Link to Trip Report 7/6 - Page 5 - Cruising the Dream & Exploring the Wilderness

[MEK]

Cute pictures and Day 11 looks like a real winner. Great FP choices. I so wished I had gotten a chance to ride Mine Train, but it was only open for CM's. It looked really fun and everyone on it seemed to be enjoyed themselves!

 

[MidnightParade]

Plans are looking good! Interested to see how your FP+ booking test goes!

And holy moley! You're leaving in a little over two weeks!! So exciting!!!

 

[cstorm65]

Cute pictures and Day 11 looks like a real winner. Great FP choices. I so wished I had gotten a chance to ride Mine Train, but it was only open for CM's. It looked really fun and everyone on it seemed to be enjoyed themselves!

Yes that is a good FPP lineup and the child swap also makes it nice. We are really getting two rides for the price of one. I have one MK morning where I have a FP for Big Thunder and DW has a FP for Splash. Then we each can ride with the child swap pass and that only counts as one FP for us. It almost seems a little like cheating the system, but I can justify it in my mind as being ok since DW and I are having to ride every ride like that alone. We don't even get to ride it with each other, which is a little bit of a bummer.

We are also looking forward to 7DMT (I think that is the abbreviation on the Dis???). We have FP for it twice so we won't have to ever worry about getting involved in the stampede to get in line for it when the park opens.

Plans are looking good! Interested to see how your FP+ booking test goes!

And holy moley! You're leaving in a little over two weeks!! So exciting!!!

I am interested too. In the course of the week we are getting FP's for Magic Kingdom for 4 days, so we figured at least one of those days we would test the system to see what was available for a 4th/5th and so on after we used our initial three.

And yes...we are getting close!!!!

 

[cstorm65]

Special Delivery and a Galveston Beach Mini Trip Report

Hope everyone is doing well! We just got back from a long weekend get-a-way to Galveston Beach, TX and figured I would throw in here some notes and picture over that and it may help get us to our Disney trip that much quicker.

Now, very importantly, the day we left we got something important in the mail…

That means we are getting close!! I think I have opened the box and tried mine on every day that I have been home since we got them.

So on with why we were going to Galveston. We were actually heading down to for a family reunion with my grandparents and all of the family that falls under them. We had about 30 people total in attendance, which was almost everyone in our family. My grandparents coordinated this trip and hope to make this or something like this an annual event in our family. They rented two houses that each slept around 18 people in Jamaica Beach, which is a small community about 10 miles southwest of the actual town of Galveston. I am just going to do a quick day-by-day synopsis of what we did on our trip.

Day 1 – Friday

DW, DS, and I got up for a normal Friday. DW went to work and then DS and I picked her up and headed to the airport for our afternoon flight to Houston on Southwest Airlines. Braxton had a lot of fun watching airplanes…he just sat around the window for an hour before the flight and played and yelled “Airplane” every time one went by.

Here are some pictures of the flight and the CARES harness in action…it worked well for us and we got compliments from the flight attendants on both of our flights:

Our flight landed at the Houston Hobby airport at 3:45, right on time, and my dad picked us up in his rental car and we headed to the beach! It was storming pretty bad in Galveston as we drove south, but the system was moving out to the ocean so by the time we got there it was just overcast. I took a bunch of pictures in the car on the drive in:

We got settled into the house and I tried to swim with Braxton, but he hated the life jacket we had bought him. He was safe in it, but he did not like it at all.On a slightly different note here are a couple of pictures of the backyard and pool. It was a nice set-up.

A little later one of my uncles brought in a bunch of pizza for dinner and my dad and I ran to Wal-Mart to look for a life jacket that DS might like better. I found one with Mickey Mouse on it!

We got back around 8:30 and just hung out until it was time to turn in. Most everyone was tired from traveling in that day, so we got to sleep early and got a good nights rest to get us ready for the weekend.

Day 2 - Saturday

Saturday I got up and enjoyed breakfast on the balcony as I did almost every morning of the trip. Here are DW and DS on the balcony we ate breakfast on:

By 10 am I took Braxton down to try out the new life jacket in the pool and he seemed to like it much better. I don’t know if the style suited him better or if it was just that it had Mickey Mouse on the front.

