Shhhh... don't tell the kids! Surprise trip- September 2023 PTR

[MamaMouse0920]

Hello and welcome to all on this beautiful summer morning!

In my February TR I said I would get around to doing a PTR for our September '23 trip and at the end of July I'm realizing I never did it, so here we are!

First up: introductions.

I'm Bethany, a 31 year old Minnesota gal. I've been married to my husband Matt for 9 years- we both love the Minnesota Vikings, craft beer, and our (increasingly rare, as time goes on) date nights exploring local restaurants & breweries.



We have two wonderful children, our daughter (DD4, I'll be referring to her as) & our son (DS3) who are the light of our lives. They're feisty, wild, and super goofy but hidden beneath the chaos are the sweetest duo you'll ever meet.




I have to hop off but now that introductions are out of the way, up next I'll share what we've been up to the last couple months (spoiler: it's not been pretty, but the lows have made us even more excited for our visit to WDW!) & the nitty gritty of our upcoming trip- including our ADRs, tentative plans, & how we plan to do the 'big reveal' for this surprise!

Stay tuned

 

[MamaMouse0920]

I was about to share the super-fun year we've been having so far! Now after my last TR in February, I indicated that DS2 had a planned outpatient procedure (epigastric hernia repair) for early March. That went off without a hitch, yay! but ever since then it's been pretty much downhill for our family, unfortunately.

Mid-April 3 of the 4 of us got hit with a nastyyyy stomach bug (the vomiting variety), and poor DD4 and I have still not recovered. I'm not joking, 3+ months later, and we still are getting wave after wave of nausea. After a slew of unsuccessful doctors appointments, I recently saw a gastroenterologist who tentatively (if I'm not better in 2 months, we will move on to more invasive testing) diagnosed me with post-viral gastroparesis. A quick copy/paste for ya: Gastroparesis is a delay in stomach emptying and therefore can cause symptoms such as early satiety, vomiting, nausea, bloating, discomfort. So that's been fun. I'm down almost 10lbs in 3 months and am just SO hopeful that this icky feeling goes away in the next 44 days. Unfortunately the only "cure" for this is time and the occasional Zofran. She did prescribe me a med (Reglan) that's supposed to speed up my stomach's emptying but I haven't noticed an improvement yet.

Up next on our list of crappy things that have happened to us this year... early June, coming home after a long day at work we discovered that our upstairs toilet had overflowed (the fill-valve got stuck when one of the kids flushed that morning, so thankfully it was clean tank water and not water!) literally for 10 hours while we were gone. We did the math, that's 600+gallons of water that came from our upstairs bathroom down to our main level. Water coming from the ceilings and all. Sooooo we've been 'homeless' for the last month. Thankfully, my parents live 3 mins away and have plenty of extra bedrooms for us to stay with them in the meantime, but it's just been one disaster after another! We have been going back and forth between contractors, water mitigation companies, insurance, and the last timeframe they gave us for when we can move back home is Christmas. CHRISTMAS.

THEN, as if all that wasn't enough, on the 4th of July Matt woke up around 2am (so technically the 5th of July, but you get it) with awful abdominal pain. We ended up in the ER where they told us he was having a gallbladder attack and that it needed to come out... that day. So without much time to think on the fact that he was about to be one internal organ fewer than he was just the day before, they yanked that sucker out! The good news is that his recovery has been pretty smooth, and there haven't been any horrible changes to his digestive tract (something I know that can happen after gallbladders are removed- which is kind of funny considering it's an organ that "we don't really need"). I swear the more I talk about what happened to Matt the more I learn about this happening to family/friends as well! Every other day I hear "oh yeah, I had my gallbladder taken out in 2018!" etc. So apparently this is a common thing?!?

ANYWAY. Now that I got the negatives all out of the way, let's move on to the fun stuff. The real reason all of you are here.

The Disney plans.

Our trip is in 44 days, 17 hours, and 12 minutes. But who's counting?!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

THE DETAILS.....

