Our first trip with the kids -- DS (5) and DD(2) - UPDATED -the THRILLING conclusion!

[Geistmeister]

My first pre-trip report, so please be gentle. And yes, this will be our first trip with the kids!

Cast:
Me - (34 at trip time) - this will be my 5th trip to the world. My first two trips were in 1st and 4th grade with my family. Trip 3 was my honeymoon in '99 and trip 4 was in April '07 with DW.
DW - (33 at trip time) - this will be DW's 3rd trip. Once in high school and then the two trips with me.
DS - (5 at trip time) - this will be DS's first visit to WDW! He's a big fan of Peter Pan, Playhouse Disney, and most of the Pixar movies. He's going to be blown away by WDW!!!
DD - (2 and 9 mo. at trip time) - this will be DD's first visit to WDW! DD is not as familiar with all things Disney as DS, but she is a fan of The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Finding Nemo. I expect that over the next six months or so she'll start to learn more and more.
Gram & Paco - my parents (and yes, that's what my kids call my Dad, and no, that's not his first name - long story) - first trip in maybe 5-6 years. 3 or so trips by themselves in the past 10-12 years.

So how did this trip come about? Well, around the holidays in '06 DW and I were chatting about taking a few days of vacation minus the kids. We were talking about destinations and Disney came up as an option. My sister and her husband has just honeymooned there in April '06 -- they both thought that we should go. We hadn't been back since our honeymoon in '99 and decided that a trip back was long overdue!

So in April of '07 we spent four nights in a 1 bedroom villa (free upgrade from studio!) at the Beach Club and commando'ed our way through the parks trying to fit everything in. Needless to say, it was a busy trip, but loads of fun! Towards the end of the trip we started talking about taking our first trip with the kids. Our honeymoon trip was in early December and we really enjoyed the smaller crowds and the Christmas decorations, plus we felt like the kids would be at good ages for a WDW trip by Dec of '08. And so the planning commenced...

We really enjoyed staying at the Beach Club Villas for our trip in April '07 and thought that the proximity to Epcot and DHS would be great for the trip with the kids. We also figured that it might help to have a little help with a 5 and almost 3 year old at Disney, so we invited my parents to join us. They're very excited about the trip as well. So with the six of us, I was hoping to book a 2 bedroom villa at the Beach Club. So I called up reservations in early January only to find that the only 2 bedroom villa that they had was concierge level and would cost around $15,000 for the 7 nights. "Would you like to go ahead and book it?", she said. "I'll have to get back to you.", I replied.

Well, this is when I started learning a bit more about DVC. Apparently you can only book your home DVC resort 11 months in advance (7 months for non-home resort), and I was told that it would be VERY difficult to book a 2 bedroom villa at the Beach Club for early December because that's a popular time of year for DVC members. So I booked two connecting rooms at the Beach Club resort and vowed to try back again at 11 months, 7 months, and in the last month or so before the trip. A couple of weeks later it was 11 months out for the trip so I called up reservations again and asked about availability of a 2 bedroom villa fully expecting the answer to be -- "Sure! That will be $15,000 and OOOOOHHHH, you'll like this -- it's concierge level!" But much to my amazement, the answer was simply, "YES!" We were very excited to get the villa because it's going to work out much better for us sleeping arrangement-wise. Kids in one bedroom, DW and I on the pull out, and my parents in the other bedroom. The two standard rooms were going to make things a bit trickier. Plus we'll get some additional space, a full kitchen, and a washer/dryer!

What I have learned since booking the villa is that there are a number of villas that are not owned by the DVC members and they are available to the general public on a first come, first served basis. And apparently they open them up for reservations around 11 months out.

I think that's a good start for now...there's more to come. I was going to leave you with an image, but I'm such a newbie here that I don't have 10 posts yet, so I can't post pictures! Perhaps later...

 

[Geistmeister]

Okay no comments on this yet, but I will press on regardless...

I should probably give you the exact dates of our trip. Originally we had planned on staying a full seven nights. Arriving on Saturday and departing the following Saturday, but after we booked our flights we decided to cut it back to just six nights (more on this later). We will be arriving on Saturday, Dec. 6th and departing on Friday, Dec 12th.

