*Done! 3/6* Dec 2012 -The awesome now TR report that lacks a catchy title - Done!

[Tinkergurl20]

I just got caught up and can't believe you only have 1 more day!! We leave in 2 weeks and its torture waiting, but I have to take finals before I can go!! Hope you have an amazing trip!!!

 

[Valgoof]

Have a great trip!!!!! We will miss you on the Dec thread!

 

[SAT887]

I'm going to try and stop in- I'm am early riser and we will be doing nap time as well! Well off to sleep (haha yeah right!)

 

[wdwtwins]

AHH!!!! How exciting! Have an awesome trip!

 

[Lcaemom]

Today is the day!!!!!!!! Have a great time!!!

 

[taaren]

We do EBCI- just because its easier with the munchkins. We ended up with A19 this morning

I did ebci for just me and got a42! Oh well. We'll be running for the plane connection since our flight is delayed anyhow so boarding order probably won't be an issue ... Hope your flight goes smoothly!

 

[SAT887]

I did ebci for just me and got a42! Oh well. We'll be running for the plane connection since our flight is delayed anyhow so boarding order probably won't be an issue ... Hope your flight goes smoothly!

We almost missed our plane!!! Icy roads in NH and if the TSA didn't pull us out for the family line chances are we would have missed it. They had already boarded a lot of people and boarded us ASAP because of our #.... It was a sold out flight hew:

Our flight was great. Love SWA and the passengers were great! DD3 was so chatty with everyone and everyone was so sweet to her.

 

[tofubeast]

Enjoying the little updates on the Roll Call. Looking forward to MORE, MORE and MORE!!

 

[SAT887]

Enjoying the little updates on the Roll Call. Looking forward to MORE, MORE and MORE!!

Having a great time you are going to have so much fun with your daughter!!! We are so close to being able to take Zoey on more rides - she's about 37.5".... Maybe next year!!

We are sitting on a bench eating dinner while the rest of my group is enjoying star tours

 

[SAT887]

Merry Christmas everyone! I will probably start a TR after the holidays.

 

[mnmrmustard]

Just giving your PTR a bump to see if you still plan on doing a TR. Can't get enough Disney Holiday Magic!

 

[SAT887]

Just giving your PTR a bump to see if you still plan on doing a TR. Can't get enough Disney Holiday Magic!

I do plan on it. I've been so busy! Plus I didn't take notes - I just need to do it. I'm going to add it to here. Maybe I can get my first 3 days done this weekend. We are traveling to NJ to see family this upcoming week so I'm busy again!

 

[SAT887]

Ok, FINALLY I am going to start a trip report... Please don't expect anything amazing because well... I was sick my entire trip thanks to this monster sinus infection my DH gave us all as an early Christmas present. However, even with that to deal with this was the best trip ever I made more discoveries about who I can vacation with, and who I can't... I didn't take as many pictures as i wanted.. I had my hands fulls --- So I have borrowed some off of google images....

So Day one!! 11/30

After a long day of packing and dealing with returning our rental on Thursday(If you were on the Dec thread, I'm sure you heard me complain about DH hitting a deer in a our new VW) our 2am wake up call was not really welcomed. I got about 90 minutes of sleep, DD1 was up all night and I could barely breathe but who cares I was going to WDW!!!! So we actually did pretty good, we woke up, heated up some french toast sticks for the girls, loaded the Jeep up and off we went to Cumby's. It was free coffee friday and DH needed breakfast to get going. So It sorta sounds like things are going ok right? Nope!! Of course, me on no sleep, DH on only a little more and two tired and cranky kiddos in the back and it is snowing and icing out. Ugh. So off we go to MHT to catch our flight and it takes about 2 hrs... Or I think close to 3 this trip because travel was somewhat sketchy through the White Mountains...

So we get to MHT and pull up front, unload and strategically bring kids and luggage into the airport. That was interesting, it can be difficult when you have two kids 3 and under, 2 car seats and suitcases.... You can't leave the car or the luggage un attended.. Needless to say I didn't have enough hands for the rush I was in!! I almost contemplated strapping DD3 to the suitcase in her car seat so she could be watching it, then that whole responsible parent kicked in and we managed. So we got in, and it was so close to boarding time, and we are standing in the only busy desk at MHT waiting to check our luggage... And guess what! It was too heavy!! Argh!!! So, in saving time we paid $50, The SWA rep offered to wait while DH repacked, but we had a more pressing issues; getting DD3 to the potty and getting on our plane to Orlando!! So, after a fail with the potty we were finally in line for the TSA and of course it is insanely long. I was hoping leaving at the crack of dawn on a Friday would be less busy, but I was wrong. Thankfully a TSA agent saw me with my Double Stroller and pulled us to a special "family" line, and we were the only ones! Bonus! I am so thankful for this because we literally got some of the last seats on our flight that were together and if we had waited in the long line we probably would have missed our flight.

