Mixed Marriage 2: The Conversion Continues..... now complete

[DisneyDoll10/28]

Can't wait for the next installment! You truly have a way with words. Rock On TM!!!

 

[tinkerbellang]

Yes this is a fantastic trip report. Found you on the first one, followed you to this second installment.

Oh, by the way,yes, there are stupid grandmas out there who will babysit multiples. My sis has quads and I have just 2 singles, but my mom will keep them all in a heartbeat! Yes, I mean all at one time, even when they were little (within the next month they will be 13, 12 (quads), 10)!!! Grandpa just tags along for the ride!!

Of course, grandpa also has said that he would rather have all 5 boys (4 quads + my one)together to the one girl (13 - mine) by herself! Well, that's when she was smaller and very talkative ! Anyhoo our first trip together as a family we took Grandma and Grandpa too - of course, so they could watch the kids!!

Keep it coming Twink!

Angie

 

[Nurse_Mommy4]

Therefore we will stay at the All Star Sports (which should be abbreviated very carefully) and we will love it.

Maybe there should be a warning or something like: "No eating while reading this TR, unexpected laughing may cause choking."

Keep up up the good work this TR is hillarious!

 

[AmberLuvsWDW]

Subbing again!!

 

[ArielDreams]

Can't wait to hear the rest! Subscribing again...

 

[novdisneydreams]

More, More!
(Pretty Please!)

 

[Thinktinknpixiedust]

How did you know I was having just that problem! Thankgoodness we have you following along to give the virtual Heimlick

Maybe there should be a warning or something like: "No eating while reading this TR, unexpected laughing may cause choking."

Keep up up the good work this TR is hillarious!

 

[ahutton]

I was so lucky to discover the first TR at the point you were asking the trivia question about what people were doing around 7:00 p.m. so I laughed at all those posts about people waiting.

Now I'm cursed, and waiting. But I have a great big smile because this is a blast.

Oh - and when you were 6, the Contemporary may not have had a slide. I don't remember there being one there when I was growing up...

ETA: Wait - did I just give away how long I've been visiting Disney World???

 

[snowflake12]

Can't wait for more.

 

[ely3857]

More! More!





Jodie

 

[TwinkieMama]

ahutton- thanks for the info re the CR- I bet it didn't because when I found out (mind you I was in my late 20s) I had a conversation like this
Me: Muh-ther, I can NOT believe you didn't let us swim at the Contemporary when we went when Epcot opened.
My Mom: Who wants to swim when you could be riding a ride?
Me:But the pool is wonderful, I am sure. It has a waterslide!! We could of gone swimming each night before bed.
My Mom: It was October. Why would you want to swim in October when you could be riding a ride? I don't remember any waterslides... but then I don't think we even knew it had a pool.
Me: Mo-om, all deluxe resorts have amazing pools with waterslides...
My Mom: Why are we having regrets about a trip we took 20 years ago?

 

[TwinkieMama]

In the next few weeks (April 2000), I come to appreciate my decision to book with Dreams Unlimited because as I am planning our days I find it is far easier to shoot them an email than to call Disney long distance because I have to do all my trip planning at work. Why?
Because this whole trip is a Big Secret from DS. (Fortunately he can’t read very well so notes in cursive are safe and my now dog eared UG doesn’t have anything on the cover that DS would recognize) Once again I am afraid to get his hopes up in case we can’t go for whatever reason and I am somewhat worried (paranoid says my DH) about the lengths his mom would go to in order to ruin our trip- or at least take the bloom off the rose as they say. Anyway, now I have a Big Secret. DH loves the idea both because he gets off the hook of having to listen to me dwell on all the decisions (one of my “gifts” is that it is really easy for me to see both sides of an issue, this makes me a great person to talk to if you want to hash out a problem but a snap decision maker I am not…and I have just as much fun with big decisions (like public school vs. private school vs home school )as little decisions (like Caesar vs. raspberry vinaigrette vs Catalina)). Meanwhile I am busy on the DIS reading all the threads about people who surprised their kids with a trip to Disney. I mean how fun would it be to throw your kid in the car and see how far you could get before they figured it out? Of course there were lots of posts for letting your kids in on the planning of the big family vacation. Then they have ownership and anticipation. Isn’t waiting for the trip half the fun? I can’t decide so I decide to think about it some more. (You see why I like my job in research).
In spite of the Big Secret, I am concerned about DS’s stamina over 3 consecutive days in the park. DH is also very anti-stroller plus we did it with out one before…. (For one day! I always interject when we have this discussion) So, with the stroller issue unresolved I decide to start making the family go on walks every evening in order to condition our selves for Disney. There was much whining and complaining at first… DH would rather play basketball for exercise and I couldn’t tell DS he was actually training for a Mouse-a-thon but we found a way to make those hours pass and do some trip planning as well. We would play a guessing game we called “I’m Thinking of Something” and other two would take turns trying to guess what the it person was thinking of by asking that person yes-no questions. (Is it a person? Is it a movie? etc etc etc) Under my leadership the game quickly became all Disney all the time. I was getting information on what my guys really enjoyed AND brainwashing them at the same time. Ha ha ha…
Up next: The Method Behind the Madness

