Princesses don't hit, kick or spit! A May/June TR Update 10/17 Snow White Theme Night

[ksl5f123]

I got the cheese from Walmart, I don't think I could ever has the patience to do that, lol. I have a few Mickey cookie cutters but none that small.

Thanks! I have a few too and they are all quite big. I will have to look for that at Walmart!

 

[Becc1]

Thanks! I have a few too and they are all quite big. I will have to look for that at Walmart!

If your looking for Mickey shaped things, Target has Mickey chicken nuggets. My oldest says they are not very good but my youngest eat them up (I'm not a fan of frozen chicken nuggets so I've never had them)

 

[Becc1]

With all of the excitement of sharing the reveal I forgot to give the details of our trip. We stayed at Pop Century from May 26th - June 3rd. Our usual vacation time is in August because I hate to take the kids out of school but when free dining came up for that week in May I thought it would be good because the temps would be less (NOT) and the crowds would be less (not really either). Plus DH and DS Sam love Star Wars so we'd get to go to a SWW! Because of Memorial Day and graduation ODS would only be missing 4 days of school and since he's a great student and the teachers gave the green light we were set. Taking my 2 youngest DSs out was no problem at all. Sam's teacher gave us work to do while away just because she knows Sam worries about missing stuff but Ben's teacher said to go and have a great time, not to worry about doing work

We chose to stay at Pop because that's where we stayed last time and the kids loved it. We got 3 rooms, 2 connecting for my MIL and us and one next to us for DS and DN.

Now that that is out of the way let's move on the day 1 our travel day.

The trip down to WDW is approximately 14 hours, we've done the trip 3 other times so we knew unless there was any bad weather or accidents to cause taffic we should make it to WDW by the end of the day! Goal was to leav at 5am, so I set the alarm for 4am. I got up and got the rest of the things together that had not been packed the night before, I woke up DH around 4:20 and waited until 4:45 or so to get the kids up. I had them wear the clothes they would be traveling in to bed so there would be no need to change clothes. Before we left we woke up DS Christian, he usually gets up for school at 5:30 anyway so he told us to just wake him when we were leaving.

I guess I left this out, Christian my MIL and DN would be flying down to Florida later that afternoon. Even though we have an 8 passenger car there is no way we could all fit in the car with all of our luggage. Plus I don't think I could take 14 hours trapped in a car with my MIL I love her and all but.......... The plan was for Christian to go to school for half a day and my MIL would pick him up at 11am (although somehow he talked her into picking him up at 10am), the car service picked them up at our house at noon and their plane took off at 3:05. We only live literaly 15 minutes from the airport but my MIL is a bit nuts about flying so she wanted to be there in plenty of time.

Ok so back to rest of our travel day. So plan was to leave at 5am, did we make it?

Horrible picture but it says 5:06, we were only 6 minutes behind schedule, which is pretty good for us

I had made state line goody bags for the kids and after only about 45 minutes they got their first bag when we crossed over in Virginia. I was horrible about taking pictures this day so I'll just post some pics from my PTR with the goodies I stuffed the bags with.

Autograph books, the lanyards and the bags I will use for the goodie bags

Emily's stuff

Sam's stuff

Ben's things

They loved the bags, it was something for them to look forward to every few hours or so. They were funny because they would keep asking me when we would be in the next state, and amazingly enough even Emily remembered the order of states, from the night before when I went over a map of our trip with them!

Around 8am we were all getting hungry so we stopped at a Burger King for breakfast. I took the kids in to potty while DH got the food which we brought back to the car to eat on the road. Our next stop was around 10am for another potty break and to get gas. From there my notes ended, I think I was too busy dealing with the kids to stop and take notes so I'm going on memory from here on out. We stopped for lunch in either N.C or S.C around 12. Here's where I made a BIG mistake, I will never eat a McD's cheeseburger on the road again. I don't know if it's because we rarely eat McD's or if there was something wrong with my burger but it just was so unsettling in my stomach Won't go into the gory details but we ended up having to stop a couple more times than planned We stopped again around 5 or so for some snacks and ice cream.

Here's the few pics I took on the road

Because I am cheesy I love the Pedro signs, unfortunately Dh is not cheesy and never wants to stop at South of the Border so I have to be happy with amusing myself with the signs, lol.

Once we hit Florida DH told me to go ahead and book the night at POP. We were not sure if we'd make it down the whole way so we didn't want to make a reservation. I was able to get a room for the night with no problems. I told them that we would be starting our package the next day and asked if it were at all possible we'd like to get the same room so we wouldn't have to switch rooms. The rest of the gangs plane was getting in around 5:20 so they would soon be arriving at the resort, I called my MIL to let them know we would be getting in soon after they would.

Soon we were seeing this beautiful sight!

Alright the sun was KILLING me! I could not get a decent picture of the sign! A couple of minutes later we pulled into here.