I've mulled this over in my head and feel like staying six nights will either be not enough time or far too much time. Given that the kids are 2 and 5 we'll certainly be skipping some of the bigger rides which also tend to have some of the longer waits. However, I expect that we'll be doing quite a few of the shows and parades which will tend to eat up time. Plus we plan to take some down time every afternoon for a nap (fingers crossed) or at least to relax back at the hotel. So I'm having a hard time deciding which side of this we're on.

On to flights... As we were planning this the price of oil kept getting higher and higher, so we decided that we should book our flights sooner than later. So we went ahead and booked the flights in late April. This will be DS and DD's first flight. We wanted to make it a direct one and to fly out of the Richmond (VA) airport. Well, when we went last year we had a few options of direct flights to and from Orlando -- now we're down to two. AirTran has one flight and Delta the other. They are nearly identical time-wise. We ended up booking with AirTran because it's a larger plane and we figured that we'd be more comfortable. On the trip down to Orlando, departure time is 7:35 AM -- we actually considered making the trip up to DC just to get a more reasonable departure time. Don't get me wrong, we'd like to get to WDW as early in the day as possible, but we don't relish the thought of waking the kids up at 4:00 AM just to catch our flight! The flight back from Orlando departs at 6:25 PM which again gives us some additional time at WDW, but now we'll be getting back home after the kids' bedtime. This is why we ended up shaving a night off of our trip -- we figured that it would be an extra day for the kids (and us) to recover before getting back into the old routine on Monday.

We ended up paying $283 per ticket (this includes all the fees, etc). And then I found out that AirTran only lets you reserve a particular seat on the flight ahead of time if you pay an extra $6 fee. Per leg of the trip. Per person. So not wanting to have to fight to make sure that my wife and I can sit with our 2 and 5 year old kids, I went ahead and paid the $48 total to reserve the seats. Having done the right thing and booked early AirTran promptly lowered its rates considerably a few weeks later -- would have saved us around $300 total. In fact, you can still get tickets on that flight for cheaper than what I paid (only by maybe $20 a ticket now, though). Despite this fact, I would recommend booking airfare ASAP if you've got a flight planned some time in the future.

I just checked and it looks like Delta cancelled their direct flight from RIC to MCO -- I guess AirTran was the right way to go, then. I'm still a bit concerned about our flight with AirTran possibly being cancelled. Then we'd have to either fly with a single stop or drive up to DC to fly non-stop. I don't relish the thought of either of those options. Hoepfully the fact that the AirTran flight is now the only non-stop to Orlando out of Richmond means that it will fill up and AirTran will have no reason to cancel it. Then again, word is that some of these shorter flights are no longer profitable even when they've got full planes... We'll roll with the punches as they come.

Next up, our daily plans and ADRs!

 

[Bee]

Please continue

 

[Belle2007]

How exciting! DH and I went to Disney the last week in November last year and it was just great!

Christmas in Disney is just amazing! Are you getting tickets for a very merry christmas? My favorite moment was lightening of the castle and the fireworks. Nothing is more magical than that to me!

Your family is going to have so much fun!!!!

Peggy

 

[Geistmeister]

Hey Bee & Belle2007 -- thanks for reading!

Belle2007 -- we're not currently planning on getting tickets for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. It's just too late for the kids at their age. Although DW and I did attend MVMCP on our honeymoon and really enjoyed it!

Your family is going to have so much fun!!!!

Thanks! That's the plan.

I promised some daily plans and ADRs in this post, so here we go. On DW and my trip minus the kids in April '07 we were at the Magic Kingdom at rope drop and got to see the little opening show that they do there. I feel like that would be a wonderful way for the kids to be introduced to the Magic Kingdom. What that means is that we won't be doing the Magic Kingdom on arrival day. Instead, we're going to save it for Sunday (day 2). Since we're staying at the Beach Club we figured that the easiest thing to do on arrival was just meander on over to Epcot's International Gateway and do some Epcot. We've got season passes for Busch Gardens Europe (in Williamsburg, VA) this year so the kids are used to the idea of a theme park, but I figured that maybe Journey into Imagination and The Seas with Nemo and Friends would be some good starter rides for them at WDW. Also, I didn't mention this in my post about the flights, but my parents live in PA (we're in VA) so they will be flying down separately. They won't be arriving until mid-afternoon on Saturday so it will be just the four of us for most of the day on Saturday. We'll probably be catching up with my parents around dinner time.

