Little Mickey Fan and his Pooh family go to their first MVMCP

[claryche]

This is the first time that I have ever done a trip report. So forgive me in advance if it isn't as funny and witty as other trip reports. I just thought that I should do this because I have so enjoyed reading others reports over the last month and I have learned some value things, so I thought I should share also.

So the basics.

I'm Cindy the mom (40) There is John the dad (33) And Logan our 2 and a half year old son

Logan was born into a family of Disney lovers, even though as a family, my husband and I had only been to Disney World once and Disney Land once before DS. But we are still a Disney family none the less. And as it says in the title, my DH and I was a Pooh family. I am Pooh and he is Eeyore and we were happy to have our little Tigger join our life. His room was decorated all Pooh and friends. Alot of his clothes were Pooh, his first birthday party was Pooh. After all we were a Pooh family with a Christmas tree each year of only Pooh and friends ornaments.

When I was pregnant with my DS, we had many people ask what we would do if he grew up to hate Pooh. And I would answer that won't happen. And it hasn't, it's just that after he started watching Mickey Mouse clubhouse at the start of this year, he became a Mickey fan. Up to that point he liked Mickey, after all we had seen the big cheese when we went to Disney World in Sept 07.

But it all changed after watching that show. I can't even count the number of stuffed Mickeys in his room. So even though it is still a Pooh room it has a strong Mickey presence now. In fact for one of his Halloween costumes this year, he went as a Mickey Mouse fan.

Which all this brings me to our trip this year.

Like I said we just went last year, and even though we love Disney, we can't afford to go every year. So we hadn't planned on going back for at least 2 if not 3 years. But when friends of ours mentioned that they were going and thought we might would join them, I thought about it. I thought about how much my DS now loved Mickey and you never know with a 2 year old when their likes can change. I thought about the fact that he was still free at Disney, since he would still be 2 at the time of the trip. I thought about the fact that we could cut costs and stay at a value resort. I thought why not...sign me up. So we set out to plan our trip.

As I mentioned friends of ours had mentioned planning a trip. So the others who will be joining us are two of my friends from college, they both had gone with my DH and I to Disney World in 1997. One of my friends is married and will be bringing her DH this time, he didn't go in 1997 because he couldn't get off from work. My other friend is not married and is mainly going along to spend time with her friends, since we all three live in different states. The three of them opted to stay at the more quiet PO resort. We are staying at ASM. I thought my DS would love seeing the oversized characters. We aren't doing all meals together, as to give them some child free eating and us some family only options.

I'm so looking forward to this trip....I'll post more tomorrow including our countdown method and more details of the trip. Until then, I'll leave you with another cute picture from our Sept 07 trip.

 

[AshleyMWC]

Your son is just adorable, especially decked out in all that Mickey gear! I can't wait to hear more about the details of your trip!

 

[claryche]

Your son is just adorable, especially decked out in all that Mickey gear! I can't wait to hear more about the details of your trip!

Thanks. I personally think he is adorable too. And actually the picture of him in his Mickey gear isn't that good because it was so hot and the sun was in his face. But I had to share it anyway.

 

[claryche]

So I had thought about doing something to countdown to our trip this year, but didn't really know what to do. When we are planning a short trip like to Alabama to visit family, we will tell our son that Daddy has to go to work X more times before going to Alabama. But with Disney World being several months out, when I planned the trip, I didn't think that would work. So after reading a few trip reports and in the mean time becoming obsessed at reading said reports. I came up with a plan for a countdown. My husband did the trek to Home Depot, like so many others do. And then I cut out the Mickey ears and created a chain. Here is a picture of the chain, I opted to wait until it was a month out from our trip to do the countdown.

And here is a picture of my son removing the first Mickey.

At first I thought he would be a maybe typical 2 year old and just go over one day and take the chain down and play with all the Mickey's. But fortunately for us he hasn't done that yet. He seems to be very content with taking one off a day. And I'll say one day close to and he finishes it by saying Disney World. A few more pictures of the Mickey ears include my DH helping him.