At this point my MIL, DS and DN had checked in about 45 minutes before, MIL had told me where our room was, that we had gotten all of our requests and that they were the same rooms we would get to stay in the duration of our trip DH dropped me off at the front and went around to start unloading the car with the kids. Check in took me about 10 minutes and I was on my way! I went around to our room and found that DH still wasn't there. He arrived a few minutes later, he had had a hard time finding a parking spot and a POP CM saw this and flagged him down. DH then pulled over and the CM helped him unload the stuff onto a cart. When they got to the room the CM would not let us touch the bags, he said we should start to enjoy our vacationa and he would unload everything. SOOOOOOO nice He also handed my kids tons of Mickey stickers DH gave him a very generous tip for being so awesome

Up next what did we do with the rest of our night? Did we take it easy and spend time by the pool or do our usual first night ritual and end up at DTD?

 

[TanzUnited99]

Yay am glad you guys like Pop as we will be staying there for our first stay in Sept!

Love the goodie bags. Also, that is cool that the CM helped you so much on arrival

I am going to guess that you went to DTD but look forward to finding out!

 

[burtonandlisa]

Thanks for the great report

 

[eargal]

Fun, fun, fun!!!

I wish I could keep a trip a secret but I start talking about it the minute I begin planning!

 

[Kari-B]

Sorry I'm getting over here so late. Glad your reveal turned out well and got the reaction you hoped for! Love the goody bags! Can't wait to see/hear more.

 

[Becc1]

Yay am glad you guys like Pop as we will be staying there for our first stay in Sept!

Love the goodie bags. Also, that is cool that the CM helped you so much on arrival

I am going to guess that you went to DTD but look forward to finding out!

It's a great resort IMO for both kids and adults! That CM was awesome! I should have gotten his name so I could have told the front desk what a great job he was doing!

Thanks for the great report

Thanks for reading!

Fun, fun, fun!!!

I wish I could keep a trip a secret but I start talking about it the minute I begin planning!

I thought I would be like that too, it was tough not to talk Disney in front of the kids, but that's where the Disboards come in handy

Sorry I'm getting over here so late. Glad your reveal turned out well and got the reaction you hoped for! Love the goody bags! Can't wait to see/hear more.

Your not late, I'm glad to have you over here!

 

[ksl5f123]

I usually do goody bags for my kids every hour, but I am thinking of doing the state-line idea this time. Given that our drive is 20 hours, it will save me quite a few bags.

What a wonderful CM your DH found in the parking lot! That was some nice pixie dust to start off your trip.

 

[Kat in GA]

Looks like ya'll made good time on your drive! Did the bags help the kids get over the "boring" aspects of the road trip??

Can't wait to hear about Pop as we'll be staying there for the first time in August. How were the beds? I have the worst time finding mattresses that are comfortable - and I like a soft bed (or as my husband says each time we go somewhere - "princess and the pea!"). I have thought about buying a foam topper - but don't want to spend the money if I don't have to!

 

[Becc1]

I usually do goody bags for my kids every hour, but I am thinking of doing the state-line idea this time. Given that our drive is 20 hours, it will save me quite a few bags.

What a wonderful CM your DH found in the parking lot! That was some nice pixie dust to start off your trip.

20 X 3 bags would be alot! I had the bags up front with me and was thankful when we got to FL so I'd have some leg room, lol. The state bags were good because it gave the kids something to look forward to. It allso helped out when the kids weren't behaving very well I'd just have to ask if they really wanted their next bag I do have to fgure out something for our ride home though, the ride to WDW they were pretty well behaved, the ride home was a different story

Looks like ya'll made good time on your drive! Did the bags help the kids get over the "boring" aspects of the road trip??

Can't wait to hear about Pop as we'll be staying there for the first time in August. How were the beds? I have the worst time finding mattresses that are comfortable - and I like a soft bed (or as my husband says each time we go somewhere - "princess and the pea!"). I have thought about buying a foam topper - but don't want to spend the money if I don't have to!

The bags definately helped out with the boredom, in the past I've always had a bag of goodies I'd give them when needed but this way worked out really well!

We love Pop, the past 2 trips we'ved stayed there and had rooms in the same exact area so it was nice and comfortable for us. The mattresses were not bad, at home I find myself waking often with my back hurting but no problems while there. But that could have been I was so exhausted fomr the parks I would have slept soundly anywhere

 

[momabaarjo]

I am already buying things for fly goodie bags...thanks for the idea! So glad you could make your first night at POP instead of stopping along the way. I hope to find some magicial CMs! Mental Note: Always get names of those CMs that go out of their way! Once again you are giving me lots of great tips and hints!

 

[Becc1]

I am already buying things for fly goodie bags...thanks for the idea! So glad you could make your first night at POP instead of stopping along the way. I hope to find some magicial CMs! Mental Note: Always get names of those CMs that go out of their way! Once again you are giving me lots of great tips and hints!

Glad I am able to give you tips In the future I will definately make note of the CMs names so I can commend them to guest services, we encountered so many nice CMs, thats why I love WDW so much!

 

[Becc1]

So I left off with us just arriving at Pop. Our usual first day/night ritual is to go to DTD. Since I wasn't sure if we were going to make it down that first night I made plans for us to go to DTD another night later in the week but since we did make it, the thought did cross our minds. But it was already after 7pm and we were starving and the pool was calling the kids names so the pool won out. Little did I know that the pool would win out alot this week My DS Christian and DN did choose to go to DTD though so we said goodbye and they took the bus over there.