I haven't really thought too much about parks beyond the first couple of days, but since we're planning on a mid-day break back at the hotel every day we'll probably end up park hopping after our break each day. Our park destinations each day will very likely be influenced by our ADRs...

ADRs
Mon - 12/8 - 8:45 AM - Chef Mickey's (for 4 - no 'rents)
Tue - 12/9 - 5:00 PM - Hoop Dee Doo Revue (for 6)
Wed - 12/10 - 8:00 PM - Flying Fish Cafe (for 2 - DW and I are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary!)
Thu - 12/12 - 5:55 PM - Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano (for 6)

No ADRs for Sun or Fri.

We didn't want to make too many ADRs because we figured that the kids wouldn't want to sit still for very long. So we're going to be doing a good amount of counter service and are planning on eating most breakfasts in the room (to save time and $$$).

My parents will be flying out mid-day on Friday and our flight isn't until 6:25 PM so it will just be the four of us for Friday. I expect to visit the parks and am hoping that I can secure a late checkout so the kids can catch a bit of a nap before we head for the airport.

Oh -- one last thing before I finish up this post. We have not yet told the kids about this trip. We're planning on waiting until DS's birthday which is Nov 11th to tell them. Then they still get a month to get excited about the trip, but they won't get overly excited way ahead of time (unlike me ).

 

[Geistmeister]

So I was curious to see if the AirTran flight that I booked for us had gone up significantly in price yet. I'd like to think that even though the price went down shortly after I booked that it will eventually go WAY up and make my early purchase seem half decent by comparison.

So I checked and right now it's very close to what I paid when I booked the tickets back in late April.....HEY....wait a minute! Those aren't the times for my flight! What's going on here?

Well, it looked like they rescheduled my flight, but I figured that if they rescheduled it that they would have at least sent me an e-mail about it. So I gave them a call and sure enough the AirTran rep said that the flight times have changed. She also let me know that I'd be able to make some changes to my itinerary if I wanted to -- without paying the usual $75 per person fee. I asked what their policy was on informing passengers of these changes and she indicated that an e-mail was sent out on 7/3 letting me know about the change in schedule. Sure enough, I found it in my "Spam" folder.

So anyway, here are the new flight times:
Sat. Dec. 6th -- 12:05 PM - 1:56 PM
Fri. Dec. 12th -- 7:59 PM - 9:51 PM

So in my opinion, the arrival flight is an improvement -- I wasn't looking forward to getting up at 4:00 in the morning to make a 7:35 AM flight anyway. Sure, it may mean that we won't be in the parks until a few hours later that day, but we'll all be better rested and happier campers when we do get there.

As for the return time, well, that's starting to look really bad. I wasn't thrilled with returning home around 8:13 PM and now we're looking at 9:51 PM! That's fine for DW and I, but I'm worried about how DS and DD will cope with that. Since this is the only direct flight between Orlando and Richmond (on ANY airline!), if we want to change things then we'll be looking at making a hop on the flight home. Probably in Atlanta. Looking at the flights, we could certainly come up with a better return time by expanding to non-stop flights, but it will take on the order of 5 hours to get home (flights + layover) versus 2.

DW and I will likely discuss this at great length before making a decision. Given the current climate in the air travel industry, I wonder if this is the last change that will be made to this flight. I also wonder if AirTran will declare bankruptcy some time between now and December. There's apparently no time limit on making the changes to this flight without the fees, so maybe we'll sit on this for a while. We'll see...

 

[Geistmeister]

Now that I have enough posts under my belt, I can post some pictures of the cast:

Me (with greeter Art from the Beach Club)

DW

DS

DD

And a couple of shots of our resort

 

[njdisneyfreak]

Great start to your PTR. My DH and I will be going in December too, but later in the month. We haven't even booked our flights yet. We keep checking them, and we'll see what happens. The price fluctuations are a bit scary.

