Sharing the Magic with first-timers

[MayButterfly]

Well my last pretrip report was a big bust! I am going to TRY really hard to keep up with this one!

Before we begin with the details: Let's get on with the cast!

Me: "Jac" 27, got the Disney bug in 2005 on my first trip! Ever since, we've gone EVERY year, even though I said we'd never turn into "those type of people". I was in love as soon as we ate breakfast at the castle and the first princess came out!
Favorite character: Ariel, Chip N Dale

DH: "Ka-nick" 28, Been to Disney as a child, but when we went in 2005, it had been over 10 years for him. Favorite character: Goofy,

BFF: "Lali" 23. She is the Jelly to my PB! She grew up in Cali, so she knows DL, but never has been to WDW. I get to show her the magic that I love!
Favorite character: Belle

BFF's DH: "Frack" 27, He's also been to DL, but never WDW! Favorite character: Pluto

BFF's DS: "Mikey" 17 months old! He's my little monkey. I love him to death. We are so excited to show him WDW! He's met the characters at DL so he knows a little something about it.
Favorite character: Mickey


There isn't a lot of planning needed for this trip. Since my WONDERFUL father-in-law WORKS at Disney, it's FREE (yes, you heard right, F-R-E-E!!).
So free tickets(well mainly all free) : CHECK
Free place to stay: CHECK (they live about a block away from MK..we can watch fireworks from their house-how cool is that?)
All we need $$$$$ for is gas down there and whatever else!!
What a wonderful way to spend a few days with awesome friends!!

We will be down there Wed May 13-Sunday May 17th. Short trip I know, but we'll take it!

TBC..........

 

[MayButterfly]

So a little background of how this trip came to be. Originally, it was going to be a surprise trip for my mom and step-dad. My mom is graduating college in May and she's worked SO hard for this, I wanted to do something great! She had been looking for a job since she was laid off in Oct.. Well, she got one, so no Disney in May with her. BUT she did say as soon as she can take vacation we'll all go down to Disney!
From my very first trip to Disney, I knew I wanted to show my mom this magical place!
So since we had room for people, we thought about our friends! We've been talking about going to Disney together for awhile now. This is the perfect opportunity. They are both looking for a job as well, so why not since they are off! Especially since most of the stay will be free!!!

More details: My mom is graduating May 12th! We are leaving for Disney early May 13th and driving down. Knick and I drove last year and it really wasn't bad. About 10 hours, if that! This, I know, will be a different experience since we have a young child with us. We're up for the adventure though!
Our plan is to pack a lot of snacks/food/drinks and only stop for potty breaks(diaper changes) and to refill once.
Knick likes to see if he can beat the "estimated arrival time" on the GPS. :

I hope I get some readers, but if not, oh well! My DH is also a member, so if you see "Flanigan" around anywhere, tell him hi!

 

[Flanigan]

Knick likes to see if he can beat the "estimated arrival time" on the GPS.

I just like watching the Estimated Arrival time getting updated and it saying we're going to get there earlier than what it had originally said.

 

[pooksma]

I'm looking forward to this. DH and I and our DS are also taking a newbie family with us this trip. Hope you have lots of tips to share.

 

[MayButterfly]

Wednesday 5/13: Leave for DISNEY!!! That night, we are just going to relax by the pool and rest.
Thursday 5/14: MAGIC KINGDOM!!!!!
Friday 5/15: EPCOT (hopefully without Micah to give everyone a break!)
Saturday: 5/16: AK and HS! (We only want to do a few things at AK,so we're going to get that out of the way in the morning, then we can concentrate on HS!)
Sunday 5/17 leave Disney

 

[MayButterfly]

So how does one pack a car for 2 couples plus a baby???? That's what I want to know! haha

I'm thinking soft suitcases so they can be crammed in places and light packing(do I know the meaning of that though? )


For the driving: I think we're going to break it up into shifts. Last time we went, it took us about 10 hours.. This time with a child and someone that has already told us he stops a lot will add on, we're guessing, maybe up to 2 hours.. So with a 12 hour drive, that only means each person will drive 3 hours. Not too bad! We're packing snacks, sandwiches, etc to limit our stopping to only potty/diaper changes and gas!

The Fraileys will soon learn how we travel! haha

And we need music, I mean what proper road trip doesn't have music??
So we'll be mixing in some Disney songs with other songs. Can the 4 of us agree on music? That's the question!


more later!

 

[MayButterfly]

Decisions, decisions.... I'm still pondering if we should rent a mini van or a decent size SUV... We're talking maybe 12 hours in a car with 4 adults and a car seat! Will our Elantra be comfortable enough?? We've all been in the car together before and I don't remember being squished but that's been a little while ago!

Should we go ahead and pay for a rental?? I mean we're getting mainly free tickets and a free place to stay and MOST of our meals covered....but we'll have to stop more for gas if we get a bigger car.........

