(tap tap...crickets chirping) Anyone out there reading our PTR? October 2010

[disney<333]

Poor girl! Feel better, Reily, so you can go see Mickey!

 

[Chelley00]

Oh my goodness that is like 2 weeks away!!! !

No crap. I'm in the "school shopping" panic right now!

I am so excited that you found me here!!!! I need to get caught up on your trip.

I can't believe you leave in 3 weeks! Lucky!

Poor girl! Feel better, Reily, so you can go see Mickey!

She's doing much better, thank you. Still bruised, but fine!




75 days!

Today I'm having a yard sale Man, I hate having them, but with 4 kids, we always have a ton of kids clothes to sell. We did pretty well yesterday, today is really slow. It's okay. Every little bit helps.

Last night we went and knocked out some of our school shopping. Everyone has new shoes and clothes, plus a few supplies (I don't have all the supply lists yet) Everyone except oldest DS who I will just give money and tell him to have at it He does have to turn in receipts though, so I know he spent my money wisely



Still no tournament schedule. It's so maddening. Don't they know OCD people like to PLAN!!! Apparently they think everyone is going to Orlando and spending all their time at the tournament and not doing anything else. Come on, people!!!


I have our first few days planned out though, so I'm going to start a day by day plan here to have as a reference, and to ask opinions. Maybe by the time I have that all done, they will actually let me plan the last few days!!!

 

[Chelley00]

October 14th. Travel day


We've decided to leave on Thursday, Oct 14. My mom has Friday off, so that gave us an extra day. She gets off work at 2, and it's a little under 3 hours. That will give me time to get the kids from school and give them a snack before she gets here.

I'm thinking that we need to tell them where we are going BEFORE we leave. If not, that will be 17 hours of them guessing, asking where we are going, asking if we are there yet. I'm sure they would drive both mom and I crazy! We just did 4 hours to St Louis and O was constantly asking if we were there yet. Maybe if they know ahead of time, we can even play some Disney related games on the way to keep them occupied.

So, for the reveal, I think after my mom gets here, we will hand them some "mail" they received that day. We think maybe a letter from Mickey:

Dear Riley and Owen:

I heard that Granny has never been to Disney before. That makes my pals and I very sad. We want to meet her! So, go get in your van, because you are taking to Granny to Disney World RIGHT NOW!"

This way they know where we are going and won't drive us bananas, and DH gets to see their reaction. I will already have everything packed and loaded into the van, so we can just grab shoes, potty and go.

Our plan this night is to just drive until we are tired, not pushing it, and then stop to get a hotel room whenever we need to. With 2 of us driving, we could possibly make it straight through, but I'm not even going to attempt it unless it just works out that way. I'm perfectly okay with stopping and staying halfway.



So, here's my to-do list for now:

1. Schedule from ATA from brother, finalize ADRs for last half of trip
2. Think about gift baskets
3. Halloween costumes for MNSSHP.
4. Loosely plan days
5. Order MNSSHP tickets
6. Tip envelopes (DD loved giving these to our servers, and she got a great response)
7. Research Poly and which longhouse to request
8. Make Epcot passport for DS since DD has one from last trip she didn't use?
9. Research and book hotels for drive back
10. Find and update packing list
11. Find our travel games and tote boxes, pack them, add new
12. Add new paper to their travel binders for pictures, journals etc.

Reminders for farther out:
1. Oil change, tire check etc
2. Teachers letters
3. Fill out Passporter pockets
4. Schedule for DH and older DS while I'm gone

 

[DrMomof3]

I love your "reveal" idea! That'll be great. I'm bad at keeping secrets so we always tell the kids.
Yard sales are no fun to organize. Hopefully you'll earn lots of $$$$.

Amanda

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

OMG I love how you are telling the kiddos!!! That is great!!! They are going to freak out!!! Or at least I would if I were them!!!

I think I am doing something similar when I tell Devon on Thanksgiving! Only when he finds out he has to wait a few days until we actually leave. The real surprise is going to be the day of when he gets to the airport to see his BF and mom are coming too!!!

 

[praisehisname]

Yesterday we were leaving for hair appts, and DS slammed DD's hand in the door between the garage and kitchen.

Yikes! Glad to hear it's healing up nicely!

I'm thinking that we need to tell them where we are going BEFORE we leave. If not, that will be 17 hours of them guessing, asking where we are going, asking if we are there yet.

Definitely a good plan!

 

[Chelley00]

I'm bad at keeping secrets so we always tell the kids

I'm just afraid I'm going to slip up. Or DH.

The real surprise is going to be the day of when he gets to the airport to see his BF and mom are coming too!!!

My kids won't know that my brother, SIL and nephew are coming until they show up on my doorstep.

