Our great big beautiful journey!!! With Pictures!! UPDATED 2/25/07 with VIDEO!!

[kristinanderic]

I'm kinda new to the Dis boards, but I seem to be catching on quite fast. I started lurking back in August when we started making tentitive plans to visit Disney World. You see, my mom heard me say how I can't wait to take my son to disney world. She also heard my brother and his family talk about going down their for their 10th wedding anniversary. It got brought up in casual conversation that we should all go down at the same time. We all laughed about it, and it wasn't brought up again.

In September we all sat down and discussed about Disney again, we talked about when everyone would be available to get off work, what would be best for my neice who was in college, and the other kids' schedules for their schools. It was decided that we'd try to all go during January 4, 5, & 6th, 2007.

The wheels in my head started spinning...we had plans, we were actually gonna go. I started going to disney's website and numerous other websites to figure out prices and such. I'm a stay at home mom, so of course money is tight with only one income and we didn't actually plan on going to disney until 2008 so I was very concious when booking everything. I ended up booking Pop Century for January 3rd through January 9th. I requested a room in the 70's building, ground floor, non-smoking, and a crib. We stayed at Pop Century in 2004 and was happy with our room location in the 70's building, it was close to the parking lot, bus stop, and food court...what more could you ask for?

My mother decided that she was going to buy everyine passes for disney world. She bought 12 adult and 5 children Magic Your Way Base tickets for 3 days. (my son is only 18 months, so he didn't need one) She wanted everyone to have the opportunity to go for at least 3 days, if we wanted to upgrade on our own we could.

In October I got airfare for my husband and I. My husband has a odd schedule so we didn't have the opportunity to book with Alligiant like my siblings. We ended up getting tickets with American and paid a lil more, but not too much.

So...here's the cast:

Me: 24yo stay at home mom. I've been to disney numerous times in the past, my parents took us about every other year.

DH: 29 He never got to go on "real" vacations as a child. This will be his second trip to Disney. He didn't really care for Disney during his first trip in 2004, but he seems to tolerate it for me.

DS: 18 months old at the time of the trip. The joy of our life!

My parents (66 and 64) they are leaving December 26 and will be driving down and taking their camper with them. They will be staying in Fort Wilderness January 2-7th.

My oldest sister (41) and her husband (46). They have 3 daughters 18, 16, and 8. They will also be taking a friend of their daughters with them who is also 16. They are flying down on Alligiant December 31st and returning home on January 7th. They will be renting a house.

My other sister (40) and her husband (39). They have two sons 8 and 9. They are flying down on Alligiant on January 2 and returning on January 7th. They will be staying at Pop Century.

My brother (35) and his wife (33). They have two sons 8 and 4. They are flying down on Southwest on January 2 and returning on January 9th. They will be staying at Carribean Beach.

Stay tuned for more to come. Up next the unplanned events in getting to our main destination....Disney!

 

[kristinanderic]

Well, Christmas finally came and passed. Everyone was happy for the Holidays to be over so that we could focus on our TRIP.

My parents took off the day after Christmas. They were driving down so they were going to take their time. They had the camper packed up and ready to go. Well, apparently they ran into some freezing temperatures after they filled their water tank up and it broke a pipe. So...when they reached their friend's house in Claremont they spent a day fixing the camper so that it held water once again. Eventually they got this fixed....but it was not a good way to start vacation.

December 31st came...it was time for my oldest sister and her family to depart. Their plane was to leave at 6:30pm. Well it was delayed....til 8:30. 8:30pm comes around and it was pushed back again. They finally took off about 9:30pm. They spent new years eve and the begining of 2007 in the airplane....but they did say they got to see the fireworks from the air. The plane landed in Sanford at 12:30 am. They had reserved a rental car, but apparently the guy got tired of waiting on them so he transfered their reservation to enterprise. Eventually they finally got everything straightened out, but by the time they got to their house and got in bed it was 4 am.

