PTR:Arrrgh! It's a surprise for 2 pirates!

[popej1]

Hi! I'm Janice, and this is my first attempt at a PTR, so bear with me please! DH and I have 2 boys -"I" is about to turn 7 and "E" is 4. By the way, planning a Peter Pan birthday party is pretty hard. They don't sell anything for one anymore! Anyway, the boys don't know about the trip. We have kept it a secret for 89 days so far. Only 63 days left! I think dh has decided I am crazy because of how much time I spend researching for the trip, but I just want everyone to have a good time. It will be dh, myself, I, E, and my parents on the trip. We are leaving on Nov. 18th and driving to Orlando. We will spend the night somewhere along the way so our arrival day will be November 19th. We are staying until November 25th.

We are staying at CBR in a pirate room and luckily we booked our trip before they changed the dates so we have free dining! I had so much fun booking our meals. I will talk about them some more later as I go into what our itenerary is for each day. One reason I want to post this PTR is to get feedback on our plans. I have been to WDW twice and dh has been once. This will be the first trip for the boys and for my parents.

We are hoping to leave in the morning of 11/18. I want to get the boys up like they are going to school and get them ready before surprising them with where we are actually going. (They have the whole week of Thanksgiving off)That depends on whether or not I am allowed to take off work on 11/18. My dad and dh already have that day off, so we are hoping so. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how we are going to tell the boys.

Our first day there we don't have much planned since we aren't sure when we will arrive. I want to go to Chip & Dale's Campfire Singalong that evening. If we get there in time and the weather is nice, we will take the boys to the main pool to swim. We will skip the movie after the campfire in order to get to bed on time because we have an early morning scheduled for the next day.

 

[popej1]

Our first full day at Disney will start with an early breakfast at Chef Mickey's and then heading over to Magic Kingdom for rope drop. We plan to hit Fantasyland first. I'm not sure how much time it's going to take us to get through the rides I want to get to, so I hope I'm not going to be rushing us around too much. I'd like to be able to do Dumbo, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Mad Tea Party, It’s A Small World,Mickey’s Philharmagic, and the carousel by noon but I'm sure that's pretty ambitious (crowds are supposed to be moderate - 5.6/10). We are just going to take things as they come. I'd like to try Columbia Harbor House for lunch because I have read good things about it, but I'm not sure how hungry we are going to be for lunch and we have an early ADR for dinner. We may try to get a fastpass for Space Mountain before lunch, depending on the return time. After the CDCT parade, we will head to Cape May for an early dinner. After dinner (hopefully a relaxing dinner) we will go back to MK. We want to do Astro Orbiter,
Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, and Space Mountain before the Main Street Electrical Parade at 9 and Wishes at 10. They have EMH that night, but I don't think the boys will be up to staying up later than they already will have. We may go ride Splash Mountain(since we will be heading back to the room afterward so it will be ok if we get wet) or BTMRR just to let the crowds thin out some before heading back to CBR.

 

[popej1]

I'm really excited about our Animal Kingdom day. I've only been to Animal Kingdom once before (when I was in college) and we didn't spend much time there. I remember the safari but that's all we really did there. We have an ADR at Tusker House for breakfast and I'd like to hit the safari after that to try to see the animals moving about. I think the boys are going to love it! I don't think my youngest is going to be tall enough for Everest, so we may skip it. I don't want him, at almost 5, to feel left out. I think it is going to be a pretty relaxed day as we don't have any other real plans until that night. With such a big breakfast, we may end up eating a late lunch. I've heard great things about Flame Tree Barbeque so I'd like to try that out. Since we are having a laid-back kind of day, I don't know how long it will take us to tour the park and so I haven't really made a decision about dinner. If we have a really late lunch we may not eat dinner, but I would hate for the boys to get hungry. We are going on the Pirates & Pals voyage that night so we need to be at the Contemporary by 8:30. This is going to be one of the highlights if the trip for the boys! My oldest is turning 7 next week and he is having a Peter Pan birthday party. He is dressing as Captain Hook. What he doesn't know is one of the reasons I was ok with buying the Hook costume is that he will have a chance to wear it again on Thanksgving Day when he goes to The Pirates' League!

56 days and counting and so far we have kept the secret! I still can't believe how fast the days are flying by! I remember seeing the countdon at 145+ days and thinking it was soooo far away! It has been 10 years since my last visit, and I am super excited! I don't think the boys have a clue! I'm still trying to figure out how I want to surprise them. Any suggestions?

 

[popej1]

My youngest son, Ethan, will be a month shy of 5 when we take our WDW vacation. Unfortunately, the growth spurt we were hoping would take place hasn't happened and he is going to be about 2 inches too short for Space Mountain. Our oldest son, Isaac, will be 7 and will probably be tall enough to ride whatever he wants. My gut tells me just to avoid the rides Ethan isn't tall enough for so that there is no meltdown about it. This is their first trip and I know we can't see everything in one trip, so I thought that would be a way to narrow down our priorities. We will be spending two days at MK, but the second day is Thanksgiving Day so I know it will be extremely crowded that day and we will be limited in what we are able to see and do.

I don't know if I mentioned this already, but I am pretty much single-handedly planning this trip for 6 people - DH, myself, the boys, and my parents. I LOVE all the planning, but with that also comes some worry that someone won't like what I have planned, or that if things don't work out that I will feel guilty. DH doesn't seem to be very excited about the trip. He wants to go to take the boys, but I don't think he expects to have a lot of fun. I really want him to enjoy himself. OK, to be honest, I want him to have a blast so that HE wants to go back!

 

[popej1]

I have been scouring the Creative Disigns board for ideas for everything from t-shirts to games to play in the car. There are some incredibly talented people there! So I have downloaded and saved all these images and I am trying to figure out which ones to use to make t-shirts. DH looks at me like I'm crazy every time I mention the idea of t-shirts. We're going to DISNEY!! Get excited people!

It's so much fun though to be planning a surprise for the boys. I can't believe it's been 115 days and they still have no clue. This afternoon they were playing in their room and singing "A Pirate's Life For Me". If only they knew...

DS7's birthday party was a huge success! Everyone had a lot of fun and I was so glad everything went off just as we planned. We had several pirates, a Peter Pan, and a couple of Tinkerbells show up. DS7 was Captain Hook. I played music I downloaded from iTunes, we took a group picture and then the kids had to walk the plank to get to the dinner table, where they ate hot dogs(Peter Pan's swords), chips (Captain Hook's planks), and Whoppers candy (Smee's cannonballs). Then we had cake and ice cream. The pinata was next and by that time it was starting to get dark. DH and my dad had strung lights up in the backyard and they looked great! I brought out the glow in the dark bracelets and sticks and the kids had a blast with those until it was time to go home!

Only 35 days until we leave for Disney...I can't believe it is so close. There is still so much to do. I'm still trying to figure out how I am going to pack the bags without the boys finding out! I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when we tell them. Of course, I've been trying to bait them a little, just to get them to start thinking about going. I think they would rather go back to the beach in Destin! I'm debating on whether I should pull out the vacation planning dvd and let them watch it (they haven't seen it before and this will be their first trip to WDW) just so they know what is there and may start asking to go.

Between now and then, we have a lot going on to keep us all busy. We have soccer games for both boys every Saturday and next weekend I am taking my oldest on our first Mom & Me campout for cub scouts. It should be fun!