I'm glad you guys were able to get the resort you wanted. It will make your trip so much easier, and how great to get your parents to come and help. What great memories, too! Out of your ressies, I've only done Chef Mickey's and it's one of our favorites. We're going to try Mama Melrose on this upcoming trip.

You have a lovely looking family. I look forward to reading more.

 

[Geistmeister]

Thanks for the comments njdisneyfreak -- have you booked your airfare yet?

Speaking of which, I have a change in flights to report. As I mentioned in a previous post, AirTran changed our flight times. The flight down was an improvement, but the return flight was much too late for us. The exact times were:
Sat. Dec. 6th -- 12:05 PM - 1:56 PM
Fri. Dec. 12th -- 7:59 PM - 9:51 PM

So I was poking around on Orbitz looking at flights (to see if they're charging $1000 per flight yet -- I'm still trying to justify my early purchase). But I discovered that there was a new non-stop flight from Richmond to Orlando. A JetBlue flight! My DW and I flew JetBlue out to Los Angeles a couple of years back and really liked them (especially the satellite TV in the seat backs). The JetBlue flights are as follows:

Sat. Dec. 6th -- 11:55 AM - 1:50 PM
Fri. Dec. 12th -- 9:30 AM - 11:20 AM

So as you can see -- very little change in the flight down. The flight back is a bit earlier than we would like, but it's a big improvement over the 8:00 PM departure. Since AirTran changed our flight times, one option that we had was to have the full purchase price refunded. So we went ahead and did that and booked the JetBlue flight!

AND...it was $224 cheaper.

We discussed the possibility of adding a day back onto our trip, but DW said that she thinks we'll have plenty of time even without park time on Friday.

Anyway, we're very happy with the new JetBlue direct flights from Richmond to Orlando!

Pretrip report continued here!

 

[Geistmeister]

So we just got back on Friday (12/12) from our first trip to the world with the kids. Having DS (5) and DD (2) certainly changed the way that we toured. We also brought my parents (from here on referred to as Gram & Paco) along with us so the adults could outnumber the kiddos.

Not to blow the surprise, but I would say that we had moments of both agony and ecstasy on this trip. Any guesses as to which category the following falls into?

We had some amazing moments like the one above and some moments that made us (ever so briefly) reconsider the trip.

I'm planning on including tons of pics with this report and maybe even some video snippets. I'm hoping to get this thing off the ground soon -- maybe even tonight. So who's with me????

 

[Huntava]

That phot is priceless! I will be looking for your report. Love the reports with kids, mine are twins, 5, will be 6 in Feb.

 

[dydo2424]

I could have written a trip report with the same title when we took our kids in 2006 at about those same ages. Can't wait to hear about yours. What a beautiful photo to kick it off!

 

[Geistmeister]

Hey Huntava and dydo2424 -- thanks for checking in and for the kind words about the photo! Now on with the trip report!

Day 1

A quick recap of the cast:
Me - (34) - this will be my 5th trip to the world. My first two trips were in 1st and 4th grade with my family. Trip 3 was my honeymoon in '99 and trip 4 was in April '07 with DW.
DW - (33) - this will be DW's 4th trip. Once in high school and then the two trips with me.
DS - (5) - this will be DS's first visit to WDW! He's a big fan of Peter Pan, Playhouse Disney, and most of the Pixar movies. He's going to be blown away by WDW!!!
DD - (2 and 9 mo.) - this will be DD's first visit to WDW! DD is not as familiar with all things Disney as DS, but she is a fan of The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Finding Nemo.
Gram & Paco - my parents (and yes, that's what my kids call my Dad, and no, that's not his first name - long story) - first trip in maybe 5-6 years. 3 or so trips by themselves in the past 10-12 years.