Next up, my brother and his family. They left at 7:50 am on January 2nd with Southwest. BUT one of the passengers on their plane had a heart attack and they had an emergency landing in Jacksonville, FL. After they got the man off the plane the pilot had to fill out some paperwork and they departed again for Orlando.

My other sister and her family departed and got to POP with no problems.

We don't leave til January 3rd, so everyone else is in Florida as we sit at home and make sure we have everything packed and ready to go. We are all in bed by 10pm and have the alarm clock set for 3:30 am.

 

[kristinanderic]

Our plane leaves at 6:50 am, and we live about 45 minutes from the airport. My FIL was to be at our house at 4:00 am to take us to the airport. He arrived on time, we changed the baby's clothes and got everything loaded in his car. Time to go! We left the house about 4:30am.

We arrived at the airport at about 5:20 am. He dropped us off at the curb and waved good bye and we headed through the doors. We got to the American counter and waited...and waited....and waited....to be checked in. Finally we were all ready and we could head down to security and on to our gate. It was already about 6:00. We made it through security with no problems. They didn't even look at my DH's insulin or the gel pack of ice that was with it. I expected that to get examined...but nothing was said. I was really surprised by this.

We got to the gate, FINALLY...gate 24 out of 30. It seemed like a super long walk...especially with a toddler. We didn't get breakfast so we grabbed a snack, and went to the restroom and then boarded the plane. We are on our way! Austin fell asleep in my arms as soon as the plane took off. The plane landed right on time at MCO. Yippee!!

My husband got a skycap to help us with our luggage, he was super nice. He took us to Dollar to pick up our rental car, then walked with us outside and loaded up our car. We got into the car and started it up.....the check engine light was on. AHHH! We took it back and got another car so we had unload EVERYTHING and reload it in the new rental. Pain in the BUTT.

So....now we are on the way!!! We stopped at a super target before checking into POP. We got some diet Mt Dew and bottle water. We also ate lunch at the Atlanta Bread Company.

Finally we saw this sign:


We went straight to POP and checked in.


It was only about 1pm and our room wasn't ready yet. My parents happened to be eating lunch at POP so we visited with them a bit. My sister and her family were swimming in the pool. My husband went to the gift shop with DS and returned with these:


Next, we get on the bus and go to MGM.

 

[kristinanderic]

We met up with my brother and his family, they were near Al's Toy Barn getting pictures with Buzz and Woody. MGM happened to be super busy when we arrived and DS fell asleep.


So, we wondered around in the shops and took some pictures.









We decided that we were getting hungry and we still needed to head to Fort Wilderness to pick up diapers that my parents had brought down with them. We called my mom and dad and asked them if they wanted to meet at the Trails End Buffet. They agreed so we had dinner here.

After dinner they took us on a quick tour of Fort Wilderness, alot of the campsites were still decorated for Christmas, that was really neat. It started raining so they dropped us off at the Bus Station and they went back to their camper.

Tommorow was the big day with 19 of us at Magic Kingdom so we headed to bed when we got back to POP to get some sleep.

 

[Alyssa88]

Great Job!! Looking forward to reading more.

Love the pics, your son is such a cutie!!

 

[AnninIowa]

Subscribing!

 

[kristinanderic]

I'm sorry about the picture sizes....I'm new to posting pictures and it seems I keep getting littles ones, then super big ones. I'll figure it out eventually.

Anyways....

We had our wakeup call for 7:30 am. I was so excited, I was already awake and out of the shower by the time the phone rang. I woke up DH and had him shower before we woke up DS.

MK opened at 8am that day, I knew we wouldn't get there at park opening time, but I had intentions of getting there before 9am. I grabbed some breakfast bars, gave DS his sippy with milk in it and we headed for the bus stop. The line was outrageous! It was backed up all the way to the doors of the POP's gift shop....so we decided to go in and eat breakfast and let the line calm down a bit. We had french toast and pancakes...YUM! After we were done we attempted the bus again. The line was down and we got on the second bus that arrived.

