Surprise! We're going to WDW - A Mom and Daughter Trip!

[melsmom12]

Hi, everyone! Well, like so many of you, I am just not happy unless I am planning a trip to Walt Disney World (or actually on a trip to WDW, of course). If I don't have a trip to look forward to, I get that itchy feeling and I know I need to get a WDW trip in the pipeline.

Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Allie, from the Washington, DC area. I work part-time as an elementary school counselor. I have an amazing husband who loves WDW but doesn't have the level of obsession that I do. We have two awesome girls, Madeline, who is 6 and Amelia, who is 2.

Here we are last January:

Isn't it sad that this is one of the only family pictures we have from the trip? Poor Amelia got Roseola and was so sick during our trip. We shlepped her through a few days in the parks and then I just stayed home with her, very sad and VERY bitter about this!

I have wanted to take Maddie to WDW by ourselves for a long time. She is an amazing kid and puts up with a lot from her 2 year old sister who is awesome but demands a lot of our attention. The last time we were in WDW, I hardly got to spend any time with her because her little sister was sick the whole trip and therefore I was stuck in our rental home with Tiny while Maddie and Daddy did a lot together. So I'm ready for a "do-over" trip to make up for not getting to do much last time, plus I know that this is a fantastic age for me to do this with Maddie.

I need for this trip to be a complete budget trip because we just don't have a lot of money to put toward this trip. But I have a lot of things going for me. After our trip last year, I had two days on our pass that I didn't use because I had to be home with sick Amelia, so I paid to add the non-expiring option onto my ticket. We also have 2 days on an old non-expiring ticket so our park tickets are taken care of. As an added bonus, I had almost $250 in airline vouchers after offering my seat on a flight last year.

I had been watching the airlines for sales to Orlando, and they finally came up for late-January. Plus, Maddie has a 4-day weekend with no school at the end of January so she wont' be missing any school. PLUS, I got an AMAZING rate at Pop Century on hotels.com, so the whole trip is going to be so reasonable I can't believe it! I haven't stayed on property since 2003 when we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge (Since then we have been staying at rental homes in the Windsor Hills resort which I HIGHLY recommend) so the idea of staying on property has me excited beyond belief!

OK, sorry, I'm rambling. Here are the specs:

January 28th-31st - Disney Pop Century.

-January 28th - Travel day, settle in and take our traditional Monorail ride to get excited! Maybe dinner at Chef Mickey's?

-January 29th - Magic Kingdom day, no ADR's at this point.

-January 30th - Epcot, Maddie's first time at this park. No ADR's at this point.

-January 31st - DTD in the morning and then off to airport for our trip home.

So, it's a quick trip but one I am super-excited about. I feel like Maddie is at the perfect age for a trip like this since she is old enough for a long day of walking, can do almost every ride at every park, but is still young enough to buy into all of the WDW magic. I am SO excited to have this time with her!

I could really use your feedback on a few things:

1. We currently have an ADR for 7:45pm on Saturday evening - our arrival day - at Chef Mickey's. I am debating whether or not to keep it. We'll be tired from traveling and I want to have an early night so we can be ready for the MK the next morning, plus 7:45pm is a late-dinner for us anyway. I'm thinking that maybe we should eat at Pop Century and have a relaxing evening. What do you think about this? Maybe we can go to breakfast at Pop Century on Tuesday morning before we fly home.

2. I haven't make any ADR's for either day in the parks to keep our schedule flexible and hopefully save money. Do you think counter service for lunch and dinner both days sounds OK? Would you do this as a money-saving strategy?

Thanks everyone! Happy reading, I will add more details as they come.

 

[melsmom12]

Here are a few bonus photos from some of our past Disney trips, just for the fun of it!

This is Maddie two years ago in January 2009, prettiest princess ever!

When babies attack! This is also January 2009:

Hey, look who's on the American Idol Experience stage?!? FYI, they did my makeup, not me! Also January 2009.

January 2011 - The three girls. Poor Amelia was so sick, she had her pacifier in her mouth every second of our trip!

More to come!

January 2008 - Me and Maddie in the Mickey Pool on the Disney Magic. We spent an incredible week with our extended family.

