Shhh! It's a surprise trip to DisneyWorld! 3/4 - 3/9/09

[Aidan's Mommy]

My first ever pre-trip report! Let me start off by introducing the people who are part of our surprise trip:
Me - Trish
Stacy - SIL
Aidan - my DS who just turned 5. He spent his 4th birthday at Disney. The surprise is for him.
Bela - SIL's neice age 7. Stacy takes each of her neices to Disney once they hit a certain age...this year is Bela's turn.


So, a little background on how we decided to do another trip to Disney and why its a surprise.

SIL's brother emailed her and asked if she was interested in going to Disney at all this year. He is in the military and can get family and friends discount tickets. My DH and I thought it over because it was a good price, but figured that the hotel and flight costs would just put it out of our budget. Lo and behold, the Disney gods were at work. Shortly thereafter, I got an email with a pin for 40% off the hotel stay...hmmm....that's hard to pass up. Still...airfare is just too expensive for three people from Milwaukee to Orlando right? Well...I put in a request on Airtran's webpage since they had a few deals going on and we were able to find flights to Orlando for $47 a person and from Orlando to Milwaukee for $57! My SIL suggested we book the tickets and go. Me, knowing my DH wasn't sold on the idea decided to pass with much regret. Well, I was kind of bummed and told DH about the flight deal.

He said that he really didn't care to go so soon after our last visit (last January..a year ago already! Come on!) BUT...if I really wanted to take Aidan again, he had no problem with me and Aidan going. What a great DH I have! Aidan has been commenting on how he wants to go visit Mickey again (this weekend is his request....silly kid) so I thought it would be fun to try and keep everything a secret from him and surprise him. DH wants to tell him on the way to the airport. I don't know how we are going to get everything packed without him knowing though. Any tips are appreciated!

Anyway, back to our story....I let SIL know that our trip is a go and she got the airfare together. I called Disney and booked our hotel for the trip. We will be staying at Pop Century in a preferred room (don't know which one yet obviously) and we got a great deal!! We are so excited! Now...we have to wait 40 more days!

 

[Aidan's Mommy]

Just thought I'd share a few pictures.

Aidan and Pluto at Chef Mickey's in January 2008. This was Aidan's birthday dinner.

Aidan and me

 

[Aidan's Mommy]

One thing about me and Disney trips is that I LOVE to plan them! I get very detail oriented and try to figure things out to the "T"..my DH usually just puts up with me, but I'm trying to curb it a little so SIL does not think I'm loony. I think the fact that I can't share in the excitement with my son is killing me! I want to tell him so bad! DH thinks we should tell him the weekend before so he can still get excited but yet be surprised..ummm...<sigh> ok

Anyway..back to the trip planning...the reservations for the Disney transportation (to and from the airport) are done and I made dinner reservations for Chef Mickeys on 3/5. Aidan celebrated his 4th birthday there and I'd like to go back...plus it is such a fun atmosphere! Not much else I need to do at this moment I guess....

 

[littleboss]

Hello I'll join in! It'll be so fun if you could wait to tell him, but if your like me I'm bad about the whole secret thing (if its not a serious issue). Your son is adorable have fun planning and for your day at Disney.

 

[Aidan's Mommy]

Hello I'll join in! It'll be so fun if you could wait to tell him, but if your like me I'm bad about the whole secret thing (if its not a serious issue). Your son is adorable have fun planning and for your day at Disney.

Thanks for joining in! I am SO bad about secrets, especially when they are GOOD secrets...I even have a hard time around Christmas! Thanks for the comments on my son. I think he's adorable too...but I know I am extremely biased.

Today, I have an appointment at 11:45 and then we are meeting a friend of mine for a get together. I think tomorrow I may travel to the mall if DH isn't busy. I want to go pick up some new Crocs for Aidan for our trip. He always loved his Mickey ones, but I saw they now have Wall-e ones as well. He loves that movie. Of course, I'll have to leave the guy at home with DH so he doesn't know what is going on. I would also like to get some new Disney shirts for him and me...do I go to the Disney Store at the mall or get them online?

 

[Aidan's Mommy]

Well, we had a slight change in plans.

My SIL's brother has decided he is going to stay for a few days when he comes down to get our tickets for us...so we had to find a place that we can have 5 people in or get two rooms. He put everything together in the military package so we get 40% off room still and now we can get the disney dining plan! I've never done the plan before but I'm so excited to be able to try food and restaurants that I wanted to try before but they were too expensive. Anyway...back to the topic at hand. He called Disney and asked for a second room at Pop..Unfortunately, they were completely booked. Then, he asked about some of the other value resorts...nope..all booked too. So, now we had to either go up to a moderate or deluxe and pay a lot more than we had planned...OR..we could get a cabin at Ft. Wilderness. After thinking it over, we figured that this actually wouldn't be such a bad thing! We all like the outdoors and have all been camping many times. So, that's what we booked 1 cabin for us, disney dining plan and 5 day park hopper tickets!

Aidan still doesn't know yet...but I have an idea of asking him if he wants to go camping...if he says yes like I think he will...I'll ask him if he wants to go camping at Disney in 4 days (we are going to tell him the Saturday before we leave) and see what his reaction will be.

I did find a good deal on Mickey crocs online. They were $14.99 and free shipping so . He knows about those already because he picked out the color...has already worn them around the house. He got the red and black ones..too cute. Unfortunately they did not have the Wall-e ones on sale, but oh well.

 

[Aidan's Mommy]

Since we have the dining plan, I made some reservations for breakfasts. Since we are doing Chef Mickey's for dinner for Aidan, my SIL wanted to see if we could do something for Bela that is with the princesses. I knew CRT was out of the question since it is not that far away and I didn't want to use two table service credits for it. So, we have breakfast reservations at the Norway place (Akershus ?) with the princesses. Since it is a standard "American" breakfast, I figured we'd be safe and not have to run into picky eating from the kids because they don't want to try something new....like kids tend to do.

I also set up a breakfast at Cape May Cafe. My DH and I went there many times on our honeymoon (we stayed at the Beach Club) and they a had REALLY good breakfast buffet. SIL wants to get good breakfasts that last us a long time during the day since cranky, hungry kids are not allowed at Disney.

Not sure what else we will do for food yet...We may just wait and see where we are for the other days and go from there. 27 days left! 23 until we tell Aidan!....not that I'm counting