It's been 6 years, but we're finally going back: a PTR! UPDATED 2/9 change to August dates?

[tabrizia]

So we have been talking about going back to Disney since our last trip in 2009 when our son was 2 1/2 and our daughter was 7 months old. We had gone with my parents on that trip, stayed off site and wanted to go back and do it right. Since we prefer onsite and just our immediate family. Well that is not our first trip!

We had discussed going back in 2011, but we had number 3, in 2012 life got super hectic and unexpected when our oldest fell 3 stories out a window (window locks people, an amazing thing) and was in the hospital for 7 weeks. The rest of 2012 and 2013 we focused on his healing. Okay we're up to 2014, well we really need to go to India for the kids to meet my FIL's family, the trip was amazing and we are so happy we went with my FIL and MIL after my MIL's unexpected death this January. That brings us to this year. Well in 2014 around Thanksgiving my Mom was discussing what we should do in 2015 to celebrate my Dad's 65th birthday. My sister and I both mentioned Disney World. My other sister liked the idea too, my brother was not a huge fan, but none of his suggestions worked for those of us with kids, and he was outvoted especially when my Dad said Disney sounded good.

So Disney it is. Now we were planning to do it around my Dad's birthday at the end of November, but my younger sister is pregnant and didn't want to bring a 2 month old or less to Disney, so we pushed it out until January 16th - 23rd 2016. We figured since it is MLK weekend at the start that gives those that work one less vacation day to take off, and the baby will be a reasonable age to travel.

What this means is our trip to Disney will be offsite, with between 13 and 20 people going depending on who ends up going and what day it is. This was so not the Disney trip my husband and I were planning to take next time. It should be fun though and the kids will love it. We're currently discussing when we are going to go back with just the 5 of us as well. Our thought is either in October, November or December 2016 or in 2017, we haven't fully decided on that yet.

 

[tabrizia]

Okay so who is going on this trip? First off here is my family.

I'm Sarah or tabrizia, I answer to either. I've been to Disney a number of times and really enjoy it. I love to stay on property and enjoy the atmosphere. I've been married for almost 14 years now and attriel and I have been together since 1996 so almost 19 years. I am a Stay at Home Mom and I homeschool the minions. We live in Maryland and really like it here. We live near my Father in Law which is nice since we see him often and he helps out when we need him. The rest of my family lives in Georgia which is a bit of a trip, but fortunately we can go down for long periods of time so the kids have lots of interaction and time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on that side too.

My husband is Dan or attriel. He has also been to Disney a number of times and really enjoys it, we actually went to Disney for our honeymoon. He is a computer programmer at his job and enjoys relaxing by programming or playing games both on the computer and board games, I also enjoy both computer games and board games. He is fully on board with Disney World plans, homeschooling the kids and is a great help. He actually makes dinner every night, which rocks.

Minion number 1 is Desmond. He is 8 and will be almost 9 when we go on the trip. He is very ADHD and hyper. He is an awesome kid and tons of fun. He's been to Disney twice, well 3 times if you count me being pregnant with him as his first time. He is really looking forward to the trip to Disney. He likes swimming, musicals his favorite one is Les Mis, and playing with friends. He also enjoys minecraft like every other 8 year old boy in existence, legos, video games and board games.

Minion number 2 is Eloise. She is 6 and will be almost 7 when we go on the trip. She is a sweetheart. She loves Science, princesses, American Girl Dolls, dance, swimming, legos, minecraft, video games on her iPad and board games. She has been to Disney once when she was 7 months old. She is looking forward to Disney World and really wants to meet Elsa and Anna.

Minion number 3 is Sully. He is 4 and will be almost 5 when we go on the trip. He is very 4. He likes saying no, I don't think so, and Maybe I don't want to do that. He loves mango, skylanders, minecraft, lego video games, board games, playing with legos and following his big brother around and pestering him. He also enjoys dressing up as Anna when Eloise is Elsa and playing Frozen.

We also have a dog K-line you can see him in my profile picture. He is 13 now and likes to sleep on the sofa and play with the kids.


Here are the other people coming on our trip.

