Our Family's First Trip - 7/10-7/18 - Completed!

[shawnzgirl]

Your summaries have been a hoot to read...I love all of your details. I'm also looking forward to your write-up of the Family Magic Tour. Thanks for sharing the details of your trip.

 

[Becky2005]

The end & reflections – July 18

We head home today! We have one major catastrophe, I can’t find the room safe key! We start tearing the room apart because our car keys are in the safe! We aren’t going anywhere without finding the key! So, that puts a wrench in our plans. The kids are just in my way for looking, so I have DH take them down to the playground while I do a methodical search of the room – and slowly move everything toward the door as I’m searching.

Finally, after the kids leave and I search the entire one side (I had kept it in one spot of my pack but the area was unzipped, so I thought baby got a hold of it. One of the chips for the digital camera that I kept in the same area was on the floor on that side too!), I have a brain blast – I wonder if it’s in the pocket of the shorts I wore yesterday? Go open the suitcase and dig those out! Ding, ding, ding we have a winner! And WHEW, another heart attack averted.

I start taking things out to the car because I was going to be cheap and not use bell services…that lasted, oh about 2 trips worth. LOL! I was taking it to the car in the far parking lot. I call bell services to do the rest (or most of the rest anyway! They got there quickly). Except we have to try and cram it into our car because the stroller takes up 90% of the space, so I just tell him I’ll pack it.

Do that, realize they have 30 minute parking spaces, so go over there and load the rest up and then go check-out and get the family. I think we got headed out around 10:30?

All was well on the way home, except getting lost an hour away from home going through the cornfields because they closed the road we were on and police made us turn so we were going on these back country roads. Unfortunately, it was dark and the road we were on didn’t have a name on it, so couldn’t find it on the map to know where we were going. Never thought we would need a city map, 1 hour away from home! ROFL!! We finally figured our way out & made it home in one piece.

REFLECTIONS!

My favorite parts were the tours.

It’s really hard going with an age span & someone who doesn’t really want to be there.

Try to not rush as much and don’t sweat being a bit late (try to not be late on purpose but we still got to do everything even being late) and it does take longer to get everywhere (I know I read that before but obviously didn’t grasp it! LOL!)

I also might try to wing the ADR’s a little more. It was getting tiring seeing the same characters at most of the meals. My favorite character meals were dinner at Chef Mickey’s and Liberty Tree Tavern. All the breakfasts seemed rushed but that might be because we were late to all of them, I think even if we weren’t just the set-up would have been rushed too. I thought the castle was neat but don’t know if I would specifically try for it again.

I really liked the Rainforest Café & Fulton’s, those 2 stuck out in my mind as better than average for the food, although we never had a bad meal anywhere. I know I had a great steak somewhere and can’t remember exactly where (it was at one of the 2), I think it was Fulton’s. I know I was surprised at the quality of the Rainforest Café because I wasn’t expecting much being that it is a chain restaurant.

REMEMBER the camera! LOL! At least that was the good thing with DH being somewhat disinterested, he got some great shots that I was so involved in the moment I would have never thought to get!

My kids loved the characters and I wished we had taken more time to just do characters but other ones than the ones at the meals.

Originally I was thinking about going back when DS-1 is 9 to get the last year of the kid’s price in but after this trip, I think older, even though will cost more, will be better. My DD seemed to be the perfect age. So, as of right now we are talking about going back in 10 years since Luke won’t remember any of this. (DH wants to go to Yellowstone first). What I would really like to do is take each kid individually and then it can focus on what they want to do since I have such varied personalities, it made it difficult. I just haven’t figured out how to make that work.

It was an enjoyable vacation, although not a very restful one but I didn’t expect it to be either.

Any questions?

 

[roberrl187]

Great trip. I really enjoyed the details. Thanks for sharing.

 

[OhMari]

Glad you finished your reports in one post.

You cracked me up when you said you got lost 1 hour from home. We live in Wisconsin and we blew a tire on our trailer on I65 about 20 minutes from Chicago. We pull off and end up in an abandoned weigh station. You could see the city lights, yet we felt we were out in the middle of no where surrounded by huge corn fields.

I have 4 kids and we went when my youngest was 10 and I said that was the perfect age.

 

[PixieDust32]

Glad you had fun i enjoyed your reports!

And i agree with you about the kids ages, we didn't go until our dd was 5, so she could remember and enjoy the trip.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

hi there! we are from the chicago-land area too and were thinking about driving, about how long did it take you?

How was the car trip with a 1 yr old? our DD will be 9months.

would you reccomend driving?

Thanks a bunch i loved your posts!!

 

[Del]

Thanks for writing because i enjoyed reading! Thanks for writing in all one report. Del

 

[Becky2005]

hi there! we are from the chicago-land area too and were thinking about driving, about how long did it take you?