We managed to get most of the packing done the night before the trip. DW generally does the packing for the kids, so much of this was on her. We tend to get a bit stressed out when we pack to go somewhere which often results in a tense moment or two. We did pretty well with it this time around, though. I think we're getting better. We woke up at pretty much our usual time, got showered, got the kids ready, ate breakfast, and finished packing for the trip. Our flight was scheduled for 11:55 AM and we had to drop the dog off at the kennel before heading to the airport so we plan on leaving the house at 9:20. We were out the door around 9:25, so a good job there. No problems dropping off the dog – she actually seemed happy to be there. On to the Richmond airport. We decided to park in the daily parking garage even though it would be considerably more expensive than economy. We just didn't think it would be a great idea to try to take all of our luggage and DS and DD on a shuttle from a remote lot. No problems schlepping everything in from the daily parking garage, though. We made our way to the JetBlue counter and checked in and checked our bags. We had weighed the large suitcase at home and were well under the 50 pound limit (maybe 42-43 lbs), so no extra charges there. No first checked bag fee for JetBlue either.

If you read the pre-trip report, you know that this was DS and DD's first flight. We explained a bit about security and that they would have to take off their shoes and go through a metal detector. They did great with it and we didn't have any problems making our way through. We made our way down to our gate and set up camp. DW had bought the kids some fancy pens with multiple colors and some notebooks for them to draw on. She broke those out and the kids spent some time drawing. I made my way over to the nearby Caribou Coffee and bought a decaf for DW, a couple of bottled waters, and a piece of marble chocolate chip pound cake to share. We brought along a lot of the Kool-Aid singles that you just mix in a bottle of water. We also brought some sippy cups. We mixed up a batch for the kids and shared the pound cake which was quite yummy! Our plane showed up a bit later than expected, but we started loading probably around 11:40. We loaded early when they announced for parties with small children. The plane had two seats on each side of the aisle and we had a row to ourselves. I sat with DS and DW sat with DD. The kids sat at the windows. For those of you unfamiliar with JetBlue, they have TVs on every seat back which get 30-some channels of DirectTV. Nice. They no longer provide headphones, so we brought along a pair for each of us (you can actually buy a pair from them for $1). DS watched cartoons the whole way. We brought along a PB&J sandwich for everyone which we ate along with the JetBlue snacks (Munchies and animal crackers). DD was not as enthralled with the TV as DS and DW had some trouble keeping her occupied. She spent some time in DW's lap and some time climbing around the seats/DW.

Before we knew it we were landing in Orlando. I pointed out a bunch of palm trees to DS out the plane window – I had told him that they would be all over the place in FL. He was suitably impressed. I also showed him the tram that we would be riding on to the terminal. He thought that was cool as well. We get off the plane and make a quick bathroom stop on our way to Magical Express. We follow directions way down through baggage claim and then hop the elevator to the 1st floor. When we get off of the elevator we are greeted by a massive line to check in at Magical Express. We realize that this is the Pop Warner crowd arriving. The CM is instructing everyone to leave one person in their party in line and send the rest off to the side to wait. I get in line and DW takes DS and DD over to wait. No chairs are available, so they camp out on the floor. While I'm in line I try to get DW's attention because my parents are supposed to call her cell phone when they land and I expect that she still has it off from the flight. I finally get her attention and DD decides to come running over to visit. DW turns on her phone and I pick up DD and she stays with me. Another 10 minutes or so of waiting and DD decides that she very much misses DW and wants to see her right away. She exhibits this desire by crying and loudly proclaiming that she wants her mommy. DW notices this and picks up all of our bags and brings DS with her over to reclaim DD. Relieved of my burden I call my parents and find that they've landed – I let them know that if they can make it down fast enough I can check them in to Magical Express at the same time that I check us in. I call them again as I get close to the counter and they're waiting for a plane to clear their gate so they can disembark. I realize that they're not going to make it, tell them that we'll meet them at the hotel, and wish them luck with the Magical Express line. A short time later I'm all checked in with Magical Express and meeting back up with DW, DS, and DD. Unfortunately, DS and DD were less than well behaved for DW, but we're ready to get on our way to the Beach Club. The total wait for check in at Magical Express was 28 minutes which given the amount of people that were there really wasn't all that bad. I give Disney credit for having all 15 stations manned and getting everyone through as efficiently as possible. I did see a couple of disgruntled guests who declared the line “unacceptable”. For free transportation to the resort, I found the line easily tolerable.

