She's Turning Five at Disney World, a September 2014 PTR

[kastoney]

I just love to hear a child's perspective of what they want to do. In our house it's lots of ride the goofy roller coaster and hug someone (meaning any character, she is not picky). Also amazing how much they remember. I was very accusatorially reminded the other day that she didn't get to meet pooh after we rode his ride. The nerve of me.

Glad to see there are other daddies playing dolls out there too. I too am a mommy who doesn't do it right ; )

Any seeing updates coming soon. Those of us who can't even sew a button need to live vicariously through she of so much talent.

 

[Wood Nymph]

That is the cutest list of activities I have ever seen. Kids really do like simple things, don't they? Does Allie like the Move It, Shake it parade?

Our four year old grandson, the one whose 5th birthday is really close to Allie's birthday (Sept 20th), is going to WDW for the very first time on Sunday. They are staying at ASMU. Our daughter has never stayed at anything but a deluxe resort, so this should be interesting. But I am very excited for them.

Have you thought about decorating your resort window? I guess that people in values and moderates will sometimes do that. I was checking it out for our daughter and it looked like fun. Some of the families just put dolls in the window, and Allie could do that with her dolls.

 

[MonsterWDWmom]

Hi! I will also be down in Sept (the beginning). You days look great and I love the restaurants you chose.

What a great way to celebrate your daughters birthday, I think that would be any child's wish

Having 2 girls myself (ages 3 and 5) I know what you mean with the princess barbies. My youngest loves them and will play with them all day, I am not so great playing pretend so my husband usually plays (as he is more creative than me)

I can't wait to see what else you have going on, Sept is coming quick!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

I just love to hear a child's perspective of what they want to do. In our house it's lots of ride the goofy roller coaster and hug someone (meaning any character, she is not picky). Also amazing how much they remember. I was very accusatorially reminded the other day that she didn't get to meet pooh after we rode his ride. The nerve of me.

Glad to see there are other daddies playing dolls out there too. I too am a mommy who doesn't do it right ; )

Any sewing updates coming soon. Those of us who can't even sew a button need to live vicariously through she of so much talent.

Yes, seeing what makes the trip fun from a child's perspective is great. It helps us not worry about the throngs that appears try don't make much difference. It also helps remind us to slow down and sign on a bench.

Glad to hear about another doll playing Daddy. There's plenty that Mommys do better, like in our house reading bed time stories.

As for sewing updates, Melissa has been really busy lately and not done any sewing, but she has been making plans and should have an update soon.

That is the cutest list of activities I have ever seen. Kids really do like simple things, don't they? Does Allie like the Move It, Shake it parade?

Our four year old grandson, the one whose 5th birthday is really close to Allie's birthday (Sept 20th), is going to WDW for the very first time on Sunday. They are staying at ASMU. Our daughter has never stayed at anything but a deluxe resort, so this should be interesting. But I am very excited for them.

Have you thought about decorating your resort window? I guess that people in values and moderates will sometimes do that. I was checking it out for our daughter and it looked like fun. Some of the families just put dolls in the window, and Allie could do that with her dolls.

It is fun to see what they enjoy. Good question about the Move It Shake It Parade, she has never seen it. It could go either way because while she likes parades and dancing, she can get overwhelmed a bit, so we'll see.

Allie's birthday is Sept 20th as well! We hope your daughter and grandson and family have a great trip. Going with kids is great, and Values look like fun.

Great idea about using dolls to decorate the window. They will serve a double purpose, and it is one less thing for us to worry about planning.

Hi! I will also be down in Sept (the beginning). You days look great and I love the restaurants you chose.

What a great way to celebrate your daughters birthday, I think that would be any child's wish

Having 2 girls myself (ages 3 and 5) I know what you mean with the princess barbies. My youngest loves them and will play with them all day, I am not so great playing pretend so my husband usually plays (as he is more creative than me)

I can't wait to see what else you have going on, Sept is coming quick!

