Dragging The Kids Back to WDW, a First-timer PTR, Sept. 2014! ***Updated 8/25***

[leftaslide]

WELCOME TO MY FIRST EVER PTR!!!


AKA: I really have no idea what I'm doing, but I love Disney, so....whatever.


The main reason I wanted to do a PTR was so that I would force myself to do a TR once this next trip is done. I hope it works out that way. Send me some vibes people!​

So, before I get into when we're going, where, how, yada yada yada....let me introduce.....​

The CREW​

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From left to right: DD Sarah (will be 6 at the time of trip), Me (Jake) DW (Julie), and DD Harper (7)​

Above pic is from December 2013.​

Also going is a really good family friend of ours, Kelly.​

Our first family trip was back in 2011. It was my first time ever and I fell in love. My wife had been when she was very young, as had our good friend Kelly, but it had been long enough to not really remember much about it.​

I kinda feel like I'm having to introduce Kelly to Disney for the first time, which I rather enjoy. I love sharing my enthusiasm for WDW.

We're kind of shaking things up this trip, which I'll get into later on. I basically just wanted to take this first step and get this ball rolling and I hope to update as much as I can between family, work, etc, etc, etc.....

So....if you're reading this, thanks! This is all new to me. I mostly lurk, but it's exciting to finally be doing a PTR, and I'm even more excited about the TR when it comes time for that.​

Up next...​

More who, what, where, when, why, and how!​

Contents:
Who's In On This Trip?
When and Where?
Park Plans
The End

 

[leftaslide]

Who's in on this trip????​

Well, as you can see from the original post, this trip will consist of myself, my wife Julie, my two daughters Harper and Sarah, and our good friend Kelly.

Julie and I are celebrating our ten year anniversary this month (3 days from now, actually, if I can be specific) and we thought that a trip to Disney would fit just perfectly among other reasons.

Julie is a stay at home mom to our two beautiful daughters. She does a great job of keeping us organized even though she wants to pull her hair out sometimes. Julie home schools our daughters, mostly in part to my oldest daughter Harper having life threatening food allergies. (Peanuts and tree nuts) We never intended to home school, but felt it was the safest option until she can handle her allergies completely on her own. (Hence the hair-pulling part) It can be stressful at times managing food allergies, but my wife is a great advocate and does a wonderful job of keeping Harper safe. BTW, Disney is GREAT with food allergies, one reason it's so easy to keep going back!​

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Before Julie was a full time SAHM, she was personal banker. She's good with money! ​

Harper is a sweet and loving little girl who loves to fish with her Daddy lovestruc) and loves to skate and rides her bike. She's so tender hearted and I love her to pieces.
​

Sarah is, well......Sarah. She's rambunctious, energetic, independent, and is my fellow Disney addict. She shares my love and adoration for Disney at the tender age of 5. ​

​

Harper is another story.....

You see, this past December we went to WDW the week before Christmas. It was our family Christmas present. We stayed at POP for the first time and got to experience the "world" all decked out in holly jolliness. (Is that a word? It is now)

While we were in HS for the Osborne lights, we were all amazed at the snow fall on the streets of America. We were delighted, elated, joyous and jolly......all until Harper looks up and sees the snow machine spitting out the "snow." Well, from then on, everything was FAKE!​

AHHHHHHHH!!!!​

To make a long story short, we've had to do some convincing to get my 7 yr old back to WDW.


Yes, you heard that right.
​

CONVINCING MY 7 YR OLD TO GO BACK TO THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH.
​

Alas, we have succeeded, but more on how later.

So that's them.​

I'll be 37 this September, this is MY birthday celebration 1st and foremost (the anniversary is 2nd )

I work in the floor covering industry, I love to fish, run, and go to Disney. I hope to someday do a marathon at WDW. SOMEDAY ​

Last but not least is Kelly.​

Kelly and I met at Home Depot when I went to work there back in 2006. He's an awesome friend and loves to vacation. My girls adore him and he's pretty easy going and laid back. We had casually mentioned to him about going to Disney with us sometime. Both of his parents have passed away within the last 5 years, and he's single, so he hangs with us quite a bit when he's not working or on a cruise ship. We're excited to have him along, he's a big kid just like us.​

So, there's the crew. My oh my, what kind of shenanigans will we get into??​

Who knows!! Stay tuned....Up next,​

Where and when!​

 

[ArielLunchBox]

Oooh! Happy 10 year anniversary!!!!! That's awesome!

