* Live*The "No Frippen Way were going where?" Trip Report

[SunnieRN]

Well here we go! My family has NEVER been to disney world. We lived in CA until 2 years ago, and we have been to disneyland multiple times! But we have yet to visit "the world".
My family consists of Myself, a 51 year old Gramma, my daughter and my two Grandsons.
We have planned 3, YES three trips to disney world this year and guess what? We haven't been able to make it to any of them.
My son in law is in the army and therefore our schedule changes at a drop of a hat. We are told he will have vacation and then at the last minate wham....no more vacation. A trip we planned earlier this year for Sept got cancelled due to the fact that my Dad had to have surgery and stayed with us for a couple of months from CA.
We expected him to be here longer, or we would have kept plans for our orig. trip with free dining and fantastic dining reservations. Luckily surgery went well, recovery was swift and he is back home in CA. So now we find ourselves able to go in Sept...but alas we missed free dining.....

The biggest disappointment however, was a trip we planned over Christmas. We had everything in place, including the candlelight processional and Christmas at the Fort, but alas, due to my son in laws earlier than expected deployment date back to Iraq, we had to cancel our trip Saturday. We felt with him leaving to go back to Iraq on approx. Jan 10th that a trip ending December 29 would be WAY too stressful! Also, my son in law is NOT an amusement park person. He had never been to an amusement park until after he married my daughter, but he was going to tolerate going for all of us to have a family vacation at Christmas. This of course made my daughter and I uncomfortable, but we knew the memories of spending time together at Christmas would help the boys have special memories to pull them through during Daddys deployment. Well......
Needless to say, that didn't work out as we had hoped it would....but yesterday my daughter says to me "Mom, why don't we just go to disney world TOMORROW?"
I thought she was kidding, as she said it so calmly, not with the emphasis I placed on the word above.....
Well 30 or so hours later, we have reservations, have our clothes packed, the dvd player charged, new car seats, and at 1 a.m. we will be on our way!! To disney world!! For the very first time!! My son in law was SO relieved to know that we were not going in December and since he is at training was happy we were going to be able to go while he was gone.
We will be staying at shades of green, with the fall into fall special program which includes breakfast and dinner with our room. The rooms there are supposed to be fantastic and being a guest there allows us to take advantage of early morning or extra magic hours!!
My daughter got a reservation for liberty tree tavern, woo hoo....as that is something I wanted to experience BEFORE they get rid of the "meal with character".
We also have lunch reservations for Garden Grill (which we are not 100 percent sure of keeping) and a lunch at Konas. The rest of our lunches will be counter service (flame tree bbq here I come).
Due to the fast planning of this trip it will be short and sweet.
We leave tonight, get to Orlando Friday....go to Mickeys not so scary halloween party....
Saturday.....we will go to the Magic Kingdom as that is the night we are eating at Liberty Tree Tavern.
Sunday Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom.
Monday the opposite park.....
Tues, back to the Magic Kingdom....
down and dirty, short and sweet....
I still can't believe it's real and that we are going....in a couple of hours....
I will be writing live updates with pictures during our trip. There are a few hot spots at shades of green!
I am curious about the length of the walk from s.o.g. to the polynesian, as that sounds like a great way to get to Magic Kingdom and Epcot.
More later.....and I'll introduce my family a little better also!
Not sure if this will interest anyone, but I will be happy to share and hopefully make this somewhat interesting....
I can't wait to try all the tips and see all the great stuff I've heard about on the boards. Thank you to one all all that have helped me get to this point on our journey!

 

[SunnieRN]

Hello again...thought I'd better add this really quickly... then it's time to pack up the car!!!!
On this trip it will be Me, a 51 year old Gramma. Living in northern CA until two years ago, it was only about an 8 hour drive to Anaheim.
This was our destination of choice for MANY vacations. My daughter is 24 and has been to disneyland about 30 times. The first time was at 17 months old. She LOVED it, and had a fantastic time. It was off season, we made the days short and she was an easy going child, who was alway pretty advanced. So for us it went REALLY well.
My daughter is now almost as disney addicted as I am. We love planning trips and preparing for them. In fact, we thought we were going in December so we all have enough disney shirts to wear one on each day of our trip!
Love the disney outlet in Round Rock! They alway have a great selection of stuff!!
The only one who isn't completely disney'd is my youngest grandson....we got him everything to fit him in December. We did find him some things today at wal mart and target though, so he is also disney prepared now!!
I have two grandsons who will be going on this trip. My older grandson is ALMOST three and starting to say he is three...lol. We will be getting him a birthday button as he turns three about a week after we get home! My younger grandson is 7 mos old. He is a happy baby! Easily soothed if he does get upset and very easy going! He is a joy and is our ray of sunshine!
My older grandson has some sensory issues. He does get overwhelmed at times, so we were worried about taking him in December with HIGH crowds and all the long days. This should be a much easier pace for him and even though I know it will be crowded I hope it will not be nearly as bad as it would be at christmas.
We are on the fence about the mickey halloween party. As far as we know we will go...and the fact that there are tickets left has us hoping we will at least be able to enjoy it! We wont be on a ride agenda, but will want to let my grandson see the characters, trick or treat and see the parade and fireworks!
There is also a possibility to go tuesday night and we think that that may be a better thing to do...
Well hope to see you all soon!!

 

[iScrap]

Have a safe drive! I'll be looking forward to your report. I hope you and your family have a magical time.

 

[heaven2dc]

How exciting - leaving now!! Wishing you a safe journey and can't wait to read all about it (and see pics as well!)

 

[SunnieRN]

Thank you both! We are an hour away from Florida!! More tomorrow!!

 

[VacationKicks]

Hope you like SOG, glad you were able to get in on such short notice. We stayed there a couple of days last April '07 and will be staying before our cruise in July '09.

I found the walk to the Poly too long. There is a shuttle that will take you to the end of SOG driveway and then it's not far, but since you will have a car I'd just drive over to the TTC then take the bus or monorail from there.

Hope you have a great trip!