And also a picture of one of our friends who will be going on the trip with us. She had to come into our state for work, so she stayed with us and I thought it would be cool if she helped Logan with the Mickey ears one morning when she was here.

In addition to all the other typical things that we have been doing, such has buying new clothes, buying ponchos, deciding on ADR and such, we also decided to have Logan start watching some Disney Movies. So far most of his Disney watching came from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Mickey Mouse and friends movies and Winne the Pooh movies and shows of all sorts. So I thought we needed to expand his experience. Of course there had been a few other select movies in there, such as Cars, Lilo and Stich, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc, but not the classics. Well except for the Aristocats, which he loves. Unfortunately there are no rides or character meets for the Aristocats. You know they should do that. Anyway, I digress. I decided we would start with movies that had characters that were featured at our resort of choice..ASM. So we watched Toy Story one and two. Then 101 Dalmatians, (the cartoon version). He already knew Mickey and I didn't think he would get into watching Love Bug or Mighty Ducks. So I went on to other movies. Cinderella, Peter Pan, Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid (my fav), Alice in Wonderland (DH's fav) and Sleeping Beauty. Even though I like Sleeping Beauty, I never loved her, my personal fav is Cinderella, since my name is Cindy. But my love for Princess Aurora grew after our last trip when she gave Logan a huge kiss on his cheek. It was so cute. Here is a picture from our trip last year to see the Princesses. You can see Princess's Aurora's kiss on Logan's check in the picture of him and Belle.

The photopass person didn't get a picture of the actual kiss. I love the pictures of him and Belle, because Logan and her matched so well. So Sleeping Beauty was a big thing for me to get him to see and to get him to say that she was Princess Aurora and not just Sleeping Beauty. And we have succeeded. Just today he say a clip of her on the Disney channel and he said Princess Aurora.

Another planning thing that we do is a suggestion that I think I read in a tour book or somewhere, who knows. But it suggested trying to get your child use to the characters by taking them places that might have characters similar to Disney World, such as an area college mascot. We did this last year, including a trip to Chuckie Cheese and other large characters meets. And I don't know if it helped, but Logan loved the characters for sure. He was not frightened by any of the full costume characters. Now the face characters he was a little bit more shy with and Captain Jack scared him. You can tell it in the photopass pic from last year.

But you know the weird thing is that Captain Jack gave Logan some special Pirate booty in the form of a gold (plastic) coin. And Logan loved it. He carried it around the MK for the rest of the night and I was a nervous wreck because I was worried he would drop it and us lose it and he would throw a fit. But he didn't lose it and it made it all the way home and is in our travel display case for the trip.

But all in all he loved his time with the characters. So I was so happy and thought I would never have to worry about that again. However, this past Easter came around and it took two visits to get him to finally sit with the Easter Bunny, and he wasn't too happy. So when this trip was planned, in July, a little late for me, but we had 4 work schedules to work around, I started worrying about my DS not wanting to take pictures with Mickey. And that just wouldn't do, since his love for Mickey is one of the the main reasons we were going this time. But my DH said so what if he didn't like the Easter Bunny, the Easter Bunny isn't the same as Mickey Mouse and Pooh. And I totally agreed, so I quit worrying so much. But I have still taken every opportunity that I have known of, to get him with some characters to see how he would do with them. And he was great. Here he is just a week or so ago with Red, from Red Robin restaurants.

So I don't think I have much to worry about.

So that about wraps up this PTR edition. I'll give you more details soon.

