I want in on the action... Pre trip report

[Zeebs]

Yay we are off to see Mickey Mouse.....

Well after much mucking around with the schedule trying to make sure we weren't going to the wrong park on the wrong day according to the many experts out there we (well me actually the rest couldn't care less as long as they are there) finally decided. So our first day is.....

EPCOT.

(A quick explaination of our touring plans: As we are travelling with 2 small children, 2 elderly grandparents, and 1 slightly overweight lazy person (thats me) we plan to try and get to the parks for opening, or as near to it as we can get. We then will tour until lunch time, when we will have a counter service most days tour some more before heading back to the condo around 2.30 - 3.00. We will end most of our days around this time, the kids get cranky if they are too much out of their routine, thus making Mummy very cranky.)

I suspect we will be up quite early as we will be on the wrong time zone, so we will have some breakfast at the villa, as mentioned in my previous post I will have got some groceries in so we can have a nice breakfast and pootle off to EPCOT.

Then, straight away to Soarin' for a fast pass and to ride if the line isn't too long by the time we make our way over there. My mother in law has only requested 1 thing and that was to ride soarin' so I better make sure she gets that wish. If we pick up a fast pass we will head over to test track and see how that line is shaping up. Not sure inlaws will want to ride this. We will then head to Nemo, (Cullen got some goldfish the other day, he has called one of them Nemo and the other Fish, which is better than the first time I asked what they were called and they were both called Nemo. Which reminds me I better clean their bowl out shortly)

Not sure where will eat lunch today, ANY SUGGESTIONS we will need something quite light as we have dinner reservations at 5.05 at Chef Mickey's

Then pretty much we will do what ever else there is to do in the future world section of Epcot. We have decided on this trip we will probably not do the World Showcase I think we would really enjoy it but the wee ones probably not as much as they will when they are older. We may visit later in the week if we find any extra time.

Depending how we are doing, we may leave the park and go back for a rest or we may just go straight to dinner at Chef Mickey's at 5.05 I have heard varied reviews of Chef Mickey's but as we have never been we will give it ago, plus it will be nice to have Dinner with Mickey Mouse.

Here is a picture of my family on the weekend we had a big family get together it was a lovely weekend. Doug looks on a bit of an odd angle because squirmy Seth was trying to get away. Remember to chime in with any tips or comments, as a newbie it will always be welcome. Right off to bed now, still catching up with sleep after the weekend.

Kirsten

 

[suzycute]

What a great photo of you all!! Looking forward to hearing how your trip goes in October!

 

[Zeebs]

Well why is it you always get busy when you want to update this pretrip report and then all of a sudden it is a week later???

Have had an interesting week.

I don't know if I am the only one to do this, but in order to tidy up I pick up everything that needs tidying up and put it in one place, which at this point in time is the spare couch. Best laid plans and all meant that this huge pile of stuff was still there a couple of days later. Well all those with kids will know how difficult it is to tidy up around them. (actually can't blame the kids for it all as I really didn't want to tackle it.) This started off a chain of events some of which I am not proud of but it happens.

After a very long night with a teething 8 month old, I was a little on the cranky side the next morning. Add this to a grumpy 2 year old who was trying to cut a hole in his Tshirt AFTER getting the sissors that I had put away, clearly not well enough, so he was sitting on the naughty step, screaming at me. Seth the baby was on the couch screaming at me because his brother was screaming and I couldn't find the kids hats underneth the big pile of stuff to be put away on the couch. At this point I lost it. A lot of yelling a bit of swearing and cursing my small untidy house, etc etc and a wee bit of throwing of the pile of stuff. (I did say I wasn't proud of my actions didn't I)

In the end I decided to forget the walk, as I still couldn't find the hats, (was the hottest day of the summer) put the kids in the car and drove to the post office and butchers. We were away for about 10 mins I came back to find a police car outside my house, a ladder up over the garage and the house wide open and 2 policemen inside looking for me.

