The faceless children take a top-secret trip to WDW...

[Nettaboo]

So, I had a panicked day yesterday. Remember this stroller?

The one I went to the store to try out since it was on sale for a really good price online? The one DH bought? Well, it had been almost two weeks since we ordered it, and I was really wondering where it could be. So I was trying to find it online, and it said I needed the order number. I got out the receipt DH had printed when he was done ordering, and I couldn't find the number. And that's when I saw this at the bottom of the "receipt":

DH hadn't ever COMPLETED submitting the order! Now, I wasn't crazy about paying the sale price for this stroller, so I certainly wasn't going to pay the full price.

It turned out okay though, the stroller was still on sale, we just couldn't get the rain cover because it was out of stock. But for a few minutes there, I was irrationally full-fledged panic!

OMG!!I am so glad you were able to get the stroller and DH was out of hot water! I would be having a panci attack too!!

 

[BabyEeyore]

I'm so glad things worked out okay with the stroller!!

 

[lexmas]

Alright, lets see how fast I can type while DD sleeps and DS eats lunch!

Back to actual planning. (You never thought I would get back to that, did you?)

DH wants to get Tables in Wonderland for our trip. Seems like you buy the card and then get discounts at restaurants. Obviously, we won't need it much this time, but we are planning on getting a few things off plan and whatever trips we take with our AP we can use it then.

Has any one used it? Experiences? Seems kind of straightforward, and I think it will be worth it. We'll have to crunch some numbers to find out, but what we're theoretically going to be eating on a hypothetical trip a YEAR from now is a little difficult!

DH really wants it because it has the POP food court on it, so that's a plus. We've never actually eaten at the pop food court yet, but we will this trip, and everyone says it's good!

 

[lexmas]

Here's the list of places we're thinking about eating, if QSDP comes out for the values! Trying to not eat chicken fingers, fries, and burgers this trip!

Any suggestions are more than welcome.

I don't eat much meat, and tend to stay away from anything but "bird" or fish when I do (I have a loose, "if I wouldn't kill it myself, it's a cop out eating it when someone else kills it" rule. That may or not apply on vacation, depends on my "how guilty I would feel" vs. "how delicious it looks and smells" ratio. I know, I know. I don't deny being very weird.) And I love salads!

DH eats anything, but prefers meat. (We even each other out.) He's never met a salad he liked.

J.J. eats nothing but sunbutter (peanut butter alternative, but he does eat peanut butter too, we just don't keep it in the house) and jelly sandwiches. Yeah, seriously. At least there's protein and fruit in there, right? That will change before our trip. I hope. It WILL change, right?

Sydney...well...we just gave her food for the first time on Monday. She was angry when we gave her avocado, and was pleased as punch when we just handed her a bowl of what we were eating. Then she wouldn't put anything in her mouth until we handed her silverware to eat with. She's licked a few things but hasn't really eaten anything yet. We started late with food because when she was first born she had very obvious reactions to any food with chemicals in it (through breastmilk, obviously we weren't feeding her directly!), so we've made everything from scratch since, and wanted to wait as long as possible to introduce food in hopes that she would outgrow it. But she started demanding food, so we decided it was time. On the plus side, this means we can just give her real food and not puree anything up, which is really awesome because it's so easy! We haven't tested her allergies, so she may have outgrown it, but I suspect that she hasn't because when she chews on books she breaks out in big red splotches just like food, and I assume it's the glue. I'm hoping she's outgrown them a little, because from time to time I do eat packaged food and she doesn't get blotchy anymore when she nurses. Whew, that was a REALLY long way to say, we don't know what she likes yet, she's new at this!

So here are our tentative, "must-eats", and some of them we "must eat" at more than once!:

Resorts:

Everything Pop!
Captain Cooks at the Poly
Mara at Boma
Beaches and Cream (Kitchen Sink!)

AK:

Flame Tree Barbecue
Pizzafari
Yak and Yeti CS*

DHS:

Dinosaur Gertie's Ice Cream of Extinction
Starring Rolls Cafe
Catalina Eddie's
Studio Catering Company

EPCOT:

Boulangerie Patisserie
Cantina de San Angel
Kringla Bakeri og Cafe
Lotus Blossom Cafe*
Tangerine Cafe
Yakitori House*
Rose and Crown Pub (is this counter service? It was the only menu I could find. Whatever England's counterservice is, anyway.)
Maybe Italy, if it's open

MK:

Aloha Isle (Dole Whip!)
Columbia Harbour House
Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe
Pecos Bill

DTD:

Wolfgang Puck Express
Earl of Sandwich

*Asian food may be out...Sydney used to have a nut issue. We will probably see if peanut oil is a problem before our trip.

Okay, that's all I can find at the moment. Any suggestions? I can't even remember where we ate last time but we were dealing with a bunch of food allergies from Jay (corn, dairy, citrus) which he has for the most part outgrown. Dairy is still not his best friend, but if he has a smoothie every day, that takes care of that. (TMI, I know. But on that note, does anyone know where you can find smoothies at disney? I can always ship some fruit puree squeeze packets down. Have you seen those? I swear I'm not making that up, they're just pureed fruit in a juicebox pretty much!)

 

[3princesses+aprince]

Hi, just joining your PTR. I didn't read through all of the pages, but I got the first two down! We are going in September as well. I got the free dining pin code in an email and I forgot the the last booking day for that, but I think with you guys checking in on the 23rd, you should be ok!

We are also going to MNSSHP. This will be our first time going in the fall, and we love halloween, so we're excited to see the decorations! I also love all of your costume ideas. I'd vote for Toy Story ,because we just love it.

