Jiminy_78
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2009
- Messages
- 69
Hi Everyone! 
Well, Ive been lurking on these boards for years. Ive spent hours reading about other peoples adventures and exciting journeys. When we were thinking about taking this trip I searched on here for any and all trip reports that included travel with an infant and tried to learn from everyone elses lessons learned. We set out on a magical adventure in our happy place and found that its a whole new world to us as a new family and as you can tell in the title of this TR, one of us had a fabulous time getting up close and personal with the characters.
Trip Details
Dates: January 21-30, 2011
Resort: Pop Century
Tickets: 9 day Magic Your Way w/ Park Hopper Option
Dining Plan: We upgraded from the quick service plan that comes with free dining to the standard plan.
Cast:
Me, Jiminy_78, a lifelong Disneyholic. I grew up on the west coast and made my first trip to Disneyland when I was less than one year old. Several other trips to DL followed that throughout my childhood and youth. I first visited WDW in 1989 with my parents and sister, my next trip was with my youth choir in 1994. During this trip I spent a lot of time wandering MGM hoping to be discovered to join the new cast of the MMC. Of course, I now know that they werent even filming new episodes then, but I was obsessed. After that trip I didnt return to WDW for 13 years! The horror! During that hiatus I did work for the Disney Store (before it was sold to Childrens Place and then bought back) and visited Disneyland twice. My favorite characters are Jiminy Cricket and Eeyore. I actually named one of my cats Eeyore when I was in high school but my parents decided it was too difficult to say all the time so we called him Mr. E. Well, everyone else thought wed named our cat Mystery, go figure, it took more to explain his name than if wed just called him Eeyore. But I digress I work as a school psychologist and love to daydream about trips to WDW in my spare time.
DH, well call him Mr. Bean, because well thats his DIS name. Creative, huh? He first visited WDW in 1989 (a few months after I was there) with his brother and Grandma. He needed me to come along in his life to reignite his love for all things Disney. I took him to DL for the first time in 2003 and after our WDW trip in 2007 hes been back at least once a year since. He went in 2008 with his siblings to celebrate his sisters 21st birthday and I had to stay home because Id just started a new job. I was so sad. He works as a software engineer and is very savvy with computers. He created our own website where we have counted down to trips and have links to all our dining reservations and restaurant menus. Between the two of us hes the planner. He is amazing at crunching numbers and doing Disney math to get us the best deals on our vacations. His favorite character is Goofy!
And heres the star of the show and light of our lives. (Doesnt every parent say that?) Our DS, well call him Nemo, was born in early August 2010. Shortly after he was born, I noticed that he had very small ears. Once I gave him a thorough look over I noticed that it was not both ears, just his right ear that was smaller. It appeared as though it hadnt developed completely on the outside. That same day DH and I were talking about our perfect son and I said we have our own Nemo, he has a lucky ear. Shortly after we had this conversation my sister came to the hospital with a Finding Nemo Happy Birthday balloon and we took it as a sign that wed been blessed with a very special boy. As much as DH and I were hoping for Nemo to love Jiminy or Eeyore or even Goofy, it turns out that he is a, wait for it .T-I-double G-ER fan.
A little background for this trip: DH and I last visited WDW in late March 2010 when I was five months pregnant. We had APs that expired in early April and we wanted to squeeze in one more trip before Nemo arrived. We were there for 12 nights and pigged out on the DxDDP. You can read about our culinary journey in our Dining Review. When we were on the Magical Express heading back to MCO (I think they should rename this part of the journey the Tragical Express, because lets be real there is nothing magical about facing reality again) I was full of conflicted emotions. Sad because we werent planning on returning to WDW until March 2012 when we were going to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. However, I was also really excited about the next phase of our lives and becoming parents.
Nemo arrived, life was wonderful, we bought a new house and moved in and everyday was a new adventure. We really werent planning to return to WDW but that didnt stop me from going on line and planning out trips for fun. One day in late October, I was eating my lunch and looking at the free dining promotions for 2011 and I got out my day planner and realized that one of the free dining weeks in January coincided with a long weekend from work due to a furlough day. I priced out some different resorts and dining plan options and called DH at work. I felt like we were in one of those WDW commercials where you see the parents staring at a computer in the middle of the night going hey, we could do that. Except that we were both on our computers at work during our lunch breaks trying to see how quickly we could plan and book a WDW vacation. While he was double checking my numbers I started to look at airfare and found some decent flights. I then began searching the dining reservations to see what was available. There are a few restaurants that are must do for us and le Cellier is one of them. I joking told DH that if I could manage to find an ADR for le Cellier then wed go. Well, I found one for lunch on the day we were flying home. We took it as a sign that we were meant to go and we booked the package and bought our airline tickets, all within sixty minutes. I think that was a new record for us in planning a trip!
Once it was all booked we realized that we were going to have to tell people that we were going back to our happy place and we knew wed get looks and sighs and the occasion big surprise and we knew you couldnt hold out that long and the How old will DS be when you go? We then realized that we were about to set out on an adventure to a very familiar place but in new unfamiliar territory. We had to start thinking about Baby Centers, Baby Swaps, naptimes, diaper bags, baby food . We had a little less than three months to figure it all out. Would we manage?
This TR is about two parents who thought they knew it all and had seen it all and the beautiful little Nemo who proved them wrong. It may make you laugh, or cringe, or cry. Im sure that some parents will shake their heads and say that a baby just shy of six months has no business being at WDW and to them I say Youre probably right, but this was our lesson to learn and adventure to have. We learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and as mentioned before, one of us got very friendly with members of the fab five. So without further ado lets get this TR on the road .
Our agenda:
Friday, 1/21 arrive at MCO at 10:30pm, take ME to Pop Century
Saturday, 1/22 Magic Kingdom (Breakfast ADR at Crystal Palace)
Sunday, 1/23 Hollywood Studios Day (Fantasmic! package at Brown Derby for lunch, Dinner ADR at 50s Prime Time Café)
Monday, 1/24 Animal Kingdom (Dinner ADR at Boma), Evening EMH at Magic Kingdom
Tuesday, 1/25 Epcot (Dinner ADR at Via Napoli)
Wednesday, 1/26 Animal Kingdom (Dinner ADR at YaknYeti)
Thursday, 1/27 Magic Kingdom (Dinner ADR at Ohana, Family Portrait Session in AM at the Poly)
Friday, 1/28 Hollywood Studios AM, Epcot PM (lunch ADR at Tutto Italia, Dinner ADR at Rose and Crown)
Saturday, 1/29 Magic Kingdom (Dinner ADR at Kona Café)
Sunday, 1/30 Epcot Am (Lunch ADR at le Cellier), Magical Express to MCO for 7:30pm flight home
Chapters
A Stroll Down Memory Lane...Disney Style
I heart Southwest...except when they delay my journey to the magic!
Piglet and Tigger and Pooh...oh my!
Ahoy Matey!
A ghost stole my mitten!

