I know. I know. It's late June. Two months after our trip. Why post a trip report now? Well, it has taken me this long to organize the notes/journal I took each night while on our trip. I still thought it might be interesting for those of you who might be planning to take young children to WDW. It went great for us and we had such a terrific time. Read on, if you like.
Whos who: (I know that the general custom here seems to be to avoid using real names, but it really makes it too difficult to tell the story. So, I dont mind using names if you dont mind reading them).
Me: (Steve), 37. Been to WDW once or twice in the 1970s with my family when I was about 9 years old or so, and had gone to Epcot for just one day in 1990.
DW (Louise), 37. Also had been to WDW (camping vacation) with her family when she was young. Hadnt been back since the 1970s.
DS (Jeremy), 5. First time at WDW. Has been wanting to go to WDW for a long time, ever since he realized that the Toy Story characters are there. There are Toy Story fans and there are Toy Story fans, but, I mean, this child is obsessed. A few notes about Jeremy that will make sense to you if you read about later in the trip. He is extremely bright and creative, but he is not particularly daring. He is cautious and hesitant to try new things sometimes and he is afraid of many rides, even at our local amusement park. He really does not like loud noises (vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, etc.). Youll see what I mean.
DS (Simon), 3. First time at WDW. Simon is a sweet boy who just adores his older brother. Even more so, he adores his two favorite stuffed animal dogs, Pup-pup and Doggie. He has been inseparable from them since he was old enough to hold them. Lets just say that these two dogs rode every ride at WDW. No kidding.
DD (Ellie), 5 months. Obviously, first time at WDW. In many ways, Ellie was the easiest child she was happy in the stroller or in the baby bjorn, and she just went with the flow. Of course she wont remember anything, so well be back
Trip Planning
This was not a trip we had long planned on taking. Although I had wanted to go to WDW for a very long time, it always seemed like there were reasons not to go. Too expensive. The kids were so young. Schedules are difficult. Etc. Actually, I had been dropping hints about taking the trip for a while, but Louise always rejected the idea. Then, due to a strange compensation error made by my employer, we suddenly had somewhat of a windfall on our hands. Surprisingly, Louise is the one who suggested using some of the money for a trip to Disney World. I jumped at it. This was late February 2004.
We decided to go in late April 2004 for a number of reasons. First, Jeremy will start Kindergarten in the fall, so if we waited until then, well be forever at the mercy of school calendars and therefore end up going to WDW at the most crowded and/or hot times. We had some time available in late April, so that was it. As it turned out, we picked a GREAT week.
In our family, I am the vacation planner. Its not just that I dont mind doing it. I LOVE doing it. It is at least half the fun of any vacation for me. Louise isnt interested in the planning at all, so this works out just great for us. Once we agreed to the trip, I threw myself into planning mode, and quickly found this site. What a terrific find that was!
My productivity at worked suffered as I spent way too much time on this site, reading, reading, reading, posting, reading, posting, reading, reading and learning how to make our trip great. Thank you to everyone you are terrific! I also read allears.net, mouse for less and loads of other sources. Louise would laugh at me nightly as I curled up in bed with my laptop or with a stack of park guides that I had printed from the web. She good-naturedly ridiculed me to friends and family, saying that I had gone off the deep end and could think of nothing else but Disney. She was not far from the truth.
Due to our schedules, this would be a relatively short trip. We would fly down from PA to Orlando on a Saturday and fly back on Wednesday. That meant three full days in the World. We (and by we I mean I) decided to forego Epcot altogether this trip, since the kids are so young. Im sure theres a lot to interest them there, but Id rather spend more time in the Magic Kingdom. I managed to get reasonably good airfare and booked ourselves into an offsite townhouse just 3 miles from WDW (The Emerald Island Resort, booked through Villa Direct). Ordered our Disney tickets and waited for the days to pass.
We had dropped a few obscure hints to the kids but they didnt really suspect anything. When Jeremy would read a Disney book or a Disney Store catalog (his magazine), wed sometimes say things like maybe well actually go to Disney World sometime He would say oh, yeah, that would be great. After about a week of this Louise and I looked at each other and realized that, for our OWN sake, we HAD to tell the kids we couldnt keep in the excitement any more. When we told them, they flipped out. They were so excited that I thought there was no way they could keep that level of excitement up for the next 40 days until our trip. They did.