My parents, Nonnie and Pom. We are doing this trip for my Dad's 65th birthday. We see my parents often even though they live in Georgia, we either go down or they come up, we probably see my Mom at least once every 4 to 6 weeks most of the time and we see my Dad every 2 to 3 months and often more often. The kids loves their grandparents. My parents bought a timeshare back when I was 13 or so, so that is what we are using for our trip, they are trying to get 2 more to fit everyone.

My sister, her husband and their two kids. Their son will 5 on this trip, he is 3 months older then Sully, their daughter will be 2 for the trip. They are looking forward to the trip, it will be both her kids first trip to Disney World.

My other sister, her husband and their new baby. Their son will be 3 1/2 or 4 months at the time of the trip. My BIL will likely only be there for the weekend, because he plans to take off some time after the baby is born and will have just gotten back to work at the time of the trip. My sister is planning on coming with the baby for the trip, but isn't positive yet if she will stay the whole week or not.

My brother and his wife. Due to an unexpected surprise they are not sure if they are going to make it or not.

My cousin. She currently lives with my parents while going to school, if she decides to come she will likely only come for the weekend.

My middle sister's niece and her in-laws. Her in-laws adopted her niece and she is considered a cousin in our family. Since the trip is during the school year, she is in 4th grade, and she won't have off other then Monday we don't know if she will come or her parents. So she may be there the whole or part of the trip and she may be there with her parents or just alone staying with either my parents or my sister, or she may not be there at all. We just don't know yet.

So that is the whole crew. We are still iffy on exactly who will be there and for how long other then us, my parents and my middle sister. Which is why I don't know if we we will have 11 or 20 people there and how many will be there each day.

The whole crew in a picture:

 

[tabrizia]

Okay so I am a planner. I am a semi-obsessive planner if you ask attriel. I love planning especially for Disney. However based on our last trip with family, though it was only with my parents and my brother and sister in law, I have decided that I am mainly only planning for my family. Everyone else can plan around us. It makes my life easier to figure out what my kids want to do and then let people decide if they are joining in or not. I did however write up a google document with our park plans and where we plan to eat each day. My Mom told me to make reservations at the same places for her and my Dad as did my middle sister. My middle sister also suggested the pirate cruise for the older 4, which worked for mine so we added that in. So I am currently making dining reservations for 11 for all our meals except our Saturday night one and the one that DH and I are going on as a date. I still haven't decided if I am going to fastpass+ ahead of time. If I get the ticket information from my Mom I will probably try to get one for Elsa and Anna and maybe Toy Story Mania. Otherwise we may just try to get some at the park. Oh I may have forgotten to mention my parents are paying for the whole trip, the lodgings (not our 1 or 2 nights before and after), the tickets, some of the meals, the pirate cruise for the kids, rental cars, airfare, etc. They are awesome!

So our actual plan is we will either arrive late Thursday night or early Friday morning, check into a Disney hotel, I think we're going to do 2 Pop rooms for either 1 or two nights before we meet up with everyone on Saturday and check into the off-site accommodations. We will also be staying 1 extra night on property and leaving late Sunday, rather then Saturday again probably at Pop, but we may do AoA.

This is the set that the meals are for, though we're not sure if the tall one is coming yet or not.

Here is our current plan:
Thursday January 14th: arrive late in the evening, check in
Friday January 15th: explore downtown Disney, maybe try to go to T-Rex for lunch or dinner (linner?), probably no park
Saturday January 16th: check out, check in, meet up with our family, no Disney meal, and we'll be going to EPCOT
Sunday January 17th: We'll be going to Magic Kingdom and we'll be having breakfast at Crystal Palace around 9:30. I wanted a later breakfast time, but with making a reservation for 11 I took the time I could get.
Monday January 18th: Disney Hollywood Studios, we will be doing the Hollywood and Vine lunch because all the kids love the characters that will be there, I don't expect much from the food.
Tuesday January 19th: Disney's Pirate Adventure at the Grand Floridian for my 3 minions and my sister's 5 year old. This is our down day we will not be going to a park this day, if it is warm enough the kids can swim and we'll probably go shopping at Downtown Disney and maybe the outlets. That evening attriel and I have a dinner reservation for just us at Narcoossee's.
Wednesday January 20th: EPCOT, we'll be doing a late breakfast at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall around 10:30. We are doing this purely for the princesses, minion number 2 chose this over 1900 Park Fare.
Thursday January 21st: Magic Kingdom day two. We will be doing lunch at Be Our Guest. I actually added 2 more people to this reservation in case my younger sister and the baby or my brother and his wife want to come. I figure it was easier to show up with 2 fewer then try to get 2 extra people in.
Friday January 22nd: Animal Kingdom. We will be going to Tusker House for lunch hopefully (can't make the reservation till tomorrow), again for the characters.
Saturday January 23rd: check out (and into a Disney resort for us), Magic Kingdom for the last park day and Chef Mickey's for dinner just for the 5 of us.
Sunday January 24th: check out to head home, Downtown Disney for anything we want to get last minute and fly home.

