My FIRST TRY at a Pre-Trip Report: Our Big 16-40-40 Birthday at BLT!

[pixie921]

After enjoying other Dis’ers trip reports for a long time, I’ve decided to finally try and write one myself. Here goes nothin’!!

Quick history: Our first trip was one I organized with extended family and friends at the All Star Music in 1998. We’ve managed to get to WDW at least once a year every year since then. In the last 11 years, we’ve stayed at every level of resort, and owned, sold and repurchased DVC, so we feel like we’re definitely WDW vets. Our last trip was over this past Christmas at the Contemporary and we had a wonderful time.

We’re calling this year’s trip our “16-40-40 Trip”. Our son turned 16 in January, my dh turned 40 nine days later, and I will turn 40 on Sept. 21. We couldn’t go for the boys’ b-days because we were going for Christmas, so we decided to go for my birthday since it was the farthest off, and then to do something special for each of us to celebrate while we are there (to start, we decided we’d divide the $75 birthday gift card 3 ways so we could each get a little something for our birthdays).

The whole selling and rebuying DVC points led to us owning a small contract at Bay Lake Tower, so that’s where we’ll be staying this trip! We’ve got a one-bedroom lake view villa booked, and I think we might be even more excited about trying out our new vacation home than even going to the parks!

So here are the facts!

When & Where: 9/17/09-9/23/09 at Bay Lake Tower

Why: Celebrating Our Big B-Days!

Who:

Me: Pixie, turning 40 – currently a SAHM. Lifelong Disney fan (first – and only, ‘til 1998 -- trip was at age 8). My favorite character is Eeyore, and has been since I was a little girl. A little OCD when it comes to trip planning.

Dh: Mr. Pixie, already 40, college professor and professional wedding photographer. Also a genius computer geek! Went to Disney for the first time with me and our ds in ’98 and immediately became hooked! His favorite character (and alter ego) is Grumpy. Happy to let me do the planning.

Ds: TJ, 16, high school junior. Currently job-hunting and dreaming of buying his first car. I know every mom thinks her kid is great, and I’m no exception. He has his moody teenager moments, but he really is a lot of fun and great company. And he doesn’t mind hanging out with his parents from time to time!



***Supporting Cast:

My niece and nephew, M&M and The Bun (silly nicknames, but they fit!). They live in Central FL and will be spending a day and night with us this trip, just as they did this past Christmas.



M&M: 12, my niece. Silly, sweet, a good student, and loves Ariel.

The Bun: 8, her brother, my little buddy. Loves his big cousin TJ and lives to annoy his sister. I also predict that he will one day take over the world! He is waaaay too smart for his own good and he is all boy. He’s also a football fanatic (he plays on a team and follows the pro’s religiously)! (Cute story: On our Christmas trip, we were upgraded to club level. The Bun loved strolling into the lounge, grabbing an Uncrustable, plopping down at the kids’ table and turning the kids’ TV to ESPN to catch up on the latest football news.) Thinks he might be "too old" to take a photo with Mickey Mouse.


Next installment: More details ...

 

[pixie921]

PTR continued......

We’re planning to arrive on Thursday the 17th. I didn’t know when TJ was starting school when I booked this trip last November, but I figured he’d be a few weeks into it by the time we went. Wrong! He starts on the 10th, which means he’ll only be in for one week when we leave! Not an ideal situation, but the plane tickets are bought and the trip is paid for, and TJ says he’s willing to do whatever he has to in order to come on the trip (including serving a Saturday detention if he ends up over the maximum allowable absences per semester), so we’re going for it.

We’re flying Northwest to MCO and renting a car because 1) we like the freedom of having our own vehicle and 2) we’ll have to go off-property anyway to bring M&M and The Bun home. Mr. Pixie drives an 11yo Honda Civic at home, so on vacation he likes to upgrade a little. We normally book a Dodge Charger through Dollar, but I got an email from Avis announcing that they have the new Camaros at their MCO location, and that just happens to be one of Mr. Pixie’s (and TJ’s) dream cars. Sooooo…..as his “birthday treat” of the trip, we’ve booked one (we got a good code from Northwest that brought the price down a wee bit). We’re not telling TJ because we want it to be a surprise. He will lose his mind when he finds out he gets to tool around in a Camaro for a week.

(On the topic of the birthday treats, TJ’s will be that he gets to rent Sea Raycers for the first time. Mine will be a birthday cake from the Grand Floridian that we will pick up during lunch at the GF Café and take back to BLT to share with M&M, The Bun and my sil the evening that she brings the kids over.)

We’ve got tickets for the 3 of us for MNSSHP on Friday the 18th. At least, I think we have tickets … I ordered them over the phone with our AP discount, and the CM told me since I was getting the discount, I’d have to pick up the tickets at the will-call window and show our APs. I’m a little nervous about it, since all I have is a confirmation number, but hopefully everything will be okay.

Sil and the kids are planning to meet us at the T-Rex Café for dinner on Saturday the 19th, and then come back to the villa for cake and fireworks. The kids will spend the night and we’ll do Chef Mickey’s for breakfast and then spend the day at the Magic Kingdom. We gave M&M and The Bun starter pin lanyards at Christmas and they loved pin trading (TJ has been into it for several years), so I bought a big lot of traders on eBay and the 3 kids can divvy them up to trade!

It’s nice to know the younger kids had a good time and are looking forward to this year … they were visiting over the summer and informed me they had their lanyards ready to go and that they still had their Contemporary room keys! The Bun wanted to know if we were staying there again, and was disappointed when I told him no …. That is, until I showed him pictures of BLT and told him it was attached to the Contemporary. He was all good with it then, LOL, and is looking forward to trying out the Mickey slide at the BLT.

Besides GF Café, T-Rex and Chef Mickey’s, we have an ADR for Crystal Palace for breakfast on my birthday (Monday the 21st). The rest of our meals will either be counter service or cooked in the villa. We’re trying out We Go Shop and having some groceries delivered for the first time. Mr. Pixie is even hoping to do some outdoor BBQ’ing at BLT!

We also decided to go ahead and get an Owner’s Locker. I’ve already got two suitcases packed with stuff that we’ll be able to leave there and not worry about bringing home again with us. We’ll be able to travel a lot lighter on our next trip!

That’s it for the preliminaries. We’ve got two weeks until we leave and I’ll be spending some time every day getting things ready … confirming ADRs, finalizing our (loosely organized) touring plans, doing laundry and packing.

Thanks for reading so far!