 

[melsmom12]

OK, I've made some decisions, I think! I could really use your validation on this, or your arguments, please!

I think I'm going to cancel my ADR for Chef Mickey's on the first night of our trip. I think I'd rather keep it loose for our first night and see how Maddie's doing. My plan at this point is to arrive at our resort, get settled and look around, maybe take a rest. Then we'll take the bus over to the MK and get on the monorail and take a ride on the resort loop (a tradition for us!) and check out some of the deluxe resorts. If we're hungry, we can eat at a counter service at one of those resorts. Hmmm, I don't know. Or, we'll go back and eat dinner at our resort. Then we'll be rested and ready for rope drop at the MK!

OK, so here is how I envision Day 1 going:

-Arrive at MCO at 12:15pm. Find Disney's Magical Express and get to Pop Century.

-Check in, jump on the beds in utter excitement, unpack, watch the Stacey Channel a few times, etc.

-Explore the resort, check out the common areas, swim if it's warm enough (please, please, please!!)

-Hop a bus over to the MK and get on the resort loop monorail. Get on and off as desired, show DD the GF and Poly. Eat dinner at one of these?

-Head back to our resort to get ready for our big day at the MK!

So, what do you think?

 

[gabzee]

You have such a lovely family! This sounds like a very nice trip. I understand that you are trying to make this trip reasonable cost wise so you may want to limit the TS. You may be a little tired from travelling. Personally, I prefer the character meals for breakfast. I don't know what characters DD prefers but we enjoy 1900 Park and Crystal Palace. It may be easier to eat at Pop but I think it depends if you are going to fit another character meal in. Maybe try for something a little earlier. Can't wait to read more!

 

[melsmom12]

You have such a lovely family! This sounds like a very nice trip. I understand that you are trying to make this trip reasonable cost wise so you may want to limit the TS. You may be a little tired from travelling. Personally, I prefer the character meals for breakfast. I don't know what characters DD prefers but we enjoy 1900 Park and Crystal Palace. It may be easier to eat at Pop but I think it depends if you are going to fit another character meal in. Maybe try for something a little earlier. Can't wait to read more!

Why thank you! Looking at your pre-trippie, I see that you have a beautiful family as well.

Yeah, I'm going to cancel our ADR at Chef Mickey's and really play Saturday afternoon by ear. On a happy-surprise note, my mom told me to make an ADR for dinner on our Epcot day and she would pay for it, love my mama! So I made an ADR for Via Napoli for us on Monday at 5:45pm. Excited!!!

I find myself in the funny position now of wanting more stuff to plan, but there's not really anything else to plan at this point. But planning is fun! If I'm not planning then I just have to sit here and wait. That's not fun!

LOL, I'm so mature, aren't I?

 

[melsmom12]

AMAZING DEVELOPMENT!!!!

Wow, I can't really believe this, but something very awesome has happened during my planning of this trip!

I'll try to make it short.

OK, so my mom just turned 65 and so me, my sister, and my mom's best friend were going to take her to Las Vegas on Martin Luther King's birthday weekend, which is 2 weeks before my planned WDW trip with my daughter.

Well, after some initial planning and pricing out of tickets and hotels, it's just not financially viable, especially the airfare from Washington DC. So, we ask the birthday girl (my mom) what she would like to do instead, and her answer???


ORLANDO!!!!!


That's right! I will be visiting WDW TWICE in the month of January! Eeeeeeek! I can't stand it!

So, on the weekend of January 12-15, it's a ladies trip (2 of us are late-30's and two are mid-60's) to Orlando, staying for 3 nights in Windsor Hills Resort Community, one day at Epcot and the rest at non-park locations. We will do DTD, outlet malls, the Boardwalk, the pool (if weather permits), and have lots of relaxing downtime, rare for a mom of a 2 and 6 year old.

I AM SO STINKING EXCITED!!! My mom loves Epcot so we are definitely doing that. We are going to take her to lunch at the Morocco pavilion, her favorite. And the rest of the day will just be doing Epcot at a relaxing pace, couldn't be happier.

And then two weeks later, I am back with my daughter, this time at Pop Century. YIPPEEEEEEE!!!

What a magical month January has turned out to be.