr. and I don’t seem to need much privacy? Well, anyway, we don’t get much. Did I mention that wrestling season had just ended? And that Stitch just flat out called me Mom now? Did I mention that they are in my room at school ALL DAY EVERYDAY? Did I mention that we’d hosted no fewer than three parties for them at our house? Yeah, we’re close. REAL close.

“Okay, now, everyone, open your maps. We are leaving here at 7:45 am. We need to show the little man in the booth our program paper, park, walk to the entrance and meet our people at the flagpole by 8:30. I will not be telling you when to get up, but you’d better be ready by 7:45.”

I went over the maps for each park, showing them where the attractions they wanted to experience were. And they stared at me blankly. SO, I took a marker, and walked them through the park, step by step. AND again. And then, they got it!! I re-explained about Fast Passes. And cut off the ones who told me all about Universal’s line jumping system, thinking it was WDW’s. And told them when they could get new FPs. In other words, everything that took me 18 months of study on the DIS, I explained to them in less than 60 minutes. Hooray DIS!!

I went to bed, and Mr. went to bed. Maura was sleeping in my room, because she was overstimulated and overtired, and just couldn’t cope with sleeping with the big girls. Connor was in Rottweiler boy’s room. All the kids were in the hot tub (no, I’m not exagerating). Hottyschus passed out on the sectional. I was too excited to sleep. At least, I thought so anyway. I know I was sleeping because I heard someone squirreling around in the crushed ice slot of the refrigerator. Grrr! At 1:30 am!!

I got up around 6:00 and made coffee (oh yeah, that was on the shopping list too). Piglet was up as well, and we tiptoed around the family room for a while. Then realized that Hottyshus was not going to wake up because of us. Everyone assembled by 7:15 and we killed time with the FlyingScreaming Monkey until 7:40. Rottweiler boy chased them all out to the van, we all piled in, and Mr. cranked the ignition. I said, “Waitwait!! One very important ritual must be observed. We must all now scream with excitement to get some of it out of our systems.” A long scream later (sorry neighbors) and away we went to Animal Kingdom!!!


More very soon!