Hello and welcome! Yay for yet another princess doll playing Daddy. Sometimes it doesn't take much creativity, just silliness.

We have gone in early September each of the last two years, and loved the lack of crowds. We are going later this time, but hope it is still relatively quiet. We have been working on planning our days beyond just the ADRs, so we'll post more of those details to help pass the time as we wait for September.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Today we hit 99 days on our trip countdown!


The Pebble countdown agrees too:


From the last two trips, we've found that the last 99 days go by relatively quickly, so we are super excited. We still haven't printed out and put up our countdown chain, but maybe we'll get to that this weekend.

We are also spending Saturday at Disneyland for our 7th anniversary! Dinner will be at Storytellers at the GC like we do every year. Allie is spending the weekend with my aunt so it's going to be a nice opportunity for some grown up Disney time.

In sewing update news we visited the brand new Joann that is walking distance from our house.


Since Elsa costumes are in super high demand, this is a natural project for this year. Allie decided that she wants to be Elsa for BBB, so an Elsa dress became even more of a necessity.

I've looked high and low for fabric that fit what I had in my head and really didn't have much luck until this day.

We found four different types of fabric that should hopefully go together pretty well and result in an Elsa costume that will be wearable in the September Orlando heat.

The only issue I see is that Allie wants it to be long sleeved just like Elsa

We found some light material that hopefully won't be too hot or itchy, and hopefully will be cool enough and something sewable. That's Melissa's department, and she's got her work cut out for her... We'll keep you updated on how it progresses.

 

[MonsterWDWmom]

Good Luck with the Elsa costume! I have a friend that is making the coronation dress for her daughter (cape and all) I know about how high demand the dress is after stalking the Disney store for months I was finally able to get 1.

I hope your dinner is nice and relaxing for you both!

 

[kastoney]

Congrats on reaching the double digits and your anniversary. So jealous you live so close to Disneylans. We hit 7 this year too and did part of our honeymoon at DL before heading up to wine country. Napa Rose is still my all time favorite disney meal.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Double digit dance time -
That is my favorite milestone.

I see that Allie likes to shop for fabric. I love the shades of blue that you picked out.

 

[WDWKOOK]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, PAUL AND MELISSA!​

How nice that you have someone you trust to watch Allie all weekend. Poor DD has had to join us on every anniversary. It will be strange someday not having her with us on our anniversary, but it might just be a good strange.

Can't wait to see the finished Elsa dress and how great that you now have a fabric store within walking distance - or is that not so great for Paul?


Your countdowns make it seems much more real and you're right, the 98 days now will fly by and soon you'll be at POR

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Good Luck with the Elsa costume! I have a friend that is making the coronation dress for her daughter (cape and all) I know about how high demand the dress is after stalking the Disney store for months I was finally able to get 1.

I hope your dinner is nice and relaxing for you both!

Congratulations on getting the elusive Elsa dress. It will be interesting to see what we come up with, but no matter what it will beat paying what they are getting for them on eBay right now.

Thanks for the dinner wishes. We have gone back to the same restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner each year, sometimes with Allie and sometimes on our own. Either way is fun, since it is at Disney!

Congrats on reaching the double digits and your anniversary. So jealous you live so close to Disneyland. We hit 7 this year too and did part of our honeymoon at DL before heading up to wine country. Napa Rose is still my all time favorite disney meal.

We STILL have not eaten there. It looks amazing, but usually we are on a lower budget (like Nachos from Whitewater Snacks) and when we do decide to splurge on a meal we wind up at Storytellers. We will have to go to Napa Rose sometime though.

Double digit dance time -
That is my favorite milestone.

I see that Allie likes to shop for fabric. I love the shades of blue that you picked out.

Yeah, it is funny how 100 days seems so long, but flies by. It is just a few months now!