After arriving at MK DH gets in line for the entrance to the park and I try to hurry through "security". I get out and catch up with him. After we make it through the turnstiles a CM greets us and asks if we will be spending all day in MK. I said that we were and she asked us to fill out a diary about our day. She told us that when we were leaving the park to drop it off at town hall and we would receive a $20 gift card and a pin lanyard. Easy enough, we got the diary and pen and along we went. Right down the middle of Main Street USA!



I wasn't sure where we were supposed to catch up with my family, so I made a phone call to them. I was trying to hide the phone in this picture.



I called my sister who stayed offsite and they were on the tram. My parents were on the ferry....and my brother was still in bed Why would you still be in bed??????

Anyways, its only about 9:15 and one of our main goals was to let DS ride Buzz, so we headed there to get FPs. The return time was 11:40am. It appears the MK is very busy today!

So we ride what our family calls "the people mover" I know that isn't the correct term, but that is what we refer to it as. DS seems to enjoy this ride.



We headed over to the Tommorowland Speedway. My son LOVES the movie Cars...and really he loves CARS! Especially ones his size so we decided to take him on the little race cars.



The line was about 15-20 minutes long...not too terrible. As we were standing in line DS decides its time to throw a mini-fit and pulls my hair. We are going through a stage right now where when he gets mad at me, he pulls my hair. I'm sure this was interesting to everyone in line. My DH, DS and I all ride in one of those little Indy Cars...I'm not sure what we were thinking at the time. I just know I didn't want to be alone with the little hair-puller and neither did he. So we both sucked in our gut and put the pedal to the metal. Top speed....5 mph!! This ride has no excitement factor to an adult, but DS sure did love it. He even screamed when we pulled his little fingers off the steering wheel as we were trying to get out of the car. Again, I'm sure this was interesting to everyone watching.

Up next, Mickey's Toon Town Fair, finding the family, and Buzz Lightyear!

 

[kristinanderic]

Great Job!! Looking forward to reading more.

Love the pics, your son is such a cutie!!

YEAH I"m so happy that someone is actually reading this!!

 

[kristinanderic]

Subscribing!

Yeah! Another Subscriber!!

 

[kristinanderic]

Well after the Indy Cars I made a quick stop at the bathroom to put my hair back up in a pony tail after my DS pulled it out during his mini fit while in line.

We happened to run into my parents who were shopping at Star Traders. My dad had triple by-pass surgery in 2003 and my mom had double knee replacements that same year so they "take it easy". They rented a ECV for them to "share". They spend most of their time in the parks visiting shops and going on the "easy" rides (small world, carosel of progress, ect.) We chatted with them a bit and head over to Toon Town.

Now, you will hear me throughout today mention that MK was busy, see we are used to going to Disney the first week of February where most of the rides we can walk on and we don't have to wait for hardly anything. I am spoiled I guess. Back in 2004 when my husband and I ventured to the world we happened to be there over Super Bowl weekend, we got soooo much accomplished because the parks were practically empty, we long for no crowds and "personal space".

Anyways, we headed over to Toon Town:


We saw stich near the entrance, but the line was pretty long so we by-passed him. We headed over to County Fair and stood in line to see Minnie, Pluto and Goofy. This would be our FIRST character experience for my DS. We also received a photo-pass card here.

He met Minnie first and we all got our pictures taken with her. DS didn't seem to make a big deal out of her, but wasn't scared either. Next was Pluto! DS found his new favorite charactor! Pluto got down on the floor to his eye level and it made DS's day!


DS said "puppy" when he saw Goofy and Pluto. We exited the charactor area and checked out Minnie's House.


And Mickey's house:


Our Buzz FPs were getting close to time so we started to head over that way. As we turned the corner aroudn Star Traders we found the rest of my family, all 19 of us were together! Yippee!

We talked about what everyone's plans where. We had planned on spending today together...but as you know things don't always go as planned. Everyone got off to a different start we were all going our different ways. We took some pictures here, although they didn't turn out too well. We headed over to use our FPs for Buzz and handed off our park tickets to my 16 yo neice to get us FPs for Space Mountain. Would we get them back? Would they get mixed up with everyone elses? We told them we'd find them and get them back when we got done with Buzz.