 

[leftaslide]

Oooh! Happy 10 year anniversary!!!!! That's awesome!

Thanks so much! It's been a wild ride!

 

[freckles04]

I'm in! You have a lovely family!

 

[leftaslide]

i'm in! You have a lovely family!

welcome!!!

 

[jmskinner]

Thought I would follow along. Beautiful family and Happy Anniversary! 10 years sounds so long ago to me, we are at 19.

I had to with your comment about convincing your 7 year old to go back to WDW. We are going in September without our son and he couldn't be happier. We have actually threatened to take him to MK if his behavior didn't improve while on one of the Disney buses. Boy we got some strange looks that night. He's a good kid, his mean Mom took him too many times.

 

[leftaslide]

Thought I would follow along. Beautiful family and Happy Anniversary! 10 years sounds so long ago to me, we are at 19.

I had to with your comment about convincing your 7 year old to go back to WDW. We are going in September without our son and he couldn't be happier. We have actually threatened to take him to MK if his behavior didn't improve while on one of the Disney buses. Boy we got some strange looks that night. He's a good kid, his mean Mom took him too many times.

Thanks!

Yes, our oldest has some issues with WDW, which I hope to get into in the next few updates. LOL!! But it's all good (I hope). We're making compromises this trip! Thanks for following!

 

[leftaslide]

Where and When? Oh the options....​

So, here's the deal.​

As mentioned above, my wife home schools, which means we can pretty much go at any time of the year.

Also, my wife home schools.....which means she works more than full-time and gets no monetary compensation, which leaves us with one income, so that makes our choice fairly easy of when we choose to go....​

When free dining is offered.​

​

When it comes to Disney, we're pretty frugal. We've never stayed at a moderate or deluxe, though I'm sure they are wonderful. Our first two trips were at All-Star Movies (which we love) and our last trip was at POP (which we didn't love)​

All-Star Movies was great. Just what we needed - a place to sleep and bathe. When we're at Disney, we're rarely in the room. We're in the parks. I'm not driving 10+ hours and spending a lot of $$$$ to sit at a resort.​

I wanna go to the parks!​

So, it just makes sense to all of us to stay at the values.​

Now, as I mentioned above, we did not like POP​

(I know -- THE HORROR)​

"You don't like POP? WHY!?!?"​

We were very excited to go to POP last trip because we had heard so many great things. The resort itself is great, however, the beds were not comfortable, which means we didn't sleep well, and the food at the food court was not great. And the menus never changed to whole week. (Not sure if that's standard or not) So we got pretty tired of their food quickly. We even hiked over to AoA one night to eat just to get some variety. But I digress...
​

This year we've booked All-Star Music, and I'm hoping it's just as good as movies. We shall see. I love trip advisor and love reading reviews, but some places are just hit or miss. We've never had any issues with rooms our mousekeeping, and if we do, I have confidence it will be taken care of. Ahhh Disney....
​

So in choosing WHEN, we chose the 2nd week in September. It's my birthday week, and hopefully most schools will be back in session. I'm counting on low crowds this time of year. My only concern is the heat, but we've got a remedy for that...(more later)​

So, All-Star Music it is, 2nd week of September, barring any unforeseen circumstances. We're pretty excited.

We live in North Georgia, so we drive down, which with two small children, takes an extra two hours than would normally. Potty break, stretch break, food break, snack break, another potty break, hey let's look at that squirrel break.....you get the idea. But I don't mind the drive and we try to have plenty of activities for the girls to do as we drive. (Disney movie marathon, anyone?)​

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it for now. I don't know that much will change. Any feedback on ASmu is welcome, since we've never been there.