 

[tabrizia]

Okay so the plans are made, except for one small minor issue. I don't actually know if the condo check in is on Friday or Saturday. My Mom has not gotten my Dad to check which day is the actual check in day for the timeshare, sigh. At this point the park choices and meals will not change. If I had been able to get the info before our 180 days I may have rearranged things a bit, such as the down day, but now that the reservations are made, the parks are set. The main thing that the check in day changes is what days we have to make our hotel reservations for. If check in is Friday we will still likely fly down late Thursday, we'll just do that one night at Disney and then we'll end up with 2 nights at Disney at the end. It is kind of stressing me out not knowing though. Fortunately I will be down visiting in 2 weeks so hopefully I can get the information then, and figure out how my Mom plans on doing the tickets, since we'll be getting Magic Bands and I want to link my family's to their tickets. Plus it lets me try to fastpass+ for the 2 or 3 things that it would be most useful for.


Since I feel all posts need pictures her is minion 1 on his first trip. The previous pictures from Disney have been minion 1 and 2 on the 2009 trip. This is the 2007 trip:

 

[tabrizia]

So completely unrelated to the January trip I think we've decided the dates for our next trip. We're thinking we'll leave from Georgia after Thanksgiving either that Saturday or Sunday and just drive down to Disney World. So our next trip, with just us and the minions, will probably be November 26th or 27th through the 8th or 9th of December 2016! Unless we decide to push it to 2017. Hopefully though we'll go for 2016, we are still debating if we make the passes for this trip into annual passes or just buy tickets for that trip when we are there, I think we decided costwise it was mostly a wash. We also need to figure out where we are staying since we're debating between renting DVC points, or just going 2 rooms at Pop or the AoA family rooms. I think it also depends on free dining since if we can get free dining it would be a nice savings since we like to do a bunch of sit down restaurants while we are there. So many decisions, and only 15 months to go if we go in 2016!

I guess I should get back to focusing on the trip coming up with way too many relatives!


On that note here is minion 1 meeting Ariel on his first trip, can't believe he'll be almost 9 on the trip in January!

 

[tabrizia]

Okay so I think we have decided on the second trip, so I changed the pre-trip report to I can report on both, since they are somewhat interconnected.

Anyways I am pretty sure we will be going from November 27th to December 8th or 9th. This is in a period when free dining is not normally offered which we are actually okay with. The plan is 11 or 12 nights and 12 or 13 days. We will only have one weekend period in that time which is nice since it cuts down on costs some. What will happen is we will drive to Disney World from my parents lake house on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We'll do Sunday - Friday at Animal Kingdom Lodge, we will probably end up getting two basic rooms since we don't all fit in one room. We will then transfer either to an AoA suite or 2 Pop Century rooms for the rest of the stay. We are hoping for room discounts for the rooms to help bring down the costs.

When we are at Disney in January we will upgrade everyone's tickets to annual passes since based on costs it is about the same for an annual pass or 2 sets of tickets. I will also get the Tables in Wonderland card. Which will be a big help for the January trip when we have 11 people minimum for 5 meals, though thinking about it I realized it is really 10 since the youngest one is under 3. Either way the card gives a discount for 10 of the people in our party which will make it totally worthwhile.

So that is the pre-planning I've done for the November/December 2016 trip so far, I am going to start thinking about where we're eating for that trip soon, because I like doing that sort of thing. We will get tickets to the Holiday part for one night. I have been hoping to see it for ages, but we normally end up going during Halloween and Food and Wine, which is a great time to go, but we figured we'd change it around a bit this time to see what we think. Seeing the parks and hotels all set up for the Holidays will be a nice treat. Minion 2 will love staying at AKL, though she would be happier with a Savanna room so she could see the giraffes all the time, since they are her favorite animal. She'll just have to look at them out the windows when we are in the hotel though.

