BrerMama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2000
- Messages
- 2,205
Cast of Characters:
Kim (your esteemed trip report writer), 33. I do nothing half way. Whether it be teaching or planning our trip or just scrapbooking, I'm consumed by it. I spend hours a day keeping up with the scrapbooking community, checking Disney message boards or revising my classroom management. I take children very seriously; I love being a mom and can't imagine having a job that didn't keep me in daily contact with children. I've got a soft spot in my heart for children with special needs and have spent my last 2 years teaching young children with autism. I love my job and can't imagine myself ever doing anything else. Which is not to say that Im not looking forward to spending a summer with my children, chilling at the YMCA water park and running the girls to dance lessons and cheer clinic. I cant wait!
Dan , 35. Dan's a Schwans Man, so if you have one of those in your neck of the woods, you can get a pretty good feel for him. He's All-American (i.e. good looking), spends many hours a week at work and uses his vacation to truly relax. On a personal level, he's a bit anal about budgeting, which is pretty much the only part of planning this vacation that he's helped plan. Not that he doesn't care what we do, he's just not going to worry about it when he knows I'll do a spectacular job myself. He loves thrill rides, but is often sadly disappointed to discover that the rest of his family aren't quite up to the thrill.
Brady, 9 (but will turn 10 the day after we get back). More commonly called Tady Head or just Tater, a nickname given to him at less than a year because he has a passion for that common kitchen staple... the potato. Mashed, French Fried, baked... he loves them all. He's a bit of a computer geek and would rather play a sim game than just about anything. He's in that cautious, finding himself stage. He really wants to try pin trading and is trying to talk himself into Rock N Roller Coaster. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm hopeful for him!
Mykiah, 8. We call her Kiah or Kiah Jane most of the time. (I have no idea where Kiah Jane came from; her middle name is Kristene.) Kiah's been going on roller coasters and thrill rides for 2 years but had a bad experience last year on the first day of vacation and wouldn't do anything the rest of the trip. I'm not sure what to expect at Disney. Kiah's a typical middle child; she's very aware of the rough spot she's got and has compensated by being mom's helper. I adore her. She loves Minnie Mouse (and has a collection of over 2 dozen stuffed Minnies).
Chesney, 4. We usually shorten her name to Ches or Chessy. Sometimes it's Boo Boo. She'll respond to any of them (including Ches-A-Knee, which is what her friends call her). I'm considering this her first "real" trip to WDW, since she was only 10 months old when she first visited (the big kids are on their 4th and 3rd Disney trips, respectively). She's got dark curly hair and is spoiled rotten by the entire family. Shes stubborn at times, and Im not known for being flexible when it comes to dealing with behavior, so I expect more than one clash of wills. Its OK, well deal with it.
Trip dates: June 3-11, 2004
May 16, 2004
Let's go back to Tuesday, November 11, 2003. I remember that day, the only day this year where I was home from work without my children (and without being ill myself), with a bittersweet clarity. Dan and I had just discovered that we would be getting a fairly large tax refund (thanks President Bush!) and were tossing around ideas for our 2004 vacation. We had last visited WDW in 2000; the past 3 years we have visited Branson, buying season tickets to Silver Dollar City the last 2 years. We are true theme park veterans. Since our 2000 Disney trip, we've really been working on eliminating credit card debt and living within our means, but now it was looking as if our means might once again include a visit to the Mouse. I pulled up my chair in front of my computer and started surfing, while periodically calling Dan on his cell to update him with ideas.
Originally, the plan was to go to Disneyland. We've been to both WDW and DL twice since our marriage. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was asked to go to a national early childhood education conference in Anaheim. What a hard decision to make on the day when this world changed forever. In the end, I couldn't resist an expense paid Disney trip and so I have one more Disney visit than my husband and family. The trip was in early November and I stayed at Paradise Pier and absolutely loved the Disney properties there. I had decided that we weren't going to Disney this trip unless we stayed onsite. So I started playing with dates at the Disneyland website. I couldn't find anything to Disneyland that was anywhere in our budget and I was beginning to get depressed.
On a lark, I switched to the Disneyworld website. What? Kids are free if you pay with Visa? We don't got no Visa, but we sure got a Visa debit card. And we could stay on property for a much cheaper price than we ever expected? Oh wait, and Air Tran (that wonderful low cost airline that has saved our town from having the most expensive airfare in the country) has flights to Orlando for less than $200 per person? Before Dan could say "What?!?" I had switched into full WDW mode.
Just to back it up a little bit, except for my "business" trip to DL, we've never stayed on site. On our last trip, we had a 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 10 month old. We took Grandpa (thank God for Grampy!) and stayed at Holiday Inn Family Suites. Our airfare (pre-Air Tran) was around $400 a person. So the kids free package and the cheap airfare were very attractive to us. It meant a complete switch for my planning brain. Planning a trip to Disneyland is a lot less involved than planning a trip to WDW. But I was up to the challenge.
The original plan was to leave on June 4, a Friday and return a week later on a Friday. I went ahead and booked the Disney package, putting down our $200 deposit, but Dan was insistent that we wait to book airfare. Within a week of booking the package, the airfare price went up $30 a ticket. Not bad, but when you multiply it by 5 tickets, it's beginning to get expensive. I did a little searching and discovered that we could leave on June 3 for our original price. A quick call to our travel agent and we had tickets for flights to Orlando on June 3, returning June 11.