Who: Just us this trip! No in-laws, no coworkers, no bosses.... just my lil fam-jam. Me (Bethany), DH (Matt), DD4 & DS3.

What: 5 days of regular (non-park hopper) tickets. No MNSSHP this year, though we did consider it. We'll be purchasing Genie+ for every day, and have Memory Maker already purchased in advance.

When: September 7th-17th, 2023 (first 7 days are at WDW, last 3 are visiting my in-laws in Ft. Myers)

Where: Staying offsite at Wyndham Bonnet Creek. I know, I know. Don't come for me, we love that place!! A 1BR Deluxe this trip, since it's just the 4 of us.

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Loose itinerary ​

Day 0 (Thursday 9/7): Now as I mentioned, this is a SURPRISE trip, so the kids have no idea what's coming!! They're young enough that we can still get away with it, and Matt is all about surprises (I am the opposite, ha!) so we figured why not. Our flight is early so we're thinking we'll wake the kids up and tell them we have to give Grandma (my mom) a ride to a doctors appointment. Get them dressed/ready, with the suitcases already loaded into the car. Then when we get to the airport (they will be clueless until we literally pull in to the Departures area) say "JUST KIDDING, we're going to Disney World!"

..or something like that. We haven't really worked out all the details yet. We'd love to hear your suggestions!!!

Once we land around 11am FL time, we plan to pick up our rental car, drive the 30 mins or so to the resort, see if we can check in early (not holding my breath, but you never know). If we can, great- if not, oh well. We're headed for Disney Springs anyway since we have an ADR for Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' at 2pm. I plan to hop in that VQ for Gideon's as soon as we get to Disney Springs, so fingers crossed I can finally enjoy that PB Cold Brew...........

Day 1 (Friday 9/8): First park day..... Magic Kingdom, as usual! I've said in previous reports I prefer to have MK "bookend" my trips - what better way to start and end your trip, amiright??? We scheduled the kids haircuts at Harmony Barbershop for 12:00pm again (see September 2022 Trip Report, 4th post on page 1 for the reasoning behind the timing!). Best $20 ever spent. This is a MNSSHP day, so we have to be out by 6pm, but oh well! I have a feeling the kids will be ready to tap out by then anyway.

Day 2 (Saturday 9/9): Animal Kingdom! I haven't been to DAK in well over a decade, and honestly this is the park I'm least familiar with... so I'll be winging it (as much as a Type A mega-planner can wing it, that is). Last trip we had to scrap our DAK day so hopefully Mother Nature decides to cooperate this trip!

Day 3 (Sunday 9/10): Rest day pool/laundry/exploring the many amenities of the resort

Day 4 (Monday 9/11): Epcot! We have a Theme Park Nanny scheduled for a few hours that night, so after our park day with the kids we'll get them set up with the sitter and just Matt and I will Uber back to Epcot for a fun date night!

Day 5 (Tuesday 9/12): Hollywood Studios!

Day 6 (Wednesday 9/13): Last park day Magic Kingdom, as I implied earlier. I'm so bummed, though - I tried SO STINKING HARD (I'm still trying, to be honest) to get us tickets for the Fireworks Dessert Party: Seats & Sweets, but no luck I woke up at 4:45am CST 60 days out and STILL couldn't snag any!!! I had no idea that 1) those release at midnight, not 6am EST and 2) that they would be this hard to get?!?! I set up an ADR alert but so far... nada I did book us the Pre-Party as a back up, but with the ages of my kids I just really think that the Seats & Sweets party would be the best!! Waaaah If anyone has any suggestions, send 'em my way!!!

Day 7 (Thursday 9/14): Check out & make the 2.5 hour trek to Ft. Myers! Where we'll spend the next 3 days at the beach, the pool, and hanging out with the kids' other grandparents

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Wellllllllp I added on another ADR (and I swore when we booked this trip we were going to do ZERO! Just go with the flow & not be restricted to any sort of time constraints!).

