Whipperwhirl
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2008
- Messages
- 643
Hello You can call me Whip (33) Im a mom of 3 (DD8, DS3, DH37). Im also a Retired Balloon Artist (Retired because I hurt my arm) and a habitual Disney Trip Dreamer from New England. Our previous Disney trips include Honeymoon at the Polynesian in Sep 1996 and a tag-along Convention trip at the Contemporary in Feb 2002 (it was supposed to be Sep 01 but the convention was postponed due to 09/11). This will be our first Family trip there for no other reason other than VACATION.
So you have the WHO Let me give you the scoop on The WHEN: I think to myself . . . wouldnt it be fabulous if the kids wake up Christmas morning and their bags are packed and ready to go . . . It could be their present from Mom and Dad. Then I thought half the fun of getting such a great gift is being able to brag to your cousins that you got a Disney trip for Christmas so lets make it the day after. I settled on 12/26/08 01/03/08 (Actually late 12/25 01/04/08 but thats covered under HOW). Ive struggled with a creative way to break the news and I have only recently decided on a homemade tear the page calendar the first page is going to say something crazy like 250 days until our Disney vacation and we are going to have DD tear off the top page when it will drop to 120 days Then Im going to make a big ta do I cant believe I messed up the calendar then the next page will be like 50 then 10 days etc then 0. Im also going to do some photo shopped images of them doing wacky things at Disney etc . . . I hopping to have my daughter pass out with shock.
WHERE: I like to move around to different hotels when we vacation so I originally booked three separate Disney resorts AKL, WDL, and CBR. As if that wasnt enough moving around I also wanted to plan one night at the Gaylord Palms since I have been there on business and its fabulous (I wanted to share with my family). Then I priced a rental car to get us from hotel to hotel An Economy box is near $700.00 that week! I called Disney to see if they would move our bags and I was told that any other time of the year it probably wouldnt be a problem but that week it is so busy they could not. This Should have been my first clue to the Chaos that is the week in between Christmas and New years. Once I got the Christmas gift idea in my head there was no backing down. I ignored the warning signs and moved full steam ahead. I changed our reservation to just CBR for the whole week and I have nearly changed it three or four times already to AKL Its a dream of mine to have one of those Savanna view rooms but then I found the gifts of a lifetime website and now I have my heart set on doing something special with that instead. We will save the AKL trip for another year.
WHY: My DS will be four and he has never been to WDW my DD was 2 when we went in 2002 and I have always felt bad that he hasnt gone yet. Lets just say money was always an issue when I owned my business you could never spend anything not knowing when your next paycheck would be. Also my DDs 9th birthday is during our trip this year she is growing up so fast I just want her to feel the magic one more time before her pre-teen skepticism takes hold. Now I have a regular paying job so that money is definitely is paying for this splurge.
HOW: We live about an hour away from the airport so Ive decided to book us a room at the onsite hotel for Christmas night. I know, I know it doesnt make for the most magical of Christmas nights but I think it will be worth it not to have to get out of bed at 3am to barely get to the airport on time. I know myself and I wont be able to sleep and I will drive my husband nuts that the alarm wont go off. Our flight is at 6 am so staying at the airport we wont have to get out of bed until 4:30am then we can mosey take our time. We can go swimming at the hotel the night before and order room service and a movie the kids will love that. We will get to start our vacation hours after the big surprise. We are doing a similar thing at the end of our trip where we are staying at the Orlando Hyatt the last night again just so we dont have to rush off to the hotel. We are flying Delta and we land at 11:20am. Because of the warnings I have since read about Christmas week Im hiring a Car to bring us to the hotel. This will help get us going quicker and more relaxed than the Disney bus. I was planning on using the bus one way but then I found out its only 10.00 more for the car round trip No Brainer. In addition to booking the CBR all week I signed us up for the Disney deluxe dining plan (I know way to much food but we like nice restaurants and with the increased food costs that week it seemed to make sense for us). We will see how it goes Im going to track to see if we get our moneys worth.
THE GRAND PLAN Was to have no plan. DH hates when I over plan trips then the more I researched Christmas week I became convinced that if I do not plan we will all be miserable. We will not find nice restaurants to eat at we will not feel the magic as much as we should. So I woke up early on 180 ADR Day and booked 96 credits worth of food I believe. All that we were entitled to under the DDD. We are eating at a lot of wonderful places:
We purchased the 9 day park hopper without water park so Im hoping to make good use of that. I have not planned which parks on which days but I hope our ADRs will help guide the schedule a bit. Other activities we have planned are the BBB (Castle and Cool Dude package) at 8 am on DDs 9th birthday and hopefully a Gifts of a lifetime surprise, CRT lunch and park fare dinner (Hopefully with fabulous B-day cake) also on that day. I booked the pirate cruise out of our hotel one day and Im keeping my ear to the ground for the pirate boutique that may or may not be opening in September.