I quickly found swimsuits and sent DH down ahead of us to get food from the food court while I got the kids ready. We went down, found an table with a great view of the pool and the kids jumped in right away. They were in heaven, the pool's temp was pretty warm too so it was nice to get in after being in the car all day. DH got our mugs and pizza for the kids and him and I got the chicken ceasar salad. DH had also brought down our small cooler with a few Mike's Lemonades in it so we got to sit by the pool and relax which was great after a long day. After being down there an hour or so we thought it was best to get the kids showered and in bed because we had an early morning the next day.

You may notice a lack of pictures in this update. I'll tell you why, because I have bad luck with cameras . Seriously I think I've gone through 6 cameras in the past 5 years or so. I didn't want to bring my good camera down to the pool so I brought my small Kodak Easyshare and stuck it in the top part of the cooler. I forgot to take it out of the cooler and DH had put ice in the cooler for the Mikes which by morning was a melted mess because of course he didn't dump the ice out when we got back to the room. The next day he goes to dump the water out of the cooler not realizing my camera was in there So guess what? My camera stopped working! I went to turn it on and at first it looked like it was going to but the lense comes halfway out and becomes stuck So needless to say there will be no pool pictures, even though we spent a good amount of time at the pool I was afraid to bring my good camera down there

Up next our first day in the parks!

I do feel bad about no pictures for this update, especially since I took over 2000 pictures plus over 300 Photopass pictures so I will post some pics of Pop Century that my DN and DS took on our last night there. I had not taken any pictures of the resort the whole week so I sent them on a mission that last night, the quality is not the best but it was close to midnight and they were being goofy so I'll forgive them

Right now photobucket does not like me, I'll post some more pics of the resort later when it does

 

[Becc1]

Restarted the computer so lets try this again.

More pictures the kids took of the resort

Ok, so I know that's alot of pictures, didn't I tell you that I tend to take ALOT of pictures? My DS knows this so when they went on their mission to get pics of the resort he took almost 100!

 

[Kat in GA]

The pool is a great way to relax. But I so could not have sent my husband to pick out food. He is an engineer and a linear thinker - if he doesn't have the specifics - it just doesn't happen. So, unless I wanted to be on the phone with him the whole time - and at that point, it's just easier to do myself!

I'm sorry about your camera luck! I just got a new point and shoot camera last weekend (I have a dslr too) - and it also works underwater. I am so excited to have it - to use at the water parks. To give to my husband to take pictures on Splash and Kali. And to take to the parks if it rains and leave my big camera at home!

 

[Becc1]

The pool is a great way to relax. But I so could not have sent my husband to pick out food. He is an engineer and a linear thinker - if he doesn't have the specifics - it just doesn't happen. So, unless I wanted to be on the phone with him the whole time - and at that point, it's just easier to do myself!

I'm sorry about your camera luck! I just got a new point and shoot camera last weekend (I have a dslr too) - and it also works underwater. I am so excited to have it - to use at the water parks. To give to my husband to take pictures on Splash and Kali. And to take to the parks if it rains and leave my big camera at home!

Oh I usually don't let my DH pick out food for me Since my stomach was still a bit upset from the McD's earlier I instructed him to get me a salad, didn't matter what kind! Your going to think I'm crazy but before we go on our trips I scour the menus from All Ears and write out what the younger kids and myself will have at each CS place, even desserts and drinks. This way when we get to the restaurant I just rip that page out and hand it to my DH so I can get us a table while he gets our food. I know I have WAY too much time on my hands

I need to get myself a waterproof camera, I've broken 2 cameras now due to water And later in the week when it rained for a bit in MK I didn't want to break out my dslr so I have little pictures of Frontierland and Adventureland

 

[reelmom]

Great start! Glad you were able to keep it a secret until the night before. And 2000 pictures! I thought I took a lot at 500.

BTW~ I hope I didn't freak you out when I recognized you in Japan at EPCOT. I couldn't believe I saw someone I "knew" from the DISboards that I had to introduce myself.

 

[Becc1]

Great start! Glad you were able to keep it a secret until the night before. And 2000 pictures! I thought I took a lot at 500.

BTW~ I hope I didn't freak you out when I recognized you in Japan at EPCOT. I couldn't believe I saw someone I "knew" from the DISboards that I had to introduce myself.

LOL, you didn't freak me out at all! I felt so bad that I didn't introduce myself and get your name, I was so rude! At that moment when I saw you my DS15 was in a mood and had disappeared, I was trying to text him and see where he was. I loved seeing someone from the Dis, I didn't see any green Mickey heads on anyones stuff all week, of course I also forgot to put mine on my backpack before we left so I can't really say anything

The reason for the 2000 pics is my 4 kids. It is nearly impossible to get a picture with all 4 looking at me at the same time so I end up with a dozen of the same pose, lol.

 

[Shannon84]

Sorry to hear about your camera, that stinks! I have a terribe streak of dropping electronics, so I never purchase anything expensive