Someone take away the "cancel reservation" button! First on-site trip May 4-May 13

[ibrokeitmommy]

Hi! Welcome to my crazy ADR changing world!

Our trip is from May 4-May 13 and we are staying at POFQ much to my children's dismay (they would prefer CBR or CSR and I had my heart set on New Orleans)

Who is going? Of course I am going. My name is Kelly and I'm the house manager. I'm going to be 35 on this trip and love photography, scrapbooking, and sewing. But that is all put on hold because I am newly obsessed with Disney!!! I'll talk about that in a minute but I am not sure an hour goes by that I don't sneak a peek at the boards.

My wonderful DH, Kip will also be joining in on the fun. He is also 35 and works in IT. We have been married for almost 8 years and we are so different but work perfectly together. His main request for this trip is to relax .

And then we have the first princess Bailey. She is 9 years old and she is very intelligent and kind hearted. She is a rule follower to the extreme. She's outgrowing the princess phase but she is very excited to go to Disney again. She doesn't really remember her first trip.

And our last member is Miss Megan. She is 5 years old and just full of joy! This girl chooses to be happy. She's also very sneaky and finds lots of trouble (don't worry her sister tells on her for EVERYTHING). This one is obsessed with dressing up and loves the princesses. It is going to be very magical to see Disney through her eyes! She was a newborn on our last trip so she doesn't remember anything .

Let's move on to how this trip came to be and a mini back story.

When Bailey was 4 and Megan a barely a month old we went to Disney but we did not stay at the world. My husband's very generous dad and stepmom took us with them to their condo. They took us at Christmas....the WEEK of Christmas...when every other person in the world was at The World! I also knew nothing of Disney planning. I figured eh, it won't be busy! It's Christmas, who goes at Christmas??? HAHAHAHAHAHA So I am sure you can imagine how magical that trip was. I had given birth 4 weeks prior to going to Disney at Christmas time. I had a 4 year old with a major attitude all week and I was staying in a condo with my inlaws and their other 2 children. It was A LOT to deal with. Do not misunderstand, I am entirely grateful for that trip and I have a few precious memories of it that make all the stress worth it. Spending Christmas day at AK was pretty amazing. Seeing the decorations. The Osbourne lights, oh my goodness incredible. But there is so much we did not get to do because we really had no idea what we were doing. At the end Kip and I decided that when we came back it would be our planning and we would stay on the resort.

I've been trying to go since Megan turned 3. Kip was against it because he remembered how our oldest acted our entire trip so we waited a year and he agreed that we could go when she was almost 5. Well last year we bought a new house. There goes that plan. So in January I started pushing. Hard. I had caught the bug and needed to go this year. I said that if we reserve now we could easily pay it off by October and I would keep my eye open for cheap flights. So he agreed and I booked.

Then the spring promotion came out. I was having terrible luck finding airfare at a reasonable rate and the room discount was nice. Plus my oldest would have been 10 years old, that puts her in the adult dining category . After going over the menus with her it was clear she would be eating off of the kids menu the whole time. After more convincing to my wonderful husband it would be $1000 cheaper for us to go in May as the prices are right now since there is no guarantee for free dining this fall. He agreed if we could fund the trip with cash, no credit cards. So I had to wait. And I waited knowing that ADRs were filling and I still had to wait another week before I would know for sure. Finally he knew what he needed to know and told me we could go!

Now this was originally supposed to be a Tues-Tues trip with travel on both Tuesdays. Then there was a school conflict and finally finding flights with decent times/prices was getting difficult. After much number crunching and discussion we decided a 9 day trip would work best with us flying out on the 10th day. Basically we get to stay 2 extra days for the same price. We are still saving money on the flight but not as much of a discount as I thought we were going to get. It's all good though, I'm so happy to have the longer stay!

next up...adrs.

 

[ibrokeitmommy]

With the dates set I could finally begin planning the meals! I am OBSESSED with this. I am so concerned about making our trip perfect it's becoming an issue. I have researched crowd calendars and touring strategies. I have read all of the restaurant reviews and preferences. I've talked to anyone who has been to Disney to see what they loved/not loved. And it's all so fun because everyone is so different!

With our trip we have 7 day hoppers with waterparks and more. We are also on Disney Dining.

This is what my plan looked like last week:

Sat-fly in at noon. Hang out at resort and head to DTD
Dinner at Raglan Road

Sun-HS day! late lunch at Sci-Fi and probably head to MK after. I know Sunday is a busy day at the MK but I cannot imagine the girls will let us wait on this one.