So I am over the top excited, we are in the air on our way to sunny Florida (which was lacking real ice and snow!!) and even though the sinus pressure (Yes, I was medicated) was painful, I didn’t care I wasn’t going to let anything ruin my vacation! I had been planning this trip forever, and then of course I lose my voice completely. You know what, I was still on cloud 9. Our flight was great, uneventful, the kids were awesome and we got to MCO no problem. DD3 even used the potty on the plane, that is something I won’t even do… So I knew after that all my fears were going to be ok. We got our luggage, went to Enterprise (and woo hoo for the kiosks!) and went up and got our Dodge Charger. I like this car, I don’t know anything about cars but last year we had a horrible car, I couldn’t handle the way it drove and just disliked it immensely.

Ahhh the feeling of getting on the highway heading to WDW – it’s absolutely awesome… Until my MIL calls me and says “I’m at Newark airport and I can’t find your mom…” Yep, that’s when I got anxious all over again. So after about 30 minutes of unanswered phone calls, texts messages, and calls to my siblings trying to at least find out if she even woke up this morning she calls… While it was relieving, I was so aggravated too… Ehh but this is my mom, and I took several deep breathes, and was thankful I had very little voice, it was a great excuse to get off the phone and relax. So now on to awesomeness, Mom & MIL are boarding its 11am, and I am minutes from DTD!!

We get to DTD and find a parking spot and book it for Guest Relations…. I am just so excited and my girls were getting there too… We got to Guest Relations and I give DH the list of things he needs to get, DVC PAP and TiW… While I go to redeem our Photopass+ voucher… Zoey (DD3) and I were both pretty impressed by my new red necklace and we were off to explore a little while Zack (DH) and Olive (DD1) waited in line… It didn’t take very long and we didn’t explore much. So it is about noon (maybe a little after) and I am thinking how smart I was for changing my lunch ADR to 1:05pm. So we decide it’s time to head to the Animal Kingdom Lodge! It all starts really sinking in… YAAAAAY!!! We are in Disney. Well, we were off to our car and had one other stop in mind… Starbucks, I needed coffee desperately, we skipped it at the airport both times in favor of catching the plane and then just getting to WDW…. It was time… So off we go!

I am only going to say this once… I despised Apples Navigation software and it created many issues for me this trip….

With that being said – yep we ended up at a fake Starbucks somewhere and had to turn around and argh… It was just annoying…. I had no idea where we were…. We finally went to the Starbucks we knew of and got our coffees with lots of extra shots, and Zoey had earned herself a chocolate milk for being so awesome (she honestly at that point earned a whole case!!) And we were finally on our way to AKL. It was so awesome. My girls were being great and Olive even took a short nap….

First, we rolled through these! This is about when I freaked out (maybe more on the inside) and Zoey got super excited…

Then we were at AKL. Ahhhhh “Welcome Home!” We pulled up, unloaded our luggage and finished checking in. Our room was ready, however we were hungry and had an ADR at this place…..

We waited a few minutes for our table and checked out the Savannah – Olive got comfortable in the brush and expressed her displeasure when we forced her inside….

Sanaa…. I loved this place. I honestly can’t remember what we ate very well… We all split the Naan Sampler, Zack got some sort of burger, and I had a salad sampler… Zoey also shared the pizza with Olive and they both ate a ton of fresh fruit. We didn’t have a great view, but we didn’t care. Our waitress took a very long time in the beginning, this was frustrating, however she made up for it in the long run(she said she was sorry… She acknowledged her poor service and apologized that’s all I needed!), nothing was going to bother me this vacation. Zack said I was awesome this vacation, I let stuff roll like never before. He was quite proud of his control freak wife!

So after an awesome lunch we headed to our room. I was secretly hoping for a Savannah view but I wasn’t expecting too much. We had gotten a 1 bedroom “Value” villa at AKL, it is in the Jambo house and yep… We had a parking lot view… Oh well… Next time… And that will be my January 2014 trip report!!! So we settled in, Olive went to sleep in the bedroom, while Zack, Zoey and I settled in to watch Secret of the Wings (the new Tinkerbell Movie) Shortly in Zoey fell asleep for a much needed nap, as well as DH… Meanwhile I was up… And on the DIS hehe… One of the few times on my trip. I can’t believe I contemplated doing a live trip report!! I barely took pictures, let alone update anything!

