~Snowbird Chat~

[Dancegrl624]

Logan says that if we get to X amount of dollars in our savings account, we can do Disney for my birthday (November 5). This is also contingent on whether or not he's still here. Apparently, he's on the waiting list for the class that would determine that...

Am I crazy for considering going to Disney with a 3 month old baby?

That is awesome! No, you are not crazy to think about going to WDW with a 3 month old. It's been done before.

 

[Monny2AE]

Sheree- That cake is adorable! My bday is in 20 days- does she take orders.

Becca- Do you really think any of us are going to say that taking a 3 month old to Disney is crazy! We took Andrew when he was 6 months and had a wonderful time. As long as you plan ahead and are prepared to make adjustments for a napping baby, diapers and such you'll be fine. Plus the weather in November should be great- not too hot and not too cold. Are you talked into it yet?

 

[Monny2AE]

My Illuminations CD arrived in the mail today and I am having such a great naptime DISsing and listening to it. I even treated myself to a little molten caramel chocolate microwaveable bowl of pure YUM. And it's Friday! The only way my day could get any better is if I had a trip to Disney planned soon.

Jason's Dad is home and doing well again! His infection is under control and he's eating and drinking again. It would be fantastic if he could fully recover and join us in Disney next year.

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Becca -- November would be a great time to go! At least Shawna, Wendy and I think so!

Kim -- Good to hear your FIL is home and doing well. That would be so awesome if he could go to WDW with you guys next year!

 

[MAGGIED]

So tomorrow night we are having our travel party over for dinner... making our fav meal from Mama Melrose... yummy... gotta run to the store and do some shopping...

 

[Mndisneygirl]

It's nice to see all this good stuff here! Kim - I'm glad your FIL is doing better!
Becca!! Oh I hope you can go!! Why not take a baby? It would be so easy! Baby Bjorn or a sling and away you go! The baby won't make you go on any rides you don't want to!

Wendy - Oh, I wish I could come for dinner!

My friends who made the cake used a Mickey cake pan and they said the hardest thing was getting the color for his face. It was a confetti cake mix and TONS of frosting! She said they used canned fudge frosting for the ears and dark parts. They used a whipped ready-made frosting for the face and just colored it. I felt really bad cutting it up, but it was good and I shared with my co-workers and then brought some home to the girls and Dave.

 

[Pluto_fan]

Sheree--what a cute cake!

Becca, go for it! Babies are really pretty easy to travel with at that age.

Sarah--Wow, I just saw your QB's stats from last week Now I'm nervous!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

 

[danceintherain]

I'm convinced that we should go, and I'm pretty sure I've convinced the baby. Logan is a little skeptical though. He wants to work out some financial stuff first. Then there's the issue of the military being flaky...

I did price out our options though...Free Dining would only be a good deal if we stay at a Value, which I don't like the idea of....

The room-only discount and the gift card offer end up being fairly comparable, if we plan on using the gift card for food and stay in a Deluxe. It would cost us around $450 to buy the Dining Plan (since when did they start allowing the general public to add the dining plan to a room only discount? It works online) and the Gift Card would be $500. The difference would be that we wouldn't be as tied down to ADRs, because the amount would stay on the gift card if we had to cancel.

We would probably end up staying at the Wilderness Lodge, because that had been my plan for when we got back from Korea, but I'm not completely sold.
We probably should go with a Moderate to save money. In which case, a room only would be a better choice without tickets or dining. The cancellation policy would be more favorable anyways.

I suppose I should wait to see what happens with Logan's schedule before I make any plans...

 

[danceintherain]

Logistical question:
At 3 months, Gideon won't be able to sit up yet. What should/can we do in restaurants? Do they have highchairs for infants, or can we roll our stroller in for him?

We took him to a restaurant the other day, and they flipped the highchair over for us to put his car seat on. He won't have a car seat at Disney.

 

[MAGGIED]

is your stroller one of those with the detachable carrier? You can just bring that part of it in and set it on a chair... sorry no much help... my baby is 6'2" tall now... and they certainly didn't have such nice strollers when my kids were babies... no cup holders or detachable anything... you had to balance that soda on top of the stroller and hope you didn't drop it on them...

 

[Pluto_fan]

I'm convinced that we should go, and I'm pretty sure I've convinced the baby.

Glad to hear you're teaching him well right from the start!
Have you considered Shades of Green? Depending on Logan's category, it's probably comparable to a moderate price-wise, but you don't have to pay the tax on it, the rooms are huge, and it's very peaceful. No DME, though, so if you were planning to use that you'd have to find another way to get to the resort.

Logistical question:
At 3 months, Gideon won't be able to sit up yet. What should/can we do in restaurants? Do they have highchairs for infants, or can we roll our stroller in for him?

We took him to a restaurant the other day, and they flipped the highchair over for us to put his car seat on. He won't have a car seat at Disney.

I don't remember any infant highchairs, but then, ours were all able to sit up by their first trip. I think you might be able to bring a stroller into a restaurant IF it's not too busy, but I wouldn't count on it. What kind of stroller are you getting? We had the "travel system" kind with detachable carrier/carseat, which was pretty handy. But they've probably come out with some whole new idea even since DD was an infant.

 

[Dancegrl624]

Becca-With a room only discount, you can add tickets to make it a MYW package. Then, you're able to add on the dining plan.

As far as what to do with the baby at restaurants....not so sure. I know some places, like Pinnochio's, don't allow strollers inside the restaurant. Not sure about TS places.

