okay, now I wish I had subbed to this a few days agoI gotta catch up but I just wanted to let you know that I'm here.
No? Well, you keep reading and I'll post the next installment in a couple minutes... I still have to proof-read and add smilies! 
I thought about going into the Disney store and getting them there. That’s what I did last time. But then I was reading on Mousesaver’s one day that the price of tickets was going up… the NEXT day! 
We decided we would just go ahead and order them online through the Disney site. We saved about 50 bucks buying them before the increase. Hey, 50 bucks is 50 bucks! I’ll take it! They arrived pretty quickly too! They are lovely! 
Each one has a different character on them and the kids all picked out which one they wanted to use! Abby chose Cinderella, Owen chose the Incredibles and Evan chose Mickey, Goofy and Donald in the teacups. Tom and I were left with Mickey ones. But then I realized that the Cinderella one is an age 3-9 ticket! Great… that will go over really well! 
I haven’t broken the news yet. Oh well, they can just trade after the trip!
Well, we get there on a Friday but Tom didn’t want to drive all day and then go to a park. Sadly, he is probably right. So that leaves 6 full days. Tom really wants a day off somewhere in the middle of the trip. Something about wanting to relax on his vacation… whatever. 
Baby! Okay, so now we’re down to 5 days. BUT! We’ve promised the kids we’d do “another” park. That leaves 4 days. As you all know… if you are going to buy 4 days you might as well buy the 5th day! It was like 10 bucks more total… a no brainer. So! We have 5 day passes… no hopper. We got hopper last time and used it once. It was $200 to add it and we decided not to. I’ll let you know if we come to regret it! So when will we use the 5th day? I’ve got an idea and it just might work… I’ll fill you in on that one later though! 
We did not do this the last time because they don’t do it after Christmas. We did see the special parade because after Christmas they run it for everyone… not just the MVMCP crowd. It was great! But not enough for me! I cannot tell you how excited I am to go to this party! SNOW on Main Street… who wouldn’t want to see that? I ordered these tix online too and printed them myself… saving a whooping $3.00 for postage! Now I wish I’d have paid the stupid $3 and got “real tickets” that we could keep instead of 5 sheets of paper. Oh well… next time. Anyway, I digress. We had 3 nights to choose from to go to the party. Sun., Tues., and Thursday. I poured over everything 
I could get my hands on to read about which night to go! Again… looking to avoid crowds! Drum roll please…. I chose Tuesday the 27th! Here is the great thing… when you are going to a hard ticket event you don’t have to use a daily ticket to get in! AND they let you in at 4 o’clock even though the party doesn’t start until 7 pm. Sweet! This is the one night we will drag our children around as late as possible! I really am expecting this to be the absolute highlight of our trip. (Insert prayer for no rain here!) (Just so you know… he has bigger plans now… he’s going to be a farmer and a firefighter! 
) So we decided a long time ago that when we got back to Disney we would also go to Sea World. We took Abby when she was 3 to the one in Ohio that is no longer there. She loved it and so did I… I love Shamu! 
We are still undecided about whether or not to do the “Dine with Shamu” buffet. If anyone out there has done it, please share your thoughts. 
Does Nicole have something up her sleeve to make her trip longer than originally planned? And will there be a special visitor during our trip? Stay with me to find out! 
I will start off by saying Hi! I'm Nicole and I am a DIS addict... more specifically, a TR addict. I'm a stay at home Mom ~ for now ~ and I have lots of time on my hands to Dis. I was introduced to this wonderful place several years ago by my BIL (he's my family's resident Disney expert and also a diser). Anyway, at that time I was planning our first trip to the world with our kids. BIL gave me books, brochures, maps, lots of advice and told me to check out wdwinfo.com. So, I did. I read everything on there... twice.I was scared (I know!
) and that was kind of the end of that. For the time being. And we went to the world without a real plan
. I'll fill you in on that in a bit but here's a teaser.... the ER was involved!
Here is where I will introduce my fam...
There's me, Nicole. And yes, I really do love Buzz and Woody and Jessie and all things Toy Story. Like I said I'm a SAHM but an early childhood teacher by trade. I've stayed at home since my almost 11 year old came along and I wouldn't trade it for the world. But all my kids are in school now and it's time for me to do something that pays actual money for my time! So, I am going to start substitute teaching ~ it's the only job where they call me to work and I can actually say "no thank you" if I have a sick kid at home. I am living and breathing Disney right now ~ 24/7!
Then there's my DH, Tom... truly the love of my life and my very best friend. He is self-admittedly a stick in the mud. But not really. He will have a great time at Disney ~ he just has no interest in immersing himself into the planning, dreaming, talking about it all the time. He'd make a terrible diser!
Now onto my kids...
There's my DD, Abby. She is almost 11 and was a very princessy little girly girl. Our first trip to the world was spent persuing princesses. Now she's kind of over that and more into HSM and Hannah Montana.
Last but not least are my sons. My little men. They are 6 (yes, twins) and are beside themselves giddy about this trip. Evan is a Star Wars fanatic and insists he is now old enough to ride Star Tours. He loves nothing better than sitting with his dad and watching a Star Wars movie. Owen is a CARS freak! Actually, he loves vehicles of any kind. He's been known to ask people if they will pop the hood of their car so he can take a look at the motor!
And did I mention... we're going to Disney World!!!This trip is a long time coming. Our first trip was 4 long years ago in Dec. of '03. That was a tough year for us. My MIL died after a brief and very unexpected illness on New Year's Day. Christmas was very sad for us because she was dying. My DD (she was 6 at the time) was very close to her and losing her was so hard.
