The Canterbury's do Christmas in WDW

[Katie & Glen]

Welcome Friends to the Canterbury Christmas Vacation Pre-Trip Report!

The cast of characters:

First off is Me! Katie (30)

Obsessive Compulsive Disney Planner Extraordinaire! And DH says “loving and anal retentive about Disney” I have been to WDW four times and DL once. Since my last trip in 2007 I have been dying to get back to the magic. I have been researching for this trip since last September. I am huge fan of the Disney and Dooney & Bourke collaboration. I have already informed DH & DS that I expect a brand new bag from each of them this Christmas for all of my hard work! I am a horrible wife & mom as I make DH & DS watch the travel channel shows about Disney trying to get them excited.

Next is DH Glen (41)

Completely oblivious to the fact that WDW is more than just 4 theme parks. Oh, and he knows that there are a bunch of hotels associated with that, since he has stayed at most of them for conferences for work, but only ever went to EPCOT once as a kid. He has tried to eat at some of the restaurants, but found he could not get in without ADR’s. He is content to just show up there and be told what to do. DS and I had to inform DH early on this was not going to be a relaxing vacation. In fact we had a breakfast meeting about this very issue. DH’s idea of a vacation is to just sit on his butt with a coffee and a book, unless he’s on a dive boat. Me on the other hand, don’t want to pay to go somewhere to just sit on my butt when I can do that for free at home. He was told that we will be up early and out the door before 7am and not strolling back in most days until around midnight! NO BREAKS!! Haha, just kidding. We will take breaks as needed, but not too many.

Finally is DS Ethan (8)

Ethan has never been to WDW but is super-duper excited about going. He has become obsessive about planning as well. I am so proud!! Ethan is a foodie with an extremely overdeveloped pallet for his age. He’s been eating calamari (fishy o’s as he called them) since age three and last year in Jamaica ate some conch stew. He’ll try almost any food sometimes with just a little prodding from us. He is looking forward to trying new foods in Disney as well as being able to ride all of the mountains and flying rides at least twice.

Now, just for some clarification, DH and I just got married last year (in Jamaica) and DS is my stepson. That was our first family vacation and we had an awesome time together.

So, now onward as we start our planning journey….

Background
Pre-Planning
Booking our trip and some bad news
Planning Folders

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

Welcome Friends to the Canterbury Christmas Vacation Pre-Trip Report!

The cast of characters:

First off is Me! Katie (30)

Obsessive Compulsive Disney Planner Extraordinaire! And DH says “loving and anal retentive about Disney” I have been to WDW four times and DL once. Since my last trip in 2007 I have been dying to get back to the magic. I have been researching for this trip since last September. I am huge fan of the Disney and Dooney & Bourke collaboration. I have already informed DH & DS that I expect a brand new bag from each of them this Christmas for all of my hard work! I am a horrible wife & mom as I make DH & DS watch the travel channel shows about Disney trying to get them excited.

Next is DH Glen (41)

Completely oblivious to the fact that WDW is more than just 4 theme parks. Oh, and he knows that there are a bunch of hotels associated with that, since he has stayed at most of them for conferences for work, but only ever went to EPCOT once as a kid. He has tried to eat at some of the restaurants, but found he could not get in without ADR’s. He is content to just show up there and be told what to do. DS and I had to inform DH early on this was not going to be a relaxing vacation. In fact we had a breakfast meeting about this very issue. DH’s idea of a vacation is to just sit on his butt with a coffee and a book, unless he’s on a dive boat. Me on the other hand, don’t want to pay to go somewhere to just sit on my butt when I can do that for free at home. He was told that we will be up early and out the door before 7am and not strolling back in most days until around midnight! NO BREAKS!! Haha, just kidding. We will take breaks as needed, but not too many.

Finally is DS Ethan (8)

Ethan has never been to WDW but is super-duper excited about going. He has become obsessive about planning as well. I am so proud!! Ethan is a foodie with an extremely overdeveloped pallet for his age. He’s been eating calamari (fishy o’s as he called them) since age three and last year in Jamaica ate some conch stew. He’ll try almost any food sometimes with just a little prodding from us. He is looking forward to trying new foods in Disney as well as being able to ride all of the mountains and flying rides at least twice.

Now, just for some clarification, DH and I just got married last year (in Jamaica) and DS is my stepson. That was our first family vacation and we had an awesome time together.