During my wobbly a person was delivering leaflets and had thought I was in distress and called the police.... I was so embarrassed and upset and just burst into tears. Now I am not a bad mum, well my kids seem to love me anyway, just one that yells a bit. I was quite distressed at that point. Police just said not to worry about it. The house wasn't that untidy and with two little kids they thought it was quite tidy.

They were quite happy to leave me seeing they had made sure I was safe. They even offered Cullen to press the siren button. At this point I am thinking great the neighbours who haven't seen the police car will hear it. Luckily he didn't want anything to do with it and just latched himself to my leg. The lady across the road bless her said I told them they had the wrong house. I had to admit no they didn't.

So of course since that day, I have been extra extra nice to the kids.

OK so this is a bit off Topic well a lot really and nothing in about planning for WDW.

To get it back on topic, I bought some nice Winnie the Pooh stickers from Tescos today to go in the kids "keep them entertained on the plane packs" and some cars toys, from Amazon market trading for .1 yep 1 pence... postage and packaging of £7.00, only thing was they didn't make it to the "keep them entertained on the plane packs" Cullen wanted to open them up straight away. And as I was still feeling guilty for yelling enough to get the police around I obliged and opened them up. They are very popular with the boys so good choice I would say. Well I will try and update with an actual day of my trip in the next couple of days.

Kirsten

 

[arieljasmine]

Thanks for sharing your pre-trippie, I am enjoying reading. Your boys are so cute The villa looks really good, this will be an option for us next year when bump has arrived, so looking forward to hearing about it when you get back.

Laur's

 

[Zeebs]

Thanks for sharing your pre-trippie, I am enjoying reading. Your boys are so cute The villa looks really good, this will be an option for us next year when bump has arrived, so looking forward to hearing about it when you get back.

Laur's

Yay I still have a reader, I thought that by admitting to having a bit of a melt down and seriously bad parenting skills I may have lost all my readers...... but nope you are still here.

I bet you are getting excited about bump. Is it your first?

Kirsten

 

[arieljasmine]

Yay I still have a reader, I thought that by admitting to having a bit of a melt down and seriously bad parenting skills I may have lost all my readers...... but nope you are still here.

I bet you are getting excited about bump. Is it your first?

Kirsten

Aww, not at all, I have enough meltdowns now, can't imagine how I will be when I am a mommy too

Yes, this is our first baby and I am super duper excited

Laur's x

 

[Zeebs]

OK, next installment, has been a good week here, had a photo shoot of the boys on Sunday. Trying to avoid Seth getting second child syndrome, by getting some photos of him to put on the wall. Cullen has his own nice big one. So hopefully we get some good ones.

Our plans for Day 2 in Orlando.

Back when we started planning our trip, we decided to ask the inlaws to come with us. Now my father in law likes Dolphins so we thought it would be a good opportunity to send him and Mother in law to Discovery Cove.

Hubby is one of 5 boys, so we all decided to club together and send them. Now we thought it would be a good surprise, but who knew that they could use the internet and when I asked them for a list of things they might like to do in Orlando that ended up on it.

Back to square one...

So anyway we decided to go ahead with sending them to Discover Cove and presented them with the tickets and a wee gift box that I put together at the recent family get together. I put some water shoes, under water cameras, a tunic, the tickets, a gift voucher (so they can buy the photos) and I bought a heap of sweets in a fish theme and filled up a jar each for them. Then I sent out some fish cut outs to all the grand kids to colour in and attached them to the box. They were quite blown away by it all and were quite chuffed which was great.

My parents live in New Zealand and I miss them lots so it is so nice I have married into a family that is so great.

Here is a picture of us presenting the box (ok so they don't look that chuffed with it but I think this was the shock at getting it) and then a picture of Cullen and Seth decorating their fish.

OK well I haven't even mentioned MNSSHP in this post but I am tired. Teething really sucks you know so I will up finish this day off soon.

Kirsten

 

[arieljasmine]

What a wonderful idea, those boxes look amazing

Laur's

 

[irongirlof12]

I had to laugh reading you 'bad day' experience. I can think of many a time that I have thought- if someone heard me ranting and screeching they would call the cops! And how fab of the police man to resassure you your house was tidy!