I forgot a picture, here is minion 2 on her first trip meeting Daisy.

 

[tabrizia]

Hi anyone who is lurking. I'm okay posting for myself since it stops my annoying attriel with my random planning. He complained yesterday because I am already thinking about restaurants for next December 2016, but I had no idea if we should take a baby carrier for the January trip. Oops...

Anyways all my reservations are now made for the January trip, unless we decide to add something at the beginning, but we probably won't. Our timeline looks like this, not many changes from above:

Thursday January 14th: arrive late in the evening, check in
Friday January 15th: explore downtown Disney, maybe try to go to T-Rex for lunch or dinner (linner?), probably no park
Saturday January 16th: check out, check in, meet up with our family, no Disney meal, and we'll be going to EPCOT
Sunday January 17th: We'll be going to Magic Kingdom and we'll be having breakfast at Crystal Palace around 9:30. I wanted a later breakfast time, but with making a reservation for 11 I took the time I could get.
Monday January 18th: Disney Hollywood Studios, we will be doing the Hollywood and Vine lunch because all the kids love the characters that will be there, I don't expect much from the food.
Tuesday January 19th: Disney's Pirate Adventure at the Grand Floridian for my 3 minions and my sister's 5 year old. This is our down day we will not be going to a park this day, if it is warm enough the kids can swim and we'll probably go shopping at Downtown Disney and maybe the outlets. That evening attriel and I have a dinner reservation for just us at Narcoossee's.
Wednesday January 20th: EPCOT, we'll be doing a late breakfast at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall around 10:30. We are doing this purely for the princesses, minion number 2 chose this over 1900 Park Fare.
Thursday January 21st: Magic Kingdom day two. We will be doing lunch at Be Our Guest. I actually added 2 more people to this reservation in case my younger sister and the baby or my brother and his wife want to come. I figure it was easier to show up with 2 fewer then try to get 2 extra people in.
Friday January 22nd: Animal Kingdom. We will be going to Tusker House for lunch around 11:45, again for the characters.
Saturday January 23rd: check out (and into a Disney resort for us), Magic Kingdom for the last park day and Chef Mickey's for dinner at around 7:30pm just for the 5 of us.
Sunday January 24th: check out to head home, Downtown Disney for anything we want to get last minute and fly home.


So we're doing Crystal Palace, Hollywood and Vine, Pirate Cruise for the kids, Narcoossee's for me and attriel, Akershus, Be Our Guest, Tusker House, and Chef Mickey's just for the 5 of us. That is going to be a lot of character meals!

I need to make sure I know when we actually check into the timeshare still. I'll get the info from my Dad when I'm visiting my parents in 2 weeks. Then we still need to make our before and after reservations. I haven't decided if we're doing AoA at the start or end, we'll do PoP! for whichever end of the trip we don't do AoA for. I am not sure if I am going to make reservations for November/December before or after we get back, my guess is we may wait till we get back, I kind of like the before plan though since we can then start paying it down some, so we'll see.

Still I am now happy that our dining is done for January. I need to figure out park tickets still and see if my Mom is buying them soon or waiting, I do want to be able to link ours at least so I can FP+ a couple of things if possible, but we'll have to see on that one. Fortunately we are going with low enough crowds that hopefully the standby lines shouldn't be too bad.

Here is a picture of minion one on our last trip:

 

[tabrizia]

So of course I just remembered that the kids all desperately want to go to Legoland in Florida. They have been to the Legoland Discovery Center in Atlanta a couple of times now and have specifically requested Legoland Themepark in Florida or California, but since we're going to Florida it is probably easier to do it there. So maybe for our November trip what we'll do is do Sunday - Thursday nights at AKL, move to the Legoland Resort for Friday-Saturday nights and then go to POP! or AoA for Sunday-Wednesday or Thursday nights. Need to discuss the plan with attriel, but the cost of the Legoland room is about the same as 2 POP! rooms without discount even on the weekend and it fits 5 so we won't have to do 2 rooms, we would have to buy tickets to Legoland in Florida but really we probably have to do that anyways. So hmm, I guess I'll pester attriel with this idea tonight.