 

[pilferk]

We did the "Big Secret/Surprise" thing for our trip this past January.

I HAD to go to Disney for work (well, sorta work...my commitments to the conference were about 2 to 3 hours every morning, max). 1 week conference at the Contemp (a continuing perk, FYI...every other year), work picking up the hotel room, my food, and my air fare. Ok...I'll stop making you all jealous now.

So, anyway, I had to go to Disney. We found out in November-ish and started making the plans. But we did NOT tell the kids. We didn't tell them because a) we didn't want to have to continually hear "is it time to go yet" from my 3 year old daughter and b) because we wanted to see the look on her face when we told her we were going.

Anyway, not to hijack this thread with a TR of my own, but...it worked like gangbusters. I actually have a pic of her face (3 or 4 of them, to be exact) when we told her we were going. Keep in mind, that was at 3 AM, on the morning of departure, as we were getting ready to walk out the door. I now know, with absolute certainty, what someone looks like when they find out they've won the lottery. It was precious, it was certainly a good start to the magic, and it made both my wife and I cry. Yes, cry. And from that second on, we knew this trip was gonna be something special....and it was.

And no, I doubt I'll ever do a TR. So sorry for the tease.

 

[TwinkieMama]

So I have a room, park tickets in hand, exercise regime in place. However the next major set of decisions is which park on which day and where to eat. These are of course interrelated and controlled by variables too numerous to list here but yet I will go on to describe how I made my choices or "the method behind the madness." None of us had been to MGM or AK and only I had been to Epcot. I love Epcot and I wanted my family to love it too. If you are expecting another MK you are going to be disappointed. I was very excited about AK- I had a botany degree I had read excellent things about the landscaping and park design. So I wanted to hit AK first and spend one evening in Epcot, MK and MGM to see the various spectacles (parades, fireworks, etc)… I also wanted mornings in MK and Epcot to take advantage of Extra Magic Hours and the ease of early touring. So for my preliminary plan would be as follows.
June 10th: drive to Florida
11th: Animal Kingdom and then hop to Epcot for the evening
12th: Magic Kingdom and then hop to MGM for the evening
13th: Epcot and then hop to Magic Kingdom for the evening
14th: sleep in, check out Downtown Disney, and leave Orlando
This looked good to me and like I said with Operation Big Secret the guys didn’t get a vote. Now onto food….
I had decided that the budget could handle 3 big sit down dinners (called table service under the new DDP lingo). The PS for Chef Mickey’s on the first night was a no brainer. It was the onlynon-park character dinner where we could each see our favorite character (me Minnie, DS Mickey and DH Goofy). The next decision was also fairly easy because I was doing all the planning- so I just planned what I wanted and I wanted to try the Sci-Fi Diner at MGM. My parents used to take my sister and I to the A&W drive through for a root beer float and then to the drive in for a double feature first a Disney Movie and then some boring grown up movie that didn’t matter because by that time we would be asleep in our sleeping bags in the “way back” of our station wagon. Ah the days of drive-ins and no car seats….)
The other dinner was more problematic. I wanted to eat in Epcot but where could we all be happy? I really wanted them to have a good time. I also wanted plenty of bang for my buck so I was looking for somewhere that could provide food and entertainment. The Biergarten had food and entertainment. I had eaten at there on a previous trip. (The first trip to EPCOT in fact- we had a great meal and my dad who had lived in Germany marveled at the food and band. I knew that DS and DH would like the ambiance but only I would like the food (I had not yet taught my men to like a good bratwurst… don’t worry they do now). I had heard that Morocco had entertainment and food but my guys won’t eat a brat so I wasn’t so sure about couscous… and I wasn’t sure how Disneyfied the entertainment was as well. And then I had a brilliant thought… the Japanese steak house! We had taken DS to one before we were married for my dad’s birthday and he loved it. (It also began a life long love affair with shrimp. Budget note: do not encourage your 3 year old to try foods like shrimp, steak and crab when you are on a very tight budget.)
A couple of emails later and I have my ADRs (of course they were Priority Seatings back then and DH about had a flippie-fit (which I didn’t even know was called a flippie-fit until I read kpk89’s trip report and then I thought… ah ha… of course that is what it is called… since all y’all have already patiently waded through the y’all vs. ya’ll debate I won’t even start with the various flavors of fits and how to tell them apart.. but suffice it to say that being a man, my DH does not throw hissy-fits, but was indeed getting himself a little bit worked up) over the fact that PSs are NOT reservations. I calmed him down and told him we would have no problem eating when and where we wanted and a PS was the way to go. Just trust me and enjoy the ride baby. So now I have PSs for Chef Mickey’s 7:30 pm June 10th, Teppanyaki at 2:50 pm on June 11th and Sci-Fi Drive In at 3:30 pm on June 12th. All I had to do is wait…. And think about the Big Secret
Up Next: Can TwinkieMama keep a Big Secret?