 

[claryche]

One week from today, we will be living it up at Disney World. I just can't wait. We have been looking forward to this day for so long that it's to imagine that it is just a week away. I have so much still to do. I have to pack being the big one. We got haircuts last week in preparation. And I have everything bought that I think I need to get bought. I'm still waiting on an SD card that we ordered to come in. Not that I don't have several SD cards already, but when I recently went to an area lake to take some good pictures of my DS and I took 400 I thought I need another SD card for Disney World. Just to be on the safe side. I have found with a digital camera that for every 10 pictures I take I get 1 good one. Of course I can always delete the pictures, but I only like to do that when I can look at them on a big screen, a computer screen. And since we won't be taking the laptop, I needed another SD card. Here is one of the pictures from the lake. I think I did a good job. Even if I do say so myself.

My DS is getting more excited I think. I can't wait for him to be there again. It will be so much different from last time, I'm sure of it. Yesterday for Halloween we went to Toys R Us and Geoffrey was there. It was so cool to see my DS walk right up to him and give him a huge hug while other older kids were screaming and hiding from him. Here is the picture of my DS hugging Geoffrey.

My DS was dressed as a blue monster for Halloween.

In my previous posts I mentioned giving you more details of our trip. So here it goes, for anyone who is interested.

We get there on a Sat around noon. Hopefully by the time we ride the ME to ASM, our room will be ready. No real big plans for that Saturday, except going to the MK whenever we can. I know other people say that you shouldn't go to the MK first, but with my DS being the age that he is, MK is our park of choice, so we hit it as often as we can.

Sunday we have a breakfast scheduled with Donald and Pals at Tusker House at AK. We scheduled alot of breakfasts. I did that for two reasons. Reason 1 since we aren't getting free dining, breakfast is cheaper than any other meal. And when I figured out how much out of pocket we would spend and how much the dining plan costs, we were better off without the meal plan. Especially since DS eats free at all buffets. Reason 2, I really love the character dining, but during our last trip I hated having to almost plan our whole day around getting to our ADR on time. If we go for breakfast, then we can do that first and then don't have to worry about it. I think it will work out well. I'll tell you when we get back how it goes. This particular breakfast I tried to get earlier, but since I called for the ADR's around 3 and a half months out, 9:30am was the earliest we could get. I have tried to call back for cancellations, but they are completely booked. This will be our first time at the Tusker House.

Monday we are doing breakfast with Stich and pals at Ohana. This will be our first time here.

Tuesday we are doing MVMCP. Unlike others who say they do nothing that day until the party, we are actually going to do a park then take a nap and then the party. With a 2 year old, we will be up at 7 or 8 anyway, so there is no sleeping in, so why not be at a park, I say. So we will be going to HS, which we plan on going to on Monday too, so this will be a slow morning where we will just catch anything we missed the previous day. Then we will leave and go to a late breakfast at Chef Mickey's. I picked a late breakfast here, because I heard that since they don't have lunch, during this time, that the characters aren't rushed and as the people clear out with no new people coming in, you get extra attention from the characters. So we'll see how this works. DS loves Mickey, so I hope this is all true. We went to Chef Mickey's last year for dinner and will be doing that again on this trip.

Then we will go to the room nap and hit the MK for the party.

Wednesday, slow morning of shopping or pool and then to Whispering Canyon at the WL. We went there last time also and my DH loved it, so this was his one request. However, we are doing lunch this time, it just works better with the schedule and it is cheaper.

Thursday is an early breakfast with Pooh at the CP. We went to the CP three times last year. We loved it. Of course it helps that we love Pooh and friends.

Friday is a late night supper at Chef Mickey's, really late, like 8:45, but that was the only time they had. Next time I'm booking my ADR's 180 days out I tell you.

Saturday morning, one last breakfast with Alice and friends at 1900 Park Fare. We went there last year too and loved it. My DH's other woman is Alice. Here is a pic from last year of my DH and DS and the other woman.

So that covers our dining plans as far as sit down planned dining. The rest, I have semi plans for, but other than that we will wing it.

So looking at my schedule and at the time, this time next week we will be taking a very tired DS into our room after having a full night at the MK.

 

[MrsTomMorrow]

Yay! I found your report! I can't believe you are leaving this weekend! Have a great time, and I hope to see a Trip Report when you get back!


