Kids 1st trip-an ever changing PTR-Update: 12-21 Itinerary 6.0 is now done

[Mickey_Mom]

Ladybugmom shared this with me on facebook and I think it is just so cute I wanted to share it here. We've watched it like ten times already. I want to be part of this family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLOJ9HMkgAE

I LOVE that video!! I've watched it twice already and got my older son to watch it too, he loves creating and editing movies like that.

THAT is what family vacations are all about... hanging out together having fun and being completely Goofy!

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Have any of you ever sat and traced 50 Mickey heads and then cut them out?

Nope! But I'd love to see yours when they're done!

I'm going to write something on each head... like 100 days until Dole Whip, 99 days until Chef Mickeys, 98 days until Toy Story Mania.... you get the idea. That should keep me busy until we actually get to our 100 day countdown

That sounds like tons of fun for the kiddos!

Dining coming up next... I think I'll post that tomorrow, got in touch with the special diets dining person, and she sent me a bunch of paperwork to look over, which has restaurant suggestions for people with special dietary needs

and tomorrow is our super sleuth event at the Disney Store

 

[JPFamilyMom]

So I think I'll need help coming up things to write on our 100 mickey heads, as I only came up with 56, but I have LOTS of time to think about it...

We went to the Super Sleuth event at our Disney Store today, and we got there at 10am even though it didn't start until 11am. I wanted to beat the rush Well after we walked around the store looking at all the new back to school items and clearance and toys, I figured I should take Jack to the bathroom before it was time to start. There was no one else there for the sleuth yet either. We came back to the store five minutes to 11am and still no one for the event, so we were the first sleuth

It was really cute and the woman that helped us was great with Jack. They had to go around the store looking for honey pots and then draw a picture on their paper of what was in the honeypot. She even helped him draw the last pictures since he said "I can't do it, I can't do it"

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of him going around the store and finding the honey pots I realized this after we went up to pay for the new sunglasses they got (they were on sale for like $1.50 or something like that). After I realized I had a camera I asked Jack if I could take a picture of him with his mask and a honey pot and he said, "no, no pictures me"

So here is what pictures I did take:

riding the little train in our mall
The new sunglasses-Joey got Tigger and Jack got Wall-E (notice the mask on Jacks head):

And all his sleuth stuff:

The items where 1. magnifying glass, 2. the mask 3. flashlight (which went missing before we got to do it, and we were first) 4. the flag

It was organized really well, and we were pleased with the fun, just wish someone would've dressed as a character I figured they wouldn't, but had hoped to get a glimpse into what character interactions would be like

ok... sometime today I'll post our dining thoughts at this point....

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Good stuff! Sooo cute with their sunglasses and it sounds like it was fun! You're right, I think a character would have been great to have there. I hope you're able to post those sleuthing certificates in a prominent spot!

Have you put characters behind the Mickey Heads? 45 days until we say hi to Buzz! ... that sort of thing? May help with the character interactions too?

 

[ladybugmom]

Awww!! Sounds like ya'll had fun today! We ended up missing it. We slept in pretty late and then decided to spend the day at the Pink Palace using our free membership. We saw the "Under the Sea" IMAX which was great!! Claire kept saying, "Nemo?!" the entire time--unfortunately there were no clown fish in the film!!

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Food issues, dining plan, and restaurant choices….

To get the dining plan or not to get the dining plan, that is the question? We had the dining plan on our honeymoon and loved not having to worry about taking money out of our spending cash for food, it was already paid up front and we just selected where we went to eat. I think it is a savings depending on where you eat. Plus we want to do Character meals (hoping that is a good thing and that the boys won’t cry)- so if that is the case I know from reading other PTR’s and TR’s that the dining plan is definitely worth it in that case. So we are leaning toward the dining plan.

Food issues: ok so we are a pretty picky family, and prefer pretty bland ho hum “normal” foods. We will be trying to pick restaurants that are fun and interesting but that will have foods that aren’t too adventurous for us.

Other food issues of course involve DS Jack, we haven’t found him a specialist out here yet, but in NC he was going to see a specialist to run tests on him to see if any of his ASD symptoms could be food related as I had read up on how some foods could affect the brain. Currently he is nitrate free and dye free and he has a Omega 3 supplement he takes, so nothing too crazy, but don’t want food items that he can’t have to be present in places where we dine (for example, don’t want to go anywhere near a place with hot dogs on the menu- we buy him special hot dogs at home, but normal hot dogs just do not do well in his system).