 

[danceintherain]

i actually had decent luck with the search function and found a recent thread about the restaurant-baby issue. apparently there are a few that have non-sitting baby highchairs. It also indicated that most restaurants will allow a stroller, especially if we indicate the requirement when making the ADRs, then ask again when we check in.

We have a baby jogger city mini. We did get an attachment that allows us to attach the car seat, but maneuverability wise its easier to just stick him straight in.
Since I am still finding dining availability for when we want to go, i cant imagine it will be super crowded.
We probably will have the car seat with us just in case they let us use it on the plane, so i suppose i can try both ways.

now i just have to wait until thursday...if he doesnt get into the course then i'll be doubly sad because i wont get to go to disney and he will be leaving sept 29th

Convincing the baby was fairly easy. He was a bit skeptical at first (he takes after his daddy), even though he has a mickey mouse car seat, but then I told him if he stayed with grandma, he would have to be bottle fed the whole time, so he agreed.

I would do SoG, but 1) they only have 2 bed rooms 2) I want to save them for when a) we need the bigger rooms and b) we can't stay deluxe anymore, because of the added ticket costs

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter where we stay, because the point is that we spend some family time together before Logan leaves. I took the Values out of the running, because we probably will be spending some time at the hotel and they're not particularly appealing for that.

 

[Monny2AE]

Glad you were able to convince Gideon.

Hopefully you know something soon- it's got to be frustrating with everything up in the air like it is.

 

[Monny2AE]

Thought we could use a bump...24+ hours with no posts! How ever are we going to make it 250 pages at this rate!


Hope everyone is well

 

[crzyred]

Hello My Birdie Friends! Ok, so I'm finally uploading some pics from Disneyland...better late than never, right?!

So our first day at DL was July 7. We did not stay on property, however they have Good Neighbor Hotels. So for about $5 a day we a shuttle bus from our hotel to the park, which really was only about 3 blocks. Buses ran about every 20 minutes and we never had any issues with it.

So we went to California Adventure, then headed to Disneyland for the Dessert Premium Seating Package for Fantasmic! My sister and I got there a few hours before our friends did, so we did Soarin' and California Screamin' (I rode in the front!) then had lunch.

At this point we met up with our friends ....it was so much fun experiencing Disneyland for the first time with a 3 yr old for her first time too, especially since we talk Disney all the time. We saw Aladdin The Musical - Genie was hysterical! Then as we were leaving the show Snow White walked right past us, Samantha was in complete awe...

Turtle Talk with Crush - no different than WDW other than the seating. It was a theater style seating - no benches

After that we parted ways then headed over to Disneyland for Fantasmic! We had some time to kill so we watched the Celebrate Today parade, which was very cool and very interactive with kids.

Fantasmic takes place on Tom Sawyer Island

*Yes that's hot chocolate I'm drinking, it was COLD at night, I was not prepared for that!


July 8 we spend the day at Disneyland

It's rather strange looking down Mainstreet and not seeing the ginormous castle. Also, hard when walking through the park to not see the castle, so I rarely had any idea where I was!

TomorrowLand - Astro Orbitor is not high up.
Space Mountain - ride side by side not single file. It is a little different, but still good.
Buzz Lightyear - same ride...Samantha beat me and let's just pretend that I "let" her...
Matterhorn - DL's version of Expedition Everest - not as smooth, rather jerky

They like to have you sit single file there, which can sometimes be interesting with 2 full grown adults who aren't exactly a size 2...
We rode Indiana Jones - it's the Dinosoar but to Indiana Jones theme

Pirates of the Caribbean - I don't think it's any different, but it was a must ride
Splash Mountain - Favorite Ride!!! DL again, single file, however you don't have to share a seat. We waited for 45 minutes, which was our longest wait...not to shabby in my opinion!
We headed back towards Mickey's Toon Town - adorable area! I didn't take many pictures at this point because Samantha was holding my hand and quite frankly that was much more important to me...

Chip and Dale's Tree House

While in Toon Town we walked into Mickey's House and guess who we saw....This is my absolute favorite picture...

It's A Small World- did not go on this....

Mr. Toad's Wilde Ride...much more entertaining when you are 8, than when you are 25 - but I still needed to do this...
One thing I always have when in Disney is have a Mickey Waffle...well we never had breakfast at the park sad1 so I had to settle for this guy....

Mickey Pretzel - as you can tell I kind of forgot about a picture till I took his ear off...oops

 

[crzyred]

Downtown Disney is located between the 2 parks....and of course being 2 girls, we spend just a little time there...

One of the display windows - Disney Fairy Tale Weddings....a girl can dream, right?!

This caramel apple looked so yummy...

Kelly and I ate dinner our last night at Goofy's Kitchen located at Disneyland Hotel

I've decided I want a floor like this...

Or a door like this...

Got to meet a few characters I've never met before...

Also because we left the weekend starting the All-Star Break, they had Mickey's for every MLB team all around the LA area...

generic All-Star Mickey

Minnesota Twins Mickey!!

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Shelly that's awesome!! And you all looked like you were having a ball! That little girl is precious! I love her with Mr. Mouse!!! Thanks for the pics!!

 

[Pluto_fan]

Shelly, love the Disneyland pictures! Thanks for sharing!

(don't let any Disneyland regulars hear you say that their Space Mountain and Pirates are pretty similar to WDW's...they will insist that theirs are VASTLY superior... )

 

[Pluto_fan]

I was feeling a little bummed this morning about not having a ticker, so I updated my signature to include my past Disney visits. It reminds me how blessed I have been to have made MANY trips in the past, and barring catastrophe there will surely be more in the future.

So how many of you will be there this year during the Food and Wine Festival? I'm extremely interested to hear about the new booths for Belgium and South Korea!