Thanks for reading!​

Up next....park plans!​

 

[freckles04]

We feel the same way about what a great value the value resorts are. Although, we love POP. (But I've never stayed in the All Stars, so I can't make comparisons there!) We've done the moderate thing and it wasn't for us. Can't say I wouldn't mind staying deluxe sometime, but those price tags, whoa baby!

I know you mentioned the food court being important to you when you were at Pop. Did you know ASmu's food court will be closed for refurbishment during your stay? Here's a link for more information.

 

[leftaslide]

I know you mentioned the food court being important to you when you were at Pop. Did you know ASmu's food court will be closed for refurbishment during your stay? Here's a link for more information.

Oh wow! I think I had heard something about a refurb, but wasn't sure when. Thanks for the link! This totally changes the game plan!

Checking on other resort possibilities now.....

 

[leftaslide]

Looks like we're switching to Sports!​

I can't handle the no food court thing...We gotta have Mickey Waffles!​

 

[freckles04]

Sports would have been our second choice had Pop been unavailable for Free Dining. The food court is remodeled and within the last 1 or 2 years the rooms got a soft refurb (new carpets, linens, mattresses, etc.). The surf-themed pool looks fun, too!

 

[leftaslide]

Hey folks!

Sorry about the delay in updating....it's been hectic around here.

It's officially summer! Happy summer to all! (Doesn't mean much to us adults anymore, huh?)

Man, summer used to be awesome. Riding my bike, playing in the woods, generally enjoying a stress free life.

Summer used to make me feel.....well....like this:​

​

Anyways, we got side-tracked a little last month with a road trip. This is partly to blame for the lack of updates. Planning, doing, recovering....you all know how it is.

My wife got invited to a food allergy conference in Chicago and we decided to make a road trip out of it and see some of the sites along the way.​

Chicago!​

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We drove from here (North Georgia) up to Nashville, then to​

St. Louis!​

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Then on to Chicago, where we took the girls to the American Girl store and got them an American girl doll. (Which they loved, who wouldn't?)​

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After Chicago, we went to Cincinnati:​

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We made several more stops along the way, and I have tons of pics, but this is a Disney PT report, so I'll get back on topic. But first, a couple more photos from Chicago:
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The Field Museum


Lincoln Park Zoo

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We stopped a lot along the way to take in parts of the country we may never see again. Kentucky was beautiful. A lot of corn on this trip. ​

Anyhoo....​

This is supposed to be about park plans. I don't have a ton of details yet, those should be coming soon. We've just recently decided which parks we are actually going to visit, and like I had eluded to earlier, this trip is going to be a little different than our past ones for one main reason:​

Water Parks​

Yep, we have never been to the water parks at Disney. We've never really been interested in them or had researched them much, but it just makes sense when your 7 yr old wants to leave the Magic Kingdom to go swim in the resort pool. ​

Our last few vacations (Disney included) have been nothing but a barrage of "Let's go swim, daddy! I want to swim!"​

So, after the Hollywood Studios fake snow incident of 2013, it was going to take a bit of coaxing to get Harper back to the World. So we started looking into the water parks.
​

Let me tell you, they look​

AWESOME.
​

There's so much to do at these water parks, it's just insane.

If it's swimming they want, it's swimming they'll get. Plus slides, and waves, and lazy rivers, and everything that goes with it. I hope to put them on swimming overload.

I gotta say, I'm a little excited myself to go. I love water parks, too, but had never really thought about doing them at Disney. But for us, it makes sense.​

So, as of now, this is kind of what we're looking at:​

• Sunday, 9/7 -- Check in at Sports (And swim at the resort pool )
  
• Monday, 9/8 -- Magic Kingdom day -- Hours are 9am-10pm this day, and we want the most out of our MK day because we're only doing 1 here (a first for us, we normally do 2 full days here). What better way to start the vacay? Of course, this may change, it's all still up in the air.
  