So, off to BUZZ!!!

We let DS steer our ride vehicle. We decided it was quite jerky when he was under control so my DH eventually took over this job. I didn't score very high since I was busy holding DS. I did manage to take a picture though...


Buzz was over so it was time to catch back up with my 16 yo neice to get our FPs and park passes back. Do we find her? Stay tuned!!

 

[PaulDavid's mom]

Oh I like the report so far! I'm intersted in seeing how everything turned out. We will be going in May 2008 and there will be 11 of us!

 

[kristinanderic]

Oh I like the report so far! I'm intersted in seeing how everything turned out. We will be going in May 2008 and there will be 11 of us!

How fun! Hopefully there will be more planning on your part. We regret not doing as much together as we could have.

 

[pooksma]

I am having flashbacks of our first trip. DS was almost 3 and to see WDW through his eyes was fantastic. Hope you guys have started a new family tradition here!

 

[kristinanderic]

Luckily we found my neice right after we got off Buzz. Everyone was still gathered in the same location as earlier. We retrieved our FPs for Space Mountain and got our tickets back. Our return time for Space Mountain wasn't until 6:10pm.

Everyone goes their seperate ways with intentions of meeting near the castle at 4:00. There is a 4:30 show and we were all gonna watch that together.

Its getting close to noon and DH is getting hungry. As I mentioned earlier, he is a diabetic and gets a little cranky if we don't eat around our normal times. We decided to go to Cosmic Rays, but quickly changed our mind when we saw nearly 1,000 people waiting in line.....well not that many...but it was alot. We decided to head over to Aventure Land and get out of the Chaos that was taking over Tommorowland. Well, we ended up in Frontierland at Pecos Bills. We found a table there and I parked the stroller and left DH there to "cool off" while I rounded us up some food. DS fell asleep in our trek across lands.


I returned with a Double Bacon Cheeseburger for DH and a Chicken Wrap for myself. I didn't order anything for DS at the time because he was sleeping and I didn't want to wake him up. His naps are very precious.

After lunch we saw we were able to get another FP so we decided to get one for BTMR. Our return time 6:30pm. I sent a text to my neices and told them to get FPs for BTMR so we could ride that together also. Their return time 7:10pm.

DS woke up about this time and we fed him. We also got a frozen lemonade. YUM!


We walked over to the Tiki Room, we thought DS would enjoy the birds and the music. He loved it. He was dancing and groovin to the beat! We then waiting in line for the Magic Carpet Ride! We went to POTC and the line was super long as well as the Jungle Cruise. If you ever had to stand in line holding a squirming 18 month old you would understand why we didn't attempt to wait. We couldn't get another fast past for another hour or so.

We found a quiet little bench and sat down. DH left and got us a Dole Whip, we had to get one on the trip so we figured we better get one while we were in the area.


We sat on the bench for awhile and just relaxed. The baby was content and so were we. Time seemed to be flying by...so we made our way to Main Street to look in a few shops an to get DS some mini-corndogs at Caseys to eat since he was getting hungry again. It was almost 4 so we started looking around for our group.

I mentioned earlier that my neice had brought a friend with her, so...we made her take pictures. She isn't the best photographer...and looking back at this I now wish we all went to a photo pass photographer and had them take our pics.


Right before the show, it was announce on the loudspeaker that due to the large crowd that MK would be staying open til 11pm that night and there will be two spectro magic parades. The first at 8 and the second at 10pm.....I told you it was super busy!!



After the show was over our FP time for Space Mountain was getting close, so we headed in that direction. We left DS with my sister, her husband and 8yo. When we got off Space Mountain we watched our 8 yo neice while they went. Then we headed over to BTMR. Even with the FP we found ourselves waiting about 30 minutes.

We split up again. We headed over to the Haunted Mansion. DS did really well he only got a lil scared when the ghost popped up. No tears though!

Afterwards we notice spectromagic should be starting shortly. I like to view it where it begins so we headed over and parked ourselves across the street from Main Street Barber Shop.