We headed for the red carpet and only waited about a minute before we were boarding our bus. The bus was full and we were told that we would be the 3rd stop. Carribean Beach Resort was first, then the Boardwalk, and finally the Beach Club. Almost everyone on the bus got off at the first stop. That left one other family and one single. The other family got off at the Boardwalk. I called my parents on the bus ride and found out that they decided to skip the Magical Express line and take a cab. They were told it was about a 45 minute line and decided that they'd rather pay for the cab. I wondered if this would somehow have an affect on their checked bags since they never officially checked in to Magical Express. I thought that they might end up beating us there. When we finally arrived at the Beach Club we had to wait for another bus to clear the front entrance area before we pulled up. While waiting I called my parents again and sure enough they were already there. We waited about five minutes for the other bus to clear and then pulled up and got out. Gram was waiting for us as we exited the bus. DS gave her a big hug right away. The bus driver got our bags out from under the bus and we headed inside. My mom told me that my dad had started the check in process but they were having problems with the credit card that I used to make the reservation. I went straight over to the check in desk while Gram, DW, DS, and DD checked out the holiday decorations in the lobby (the highlight of which was a huge gingerbread carousel -- sorry, no pics!).

I caught up with my dad at the check in counter and remembered that I had recently canceled a credit card. I gave the CM a new one and she charged the room balance to it. The CM gave us two long stemmed pink roses for our wives which I thought was a nice touch. She told us that our Hoop Dee Doo Revue tickets could be printed by the concierge and when I asked she indicated that the concierge could also put our park hopper passes onto our room keys for us. Our room was ready (it was 3:55 PM) and it was room number 478. We collected the rest of our crew and headed for the room. We got to the villas and went up to the fourth floor. The signs that tell you which way to go for each room listed a range of rooms with 478 as the last one. Hmmm....are we the last room in the hallway? A LONG hike later and we found that indeed we were the very last room in the hall. Our room was a 2 bedroom villa and the first thing that surprised me about it was that there was only one entrance to it. I expected to see one door for a studio and one for a 1 bedroom and then have the connecting door open on the inside, but I guess 478 is always rented as a 2 bedroom villa. The villa was nice, but a little shabby in a few places (I understand that they're currently being renovated). We had a view of the quiet pool, the parking lot, and a tiny piece of the Tower of Terror over the roof of the rest of the hotel.

I called down to bell services to ask them to bring up our Garden Grocer order – we got a call from them earlier in the day letting us know that the groceries had been delivered. We ordered some soda, milk, OJ, english muffins, cereal, peanut butter, jelly, bread and some snacks. The plan was to eat breakfast in the room every morning to save time and money. DW suggested that while we waited I should run down to the concierge and have our park passes put on our room keys and have them print our Hoop Dee Doo Revue tickets. So I made my way back to the lobby. When I got there I found none other than Mickey and Minnie in their holiday finery taking pictures with guests in front of a Christmas tree. I thought that was nice but figured that they wouldn't be there long enough for DS and DD to see, so I didn't bother calling back to the room to let them know they were there. The concierge was able to help me on both counts but indicated that they had a property wide system outage earlier and that we may have some trouble with our tickets. He gave me a print out with some codes that they could use to get my tickets back if for some reason they didn't transfer to the room keys. Hmm......

It took a while at the concierge and I figured that everyone would be chomping at the bit to leave the room and hit the parks. I tried to call the room using a phone near the lobby, but it didn't work so I hoofed it all the way back to room 478. As I was arriving they were departing and figured that they'd meet me on the way. It was 5:00 and our plan was to wander over to Epcot and grab some counter service dinner and maybe hop on a few starter rides. We didn't have any problems getting in with the transferred tickets (phew!) and we stopped to purchase our stroller rentals for the week. We'd been talking up the “cart” that the big girls get to ride in at WDW to DD. It must have worked because when we got it she hopped right in. Having read the advice in the Unofficial Guide regarding putting something easily identifiable on your rental stroller I asked DW while we were packing if she had a handkerchief or scarf that we could use for that purpose. She pulled out an ugly old teal paisley tie of mine that she had previously used for yoga. Perfect! I tied the tie on the handle of the stroller and we headed for the Sunshine Season Food Fair in The Land. The tie worked perfectly for the entire length of the trip – it was easy to spot our stroller from a distance which made it easy to find when the CMs had done their usual rearranging of strollers.