So they napped, I DIS’d and my Mom and MIL landed safely in Tampa and headed over to AKL to meet us for dinner… We had a reservation at Boma… Yum! We had some time to kill before dinner so we checked out the Savannah until it got dark out, they were roasting marshmallows and there were still guides out there telling people about the animals… We had our meal at Boma and it was great as usual. This is one of our favorites and we try to go every trip.

After Boma we spent some time catching up with family. It was nice but we were tired and wanted to go to bed. I need to drive my Mom here…… She rented a room for the night and my MIL was going to share a bed with the kiddos….

So it seemed like checkin at ASM took forever… I was so sick at this point. I was coughing and felt horrible. I was trying to not cough, which made it worse, and was hoping my mom would just be like “I can do this, I got it…” But nope… So deep breaths… And finally after I bet everyone on line thought I infected them with some sort of plague we checked in… I drove my mom to her room, brought her bags in and was off…. Or so I thought…

Yeah but I was so sick and delirious that I ended up at this place…. Ummmmm not where I wanted to be…. Well right now that is...

I finally pull into AKL and call DH, I told him I needed to go to Walgreens, he told me just to go, and I was like “Yeah, I was just at Epcot, I am in no condition to drive, you need to take me” So MIL watched the sleeping kiddos, we went to Walgreens, I got meds and cough drops, and off we went. Back to AKL and off to bed…..

Next update... OKW and the Grand Villa!!! Animal Kingdom, the super surprise, my little dancer and a date night!!

btw - ASM picture from disney, Sanaa google images and Epcot was wikipedia.....

 

[ksromack]

I love reading your trip report....kuddos on the maintaining control over your emotions! That is hard to do, especially when you are sick! I'm afraid I would have blown.

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Good job keeping your cool and not letting little things bother you. I'm very much a perfectionist and control freak too, so I've been working on that for the last several months and have been quite proud of myself on it too!

Can't wait to hear about your next day!

 

[SAT887]

I love reading your trip report....kuddos on the maintaining control over your emotions! That is hard to do, especially when you are sick! I'm afraid I would have blown.

Good job keeping your cool and not letting little things bother you. I'm very much a perfectionist and control freak too, so I've been working on that for the last several months and have been quite proud of myself on it too!

Can't wait to hear about your next day!

Hi guys!! Thank you for joining! Yeah it was a difficult task. Last year I tried doing the same thing and ended up covered in stress hives and upset. I bundle it all in so I don't disrupt anyone. This trip was great, so much fun and I'd do it all over again, even with the sinus infection! I'm proud of myself though because I really do have some control issues!!

 

[taaren]

Yay! There is a TR! Its unfortunate that you got sick right before the trip, there's a lot of viruses, etc going around this season.

Oddly enough the adult guys both got sick on our trip, but none of the kids or women did. Lucked out I guess.

I love that you were able to let her just hang out in the brush like that! Every time one of our littles started to explore the foliage, my girlfriend and I were freaking out about snakes and yanking them back onto the main path (we may have a slight phobia ...). In fact, my girlfriend one morning after we exited the room realized she had left the balcony door open (before we got to the elevator), and had to go back to close it because she was worried a snake might get in the room and we were on the 12th floor! She justified it by saying its possible a bird of prey might pick one up and be flying near our balcony ...

 

[SAT887]

Yay! There is a TR! Its unfortunate that you got sick right before the trip, there's a lot of viruses, etc going around this season.

Oddly enough the adult guys both got sick on our trip, but none of the kids or women did. Lucked out I guess.

I love that you were able to let her just hang out in the brush like that! Every time one of our littles started to explore the foliage, my girlfriend and I were freaking out about snakes and yanking them back onto the main path (we may have a slight phobia ...). In fact, my girlfriend one morning after we exited the room realized she had left the balcony door open (before we got to the elevator), and had to go back to close it because she was worried a snake might get in the room and we were on the 12th floor! She justified it by saying its possible a bird of prey might pick one up and be flying near our balcony ...

Yeah everyone has been sick. Thankfully it was just sinuses..... So many have had the flu. I honestly didn't get better until after Christmas. We all got sick - but my extended family didn't.