My mom and grandma set out a nice sandwich platter for lunch and after lunch DW and I took DS on a golf cart ride and he fell asleep in about 10 minutes. The golf cart was a great way to get him tired on this trip and even put him to sleep being away from and his bed. While DS napped I think DW and I both did the same. It was a really lazy afternoon and we didn’t do much at all. My grandpa smoked ribs and brisket for dinner so once again I ate way too much, but it was a great day of relaxation.

Ok, I’ll leave it there for today and share the rest of our trip pictures in a few days when I have the time to write some more. Hope everyone has a great weekend!​

 

[dramaqueenemj22]

Joining in! Can't wait to hear about the rest of your planning and hope to here about the whole trip afterwards!

 

[cstorm65]

Joining in! Can't wait to hear about the rest of your planning and hope to here about the whole trip afterwards!

Thanks for joining in!

 

[MEK]

What a charming little vacation spot. The pool and deck look really nice.

Of COURSE, Braxton liked the vest with Mickey better. Who wouldn't? Speaking of Braxton - he has really grown and still as cute as ever.

Looking forward to hearing more about your mini vacation!

 

[cstorm65]

What a charming little vacation spot. The pool and deck look really nice.

Of COURSE, Braxton liked the vest with Mickey better. Who wouldn't? Speaking of Braxton - he has really grown and still as cute as ever.

Looking forward to hearing more about your mini vacation!

It really was great. He is growing so fast. You never understand people saying that until it happens in front of your eyes. Working on an update now, though I don't know if I'll get all the pictures sorted tonight. I had a bunch of pictures we took from an outing one day.

 

[cstorm65]

ADR Update and More of a Galveston Beach Mini Trip Report

Well, after making some changes to our itinerary last week to make things a little easier for us I have gone ahead and cancelled the ADR we had at Garden Grill one night and replaced it with one at The Plaza in the Magic Kingdom. We have never eaten there either and it seems like a pretty low cost stable service option and the ice cream is really good! We have two other character meals so losing Garden Grill is not that big of a deal. We will probably try and get that one in during our December trip if we can. Bottom line it was not worth traveling to Epcot for dinner and right back to the Magic Kingdom.

Ok, I’ll continue with the Galveston mini trip report.

Day 3 – Sunday
On Sunday we got up and once again enjoyed breakfast on the balcony and then went for a mid-morning swim. Braxton started really warming up to being in the water today. He still wanted me to hold his hands while he floated, but he started playing with the beach balls and he even let my dad hold him for a little bit.

As we were getting out of the pool my grandpa was taking a group of people on the golf cart to go down to the beach to walk around so we jumped on. Here DS is in the golf cart with DW.

It was a great time with some of our cousins and grandparents. We walked along the beach, but the water was really nasty. The seaweed is good for the environment and it washes ashore every year, but this year it is the worst it has been in over 20 years is what the residents are saying. I mean it is piled up 20 feet high along the back of most of the beaches and the water is still full of it washing in with the waves.

Braxton and I walked in the water for a minute, but the seaweed was just “nasty” as Braxton said!

We had a good time walking and playing in the sand, but were really thankful for a house with a pool.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. DS and his great-grandma racing each other down the beach…

We had sandwiches again for lunch and then I took DW and DS on a golf cart ride and he fell asleep again! When I got back it was about time for the boys to head out for a round of golf at the Moody Gardens golf course. For any golfers out there this is a great golf option. It cost us $35 to play after 1 pm and that included our cart. The course was in good shape, although they had just airified (spelling??) their greens so they were really bumpy, but it was still a fun round. The Moody Gardens is a huge complex on Galveston Island with many attractions and they actually took over this golf course from the city and it is now in great shape. It has a lot of water and is a pretty tough course, but if you have the chance to play it in Galveston it is definitely worth it. This next picture shows the famous Moody Gardens Pyramids from the golf course…one is an aquarium, one is a rainforest, and one is something else I’m not sure about.

This picture shows some of the Schlitterbahn water park from the golf course. It is located inside the Moody Gardens complex.

We headed back to the house after golfing and one of my uncles had fried and boiled about 15 pounds of fresh shrimp and it was incredible. I ate shrimp until I couldn’t stuff anything else in my mouth…then I ate some cake since it was my grandparents 55th anniversary. So I guess I had a little room left! It was a great night celebrating that and just being with family we don’t get to see all that often.

