My First Time Back in 22 Years + 3 Newbies!

[katmattsmom]

Dates 3/26/07 - 4/3/07
Resort Pop Century

Cast

Myself - Mom of 2 crazy kids who I've been dying to take to WDW. We went every year from the time I was 7 until 17 and this was my first time back since then.

DH - Not crazy about going to WDW, but I turned him on this trip, it was his first time there, but won't be his last.

DD - Total princess nut, she's 4 and when she saw that castle, WOW, I can't even describe what I felt seeing her face.

DS - Total Cars nut, he's 2 and when he saw Mater & McQueen, it was the same thing she experienced seeing the castle.

Grandma - My mom, hadn't planned on going with us, but couldn't resist after hearing me talk about our plans day after day after day after day... (you get the idea)

Grandpa - My dad, a Disney nut himself, he couldn't resist seeing his Grandkids faces when they first experienced WDW.

Auntie - My sister, yes she's a pain in the butt sometimes, but we love her.

Uncle - Rarely attends family functions, workaholic, he finally came on this one and ended up almost dying in the hospital from e coli which turned to HUS (more on this later), he's home and has tons of Dr appts. but he is thankfully, alive.

Nephew M - 17 year old hotshot (aren't they all?), my kids look up to him and love him, he's a good kid.

Neice C - 14 year old tomboy, the kids love her too and we all had a ton of fun at the parks with her.

Nephew J - 9 month old cutie who was teething during vacation, thankfully they stayed at Fort Wilderness in the cabins and not at Pop with us.

T - 17 year old girlfriend of Nephew M, nice girl, hung out a lot with us at the parks, she's been around for awhile now so is used to our strange family.

When the kids got up on the 26th and it was finally the day that we were leaving for Disney, they were very excited! They don't really get the concept of time/days yet so they had been waiting quite awhile to hear, TODAY IS THE DAY WE GO TO DISNEY!

Then came their first airplane ride, they loved it, no ear problems, no delays, comfy seats (I love flying Midwest!)

... next up is our first full day (we had a late flight so just ate and went to bed the 1st night, exciting no, smart yes!)

 

[IATink]

Can't wait to hear all about your trip! Your kids are adorable!

 

[BeautyNBeast]

Cannot wait to read more of your TR. Hopefully you turned your DH into a disneyaholic.

 

[katmattsmom]

Your kids are adorable!

Thank you!

Hopefully you turned your DH into a disneyaholic.

Oh I did, notice there's nothing "Disney" about his clothing or anything in the pictures of him, not a Disney fan bone in his body at the beginning of the trip... just wait til later!

 

[Sweedee]

oh what cutie pies!!! My kiddos are that far apart in age! Of course, now they are old enough to push each other's buttons! Darn that teaching them to talk!!! Look forward to hearing the rest of the trip!

 

[katmattsmom]

So we find out that Epcot is the EMH morning park and decide to go anyway. My parents don't fly in until tonight and we're officially banned from the MK by my dad because he just is not going to miss the grandkids entering MK for the first time.

So we head of to Epcot. Now I've been drilling this stuff in my kids heads for months, the names of the parks, what we'll see and do, the characters, they remember so much more then we give them credit for. So we got off of the bus and are walking to the entrance of Epcot and they see the 'ball', DS yells EPCOT ... Katrina do you want to go to Epcot with me? I'm dying laughing by this time.

Honestly, I really didn't enjoy Epcot too much (I'm a MK girl at heart and I've never seen the other 3 parks before this trip, they weren't there the last time I was). I mean I liked Soarin and Test Track. DH loved test track, he's a GM Mechanic, he took DD on it and she liked it also. I took DS on Nemo twice while they went to see something else...

and then got them their first set of Mouse EARS!

I don't even have many pictures of our time at Epcot. I do wish we had seen Illuminations, that's on my todo list for next time and I'll give Epcot another shot because we never did make it over to World Showcase either.

We also had M, C, J, and T with us here because Uncle was already in the hospital from a rare steak he had eaten 2 days before leaving for vacation. This was the day that the Drs. told my sister that he may not make it. They ended up putting him on dialysis and cleaning his blood 4 times, and his platelets went down way to low so they gave him transfusions numerous times. In fact, today he's in Chicago and they need to do more transfusions because his platelets are down again. Please COOK your meat before you eat it, trust me, all of this isn't worth a rare steak.

That night we had dinner at 1900 Park Fair, dinner with Cinderella!

To start off, The Grand Floridian is absolutely gorgeous, but not my type of place and I felt out of place, if you understand what I mean. Anyway, we went to dinner, waited a short while to be seated. I particularly didn't care for the food, the kids liked the pizza, DH likes anything, he's a human garbage disposal.
The character interaction was great except for Cinderella, who went through the tables VERY quickly. That didn't matter to my princess, she got to see the real Cinderella!
DS hugged and jumped and hugged some more when it came to Perla & Suzy, he just loved them and lost it every time they came around!