It was hilarious haw many different kinds of fabric Allie wanted to get. She can make a convincing argument about why she NEEDS it. It is pretty funny when some of the fabric she wanted was red or purple. I think the fabric we settled on should go pretty well together, with sparkles for the cape, more sparkles for the front of the dress, a more reasonable fabric for the bulk of the dress, and something light and breathable (but not itchy) for the sleeves. We'll see.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, PAUL AND MELISSA!​

How nice that you have someone you trust to watch Allie all weekend. Poor DD has had to join us on every anniversary. It will be strange someday not having her with us on our anniversary, but it might just be a good strange.

Can't wait to see the finished Elsa dress and how great that you now have a fabric store within walking distance - or is that not so great for Paul?


Your countdowns make it seems much more real and you're right, the 98 days now will fly by and soon you'll be at POR

Thanks! Melissa's aunt is the only person Allie has ever stayed overnight with, but she absolutely loves it. Allie's been with us for most anniversary dinners, but being on our own again at Disney should be a good different.

The fabric store will be interesting too. I suppose it will save money in fuel when we do have to run out for one thing or another. Right now Melissa's limited amount of free time is keeping sewing expenses down.

98 days till our trip means yours is super close, just a couple weeks away. Have a great time.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Live update from the Disneyland Hotel: We are having breakfast at Steakhouse 55, and it is a beautiful restaurant. It'll be a great start to a wonderful day.

 

[WDWKOOK]

Love a LIVE update and how you took your selfie and the restaurant looks almost empty? Enjoy YOUR day together and I hope you have a special anniversary dinner planned

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Love a LIVE update and how you took your selfie and the restaurant looks almost empty? Enjoy YOUR day together and I hope you have a special anniversary dinner planned

Thanks! We had a great day and the restaurant for breakfast was excellent. IT was almost empty, and quite fancy considering the relatively economical breakfast prices. We'd love to go back for dinner sometime.

I'm uploading pictures now for an update about our daughterless DL day.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We celebrated our seventh anniversary a couple of days early by going back to where we were married and spending the day at Disneyland. Melissa's Aunt offered to keep Allie for the weekend, which she has done before and Allie just loves, so we got to go play as just the two of us.

We started by getting out of the house super early (at least for us) and made it to Disney just after 8AM. Then we headed to the Disneyland Hotel for a great breakfast at Steakhouse 55, which is beautiful and very fancy, but reasonably priced for breakfast.

Breakfast was amazing, even the bacon was delish which is often not the case at Disney.


We definitely want to come back here with Allie because we think she'd get a kick out of eating somewhere fancy like that. We'd like to come back with just the two of us for dinner sometime too...

After breakfast we headed to California Adventure since it was supposed to have the lower crowd for the day. We walked straight to Radiator Springs Racers to see how bad the wait was.

I figured we'd ride it if it was 45 minutes or less and if it was more we'd see about getting fastpasses.


Since it was only 40 minutes we got in line. Last year we waited over an hour for this ride, but this time the wait was less than the posted time.

It is a great ride and I'm glad we got to ride it without a horrendous wait.

After that we headed over to California Screamin where the wait was only about 15 minutes. We used to wait a long time in line for this ride when we were dating and waiting in line together there brought back fond memories.

That still is probably my favorite roller coaster, probably followed closely by Expedition Everest.

Then we walked through Paradise Pier and shopped a bit before riding Goofy's Sky School, which we hadn't ridden since it was rethemed from Mulholland Madness. The tracks are the same, but the theming is cute, and it is an exciting little roller coaster.

It definitely plays on my fear of heights. The two guys in front of us in the car were giggling hystarically though which cracked me up.

Next we decided to skip the Ariel ride (since we do it every time with Allie) and head for Soarin Over California. We grabbed fastpasses since they were for only about 30 minutes away, with a 20 minute standby wait. This gave us a chance to shop on the main street, and work our way over to Tower of Terror to grab a set of Fastpasses for it. (Yep, us in CA still have paper fastpasses that we can collect more of once the window for one opens... Ahh, good old history.)

It was probably our most efficient use of Fast passes in a long time if not ever.

Soarin was great as usual and since Allies tall enought to ride it now I think I'd like to try to get her on it. I think she'd enjoy it.