Link to Part 2 of This Update​

 

[cstorm65]

Ran out of picture room...Continuing the Galveston Mini Trip Report

Day 4 – Monday

Monday was going to be DW’s final day in Galveston as she was flying home to get back to work. We had a lazy morning and took golf cart ride around the Jamaica Beach area looking at the houses. Finally, we decided we would head out and have lunch at Shrimp ‘n Stuff. It is a small little restaurant in old town Galveston. One of my uncles used to pastor a church in Galveston so he knows a lot of the great places to eat and this one is awesome. I mean if you are ever in Galveston you have to eat here. It is reasonably priced and the food is awesome…especially the crab balls. Look at this picture of them:

They were fantastic and had the perfect mixture of crab and, well whatever else was in them.

After lunch we headed over with my grandparents to ride the ferry over to the Bolivar Peninsula. This is an awesome thing to do and it is free! On the ferry ride you get to ride across the entrance to the Bay of Galveston/Houston, which is the 2nd most, used shipping port in the US. Because of this there are always huge ships traveling in and out of the port and while on the ferry you get to drive right past them. Also, once the ferry is moving you can get out of your car and if you take some crackers or bread and go to the back of the boat you can feed the birds. We had a great time doing that and DS really enjoyed it! I’ll share a bunch of my pictures from this little day trip with you. We also have some pictures in there of Fort Travis which is across the bay where the ferry lands and was an old US military base that was used in World War I and II. They had a base on each side of the channel so they could control everything that went in and out of the port. Ok, enough talking…here are the pictures.

We got to watch these two huge ships cross right in front of us as we sat in the middle of the channel.

Shipwrecked Boat

As you can see the Carnival Triumph was in port on this day so we got some great pictures of it while on the ferry, but then we went ahead and drove down by The Strand, a shopping district in old downtown Galveston and got some closer pics of the big ship.

We were a little to tired to get out and walk around so we headed back for a nap. DS fell asleep on the golf cart when we got back and I helped DW pack her bag for the flight home. We left in my dad’s rental car at about 6:30 to take DW to the Houston airport. She had a 9:15 pm flight. It took my dad, DS, and I about two hours round trip and by the time we got back DS was asleep for the night. So that about does it for our Monday time.

Hope everyone is having a great week!​

 

[MidnightParade]

Looks like such a nice fun and relaxing min-vacation! I have heard wonderful things about Galveston, so nice to get to see some pics on it! That ship wreck looked pretty neat. And looks like the CARES harness worked out quite well!!

 

[cstorm65]

Looks like such a nice fun and relaxing min-vacation! I have heard wonderful things about Galveston, so nice to get to see some pics on it! That ship wreck looked pretty neat. And looks like the CARES harness worked out quite well!!

It was a great getaway, and we had pretty decent weather to. The heat wasn't really all that bad for most of the time we were there. The harness did work well. DS sat in his seat for the entire time of both flights!

 

[cstorm65]

I hope everyone had a great week. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend here. I am going to go ahead and do a trip day and I’ll come back with the last installment of our Galveston pictures in a day or two. I’m not quite finished going through them and getting them uploaded.

Day 12 – Wednesday
Wednesday is going to be our last full day at Disney World. I love the last full day as we always do Magic Kingdom, but there is always that sick feeling in the back of your mind that you have to go home tomorrow. Oh well, we will have annual passes so we know we will be back so I am hoping that will make the last day a little better. We are planning on doing rope drop again at Magic Kingdom. I have a 10:00 FP+ here…

I will ride and get a Child Swap Pass for DW to use later in the day. Then DW has an 11:30 FP+ here…

She will ride here and get a Child Swap for me to use later in the day. Gotta love the child swap, and as I’ve said before you get some extra rides as a benefit, but I also don’t get to ride any of those rides with DW which takes a little of the fun out of it. Oh, well eventually DS will be old enough to ride them with us, which will be awesome, but I don’t want him growing up too fast!

That is all of the FP+ reservations we are using in the morning hours. We are also planning to hit the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party as DS loved it last year. Here he is watching Mickey!

We are planning on trying to be out of the park right after we use that Space Mountain FP by 12:15 or so. We want to have a nice afternoon with a good nap for DS as we will be staying through the fireworks tonight, as it is our last night.

We will probably head back around our normal time of 5:00 or 5:30. We have a 6:30 FP+ at Peter Pan. Then at 7:30 we have a FP+ for DW and DS to ride Dumbo while I can stand and take some good pictures of them on the ride. Then we are going to head back to Space as I have another FP+ for me booked there for the evening.