Unfortunately my pictures from Spectromagic look pretty crappy. I played with alot of settings on the camera to figure out which setting took the best shot...and well...I ended up with a bunch of blurs. Oh well...I just guess I'll have to go back and take some more!

After Spectro was over we found a bench and I started working on that Diary Survey we got when we entered the park....yeah, I forgot about it too! I hurried and filled out as much as I could remember and then we took it to Town Hall and received out $20 gift card, pin lanyard and a Minnie Mouse flying a airplane pin. It was then that we were gonna exit the park....but my DH wanted popcorn which brings up a little journey for us.....

See....he was gonna get the "bucket" but we noticed the cart in front of town hall only had the red buckets...and we had a red one at home. We noticed people all over had blue buckets that said "Where dreams come true". we wanted a blue bucket!! So...we turn around and go back down mainstreet.....in search of a BLUE BUCKET!!! Wishes was going on, we don't care much about fireworks...so its not a big deal to us....by the way DS was sleeping. We went to Adventurland...the popcorn cart was closed......we went to Frontierland......the popcorn cart only had RED buckets! We were starting to give up hope...we didn't think we would get a blue bucket. When my DH's nose perked up and said "I SMELL POPCORN" so we followed his nose to a popcorn cart in front of Liberty Square! At last we had a blue bucket!

We headed out of the park as the second viewing of Spectro was taking place and made a dash to the bus stop. There was a long line for POP but they were loaded 2 buses at a time. We got on the 7th bus (only about a 10 minute wait). When we got back to our room we found this:


Tommorow we are heading to MGM and we have reservations at the Hoop De Doo for 19!

 

[kristinanderic]

I am having flashbacks of our first trip. DS was almost 3 and to see WDW through his eyes was fantastic. Hope you guys have started a new family tradition here!

Well...don't tell anyone...but I think I may have converted my husband! He is starting to enjoy Disney! I do think it helped seeing the joy on his son's face and getting to share those moments with him....something he didn't get to do as a child.

 

[piglet50]

subscribing. thank you for your report and the pictures. i'm enjoying your trip. our daughter's first trip was at age 4. it was wonderful. your son is so cute.

 

[MouseTriper]

Aw you little guy is so cute! Love your TR and all the pictures!! They are wonderful!

 

[natale1980]

Tell me more!!!
We had a hard time when there was 8 of us. I can't believe how big your group was!!!

-nat

 

[kristinanderic]

subscribing. thank you for your report and the pictures. i'm enjoying your trip. our daughter's first trip was at age 4. it was wonderful. your son is so cute.

Thank you! We can't wait to take our son again...especially when he can ride more rides...and stay awake longer. We knew we wasn't going to accomplish much this trip, but its interesting to see Disney from a different view, rather then park commando (like usual).

Aw you little guy is so cute! Love your TR and all the pictures!! They are wonderful!

Stay tuned...there is still MORE TO COME!!

Tell me more!!!
We had a hard time when there was 8 of us. I can't believe how big your group was!!!

-nat

We only had 3 "together" days...so we had plenty of time to regain sanity!

 

[kristinanderic]

I ordered a wake up call for 7:30 again and drifted off to bed. There was no problem getting to sleep...I was wore out, along with the rest of my family.

At 8:10 am we got a knock on the door and a man's deep voice said FRONT DESK....I rubbed my eyes. Another knock FRONT DESK. Surely they wasn't knocking on OUR door? I got out of bed and looked through the little peep hole, sure enough a disney cast member was standing at OUR door. I cracked the door open (because of course I am still in my pjs) and said "huh".

CM: "mam, did you receive a wake-up call this morning?"

me: "no"

CM: "well, this is your wake-up call"

me: "ugh....thanks"

So...on that note I headed to the shower. We got everything together and the diaperbag/backpack packed up and ready to go. Off to the food court to grab some breakfast!