So here are our restaurant choices, of course we will have to cut down the list, but here is everywhere we are interested in eating on this trip or on future trips:

Chef Mickeys – for the characters
Boma –because I’ve heard so many wonderful things about it
Mickey’s Backyard BBQ- just looks like fun
Trails End- for Dad
1900 Park Fare- character interactions
Ohana’s Best Friends Breakfast- characters and the yummy juice I’ve heard about
Whispering Canyon Café- for fun times
Beach Club Breakfast at Cape May Café-character interactions
Pinocchio Village Haus- because we like the one in DL
Crystal Palace- for the characters, and we liked the food on our honeymoon
Coral Reef Restaurant- for the atmosphere
Biergarten- not sure any of us would eat, this is a big ? but I love how fun it looks
Toy Story pizza planet- for the atmosphere
Hollywood & Vine Play ‘n Dine- for the characters
Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater Restaurant- we liked it on our honeymoon
Flame Tree BBQ- yummy
Donalds Safari Breakfast- characters and again heard it’s really yummy juice
Yak n Yeti CS- the take out menu looks like foods we eat
Cap’N Jack’s- because of the name, ;-)

Also interested in the new Dinosaur restaurant in DTD- for fun


Open for suggestions, comments, critiques of restaurants, etc.
Please tell me your favorite place and include a fun photo from that restaurant.

***We have decided that we will go to the “Spirit of Aloha” dinner show, that is a Must Must Must. We will celebrate baby DS’s birthday that night – he is such an Aloha baby, LOVES all Hawaiian music he’s heard so far, and loves to do the pearly shells dance I'm excited about this meal because we lived in Hawaii for a couple years when I was little. Dad (Grandpa) is excited for the unlimited adult beverages available with this dinner show

*****Got info from special dietary department at WDW, but still sorting through all the paperwork, I wrote this before getting that.


Up next…. Things outside the parks that we want to do…

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Good stuff! Sooo cute with their sunglasses and it sounds like it was fun! You're right, I think a character would have been great to have there. I hope you're able to post those sleuthing certificates in a prominent spot!

Have you put characters behind the Mickey Heads? 45 days until we say hi to Buzz! ... that sort of thing? May help with the character interactions too?

I've been trying to figure out how to put the Mickey heads on the poster (glue, tape, etc) never thought about character behind the mickey heads, I was going to buy stickers to cross off each ear as we went. The boys are very aware of all Disney characters...as we walked around the Disney store yesterday, the employees were very impressed with Jacks knowledge of all the names of the characters even the not so familiar ones

if I can work the characters behind the ears, that could be fun and prettier than the messy way I had originally planned.

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Awww!! Sounds like ya'll had fun today! We ended up missing it. We slept in pretty late and then decided to spend the day at the Pink Palace using our free membership. We saw the "Under the Sea" IMAX which was great!! Claire kept saying, "Nemo?!" the entire time--unfortunately there were no clown fish in the film!!

I know what you mean about kids saying Nemo when they say fish, Jack did that at the zoo in the aquarium area. Great that you got some rest, sleeping in doesn't exist in our home yet

 

[adamsup]

So we went to the local Zoo yesterday and we had great fun, and I got some insight into how our trip could be... the good... and the bad....and the in between

Hi and thanks for subbing to our PTR!

Great idea to learn from outings so you'll be better prepared for WDW! We did the same thing when we went to a theme park a few weeks back. We learned some really good stuff too.

 

[Mickey_Mom]

I've been trying to figure out how to put the Mickey heads on the poster (glue, tape, etc) never thought about character behind the mickey heads, I was going to buy stickers to cross off each ear as we went. The boys are very aware of all Disney characters...as we walked around the Disney store yesterday, the employees were very impressed with Jacks knowledge of all the names of the characters even the not so familiar ones

if I can work the characters behind the ears, that could be fun and prettier than the messy way I had originally planned.

Here's a fun one! Maybe you can pull some ideas from it! http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2203459

 

[adamsup]

Chef Mickeys – for the characters
Boma –because I’ve heard so many wonderful things about it
Mickey’s Backyard BBQ- just looks like fun
Trails End- for Dad
1900 Park Fare- character interactions
Ohana’s Best Friends Breakfast- characters and the yummy juice I’ve heard about
Whispering Canyon Café- for fun times
Beach Club Breakfast at Cape May Café-character interactions
Pinocchio Village Haus- because we like the one in DL
Crystal Palace- for the characters, and we liked the food on our honeymoon
Coral Reef Restaurant- for the atmosphere
Biergarten- not sure any of us would eat, this is a big ? but I love how fun it looks
Toy Story pizza planet- for the atmosphere
Hollywood & Vine Play ‘n Dine- for the characters
Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater Restaurant- we liked it on our honeymoon
Flame Tree BBQ- yummy
Donalds Safari Breakfast- characters and again heard it’s really yummy juice
Yak n Yeti CS- the take out menu looks like foods we eat
Cap’N Jack’s- because of the name, ;-)

Also interested in the new Dinosaur restaurant in DTD- for fun


***We have decided that we will go to the “Spirit of Aloha” dinner show, that is a Must Must Must.

Those seem like great choices and many of the ones we have picked too. We're also gonna go with the dining plan. There's something really nice about having all your meals already paid for and not having to figure out how much meal costs are going to be.

We love to go to restaurants and the kids are all accustomed to it. For us, the restaurant time will be as much a part of the experience as the parks. I've seen some disers talk about how they don't want to go to the restaurants because it takes too long and uses up their park-time. But for us, that's part of the magic too. So the dining plan is definitely for us. The more TS's the better. How can you not want to when you see all those delicious food pics everyone posts!!