[SIZE="2[FONT="Comic Sans MS"]Definitely a good plan!

I don't need the 17 hours of "Where we going?" "When are we going to get there?"



Yard sale over. Went well. Not as much as I'd like, but it paid for school shoes and some school supplies Went very well considering the stupid local newspaper didn't run the ad I paid for!

Since I had a bunch of free time stuck in my garage today, I rearranged some plans. I got very nervous about touringplans saying Epcot was a good choice on Saturday night. I went back to TGM and rearranged some things, but got all my ADRs switched.


I left off at October 15th. This is our "finish the drive" day. It usually takes us 17 hours, but hoping we can knock out a decent portion of the drive the night before so we get to Orlando at a reasonable time. I considered staying at an offsite hotel our first night since it may be late when we get in, but I really like getting to the resort, checking in, unpacking and settling in. I'm hoping we will get to the Poly by at least 8pm. I doubt we'll make it much earlier than that, but it would be nice to get there early enough to check in, unpack and let the kids swim a little, maybe watch Wishes from the beach?

I hope we can make it somewhat of an early night so we can make rope drop at our first park the next day. Our first day at Disney

 

[Chelley00]

EDITED

October 16th. Our first park day


I always have qualms about the first day. Part of me always wants to go to MK on our first day. There's just something about that darned castle that makes it feel like you are finally there. But, we always come in on a day that all the crowd calendars say "Don't go to MK" So frustrating. One of these days I'll say "to heck with the system" and just go to MK, but this time, I chickened out and planned our first day at


Animal Kingdom


One of the good reasons for AK our first day is that it closes early, which means we can kind of ease in to park touring days. We can have an earlier dinner, swim, go to bed a little early etc.

First order of business, Tusker House ADR. It's not until 9:20, but since we have another AK with my nephew, we will have time to make up what we miss.

Our must dos for the day: (not in any order)

Expedition Everest for R and me. I'm sure O won't be tall enough, and my mom won't ride it because of her fear of heights. My problem will be getting R to not want to ride it over and over and over

Lion King - we've missed it the last 2 trips

Kali River Rapids if it's warm

Dinosaur - for O

Jungle Jammin Parade - we won't have time to watch it on our last day, so today is the only day we will get to see it.


We are planning a short day at AK on our last day with my nephew, so I plan on saving Kiliminjaro Safari, Affection Section and Nemo for that day.

For lunch, I'm thinking Flame Tree. We always eat here, and I always think we'll do something different, and we never do! Besides, R LOVED the key lime pie mousse here.

I'm thinking we'll leave after the parade, unless someone wants to sneak in a few more rides on something. Afterwards we'll probably head back to Poly to freshen up, watch the torch lighting ceremony, then head to our dinner reservation at Whispering Canyon Cafe. I'm really unsure of this ADR. We ate here on our first trip, and the kids enjoyed it. Just not sure. This one may change.

My other choices were Ohana, but nothing is open, or something at DTD and we can walk down there for awhile. O would LOVE TRex, but we'd have to pay OOP and we have all these dining credits to use.

So let's just say we have dinner plans at Whispering Canyon that are subject to change

This evening we'll maybe swim, shop DTD, watch Wishes or something like that.

 

[praisehisname]

Yard sale over. Went well. Not as much as I'd like, but it paid for school shoes and some school supplies

If you got enough for school shoes, you did VERY well!

Expedition Everest for R and me. I'm sure O won't be tall enough, and my mom won't ride it because of her fear of heights. My problem will be getting R to not want to ride it over and over and over

Maybe R will get to ride 14 times!!!

 

[Chelley00]

If you got enough for school shoes, you did VERY well!

School shoes for 4 kids, mind you!




October 17th

This day we are up early, use a CS credit for a big breakfast at the Poly, and then we are headed to:


Magic Kingdom


I may decide to do breakfast at Main Street bakery. Hmm.....

Our must do's for the morning:

ROPE DROP

It's my secret WDW shame. I've been to Magic Kingdom at least 15 times, and NOT ONCE have we ever made it for rope drop. Ever. It's mortifying! So this trip, I am determined to see it, even if I have to leave Mom and the kids sleeping behind at Poly

I think today we'll stick with Adventureland and Frontierland.

Definate must do:

Splash Mountain. O's favorite ride. I'm really hoping my mom will brave it to ride with him. She's scared of heights, so we'll see.