Maybe it's time to look around for rental deals.....

 

[MayButterfly]

So we decided to NOT rent, and just drive our car... We think it will work out just fine....

I have some ideas for shirts so I need to jump over to the creative board and see what they have.

On another note, there is a chance that Knick has a torn meniscus. He had a MRI today and I hope to find out what it said by the end of this week. One good thing about working for orthopeadic doctors.. free care.. haha.... we're trying to remain positive about it all... but if worse comes to worse, Knick will be in a wheelchair in the parks.... such is life... I made sure to mention to the doctor that we WILL be going to WDW in four weeks! He laughed and said, ok, we'll make fast decisions then.

I can't believe that tomorrow is 4 weeks away from our trip!! It's going by so fast!!!

 

[Flanigan]

On another note, there is a chance that Knick has a torn meniscus. He had a MRI today and I hope to find out what it said by the end of this week.

Hey, Gimpy here. I'm hoping to just receive another cortisone shot like I did ~5 years ago with a similar issue. But we'll know for sure in a couple more days.

4 Weeks to go and counting.

 

[MayButterfly]

So Knick will be having a scope on Wednesday and hopefully it will be something simple and he'll be back on his feet FAST.

 

[MayButterfly]

Knick's surgery went well... He's doing great... He'll be all set for Disney in 2 weeks!! I can't believe tomorrow is 2 weeks away!!! I'm so excited...
Nothing new to update... I'm making tshirts for my bff and myself! Can't wait to see how they turn out!!

More later!

 

[pooksma]

Post pics of your tees please.

Glad to here things went well with the knee.

 

[Flanigan]

above is the shirt design I put together for DW & her Friend. DW really likes it.

 

[NateNLogansDad]

I'm hoping on board, this can def be an interesting trip! Keep us up to date and get a pic of the car with all the luggage in there!

 

[Flanigan]

Ok, so just a few days left... so much to do! We've got to finish packing. And a few other odds and ends. Our friends arrive today. Then tonight we head to the MIL's place for her graduation party. She walks across the stage on Tuesday. Then Wednesday morning (early early morning) is when we are leaving.

We're hoping to get on the road by 4am. I'm also hoping to tweet some of the vacation as a way of taking notes of what we did when type of thing for a nice full trip report... or at least a view of the trip colored by the version of things that I see.

Anyway to end this post a haiku:

EPCOT - First Day Park
Travel the world in a day
Good drinks we shall drink

 

[pooksma]

Sorry I didn't post this before. Love the T-shirt design. Its really cute!

Epcot drink-grey goose slushie...mmmm.....

 

[Flanigan]

Sorry I didn't post this before. Love the T-shirt design. Its really cute!

Epcot drink-grey goose slushie...mmmm.....

Thanks! Yeah, we had the grey goose slushie for the first time last trip, they are really good!

 

[MayButterfly]

So we leave in 5 hours!!!!! yay!!!

Tonight was my momma's college graduation. We are so proud of her!!
We'll be packing the car soon and waking up between 3 and 3:30 am and hitting the road by 4 am!!! We are SUPER excited!! I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight!!!
So far we've had a wonderful time with our friends here, just hanging out at my mom's. I know we're going to have a BLAST in Disney! I'm looking forward to just relaxing by the pool tomorrow evening!

On another note, I started to get sick on Sunday so I'm dealing with a possible sinus infection ( ). AND I'm dealing with back pain/muscle spasms. I've never experienced pain like this before!!!!! I'm dealing with it with some pain medicine, but I'm hoping it won't interfere with Disney! My mom had this same thing a couple of weeks ago and she said hers lasted a WEEK! Great! haha.. I'll be 100% better by the time we LEAVE Disney! lol

Oh well... I better go and start packing up our bags so we can get the car packed and all set to go tomorrow morning! We've already packed a food/water bag.
I'm going to try and update from the road.. If nothing else, tomorrow evening I'll post an update with pics!

 

[Flanigan]

Ok so after about 2 hours sleep last night I took the first shift driving. I drove for 3.5 hours which got us almost all the way to I-95. The total driving time was about 10 hours, surprisingly having a child in the car really didn't slow us down that much. Oh and, also here's a picture of the trunk of our car packed with the items for 4 adults and a child for a several day Disney trip:

In case you're wondering that's an '07 Hyundai Elantra, those things have more trunk space than most people would think they have. Our first park tomorrow will be Epcot. We're all looking forward to it.

 

[MayButterfly]

So after sleeping for just a little under a couple of hours, we got up at 3:30 am to leave around 4 am. Surprisingly I wasn't all that tired.. I think I had the " I'm going to Disney" fever!! haha

(can you tell I'm eager to get started!!!)

So we drove and drove and drove....... I think we only stopped 3 or 4 times!

Micah wanted to drive next... haha

v
more later...