DisneyMom5
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2003
- Messages
- 4,567
Well, I have put off writing my report as I am a perfectionist, but I guess I will jump in and at least start it.
We condsider ourselves hicks. We are from a relatively small city, and I grew up on a farm.
I posted our food experiences on the restaurant board b/c sometimes when I read WDW restaurant menus I feel like the Clampetts. But we actually seem to fit in just fine down there. We are a bit of a freak show with our 6 kids in matching shirts, but we have a good time!
Cast:
Me - 37 yo homeschooling mom/obsessive Disney planner.
Ninja Guy - 35 yo dh, and yes, he has studied to be a ninja. Just made him a lot sneakier. LOL (You'd recognize him from this smilie. Same glasses.)
Princess - 11 yo dd, also obsessive Disney-phile (I am so proud, sniff...)
Chef C. - Ds, turned 9 on this trip, wants to cook for a living (but is as skinny as a stick)
Dash - 6 yo ds. Looks just like Dash Incredible. Quite a lady-killer w/ dimples.
Mon-Ink - 4 yo ds. Named for how he says his fav. movie. When he was in the hospital (see below) we watched Monster's Inc. EVERY day.
Danger Girl - 2 yo dd, Dash's female mini-me. If there is trouble, one of the two is likely involved.
Bitsy - 1 yo dd. First trip to the world.
A little background: we went to WDW for the first time as a family in 2/04. We had a great time, but had to cut our time a little short as we came down with a bout of the stomach flu. Stayed in FW cabins and loved them. We hoped to maybe go back in 2006.
Fast forward to 5/31/04, a sunny, windy Memorial Day. I was almost 7 mo. pregnant at the time. We decided to take the kids out and play in the back yard. I ran in the house to use the bathroom. Then I heard a horrible crash, and my dh started screaming for me. I ran out to find that my then 2.5 yo ds was under a huge tree branch that had broken off of the top of the tree.
He was rushed to the hospital and air lifted to a PICU 40 min. away.
From that point on we learned he was in a coma, drug induced, but he didn't wake up fast and was diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury.
To shorten the story, he and I spent over 2 months in 2 hospitals, and 11 days after he was sent home our youngest dd was born. It was a horrible experience,and although he relearned how to walk, talk, etc., he is still 1-2 years behind for his age. But he has no idea that any of this happened, he is just our happy go lucky little guy.
After we got home from the hospital, by dh said "We need to go back WDW to celebrate surviving the summer from h**l."
Needless to say, I agreed!
We started to plan for 1/05, got a great room only rate, only to find that Dh's job was iffy. So we cancelled, and said maybe 12/05. Dh goes to the univ. as well as working full time, so we'd have to work around his schedule. (We homeschool the kids, so they are flexible!
)
Then, free dining came out. And low and behold, dh had a school break the first week of free dining. So in June we booked Pop Century and started packing and planning.
Dh claimed this will be our last WDW trip for a while, as, even though he likes WDW, he wants to do other things.
Ok, whatever, just as long as we are going now.
I am an obsessive planner. So I pretty much knew where we were going when, and made ADRs accordingly.
So we take our 15 passenger van in for a pre-trip check up, and they say something is wrong with the A/C and that they will fix it. We hardly ever use it, but knew we'd need it on the trip, so said fine.
We take off at 3:30 am, having loaded up amazingly awake children.
About 4 hours into our trip it gets hot enough to try the A/C, and, you guessed it, no A/C. We never thought to try it before the trip!
So we melted and sweltered for 2 days driving.
We stopped over night at the Comfort Inn Lookout Mtn. in Chattanooga. Got connecting rooms, free breakfast, highly recommend.
Another day of sweat and needless to say we were even more happy to see Pop Cent. than we even would have been. I bet we were a bedraggled nasty looking group for anyone seeing us check in. (Thankfully my kids are content travellers, b/c I was a complete crank!
)
We had a bad experience earlier in the year with not getting connecting rooms that had been guarenteed in another city, so I was extremely paranoid.
But, everything went great at check-in. Got rooms 2126 & 2127, 1950's first floor, jukebox bldg, just one door down from the pool behind the icon. Non-smoking, connecting rooms w/ a free fridge to to my 6yo ds's medication (asthma/allergy). We faced a parking lot, which was handy to our van, and there was a screen of trees and bushes between us and the lot, so that kept noise down. We heard very little noise in that location, amazingly enough. First floor was fine. Easier with the dbl stroller, actually.
Had some dinner at Pop Cent., breaking in the dining plan, (just a fairly short walk to Everything Pop) and then headed to the Bowling Pin pool, which was big fun.