Here are all 3 minions at Legoland Discovery Center in Atlanta in July:

 

[tabrizia]

So talked to attriel he agrees that we can do Legoland during the December trip. So it looks like the current plan is AKL November 27th - December 2nd (check out on the 2nd), Legoland Hotel December 2nd - 4th (check out on the 4th) and AoA or 2 POP! rooms from December 4th - December 8th or 9th. Obviously since this is all still 16+ months away and we haven't booked anything yet it is scheduled to change, but I think that is our basic plan. We will probably visit Kennedy Space Center at some point in our trip too, since the minions all love space and there is a lot more to explore there then at Godard Space Center which is down the road from us.

So it looks like it will end up being 2 completely separate Disney reservations since we'll have that small break for Legoland, but it will thrill the kids, and since we will have been at Disney 10 1/2 months earlier, we have more time to break things up and explore non-Disney attractions. We won't do Universal though since the only one that can really do a lot there is minion 1, we'll probably still wait a few years on visiting there yet.

For this update's picture here is minion one on his first trip in front of the nemo ride:

 

[tabrizia]

So I am updating with an addition to our January trip. I had booked a Chef Mickey's dinner on our last night for just the 5 of us. Well minion two was looking at the pictures of a trip report I was reading and saw the kids at Chef Mickey's. She commented, "Did we eat there last time? That looks like so much fun, look it is Mickey and Minnie! That is so cool." I told her we had eaten there and we had a reservation to eat there our last night with just our family. Which made her happy. She still had the sad and pitiful thing going on that she does so well, and works so much better then her brother's demanding of things. So I booked Chef Mickey's for the 5 of us on our second real day at Disney too. I didn't want to book it on Friday, since we are probably arriving late on Thursday night, since I figure we'll take a flight down after attriel is finished work for the day. I wanted to give the kids, and me, and let's be honest it is mostly about me, time to relax and rest on Friday. So instead I made us a Saturday morning reservation at around 10am. I had made it earlier, but since we are likely checking out of our room that morning, I figure 10ish lets us check out and leave in time to get to breakfast, instead of feeling rushed. I don't do rushed well. So yes I just added a second Chef Mickey's to our plans in January and all it took was a sad sounding 6 year old, that girl has some powers.

For those counting that is now 6 character meals, with one repeat, though the repeat at least isn't the same meal. I now have 8 meals scheduled, though the number of people going to each one does vary a bit.


The picture for this post is us at Chef Mickey's at the start of our last trip.

 

[tabrizia]

*Wave* to anyone reading my plans.

I got the e-mail from my Dad, check in is on Saturday January 16th and check out is Saturday January 23rd! I don't have to worry that I did not plan the park days right, because I did it on the right schedule, if it had been a Friday check in I probably would have changed a few things, but fortunately I guessed right!

Now that that is confirmed I will need to figure out if we are doing AoA for 2 nights or POP! for 2 nights, we want to check out AoA so we may make that the 2 night option, since we've stayed at POP! a couple of times, even if it was 6 years ago and longer. We at least know how those rooms work. I'll pester attriel about it this evening and hopefully we will book sometime in August for those days!


Mr. Potato Head at POP! in 2009!

 

[tabrizia]

Another wave to my firmly held belief that at least a few people are lurking and reading my trip report! I may be insane, but I'm not completely crazy, the voices told me so!


So I never did discuss last night what resorts we will do for before and after the January trip. I know it will be POP! and AoA, just not sure which will be one night and which will be two. I am kind of leaning towards AoA for the 2 nights since we have done POP! before and we know what it is like.

Oh I noticed I could get Crystal Palace on Sunday at 10:30 rather then 9:35 so I sent my Mom and sister a message to see if they wanted to change it, my sister wanted to stick with the 9:35. I was kind of hoping to change it so we could do some rides before hand, but really we'll be back in 10ish months so if we don't get everything done it isn't a huge deal.