And now it was time to plan. I'm a Internet freak anyway. If you ask me a question and I don't know the answer, I immediately head to my computer. I'm also an obsessive, overly organized person. I teach a structured classroom for children with communication disorders such as autism. My students need organization, a routine and predictability. My job is to provide it. So I make a lot of lists and do a lot of organizing. It spills into other parts of my life. Not my housekeeping skills, but my hobbies are definitely affected by my professional life. And when it comes to planning a Disney vacation, I'm beyond obsessive.
So here we are 18 days from the start of our trip. I'm spending a sunny Sunday afternoon surfing just to make sure Disney hasn't done anything crazy like close down Tom Sawyer Island (wait... they did that) or change EMH hours (thankfully, they're back to normal for our trip) or closed Port Orleans for refurbishment (shouldn't affect us). Dan is playing World Wrestling with our girls, while they practice their screams for Splash Mountain. This apparently is OK if Dan starts it, but if the girls were to start screaming on their own, he'd be angry. I don't quite understand men.
Part 2: The One Where Kim foolishly makes plans
So just to review, here's our plans:
Thursday, June 3: Leaving at 7:45 am, switching planes in Atlanta (can't fly direct from our hometown and it's not worth the four hour drive to catch a direct flight), arriving in Orlando just before 1 pm. I went with Happy Limo's 12 passenger van because they tell you they'll stop at Albertson's and Albertson's accepts faxed orders. I'll fax them our order the day before we leave; it's mostly water, pop and juice boxes, but it will be nice to have them do the shopping. I'll pop in, pay for it, throw it in the van and we'll be off to Disney. We went with Port Orleans Riverside... well, because we had no other choice. We can't afford a deluxe hotel and with 5 family members, we didn't have any other moderate options. I did look into reserving 2 rooms at Pop Century, but it was still more expensive. When codes came out for our dates, I also checked into using those, but we really wanted the UPHs and we had gotten such a good deal with the kids free package that we would have had to pay more with the codes. So Riverside it is. I'm excited; I think it looks like a lovely backdrop for all the pictures I will no doubt be taking. I think Dan and the kids will love the pool. Our hope is that by 4 pm, we'll be checked in and have eaten a quick bite in the food court. We'll head to Epcot for a few hours, then back to the hotel. Dan will take the kids to the pool while I unpack. Then it's an early bedtime for us as we're about to start the wildest week of our lives.
Friday, June 4: EMH at Animal Kingdom. Using our Prince/Princess add-on, we'll have special seating for a Festival of the Lion King show. We also have a PS for Rainforest Cafe at 11:30 am. AK is Dan's favorite park, but I don't have a lot of time scheduled for it. I'm hoping that on this morning we can knock down the Safaris, Lion King and It's Tough to Be a Bug. Dinoland would be a big plus. After our lunch, it will be back to the hotel for pool time. I won't say naps because I know my group and there's no way anyone will take a nap in the room. If I'm lucky, they'll take a brief nap on the bus, but we are not nappers when there's something else we could be doing. After our break, we'll be off to Magic Kingdom. My primary goal this night is to see Wishes. I'm sure we'll fit in some rides first. How could we not?
Saturday, June 5: EMH at the Studios. This is also a Star Wars Weekend, which freaks me out a bit. A) We're not huge Star Wars fans and B) I don't like crowds. I'll deal with it. Main goal today is to get Dan on Rock N' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror so I don't have to listen to him gripe and moan the rest of the trip about not doing any thrill rides. Brady says he wants to do RNRC and hey, more power to him if he does. I'll believe it when I see it. For his birthday, I let him pick one restaurant for our trip. He chose Sci Fi and it fit into our schedule for this day, so we've got a 11:00 PS. We also have PS for the Beauty and the Beast show just after our meal. As soon as the show is over, we'll go back to the hotel for a rest. Because I'm not sure how our energy level will be, I'm leaving this evening pretty open. We may ride the boat to Downtown Disney (the kids are dying to buy the Mr. Potato Head parts!) or go back to Epcot.
Sunday, June 6: EMH at Magic Kingdom. We're going to knock out Fantasyland and head for Toon Town. For me, this day is all about the girls. I want them to get their fill of characters and fantasy. We'll leave MK when it starts to get busy, definitely out by noon, and back to our resort. We're not planning a lunch today because we have a 4:20 PS at Hollywood and Vine for the Fantasmic Dinner Package. So we'll swim, eat some snacks, and then it's off to the Studios. After dinner, I hope to hit any shows and rides we missed the day before, then grab a seat for the show.
Monday, June 7: This is one of our two flex days. As it stands right now, the plan is to go to Typhoon Lagoon for the day. (The alternative is to go to AK again if we feel we've missed too much on Friday.) The water park choice is still being debated, but I strongly prefer the tropical feel of Typhoon to the cold atmosphere of Blizzard Beach. We've never been to either, so I'm open to deciding that morning. We can sleep a bit later today as the water parks don't open until 9 am and we'll leave by 2 pm. No need to go back to the resort to swim, so we'll change and rest for a bit before heading off to the MK. I have a 4 pm PS for Liberty Tree Tavern, which no one but me knows is a character meal. We're always starved after a day at a water park, so I just wanted some where with a lot of food. I chose LTT because Mykiah's got that Minnie infatuation and I've heard nothing but good reviews. Don't know how late we'll stay at MK or what we'll do after dinner, but the park doesn't close until 10, so we'll have time.
Tuesday, June 8: Our other flex day. We could go to a water park if we didn't go Monday or even if we just want to go again. We could do the Studios EMH or just go to MK. I can't believe I'm being this flexible, but it's true. We've got plenty of options for this day. I do have a 5 pm PS for Prime Time Cafe at the Studios, so we'll try to make it to the Studios by then. We did PTC on our last trip and it was a highlight. After dinner, we may stay at the Studios if it's not too busy (after having had EMH) or boat to Epcot to play for a bit.