For our Hollywood Studios day, we added on the Fantasmic Dining package with an ADR at Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano at 5:10pm. We went back and forth on which restaurant to book (50's Prime Time, Hollywood & Vine, Sci-Fi Dine In Theater, or Hollywood Brown Derby), ultimately deciding that Mama Melrose's is what the kids would enjoy the most. The buffet at Hollywood & Vine looked.... adequate, at best, and while I do think a breakfast buffet would be more appealing, I don't think the Disney Jr characters are all that exciting (nor worth the $180+ price tag). Matt vetoed the 50's Prime Time, Sci Fi isn't really functional for our family (or do they make cars that seat all 4 of you in the same row? or at least facing each other?) unless we wanted to divide & conquer- Matt take a kid, I take a kid, and Hollywood Brown Derby is too fancy for our kids LOL. I would LOVE to get my hands on one of those cobb salads & a martini flight right about now but I think we'd be better suited waiting a few years til the kids are a bit older, or ditching them altogether & doing a kid-free trip.....?????? **insert evil, maniacal laugh**

Plus our family are carb/pasta/Italian OBSESSED (especially the kids - DD4 literally had a glistening tear roll down her cheek last night when I told her we weren't having noodles with our dinner) so I think they'll be excited.

Beyond the food reasoning, really we just wanted the ADR for the better (guaranteed) seats for Fantasmic. If you haven't noticed a theme, what with my need for daily Genie+, the MK Dessert Party, and now Fantasmic Dining Package.... I 100% will spend $ wherever I need to for the sake of convenience. I don't want to stand in a line for 1+ hours. I don't want to be waiting out a spot for fireworks. I would rather just pay the $ and have it already reserved for me... all I have to do is show up!


Trust me (and anyone who knows me will 1,000% agree) I am one of THEEEEEEE cheapest people I know. If it's not 100% necessary, I don't want to spend money on it. But when it comes to Disney.... well, Matt says it best:

"what's another $300 when we've already spent this much?"

 

[MamaMouse0920]

It was a DIY kinda weekend!


I'll have to take "after" pics but so far mine & the kids' (Matt opted to be the odd man out and not have one ) DIY Mickey sunhats have turned out halfway decent..... at least for this amateur sewer!



I bought sunhats & a cheap set of bulk Mickey ears off Amazon, snipped the ears from the headband & sewed them in place and *chefs kiss* voila!

 

[Marrila]

It was a DIY kinda weekend!


I'll have to take "after" pics but so far mine & the kids' (Matt opted to be the odd man out and not have one ) DIY Mickey sunhats have turned out halfway decent..... at least for this amateur sewer!

View attachment 781749

I bought sunhats & a cheap set of bulk Mickey ears off Amazon, snipped the ears from the headband & sewed them in place and *chefs kiss* voila!

What a super cute idea!

 

[Tatum20]

The buffet at Hollywood & Vine looked.... adequate, at best

I've not been there, but I posted a few years ago that the buffet at 1900 Park Fare (Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters) was basically a spread I'd expect to find at the Golden Corral, and someone commented back that they would also throw Hollywood & Vine in that category as well. I think you made the right choice.

A few years ago we did the immersive Disney experience with the meal plan, and we were one and done with every single character meal. For us, it was simply not worth the $200+ price tag per meal.

If we were to go back (husband says he is 100% done with Disney and never wants to return) I think we wouldn't even bother with table service meals. I feel like Disney has really upped their game with quick service choices, especially at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.

 

[MamaMouse0920]

a spread I'd expect to find at the Golden Corral, and someone commented back that they would also throw Hollywood & Vine in that category as well.

Right?! If professional pictures don't even make the food look appetizing....... that's really saying something!! I mean, McDonalds commercials make a Big Mac look like a 5 star quality burger

If we were to go back (husband says he is 100% done with Disney and never wants to return) I think we wouldn't even bother with table service meals. I feel like Disney has really upped their game with quick service choices, especially at Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.