That is too funny about the brush and snake fear. I honestly wasn't thinking of snakes... We are "woodsy" people so it didn't seem too off to me. And I literally "LOL'd" over the snake and 12th logic!! However I can relate - I have a few quirks like that myself!!

 

[sheila <3 WDW]

Joining in! Your girls are adorable! Can't wait to read more. How awesome for the family line to open up basically just for you. We are flying Southwest for the first time in March. I've heard great things about them, so I am looking forward to it!

 

[SAT887]

December 1st

So, all medicated up I slept like a rock on that pull out couch in our villa…. Around 5:30 am I woke up ready to start my day. Still feeling like junk but – whatever. So I am being super lazy and waiting on MIL to finish using the one bathroom (was fun sharing between all of us!) and I hear an alarm go off… Oh no… It’s in the bedroom and the clock radio iPod docking station is going off and not playing white noise for DD1 anymore… Yep she woke up and was pretty angry about this. Luckily Zoey slept through it all. I tried to get Olive to sleep on the pull out couch with us, I got some great cuddled but in the end she was too curious. So off to shower and start our day! I don’t know why I didn’t go then to check in at OKW, or get everyone breakfast but my head was cloudy… Whatever! Olive and I ended up going and exploring the Jambo house while everyone else did there thing… Whether it was sleeping or showering… Of course I forgot my room key, and everything else on this little excursion…. We wandered off and took a peek at the savannah and checked out the tree. We also found The Mara and I took pictures of the menu for everyone to know what they wanted ahead of time. Olive and I had a good time. No one was awake and I let her run freely through the resort. We only noticed people starting to wake up when the Mara opened and they were running down for coffee…

So, I go back to the room, give Olive to my husband and unpack what we need for the morning and drag our suitcases to the car… I was now on a mission! I was now on my way to OKW. On my way, now, when I had made the reservation I had made a few location requests because my mom wanted to be near the Hospitality House. In the end we were in 4822… I think this is becoming my favorite area of OKW. So I pull into OKW and saw DME unloading! Needless to say I booked it to check in because I didn’t want to wait in line. I got there before everyone else and got an awesome CM… He told me our Grand Villa was going to be by Peninsular Road. Awesome right!? Not really, because it will not be cleaned until 3 or 4 pm, I cringed, because Olive was going to need a good nap after waking up at 5:30 this morning! So I ask if there is anywhere else, my requests have no changed from location to EARLY CHECK IN PLEASE!! He didn’t seem hopefully and called mousekeeping… Guess what… room 4822 was ready! I could take my bags there right now!!! So, he prints room keys, gives me maps and parking passes and off I go! I pull up to our room unload our stuff and run over to pick my mom up at All Star Music. But not before I take a quick picture of these guys!

I pick my mom up, and go back to AKL and they are still not ready!! I feel somewhat frustrated because well… I guess I would have had everything done and ready to go, and my husband when on vacation just gets out of that moving mode and relaxes… He deserves it, but come on! We are in Disney!! So I finish getting everything ready, load the car up with the remainder of everyone’s belongings... Get everyone out the door and we are off to the Animal Kingdom!!

So off we go and into the Animal Kingdom! Super yay!! So we get through the gates and my mom heads over to Guest Relations to get a GAC – she has multiple health issues and this card helps her from waiting on her feet too long, climbing too many stairs etc… My biggest peeve is she kept telling us to use it if she wasn’t around. I guess I look at it this way, I am thankful to not have any health issues, so that and the handicap parking pass are two things I would never take advantage of. Plus, what about the people who do need it, all that behavior does is make it harder for them. She pushed it often and I would have to stop and take deep breaths.

So first ride Dinosaur! My mom wanted to go on this one and it was a must do for her. Plus, I figured we could do Triceratop Spin and Expedition Everest. We stopped for a minute and took a few pictures with this dinosaur and found a shady comfortable place for Zack to do snacks with the girls while we rode. There was virtually no wait on Dinosaur and we walked right up. It was fun and I hadn’t been on it since 2004. So after snacks we went over to Triceratop spin. We waited maybe 5-10 minutes and both my daughters loved it! I had too much fun with Zoey, our last trip I was on baby duty with Olive (she was 10 weeks) and didn’t get to do a lot of these things with Zoey – so I was so excited to see and feel her excitement. After this, we were all hungry again and stopped at Flame Tree BBQ. It was really good and filling, Zack and I split a sandwich and it was more than enough. Now off to Expedition Everest! My MIL had a mild allergic reaction to the food at Flame Tree and decided to sit this one out. We sat by the fast pass machines while Zack and my Mom went on… Then I got a text --- my sister in law and brother in law were close!!! Yaaaay!!!