By the way-sorry I didn't get much of a chance to talk to you guys last weekend. The kids were all over the place! I really like your haircut!!

 

[claryche]

I can't believe that in less than 48 hours we will be at Disney World. I have been looking forward to it for so long, that it doesn't seem possible that it could be here now. Well I wanted to write so much more in this pre-trip report, but got busy with other things. Such as Halloween events and getting ready for the trip. But I've pretty much filled you all in on the important things. And I'm kinda looking forward to doing the trip report. I'm looking forward to it, because I can't wait to share, but not looking forward to it, because it will mean that we are no longer at Disney World.

Well until then. Send your happy thoughts our way for sun shiny days, feet that won't stop and no one being sick.

Disney here we come.

 

[claryche]

Yes, we are back unfortunately. We got back on Saturday and I'm still tired. I have so much to talk about in my trip report, but just not the time to do it right now. I promise though to post soon. So keep checking back.

 

[stitcharoo]

keep commentin'

 

[stitcharoo]

 

[stitcharoo]

 

[stitcharoo]

breanna:
gosh! your kids are so adorable!
i love reading this because my family is going in december and we just started on our PTR! haha

 

[claryche]

So the day had finally arrived and we were going to Disney. After some hassle with family members who weren't willing to wake up at the crack of dawn to take us to the airport, we decided on just paying to park, which kinda started off the trip in a sucky way, since that was like 80 bucks that I would have loved to spend at Disney as opposed to giving to the parking lot people. But oh well we were on our way, that was what was important.

We arrived at Orlando, a little bit ahead of schedule, which was great. We got the area for the ME around 11:30am and it was packed. It seemed like it was a longer line from last year when we were there in September. The check in process seemed to take forever, even though it moves really fast. Then we were into another line to wait for our bus, which wasn't that long and it take that long. So we were on the bus and it was 12:07pm, all is good.

We get to ASMo, after stops at the other two AS resorts. We check in with no line and our room is ready. We didn't get our king request, which sucked, but at least the room was ready. So I didn't stress over it. So we were off to the room, not before my DS had already started his obsession with getting Mickey stickers.

Now I'll take a minute to forewarn you right now. I take alot of pictures. I think this time I took close to 2000, however some of them are not good at all, I'll try to only post good ones.

Into the room we go. It's on the second floor and not too far and not to close to the elevator, which is good. Last year our room at CS seemed to be a mile from the elevator and since we had a stroller, it was such a pain. So things were looking up. We didn't have a towel animal that I read about on here, but we did have Mickey ears, so that was cool.

We got our carry on's situated and our bags for the park ready and we were on our way. My DH and I had debated on whether we were going to go to a park or stay in the room and watch the Bama/LSU game, I won and we went to the park.

We went to MK. I know that some people say not to go there the first day, but I just feel like I'm at Disney when I go there. Plus people say not to go on Saturday, but we figured this was kinda an extra day, since it wasn't a full day and we didn't have any die hard plans on rides we had to ride that day, so we were all good. Plus with a little one, MK is tops. We found this out last year. Even though we spent time at all 4 parks, we spent the most time at MK. Unlike when we went before child and we spent most of the time at Epcot.

So we are at MK at taking pictures at a little before 3pm.

You will notice that we are decked out in Alabama clothes. I could not believe how many Bama fans there were at DW. We heard Roll Tide so many times on this trip.

We also got some pictures with Chip and Dale

and Pluto

All this before even crossing under the train tracks. As soon as we step onto main street, we noticed that the parade would be coming soon. So we wait. We didn't see this parade last year. I can't remember the name of the parade, it's the one where it all started with a Mouse. Here is the Big Cheese waving just at my DS,

or at least that is what he thought, so he waved back.