I totally agree- after my subpar Be Our Guest experience in February I made a mental note to swear off TS meals as well... and yet here I am Hopefully Mama Melrose's basic pasta PLUS the added benefit of Fantasmic doesn't disappoint too much- even with my lower standards!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

What a super cute idea!

Thank you!!!! So far I'm really happy with the way they turned out!!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

A little more DIY action going on over here!!!

A few months back, there was an awesome sale on Amazon for these cheap belt bags (the 90's kid in me is resisting HARD to refer to them as 'fanny packs' ) that are Lululemon dupes for like $6 each- so I grabbed a couple of those, a pack of iron on patches, some industrial strength adhesive, and presto! DD4 and I have these cute bags for the parks!



And on today's DIY agenda.....

Our outfit 'themes' for our two MK days are Tangled & Moana - I wanted to get the kids those cute little shoulder buddies that Disney makes to coordinate with their outfits but didn't want to spend $30+ on each. So I found a couple small plushes for $5/ea at Target:



So my plan for today was to cut little slits in them, insert a small magnet, sew it back up and make my own!


I started by making the pouches for the magnet that will go under the kids' shirts. Those little round magnets sometimes leave marks on skin & clothes so I knew I wanted something to hold them. Plus, they're small and roll away easy so if they were to fall off I wouldn't want to be searching for a needle in a haystack on the Magic Kingdom ground.


Then, as I said, I just cut a little slit in the plush, inserted the magnet, and stitched it back up:


Good to go!! Picture below is Pascal & his little magnet pouch for under DD4's Rapunzel dress.


Poor Hei Hei, I felt a little more... violating.... while doing this one since the magnet went right in his bum. Sorry, pal.



But both are done and only took about 10 minutes and $10 so time and money well spent, IMO! I also have Pua & a larger Maximus plush for DS2 on his Tangled day that are coming via shipping. I may end up nixing Maximus (it's 18" so definitely not shoulder buddy size - and I do NOT want to end up carrying it around the parks/shoving it in the small stroller basket) but we'll see.

Oh, and here is that "after" shot of the kids' DIY Mickey hats:



I plan on posting our planned outfits next, stay tuned!!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

T-29 days!!!

As promised, here are our planned (tentative) outfits for each park day:


Magic Kingdom Day 1: Tangled


Our first park is Magic Kingdom, and we're going with a Tangled theme!! DD4 is of course wearing her beloved Taylor Joelle dress (surprisingly only 3/5 are TJ this year). In addition to what is pictured above, we will add on DD4's Pascal shoulder buddy & DS2's larger Maximus plush as cute little props/add ons to their outfits, plus mine & DD4's Rapunzel themed Mickey ears.

Animal Kingdom: Safari/Lion King

Our next park day is Animal Kingdom, so obviously we had to go with the obligatory Lion King/Safari theme outfits:


I don't LOVE how my shirt stands out so much against the neutral colors everyone else is wearing but oh well.


Epcot: snacks/Frozen

Our third park day is Epcot and it's kind of a hodge-podge of themes, but again, oh well:


Mine is just a regular Mickey "best day ever" shirt + my navy blue tennis skirt, Matt is Frozen theme, and the kids' are snack/food theme.

Hollywood Studios: Toy Story

For our DHS day, I may end up changing just my outfit. Currently I have planned to wear a Taylor Joelle dress myself, but I just am not 100% sold on 1) how it looks on me and 2) how comfortable I'll be. I know my daughter wears TJ 24/7 in any temperature- including 100 degree Disney days, but I just am struggling to give up my comfy, breezy tennis skirts. The dress falls just about at my knees so it's longer than I'm used to wearing. DD4 has the tank version of the same dress but I didn't want to be "that mom" so I figured the complimenting Jessie (me) to DS3's Woody is enough.