Dinosaur!

Zoey on a dinosaur, the eyes kinda spooked her a little bit…

Olive had a mysterious rash – I think it was from the detergent, after we washed her pack n play sheets it disappeared.

Triceratop Spin!

More Triceratop Spin!!
So this is our super surprise. DH invited them along over the summer, and with so many factors we didn’t know until Thanksgiving week if it was a definite. Well it was. Zack’s siblings live all over the country – one is in California and his sister moved to NC from SoCal. His mom lives in NJ, so it is hard for her to see us all (we are in NH). We had paid to fly his mom out to his brother in California this year to see her newest granddaughter, and we are a 7 hour drive and she was able to come see us (and go to WDW with us) but she hadn’t been able to get to NC… Well, we brought NC to her So I start ushering everyone out of the park, I can’t say anything out loud to DH as to why we need to go NOW!! So Finally I think he gets it, and he says for us to leave and go food shopping and he will get the room ready (NOW HE IS THINKING!!) and we leave AK and go in our separate directions.

So, we go to Whole Foods… While I love Whole Foods, they are really way too expensive. I shop at a food co op which has 3 grocery stores. All very small, and they have better prices on the same products. So I get annoyed going to Whole Foods these days… However --- they have AWESOME coffee… Which I got! Then we went to Walmart which was insanely busy so I had MIL drop me off out front so I could go get water and such… Yeah… it took me 5 minutes and then 15 minutes in the parking lot searching for her… Because of course… My phone died… I was starting to feel as if I should build a shelter in the parking lot because I would never leave. However, I found her and off we went to OKW!!!! Yaaaaaaaay!

So we pull up to where our room is and I see my SIL & BIL’s car – eek! I tell my MIL to park far away from it. We pull up and I tell her Zack will get the groceries we should just go in. Well, we go in and Zack directs her to the balcony. SURPRISE!!!! This was an awesome feel good moment. It always feels nice to do things like this for others. Plus it was for us too, we hadn’t seen them in 6 years, between moves, deployments, school, work, kids we never met up. It was pretty emotional and a great great time. So we hung out, unpacked and skipped our plans to go to HS. We ended up going straight to DTD.

At DTD it took forever for Zack and my mom to find a Handicap space…. But they eventually found one and we were off to Raglan Road. While I go check in I see my Zoey dancing on stage with the other irish dancers. She had so much fun. While she was being shy and not showing all her moves she loved it and this spurred her wanting to dance on all stages at Disney. We enjoyed a great meal, and each other’s company however I was starting to get horrible sinus pain. Like to the point where my whole face hurt. I was thinking we were going to have to skip our date night…. So we went back to the room….

I took a decongestant and we got the girls to bed… Luckily the sinus pain subsided, I changed and we were off! We were running way late and here is a perk I love about TiW free valet parking!!! So we valeted our car, and here is a funny story – the car had a keyless ignition and Zack walked off with the key still in his pocket! Oops! Off we went to the California Grill! I love this place. We ordered 3 appetizers and had our custom cake. It was all so good, we had the California Roll, Flat Bread (It had salmon and a poached egg) and the goat cheese ravioli. Our server was AMAZING and so was our meal, and the best part…. Watching Wishes from the balcony!!!! I love this about California Grill, we went here on our honeymoon and it’s sorta special to us. After dinner, I ordered a coffee and they delivered our custom cake. Zack was surprised and loved it! It was pretty good, I can say I have no desire to have fondant ever again. They didn’t really listen, understand or something what I requested (some of it was way off) but now I know to email the pastry chef in the future to avoid this. All around though, it was a great date night and so nice. I loved it…. We had lots of leftover cake and we had this car key – so we dropped our cake and key off with valet and they took care of it for us… We had somewhere important to be… The Magic Kingdom!!

Well, we didn’t spend too long in MK, but it was awesome! I was in awe of the castle and we had a few PP pictures taken. Then we went off to FLE… We went on the new Little Mermaid ride and knew instantly that my daughter was going to love it!! After this we started making our way out, we were exhausted and did a little window shopping on Main Street. We didn’t get anything and we just headed out to our car. Off to bed, because in a few short hours we had to get up for our first character meal of the trip!!