Wednesday, June 9: A big day for the girls. It's Epcot EMH, so we're hoping to get a couple of turns on Test Track under our belt before we head to Norway for our breakfast with the princesses at 10:20. After breakfast, we'll monorail over to MK and stay to watch the afternoon parade. The evening is flexible. Probably a trip to Downtown Disney or just hanging around the resort.
Thursday, June 10: Our last full day! Sob! We'll do EMH at Magic Kingdom and stay until early afternoon. Same old routine -- back to the resort to swim. We have a 5 pm PS for Chef Mickey's (another favorite from our last trip) and then plan to monorail over to Epcot and see Illuminations.
Friday, June 11: No real plans for today. There's always AK EMH if Dan hasn't gotten his fill yet. We could also go to MK and reride favorites. Happy Limo will meet us at the hotel at noon, so we'll have to leave the parks by 11 am. Our plane leaves Orlando at 3 pm (yes, I know we're getting picked up early but we'd like to eat lunch at the airport and unwind before we get on the plane). We have a few hour layover in Atlanta before we board a flight for home at 8 pm and then arrive home at 9:30. I'd guess that by noon the next day, I'll be doing laundry and editing my pictures from my digital camera. As part of my obsessiveness, I'll start posting my trip report within a few days and start work on my trip journal/scrapbook as soon as I get pictures printed.
The preparations:
I'm one of those Disney freaks that believes that you'll have the best time on a Disney vacation if you prepare for it, the same way you would prepare for having your first child or planning your wedding. I can't imagine going to Walt Disney World without having ever read a guide book, or looked at an internet site, or even just went to the official Disney site and checked park hours. It never fails to amaze me how people have no problem locating a message board to gripe about how horrible their Disney vacation was, but they've never visited that message board until after that vacation was over. People, you've got to be prepared and plan. You do those things, you (hopefully) won't need to complain at the end. You'll know what to do, when to do it, and what to do if it doesn't work out the way you intended.
Part of our preparation was physical. We started walking as a family 3 months before our trip. At first, Chesney could barely make it 3/4 of a mile, but by mid-May, she was doing the full 2+ miles. We all wear our Disney shoes while were walking to get them broken in. In addition, Dan and I have been dieting. Dan loves to diet. It gives him the opportunity to nag me; I'm so perfect that he never needs to nag me otherwise. (That's sarcasm, in case it doesn't translate.) Dan does much better dieting than I do, and this time I didn't lose any weight. So I quit about a week ago. Heaven knows I wasn't planning to diet at Disney anyway and summers are such a hard time for me to diet. It's much easier when I'm at school, busy and distracted from food. Dan's still eating Slim Fast bars for breakfast. They taste like chocolate gum, just in case anyone out there has ever considered eating one.
Shopping is a huge part of our preparations. From Day 1 of planning, I start a list of things we'll need, no matter how obscure. In late February, we went to Wal-Mart and put $150 of underwear and socks on layaway. No lie. I buy the family new essentials once a year as we prepare to go on vacation. I pack all the new undergarments and then throw the old ones away when we return. It works for us. About a month later, we put t-shirts for the kids and denim shorts for Brady on layaway. We love layaway. Since we don't have credit cards, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to get things early in the season (so that I have a good selection of colors and sizes) and then pay for it over the next few weeks. I always buy denim shorts for the kids because they're durable. This year we got lucky. Mykiah hasn't grown and can wear all her shorts from last year. We did pick up a few pair on clearance for $3 this winter, too. Chesney has shot up and is now able to wear Mykiah's old size 6 denim shorts. So she didn't need any new shorts. Everybody got new solid color t-shirts and we've been hitting the Disney Store about once a month and taking advantage of their great t-shirt sales.
I'm not nearly as obsessed with dressing Dan and I, but he did get some new shorts. I bought some fun plaid capris and solid color t-shirts. In March, I discovered that I had cataracts. My eye doctor can't explain why, but I've got them at only 33 years of age. So a big priority for me this summer is to protect my eyes from further damage. I've got my first pair of prescription sunglasses and a fun straw hat. I feel prepared.
Shoes are a big thing for our family (Dan's a former shoe salesman, after all). Dan and I bought Sea-to-Shore water shoes from Land's End because we thought a combo water shoe/walking shoe sounded like a great idea. We hated them at first, but after a month of wear, now love them. We also both bought nice (read "expensive") sandals. I've got my first pair of cool Birkenstocks. I've had a pair before but they were on clearance so although I loved the comfort, they were a bit gaudy. Now I don't have to try to hide my feet when I wear them. The kids all have new walking shoes, new casual shoes, new water socks (for the water parks) and new pool shoes (cheap flip flops to wear when running to/from the pool). We have a ton of shoes!
I've also been stocking up on little odds and ends. I bought 100 glow sticks off ebay for the kids to use, the Easter bunny brought new beach towels and autograph books, and I ordered custom made hair bows for the girls outfits. I also just buy duplicates of all our toiletries. I hate having to pack up all our "bathroom stuff" early in the morning when we're leaving. Much easier just to have all the duplicates packed and ready to go. We take quite a few smaller trips every summer to visit grandparents and just get away for a weekend, so it's handy to have all our stuff in a pack, ready to grab.
May 26, 2005
Yesterday was my big kids' last day of school. Unfortunately I don't finish until Friday, so I had to pick them up from latchkey, run them home to drop off all that end of the year junk, then load them back in the van. An hour later, we were meeting Gramps at a McDonalds half way between his house and ours. We'll go down for Memorial Day weekend and bring them back with us.