How was the car trip with a 1 yr old? our DD will be 9months.

would you reccomend driving?

Thanks a bunch i loved your posts!!

Driving was fine, I thought for sure the 1 year old would be cranky having to go back in his car seat after some of the later rest stops (my older kids did that since they are too young to understand, that eventually we will be stopping and you won't be stuck in the car seat forever!). He never did.

Our kids travelled wonderfully and we didn't even have a TV/DVD combo! Just the old fashioned stuff find-a-word, car bingo, etc... we did bring the Gameboy but they didn't play it that often. I did make up maps for the older kids to go in a 3-ring binder with a folder for each state with info./activities. They loved that.

I'm trying to think the total drive time and I think it was over 20 hours. Hard to say because we did some longer stops to let the kids stretch out, etc... Plus, we kept getting later starts than I wanted to. Driving was fine, I would do it again, it was long but really it's a pretty easy straight shot type of drive.

 

[LYNSUE]

It's wonderful that you were never shut out of a PS time even with being late. Kudos to Disney Dining.

A visit to Yellowstone may be more relaxing for your family. The park and the geysers are there all the time. No need to keep a specific schedule.

 

[kathymc]

wow - sounds like a great - although a little hectic trip
thanks for posting!

 

[alicenwonder99]

Thanks for posting your trip report, Becky. I really enjoyed reading it.

I'm taking my 2 younger children to WDW in December. It will just be me, dd7, and ds5. I'm thinking of just having a couple of PS's. With the young children it makes it hard to get to places on time...lol. We're thinking of Marrakeesh (Morrocco) for dinner one night, and 50's Prime Time for lunch another day. Everything else will just be counter service. I'm deciding if we should do a character meal. We did one once in DL a couple of years ago, and $120 later I didn't think it was worth the price.

Mary

 

[tweetylori]

Enjoyed your report...you sure wore me out!

 

[Cinerama]

Loved the whole report, and the tour report. Thanks for posting!!

 

[alabamagirl]

What does ROFL mean?

I enjoyed reading your posts. Your DH sounds like mine, not too thrilled with the whole Disney thing.

 

[Becky2005]

What does ROFL mean?

I enjoyed reading your posts. Your DH sounds like mine, not too thrilled with the whole Disney thing.

ROFL = Rolling On the Floor Laughing.

 

[rifamtrav]

Great report, thanks. I can certainly relate to all of the bathroom trips, we have 3 dd's 12,10,10 and it brought back so many memories of multiple trips to the rest rooms. I'm hoping our Sep trip will be a bit easier (we haven't been to WDW for 4 years).
What did you think of the premium plan? It seems like its a great opportunity to do so much, but I would be tempted to cram too many things in. We have the dining plan on this next trip, but I've been fantasizing about the premium plan, wonder about doing it for say 4 days staying at a value or moderate then a few days either off site, or splurge on a deluxe, doing room only. Do you know if you could extend your park ticket or maybe not use some of the day's tickets or the pluses within 14 days?

So, would you do the premium package again, if you had to do it all over again?

 

[Becky2005]

What did you think of the premium plan? It seems like its a great opportunity to do so much, but I would be tempted to cram too many things in. We have the dining plan on this next trip, but I've been fantasizing about the premium plan, wonder about doing it for say 4 days staying at a value or moderate then a few days either off site, or splurge on a deluxe, doing room only. Do you know if you could extend your park ticket or maybe not use some of the day's tickets or the pluses within 14 days?

So, would you do the premium package again, if you had to do it all over again?

We did cram in a lot of stuff in there. I'm not sure I would go again on the Premium (although I've read about the Platinum for 2006 and going "hmmmm" - LOL!!!!!). It sure was nice going into any restaraunt and getting whatever we want, basically. DH & I were discussing this again and he said he would go again on the Premium plan, so that alone is an endorsement because he's kind of on the frugal side. Since we didn't get appetizers at every meal even though we were entitled to them, etc... we ended up paying about $200 - 300 more than if we did it out of pocket but if we did it out of pocket, we wouldn't have done most of the stuff we did because it was included, if that makes any sense.

I think your tickets are still good for 14 days no matter which package you go on and you could add onto it. We didn't try, so I have no idea.

 

[deebs]

loved reading this!
Sounds like a wonderful vacation!

 

[hunnypotmama]

Sounds like your family had a wonderful trip! Your La Nouba adventure: I would've strangled my DH if he'd gone back to the hotel, leaving me standing in the rain! You're a much bigger person than I!

Thanks for posting.

 

[Nanajo1]

Love your report! It was a great read that brought back memories of life with four young ones. I remember one time I decided we needed to get a family portrait done. The kids were 18 mo,3y,5yand 7y. As we are running around the house looking for the 3y shoes my DH asks is it always going to be like this!! BTW we didn't find the shoes, he wore flip flops and the pictures are cut off at the knees!