BTMR: O wasn't a fan last trip, but I'm hoping he'll enjoy it more now that he's bigger. He rode a couple decent size coasters at Six Flags this summer, and he loved the one that was about the size of BTMR. The other was a lot faster and bounced him around too much. He was done after that one


It will be a short day here. Probably head back to the resort before lunch time and try and convinced O to nap, or at least get everyone to rest. I'm sure I can bribe them to lay down for awhile and watch Disney Channel since we don't have cable at home. I'm determined to get everyone to try and sleep though. Why? Because I have a surprise up my sleeve for later!

ADR's at 3:30pm at Crystal Palace

AND

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!!



This is my most favorite thing to do at WDW. We went once in 2006, and loved it so much we went twice in 2008. I'm debating not telling anyone at all, coming up with costumes on my own and packing them on the sly But, my mom always has to dress up for work, so I know she has a stash of costumes for herself (and probably for me to borrow too)


Our MNSSHP must do's:

Parade
Fireworks
Haunted Mansion
Snow White and the 7 dwarfs
Dance Party
and of course, Trick or Treating!

We'll use a snack credit if our early Crystal Palace ressie doesn't hold us over until midnight

We always make it until midnight for the parties. We'll see how it goes this year, especially since O won't be in a stroller The nice thing is that after the party, no long haul back to the van or parking lot. We get to hop the monorail!

 

[Chelley00]

October 18th


So, after a long night at MNSSHP, I'm going to let everyone sleep in for awhile. Nice of me, huh?

After a quick breakfast in the room, this day we will hop the monorail to Epcot.

First up, brunch at Akershus.

This will be our leisurely "stroll about World Showcase day". It's also Food and Wine Festival, so I'm looking forward to burning some snack credits. With 8 snack credits for 4 people, we can do some damage We'll also do the rides/movies/entertainment etc in the countries, and hopefully a Kim Possible mission or two. R and I LOVED doing them on our trip.

Tonight's ADR Coral Reef.

I'm undecided on Illuminations. We've never been able to find a really good place to watch it, and it's always so crowded. We may just bail after dinner, and head back to let the kids swim. I think I'd rather watch Wishes from the pool at the Poly than watch Illuminations. Maybe?

 

[Chelley00]

October 19th

EDITED Epcot

Breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, then we'll catch the monorail to Epcot.

Today we'll do what we weren't able to do the day before in Future World.

Dinner reservation at 7:25 at Garden Grill.

 

[Chelley00]

October 20th.

Riley will say "FINALLY"


Disney Hollywood Studios. Hands down my daughter's favorite park, where she can torture me, and me only since no one else on our trip will be able to ride it, with her favorite ride ever.


RNR



On our mother/daughter trip, I rode that stupid thing 7 times on our first DHS day, and 7 times on our second DHS day. That's 14 times in a 7 day period. That's inhumane. She owes me a really good nursing home.

But, our first order of business will be getting there at rope drop to get fastpasses for TSM...of course. After that we'll head to RNR and TOT so I can get those out of the way before eating lunch

So, after the big 3, our other must do's for this day:

Animation Bldg
Voyage of Little Mermaid
Great Movie Ride
Backlot Tour
Muppets



Lunch today, probably Starring Rolls

Dinner is at 50's Prime Time. I thought Mom would get a kick out of it. Hopefully R won't cry like last time. She was overtired and when they read off the rules, she was afraid she'd break a rule and not get to eat

Now our evening plans are up in the air, because this is when HUGE surprise #2 comes in. This is the night that my brother, SIL and nephew arrive in Orlando. At some point we hope to meet up with them, but who knows how or when. We'll have to wait and see when they get in. Honestly, I would love to go meet them at Pop. I've never seen it, and I bet the kids would love to walk around there and look around. I'm sure we'll get at least one trip over there to see it though.

If they get in late and we have to meet them the next day, we'll probably head back to the Poly to swim after dinner. My kids live for the pool and will never say no to leaving to swim. There isn't a Fantasmic scheduled for this night, however, they added a bunch on our last trip a couple weeks before we left, so maybe they'll do that this time and we can stay and watch!

 

[Chelley00]

This is where I have to stop our day by day plans for now The last 3 days of our trip are just floating out there until the stupid headquarters releases the schedule for my brother and SIL and their tournament. I have a bunch of breakfasts and dinner ADRs made, we'll cancel the ones they can't make it to. I think we'll be at Epcot on the 22, MK on the 23rd and then AK? on the 24th.

I'm going to *try* and talk my mom into calling in "sick" on the 26th so we can take an extra day. The biggest day of the tourney, and the day my SIL is competing, is the 24th. With our schedule, we will have to leave at 2pm? on that day to start heading home (stopping to stay halfway, and arriving back at my house early evening on the 25th).

If we stay an extra day, we could spend that entire day with my nephew, or go watch SIL. They want us there to babysit anyhow, and if we have to leave at 3pm, that shoots their babysitter idea. I'd really like to just leave around noon on the 25th (Sunday) drive most of the day, then get home the afternoon of the 26th.