While my kids played in the Play Place (aka "germ magnet"), I told my dad this story that I think belongs in this trip report: Today at lunch, I called to check my answering machine. I occasionally get phone calls from scrapbook magazines that need to be returned before they close for the day, so I like to check. OK, I'm compulsive about checking. On May 25, I had quite an unusual message. It was our air carrier calling to say that they had overbooked our flight and would we be willing to leave a day and a half later in exchange for 5 free round trip tickets.
Hmmm... that just wouldn't do. However, I'm married to a man who loves the word "free" and frankly, I wanted to make this work. If I didn't take the voluntary bump, I might be forced into an involuntary bump. In checking the airline's website, I could see that they hadn't just oversold our flight day, but the entire week. However, I had just been reading about upgrades at the Kansas City airport. It would be a 3-4 hour drive, but 5 free tickets are worth at least $1000. We wouldn't be able to afford this again for a few years... unless we got free air travel. So I called the number and gave them my counteroffer. We'd fly out of KC a day earlier than planned but we'd also need our return flight to KC (since our van would be parked there). Two hours later, we were set. Not just flying out of KC, but we now have a longer layover (I was concerned about missing our connecting flight and now there's no need to worry), a larger plane and assigned seats (which I wouldn't have until check-in the way it had stood before). Oh, and I still get those ticket vouchers.
Although the new events thrill me, it also causes panic. I've been planning this trip for 200 days and now I've got to add 2 nights hotel and plan for 2 more days. Our flight lands in Orlando at 9 pm, so I didn't see any need to spend a lot of money on a hotel. I reserved a suite at Sleep Inn Airport; we'll take the free shuttle to the hotel that night. Our room has a whirlpool bath, so I've promised the kids a nice long bath to wash off the travel dust before we go to bed. It will be an early morning because Happy Limo will be picking us up at 7 am. A quick stop at a convenience store and we're off to Port Orleans. I'm hoping to be checking in by 8 am, although with traffic that morning, who knows? Even though it's early, I'll hope they have a room available. Regardless, our things will be stored either in our room or with luggage services and then it's off to a park. No idea which one yet, but we'll be off. I want to spend the afternoon/evening exploring the resort and maybe Downtown Disney. I'm so thrilled to no longer have to travel on this day. And our return flight moved from 3 pm to 6 pm, so we suddenly have a lot longer on our last day, too.
May 26, 2004
I have a 25 minute drive to work... each way. This amounts to just about an hour of "me" time each day; really the only time I have away from children during my day. So today I was driving it and thinking about that extra time we have to fill at Disney. I've always been a bit nervous about going to MGM on a Star Wars Weekend. Hmmm... why not go to MGM on Thursday, our arrival day? I was able to get our same Sci Fi PS for Thursday, which was a blessing since Sci Fi was Brady's choice and I didn't want to lose that. Now we've got Saturday free. Then it hit me -- there's an e-ride night that Friday night! We weren't originally planning to do e-ride nights because we had early mornings planned each morning. However, the new schedule of rides for e-rides is really appealing to me and now that we have Saturday free, it's possible to do a late night Friday. So our new plan is MGM Thursday until we're ready to head back to the hotel. Friday will be AK for EMH, back to the hotel for hopefully a nice nap, then over to MK to get our e-ride bracelets. I had already scheduled Wishes for this night, so I think we'll stand on the Tommorrowland Bridge to watch the show. While everyone crowds out of the park after the show, I can guide our group towards Buzz and Fantasyland. Saturday will be a resort morning, followed by an Epcot evening. It's all falling together now.
Of course, I still have to pack. But everything is here and ready to be packed. The new schedule poses a few challenges with packing (especially since we hadn't planned to do laundry and that now seems inevitable). It now looks like Monday will be our packing day. I had planned to spend Tuesday and Wednesday relaxing, but now I'll be rushing Chesney to dance lessons Tuesday morning. As soon as she's finished, it's off to Wal-Mart to get the van's oil changed and the tires rotated and balanced. We're planning to leave home by 7 am on Tuesday to begin what will become a 14 hour journey. But hey, we'll be in Disney and have free air tickets for our next trip (or at least that's what I keep telling myself!).
May 31, 2004
Well, we're ready. It took us just about 2 hours this morning to pack everything up. Final tally: 5 suitcases, 7 carry-on items. While Dan is cringing at how much luggage we're taking, I actually thought it went pretty well. 4 of the bags are clothes and one just has snacks and shoes. Balancing taking too much vs. having everything we need is always so difficult for me. I think I did good this time, though. Then I spent my afternoon at Wal-Mart, getting the oil changed in our van before the trip. I can never manage to get out of that place without spending at least $20. Today it was $40 because I bought Dan a watch. Called him on my cell while I was looking -- I got the right color, the light and the date. He never told me he wanted digital! Don't you think that's a huge thing to mention? Oh well, he likes it anyway. So I also bought myself a new hat (because I wasn't thrilled with the other one and loved this one), notebooks and stickers for the girls to use on the ride up to KC and a new charger for the Game Boy Advance we bought Brady for his birthday. We gave him his gift at my parents house this weekend, only to return home and discover that I hadn't grabbed his GBA charger, but my mom's cell phone charger. Oopsie Doopsie! Thankfully Wal-Mart stocks the GBA chargers and I'll mail my mom her charger tomorrow. I've also got to run Chesney to her first summer dance lesson at 9:30 and get gas in the van. One those 3 things are done, we'll be set! Safe travel pixie dust would be appreciated as I'm not the most confident flyer.
