Our Welcome Back to the US celebration trip to WDW - My 1st attempt at a TR.

[Mom2apirate&princess]

Hello! I've always wanted to do a trip report and finally decided that I would do it this time. We are just back from our trip. Wish me luck, I hope this goes well!

Introductions:
Me - T - I'm a wife, mom, and a big time planner (not just for Disney either). Right now I'm a SAHM and full time student. I'm halfway done with my bachelors degree. I've always loved Disney and was fortunate to go quite a bit as a child. I have to say that I love Disney even more now that I get to experience it through my kids eyes.

Dh - K - My husband. He's just an all around great guy. I really did luck out when I found him. We've been married for 14 1/2 years and he's shown me much of the world He's in the USAF and we are 4 1/2 years away from his retirement. We recently moved to Texas from a 3 years overseas stint in Italy. He likes Disney enough and when we are there he's all about it. However, he says WDW and DL are the same thing. When I started talking about a trip this summer he just looked at me, smiled, and said "book it." He says his goal in life is to make me happy

This is me and DH (last November in Greece!)

DS - Jack- is our almost 13 year old son. His birthday is about 6 weeks away but he has a nice head start on those teenage hormonal mood swings Some of that will show up in this report. With all of that aside he really is a good kid. He's super smart & a straight A student, polite, kind and compassionate - unless he is dealing with his little sister. He's pretty uptight and has a hard time letting loose. He's quiet and shy until he gets to know you and then you can't get him to be quiet! He's a sweetheart and hates to be in trouble. He will tell on himself and beg for forgiveness

DD - Kaya - is our 8 year old daughter. She is the complete opposite of her brother, which is where all of their conflict comes into play. She is a feisty one. We call her our firecracker. She is fiercely independent, speaks her mind, and does her own thing. She's the life of the party and would never tell on herself! Their is a sweet side to her though and secretly I admire her boldness. She does well in school but has to work at it a little harder than her brother, she is getting to where she just does the minimum to get by. So we will be working on that this year.

These are my crazy kids a couple of years ago at Paris Disney.

Next up the logistics of the trip and the big reveal to the kids.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Mom2apirate&princess]

Originally before we made the big move we had wanted to go to WDW in May and even had a trip booked. We knew that dh would start his job (after a few months of shadowing) in June. But we weren't sure when we would be getting our belongings and then we would have to deal with unpacking and all that stuff. Sadly I cancelled the trip and decided to just focus on the move and getting everybody settled. This ended up being a difficult move for the kids so it worked out to wait.

One day in May I was just playing around on the computer and was looking at packages on the website. I found some pretty decent ones and decided to look for airfare and found great rates through Airtran. I made a call to Disney and asked for military discounts and about the dining plan. Before I knew it I was being quoted a trip for 5 nights with the qsdp for less than $900. The airfare was $700 for the 4 of us. All of a sudden this trip looked like a real possibility. Especially considering we could get 4 day park passes for $396 through the military. Dh came home for lunch that day and I sat there smiling at him while he ate. Finally he asks "What do you want?" I handed him all my papers and gave him the final numbers and that's when he told me to book it.

I need to point out that while we do love WDW and DL we've only been to WDW one other time as a family about 6 years ago. I think we kind of like DL a little bit more. We've been stationed on the west coast more and were able to go there a lot, plus it's cheaper. I knew that I wanted to go back to WDW but I also knew that it was going to be expensive.

We had just spent 3 years traveling all over europe and came back to the states knowing that we needed to change our spending and savings habits. We are 4 years away from retirement, have a 7th grader who wants to go to college, we are also saving for our dream home, and so on. So while we lived it up in europe it was time to get serious about some financial goals. Dh is not sure what he wants to do after he retires. Fortunately for us he did take advantage of the GI Bill and throughout the years was able to earn a Bachelors, Masters and one year of a Doctorate degree. He had to stop due to a deployment to Iraq. We are fairly confident that he will find a decent job but still the thought of being out of the military is scary. My father was in the military and because I got married before I was 21 I just switched sponsors. I've never not been in

My whole point is while we still want to travel, we really need to stick to a budget. So this would be a budget trip. But hey, we were still going!