Well, that's enough for this post.
Thanks for sharing our journey so far, more in part 2...
We condsider ourselves hicks. We are from a relatively small city, and I grew up on a farm.
I posted our food experiences on the restaurant board b/c sometimes when I read WDW restaurant menus I feel like the Clampetts. But we actually seem to fit in just fine down there. We are a bit of a freak show with our 6 kids in matching shirts, but we have a good time!
Cast:
Me - 37 yo homeschooling mom/obsessive Disney planner. Ninja Guy - 35 yo dh, and yes, he has studied to be a ninja. Just made him a lot sneakier. LOL (You'd recognize him from this smilie. Same glasses.) Princess - 11 yo dd, also obsessive Disney-phile (I am so proud, sniff...) Chef C. - Ds, turned 9 on this trip, wants to cook for a living (but is as skinny as a stick) Dash - 6 yo ds. Looks just like Dash Incredible. Quite a lady-killer w/ dimples. Mon-Ink - 4 yo ds. Named for how he says his fav. movie. When he was in the hospital (see below) we watched Monster's Inc. EVERY day. Danger Girl - 2 yo dd, Dash's female mini-me. If there is trouble, one of the two is likely involved. Bitsy - 1 yo dd. First trip to the world.A little background: we went to WDW for the first time as a family in 2/04. We had a great time, but had to cut our time a little short as we came down with a bout of the stomach flu. Stayed in FW cabins and loved them. We hoped to maybe go back in 2006.
Fast forward to 5/31/04, a sunny, windy Memorial Day. I was almost 7 mo. pregnant at the time. We decided to take the kids out and play in the back yard. I ran in the house to use the bathroom. Then I heard a horrible crash, and my dh started screaming for me. I ran out to find that my then 2.5 yo ds was under a huge tree branch that had broken off of the top of the tree.
He was rushed to the hospital and air lifted to a PICU 40 min. away.
From that point on we learned he was in a coma, drug induced, but he didn't wake up fast and was diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury.
To shorten the story, he and I spent over 2 months in 2 hospitals, and 11 days after he was sent home our youngest dd was born. It was a horrible experience,and although he relearned how to walk, talk, etc., he is still 1-2 years behind for his age. But he has no idea that any of this happened, he is just our happy go lucky little guy.
After we got home from the hospital, by dh said "We need to go back WDW to celebrate surviving the summer from h**l."
Needless to say, I agreed!
We started to plan for 1/05, got a great room only rate, only to find that Dh's job was iffy. So we cancelled, and said maybe 12/05. Dh goes to the univ. as well as working full time, so we'd have to work around his schedule. (We homeschool the kids, so they are flexible!
)Then, free dining came out. And low and behold, dh had a school break the first week of free dining. So in June we booked Pop Century and started packing and planning.
Dh claimed this will be our last WDW trip for a while, as, even though he likes WDW, he wants to do other things.
Ok, whatever, just as long as we are going now.
I am an obsessive planner. So I pretty much knew where we were going when, and made ADRs accordingly.
So we take our 15 passenger van in for a pre-trip check up, and they say something is wrong with the A/C and that they will fix it. We hardly ever use it, but knew we'd need it on the trip, so said fine.
We take off at 3:30 am, having loaded up amazingly awake children.
About 4 hours into our trip it gets hot enough to try the A/C, and, you guessed it, no A/C. We never thought to try it before the trip!
So we melted and sweltered for 2 days driving.
We stopped over night at the Comfort Inn Lookout Mtn. in Chattanooga. Got connecting rooms, free breakfast, highly recommend.
Another day of sweat and needless to say we were even more happy to see Pop Cent. than we even would have been. I bet we were a bedraggled nasty looking group for anyone seeing us check in. (Thankfully my kids are content travellers, b/c I was a complete crank!
)We had a bad experience earlier in the year with not getting connecting rooms that had been guarenteed in another city, so I was extremely paranoid.
But, everything went great at check-in. Got rooms 2126 & 2127, 1950's first floor, jukebox bldg, just one door down from the pool behind the icon. Non-smoking, connecting rooms w/ a free fridge to to my 6yo ds's medication (asthma/allergy). We faced a parking lot, which was handy to our van, and there was a screen of trees and bushes between us and the lot, so that kept noise down. We heard very little noise in that location, amazingly enough. First floor was fine. Easier with the dbl stroller, actually.
Had some dinner at Pop Cent., breaking in the dining plan, (just a fairly short walk to Everything Pop) and then headed to the Bowling Pin pool, which was big fun.
Well, that's enough for this post.
Thanks for sharing our journey so far, more in part 2...
)