• Tuesday, 9/9 -- Blizzard Beach -- Our first water park day
  
• Wednesday, 9/10 -- This day we take off and go to the beach, hang out at DTD, or go to this place:

Blue Springs State Park

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Blue Springs State Park is in Orange City, not far from Orlando, and has mermaids that swim in a lagoon there. Since my girls are obsessed with mermaids, this may be an option for us on our "day off."
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How cool does that look?​

• Thursday, 9/11 -- Typhoon Lagoon
  
• Friday, 9/12 -- Epcot -- We decided on Epcot as our last day since we can leisurely stroll through the park, take our time, relax, ride Soarin', then catch Illuminations for our send off that night.

Once again, this is all up in the air, but this seems like it will work for us. If it changes, I'll update it!​

So that's it for now. I hope you all have had a wonderful start to your summer and a Happy 4th!​

Up next:​

Park Touring Plans! (We start picking our fast passes Wednesday! )​

 

[jmskinner]

The trip to Chicago sounds like a lot of fun. Can never get my DH to stop and explore along the way. It's all about getting there as quickly as possible. Come to think of it, that is why all my WDW pics have his back in them, he is always walking on to the next attraction.

Your plans sounds great, I love the idea of spending two days at the water parks instead of all that resort pool time. My DS is the same way, he is happy being at the resort pool.

Typhoon Lagoon is our favorite, just be careful in that wave pool. Our favorite part, but we always seem to end up with scratched news from being thrown around.

 

[leftaslide]

The trip to Chicago sounds like a lot of fun. Can never get my DH to stop and explore along the way. It's all about getting there as quickly as possible. Come to think of it, that is why all my WDW pics have his back in them, he is always walking on to the next attraction.

Your plans sounds great, I love the idea of spending two days at the water parks instead of all that resort pool time. My DS is the same way, he is happy being at the resort pool.

Typhoon Lagoon is our favorite, just be careful in that wave pool. Our favorite part, but we always seem to end up with scratched news from being thrown around.

The trip was great. Nice to see all of the sites.

I hear a lot of good things for Typhoon Lagoon, so I hope it lives up to the hype! My girls love the water, so I hope it's a win-win for all. We'll be looking at our fast pass options this weekend and getting things lined up. Getting excited!

 

[leftaslide]

So....


I've waited a long time for this last update as I've really wanted to get some things nailed down. I've had a hard time finalizing our plans, but I think I have a rough outline that we'll try to stick to....we'll see how it goes.


So Sunday, Sept. 7th (one day after my BIRTHDAY) is our first day on property. We don't have anything planned for this day in particular, mostly just get settled in. We'll be driving down early Sunday. My hope is to get to the resort by 3-4pm, get settled in, do some swimming at the pool, eat dinner, and turn in relatively early for....




ROPE DROP AT MAGIC KINGDOM!!

We've been to the world the past three years and I've never done rope drop before.

I know....I know....

Most of you are reading this right now with this expression:​

​

I plan on changing all of this on our upcoming trip. (The wife and kids will not be pleased)
​

Anyways, our first full day in the parks will be at Magic Kingdom, Monday, Sept. 8th, and I have a rough guideline that I'm going by. I realize that we won't be able to fit everything in, but I like to have several options based on our mood at the moment, weather, etc....CHOICES PEOPLE!
​

So here goes:​

Anna and Elsa
Carousel
Mad Tea Party
Dumbo
Barnstormer
Seven Dwarves (12:00-1:00 fastpass)
Ariel
Lunch (12:50) Be Our Guest (More on this in a minute)
Winnie the Pooh
Festival of Fantasy (3:00)
Peter Pan (3:45-4:45 fastpass)
It’s a Small World
Haunted Mansion
Splash Mountain (5:45-6:45 fastpass)
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Dinner (Cosmic Rays?)
Pirates
Carpets of Aladdin
Monster’s Inc.
Buzz Lightyear
Carousel of Progress
People Mover
Speedway​

Makes me tired just looking at that list. I didn't even mention Move It Shake It and all of the other little shows and things that I hope to catch. I'm probably gonna be like
​

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by noon anyways. ​

I hope not.​

Oh! BOG!​

So, a couple of weeks back we got an email saying we had been chosen for a test lunch at BOG! How awesome is that? We were going to try for lunch there anyways, so this just worked out perfectly. We chose all of our options and secured our time, and I'm just beyond excited to be eating there. ​

Tuesday, Sept. 8th will be our very first water park, Blizzard Beach.