I'm also half debating doing a trip in August 2016 with just attriel. It will be our 15th wedding anniversary, we did our honeymoon at Disney and I'll have an AP pass and we can easily get him one too. Then again a cruise or a trip to NYC to see lots of Broadway plays also sound good. Hmm maybe I could talk him into Disneyland Paris (haha, yeah not happening but I can dream right?).

Oh and I am starting to think about restaurants for the December trip. I need to figure out days to figure out how many we'll do. We probably won't repeat many of the places we went in January, though we will likely do Chef Mickey again.

Anyways here is minion 1. you can see minion 2's foot peeking out from attriel's back too, in 2009 with Lightning McQueen. It fits since we will likely go for a cars themed room at AoA.

 

[tabrizia]

So we've decided we're going with AoA for 2 nights and POP! for one night in January, I am kind of hoping that January room only discounts come out soon. We will probably book even without them and just modify the reservation if passholder (I'm gonna be a star) or even regular room discounts come out that will cut the price.

 

[tabrizia]

So remember how I posted 30 minutes ago we were going to do AoA for 2 nights and POP! for 1 night? Well plans have changed, we are going to do Caribbean Beach Resort for 2 nights and we still haven't decided on the one night option. When I went to look at prices, since the 2 nights have one weekend night and that weekend night is a holiday weekend, the price was a bit higher then we wanted to spend for just 2 nights. It wasn't horrible if it was part of our longer trip, but for 2 nights before the big family trip, it was a bit much, since we want to keep our costs on that trip extremely low so we can afford a great trip in December. Since Caribbean Beach Resort has standard rooms that can have 5 people, the price was right, and we grabbed it while it was still available.

We still haven't finalized our choice for the following week, but for now until deals for January come out, we are happy with our choice for our first 2 nights.

I am thrilled that we have now booked the rooms though, that makes the trip seem even more real, with the we're getting here early room booked and all our ADRs booked!

 

[tabrizia]

*Wave* to anyone lurking... Anyone? I feel so alone...

Anyways today I am going to figure out if price wise it makes more sense to go during free dining for our December trip, thereby moving the dates. I need to compare, because as much fun as an over the top trip would be, we would like to do it more then once every 6 years so I need to figure out how to do it within a budget, especially when we're talking about 13ish days. I'm going to check prices for renting DVC as well for the first part of the trip. The problem with 5 people is the space issue. We really want to do AKL, doing 2 rooms at AKL seems like a huge expense though, and going through Disney to get a DVC room is expensive as well, so I need to look and figure out what seems like it will really work best. Since discounts for that time of year have not come out yet, I am going to work off the previous years discounts to help figure it all out. On the plus side, I do love Math. So spreadsheets to compare it is!


And here is a picture of minion 2 as a flower girl this spring at my cousin's wedding:

 

[tabrizia]

So I spent the morning playing with numbers. Yes I think that free dining will save us money, especially if we stay at POP! in two room, even with the cost upgrade since we'll have 3 kids, who actually count as kids to Disney it would be a decent savings. BUT I don't want to stay at POP! for the whole trip, and the extremely narrow window for dining right now means we are likely either going over Halloween, which I don't mind, but I really wanted the Christmas stuff this time, or we are going in September, September isn't horrible, and the crowds are low, but it isn't really when I want to go this time.

I also checked on DVC points. DVC, plus the Table in Wonderland card should save us more then free dining, give us a nice resort, though it will cost more then 2 POP! rooms with free dining upgraded to regular dining. So yes, POP! and upgraded dining is definitely the cheapest way to go. I am just not feeling it. I think with my plan I have our costs cut down enough that it will be reasonable and we should be happy at our resorts. I am still thinking split stay though moving AKL to the end of the stay rather then the start. Then doing the first week as either 2 rooms POP!, AoA with a discount or if we can handle it CBR with a discount. We would still do Legoland Hotel for the weekend, which will be expensive, but we already knew that and unless we stay at Disney and just drive down for the day it will be expensive no matter when we do it. Since I think the kids will adore the Legoland hotel it is one of those things I don't want to give up.

That is where I am right now, we are still 16 months out so I have time, but it would be nice to narrow it down a bit. We may also see if we get a bounceback deal when we stay in January to see what kind of discount that offers.

