My moms first ever trip to WDW

rib837

Earning My Ears
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Messages
31
Who says that a woman in her 70's can have fun in WDW. We have recently completed trip with my mother and it was her first time to WDW. I must say that she had a wonderful time. She did a lot that I did not expect her to do. Because there is so much to this trip (between the planning and actual trip) I am going to try to break everything down. Rather that shoot all the details at once I am going to keep adding to this post. Please bear with me because this is my first trip report. Hopefully it will bring you good reading material. First I will start with the cast;

Me: I am 34 and I am married. No kids as of yet. I work as a server for now, but I am also a travel agent in my spare time hoping to make this a full time job. I did not start going on Disney trips until I met my wife. I first went in 97 with her family. The next time I went was in 2007 with her when we got back together after dating off and on for 13 years. i have an older brother and sister who are both married and have children. On our honeymoon at WDW we became DVC members.

Wife: She is 33. When she was growing up her family always took a summer trip to WDW. She is a very organized person and likes to plan everything and not go by the seat of her pants.

Mom: She is in her 70s and she is a widow. She has a routine that she does everyday and every week. She is active in a weight loss group (She met her goal over 3 years ago and she is just trying to keep the extra weight off). She watches what she eats and is always worried that she is going to put on the extra weight. She does not go out at night and is normally in bed by 9 and up by 7. She will usually have a couple drinks to help her sleep.

I will add a side note that my sister and her family were at WDW back in April for Spring break. We had a big hand in helping plan her trip. If it wasn't for us she would have starved or had nothing but Quick Service meals. This info will be helpful in a future post.
 
Initial planning
Back in 2008 my mom took a trip to WDW with her close friends, but it was not exactly to WDW. They stayed at the Liki Tiki Village near WDW. It was part of their time share. Not sure the full details but this was the first time they stayed there. Anyways the trip turned out extremely bad for my mom. There was a lack of planning and since they did not offer Senior Citizen discounts they pretty much booed MM. They pretty much stayed at the hotel most of the time. This was when it first started for me that I would like to someday take my mom to WDW. Fast forward to 2011, there was a conversation between my wife and I and I told her that I would like to take my mom with us on one of our trips. She did not like the idea because she knew of my moms daily routine and this would not fit her routine. It would be a disaster trip for us. I finally decided one day to ask mom if one day she would like to go to WDW with us on one of her trips and her immediate answer was yes. She then asked when we would go etc. I had to stop her there because I told her that we were just tossing around the idea. In Jan 2012 we decided that we would take mom in Dec. Because her birthday is in March we would let her know at that time that we were taking her to WDW in Dec.

The reveal AKA Birthday gift.
We decided that we would put together a basket full of stuff for mom for her birthday. We included Mickey Ears for mom a few brochures, a WDW fanny pack, and a picture book so she could put all the pictures in there. We also decided to create her a brochure type Birthday card. We had so much fun with this because we made it very personal for her telling her when she would be going, where she would stay, what she would be doing etc.We ate at one of her favorite restaurants and gave her gift there. We had her close her eyes and we put the basket in front of her. When she open her eyes she was a little confused at first. Once she read the card/ brochure she got excited. The server even made her birthday desert and it said "Have fun at WDW". Mom never played favorites but I think after this I may have become the favorite son and my wife is the favorite in law.

Coming up the trip planning and preparation.
 















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