We've never done any of the water parks, so they are all new to us. I don't have any specific plans, just kinda do what we feel like doing. I did buy one of these, though:​

Water-proof HD camera/video recorder!
​

I read a few reviews online and decided on this little bugger. I didn't want to break the bank, and this one was affordable and most users had good things to say. It's a GE DVX, in case you're curious, and I hope to have a full review on it after the trip as well as some pics/vids for my trip report.

After the water park (which closes at 5:00) our plan is to catch dinner later at either the Contempo Cafe at the Contemporary or Capt. Cook's at the Polynesian, then catch Wishes from one of the locations after we eat. Whichever one we don't do Tuesday night will most likely be done on Thursday night with hopefully a sort of kinda DISmeet. (Catch the trip report for more on that)

Wednesday Sept. 9th is our day off, and we're still not sure what we're gonna do here. Possibly Downtown Disney, possibly a day at the beach, we really don't know yet...but most likely dinner at DD or at the resort and more resort pool swimming. It'll be kind of nice to have a day to do whatever and possibly relax.

Thursday Sept. 10th is Typhoon Lagoon. Most people say they prefer Typhoon over Blizzard, so I saved the best water park for last. This day will very much mirror Tuesday, and as mentioned before, dinner and fireworks this night with some surprise guests, I hope. We shall see...

Friday, Sept. 11th is our last day, and this is Epcot day. I also have a rough guideline that goes as follows:​

The Seas with Nemo and Friends
Turtle Talk
Living with The Land
Journey into Imagination with Figment
Lunch (Sunshine Seasons?)
Spaceship Earth (1:20-2:20 fastpass)
Innovations
Image Works
Mission Space (2:55-3:55 fastpass)
Character Spot? (Disney Chase Card Holders Super Secret Spot)
Soarin’ (5:20-6:20 fastpass)
Test Track?​

We plan on doing World Showcase early to beat the heat, then everything listed above.

I particularly want to see Voices of Liberty after my bud Rob (DisneyKid4Life) highly recommended them. Other than that and Soarin', there's nothing too pressing that I want to see, and I hope we can leisurely take in Epcot and just enjoy ourselves. Not sure about dinner here, just whatever we feel like, then Illuminations, then that's it.

So that's pretty much it. Those are the plans, the places, the people, the wishing and dreaming and planning and hoping, and it's all just around the corner.​

I really want to thank the few that have been kind enough to follow along. This has been a great experience and I look forward to my trip report after the trip is done. I'm very excited to get back to the World and make new memories, experience new things, spend time with my family and friends, and hopefully document all of it for you guys to read.​

Send some good vibes our way! We're on our way!
​

THANKS!​

 

[jmskinner]

It took several trips for me to be at a Rope Drop, so I understand.

That is a lot to get done in one day, but hopefully crowds won't be so bad.

I'm thinking about stopping at the Visa Character Spot myself this trip. We seem to do it every other trip.

Hope you have a magical trip.

 

[leftaslide]

It took several trips for me to be at a Rope Drop, so I understand.

That is a lot to get done in one day, but hopefully crowds won't be so bad.

I'm thinking about stopping at the Visa Character Spot myself this trip. We seem to do it every other trip.

Hope you have a magical trip.

I'm really looking forward to rope drop, for sure. Would love to be family of the day, also, but I know chances are slim. Then again, this is the place where dreams come true...

Too much for one day, yes. Honestly some of those choices are backups or extras, just so we can kind of do what we feel. Then again, I love a challenge....

Never done the Visa character spot. I know it's just the normal characters, but at least the wait won't be long....plus a free pic!

Thanks, you too!