To read Day 1, click here
Kim (your esteemed trip report writer), 33. I do nothing half way. Whether it be teaching or planning our trip or just scrapbooking, I'm consumed by it. I spend hours a day keeping up with the scrapbooking community, checking Disney message boards or revising my classroom management. I take children very seriously; I love being a mom and can't imagine having a job that didn't keep me in daily contact with children. I've got a soft spot in my heart for children with special needs and have spent my last 2 years teaching young children with autism. I love my job and can't imagine myself ever doing anything else. Which is not to say that Im not looking forward to spending a summer with my children, chilling at the YMCA water park and running the girls to dance lessons and cheer clinic. I cant wait!
Dan , 35. Dan's a Schwans Man, so if you have one of those in your neck of the woods, you can get a pretty good feel for him. He's All-American (i.e. good looking), spends many hours a week at work and uses his vacation to truly relax. On a personal level, he's a bit anal about budgeting, which is pretty much the only part of planning this vacation that he's helped plan. Not that he doesn't care what we do, he's just not going to worry about it when he knows I'll do a spectacular job myself. He loves thrill rides, but is often sadly disappointed to discover that the rest of his family aren't quite up to the thrill.
Brady, 9 (but will turn 10 the day after we get back). More commonly called Tady Head or just Tater, a nickname given to him at less than a year because he has a passion for that common kitchen staple... the potato. Mashed, French Fried, baked... he loves them all. He's a bit of a computer geek and would rather play a sim game than just about anything. He's in that cautious, finding himself stage. He really wants to try pin trading and is trying to talk himself into Rock N Roller Coaster. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'm hopeful for him!
Mykiah, 8. We call her Kiah or Kiah Jane most of the time. (I have no idea where Kiah Jane came from; her middle name is Kristene.) Kiah's been going on roller coasters and thrill rides for 2 years but had a bad experience last year on the first day of vacation and wouldn't do anything the rest of the trip. I'm not sure what to expect at Disney. Kiah's a typical middle child; she's very aware of the rough spot she's got and has compensated by being mom's helper. I adore her. She loves Minnie Mouse (and has a collection of over 2 dozen stuffed Minnies).
Chesney, 4. We usually shorten her name to Ches or Chessy. Sometimes it's Boo Boo. She'll respond to any of them (including Ches-A-Knee, which is what her friends call her). I'm considering this her first "real" trip to WDW, since she was only 10 months old when she first visited (the big kids are on their 4th and 3rd Disney trips, respectively). She's got dark curly hair and is spoiled rotten by the entire family. Shes stubborn at times, and Im not known for being flexible when it comes to dealing with behavior, so I expect more than one clash of wills. Its OK, well deal with it.
Trip dates: June 3-11, 2004
May 16, 2004
Let's go back to Tuesday, November 11, 2003. I remember that day, the only day this year where I was home from work without my children (and without being ill myself), with a bittersweet clarity. Dan and I had just discovered that we would be getting a fairly large tax refund (thanks President Bush!) and were tossing around ideas for our 2004 vacation. We had last visited WDW in 2000; the past 3 years we have visited Branson, buying season tickets to Silver Dollar City the last 2 years. We are true theme park veterans. Since our 2000 Disney trip, we've really been working on eliminating credit card debt and living within our means, but now it was looking as if our means might once again include a visit to the Mouse. I pulled up my chair in front of my computer and started surfing, while periodically calling Dan on his cell to update him with ideas.
Originally, the plan was to go to Disneyland. We've been to both WDW and DL twice since our marriage. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was asked to go to a national early childhood education conference in Anaheim. What a hard decision to make on the day when this world changed forever. In the end, I couldn't resist an expense paid Disney trip and so I have one more Disney visit than my husband and family. The trip was in early November and I stayed at Paradise Pier and absolutely loved the Disney properties there. I had decided that we weren't going to Disney this trip unless we stayed onsite. So I started playing with dates at the Disneyland website. I couldn't find anything to Disneyland that was anywhere in our budget and I was beginning to get depressed.
On a lark, I switched to the Disneyworld website. What? Kids are free if you pay with Visa? We don't got no Visa, but we sure got a Visa debit card. And we could stay on property for a much cheaper price than we ever expected? Oh wait, and Air Tran (that wonderful low cost airline that has saved our town from having the most expensive airfare in the country) has flights to Orlando for less than $200 per person? Before Dan could say "What?!?" I had switched into full WDW mode.
Just to back it up a little bit, except for my "business" trip to DL, we've never stayed on site. On our last trip, we had a 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 10 month old. We took Grandpa (thank God for Grampy!) and stayed at Holiday Inn Family Suites. Our airfare (pre-Air Tran) was around $400 a person. So the kids free package and the cheap airfare were very attractive to us. It meant a complete switch for my planning brain. Planning a trip to Disneyland is a lot less involved than planning a trip to WDW. But I was up to the challenge.
The original plan was to leave on June 4, a Friday and return a week later on a Friday. I went ahead and booked the Disney package, putting down our $200 deposit, but Dan was insistent that we wait to book airfare. Within a week of booking the package, the airfare price went up $30 a ticket. Not bad, but when you multiply it by 5 tickets, it's beginning to get expensive. I did a little searching and discovered that we could leave on June 3 for our original price. A quick call to our travel agent and we had tickets for flights to Orlando on June 3, returning June 11.