Hotel rooms aren't that important to me. We honestly don't spend a lot of time in the room so as long as its clean I am happy. For a hot minute I almost convinced myself to upgrade to the AKL but I just couldn't see spending that much on a room when it was going to be a quick trip and also I just knew we wouldn't be in the room. Not that we are back, it was the right choice.

So we were staying at All Stars Music. Our dates were Aug 11th through the 16th. I would have loved to go longer but dh just couldn't get the leave. We had our 4 day passes through the military and we had the option of adding days but since he could only get 6 days off we decided to just go with what we had and make the best of it.

Telling the kids!

I love to surprise my kids. We planned on telling them the day we flew out. Dh pointed out that we wouldn't get the response we wanted at 4 am. We had a 630 am flight and would have to drive to Dallas and spend the night. Then we decided to tell them the day before. That held me for awhile but then as it grew closer I just couldn't contain my excitement. About 10 days before we were all hanging out in the living room and dh looked at me and mouthed the words "lets tell them." I had him take the kids to their rooms to watch tv and I set everything up.

I had a scavenger hunt planned for them. When I was ready we handed them a letter that told them they were going on a hunt, they would have to work together to find 9 envelopes and each envelope contained letters to spell one word.

Reading their letter

On the hunt

They searched high, they searched low

Putting it together

They got it!

They loved the surprise and as you can see they were indeed excited! DD immediately wanted us to hide the clues so she could do it again.
It turned out to be the perfect time to tell them. It was just enough time to let them be excited and not too much of a wait. DD spent a lot of time online researching WDW and planning with me.

Will vacation day ever get here???

 

[jc040404]

Subbing!!

I love how you did your reveal to the kids! You can really see how excited they were. LOL @ your dd wanting to hunt for them all over again, too! Love it! Can't wait to follow along!

 

[Mom2apirate&princess]

Subbing!!

I love how you did your reveal to the kids! You can really see how excited they were. LOL @ your dd wanting to hunt for them all over again, too! Love it! Can't wait to follow along!

Yay! I have a reader! Thanks for joining in!

 

[Mom2apirate&princess]

Travel day!
Today was Tuesday, Aug 10th. No pictures in this post. Just didn't think to take any.

Dh had to work today, but had promised he would be home by 2. The plan was to have him change and we would be on our way. I got up and went to the gym for an hour or so and made my way back home. The kids were beyond excited and counting down the hours until Dh was coming home.

Then, dh called. I could tell by his voice something was wrong. He explained that he had to go meet with his commander and another squadron commander at 5pm. My heart sank. It wasn't a huge deal, we weren't leaving until the next morning. But we had plans to go to our favorite restaurant and then go to our hotel and swim and go to bed early. He felt terrible and I made it worse by saying "Tell them you can't go." I'm not always the best military wife, I can admit that. I quickly recovered and told him it was okay and to get home as soon as he could.

We just moped around. There was nothing to do but wait so that's what we did. At 330 dh called and said his commander moved the meeting up an hour so now he should be home by 5. Fine.

Sure enough he came racing in the house at 5pm. He changed while we literally waiting in the car for him to come out We were ready. We make a quick stop to drop off our dog Dash at the vet. Oh, I do have a picture of our baby

We dropped of Dash, stopped for some ice cream and were on the highway outta town by 545. We got to Dallas and stopped for dinner and made our way to the hotel. The hotel was empty so we had the indoor pool and jacuzzi to ourselves for the rest of the night. Around 930 we headed back up to the room and cycled through the shower.

Everybody was ready for bed. Except the kids They were just too excited to sleep. I fell asleep quickly only to wake 15 minutes later to hear the two of them whispering angrily at one another. I hushed them and told them to go to sleep. I laid back down and tried to go back to sleep and eventually I did only to wake up to my son sighing at his sister. I asked what was going on and Jack says that Kaya wont stay in bed and keeps getting up to look out the window. I ask her why she is doing this and she says "I just can't sleep I'm too excited."

Now I'm frustrated. I wake DH up and tell him to go sleep with DS and I bring DD to bed with me where I may have threatened her with no WDW or something like that. Eventually she fell asleep. I looked at the clock and saw that it was now 130 am. Ugh. We had to be up at 4. Then I started doing that thing where you calculate how many hours you can get if you fall asleep right now. I tossed and turned and worried that we would oversleep. Eventually I was back asleep only to be woken up by the bathroom light being turned on. It stayed on for awhile and then DS went back to bed. The next thing I know he is up again and I ask what he is doing and he says "going to the bathroom." I was mad and said you just went GO TO BED. It was now 215 am.