So, now onward as we start our planning journey….

How did the Darth Vader that was posing for pictures look when you saw Star Wars in Concert. When we went to Hershey they replace Darth Vader with Gerth Vader. And some of the storm troopers were about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. I don't remember seeing them in any of the movies. Other than that the show was fantastic.

Your Hubby sounds like my wife. She will happily let me plan and will just show up. She also wants to just sit around doing nothing on vacation. We went to Sandal's and I was busy playing all the games, she was content to just lounge around. Of course it got to the point where the play-makers would see me and say, "Hey Mike, wanna play pool basketball?" The answer was always "Sure, just let me get another drink first"

I look forward to future entries.

 

[Katie & Glen]

Back in 2007 I went to WDW with my mom, our first ever trip together, anywhere. Not a great choice of travelling partner. I hadn’t been to the World since 1997 at that point and she had been with a friend of hers the last two years. So of course, she knew everything and I knew nothing. I stumbled upon the DISboards and the WDWinfo site and started finding a huge wealth of information. I started telling my mom, we needed to plan ADR’s and a schedule, she said “No, I’ve been there the last 2 years, I know what to do and when.” Ok Mom, I’ll take your word for it.

That was the biggest mistake I made. Everyday was a tossup to where we were going and what we would do there. We only had one sit-down meal over 5 days and that was pure luck as we walked up to 50’s Prime Time Café and just had to wait 20 minutes. We didn’t ride most of what was there, see any parades or see any shows other than Lights! Motors! Action!. No shows, a lot of skipped rides and in general all stuff I said I would like to do on this trip. Heck, we never even got to walk around World Showcase or see Illuminations! We only saw Wishes.

Sadly, one of the best things about that trip other than it ending, was our day in the MK. We got right on Space Mountain and as we got off were handed Dream Fast Passes. This is one thing I wish Disney still did. The other really nice thing, but almost didn’t happen, was ride the newly (at the time) refurbed Haunted Mansion which opened back up during our stay. Sad thing, that was even a disappointment as the thing that adds the hitchhiking ghost to your car at the end was broken.

So when I got home, I told DH, who was DBF at the time, how much I wanted to go back and how differently I would do the next trip. I told soon to be step-son Ethan that we would go to WDW in a few years and have so much fun! His response at 5 was to start saving any money he got for birthdays, Christmas and chores for when we were eventually going to Disney. Now, I know some of you may be thinking, yeah, that didn’t last too long. Fast forward three years, and yup, he’s got that same money stashed away!

Ok, so enough of me whining about my last trip. Next up is pre-planning and making our Disney folders.

 

[Katie & Glen]

How did the Darth Vader that was posing for pictures look when you saw Star Wars in Concert. When we went to Hershey they replace Darth Vader with Gerth Vader. And some of the storm troopers were about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. I don't remember seeing them in any of the movies. Other than that the show was fantastic.

Your Hubby sounds like my wife. She will happily let me plan and will just show up. She also wants to just sit around doing nothing on vacation. We went to Sandal's and I was busy playing all the games, she was content to just lounge around. Of course it got to the point where the play-makers would see me and say, "Hey Mike, wanna play pool basketball?" The answer was always "Sure, just let me get another drink first"

I look forward to future entries.

You know, there was no Vader walking around (that I remember). The Storm Troopers all seemed to be uniform in size and shape. We watched them March down the concourse of the Wachovia Center or aka The Farg (just for any of P&S fans out there)

As far as DH goes for vacations, like I said, if it's not reading or diving, it usually wont get done. After some prodding on our honeymoon, we ended up going Zip Lining, Snorkeling, Diving, and Horseback Riding.

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

A great trip ruined by lack of planning. I should let my wife read that so she understands why I do all I do.
2007 was the year of a million dreams, I think the only thing we got was a free mickey ice cream one night. We were waiting for Spectro to start and Ally wanted something to snack on. I took her into a store and she picked a mickey head shaped ice cream. The guy let us have it without paying for it.
I would have preferred the Dream Fast Passes though, or maybe a night in Cinderella's castle, but all I got was 1 lousy ice cream bar.

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

I guess they hired cheaper labor for the Hershey show. Maybe since it was the second year of the tour they cut back.