Well, Ive been lurking on these boards for years. Ive spent hours reading about other peoples adventures and exciting journeys. When we were thinking about taking this trip I searched on here for any and all trip reports that included travel with an infant and tried to learn from everyone elses lessons learned. We set out on a magical adventure in our happy place and found that its a whole new world to us as a new family and as you can tell in the title of this TR, one of us had a fabulous time getting up close and personal with the characters.

Trip Details
Dates: January 21-30, 2011
Resort: Pop Century
Tickets: 9 day Magic Your Way w/ Park Hopper Option
Dining Plan: We upgraded from the quick service plan that comes with free dining to the standard plan.
Cast:
Me, Jiminy_78, a lifelong Disneyholic. I grew up on the west coast and made my first trip to Disneyland when I was less than one year old. Several other trips to DL followed that throughout my childhood and youth. I first visited WDW in 1989 with my parents and sister, my next trip was with my youth choir in 1994. During this trip I spent a lot of time wandering MGM hoping to be discovered to join the new cast of the MMC. Of course, I now know that they werent even filming new episodes then, but I was obsessed. After that trip I didnt return to WDW for 13 years! The horror! During that hiatus I did work for the Disney Store (before it was sold to Childrens Place and then bought back) and visited Disneyland twice. My favorite characters are Jiminy Cricket and Eeyore. I actually named one of my cats Eeyore when I was in high school but my parents decided it was too difficult to say all the time so we called him Mr. E. Well, everyone else thought wed named our cat Mystery, go figure, it took more to explain his name than if wed just called him Eeyore. But I digress I work as a school psychologist and love to daydream about trips to WDW in my spare time.
DH, well call him Mr. Bean, because well thats his DIS name. Creative, huh? He first visited WDW in 1989 (a few months after I was there) with his brother and Grandma. He needed me to come along in his life to reignite his love for all things Disney. I took him to DL for the first time in 2003 and after our WDW trip in 2007 hes been back at least once a year since. He went in 2008 with his siblings to celebrate his sisters 21st birthday and I had to stay home because Id just started a new job. I was so sad. He works as a software engineer and is very savvy with computers. He created our own website where we have counted down to trips and have links to all our dining reservations and restaurant menus. Between the two of us hes the planner. He is amazing at crunching numbers and doing Disney math to get us the best deals on our vacations. His favorite character is Goofy!

