Dreams DO come true! Disney video taped us for a commercial! Way cool!

[surfergirl602]

I've never done one of these before, but since everyone else is, I figured I would crumble from the peer pressure and do one. It will be a nice little reminder of our trip that almost wasn't... or... isn't, since it hasn't happened yet.... Sooo...... let me introduce us!!!

So this is me and my DH.

I stay at home in Oklahoma with our three princesses, and DH (Dan) is an Army officer. We recently moved from NY (previously Maine before that) and we are homesick!!!! We miss New England more than you could know. We've had a rough year, so when we (meaning I) heard about the amazing military discounts that were being offered, I persuaded DH with the old, "When are we ever going to be able to stay in a deluxe for this price?" trick. Oldest trick in the book, right? WELL.....

We've had to change our dates THREE times due to the Army not wanting us to have any fun. Typical military..... sheesh.....

The ladies in my photopass share group have been wonderful with our dates being changed so many times, so a shout out to them! YEAH!!!!

Soooo... we are currently going to be taking our trip from August 27 through september 8th. WE HOPE.

This trip is a surprise for the kiddos. They don't have a clue we are going, so it will be fantastic when they realize it. So let me introduce the princesses (pirates by night)

Jaelyn is 8 and a half
Julia is 6 and a half
and JoJo is 2 and a half.

Our first stop? Tampa. We'll be staying the night and going to Busch Gardens ('cuz its free). Then we'll drive on over to Orlando and we'll be checking in to All Sta Music for the first three days. Never stayed at a value... any tips I should know? I don't know if I want to get a fridge for those three days, or just wing it for breakfast. We plan on leaving early anyway....

After that, its on to AKL!!!!!! I am sooooooo excited, you have no idea. Ever since we visited here on our very first trip, I've wanted to stay here. It's so beautiful, and the people are so amazing and interesting. And of course, that view!!!

We've had to overcome so much to take this trip. Deaths and sickness in the family, deployment/work/duty calls... its made finances tight for this trip. Its the only reason I agreed to downgrade for the first three days... hey... its one heck of an upgrade!!!

Well, if you've made it this far, stay tuned.... there's lots more to come!! I have to go prepare dinner (chili lime wings!) for the family so they don't starve (a household engineer's job never ends!) but the hubster is gone all next week, so I'll be able to write more!

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So I guess that means this trip is finalized! It's nice to have a spur of the moment trip paid off. Now we just need to head down to the PX and buy our tickets and tickets to MNSSHP and we'll be good to go! I am so happy that it's almost August!

So... when i was looking to start this vacation, I asked the help of a wonderful DISer named Kris Bravate, and has been wonderful!!! I could not have done this without her! She answered all of those midnight emails with silly questions, priced out different hotels and packages for us, and even compared a few pins that I got with the military discount. She helped with room selections, and made my ADRs!! And we got everything we wanted!!! With the three girls and my DH getting up early in the morning, between getting him off to play Army and breakfast and potty training, there's no way I would have been able to make those ressies. I would recommend her to any DISer that needs a helping hand!!

Here's our schedule:


(okay, its on the laptop so I'll have to edit it in when I go downstairs. The perils of having two computers in the home! )

So..... this trip is a surprise. We plan on picking the kids up from school with the car already packed, and driving towards Tampa. We'll see how far we get the first night, and stay in a hotel somewhere. Then the next day we'll go to Busch Gardens in Tampa. After staying the night there, we'll head on over to Orlando, and check in at All Stars Music. I don't know if they'll have figured it out by then, but I'm hoping not until we head to our first park!

ETA: our schedule!!

First Stop Magic Kingdom (of course!!!)

We'll be eating dinner at The Crystal Palace. We've never eaten here before, but I think the kids will like it, so I booked it.

Second Day Animal Kingdom

We'll be hopping over to the Grand Floridian for dinner at 1900 Park Fare. Cant wait for this one - the girls get to dress up!

Third Day we move over to AKL and go to down town disney. We love it there. Food and shopping!

We'll be eating dinner at Boma, of course, to celebrate being at AKL!

Fourth Day EPCOT!

I love Epcot. It's my favorite park. I could spend my entire trip there - there's so much to see and do! I love Italy and I always buy a mask when we go. They are all on my bedroom wall. Here's a picture from last trip! (ignore the date on the camera - my mom doesn't know how to set it correctly in her camera. lol)

We also buy too many pearls in Japan when we go to Epcot, so its a good thing that we are only spending one day here. We may substiture an AK day for Epcot, it all depends on how the kids are doing. Anyway.......

we'll be eating a wonderful dinner at Le Cellier! I'm excited, for my DH, the meat lover that he is. It's an early dinner, 4:30, but it will be a nice rest! We've never eaten here, either, so we are looking forward to it. DH LOVES the Rose and Crown, and he's kind of disappointing that we are eating there this trip, but I figured we could just hit up the fish and chips cart and he'll be all better.

Fifth Day Magic Kingdom again!

This time we have lunch plans with Cindy!! My girls love this, so we are so thankful to get awesome ressies for this! The girls have beautiful dresses to wear as well.

Sixth Day Animal Kingdom.

We are having dinner at Ohana - I'm excited. We love the food. After dinner we are heading back over to Magic Kingdom for the MNSSHP!!! WOO HOO!!! We won't be there at 4 when they let you in, we will be eating dinner at that time, then over to the hotel to get changed into our costumes, possibly a quick nap, then over to MK.