 

[Vickis3js]

I too will be showing this to my DH so that he can see why I do all the planning I do. Although I must say after our first Christmas trip he did see the importance of planning when he hear some of the people complaining about the waits in the parks that we had just breezed through!

 

[ccgirl]

So much fun! My DH always says, "Thank God for you or we never go anywhere." He makes fun of my incessant planning but thanks me profusely when we get down there and we're able to do and see so much. Can't wait to hear your details.

 

[annegirl]

I have had to prep hubby on the way the vacation will be too because we've never been on one of 'my vacations' together. His idea of a vacation is similar to your husbands- he just wants to be somewhere nice where he can relax, eat good food, and nap!

 

[Katie & Glen]

Ok, so after my little rant about my last trip to the World, we carry on.

In September of 2009 I made the decision we would be going to WDW in December 2010. I was smart and told this to DS in front of DH, that way he couldn’t say no. So right away DS starts sending a barrage of questions my way. What will we ride, how long will we be there, how many more days til we go. You know, that sort of thing.

So we talked about how long we wanted to stay. DH initially suggested 4 days and I said NO WAY! We need more time than that! We have to do it all and see it all! We need at least two weeks! I must have been dreaming. We compromised at 8 days. Plenty of time to hit each park at least twice and enough time to be able to relax some. At first, I was a bundle of nerves about this trip. I wanted it to be perfect for DH & DS especially after my last trip.

We decide we need to make planning folders to keep all of our information organized. We will also transform these as we go along and bring them to the parks with us. We started making lists of must-do rides and must-eat restaurants. DS and I started watching ride videos on you-tube so that he would feel a bit more comfortable with the rides. I told him I wanted him to try all the rides there at least once and if he didn’t like them, I would not make him go back on. I told him about all of my favorite rides and why I like them. I also told him that if he and DH didn’t want to go on a certain ride that I really like, I would ride alone, no big deal. Well, DS being the protective little guy he is said no one rides alone he will ride something just to keep myself or DH company.

So in my first entry I talked about how we had a family meeting about this was not going to be a sleep in type of vacation. I also laid another ground rule: We will do everything someone in our party wants to do even if the others don’t want to do it. Now, I was being selfish when I set this rule. I really want to see the Beauty and the Beast show at MGM and my two guys (I thought) would not be too thrilled with that. I was surprised by them when we compared our must-do lists and they both had that on there.

So let’s get back on track here. During the pre-planning we were looking at the different resorts online and pricing rates and discussing doing the DDP. We also ordered our customized maps and the planning DVD. DH and I were only looking at resorts that have king sized beds. This is a must for us. The problem is, most places that offer a king size bed only have a 2 person occupancy.

During my DISboards perusing I came across a thread about Disney pin codes. I read some of the tips to try and get one and put them to work. Don’t you know it, less than a month later, we got TWO pin codes in one week. Both were 40% off deluxe. Well, hello there! AKL is a deluxe and I had been eyeballing that one trying to figure out how we could swing it. Well, now we can do it!

All of this is occurring over Thanksgiving and Christmas. During that time we also found out we were expecting. We were all super excited and I started calculating my due date. August 2010, awesome!! We could still go because the baby wouldn’t be too young to be traveling.

Up next: Booking our trip

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

So we talked about how long we wanted to stay. DH initially suggested 4 days and I said NO WAY! We need more time than that! We have to do it all and see it all! We need at least two weeks! I must have been dreaming. We compromised at 8 days.

You should have started at a month, and negotiated down to two weeks.

During that time we also found out we were expecting. We were all super excited and I started calculating my due date. August 2010, awesome!! We could still go because the baby wouldn’t be too young to be traveling.

Hey, congrats.

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

Slow down, or you will be done your PTR before anybody can even find it.

 

[Katie & Glen]

I too will be showing this to my DH so that he can see why I do all the planning I do. Although I must say after our first Christmas trip he did see the importance of planning when he hear some of the people complaining about the waits in the parks that we had just breezed through!

Once I reminded DH about the bad experience on my previous trip he was more than willing to let my Type-A personality shine through and start obsessively planning. Now, I don't expect that we stick to the plans I make exactly, but at least just having some general idea of what we want to do and matching that up with the right time of day to do it will go a long way.

So much fun! My DH always says, "Thank God for you or we never go anywhere." He makes fun of my incessant planning but thanks me profusely when we get down there and we're able to do and see so much. Can't wait to hear your details.