I guess thats it for now Im pretty much waiting on pins and needles until the pixies from gifts of a lifetime contact me. I have no idea how Im going to be able to keep this a secret Im dying to tell them!!!
So you have the WHO Let me give you the scoop on The WHEN: I think to myself . . . wouldnt it be fabulous if the kids wake up Christmas morning and their bags are packed and ready to go . . . It could be their present from Mom and Dad. Then I thought half the fun of getting such a great gift is being able to brag to your cousins that you got a Disney trip for Christmas so lets make it the day after. I settled on 12/26/08 01/03/08 (Actually late 12/25 01/04/08 but thats covered under HOW). Ive struggled with a creative way to break the news and I have only recently decided on a homemade tear the page calendar the first page is going to say something crazy like 250 days until our Disney vacation and we are going to have DD tear off the top page when it will drop to 120 days Then Im going to make a big ta do I cant believe I messed up the calendar then the next page will be like 50 then 10 days etc then 0. Im also going to do some photo shopped images of them doing wacky things at Disney etc . . . I hopping to have my daughter pass out with shock.
WHERE: I like to move around to different hotels when we vacation so I originally booked three separate Disney resorts AKL, WDL, and CBR. As if that wasnt enough moving around I also wanted to plan one night at the Gaylord Palms since I have been there on business and its fabulous (I wanted to share with my family). Then I priced a rental car to get us from hotel to hotel An Economy box is near $700.00 that week! I called Disney to see if they would move our bags and I was told that any other time of the year it probably wouldnt be a problem but that week it is so busy they could not. This Should have been my first clue to the Chaos that is the week in between Christmas and New years. Once I got the Christmas gift idea in my head there was no backing down. I ignored the warning signs and moved full steam ahead. I changed our reservation to just CBR for the whole week and I have nearly changed it three or four times already to AKL Its a dream of mine to have one of those Savanna view rooms but then I found the gifts of a lifetime website and now I have my heart set on doing something special with that instead. We will save the AKL trip for another year.
WHY: My DS will be four and he has never been to WDW my DD was 2 when we went in 2002 and I have always felt bad that he hasnt gone yet. Lets just say money was always an issue when I owned my business you could never spend anything not knowing when your next paycheck would be. Also my DDs 9th birthday is during our trip this year she is growing up so fast I just want her to feel the magic one more time before her pre-teen skepticism takes hold. Now I have a regular paying job so that money is definitely is paying for this splurge.
HOW: We live about an hour away from the airport so Ive decided to book us a room at the onsite hotel for Christmas night. I know, I know it doesnt make for the most magical of Christmas nights but I think it will be worth it not to have to get out of bed at 3am to barely get to the airport on time. I know myself and I wont be able to sleep and I will drive my husband nuts that the alarm wont go off. Our flight is at 6 am so staying at the airport we wont have to get out of bed until 4:30am then we can mosey take our time. We can go swimming at the hotel the night before and order room service and a movie the kids will love that. We will get to start our vacation hours after the big surprise. We are doing a similar thing at the end of our trip where we are staying at the Orlando Hyatt the last night again just so we dont have to rush off to the hotel. We are flying Delta and we land at 11:20am. Because of the warnings I have since read about Christmas week Im hiring a Car to bring us to the hotel. This will help get us going quicker and more relaxed than the Disney bus. I was planning on using the bus one way but then I found out its only 10.00 more for the car round trip No Brainer. In addition to booking the CBR all week I signed us up for the Disney deluxe dining plan (I know way to much food but we like nice restaurants and with the increased food costs that week it seemed to make sense for us). We will see how it goes Im going to track to see if we get our moneys worth.
THE GRAND PLAN Was to have no plan. DH hates when I over plan trips then the more I researched Christmas week I became convinced that if I do not plan we will all be miserable. We will not find nice restaurants to eat at we will not feel the magic as much as we should. So I woke up early on 180 ADR Day and booked 96 credits worth of food I believe. All that we were entitled to under the DDD. We are eating at a lot of wonderful places:
We purchased the 9 day park hopper without water park so Im hoping to make good use of that. I have not planned which parks on which days but I hope our ADRs will help guide the schedule a bit. Other activities we have planned are the BBB (Castle and Cool Dude package) at 8 am on DDs 9th birthday and hopefully a Gifts of a lifetime surprise, CRT lunch and park fare dinner (Hopefully with fabulous B-day cake) also on that day. I booked the pirate cruise out of our hotel one day and Im keeping my ear to the ground for the pirate boutique that may or may not be opening in September.
I guess thats it for now Im pretty much waiting on pins and needles until the pixies from gifts of a lifetime contact me. I have no idea how Im going to be able to keep this a secret Im dying to tell them!!!
) might cancel this one if we're too tired.
Right now I'm anxiously awaiting Disney's putting the packages up for sale for 2009 so we can buy our park hoppers and dining plan. Also looking forward to the park hours coming out. We may or may not take advantage of the EMH's.
I want to be at my goal weight for my next disney vacation.