Riding it brought back dating memories for me too. We generally are not "commando" park people, so having multiple fastpasses and riding five of the top attractions before lunch is definitely out of character for us, but it was fun and the low crowds allowd us to do it, so we took advantage.

Tower of Terror was great. It has been several years since we've ridden it, I think it was probably before I was pregnant so it was great to revisit. We actually were able to ride this as a preview when they first put it in.


We still have not ridden Tower of Terror at HS, and we want to next trip because we have heard the ride mechanism is slightly different. Here in CA the car slides straight back to engage in the big lift, and doesn't need to go up at all first.

After ToT we headed over to Disneyland for lunch. On the way we stopped at our "rock" where I proposed to Melissa nine years before.


We decided on Corndogs for lunch, and I got a picture of Melissa with one.


Disneyland corn dogs are amazing. We don't get them very often but they are always so good.

Then we walked around Disneyland for a while and did some more shopping without a four year old. We then headed toward Downtown Disney because we wanted to see the Belmont horse race. The ESPN zone was charging a $10 an hour minimum, so we headed to our hotel bar at the Grand Californian. Since neither of us drinks, we ordered a pair of Diet Cokes and got a seat where we could see the TVs. It was fun to hang out in the bar where many of our family and wedding guests had hung out at years before.



It was nice to watch the race from the Grand Californian, we were able to sit and rest our feet which mine needed.

After the race was over we meandered over to the wedding garden and stage where our wedding ceremony was.


It is always fun to stop by here, and we are glad that most of the area survived the DVC construction here after the wedding.

We then headed back into Disneyland for a bit. Park hopping here is so easy compared to at WDW, and since we had an hour to kill before dinner we figured we would see if we could hop on a ride. Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain had too long of lines, but we grabbed fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain for after dinner.

We also noticed that they were having a Grad Nite this evening, which meant that there were a lot of high school kids filling the park. Back when we were in school they closed Disneyland for Grad Nite, but now they start the evening with the regular park guests, which makes for some interesting people watching.

Not to mention making us feel old and parental.

Then after a call from Allie we headed to dinner. It seems she had decided she missed Mommy when she went out to dinner, so some reassuring over the phone was necessary. The prospect of ice cream after dinner cheered her up, and we headed for Storyteller's.

We cut through CA Adventure to go straight to the Grand Californian for dinner, and arrived right on time for our 5:45 reservation. We were seated right away, and chose to help ourselves to the buffet.


The corn chowder and bread pudding were delicious.


The corn chowder is the reason we keep coming back, and is like the best soup anywhere. Some of the other items on the buffet weren't great, (I have got to learn to stop trying the salmon) but I do love the chicken nuggets.

We left dinner STUFFED and tired. I plugged in my Jawbone UP and it showed we had walked over 9 miles.

At this point I realized we weren't going to be using the Big Thunder Fastpasses, or even sitting around to wait for fireworks. We instead chose to walk through Downtown Disney as we worked our way back to our car. We headed for home about 8:00, and were back home before 9:00. It felt a little like we gave up early, but we had a really full day and it felt good to be home on the couch, and then to bed early.

It was a great practice day for those long multi-park days at WDW. We can't wait for September.

 

[Wood Nymph]

That was a really nice anniversary day! It is amazing how much more you can get done when there is just the two of you. I love your paving stone. Is that section limited to weddings and engagements, or does it just seem that way?

Aw, the old paper fast passes - they were so easy to use.

We were at MK on prom night once. This was probably almost 20 years ago, so I don't know if they still do it. Anyway, they closed the park at 8pm. As we were getting off the monorail we saw all the girls in their prom dresses and guys in suits, and security guards checking for alcohol.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

That was a really nice anniversary day! It is amazing how much more you can get done when there is just the two of you. I love your paving stone. Is that section limited to weddings and engagements, or does it just seem that way? Aw, the old paper fast passes - they were so easy to use. We were at MK on prom night once. This was probably almost 20 years ago, so I don't know if they still do it. Anyway, they closed the park at 8pm. As we were getting off the monorail we saw all the girls in their prom dresses and guys in suits, and security guards checking for alcohol.