DH is already thanking more for the amount of time and energy I am putting into this trip.

I have had to prep hubby on the way the vacation will be too because we've never been on one of 'my vacations' together. His idea of a vacation is similar to your husbands- he just wants to be somewhere nice where he can relax, eat good food, and nap!

It's all about setting the ground rules.

Thanks all who have joined on to read my report! I promise to try and keep my ramblings down to a minimum.

 

[Katie & Glen]

Slow down, or you will be done your PTR before anybody can even find it.

I figure I will do one more entry today and then just start prepping the next few. I was just talking to DH after he read what I had so far. He said he wants to hijack the thread. I told him he can write a retort to my comments and write an entry with his thoughts on the planning and the trip.

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

I figure I will do one more entry today and then just start prepping the next few. I was just talking to DH after he read what I had so far. He said he wants to hijack the thread. I told him he can write a retort to my comments and write an entry with his thoughts on the planning and the trip.

Tell him to start his own PTR! He can comment on here if he wants though. Does he have his own screen name? I bet it is Glen & Katie

 

[Katie & Glen]

Tell him to start his own PTR! He can comment on here if he wants though. Does he have his own screen name? I bet it is Glen & Katie

You know, I made my screen name the way I did hoping he would jump on here to start learning some things and post as well, but no such luck. Now all of a sudden, he has an opinion.

 

[Katie & Glen]

When I last left off we just found out we were expecting and were just getting ready to book our trip. Well, the second week in January I had a miscarriage. We were devastated. DS was really looking forward to taking his first trip with a new baby brother or sister. All I have to say is thank the Disney gods for the magic they instill in people because thinking about our trip actually helped me get through.

I was in some serious need of good vibes, so I decided to call and get our trip booked. So we booked December 9-16 AKL Savannah view room with DxDP and 8 days of tickets with park hopper option. We got a great price with the 40% pin and I was very happy then. We put down our deposit and started looking at airfare after that. DH travels frequently for work and is a preferred member with US Air, so we started there. We knew that we would have to pay for bags or pay to pick our seats with any other airline but them, so that’s where we started and finished. We were able to get the first flight of the day down and the last flight of the day coming home, all for $727 for the three of us. We have our seats picked and don’t have to pay for any baggage.

So we start making sample plans for our days. We were working off of 2009 park hours and hoped they would stay the same. Also during this time, we mention to DH’s Mom & Dad about coming to Disney with us since it will be DS’s first ever visit. They said they would think about it. Also, I was willing to give my Mom another chance with the whole Disney thing. She was planning on going around the same time we are. Only a few days would overlap. I made it very clear that we would not do any touring together, but could meet up for Wishes, Fantasmic and a meal or two.

Remember that saying “Beware the Ides of March”? well beware a week after the Ides. I get a call that my Mom had been acting strange at work that day. I call her and she isn’t making any sense on the phone and is slurring her words. I knew right away she had a stroke. Both her Mom and her Mom’s Father passed away from strokes in their late 40’s and my Mom was going on 51. DH and I jumped in the car quick to head down to South Jersey where my Mom lives. Long story here, but I will make it short. She had several small strokes, some previously heart attacks that went undetected, and clogged arteries galore. After a month in the hospital and rehab center she was sent home with a good prognosis. She has since had a stent put in her right carotid artery and may need to have heart surgery, but right now they are just taking a wait and see approach. She’s back driving and back to work, but Disney is off the table for her this year.

Well, during that time there was some concern about our trip and would I still have the time off of work to go and would we still have enough money to afford it, well the answers are yes and yes. Trip is still on and have just enough vacation time left over to be able to go.

That’s all for now folks. The next entry will be about our park days and ADR’s.

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

Well if he uses your id, he should let us know at the beginning of the post that it isn't you.

 

[Katie & Glen]

Well if he uses your id, he should let us know at the beginning of the post that it isn't you.

I will make sure he knows to identify himself as the Glen in Katie & Glen.

 

[Katie & Glen]

Figured I would share some pictures from the massive snow storms that hit the Philadelphia area this past winter. We did a lot of Disney planning when we got snowed in.

The view from our garage.

Poor Valentine's Day Mickey topper

Can you see the top of the stop sign, just barely.

Me trying to walk my puppies in the snow. We have brother and sister treeing-walker coon hounds that are now 1.5 years old.