Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party here we come!

[Dreamer & Wisher]

I went online at 6:00 am! Leesie the dog helped get me up she is always up at 6:00 (sometimes she tries to get me up at 5:00am) ready to eat her kibbles, she has diabetes so she gets to be pampered even on Saturday mornings.

Here are our ADR's for our upcoming trip

Friday (arrival Day)
Fantasmic Dinner Package at Brown Derby
This was the only day we could book it since Park Hours for Nov. haven't been released.

Oct. 30 4:30 pm. I am hoping to change this one because we will have to leave our house at 5:00 am in order to get to Disney, Check in, and then head over to the Studios and if this is our only Studio day we will miss out on Toy Story Mania

Oct. 31 Breakfast at Kona Cafe 9:30 am
MNSSHP later that day

Nov. 1 Animal Kingdom Yak & Yeti Lunch 12:30 pm

Nov. 2 Tutto Italia Lunch at 11:30

Nov. 3 Breakfast at Crystal Palace 8:05 am

Nov. 4 No ADR's not sure what we will do this day. It may become my alternate DHS day. Or we may end up back at Epcot.

These aren't necessarily my final plans, I will have to see when I can change my Fantasmic Package to a day when we can spend the whole day at DHS.

 

[joy13]

Sounds like you got good ADR's

I meant to say too, I think I am going to steal your idea for the movie nights - what a fun idea!

My ADR's:

10/26 - Crystal Palace - 8:10am

10/26 - Biergarten - 6:30pm

10/27 - No ADR's

10/28 - Chef Mickey's - 7:30 pm

10/29 - Tusker House - 2:00pm

10/30 - 1900 Park Fare - 5:35pm

10/31 - CRT - 2:20pm

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

Sounds like you got good ADR's

I meant to say too, I think I am going to steal your idea for the movie nights - what a fun idea!

My ADR's:

10/26 - Crystal Palace - 8:10am

10/26 - Biergarten - 6:30pm

10/27 - No ADR's

10/28 - Chef Mickey's - 7:30 pm

10/29 - Tusker House - 2:00pm

10/30 - 1900 Park Fare - 5:35pm

10/31 - CRT - 2:20pm

You are doing a lot of Character Meals! Sounds like fun. I will need to fine tune mine and see if I can get a better night for the Fantasmic Package. I just don't want to spend park admission on such a short evening. I may add one day to our park tickets if I can't get another night for the package.

I guess our only character meal will be Crystal Palace for breakfast. This will be our first time there for breakfast. We loved lunch there but I can't wait to get in the Magic Kingdom before they open.

 

[joy13]

You are doing a lot of Character Meals! Sounds like fun. I will need to fine tune mine and see if I can get a better night for the Fantasmic Package. I just don't want to spend park admission on such a short evening. I may add one day to our park tickets if I can't get another night for the package.

I guess our only character meal will be Crystal Palace for breakfast. This will be our first time there for breakfast. We loved lunch there but I can't wait to get in the Magic Kingdom before they open.

That's what I love about the dining plan -all the character meals My DD just loves them CP breakfast is great - this will be our 3rd time - I'm sure you'll love it too

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

Our Goal for this trip... Have lots of fun at MNSSHP and avoid the crowds.

November Park hours are finally released


http://www.disneytravelagents.com/St...lendar_Nov.pdf

When I made my ADR's I tried to follow a few basic crowd avoidance guidelines.

Mainly, avoid Magic Kingdom on Mondays and Saturdays
Avoid parks with Extra Magic Hours
Avoid Animal Kingdom on Wednesdays.

Without the November schedule I wasn't able to book my ADR's and know which parks had EMH. So I just kind of guessed! I am thinking that Oct. 30 must be a good day for Fantasmic because they still had ADR's available for the Dinner Package. I think I will leave that the same. But that leaves us without any plans or park tickets for our last Day Wed. Nov. 4. I will have to add a day to our tickets. But which park should we go to? On previous trips we have gone to the Magic Kingdom on our last day. But with our late arrival to the Studios we may miss Toy Story Mania. So maybe we should go back to the Studios for the morning? Or have another day at Epcot?

Anyone care to share an idea or opinion on the matter?

 

[joy13]

If you haven't gotten on TSM, I'd go to DHS - people rave about that ride.

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

Today started out well, it was the first day of school for my little fishes. We were planning a Movie Night with Nemo! After all it was his first day of school!