Magic Kingdom Day 2: Moana


The theming on this day is so subtle and I kind of love it. Both mine & Matt's shirts just have a small image of a side character, DD4 will have the Heart of Te Fiti necklace & a cute little Hawaii-esque flower hair clip to go along with her Moana (also very subtle IMO) Taylor Joelle dress, and DS3's shirt is not even Moana at all but just a Mickey head made of palm leaves which of course ties into the Polynesian vibe. This day I also have the shoulder buddies for the kids - Hei Hei for DD4 & Pua for DS2.


So there you have it!! There is all 5 of our park days outfits. Each outfit obviously has it's respective pair of ears for DD4 & I, and I will throw in a pair of plain Mickey ears for DS2 if he gets jealous (EVERYTHING has to be fair between those two, ooooof) but otherwise I think we will probably be wearing our sun hats for the bulk of the trip.

I seriously can't wait!! We're getting so close!!

 

[AliceNDinah]

So excited for you! Fellow Minnesotan here, absolutely cravinnggggg a Disney trip RIGHT.NOW. I took my little boy last August and I am itching to get back there; oddly enough, I so need to see Disney Springs again, just love that place. Guess I will have to live vicariously through you Loving your plans, and can't wait to hear about all the Disney things!!!!

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Love the outfits!! So cute.

 

[SEAGULL59]

Love the outfits!

 

[disneymouse16]

Ooh! You are getting close now! I wanted to pop in and say I love the outfit choices and the items you've made. The hats and shoulder pals are genius!

 

[MamaMouse0920]

One week from tomorrow!!!!

I've been watching closely with Hurricane Idalia & as sad as it is for the northern parts of Florida (+Georgia/Alabama etc), I'm relieved that it changed course to head further north. It seems Disney only has some wind/rain today, and should be totally fine by the time we arrive late next week. Now I just have to cross all my fingers and toes that another one doesn't crop up right behind Idalia!

In other news, DS3 was playing a little too roughly (boys, amiright?!) a few days ago and has a giant scab across his entire nose. It's GROSS and I do not have high hopes that it will look even halfway decent for our trip. Sigh!! I'll post a few 'real life' pictures from this past weekend as we celebrated Matt's 41st birthday, so you can check out the scab for yourself.

We visited Matt's parents at their lake house about an hour and a half north of us, where you can see DS3 (& a blurry DD4 in the background) going for a golf cart ride.





DD4 posing sweetly- if the difference in those two photos doesn't perfectly sum up my two kids, I don't know what else will!




Matt & I got to go out for a date to celebrate!

Anyway, you will have lots of pictures of ol' scabby nose to look forward to in my next Trip Report!

EEEEEEK we're getting so close, I'm so excited!!!!

 

[Jack Kerouac]

Not to throw a wrench into your plans, since like you, MK is the first and last park we visit on our trips. But if you can visit MK during a party day, the day crowds are way lower. Sure, you have fewer park hours, but you can get in a lot more rides. Our last full day (Aug 11) was the first MNSSHP day and MK was relatively empty until around 4pm when the MNSSHP crowd began to arrive and most of that crowd hadn't made its way beyond Main Street, USA. My youngest son, aged three, and I rode BTMRR three times in a half-hour.

 

[SEAGULL59]

My son fell and scraped his nose like that when he was five. It took a few days but healed up well!! Hope it heals more before the Florida sunshine.

 

[MamaMouse0920]

Not to throw a wrench into your plans, since like you, MK is the first and last park we visit on our trips. But if you can visit MK during a party day, the day crowds are way lower. Sure, you have fewer park hours, but you can get in a lot more rides. Our last full day (Aug 11) was the first MNSSHP day and MK was relatively empty until around 4pm when the MNSSHP crowd began to arrive and most of that crowd hadn't made its way beyond Main Street, USA. My youngest son, aged three, and I rode BTMRR three times in a half-hour.

This is our exact plans!! We love MNSSHP days So thankfully, our first park day is a party day. Even though we have to be out early, we LOVE the low crowds that it brings!!!