And now it was time to plan. I'm a Internet freak anyway. If you ask me a question and I don't know the answer, I immediately head to my computer. I'm also an obsessive, overly organized person. I teach a structured classroom for children with communication disorders such as autism. My students need organization, a routine and predictability. My job is to provide it. So I make a lot of lists and do a lot of organizing. It spills into other parts of my life. Not my housekeeping skills, but my hobbies are definitely affected by my professional life. And when it comes to planning a Disney vacation, I'm beyond obsessive.
So here we are 18 days from the start of our trip. I'm spending a sunny Sunday afternoon surfing just to make sure Disney hasn't done anything crazy like close down Tom Sawyer Island (wait... they did that) or change EMH hours (thankfully, they're back to normal for our trip) or closed Port Orleans for refurbishment (shouldn't affect us). Dan is playing World Wrestling with our girls, while they practice their screams for Splash Mountain. This apparently is OK if Dan starts it, but if the girls were to start screaming on their own, he'd be angry. I don't quite understand men.
Part 2: The One Where Kim foolishly makes plans
So just to review, here's our plans:
Thursday, June 3: Leaving at 7:45 am, switching planes in Atlanta (can't fly direct from our hometown and it's not worth the four hour drive to catch a direct flight), arriving in Orlando just before 1 pm. I went with Happy Limo's 12 passenger van because they tell you they'll stop at Albertson's and Albertson's accepts faxed orders. I'll fax them our order the day before we leave; it's mostly water, pop and juice boxes, but it will be nice to have them do the shopping. I'll pop in, pay for it, throw it in the van and we'll be off to Disney. We went with Port Orleans Riverside... well, because we had no other choice. We can't afford a deluxe hotel and with 5 family members, we didn't have any other moderate options. I did look into reserving 2 rooms at Pop Century, but it was still more expensive. When codes came out for our dates, I also checked into using those, but we really wanted the UPHs and we had gotten such a good deal with the kids free package that we would have had to pay more with the codes. So Riverside it is. I'm excited; I think it looks like a lovely backdrop for all the pictures I will no doubt be taking. I think Dan and the kids will love the pool. Our hope is that by 4 pm, we'll be checked in and have eaten a quick bite in the food court. We'll head to Epcot for a few hours, then back to the hotel. Dan will take the kids to the pool while I unpack. Then it's an early bedtime for us as we're about to start the wildest week of our lives.
Friday, June 4: EMH at Animal Kingdom. Using our Prince/Princess add-on, we'll have special seating for a Festival of the Lion King show. We also have a PS for Rainforest Cafe at 11:30 am. AK is Dan's favorite park, but I don't have a lot of time scheduled for it. I'm hoping that on this morning we can knock down the Safaris, Lion King and It's Tough to Be a Bug. Dinoland would be a big plus. After our lunch, it will be back to the hotel for pool time. I won't say naps because I know my group and there's no way anyone will take a nap in the room. If I'm lucky, they'll take a brief nap on the bus, but we are not nappers when there's something else we could be doing. After our break, we'll be off to Magic Kingdom. My primary goal this night is to see Wishes. I'm sure we'll fit in some rides first. How could we not?
Saturday, June 5: EMH at the Studios. This is also a Star Wars Weekend, which freaks me out a bit. A) We're not huge Star Wars fans and B) I don't like crowds. I'll deal with it. Main goal today is to get Dan on Rock N' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror so I don't have to listen to him gripe and moan the rest of the trip about not doing any thrill rides. Brady says he wants to do RNRC and hey, more power to him if he does. I'll believe it when I see it. For his birthday, I let him pick one restaurant for our trip. He chose Sci Fi and it fit into our schedule for this day, so we've got a 11:00 PS. We also have PS for the Beauty and the Beast show just after our meal. As soon as the show is over, we'll go back to the hotel for a rest. Because I'm not sure how our energy level will be, I'm leaving this evening pretty open. We may ride the boat to Downtown Disney (the kids are dying to buy the Mr. Potato Head parts!) or go back to Epcot.
Sunday, June 6: EMH at Magic Kingdom. We're going to knock out Fantasyland and head for Toon Town. For me, this day is all about the girls. I want them to get their fill of characters and fantasy. We'll leave MK when it starts to get busy, definitely out by noon, and back to our resort. We're not planning a lunch today because we have a 4:20 PS at Hollywood and Vine for the Fantasmic Dinner Package. So we'll swim, eat some snacks, and then it's off to the Studios. After dinner, I hope to hit any shows and rides we missed the day before, then grab a seat for the show.
Monday, June 7: This is one of our two flex days. As it stands right now, the plan is to go to Typhoon Lagoon for the day. (The alternative is to go to AK again if we feel we've missed too much on Friday.) The water park choice is still being debated, but I strongly prefer the tropical feel of Typhoon to the cold atmosphere of Blizzard Beach. We've never been to either, so I'm open to deciding that morning. We can sleep a bit later today as the water parks don't open until 9 am and we'll leave by 2 pm. No need to go back to the resort to swim, so we'll change and rest for a bit before heading off to the MK. I have a 4 pm PS for Liberty Tree Tavern, which no one but me knows is a character meal. We're always starved after a day at a water park, so I just wanted some where with a lot of food. I chose LTT because Mykiah's got that Minnie infatuation and I've heard nothing but good reviews. Don't know how late we'll stay at MK or what we'll do after dinner, but the park doesn't close until 10, so we'll have time.
Tuesday, June 8: Our other flex day. We could go to a water park if we didn't go Monday or even if we just want to go again. We could do the Studios EMH or just go to MK. I can't believe I'm being this flexible, but it's true. We've got plenty of options for this day. I do have a 5 pm PS for Prime Time Cafe at the Studios, so we'll try to make it to the Studios by then. We did PTC on our last trip and it was a highlight. After dinner, we may stay at the Studios if it's not too busy (after having had EMH) or boat to Epcot to play for a bit.