We walked down to the bus stop together and waited together. We were really early. The kids got on the bus without any tears or worries *big sigh of relief*

Then I found out that I lost my job.

The kids came home from school, and we had our Movie Night. We had some shrimp on the barbie! *Thanks for the idea Kathy* and some Nemo Gummy Candy.

Just Keep Swimming. . .Just Keep Swimming

 

[joy13]

I'm so sorry about your job - that is so stressful!

 

[KathyRN137]

Oh, Nancy, I'm so sorry! You did say that you felt "the writing was on the wall," but still, it must've been such a let-down.

At least your "fishies" swam happily off to school... glad for that!!

Kathy

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Subbing and going back to read!

 

[KathyRN137]

Hey Nancy.... did you swim away??

(Just poppin' in to say Hi!)


Kathy

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

I happen to have difficulty sleeping. Frequently, I wake up at 4:30 am, and start worrying about things. Like my job, or the kids going to school or Ethan.

Let's start with the job situation. I started looking around online as soon as my Sister-in-Law told me that I wouldn't be working in the one year old room because there were very few one year olds signed up. (at the time she said that there were three classes of three year olds but she didn't know who was teaching them all) As I looked online I noticed there were very jobs that I was qualified for. Before I had my kids I worked as a paralegal assistant. I really enjoyed the work and so I started looking into that sort of position. Nothing in my area.

A couple days later, my boss called, and left a message that she wanted to see if I was interested in the class for Three Year olds, but it is only a Tues/Thurs. Class. I was definitely interested. . . no diapers to change and older children who could do more detailed arts and crafts! I also offered to fill in when needed on Mondays and Wednesdays. The downside is that it isn't a guaranteed 4 day a week position but this is better than nothing, and I can try to do more sewing the other two days and add things to my website. My classroom is set up and school starts Sept 1 for us! We have 10 kids in our class.

So that takes care of that worry.
Well what has been waking me up at the wee hours of the morning lately? DISNEY! And this isn't the good kind of waking up anticipating the excitement of the trip. I am concerned because of the fact that I became enamored with the idea of going to Disney World on Halloween. So the kids don't have any days off school during our trip, I did center it around a weekend , but not a long weekend. So what's the big deal? Parents pull their kids out of school for vacation all the time. Here in our school district they have implemented a very strict attendance policy. Five days unexcused 10 days excused. After three days they must have a doctors note for it to be excused. Our trip would incur 5 unexcused absences. After 5 unexcused absences a certified letter is sent to the parents notifying them of school policy. After the 6th absence, Dept. of Family and Children Services is notified and parents can be charged with a misdemeanor.

So in order to maintain my sanity and steer clear of any DFCS people, I am thinking I need to modify our trip a little. In other words cut off one day.
I can do that two ways, keep the kids in school until Noon on Friday and then head to Disney immediately, that would get us there at about 9:00 pm give or take an hour. If I do that, than I would have to cancel our Fantasmic package. I called to see if I could book a Fantasmic Package for Nov. 2 but they didn't have anything available at the Hollywood Brown Derby and I am really looking forward to that place.

So now I am contemplating canceling the last day of our reservation which is Nov. 4 and heading home a day early to make sure the kids only miss 4 days of school.

Right now I am in a holding pattern because I think I would like to check them out early on Oct. 30 rather than cancel the last day entirely, because that would allow us a whole day at DHS, instead of the current situation where we would only enjoy an evening at DHS. We really love Toy Story Mania and we won't be able to ride it unless we can get into DHS in the morning. The other thing that could help us enjoy everything we wish to see would be to change our tickets to Park Hoppers. I don't know how much that will cost though. Stay Tuned for any further developments. ..

 

[joy13]

That stinks that the attendance policy is that strict - we are really lucky that our district isn't that strict.

Park hoppers are $50 per person.

Good luck figuring out what to do. I'm glad your work situation has worked out though.

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

After much angst and worry I have figured out a way to prevent the kids from missing 5 days of school unexcused.

There were two ways to avoid this, one was to leave later in the day on Oct. 30, but that would cause us to miss our Fantasmic Dinner package I had scored at the Hollywood Brown Derby. The other way was to cut the trip short by a day.

But perhaps there was a third option! I looked at the calender, and counted, several times to make sure my idea would work. Everything looks okay, but will I be able to change the hotel reservation? I figured that if we could check the kids out of school at Noon on Oct. 29th, and arrive one day early, and I could cut one day off the end of the trip, essentially backing things up a whole day and they would only miss 4 days!!