When the Disney planning video came in the mail, it was practically a holiday in my house. I cant count the number of times we watched that video together, until the boys knew everything about Disney. Boy, were they pumped. We all were.
More to come .
Whos who: (I know that the general custom here seems to be to avoid using real names, but it really makes it too difficult to tell the story. So, I dont mind using names if you dont mind reading them).
Me: (Steve), 37. Been to WDW once or twice in the 1970s with my family when I was about 9 years old or so, and had gone to Epcot for just one day in 1990.
DW (Louise), 37. Also had been to WDW (camping vacation) with her family when she was young. Hadnt been back since the 1970s.
DS (Jeremy), 5. First time at WDW. Has been wanting to go to WDW for a long time, ever since he realized that the Toy Story characters are there. There are Toy Story fans and there are Toy Story fans, but, I mean, this child is obsessed. A few notes about Jeremy that will make sense to you if you read about later in the trip. He is extremely bright and creative, but he is not particularly daring. He is cautious and hesitant to try new things sometimes and he is afraid of many rides, even at our local amusement park. He really does not like loud noises (vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, etc.). Youll see what I mean.
DS (Simon), 3. First time at WDW. Simon is a sweet boy who just adores his older brother. Even more so, he adores his two favorite stuffed animal dogs, Pup-pup and Doggie. He has been inseparable from them since he was old enough to hold them. Lets just say that these two dogs rode every ride at WDW. No kidding.
DD (Ellie), 5 months. Obviously, first time at WDW. In many ways, Ellie was the easiest child she was happy in the stroller or in the baby bjorn, and she just went with the flow. Of course she wont remember anything, so well be back
Trip Planning
This was not a trip we had long planned on taking. Although I had wanted to go to WDW for a very long time, it always seemed like there were reasons not to go. Too expensive. The kids were so young. Schedules are difficult. Etc. Actually, I had been dropping hints about taking the trip for a while, but Louise always rejected the idea. Then, due to a strange compensation error made by my employer, we suddenly had somewhat of a windfall on our hands. Surprisingly, Louise is the one who suggested using some of the money for a trip to Disney World. I jumped at it. This was late February 2004.
We decided to go in late April 2004 for a number of reasons. First, Jeremy will start Kindergarten in the fall, so if we waited until then, well be forever at the mercy of school calendars and therefore end up going to WDW at the most crowded and/or hot times. We had some time available in late April, so that was it. As it turned out, we picked a GREAT week.
In our family, I am the vacation planner. Its not just that I dont mind doing it. I LOVE doing it. It is at least half the fun of any vacation for me. Louise isnt interested in the planning at all, so this works out just great for us. Once we agreed to the trip, I threw myself into planning mode, and quickly found this site. What a terrific find that was!
My productivity at worked suffered as I spent way too much time on this site, reading, reading, reading, posting, reading, posting, reading, reading and learning how to make our trip great. Thank you to everyone you are terrific! I also read allears.net, mouse for less and loads of other sources. Louise would laugh at me nightly as I curled up in bed with my laptop or with a stack of park guides that I had printed from the web. She good-naturedly ridiculed me to friends and family, saying that I had gone off the deep end and could think of nothing else but Disney. She was not far from the truth.
Due to our schedules, this would be a relatively short trip. We would fly down from PA to Orlando on a Saturday and fly back on Wednesday. That meant three full days in the World. We (and by we I mean I) decided to forego Epcot altogether this trip, since the kids are so young. Im sure theres a lot to interest them there, but Id rather spend more time in the Magic Kingdom. I managed to get reasonably good airfare and booked ourselves into an offsite townhouse just 3 miles from WDW (The Emerald Island Resort, booked through Villa Direct). Ordered our Disney tickets and waited for the days to pass.
We had dropped a few obscure hints to the kids but they didnt really suspect anything. When Jeremy would read a Disney book or a Disney Store catalog (his magazine), wed sometimes say things like maybe well actually go to Disney World sometime He would say oh, yeah, that would be great. After about a week of this Louise and I looked at each other and realized that, for our OWN sake, we HAD to tell the kids we couldnt keep in the excitement any more. When we told them, they flipped out. They were so excited that I thought there was no way they could keep that level of excitement up for the next 40 days until our trip. They did.
When the Disney planning video came in the mail, it was practically a holiday in my house. I cant count the number of times we watched that video together, until the boys knew everything about Disney. Boy, were they pumped. We all were.
More to come .