DD was thrilled with Prince Charming. He came up to her and said "Oh Snow White, I wasn't expecting you for dinner tonight".

... and finally Cinderella, DD wouldn't even look away from her for the picture, nothing existed in that timeframe for her except Cinderella. When she left, DD runs to me, throws her arms around me yelling... Mom, Mom you were right, it was the REAL Cinderella, it was really her, she's so beautiful! Talk about a Momma crying, I had tears running down my face!

Then we headed off to Fort Wilderness to visit with Auntie on the beach and watch the Electric Parade. On the way over on the Ferry, this guy kept asking Katrina for her autograph and asking her if she wanted an apple since she was still in her Snow White dress, he made the ride short and was very comical. My pics of the parade didn't come out too well but the kids had fun on the beach.

All things considered, we had a decent first day.

Tomorrow is the Magic Kingdom and their first glimpse of Cinderella's Castle!

 

[katmattsmom]

oh what cutie pies!!! My kiddos are that far apart in age! Of course, now they are old enough to push each other's buttons! Darn that teaching them to talk!!! Look forward to hearing the rest of the trip!

LOL - these guys push each others buttons already... all day long!
... that double stroller was a mistake, I should have gotten 2 singles, because they fought in there 75% of the time!

 

[CHEK]

Loving your trip report

 

[MamaLema]

loving it so far

 

[BeautyNBeast]

Your DD not looking away from Cinderella is so darling. I love it. I cannot wait to hear how your DH turned into a Disneyaholic.

 

[disnut1149]

Hi
You're kids are so adorable!!! Thanks for sharing.

 

[crzyred]

first off, hello WI neighbor!!

i love your daughters reaction to seeing Cinderella. that's something you will never forget. also if you family is anything like mine, she'll never live it down either. I first saw the "real" Minnie Mouse when i was 8 and now when we go back my siblings ask if i want to see the 'real' minnie mouse. I'm 22...it's getting old.

sounds like you have a magical trip! can't wait to read more!!

 

[IATink]

The picture with Cinderella is priceless! You can see how she is in awe to be standing by Cinderella!

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[katmattsmom]

Thanks for all the comments and for reading!

Day 2, my parents landed safely, they're in the adjoining room to ours, the kids freaked out when grandma and grandpa knocked on that door and when I opened it, they were there! (they love their nana and pa).

So we all head off to MK at park opening... later we start going in the afternoon and staying til closing which worked much better for us. By day 3 of early mornings/late nights, we were all getting crabby.

I can't even describe in words the feelings I had walking into MK. A million childhood memories came rushing back.

First things first, I was showing my babies the castle!

Grandma and grandpa pushed the stroller because I wanted to walk in front of them to get the pictures.

They're looking for it, they know it's there...

They see it!

Their faces and excitement were amazing... pictures can't come close to capturing it but it is forever burned in my memory.

We asked what they'd like to do first, of course, the carousel!

Then Dumbo..

We saw Tigger...

We rode everything that we possibly could before exhaustion started setting in. The lines were long for just about everything starting around 11am. We used child swaps (love 'em!) and fastpasses when we could.

We ended up going back to the resort for a nap and some swimming.
Then ended up back at the Magic Kingdom because we had ADR's at the Plaza. The Plaza was horrible, the food was ok but the service was VERY slow and the server complained about everyone using the dining plan that night. We were seated about 40 minutes after our ADR time. During that time I volunteered our group to sit at 2 separate tables to be seated faster.. they said, no it's ok, there's a group just finishing desert and we'll have your table, so I said ok that's fine. 20 minutes later, they took us in to seat us, put us at separate tables and then 2 minutes later gave a smaller party the table where they said they were going to seat us . So then we wait at least 15 minutes for the server to ever approach our table at all... finally she does, takes the drink order, an inexcusable amount of time passes, we talk about getting up and walking out, we don't, finally she brings our drinks, then takes the food order. Basic sandwiches, no big deal, right, wrong! Taking forever again! So at the end of the meal we order dessert, takes forever again, my father asked for the manager and I asked for the desserts to go. Even the conceirge at our hotel said he never sends people to the Plaza unless it's a last resort type thing after we told them of the experience.

If there is one thing that you have to see, it's Mickey's Philharmagic, it was great and hilarious watching the kids reach for the 3-D objects like they could grab them in front of them!

 

[snowbell]

Subscribing to your report. Great so far!!!

 

[thptrek]

Fun reading your report. Keep it going.

 

[IATink]

We ate at The Plaza once, and we too weren't impressed. We probably will not go back.

I'm glad your kids liked Mickey's Philharmagic, my youngest daughter was totally freaked out by it! She did not like seeing the things come at her. This year we are hoping she will enjoy it more.

Can't wait to read more!

 

[Alyssa88]

I have the same mouse ears!! I am adorable but I must admit your DD does look cuter.


Loving the report, keep it coming!