Also, if we did that, we could give R a few hours in the morning of the 25th at DHS so she won't complain about not getting 2 days since we get to 2 days at every other park blah blah blah

 

[praisehisname]

It must be frustrating to not know exactly how your last few days are going to go. Will R have to miss school if you do end up staying an additional day?

 

[Chelley00]

The schedule is finally out!

I have never been so happy to see a facebook message from my SIL as I was today!!! Finally we get to plan!


Now, due to SIL's schedule, we have to hit some parks on days that I wish we didn't, but we'll deal. This is why we go in October......so we don't have to deal with "huge" crowds.

However, before I finish our day by day planning, I did go back and update our days prior with a couple of things. Once I saw SIL and brother's schedule, I realized we needed to rearrange some of our stuff earlier in the week.

One thing I changed was park hoppers. Brother and fam won't have them, so we wouldn't be hopping with them anyhow, and we are usually very satisfied with one park per day. We've never had hoppers. For the price of hoppers, I'd rather stay an extra night, which is exactly what we are doing I asked Mom if she could get one more day off. It seemed sad to leave at noon on the 23rd when my brother was going to be in Florida for the whole day that day and leave the 24th. I decided we need to leave the 24th too, so we are!

The other thing I did was to cram all of our table service credits into the first few days of our trip. Brother and fam will only have QSDP, so we would have had to go eat at a table service and leave them to counter service. Seemed smarter to just save our CS credits for later in the trip so we could eat together as a family. However, SIL is wanting to pay OOP for Chef Mickey's, so we're keeping that one!

So, now our plans are shifted slightly to:

Oct 15 arrival late

Oct 16 Animal Kingdom: Tusker House breakfast, snack credit for lunch, Whispering Canyon dinner

Oct 17 Magic Kingdom: CS breakfast at Capn Cook (or Main Street Bakery?) early dinner at Crystal Palace, snack for late night if we need

Oct 18 Epcot: Akershus breakfast, F&W snack credits for lunch if we need, early Coral Reef dinner (which I'm going to try and move back)

Oct 19 Epcot : 1900 Park Fare breakfast, CS lunch, late Garden Grill dinner

Oct 20: breakfast in the room, Starring Rolls lunch, 50's Prime Time dinner (which we may have to move up to meet my brother)



Okay, finally, our finished day by day!!

 

[Chelley00]

October 21st

SIL has the entire day free, and has requested MK. Fine with me. However, it's a morning EMH. I'm so hoping it won't be horribly busy, but I did tell SIL we need to go early. Like at 8am. I'm hoping that will work.

Breakfast today in the room.

Lunch at Columbia Harbor or Cosmic Rays

MK closes at 7pm for MNSSHP. We have an 8pm reservation for all of us at Chef Mickey's. SIL's choice

Today we focus on whatever SIL and brother want to do. If we need to split up, I'm not beyond that. But, since we will have already spent a day plus MNSSHP here, I'm okay with that.

I'm trying to talk SIL into saving the Chef Mickey's money and going to MNSSHP instead We'll see what happens!!!

 

[Chelley00]

October 22

SIL will be in and out today with tourney judging duties, but has asked that we go to DHS so nephew can ride Toy Story Mania. If she has to judge early, we'll take her ticket and get fastpasses for all of us, then wait on her to get back and ride. Then I can make my brother ride RNR with Riley over and over and over


Today another day we just focus on what my nephew can do. We may send my mom with O and nephew to watch Beauty and the Beast while we do an RNR and ToT ride

Lunch at Pizza Planet for nephew, dinner at some CS. Maybe at one of our resorts? Maybe still stuck at DHS.

I think there is a Fantasmic this night. Oh, I'd love to go watch it. We'll totally play it by ear based on SIL's scheduled, kids nap needs, crowds etc.

 

[DrMomof3]

October 21st is my birthday so I hope you think of me as you stroll down Main Street!
Your plans are coming together nicely!

Amanda

 

[Chelley00]

Oct 23. Our full day. However, not going to put a sad face here, just because this was supposed to be the day we left at noon, and we'll be here one more night!


Now, this is our "up in the air" day, but since we don't need ADR's for table service, I don't care I told my SIL she and brother can pick between Epcot and AK and gave them examples of what nephew can do there. SIL is totally stuck at the tourney all day, so it will just be my brother and nephew with us. We'll do CS for lunch and dinner both today.

I'm really hoping they pick Epcot, mainly so my brother can take Riley on Mission Space. No one else will ride it with her, and it's so embarrassing to have to stand in the chicken line with her