We arrived at the land pavilion, parked the stroller and made our way inside and downstairs to the Sunshine Seasons Food Fair. DW and I got food from the Asian station – I got the platter selecting the beef, spicy chicken, lo mein, and broccoli and DW got the veggie platter. DS got the sweet and sour chicken and we got the mac n' cheese for DD. Gram and Paco got sandwiches.

Paco turns DS into a hidden mickey:

Dinner was good and as we were finishing up we decided to make Living with the Land our first ride. We headed over and got on with no wait. Everyone seemed to enjoy the ride and we even saw Mickey when we went past the one section of restaurant that you can see from the ride. This was my first time on the ride at nighttime. The greenhouse sections of the ride look a little different in the dim lighting at night. DD got a little concerned as we were making our way through the ride and mentioned to mommy that we were getting lost. No worries, DD, this boat will take us right back where we started! We left the land and headed for Journey into Imagination with Figment. We thought that this would be another good starter ride for the kids. There are a few dark/loud/scary moments in this ride that we didn't remember, but DD did fine with all of them and enjoyed the ride. DS had fun too, but we weren't really worried about him getting scared on this ride. In the post ride area we got a group photo taken by the HUGE camera there. The CM there was dressed as a lab technician and we had some nice interaction with her. We got a free 4x6 print out of the picture – it was actually a pretty good shot. It was early, but we had a successful foray into the parks and with the stroller and it had been a long day so we headed back to the hotel and got the kids to bed close to their regular 8:00 bedtime.

When we got back to the room our luggage was there, but my parents' luggage was not. Remember they didn't check in to Magical Express? They called down to bell services and told them that they didn't have their bags yet and bell services said that they'd bring them right up. We didn't have much confidence in that, but sure enough they soon arrived. After the kids were down and settled, DW and I left my parents in charge and we headed down to check out the fitness center. As much walking as one does at WDW I don't know why, but DW still likes to run on the treadmill every morning when we're there. She wanted to scope out the location of the fitness center as it had been a full year and a half since we'd last been there. We found it and then stopped in the take out side of Beaches and Cream which is nearby – I got a single scoop mint chocolate chip waffle cone and DW got a mint chocolate chip shake. We sat by the pool and enjoyed our ice cream. Then we headed back to the room and discussed our plans for the next day.

The plan for Day 2 was to hit the Magic Kingdom for opening and if everyone was doing alright, hit Hollywood Studios for the 7:00 Fantasmic!

 

[MJAJmom]

Sounds like a great start. We flew JetBlue for the first time for our October trip. It was great!!! I loved the TV screens for each seat, my boys watched TV the whole time. And snacks... must have lots and lots of snacks for the airplane!!! Can't wait to hear about MK. Our first day was at HS and we went to see Fantasmic that night for the first time. It was a wonderful show! The first trip for my 2 boys was in late april, it was very special to share WDW with them.

 

[maxie]

Enjoying the TR! Traveling with young kids can be challenging! Ours are about the same age and we will be at the BC this February.

 

[Cory's Gal]

Excited to read your report! Your kids are so cute! We will be taking our next trip in April of 2010 when our son is 5 and our daughter is 2! It will be fun to read about your adventures! Can't wait for more!

 

[Geistmeister]

Hey -- thanks for check in guys! It's cool that so many of you have had a recent trip with kids about the same age as mine or are planning one with kids about the same age.

Now on to....

Day 2

We all woke up around the usual time that we wake up which is around 6:45 AM except for DW who got up early to go run on the treadmill. I'm generally happy to sleep later, but the kids woke up so that was it for me as well. Everyone got ready and we ate our breakfast of cereal and english muffins in the room. We were off to the buses by 8:00 AM in the hopes of making the 9:00 AM opening of the Magic Kingdom. It was about a 10 minute wait for the bus and then we were on our way.

Hey DS, remember that we're going to the Magic Kingdom this morning!

That's better!

We got to the MK around 8:45 and planted ourselves in the front towards the middle of the train station to wait for the opening.

The holiday decorations were looking great!

Everyone was excited to get into the park!