We knew that since we had DS with us we could only make small goals for the day. Today's goal was to see SPEED aka Lightning McQueen. My DS is in LOVE with the movie Cars and in love with Speed!! He refers to Lightning McQueen as Speed because he has the Shake N' Go racers and the Lightning McQueen one says "Speed, I am Speed" before it takes off. So of course a 18 month old child is gonna think his name actually is SPEED!

We got to MGM about 10am. A later start then I would have liked, but no sweat. As soon as we entered I went to TOT and got a FP, the return time was 1:30pm. I just got one for myself since DH didn't want to ride.


As we get close to the "hat" we notice Tigger!!


We happened to be at MGM the day of the reported Tigger abuse....however we didn't see it happen. We got in line to see Tigger. However, apparently Tigger had to bounce to the bathroom and they replaced him with Stitch. DS did not like Stitch. I was rather disappointed also...we wanted to see Tigger. Oh well...we got Stitch's autograph....but DS wanted NOTHING to do with him.


Well for some odd odd reason I thought Speed and Mater would be at Lights Motor Action. I don't know why. I looked at the times guide for the time, but didn't verify the location. So we hiked over to Lights Motor Action. On the way we happened to run into Herbie!


I noticed a CM and asked her where Speed come out at. I actually said Speed when I asked her too. She looked at me like I was nuts. I relized what I said and corrected myself with Lightning McQueen....it was too late...she thought I was crazy! She said to go over to Sounds Dangerous! yeah...if I would have READ the dang paper I would have seen that myself. But occasionally I think I am smarter then what I am...I also wanted DH to get alot of exercise...so we practically RAN to Sounds Dangerous because they were gonna be there in like 5 minutes!!! We grabbed one FP for Star Tours for DH on the way, return time 11:30.

We made it! Here here comes SPEED! DS was beyond excited, he kept saying SPEED SPEED and had the biggest grin on his face. This was priceless!




DS got the power wheels Speed for Christmas from his grandparents. This is a picture of Christmas morning after he opened it.


My phone was ringing during all the excitement. It was my dad, they also went to MGM today and wanted to see the cars. I told him where we were at and they met up with us. I sat on a bench with them and chatted while DH used his FP on Star Tours.

We split up again and we headed to Backlot Express for some lunch. It was actually pretty good. I've heard mixed reviews about it though. DH had the cheeseburger, I had chicken strips, and DS had chicken nuggets.

We headed over towards Al's Toy Barn to see if Buzz and Woody were around, but first we found a temporary tattoo stand and got DS a Speed tattoo!

He spent the next 10-15 minutes holding his leg up just looking at Speed on his leg. It was so cute!

The line for Buzz was pretty long, but Woody's was rather short. We decided to skip Buzz and just get Woody's for now. DS didn't really care either way, he is starting to become shy with the charactors. Good thing daddy is there to protect him!


Last time we were at MGM back in 2004 the Backlot tour was closed and DH wanted to ride it this time....so we headed that way. There was no line and we walked right into the pre-show. It was alot shorter then I remembered it...although, now that I am thinking about it. I don't think I've been on this ride since 2000...so obviously things could have changed. We boarded the tram. I made sure to put DH on the "wet" side....ha ha. Only problem is after we started our tour we had to stop....they said there was some type of "traffic" and we had to wait for it to pass. We sat on the tram for about 30 minutes. We could see parts of the LMA show going on. Eventually they took us back into a employee parking lot and turned the tram around and dropped us off. We never got to the semi-truck exploding on the canyon thing. The guide acted like that was the end of the tour. I snapped a few pics...




DS naps again, so I head over to TOT to use my FP. We wanted to take him to PlayHouse Disney, but on Wed. and today he fell asleep. GRR


As we were walking away from TOT we ran into these street performers. They were hilarious. My DH will now say SHUT THE FRONT DOOR the remainder of the trip....as opposed to SHUT THE **** UP.




I got a phone call from my mom that wanted me to pick up a birthday hat for my niece that will be celebrating her 19th birthday tonight at the Hoop De Do. So, we did that...then headed towards the entrace to watch the parade.


Next: We get lost on the way to the Hoop De Doo!