Our Last Trip to WDW (Maybe) - May 2009

[ryansall]

So, for some reason, I don't have the pics of DW's and my trip for the holidays in 2002. We left on 12/26 and came back after New Year's, but it was pretty bad. She got so sick on New Year's Eve that we had to go to the hospital, and get her an IV, so we spent New Year's Eve in the hotel by 6 p.m. The rest of the week went okay, but that marred our trip.

Consequently, we had three extra days left on our tickets, which at that time didn't expire. (Curse you MYW tickets! )

We were still on a tight budget for our vacations, so we immediately thought of how we could take a vacation and use those tickets. Soon, it evolved into a long, long weekend with my parents, DW's mother and us all going down in July of 2003.

It was a great idea. We drove all the way down on Saturday, then hit Animal Kingdom and the Studios the next day. Monday, we went to Epcot, and began what would become a longstanding tradition - lunch at the Garden Grill.

That's me and DS waiting for the first character to arrive, right after we sat down. We wanted to introduce DS to the characters, so we thought a little Mickey time would be great, and we happened upon the Garden Grill. Well...

That would be my son being comforted by my dad after he screamed his head off when the first character, Chip, showed up. That's my mom on the left and mother-in-law to the right. Eventually, though, he ended up in my Mom's lap, and started looking for the characters on the bottom level.

Eventually, he warmed up to them, and waved at Chip as he left for the second time.

That was the highlight of the trip for me, watching him go through that progression. Ever since, we've tried to do lunch at the Garden Grill on all our trips, including several special ocassions.

The next day, we went to DtD, then did the Luau. I know it's fashionable for people to bash it, but my dad, who is very hard to please, told me it was as good or better than what he had seen in his many trips to Hawaii. I still love it myself.

Our final day was at the MK. We stayed out late and watched SpectroMagic and Wishes from the train station.

Between the five of us, we must have passed that 18 mo. old around 100 times, but it was worth it to see his face as he watched SpectroMagic.

So, there we were, having gone for a day around Thanksgiving 2002, a week long trip at New Year's, and a four day trip for Summer 2003. Would that be enough?

Next up is our new annual family tradition - the December weekend Christmas trip.

 

[ryansall]

So where was I? A very rough couple of days at work this week.

Any way, so back in 2003, we have a precious soon to be 2 year old, and it's getting close to Thanksgiving. We still had a day left on our park hoppers from the summer, and we had never seen the Christmas decorations. We decided to go the first weekend in December. We'd drive halfway on Thursday night after work, finish the drive on Friday and go to DtD and MVMCP, then spend the day on Saturday at the parks before driving home Sunday.

It was awesome!

Of course, as always we stopped at the Ocala Official Welcome Center on the way down (oh how I miss that place )

We made it down around 1 p.m., and checked in to All Star Sports while the little man watched cartoons.

Then we went to Mickey's Very Merry for the first time. WE LOVED IT!
The pictures, the cookies, the fireworks and oh the hot chocolate!

We got a great spot for the parade, right at the Liberty Square bridge, and sat on chairs from Sleepy Hollow and wheeled the stroller right up to the rope.

This was DS's favorite picture. At the time he watched Beauty and the Beast most afternoons while DW fixed dinner. He came in the house and asked for "the girl." So cute!

The next morning we went to the MK, doing our Dumbo-Pooh-Pan sprint, and took him to meet Mickey in Toontown. Since he ran away from Mickey over the summer, we weren't sure how he would react, but he loved it!

After that we headed over to MGM and checked out the Stars and Motorcars Parade. Still miss that one, too!

He's holding his blanket, his constant companion in that picture. I love it!
After that we finished off the evening at Epcot with Illuminations and headed back happy and sleepy.

After we drove out of the parking lot, DW and I decided that this was the kind of trip we wanted to do. Get in, get out, enjoy ourselves and have great memories.

So, we did it again that summer! More on that one to come.

 

[ryansall]

So, it's been the craziest, most stressful week and a half at work. Ever since Thursday a week ago, I've been under insane pressure, with barely enough time to recover before I'm back to work again.

After a restful weekend and some good vibes the last few days, things are better, though, so I need to get back to my PTR before I actually leave for Disney!

When I left off, it was the summer of 2004, and we were heading back to Disney. In my old job at Six Flags, we had a deal with Wendy's, and every summer, my cohorts and I would head around the Southeast to audit the stores to make sure our stuff was up. I always volunteered for the South Georgia/North Florida route. Wonder why?

So, down we went, spending two and a half days at the World. We started off at Star Wars Weekends at the Studios, something we'll be repeating this year.

After getting the boy acclimated to Jedi Mickey, we had a great time there, and headed over to Epcot for lunch at...yep, the Garden Grill!

By now, this was old hat. DS looked forward to this every time we got near the Florida state line. "Can we have catfish and see Mickey, DaDa?"

I'm really upset that they don't do lunch here with the characters anymore. You can see it was our favorite!

So, the next day was our MK day, and when DS discovered Toon Park, after we met Mickey, I wasn't sure we would ever get him out of there.

All in all, another successful trip, so we kept our December tradition going and went back for Christmas again.