Wednesday, June 9: A big day for the girls. It's Epcot EMH, so we're hoping to get a couple of turns on Test Track under our belt before we head to Norway for our breakfast with the princesses at 10:20. After breakfast, we'll monorail over to MK and stay to watch the afternoon parade. The evening is flexible. Probably a trip to Downtown Disney or just hanging around the resort.
Thursday, June 10: Our last full day! Sob! We'll do EMH at Magic Kingdom and stay until early afternoon. Same old routine -- back to the resort to swim. We have a 5 pm PS for Chef Mickey's (another favorite from our last trip) and then plan to monorail over to Epcot and see Illuminations.
Friday, June 11: No real plans for today. There's always AK EMH if Dan hasn't gotten his fill yet. We could also go to MK and reride favorites. Happy Limo will meet us at the hotel at noon, so we'll have to leave the parks by 11 am. Our plane leaves Orlando at 3 pm (yes, I know we're getting picked up early but we'd like to eat lunch at the airport and unwind before we get on the plane). We have a few hour layover in Atlanta before we board a flight for home at 8 pm and then arrive home at 9:30. I'd guess that by noon the next day, I'll be doing laundry and editing my pictures from my digital camera. As part of my obsessiveness, I'll start posting my trip report within a few days and start work on my trip journal/scrapbook as soon as I get pictures printed.
The preparations:
I'm one of those Disney freaks that believes that you'll have the best time on a Disney vacation if you prepare for it, the same way you would prepare for having your first child or planning your wedding. I can't imagine going to Walt Disney World without having ever read a guide book, or looked at an internet site, or even just went to the official Disney site and checked park hours. It never fails to amaze me how people have no problem locating a message board to gripe about how horrible their Disney vacation was, but they've never visited that message board until after that vacation was over. People, you've got to be prepared and plan. You do those things, you (hopefully) won't need to complain at the end. You'll know what to do, when to do it, and what to do if it doesn't work out the way you intended.
Part of our preparation was physical. We started walking as a family 3 months before our trip. At first, Chesney could barely make it 3/4 of a mile, but by mid-May, she was doing the full 2+ miles. We all wear our Disney shoes while were walking to get them broken in. In addition, Dan and I have been dieting. Dan loves to diet. It gives him the opportunity to nag me; I'm so perfect that he never needs to nag me otherwise. (That's sarcasm, in case it doesn't translate.) Dan does much better dieting than I do, and this time I didn't lose any weight. So I quit about a week ago. Heaven knows I wasn't planning to diet at Disney anyway and summers are such a hard time for me to diet. It's much easier when I'm at school, busy and distracted from food. Dan's still eating Slim Fast bars for breakfast. They taste like chocolate gum, just in case anyone out there has ever considered eating one.
Shopping is a huge part of our preparations. From Day 1 of planning, I start a list of things we'll need, no matter how obscure. In late February, we went to Wal-Mart and put $150 of underwear and socks on layaway. No lie. I buy the family new essentials once a year as we prepare to go on vacation. I pack all the new undergarments and then throw the old ones away when we return. It works for us. About a month later, we put t-shirts for the kids and denim shorts for Brady on layaway. We love layaway. Since we don't have credit cards, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to get things early in the season (so that I have a good selection of colors and sizes) and then pay for it over the next few weeks. I always buy denim shorts for the kids because they're durable. This year we got lucky. Mykiah hasn't grown and can wear all her shorts from last year. We did pick up a few pair on clearance for $3 this winter, too. Chesney has shot up and is now able to wear Mykiah's old size 6 denim shorts. So she didn't need any new shorts. Everybody got new solid color t-shirts and we've been hitting the Disney Store about once a month and taking advantage of their great t-shirt sales.
I'm not nearly as obsessed with dressing Dan and I, but he did get some new shorts. I bought some fun plaid capris and solid color t-shirts. In March, I discovered that I had cataracts. My eye doctor can't explain why, but I've got them at only 33 years of age. So a big priority for me this summer is to protect my eyes from further damage. I've got my first pair of prescription sunglasses and a fun straw hat. I feel prepared.
Shoes are a big thing for our family (Dan's a former shoe salesman, after all). Dan and I bought Sea-to-Shore water shoes from Land's End because we thought a combo water shoe/walking shoe sounded like a great idea. We hated them at first, but after a month of wear, now love them. We also both bought nice (read "expensive") sandals. I've got my first pair of cool Birkenstocks. I've had a pair before but they were on clearance so although I loved the comfort, they were a bit gaudy. Now I don't have to try to hide my feet when I wear them. The kids all have new walking shoes, new casual shoes, new water socks (for the water parks) and new pool shoes (cheap flip flops to wear when running to/from the pool). We have a ton of shoes!
I've also been stocking up on little odds and ends. I bought 100 glow sticks off ebay for the kids to use, the Easter bunny brought new beach towels and autograph books, and I ordered custom made hair bows for the girls outfits. I also just buy duplicates of all our toiletries. I hate having to pack up all our "bathroom stuff" early in the morning when we're leaving. Much easier just to have all the duplicates packed and ready to go. We take quite a few smaller trips every summer to visit grandparents and just get away for a weekend, so it's handy to have all our stuff in a pack, ready to grab.
May 26, 2005
Yesterday was my big kids' last day of school. Unfortunately I don't finish until Friday, so I had to pick them up from latchkey, run them home to drop off all that end of the year junk, then load them back in the van. An hour later, we were meeting Gramps at a McDonalds half way between his house and ours. We'll go down for Memorial Day weekend and bring them back with us.