We are definitely gonna do Chef Mickey's several times, CRT ( we have 2 girls), Spirit of Aloha looks so good, heard great things about O'Hana's. Let's see, Whispering Canyon is a must, especially after seeing Team Renfroe's pics of the all-you-care-to-enjoy BBQ skillet. OMG. Coral Reef looks fantastic. Heard really good raves about Boma's too. 1900 Park Fare is on our list. Oh yeah so is the Grand Floridian Cafe, although I have only added that because of the eggs benedict I saw on somone's dining report. We may not end up going there. We have more but that's all I remember for now. So much to choose from!

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Here's a fun one! Maybe you can pull some ideas from it! http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2203459

Thanks for the link, that does give me some ideas....here was our original countdown poster from when we were suppose to go this year (it got wrecked in the move, so we threw it out):

I'm using smaller Mickey heads this time, I got some mickey head paint samples from Home Depot and cut those out, then traced them onto paper and other paint samples I had (I use to go to school for interior design, so I had a small box of paint samples, carpet samples, etc) I'm like 20 short, so a trip to another paint store may be in order

So far I made a BIG mickey head in the middle of a white poster board, and I want to color it black and then put all the mickey heads inside it (for the one side), the other side I'll just do rows.

***update***Here is what I got done during nap today (50 heads with 50 days of things to look forward to, 1 extra head in the middle for Here we come, I realized I'm going to need a lot of black markers)

Did not paste them down or anything because now I want to do pictures under too, like you suggested, hmmmm...

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Those seem like great choices and many of the ones we have picked too. We're also gonna go with the dining plan. There's something really nice about having all your meals already paid for and not having to figure out how much meal costs are going to be.

We love to go to restaurants and the kids are all accustomed to it. For us, the restaurant time will be as much a part of the experience as the parks. I've seen some disers talk about how they don't want to go to the restaurants because it takes too long and uses up their park-time. But for us, that's part of the magic too. So the dining plan is definitely for us. The more TS's the better. How can you not want to when you see all those delicious food pics everyone posts!!

We are definitely gonna do Chef Mickey's several times, CRT ( we have 2 girls), Spirit of Aloha looks so good, heard great things about O'Hana's. Let's see, Whispering Canyon is a must, especially after seeing Team Renfroe's pics of the all-you-care-to-enjoy BBQ skillet. OMG. Coral Reef looks fantastic. Heard really good raves about Boma's too. 1900 Park Fare is on our list. Oh yeah so is the Grand Floridian Cafe, although I have only added that because of the eggs benedict I saw on somone's dining report. We may not end up going there. We have more but that's all I remember for now. So much to choose from!

Thanks for coming over to my PTR too. Guess we can help each other out since we are both traveling with young kids. I agree that the dining is part of the whole experience, especially the character meals, they come to you while you eat doesn't get any better (sure beats standing in line under a hot sun -though if we have good luck with characters we'll do both)

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Wow! Those are pretty creative and I love the little messages on them Looking good!

 

[Stephie77]

wow! those look great! i love the mickey heads with all the different days and what you plan on doing! so creative!

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Thanks Tracy and Steph, it'll be a work in progress for another month I'm guessing, and won't reveal it to the kids until November I have a long way to go.

I'm thinking about posting all my ideas for the countdown so you all can help me come up with the last twenty or so

Still anxiously awaiting some people to post pictures of their favorite restaurants

 

[ktmetke]

Hi! Just started reading and only on page 1, but wanted to let you know what a beautiful family you have!!!! I'm laughing too, cause we brought home "a little souvenir" on a "2nd Honeymoon" vacation from DisneyLand! Looking forward to reading more!

 

[JPFamilyMom]

Hi! Just started reading and only on page 1, but wanted to let you know what a beautiful family you have!!!! I'm laughing too, cause we brought home "a little souvenir" on a "2nd Honeymoon" vacation from DisneyLand! Looking forward to reading more!

Thanks for coming over and thanks for the compliment. what a fun and unexpected souvenir I'm sure probably part of why Disney magic is in our kids blood

 

[Stephie77]

Thanks Tracy and Steph, it'll be a work in progress for another month I'm guessing, and won't reveal it to the kids until November I have a long way to go.

I'm thinking about posting all my ideas for the countdown so you all can help me come up with the last twenty or so

Still anxiously awaiting some people to post pictures of their favorite restaurants

you have to do ohana's character breakfast at the polynesian. DF and i love it. I hope to go there more than once during my wedding and honeymoon. you have mickey, pluto, lilo and stich and the food is amazing! the mango orango juice is to die for, they have the best scrambeld eggs-i am not a big fan of yolk and i love them- and of course the mickey waffles!!! sooo good!! that is my recommendation for you

 

[jenjolt]

WOW I love you Mickey countdown head...how creative!!! I bet the boys are enjoying it a lot!!!

As far as your restaurants...I really really enjoyed Crystal Palace and the characters there...I think you guys would have a great time there!!!!