 

[tabrizia]

I talked to attriel this evening. He pretended to listen to me, though he admitted to tuning out last night when I mentioned something and he asked when that had come up, "Oh right I tuned you out by then." Thanks.

Anyways we are agreed on keeping our dates, which means no free dining. We are going to rent a DVC unit from someone to hopefully get AKL for the second half of the stay, since it is cheaper then the first half. We are going to go with POP!, AoA or CBR for the first half, and we are definitely going to do Legoland Resort and theme park on the weekend that we are there. I am pretty sure we would have a minion uprising if we don't. We are still waiting to decide on AoA, POP! or CBR for the first half till after the January trip. We'll be staying in CBR for 2 nights so that should give us a feel of that resort, and we will probably try AoA for the other night, even though spending that much for just one night makes me wince, I don't have as many issues spending that much for multiple nights oddly, it is the one night piece that gets me, maybe I can get a room only discount, we'll wait and see a bit longer.

Now that we have lodging at least semi-figured out and our dates pretty much finalized, though really 16 months so everything can change. I need to start deciding what we want to do for restaurants. I am guessing we will do Chef Mickey's again depending on how the food is. Sanaa is on the list, it's been on the list since it was announced. I won't mind trying Boma again, and I think we're going to put the kid's in Simba's cubcare or whatever it is called and go out to dinner, I'm thinking about just doing Jiko for that one, though there are so many signatures and so little time. It is nice that there are 3 restaurants at AKL, plus the quick service options, I am really thinking we'll do them all during the December trip. I will probably post more about dining plans in a new post.


Here is a quick picture of minion 1 and 2 at the first day of camp 2 weeks ago, camp ends tomorrow and they are headed down to visit my Mom for a week without me on Sunday.

 

[tabrizia]

*Wave, hi* to all the people I am pretending are actually reading me typing.

So not much happening with the January trip. When I am visiting my parents in a week for two weeks, I may gently nudge my Mom about park tickets so I can link them to our profiles on the Disney site. Otherwise we may need to wait to get info on those. I will need them before we leave since we are flying in 2 days before everyone else and we may want to go to a park on Friday and we will probably be at a park on Saturday before anyone else starts arriving as well. Though who knows what everyone else is planning to do.


In December trip news I am trying to make a list of ADRs I want to make. So far I have 40 or so, okay maybe 20.

Here is my list of must dos so far:

Sanaa
Cinderella's Royal Table
Beaches and Cream (I want to try the kitchen sink)
Chef Mickey's

Here are my want to dos:
Jiko
Yachtsman Steakhouse
Citricos
California Grill
Boma
1900 Park Fare
'Ohana
Raglan Road
TRex


Oh I guess it isn't that long of a list, though to be fair I am sure I will add to it, we probably won't do more then 1 or 2 signatures either, no matter how many I want to try.

 

[tabrizia]

*Waves towards any lurkers*

So after talking to attriel we decided we'll wait on Beaches and Cream until the boys are around 15 and 11. We figure we have a far better chance of the kitchen sink being eaten at that point.

My Mom was here last night to pick up minion 1 and minion 2 and fly them to Atlanta for the week, so we talked a bit about Disney. I did mention to her about needing the ticket info at least a month in advance so we could try to get Fastpass+ for Anna and Elsa, we're going during a quiet enough time that I am not overly worried about any of the other fastpasses. We still don't know if their older cousin is coming for any of the trip, and it sounds like my brother and sister in law likely won't make it, which isn't surprising.

My Mom did suggest the Lego park for our first Friday there, but since we're going to go to the hotel and do it when we are there in December we decided it wasn't worth the drive or cost at the moment.

Attriel is still debating the idea of a third trip, well will be second since it would be before the December trip, to Disney for our 10th anniversary. We've done it on our honeymoon and 5th anniversary, so it kind of makes sense to go on our 10th too, but he isn't sure he wants to do Disney 3 times in a year, I did mention we could just focus on relaxing, dining and maybe a show, and not on Disney itself. We'll have to see. It would be without kids, my Mom is going to take all 3 of them for the week next year so we can do something.

Anyways here are minion 1 and minion 2, heading off to fly to Atlanta with my Mom.

 

[tabrizia]

Do I admit here that I apparently forgot how many years I've been married. Next year is our 15th anniversary not 10th. Oops.