While my kids played in the Play Place (aka "germ magnet"), I told my dad this story that I think belongs in this trip report: Today at lunch, I called to check my answering machine. I occasionally get phone calls from scrapbook magazines that need to be returned before they close for the day, so I like to check. OK, I'm compulsive about checking. On May 25, I had quite an unusual message. It was our air carrier calling to say that they had overbooked our flight and would we be willing to leave a day and a half later in exchange for 5 free round trip tickets.
Hmmm... that just wouldn't do. However, I'm married to a man who loves the word "free" and frankly, I wanted to make this work. If I didn't take the voluntary bump, I might be forced into an involuntary bump. In checking the airline's website, I could see that they hadn't just oversold our flight day, but the entire week. However, I had just been reading about upgrades at the Kansas City airport. It would be a 3-4 hour drive, but 5 free tickets are worth at least $1000. We wouldn't be able to afford this again for a few years... unless we got free air travel. So I called the number and gave them my counteroffer. We'd fly out of KC a day earlier than planned but we'd also need our return flight to KC (since our van would be parked there). Two hours later, we were set. Not just flying out of KC, but we now have a longer layover (I was concerned about missing our connecting flight and now there's no need to worry), a larger plane and assigned seats (which I wouldn't have until check-in the way it had stood before). Oh, and I still get those ticket vouchers.
Although the new events thrill me, it also causes panic. I've been planning this trip for 200 days and now I've got to add 2 nights hotel and plan for 2 more days. Our flight lands in Orlando at 9 pm, so I didn't see any need to spend a lot of money on a hotel. I reserved a suite at Sleep Inn Airport; we'll take the free shuttle to the hotel that night. Our room has a whirlpool bath, so I've promised the kids a nice long bath to wash off the travel dust before we go to bed. It will be an early morning because Happy Limo will be picking us up at 7 am. A quick stop at a convenience store and we're off to Port Orleans. I'm hoping to be checking in by 8 am, although with traffic that morning, who knows? Even though it's early, I'll hope they have a room available. Regardless, our things will be stored either in our room or with luggage services and then it's off to a park. No idea which one yet, but we'll be off. I want to spend the afternoon/evening exploring the resort and maybe Downtown Disney. I'm so thrilled to no longer have to travel on this day. And our return flight moved from 3 pm to 6 pm, so we suddenly have a lot longer on our last day, too.
May 26, 2004
I have a 25 minute drive to work... each way. This amounts to just about an hour of "me" time each day; really the only time I have away from children during my day. So today I was driving it and thinking about that extra time we have to fill at Disney. I've always been a bit nervous about going to MGM on a Star Wars Weekend. Hmmm... why not go to MGM on Thursday, our arrival day? I was able to get our same Sci Fi PS for Thursday, which was a blessing since Sci Fi was Brady's choice and I didn't want to lose that. Now we've got Saturday free. Then it hit me -- there's an e-ride night that Friday night! We weren't originally planning to do e-ride nights because we had early mornings planned each morning. However, the new schedule of rides for e-rides is really appealing to me and now that we have Saturday free, it's possible to do a late night Friday. So our new plan is MGM Thursday until we're ready to head back to the hotel. Friday will be AK for EMH, back to the hotel for hopefully a nice nap, then over to MK to get our e-ride bracelets. I had already scheduled Wishes for this night, so I think we'll stand on the Tommorrowland Bridge to watch the show. While everyone crowds out of the park after the show, I can guide our group towards Buzz and Fantasyland. Saturday will be a resort morning, followed by an Epcot evening. It's all falling together now.
Of course, I still have to pack. But everything is here and ready to be packed. The new schedule poses a few challenges with packing (especially since we hadn't planned to do laundry and that now seems inevitable). It now looks like Monday will be our packing day. I had planned to spend Tuesday and Wednesday relaxing, but now I'll be rushing Chesney to dance lessons Tuesday morning. As soon as she's finished, it's off to Wal-Mart to get the van's oil changed and the tires rotated and balanced. We're planning to leave home by 7 am on Tuesday to begin what will become a 14 hour journey. But hey, we'll be in Disney and have free air tickets for our next trip (or at least that's what I keep telling myself!).
May 31, 2004
Well, we're ready. It took us just about 2 hours this morning to pack everything up. Final tally: 5 suitcases, 7 carry-on items. While Dan is cringing at how much luggage we're taking, I actually thought it went pretty well. 4 of the bags are clothes and one just has snacks and shoes. Balancing taking too much vs. having everything we need is always so difficult for me. I think I did good this time, though. Then I spent my afternoon at Wal-Mart, getting the oil changed in our van before the trip. I can never manage to get out of that place without spending at least $20. Today it was $40 because I bought Dan a watch. Called him on my cell while I was looking -- I got the right color, the light and the date. He never told me he wanted digital! Don't you think that's a huge thing to mention? Oh well, he likes it anyway. So I also bought myself a new hat (because I wasn't thrilled with the other one and loved this one), notebooks and stickers for the girls to use on the ride up to KC and a new charger for the Game Boy Advance we bought Brady for his birthday. We gave him his gift at my parents house this weekend, only to return home and discover that I hadn't grabbed his GBA charger, but my mom's cell phone charger. Oopsie Doopsie! Thankfully Wal-Mart stocks the GBA chargers and I'll mail my mom her charger tomorrow. I've also got to run Chesney to her first summer dance lesson at 9:30 and get gas in the van. One those 3 things are done, we'll be set! Safe travel pixie dust would be appreciated as I'm not the most confident flyer.
To read Day 1, click here