 

[TwinkieMama]

So time did indeed pass. I kept reading the DIS. We kept playing “I’m Thinking of Something” where the something was invariably a Disney ride or attraction. I kept the Big Secret. But it was very very hard… not to slip up in front of the little pitcher with big ears, not to whisper it into his ear in moment of shared joy, not to threaten “You will not being going to Disney World young man if you don’t whatever (eat your veggies, clean your room, quit getting into trouble in school)” in a moment of frustration.

Having this trip to think about and to plan for was a good thing to think about while I tried not to think about the baby we were not expecting. I had slipped into a dreaded cycle of hope, elation, sorrow and depression. As June approached, I would have been glad to cancel the trip if indeed a baby were on the way but then I set my mind and my hopes on having fun together just the three of us. Hopefully this would be a last special trip for our original family.

Once I thought about it that way, I couldn’t contain my glee. DH was conspicuously absent in glee or even half hearted anticipation. When I called him on it he said “I’ll be happy when I get there but why bother now?” Whoa! That isn’t proper Disney spirit? So I hatched plan to have someone join me in proper Disney spirit. I began hinting to DS that Great Things Were in Store. Soon he had it out of me that a Big Surprise was in the works. (I’m easy, I know) Now nothing is more tenacious than a kindergartener with the whiff that there might be a surprise in the near future…. So he began to work on me. And pester me. And cajole me.
This is not what I had planned. I feared I would crack. I wanted to appease my desire to Tell All and my desire to have a Big Surprise… so with about a week to go I gave him a riddle and told him that if he could guess it I would tell him everything.
I told him that Daddy and I had bought him a present that had 2 parts… the first part was so small it could fit in his pocket. The second part was bigger than our house. His eyes got big as began to think about what it might possibly be… and I began to worry that my bright idea wasn’t so bright..

 

[princesslibby]

$496.94 left. Yes I was keeping track.

Gotta love the Flippie-fit. We have those here too.


EDIT:
I read. I posted. Then I got to read again.

Did he figure it out? Did he?

 

[Nurse_Mommy4]

I'm a big mouth all the way, so I guess I have no one but myself to blame everytime my DS3 says, "Can we go today to see Mickey Mouse Clubhouse?" (every since that show aired he wants to meet Mickey; good job disney advertising dept.)

 

[byoung]

Love your report.

 

[Mr.BsMom]

It's hard to keep a secret like that!! I completely understand! Mr. B knows nothing (yet) about our trip coming up in September. We've told Jake, but he's only 11 months, so he's not talking! We do have to be careful of those big ears though!

And we play the "I'm thinking of something" game too! We call it "Where in the World?" and it's always about DisneyWorld. We are truly a Disney family, and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Keep up the great reporting - I'm lovin' it!

 

[Shelby5514]

Yee Haw! ​

TwinkieMama ​

rides again!​

​