And heres the star of the show and light of our lives. (Doesnt every parent say that?) Our DS, well call him Nemo, was born in early August 2010. Shortly after he was born, I noticed that he had very small ears. Once I gave him a thorough look over I noticed that it was not both ears, just his right ear that was smaller. It appeared as though it hadnt developed completely on the outside. That same day DH and I were talking about our perfect son and I said we have our own Nemo, he has a lucky ear. Shortly after we had this conversation my sister came to the hospital with a Finding Nemo Happy Birthday balloon and we took it as a sign that wed been blessed with a very special boy. As much as DH and I were hoping for Nemo to love Jiminy or Eeyore or even Goofy, it turns out that he is a, wait for it .T-I-double G-ER fan.

A little background for this trip: DH and I last visited WDW in late March 2010 when I was five months pregnant. We had APs that expired in early April and we wanted to squeeze in one more trip before Nemo arrived. We were there for 12 nights and pigged out on the DxDDP. You can read about our culinary journey in our Dining Review. When we were on the Magical Express heading back to MCO (I think they should rename this part of the journey the Tragical Express, because lets be real there is nothing magical about facing reality again) I was full of conflicted emotions. Sad because we werent planning on returning to WDW until March 2012 when we were going to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. However, I was also really excited about the next phase of our lives and becoming parents.
Nemo arrived, life was wonderful, we bought a new house and moved in and everyday was a new adventure. We really werent planning to return to WDW but that didnt stop me from going on line and planning out trips for fun. One day in late October, I was eating my lunch and looking at the free dining promotions for 2011 and I got out my day planner and realized that one of the free dining weeks in January coincided with a long weekend from work due to a furlough day. I priced out some different resorts and dining plan options and called DH at work. I felt like we were in one of those WDW commercials where you see the parents staring at a computer in the middle of the night going hey, we could do that. Except that we were both on our computers at work during our lunch breaks trying to see how quickly we could plan and book a WDW vacation. While he was double checking my numbers I started to look at airfare and found some decent flights. I then began searching the dining reservations to see what was available. There are a few restaurants that are must do for us and le Cellier is one of them. I joking told DH that if I could manage to find an ADR for le Cellier then wed go. Well, I found one for lunch on the day we were flying home. We took it as a sign that we were meant to go and we booked the package and bought our airline tickets, all within sixty minutes. I think that was a new record for us in planning a trip!

Once it was all booked we realized that we were going to have to tell people that we were going back to our happy place and we knew wed get looks and sighs and the occasion big surprise and we knew you couldnt hold out that long and the How old will DS be when you go? We then realized that we were about to set out on an adventure to a very familiar place but in new unfamiliar territory. We had to start thinking about Baby Centers, Baby Swaps, naptimes, diaper bags, baby food . We had a little less than three months to figure it all out. Would we manage?

This TR is about two parents who thought they knew it all and had seen it all and the beautiful little Nemo who proved them wrong. It may make you laugh, or cringe, or cry. Im sure that some parents will shake their heads and say that a baby just shy of six months has no business being at WDW and to them I say Youre probably right, but this was our lesson to learn and adventure to have. We learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and as mentioned before, one of us got very friendly with members of the fab five. So without further ado lets get this TR on the road .
Our agenda:
Friday, 1/21 arrive at MCO at 10:30pm, take ME to Pop Century
Saturday, 1/22 Magic Kingdom (Breakfast ADR at Crystal Palace)
Sunday, 1/23 Hollywood Studios Day (Fantasmic! package at Brown Derby for lunch, Dinner ADR at 50s Prime Time Café)
Monday, 1/24 Animal Kingdom (Dinner ADR at Boma), Evening EMH at Magic Kingdom
Tuesday, 1/25 Epcot (Dinner ADR at Via Napoli)
Wednesday, 1/26 Animal Kingdom (Dinner ADR at YaknYeti)
Thursday, 1/27 Magic Kingdom (Dinner ADR at Ohana, Family Portrait Session in AM at the Poly)
Friday, 1/28 Hollywood Studios AM, Epcot PM (lunch ADR at Tutto Italia, Dinner ADR at Rose and Crown)
Saturday, 1/29 Magic Kingdom (Dinner ADR at Kona Café)
Sunday, 1/30 Epcot Am (Lunch ADR at le Cellier), Magical Express to MCO for 7:30pm flight home
Chapters
A Stroll Down Memory Lane...Disney Style
I heart Southwest...except when they delay my journey to the magic!
Piglet and Tigger and Pooh...oh my!
Ahoy Matey!
A ghost stole my mitten!