It was a fun day. It is funny how often we will go and not ride anything, or more recently just ride a couple of Allie's favorites, so having a multi-ride day was neat.

The paving stones were for anyone who wanted to buy one. There were some restrictions on what you could say on them, and Disney had the final say on everything. They let you put a city on them, so we chose Glamis, which is where we met going to the sand dunes with our families. Ours is in a section near the front that was for passholders. We bought it the second year we had passes when we were dating. Later I proposed to Melissa at the paving stone exactly two years before we were married. (We didn't plan it, that's just how the days worked out since we got engaged on a Thursday and wanted to get married on a Saturday two years later.)

We both did grad nite separately at Disneyland and the security used to be crazy. I remember walking through a line of cast members who were looking for anything out of place and would pull students out of line for further inspection.

 

[kastoney]

What a great anniversary. So jealous you all are so close to Disneyland and can still use fastpasses...sigh. Can't believe how much you can cram into one day when all you have to do is cross some sidewalk to get between parks, hotels, and DTD. Disneyland definitely has the world beat when it comes to "transportation."

 

[MrsTeddy]

So excited to be following along again!

I didn't realize Allie and my guy were so close in age, he will be this month. He would love to be in WDW to celebrate!

We are heading to DL in September and I find a lot less info for planning! I'm thinking of doing one or two character meals, is there anything you suggest? We have a girly as well who will be 2.5 when we go.

We are frozen obsessed here as well! Just bought frozen on ice tickets to celebrate our daughters third birthday in March at! The next best thing to a WDW trip! Lol

Looking forward to hearing about your plans and I would love any insider tips for our trip! We will be there Sept 24-Oct 1. Only 3 Disney days and staying off property.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

So excited to be following along again! I didn't realize Allie and my guy were so close in age, he will be this month. He would love to be in WDW to celebrate! We are heading to DL in September and I find a lot less info for planning! I'm thinking of doing one or two character meals, is there anything you suggest? We have a girly as well who will be 2.5 when we go. We are frozen obsessed here as well! Just bought frozen on ice tickets to celebrate our daughters third birthday in March at! The next best thing to a WDW trip! Lol Looking forward to hearing about your plans and I would love any insider tips for our trip! We will be there Sept 24-Oct 1. Only 3 Disney days and staying off property.

We're glad to have you here following along. It is so funny, we can recommend three character meals at WDW no problem, but we just don't do them at DL. There are character breakfasts at each of the hotels that people enjoy, but we just don't do it. Instead we recently found Steakhouse 55 at the Disneyland hotel for a nice upscale breakfast at a great price. It also is usually quiet enough to not need reservations. We rarely eat anywhere at DLR that requires reservations but our favorites that do are Big Thunder Ranch BBQ in DL (great BBQ and wonderful s'mores dessert to share) and Carnation Cafe on Main Street in DL.

We far more frequently visit quick service restaurants, and our biggest tip there is the snack bar at the Grand Californian. We love their nachos, but they have burgers, pizza and other stuff too and there is never much of a crowd. You can go there straight from CA Adventure and back (which is restricted to hotel guests in the morning but open to everyone after about 11AM). We also like hungry bear in DL by Splash Mountain, which has burgers and a nice view of the water which makes for a shady cool spot. In CA Adventure we like the burgers at Taste Pilots by Soarin or Flo's cafe in Cars land for something a little nicer. Finally, we also like the roast beef sandwiches at Fiddler, Fife, and Practical cafe on the Main Street of CA Adventure which is their Starbucks location.

Have a great trip, and feel free to ask any questions we can help with for the planning.

 

[WDWKOOK]

Just checking back in from 11 nights at WDW. I love seeing your DLR photos because it's like another world to me - eerily familiar, yet not quite the same.

Can you give us a countdown update from your fancy schmancy special watchthingamajigger?