So after the parade, we hopped on the train and rode to Toontown. First Logan had fun playing on Donald's Boat, thankfully he wasn't into the water part of it, because I didn't feel like changing him already. We were then off to see Mickey and Minnie. This took forever, I don't know how long we waited, but I really wish that they had a sign that said it would be x minutes, like they do in the Hall of Fame with the princesses and the fairies. I never did get a great picture of my DS with Mickey and Minnie, but I think this one is good.

I actually think that my pictures this time were better than most of the photopass pictures. I of course will still get the photopass cd, mainly so that I can have pictures of all 3 of us and also so that I can have the cool borders on the pictures. But I wasn't nearly as impressed as I was last year with the pictures. Several times my DS had his eyes closed, which is fine as long as the camera person noticed that and took another one, but they didn't. This probably won't be the last time that I complain about this, so be warned. But on with the story.

Next up was the Barnstormer. Last year, my DS was just an inch short, so I was excited for him to ride it this year. I got to ride it with him first and my DH taped it. It was a blast, he loved it. It didn't scare him at all, and I was so excited. I know I do things totally against the book, I go to MK first, I go there on Sat and I have my DS ride a possibly scary ride, first off. But it all works out and I really think that you have to throw the books out the window with kids, because each kid is different. My DS is going to be a thrill junky I think like his mom and kinda like his dad. As soon as we were done with the ride, he said ride again. So my DH and him rode it again. I took pictures.

While I was on the ground I saw what looked like a 7 year old boy saying there was no way he was going to ride that. Even when I told him that my 2 and a half year old son loves it, he didn't change his mind. See you never know with kids.

As far as the Barnstormer, I do understand what people say about how it isn't really worth the wait. I think the ride is 30 seconds and even though we only waited maybe 15 minutes the first time and 10 minutes the second time, it still seems like alot for that about of time. But it was all worth it. I'm just shocked that my DS didn't ask to ride it again.

Next off was the Pooh ride. We didn't ride the teacups this year, because that is pretty much the only ride where I have a hard time with due to my weight and the fact that I'm short. That little door is just at the wrong place on my body and I have a hard time getting in the teacup. The sign for the Pooh ride said I think 20 minute wait and it didn't really look that long, so we got in line. It was that long, maybe even longer. But oh well, we had time.

After that ride, it was getting dark. The Dreams castle show was started, but were were on the back side of the castle and since we had seen it before, didn't see a need to rush to go see it. So we went over to see if our DS was of royal blood, but he was more interested in the fireworks from the castle show that night.

Then our DS requested to ride the horsies, so him and my DH did just that. My DH was just going to stand on the ride since he couldn't really ride it with my DS like he did last year. But my DS wanted him to ride the horse next to him. So he did that and I was nervous that my DS was going to fall off the ride, but he did great. My DH on the other hand hurt his leg getting onto the horse. So will begin the trend of him hurting himself. Now here I was the whole time worried that my son would fall down or walk into something or other numerous things, and it was my DH that I had to worry about. Here is a picture from this year

and one from last year.

Last year I rode the ride with them, since it was my DS's first ride at DW. I opted not to ride this year. Last year I was actually going to get on a horse, but the horse by my DS and DH's horse was so high up, I couldn't get on it.

While I was waiting for my DH and DS, I saw a little girl fall right off the back of the sword and the stone. She was up on the stone pulling and fell back, a really hard hit, very scary. But she didn't bang her head so that was good. She looked fine, just a lot of crying. Her parents took care of her and return to hoping that something like that doesn't happen to my DS.

Well while at the carousel we were suppose to meet up with our 3 friends who were on the trip with us, just staying at a different hotel. They were at the park and trying to find us. So in an effort to make this more interesting, like other posts I've seen I'll say. Do we find our friends? What do we do next? Does Bama beat LSU? Well actually you already know that they did...but it still sounds good. How will my DH hurt himself again?

 

[OneTreeHillAddict]

Hi. I was looking at your old pics you added to the OLD DISNEY PHOTOS and I somehow clicked onto this. My baby, he's 3, started going, "Is that me?" "Is that me?" It was cute. He does look similar to your DS.