The next morning we leave but we are heading to Louisiana to visit some very good friends for the weekend. That will be the best part of the trip, I think. Seeing our very best friends! Then its back to Oklahoma, back to reality, and back to school.

We are ending our summer with a wonderful trip to the World. I'll be sad to see the summer go - school actually starts on Aug 21st here - but its the only time that we could take the trip.

Two days after we get back hubby will be leaving so we hope that if anything magical and wonderful is going to happen, it will be on this trip. (hint hint to the upgrade gods!)

Up next... trying to pack and get the kiddos costumes and clothes coordinating. yeah... like that's going to happen....

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UPDATE!!!!!

Okay..... so I never got to finish my pre trip report, so now everything is going to become one pre/post trip report. For some reason, my last one was closed - so I am going to start over. (I think its because I mentioned my TA, but she deserved props, in my opinion. Anyway....)

I'll start over in a new post!

Moving on......

 

[surfergirl602]

"Goodbye, Oklahoma!"
"Hello, Texas!"

This became a ritual as we drove our way one mile at a time, towards our destination.... Disney!!! It only took us two days to get there.

I must say... Louisiana has some of the foulest water I have ever smelled/tasted in my life. We stopped there, and got a suite with a jacuzzi tub - that we wouldn't even get in. The water was so yellow and smelled so bad, like sweaty socks, that I wouldn't even take a shower. It was gross. I complained and we got a discount. Anyway....

By the time we got to Tampa, as we had originally scheduled to stay here and go to Busch Gardens, we were all so sick and on Saturday morning, we were on the internet looking up walk in clinics.

We spent most of the afternoon there. The diagnosis - we all had upper respiratory infections (circulating air in the truck) and JoJo had an ear infection. By the time we got our meds from Walgreens, had some lunch, it was around 3 in the afternoon. Much to my disappointment, we forwent Busch Gardens and decided to just drive the extra hour to Orlando and check in to our hotel Animal Kingdom Lodge!!! and rest up for the rest of the afternoon and take it easy in the evening so we could all get better.

It was a wise decision, looking back on it, and we didn't let it spoil the rest of our trip. I am glad that we went to the doctors when we did so that we didn't end up missing any of our park days!

Well, the hubster wants me to get in bed now, so tomorrow I will write about our check in surprise!!!!

 

[surfergirl602]

Diving up to Animal Kingdom Lodge was truly a "Welcome Home" experience.

WOW!!!!

This was our very first time there, and thank heavens for the military discount!

Valet - Oh, valet.... how I love you. DH opted for valet parking. How nice it is to have a man open the door for you every once in a while. And I'm not talking about my DH here...

When we checked in, I was very pleasantly surprised that we got a double upgrade to our room!

We got bunkbeds and an amazing savannah view! We were in room 2520, zebra trail.



There was a baby giraffe that loved to play just outside of our window. I think we spent the first half an hour we were there just watching out our balcony window at all the different animals we had.

After unpacking and settling in, yep, you guessed it, we hit Target. Bought some breakfast foods, some snacks, water, and milk for the toddler.

Dinner from Mira, and off to the pool!

I've gotta say, the zero entry on this pool is amazing. Uh-may-zing. Especially for a two year old that thinks she's an Olympic swimmer. I swear, you could call that girl Michael Phelps and she would answer. My older two girls loved the water slide. Not too deep, not too fast, and hours of entertaining fun all around.

We, of course, watched all the disney ads etc. on the "flat screen" and readied for our first day in the parks - Magic Kingdom!

MK is always our first stop. The girls would kill me if we didn't get to see the castle first thing.

Not much to report for this day - we mainly just wandered around the hotel. There's so many nooks and crannies to explore!

Up next: the good stuff! Magic Kingdom, a bunch of mice, and fairies!!!

(more pictures to come - we took around 5000 this trip! but the computer is acting funny, so I'll need to do it later)

 

[surfergirl602]

Magic Kingdom, here we come!!!

I pulled out the girls polka dot dresses and their ears that I made for them - they were so surprised!!

After a wuick breakfast we headed down to the bust stop, only to wait over an hour for a magic kingdom bus. I couldn't believe it! I had read some reviews that the buses from AKL were slow, but I didn't think they were this slow! We just about ready to hop on an Epcot but and take the monorail, but finally a bus showed up. By that time, there were so many people wanting to get on an AK bus that we almost didn't make it on!

Don't you just love seeing the face of your children when you first walk through the tunnel at AK? That in awe face? That glow? I LOVE it. And every time we go, I keep telling myself that I will get a picture, and every year I forget, because I am standing right their beside them, in just as much awe as they are.

The park was decorated for fall and MNSSHP, and it was nice and festive. For the first week of september, it really put me in the mood for autumn and Halloween.

As we were walking through and headed towards the line for Snow White, a photopass photographer approached us and asked if she could take our pictures in the studio inside the store! Everyone complimented us on our polka dots, and many of the managers had asked if we'd had our pictures taken yet. The love and magic made me well up more than once.

The photographer took pictures of all of us together, the girls together, just with mom, just with dad, and solo pics. It was a wonderful experience and the girls felt like celebrities. People would come by and make a fuss and the girls would eat it up. It's just one of the reasons why we love Disney so much. With the thousands apon thousands of people there, you feel like one in a million.

Our autograph books were a big hit. The characters LOVED them! I made photo books from snapfish, one for each of the girls, with pictures of them with the characters from last trip, and each character had their own page.