I got on the phone to Disney I didn't want to lose our Pirate Room, or the free dining. Would the dates be available?







The Disney Agent looked at her computer!


SCORE!!!
We are now arriving on Oct. 29th and checking out on Nov. 4

The kids only miss 4 days of school, which will keep us from receiving that dreaded certified letter, we get a whole day at Hollywood Studios so we can ride our favorite ride in that Park and I can keep my Fantasmic Dinner Package for Oct. 30th! Can you tell I am a happy camper! I am off to change my Ticker.

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

This is great news!!!!! I'm so happy that it all worked out

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

My sister gave me this photograph a couple years ago. I put it away somewhere safe so I wouldn't lose it. Of course, I promptly forgot where I put it. It was in a ziploc bag with some portraits of our family and I was very pleasantly surprised to find it. So I thought I would share it with you.

This is me on my first trip to Walt Disney World. I was 3 1/2 years old. The lady in the photo is my Dear Mother. She is holding my little sister who was born in Nov. 1975. This picture was taken in January of 1976. We stayed in an RV in Fort Wilderness.

I adore old photos from Vacations gone by. So I thought I would also share a larger version of my Avatar picture. This is from our second trip to Walt Disney World in May of 1980. We stayed at Fort Wilderness in a tent. I still remember how hot it was. But I also remembered the Electric Water Pageant, campfire sing alongs with Chip & Dale, The Hoop De Doo Review, The Luau at the Polynesian resort, swimming in Bay Lake and waiting for the ferry to take us to the campground from The Magic Kingdom.

That's me in the blue shorts hugging Mickey. My Brother, also hugging Mickey, is wearing the yellow tank. My Sister (the baby in the other picture) is the one wearing the striped shirt and the little guy in the lower left hand corner is my brother Andy. We had one more little brother join us in 1983.

 

[KathyRN137]

SCORE!!!
We are now arriving on Oct. 29th and checking out on Nov. 4

The kids only miss 4 days of school, which will keep us from receiving that dreaded certified letter, we get a whole day at Hollywood Studios so we can ride our favorite ride in that Park and I can keep my Fantasmic Dinner Package for Oct. 30th!

That's fabulous news!! I'm so happy for you!!

And thanks for sharing those great old pix!


Kathy

 

[Dreamer & Wisher]

We are just 41 days out and we have started our countdown calender

Here is what it looks like to begin with.

I used a poster board and cut out the letters, numbers and Mickey Heads with my Cricut. Then added the Mickey and Minnie Stickers and had the whole thing laminated. The black Mickey heads represent the days we have our Family Movie Nights. The last Mickey Head represents the day we leave and it says "OH BOY" Each night we stick a solid black Mickey Head over one of the ones on the countdown.

Abby adds a Mickey Head

Ethan adds a Mickey Head

We started the countdown on Wednesday night (I wanted to wait until Movie Night and this way both of the kids got to put up a Mickey Head.)

We watched Peter Pan and ate some food that kids love to go with the Never Grow Up theme. We ate chicken nuggets, cheese cubes, and fruit with yogurt dip

for Dessert I bought the kids chocolate Pirate coins and ring pop (treasure)
I had a few Whoppers (cannon balls)

In other news, on September 2nd I joined Weight Watchers. I have lost 8.8 pounds so far and my goal is to lose 26 pounds before our trip.


I am starting to work on our costumes, I purchased 8 yards of white fabric to make our Pirate shirts. We also ordered Ethan a hat and some Pirate Keys. They have come in the mail and I love the hat! It is adorable. The keys are real metal and are heavy, I may have to sew a clip or a tie into Ethan's pants for them to hang on.

Front of the hat

Side of the hat and the keys

 

[KathyRN137]

.....We also ordered Ethan a hat and some Pirate Keys. They have come in the mail and I love the hat! It is adorable. The keys are real metal and are heavy, I may have to sew a clip or a tie into Ethan's pants for them to hang on.


Side of the hat and the keys

Hooray, you're back!!

Congrats on the weight loss! I'm getting back on the wagon, myself, and you are inspiring me to stay strong!!

Love the pirate accessories... those keys look very authentic!

We must practice our pirate-y greetings for our DIS-Meet!!

Ahoy, me hearties!!

Kathy

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

What a fun party!!! I want to have a Neverland bash!!!