The opening was great and the kids were excited to see so many of the characters (they hadn't seen any yet). We were close enough that we caught some of the paper streamers that they shoot off at the very end of the opening. We made our way inside and first went to pick up a stroller for DD. Since I had prepaid for the week I was pretty sure of where to go, but was instructed by a CM to get in the line to pay for the rental. I got in the line and then hopped out of it and went to the stroller pick up area. Sure enough, that's all I needed to do and we quickly had DD in the stroller and were on our way to Dumbo. We were following the Unofficial Guide's touring plan here – at least the first step of it. Dumbo, or “the elephant ride” as DD calls it was the ride that she was most excited about riding. And we were excited about riding it with a nice short wait. We made our way to Dumbo and jumped in what was already a pretty good sized line. As we were getting in line DS started complaining and saying that he didn't want to ride Dumbo. Whoa. First full day, first ride of the day, and we've already got dissension in the ranks! Of all things he wanted to go over and play at the Pooh playground (Pooh's Playful Spot – I never should have told him about it!) We eventually convince him to get in line with us and as we wait in line he gets more interested in riding. Our wait was probably about 20 minutes – DD rode with Gram and DS rode with Paco which left DW and I in our own elephant.

Dumbo Video

After the ride I asked DS what he wanted to ride next – we gave him some nearby options: Pooh, Peter Pan, It's a Small World. He said that he wanted Pooh. Of course, he meant the playground. Well we didn't get to the park at opening so we could avoid the lines at Pooh's Playful Spot. So we talked him into going on the Pooh ride before heading over to the playground for a little while. The wait for the Pooh ride was minimal – maybe 5 minutes. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. After the ride I suggested that I go pick up Fast Passes (FPs) for Peter Pan while the rest of the group spent a little time at the Pooh playground. I made my way over to Peter Pan and picked up FPs for 10:35 and it was about 9:45 at the time. I met up with everyone back at the playground. I will admit that they really were enjoying themselves there.

DD Slide

We were about to head over to Small World when DW pointed out that the teacups were close by. We made our way over there and the non-spinners sat this one out so I rode it with DS and DD. There was no wait so we got on the very next ride. This past summer we had season passes for Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and they also have a teacup ride. What I found out is that it's a lot easier to get the Magic Kingdom cups spinning fast than it was with the Busch Garden cups. We were flying! DD & DS were both giggling and enjoying the ride. After stumbling out our of our cup we headed towards the carousel. DD had expressed some interest in “riding the horsies”, so off we went. DS was not very interested in riding said horsies so I asked him if he wanted to ride Snow White – he was up for that. That worked out because we weren't planning on putting DD on Snow White because of the warnings about how scary it can be for very young kids. Gram & Paco decided to sit this one out and waited for us by the carousel. It was a 5 minute or less wait for Snow White and we hopped on. There was a mom, dad, and young daughter in the back of our car and apparently she was not doing well with the “scary adventures” because I kept hearing the parents telling her that it was okay and none of it was real. I felt bad for her (and them), but was happy with our decision to leave DD off of this ride. DS deemed the ride “cool”. We met up with Gram & Paco by the carousel and found that DD and DW had just gotten on the ride that was about to start. When DD and DW got off of the carousel we headed over to It's A Small World. This is one of Gram's favorites and while DW and I aren't big fans of it we will generally feel the need to ride it once on our trips.

The kids seemed to enjoy the ride and Gram had DS singing along with her (and the rest of the world) for much of the ride. DD seemed to enjoy it as well. When we got off the ride our FP time for Peter Pan was up so we headed across the way and hopped on. DS rode with Paco & Gram and DD rode with DW and I. I would have liked to have seen DS's reaction to this ride firsthand as this past year he's been getting into Peter Pan quite a bit. For Halloween he dressed up as Captain Hook and DD went as Tinkerbell. Apparently he enjoyed the ride.

That's it for now -- next up Tomorrowland and our ill-advised attempt at a mid-day "break".

 

[noahdove]

I'm in Great start

 

[Geistmeister]

Okay -- I haven't fallen off of the face of the earth or anything. Just doing the holiday thing. Hopefully I'll have an update some time this week.

 

[vs1023]

Love it so far! I'm following along since we're taking our first trip with our 3 year old DD in about 2 weeks. I like seeing what other families with younger kids do during their stays.