At 9:00 we have to check in at the Tomorrowland Terrace Fireworks Dessert Party. This is our third trip in a row to do this. We absolutely love it and think it is worth the $28 or so that it costs. The view is good, you don’t have to mess with all of the people on Main Street or in the hub and the desserts are excellent. Also, we like this one better than the IllumiNations one they have just announced because we don’t drink alcohol so we would never get our monies worth out of one like that. Best of all, Disney even read my trip report from a couple of years ago and they now have ice cream at the dessert party! Here are some pictures from our dessert party last year. Sorry, I didn’t take many dessert pictures…I was worried they were going to run out!

The park is open until 11:00 as of right now so I may run over and use a Space Mountain child swap pass when the fireworks are over if we still have one. Anyways, that will about do it for our last full day plans. I’ll be back this weekend to show you the rest of our Galveston pictures. We are getting so close! Have a great weekend everyone.​

 

[MidnightParade]

I love Splash Mountain! Its my favorite ride! That's a pretty nifty way to use the FP+ and the child Swap, more rides with less waiting!

I have heard mixed reviews on the Dessert Party, but it seems that it just depends on the kind of crowd there is. Hope you guys get a nice polite one

 

[cstorm65]

I love Splash Mountain! Its my favorite ride! That's a pretty nifty way to use the FP+ and the child Swap, more rides with less waiting!

I love Splash too. DW not quite as much, mostly because she doesn't like being wet. Yes, the child swap is a nice benefit, but it also stinks to not get to ride any thrill rides with DW unless we bring grandparents along, which we did last summer.

I have heard mixed reviews on the Dessert Party, but it seems that it just depends on the kind of crowd there is. Hope you guys get a nice polite one

We love it. The people have always been nice. I think both times we have had to stand up and get a spot on the railing around 9:45 or so, but that is not too bad. We have from 9:00-9:45 to eat desserts which is plenty of time. We love it!

 

[cstorm65]

Hey Everyone. I finished looking through the rest of our Galveston pictures and there were not all that many left. I will talk about the rest of our trip here. We are getting very ready for our cruise! DW is done working for the summer and we are really ready to get away! Here is the rest of our Galveston Mini Trip Report

Day 5 – Tuesday
Tuesday was a very, very lazy day for us in Galveston. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but DS slept in a queen size bed with us while we were there. Let me just say I am glad when we moved into our new house last summer we purchased a king size bed. He doesn’t sleep with us much at home, usually only if he wakes up in the night, but man does the extra couple of feet make a big difference. I slept much better with DW gone as DS and I had a lot more room in the bed. DS woke me up about 8:30, which was the latest he had slept all week. We went down and had our normal breakfast of pop tarts and a banana.

After being lazy all morning my mom made the suggestion that we all go back to lunch at Shrimp ‘n Stuff, which was the same restaurant we went to the day before. Even though we had been there the day before not one person argued that! I got some crab balls again as a side and for my entrée got the fish tacos which were fantastic. Reminded me of one of my favorite dishes at Kona Café in Disney World.

After lunch we went back to the Strand that we had driven by the day before and got out to walk around a little bit. It was really hot and I didn’t take any pictures as I was taking care of DS by myself. We didn’t go in many stores as it was mainly just tourist type stores with overpriced souvenirs. We did however stop in the confectionary to look at the candy and chocolates and we had some ice cream, which was fantastic!

We went back to the car after this and DS fell asleep before I got him buckled into his car seat. Once we got back to the house he napped for another two hours. Poor kid was exhausted. He was hungry when he got up though! He ate like crazy the rest of the day as the pictures show!

We had a quiet dinner at the house and DS and I went for a long swim once the sun went down and he started almost floating entirely on his own. I would just slightly hold his hand while he played in the water in his life jacket. We turned in about 9:00 and I think I fell asleep before him while trying to just get him to sleep in the bed!

Day 6 – Wednesday
DS woke me up around 8:00 on Wednesday morning. We went down and my grandma made us some eggs and ham since they were trying to get rid of some of the food on our last full day. Braxton ate his entire plate of eggs and half of mine. I had never seen him eat like this…must be a growth spurt!

We spent most of the morning hanging around the house. Braxton played dominos with my dad:

Then at some point later in the morning we took a golf cart ride down for one last time to the beach. DS even wore his hat my uncle got him while we were at the beach. He kept saying, “My hat like daddy hat”. It was a fun time!