After months of greiving and coping, late that summer, we were at my sisters/BIL house and they were talking about yet another trip they had
taken to WDW. On our way home we decided we'd start looking into going. We did have some inheritance money and we thought my MIL would be thrilled if we used some of it for this reason. We thought the boys might be too young but then we found out they were FREE! That sealed the deal. We were going while my DD was still into princesses!I planned our trip mostly through my BIL, the disney website, Birnbaum's and wdwinfo. (The DIS was for hard core crazy people, remember!) We booked our trip for Dec. 27 through Jan. 1 so my DD wouldn't miss school plus we thought having this at Christmas would make getting through the holiday a little easier. We flew down and stayed at the Contemporary. We wanted to "do it right!" and we did. We had a tower room with a view of the castle and felt like the nightly fireworks were just for us. It was beautiful!
Up next: You want us to get up at what time?!? AND... is there and ER nearby?
Sorry, I have no idea how to link these... and truth be told, I don't feel like figuring it out!
Update #2... page 1, post #8
Update #3... page 3, post #43
Update #4... page 5, post #62
Update #5... page 9, post #122
My Sister passed away the day after xmas so I know how hard the holidays can be. How special for you to have that inheritance $ to help you pay for a trip to Disney to make the Holiday's magical again. when you said that you used to think that the DIS was only for hard core disney ppl. And now you're part of it all. Don't you feel like you missed outnow? I know I do since I only found this web site this year after purchasing the Unofficial Guide. take him to some dirt track races. He'd probably love that.
Yippee! You're here! You go ahead and read, I'll wait.
Are ya done yet?
nope...not done yet...just got done with the first installment...off to read more.
. Maybe its a good thing we didn't get to ride those rides.
Your plans sound great. Even though you don't have park hoppers. Just ask Carla where to go. She seems to be the one who has good luck avoiding the crowds.
Well... since I've got some peeps, I'll write some more!
So, I mentioned that we went without a real plan the first time. But I did have one lonely little ADR... at Chef Mickey's! At 7:30 am... on our first morning... after travelling all day and getting in kinda late the night before. Plus... I had no idea how my kids would react to the characters! Turns out my kids were less than thrilled with those characters coming up and talking to them! Minnie came up next to Owen and he scrambled to get away from her! She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at him. It was cute. But I'll admit I sat there thinking we've spent thousands of dollars to come to the happiest place on earth and my kids are terrified!
Lesson #1 ~ Character meals are NOT to be done FIRST thing!
Against all advice we went to the MK on the first day - a Monday, no less.
I've never in all my life seen so many people! We tried to do some things we really wanted to do but we were very frustrated and exhausted by the end of day one. So we called it an early night. Back at the hotel the boys got a second wind and were jumping on the bed! Just as I said, "No jump...", Owen tripped and SMACK! He took a header right onto the corner of the night stand! There was blood... and screaming... and panicking. He needed stitches, of that we were sure. So we all piled into the rental car and went to the ER. It was FILLED with people with the FLU!!! It took 6 hours for them to see him and "glue" him back together.
After this point we decided that we had to stop trying to go commando on this vacation! That we were just wearing ourselves out. That we would come back and see more next time. So we chilled from there and really did enjoy the rest of our trip. Here's a pic of us with none other than my faves.
Sorry, not the greatest quality because I had to scan it. I'll post some more pics later that are hopefully better and also recent. (If I keep posting pics like that I will have no "privacy worries" whatsoever!
Thanks for reading!!!
At least that was the point that you decided to take it easy the rest of the trip and not make yourselves miserable. That's the only way you can do Disney. There's no way you can do everything all in one trip. Especially with those kinds of crowds. You'd have to go in Sept or some other low crowd time of year to fit a lot in. I'm glad you guys had fun.
I
Your kids sound awesome. And twins? I want to have twins. You're so lucky. That one thats obsessed with cars cracks me up. You need to get him into NASCAR
yeah, right.
To tell you the truth, if I had totally immersed myself into planning the first trip I think I would've drove myself mad! Especially since what little I did plan didn't seem to be working! I am glad though that I came out of lurkdom finally! I've had a blast getting to know everyone else. Even if my DH thinks I'm nuts!
Oh, he loves NASCAR! Never been to a race... someday though. And he is quite the character! They all are actually! I don't know where that get that...
I'm sure your DH will come around once you guys have a DIS meet or two. Do you have any planned yet? It looks like there are a BUNCH of DISer's that are gonna be at WDW for xmas. You should take advantage of that Although, I will be jealous if you get to meet Trentmom.
Well, it's always fun to RIDE POOH!!!
. That 5th day ...hmmm a mystery...
okay, now I wish I had subbed to this a few days ago
Now I feel bad for guilting you in to coming over here! BUT! I'm glad you are here!
Aw, you're so sweet! And yes, I am blessed. Thank you.
As a matter of fact I turn 39 TOMORROW! I am not ashamed!
Tickets!
Is the suspense just killing you? Mwhahahaha!
Sharky! Yep, Leger's here and so is Orangie!
Great Update Nicole
I am with ya on the park hoppers..I think we used them one time.
We are taking a short trip this december, but our dates don;t coincide. It looks like you will be going right near Thanksgiving...Darn...
Sea World sounds like fun.I went when we were little and my brother got picked to be in the show and was pulled by the dolphins on a raft...very cool
Hmmmmm....5th day....extra ticket...what you going to do??
Extra visitor...hmmmm...Is uncle John making a cameo while you are there???
about the dolphins! I wanna do that!
You snuck that post in on me!
Agreement on the hoppers... cool. That is reassuring.
I didn't know you were going in Dec.! When?
5th day... I'm not tellin'!
Uncle John? hmmm... interesting... not tellin'