Glad your holiday plans are going well. love the piccies.

 

[Snowy-girls]

Glad that all your plans seem to be coming along nicely.Oh how mortified must you have been with the police-i know i would have been.I love the idea of the gift box .Love the family pic.Can't wait for more updates.x.

 

[Zeebs]

I had to laugh reading you 'bad day' experience. I can think of many a time that I have thought- if someone heard me ranting and screeching they would call the cops! And how fab of the police man to resassure you your house was tidy!

Glad your holiday plans are going well. love the piccies.

Glad that all your plans seem to be coming along nicely.Oh how mortified must you have been with the police-i know i would have been.I love the idea of the gift box .Love the family pic.Can't wait for more updates.x.

Well my husband just laughed and said I knew you were going for the hattrick...

After having Cullen I was taken back into the hospital in the middle of the night in an ambulance and a year or so ago, we had a fire in the garage so the fire department came out. So now with the police they have all been. Oh well you live and learn...

"check who is at the door BEFORE throwing a wobbly. "

 

[Zeebs]

Right now where did get to?

Thats right I was telling you all about the tickets for Discovery Cove for the inlaws,

So this day we will drop them off at Discovery Cove and make our way to Typhoon Lagoon.

Now after reading a particularly good food report I am trying to decide if we can swing into Kona Cafe (if I can get a reservation) after dropping them off so I can have some Tonga Toast. Because even though that thing looks like a heart attack on a plate I really want to try it.

Anyway as we only have two week kiddies and tonight we are off to MNSSHP tonight we will probably only spend a couple of hours at Typhoon Lagoon. Cullen is a little water baby, loves the water, loves going under.

He goes to swimming lessons, well they both do actually, but Cullen is quite a shorty and a bit of a copy cat. His wee buddy Theo quite often goes bobbing off jumping around in the pool. Cullen tries to copy but he isn't tall enough to touch the bottom so of course he is going under and coughing and spluttering with a big grin on his face while I haul him out.

Anyway I think that a couple to 3 hours of splashing around at Typhoon Lagoon will be enough for the wee tykes.

Cullen about to get wet.

A bit of splashing around

Seth on an odd sunny English day.

When we leave there, depending on how tired the kids and us are we may head to Downtown Disney for some lunch at the Earl of Sandwich and a look around the shops before heading back to the condo to rest up before sending Doug out to collect his parents and pick up some dinner (or I might whip up a pasta or something) Then heading to the MK for MNSSHP.... YAY

Now the plan was to take both the kids to MNSSHP now I am not so sure. At the family get together we had recently the kids spent the Saturday night out with us at the party and didn't sleep and then we paid for it for the rest of the week. Well actually I paid for it Doug got to go to work lucky beggar

So I am wondering whether if I should get the kids night out to come around and watch Seth and take Cullen. What do you all think? We plan to use them later in the week so the adults can have a meal at California Grill.

We have a rest day planned for the next day so we might bit the bullet and just take Seth and hope that he will sleep in the push chair.

Anyway I am really looking forward to MNSSHP. Not too sure if we will dress up. I am sure we will dress the kids up. I would like to dress up but I am not sure as what and I don't want to get something and be too hot oh the indecision. Our second week we will be staying at a friends condo in Palm City and will be there for actual Halloween, we are thinking we might take the kids out trick or treating seeing we have never done it before.

Hubby is out for drinks tonight so I might give my Mum a call. I love having free international calls. If I didn't I would spend an obscene amount on phone calls. (I talk to someone in New Zealand at least 3 times a week) Also came in handy while making my ADR's given I had to ring every day and for the MNSSHP tickets as I was on hold ALOT for those.

Kirsten

 

[mark&sue]

I definately think your plan to go to the parks early and head back to the villa for the afternoon is the way to go and agree about the pool.

I think you are awfully brave going to wdw with two very young children, sure you will have the best time though.

October is a great time to go. Really enjoying your pre-trip report and hope you enjoy your planning as much as your trip


susan