Mon-Epcot 8:15am Akershus and 4:30 dinner at Chefs De France (hoping to see Remy)

Tues - MK day. 10:30am Pirates League and 7pm 1900 Park Fare

Wed - relax day/date night with kids going to Neverland kid's club at the Poly

Thurs - 8:05am Tusker House and AK day with Dinner at Cape May at 7pm (I don't know why but I really want the Cape May dinner over anything else!)

Friday - relax day with 8:30 pm Hoop Dee Do (my kids are night owls)

Sat - my birthday! Via Napoli at 7pm spend day doing whatever

Sun - Mother's day! fun weekend for me huh? No plans just whatever stuff we wanted to do one last time and eat on the fly.

So it all looks good and I'm pretty happy. Our major issue is which days we were not going to go into the parks. Our arrival day was an easy one but the second one was a bit trickier. I picked Friday because I thought it would be good to be able to go to parks on Sat and Sun if we wanted to seeing as they are our last days. Up to this point I have drove my husband absolutely bonkers asking him questions and his opinions. He just says "whatever you think is best". But what if I think is best turns out to be wrong? After our last trip I just want everyone to have a good time. I know they will but really I don't want to be blindsided. I want to make sure I have a plan and then a back up in case something happens. Even if the back up is being able to cancel a reservation and being okay with it. See I want things scheduled but not so much that if one thing doesn't work everything crashes down. If you are reading this I'm sure you understand!

So after thinking I decide that the kids would probably really like TRex better than Raglan Road. Especially for a first trip. I'd love to eat at some of the more adventurous food places but this trip is for them. So I call and change that one.

Prior to this I think I changed which character breakfast we would have 10 times. At one point I had 4 TS breakfasts and felt like I was wasting credits with that so I did a ton of switching it up. And then...

Fast forward to yesterday. Precious angel Megan (5-never really been to Disney) is watching the Disney planning DVD and sees BBB. Guess what she says? "I want that Mommy. I want to be Cinderella like that girl!" Really? I have asked this kid for the past month if she would rather do the Pirate mermaid make up or be a princess and she has consistently without hesitation picked pirate every single time. Now she wants BBB at almost 60 days before the trip.

Aside: Did I mention the kids don't know when we are going? hehe. They know we are going and they know it is between now and October. They do not know which month or the days. We plan on waking them up and asking if they want to go to Disney that day (if I can keep it a secret, it's getting so hard.)

Which leads us to today where I call Fairy Godmother to see if mayyyybeeeee there is an opening on our MK Tuesday and I could just cancel her pirate and we would be good! No openings. Not even at Downtown Disney. The main issue was that if she was going to be Cinderella I wanted her to eat with Cinderella, and that was on Tuesday.

So on the fly I decide it's all good. We have nothing scheduled for Wed so maybe that might work. DTD has an opening! yay! So I grab that and figure we can hit Typhoon Lagoon for a couple of hours and then head to DTD and have lunch and go to BBB. Then maybe MK afterwards. I didn't want her costume to go to waste! As luck would have it I was able to move all of our reservations around. I swear I am the reason the website never functions properly. I need to stop!



So here is the plan as of right now:

Sat - DTD eat at TRex

Sun - HS day still late lunch at Sci Fi (I kept one!)

Mon - Epcot - Akershus 8:15am Chefs 4:30pm

Tues - MK day -still holding on to the Pirate for both girls but may cancel one at 10:30am. The plan is lunch at BOG. No dinner rez.

Wed - Typhoon Lagoon or different park until noon. BBB at DTD 2pm then 1900 Park Fare at 4:30pm and MK afterwards

Thurs - Tusker House 8:05 am - AK day with date night tonight instead

Fri - nothing planned and Hoop Dee Do at 8:30pm

Sat - my birthday dinner is now at Cape May at 5pm no other plans

Sun - Via Napoli at 12:45pm and the rest of the day finishing up our favorites

I'm very happy with this plan actually. I had struggled with which night to be our date night to not short the kids a day at the parks. I also wasn't thrilled about Via Napoli on my birthday and since I am the one that really wants Cape May I figured that would work well.

If you have read my rambling thank you! There is more to come. I have to plan packing now! My husband is going to be THRILLED! haha This is why I need you all. He just doesn't understand.