We came back and had a little lunch of some fajitas and then my dad, my grandpa, my uncle, and I went golfing again this afternoon at Moody Gardens. DS stayed with his grandma and great grandma. They had a lot of fun I was told and DS even took another two-hour nap.

When we came back from golfing we loaded everyone up and went down to the Pleasure Pier in Galveston and had dinner at Bubba Gump’s. It is pretty solid seafood for a chain restaurant, as the Landry’s Group owns it. I had shrimp, which I had eaten a ton of that week, but it is so good when fresh! Braxton saw the table next to us whose kids were eating pizza and started saying, “I want Peezza.” So I ordered that for him. He ate half of his personal size pizza, all of his French fries as a side, and some of the jello they gave him for dessert. It was a fun meal.

His fries and jello even came in this toy boat so that entertained him while we all finished eating.

It was 9:00 by the time we were done eating so we said good-bye to my uncle who we didn’t know if we would see Thursday and headed back to our house. Braxton fell asleep rather easy in the bed as he was tired and it was later than he had been going to bed. I packed up a little quietly while he slept before turning in myself.

Day 7 – Thursday
Thursday we got up about 8:00 and finished packing up. I was worried about getting all of our stuff packed in our luggage since DW was gone with a big bag, but it went ok. We stopped at a shop in town and I got DW and I a t-shirt. I only have a picture of DW’s though.

We got to Hobby airport at around 10:30 before our 12:30 flight. DS and I went through curbside check in while my mom waited on my dad to get back from turning in his car. DS and I got up and I gave the guy my license and he checked us in quickly, took our checked bags, and gave me our boarding passes. I went on inside to empty DS’s drink and change his diaper before heading through security. As I got to the bathroom I was putting the boarding passes away and noticed it had my mom’s name on one. Now, my dad is a SR and I am a JR so our name is the same. The guy who checked us in just saw my name on my license and matched it with my dad and just printed his and my mom’s boarding passes. I hurried back to curbside check in and they were next in line so I went up with them and we fixed it. So that was a minor crisis averted.

We got through security and had to wait about an hour before boarding. DS played by the window and watched the planes again as he had done a few days before. I had check in right at 24 hours and gotten B 5 and B 6. A lot more people must be doing early bird check in now. We boarded between A and B though with families so it was fine. My mom and dad were already on because she did early bird check in. DS wanted to sit with them and I sat right behind them. He did great on the flight and sat in the seat the whole time and played with them.

We got home, DW picked us up, and DS was asleep before we were out of the airport. Now time to get ready for our real vacation this summer!​

 

[MidnightParade]

What wonderful last few days in Galveston! Looks like everyone had a wonderful time. And how fun to get to just hope in the golf cart for a quick jaunt down to the beach! And I agree king beds are awesome!!

Only 5 days to go until your cruise! So close! So exciting!

 

[cstorm65]

What wonderful last few days in Galveston! Looks like everyone had a wonderful time. And how fun to get to just hope in the golf cart for a quick jaunt down to the beach! And I agree king beds are awesome!!

Only 5 days to go until your cruise! So close! So exciting!

It was a lot of fun and relaxing. Just got home from Dollar Tree getting a bunch of last minute stuff...all for $1 each! We are getting excited!

 

[cstorm65]

Day 13 – Thursday
I hope everyone is having a great week so far. We are getting close and I need to do the plans for our final day at Disney World. On our past trips we have just been people who take it easy on departure day and head to the airport. Now that we will have annual passes it is not an issue of having another day of park tickets. Between that and FP+ we know we will have at least three FP’s to use we are going to go ahead and spend a little more time in the Magic Kingdom. We are definitely not going for rope drop. We will probably sleep and have breakfast at Roaring Forks as well as spend a little time packing up the room. I have three FP+’s set up starting around 10:30 on Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Peter Pan, and Space Mountain. That is going to be really nice to not have to get up early to go but know we can still get some good rides in.

We just need to be back at the resort by around 2:00 as our Tragical Express bus will come around 3:00. We will fly back to Oklahoma via Atlanta and be home about 10:00 PM. Not too many exciting things on our final day, but we will have a chance to say goodbye to the Magic Kingdom.

That will do it for the planning. We are putting the final touches on our Fish Extender gifts this afternoon and are getting really excited for our first cruise. I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and happy trip planning!​

 

[MidnightParade]

Hope you guys have a most magical, fantastical trip!!!! Looking forward to hearing about it once you are back!!