I didn't sleep well and was up before the alarm went off. Sigh.


Up next - Our first (LONG) real day of vacation!

 

[Mom2apirate&princess]

So I was up at 345 am feeling a tad bit cranky, but then the excitement took over. The kids woke up easily and nobody had any issues. None of us are morning people so this was definitely good. We were all dressed and packed up and ready to go quickly.

We checked out of the hotel and drove the 4 miles to DFW airport. We parked in long term parking and caught the shuttle and were at the check in counter before we knew it. We got checked in. FYI for active military members Airtran doesn't charge baggage fees. For up to 3 bags, but the bags have to be in the active duty persons name. We checked two bags (with dh's name on them) and the kids had all of their stuff in their carry ons. We made it through security and sat at our gate and had some breakfast.

Within a half hour we were ready to board the plane. I paid the extra money to chose our seats. I probably didn't need to, it wasn't a full flight. I just didn't want dd to end up by someone else. The pilot came on and gave all of the flight info and then assured us that all of the flight attendants would be with us during the whole flight

We took off and and it was a smooth ride. Dh and DD slept most of the time. DS was busy playing his ds and I read. We landed and were off the plane in no time and on our way to the Magical Express Desk.

We were welcomed and shown to a line and barely waited 2 minutes before our bus was there

We got settled on the bus. The kids were all smiles and we were on our way.

After some time we saw this

Oh yeah, the last time we drove under that sign my kids looked like this

So little!

This was our hotel, All Star Music

We pulled up before 11 am and went to check in. Our room was ready! We got our KTTW and were on our way to the room.

The hotel was nice and the room was fine. On the smaller side, but we all fit. As I said earlier, we aren't too worried about rooms, just want them to be clean.

I freshened up a bit and put the kids carryon's away. I got out my messenger bag and put the stuff I would need in it for the rest of the day and we were outta there. We stopped at the food court and all got snacks and our refillable mugs. We had 230 lunch reservations at T Rex Cafe. We were on the QSDP and it ended up being a really good buy for us. DS got a shake, DD and DH got rice crispie treats and I can't remember what I had.

We caught the bus for DTD, I don't think we waited longer than 10 minutes.

First stop was the Christmas store where I had to buy the obligatory Christmas ornament. Then we were on our way.

We stocked up on goodies here

Had to check out the Lego store. AAARGH!

Lunch was here

It was okay. We aren't huge RFC fans, but both my kids wanted to try this place. Dh and I shared the tiered appetizer thing and the kids ate off of the kids menu. Just sitting there really made me sleepy! The lack of sleep from the previous night was just making me drowsy. But we had a good time. I was hoping after I ate it would help me to perk up, it just made me want to take a nap!

DD loved the ambiance

Yummy drinks

After we walked around the store for awhile we walked through the rest of DTD stopping at the Ride store. I think it was Design my Ride?? I'm not sure. $75 and two cars later...

DS chose a mini cooper

And DD chose her "dream car" a mustang. Too bad her dad is a camaro man

We had just left this store when all of a sudden and out of nowhere a storm rolled in. We hid under a canopy while I fished out the umbrellas. BTW, when I was putting my bag together I asked dh to hand me the umbrellas to which he replied "I don't think we will need them." Thankfully we had them. We realized the rain was not letting up so we decided to make our way towards the buses. We stopped at World of Disney and browed for a half hour. It was still raining hard when we left and finally we got the bus stop. We were pretty much soaked, but with the heat it felt good. We weren't on the bus 5 minutes when we saw this

and then this

It was only the first day, I hope they will be able to keep up the rest of the trip

We got back to our resort and went to our room to lay down for a bit. The plan had been to go swimming but the pools were closed due to the lightening. We had dinner at the food court. I can't remember what everyone got but everybody enjoyed their meals. I remember not feeling very hungry, just very tired.

We headed back to our room and everyone cycled through the shower. I got all of our stuff ready for the next morning and scheduled a wake up call. Tomorrow was Magic Kingdom day with an EMH in the morning.

We were in bed asleep way before 9 pm. I slept all the way through

Coming up: First Day at MK!!!