Mo-om! Take Small Children by the Hand! An October TR

[FairyGodmotherJen]

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I did much more than lurk here on the boards - life has gotten in the way of my Disney obsession, unfortunately! But I'm bound and determined to share our recent October 2012 trip. I can't promise daily updates, but I'm going to keep plugging away. This was our fifth trip as a family, and we still managed to encounter a lot of firsts.

Let me introduce the cast of characters for this particular trip. First of all, there’s me.

(yes, this is the best pic I could find of me...not as flattering when it's that big on the screen! )

I’m Jen, a married mom of three and teacher in central Indiana who loves to read, sing, scrapbook, and (of course) plan/take Disney trips. I took four trips to Disney before we had kids – twice as a child with my parents and brother, once as a married adult with my husband, parents, and brother, and once during my senior year spring break (yes, I was a geek).

Next is my DH, Bryan.

(he's the one in the foreground)

He’s GoofyJediMaster on the boards, and he says he intends to start a trip report of his own at some point. He got a really cool camera just before we took this trip, and I think he wants to show off some of the pictures he took (and I can’t say that I blame him!). In fact, I might just have to borrow a few for my report… But I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t getting around to posting. He’s just too busy! He’s a Star Wars fanatic (which he’s passed on to our kids), very active in our church, and an all-around big kid. He took a trip to Disney as a child with his parents, as well as the above-mentioned adult trip in 2000 with my parents and brother. He wasn’t really hooked, however, until we took our first trip with the kids in 2005. Since then, he’s been as excited about Disney as I am!

Our next character is our oldest, Haley.

She’s 11 years old and in sixth grade. She is in that pre-teen stage where sometimes she’s my little girl, and sometimes…well, not. That actually became extremely noticeable this trip. I saw much more of my little girl than I’m used to, and I loved it! She loves to sing, read, draw/write in her journals, and watch Disney Channel on TV as much as I will let her.


Next up: our middle child, Jack.

Jack is all goofy little boy, with a heart so big it still takes me by surprise sometimes. He never hesitates to do something sweet for someone else. His current passions include Star Wars, Tron: Uprising, the Avengers, Harry Potter, and Young Justice. He became our little thrill rider this trip, which was so much fun and more than a little unexpected. See, back on our 2008 trip, he would take one look at something like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and say, “Not today, Mommy. I’ll ride that when I’m your age.” He swore he didn’t remember saying that on this trip.

And introducing: Will the Performer.

My mother-in-law nicknamed Jack “The Executive Producer of Entertainment” because he’s always trying to make you smile or laugh. Then we had Will, and we realized that there’s a difference between entertaining and performing. Jack entertains. Will performs. He’s four years old, and loves to sing, dance, and play any type of video game you’ll let him. He’s always moving, and usually singing or dancing or copying some kind of move from Wii Fit or Wii Sports Resort. He loves the Muppets, the Backyardigans, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates. He’s moody, he’s stubborn, and he’s the life of the party if he’s in a good mood. He’s actually the inspiration for the title of this trip report. On our second day, when we got off the bus at the resort, I was looking around for something I thought I’d left on the seat and hadn’t taken his hand to make sure he got off the bus ok. He looked right at me, put his hands on his hips, and said, “Mo-om, take small children by the hand!” He apparently had been listening to the announcements on the bus better than we had! We all cracked up, which of course meant that he repeated it at least once a day during the entire trip.


Our final cast member: Un

Yes, I said Un. This is Bryan’s Uncle Tim. Both Bryan and his brother grew very close to him growing up, and our kids have as well. Haley gave him the nickname “Un” when she was only about 18 months old or so, and it’s stuck. I very rarely call him Uncle Tim anymore – in fact, Bryan and I both usually call him either “Un” or “U.T.” Un came with us on our 16-person trip back in 2010, and (unknown to us at the time) was bitten by the Disney bug. He actually had planned this trip to be a solo trip originally, but for several reasons we had to move our planned December trip up and he was gracious enough to let us...well, take over his trip, really. But I really don’t think he minded. In fact, he looked at me several days into this trip and said something like, “This could be addictive.” I thought he was talking about something else, but he said, “No – coming to Disney!” He just told me he's planning another trip next fall. Now I'm jealous!


Now – on to some details. This vacation was from Oct. 14th – Oct. 19th, 2012. We had several “firsts” this trip right off the bat. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside, which was a first for us. I’d been eyeing this resort due to the fact that you could sleep five people in Alligator Bayou. We originally asked our awesome AAA travel agent, Ginny, to book us a room in that section. However, I received a PIN code for 30% off our room, and when Ginny went to book the room with the code the only thing that was left was the Princess rooms in the mansions area. Even with the premium for the Princess rooms, it still saved us several hundred dollars. The only problem was the number of people in the room, but Un didn’t even hesitate when we asked if we could “house” a child in with him. So Jack ended up listed on Un’s room, and we had the rest of us in ours. Ginny requested adjoining rooms for us, and we really hoped we’d get them.

As for the other details, we had park hopper passes (which is the norm for us) and the Quick-service dining plan. We have done the dining plan every time we’ve gone as a family, but this was the first time to do the QS plan instead of the basic plan. We still scheduled two ADRs for sit-down meals that we would pay for out-of-pocket: dinner at Chef Mickey’s, which is a tradition for us, and breakfast at the Crystal Palace, which is fast becoming a tradition. I remember dining at Chef Mickey’s with my parents back in the 80’s, and it was one of the very few ADRs we made before leaving on our first trip back in 2005. We’ve gone back every year since! I read here on the DIS about getting into the Magic Kingdom before it opened to eat breakfast at Crystal Palace, and we decided that we wanted to try it back in 2008. We loved it, even though it was a grey, rainy day (but most of that trip was grey and rainy since we ended up sandwiched between two tropical storms), and returned in 2010. The kids actually requested it this time, so maybe this is a new tradition we’ve started.

That’s it for the introductions! Up next: "Three Things You Don't Want to Hear When You're Leaving For Disney."

Thanks for reading along!