All of your counter service rest. look like good choices. You have quite a few of them that are on my list too. We also did the QSDP in May 09 and loved it! Can't wait to do it again. We were thinking about the regular DDP but changed our minds!

 

[lexmas]

So I was inspired by -Hope- and Twoboysnmygirl (and BabyEeyore too!) and decided it was time to get Jay into the disney spirit by making him do some work!

Yesterday we had a "Handy Manny" day. Disneyfamily.com had a bunch of Handy Manny worksheets, so that was easy. I thought the "find the tool" one would be hard, but he found them SO fast, probably faster than I could! Plus, I threw in a few other worksheets, and we worked on cutting on a line. Then, we did a "match the tool" memory game, and made Handy Manny's tool box and tools (I couldn't get our color printer to work, so it had to be black and white. He didn't care.). After all that "schoolwork" was done, I let him watch some Handy Manny. He thought this was the best thing ever!

So, we did it again today. Today was little einsteins. Again, some worksheets (there weren't any little einstein ones, so I picked ones about stars and space and instruments.) After that, we made rocket and all the kids! DS LOVED this. He was giddy with excitement, and rocket watched little einsteins with him!

I should have thought about bribing him with TV years ago!

 

[BabyEeyore]

How fun!!!

 

[Charlefours]

looks like you had a great time!!

 

[bumbershoot]

Your title drew me in and I was reading last night. I saw mention of the silhouettes...I've only had them done in Disney*land*, but FWIW, I never even considered tipping. They are paid for approximately one minute of work!

At least at DLR, you can actually bring in a side-view picture and they can work from that...so you could have one done of him as a little one retroactively, if you'd like.

I think I saw you mention concern that he won't sit still. They really don't need him to sit still for long. If the artists at WDW are as good as the ones at DLR, they hardly need kids to sit still at all. At DLR they had a posterboard with stickers on it, asked DS what characters he liked best (from the stickers), and in just the moments it took for him to look at the page and point at stickers, they were finished.


All that to say...don't worry about it.

 

[bumbershoot]

Oh, and our little dude didn't have food until he was over 11 months old. He'd been "asking" about it for awhile, but he acted the same way about DH's shoes and the cat's tail, so we hadn't responded positively yet. But one day he toddled over to where I was sitting with an organic apple, used his might to push me over, grabbed the apple. Took a bite, chewed, and swallowed it. So, yeah, he was ready!

Sure did save money in feeding him "food"! Though, actually, he flirted with some fruits and a couple veggies, but then went back to mainly b'milk until around 18 months.

DS was never allergic to plain old corn like your son was, but he cannot have anything involving corn syrup or he gets violent, can't listen, runs in circles...it's awful. So his diet is really good, since he (and we) avoid those things.


We went to DLR the first time when he was 17 months, and mainly focused on nursing and really simple foods. Not sure we actually bought him anything; just brought stuff from the store (it was a day trip during a longer trip to so cal). Again, a lot cheaper!

 

[-Hope-]

Fun fun fun with the Disney days!!! :

 

[lexmas]

How fun!!!

looks like you had a great time!!

Fun fun fun with the Disney days!!! :

It was a lot of fun! Thanks for the inspiration! Now DS asks to do some "schoolwork", which is just funny, since he's three!

Your title drew me in and I was reading last night. I saw mention of the silhouettes...I've only had them done in Disney*land*, but FWIW, I never even considered tipping. They are paid for approximately one minute of work!

I'm glad you found me! Good to know you didn't tip, then at least I wouldn't be the only one!

At least at DLR, you can actually bring in a side-view picture and they can work from that...so you could have one done of him as a little one retroactively, if you'd like.

I LOVE this idea. Thanks so much for telling me that! I bet I can actually find a profile picture of him from our first trip to disneyland when he was 11 months! Off to look!

I think I saw you mention concern that he won't sit still. They really don't need him to sit still for long. If the artists at WDW are as good as the ones at DLR, they hardly need kids to sit still at all. At DLR they had a posterboard with stickers on it, asked DS what characters he liked best (from the stickers), and in just the moments it took for him to look at the page and point at stickers, they were finished.

That's great to hear. I was telling DH about it today and he asked how long J.J. would have to sit still, because that's not his strong area!

All that to say...don't worry about it.

Thanks!

Oh, and our little dude didn't have food until he was over 11 months old. He'd been "asking" about it for awhile, but he acted the same way about DH's shoes and the cat's tail, so we hadn't responded positively yet. But one day he toddled over to where I was sitting with an organic apple, used his might to push me over, grabbed the apple. Took a bite, chewed, and swallowed it. So, yeah, he was ready!

Sure did save money in feeding him "food"! Though, actually, he flirted with some fruits and a couple veggies, but then went back to mainly b'milk until around 18 months.

Yeah, Sydney just wanted to be included, she doesn't really care about the eating part. J.J. didn't even eat food every day until around 18 months, and then it was normally just dinner. So we're happy to take our time with these things.

DS was never allergic to plain old corn like your son was, but he cannot have anything involving corn syrup or he gets violent, can't listen, runs in circles...it's awful. So his diet is really good, since he (and we) avoid those things.

Aren't food intolerances fun? DH swears that we're not going to have food allergies this trip. Umm, okay, because that's how it works. If you want it to be so, it will be so!

We went to DLR the first time when he was 17 months, and mainly focused on nursing and really simple foods. Not sure we actually bought him anything; just brought stuff from the store (it was a day trip during a longer trip to so cal). Again, a lot cheaper!

I suspect Sydney will just eat our food. And by our food, I probably mean my food, since if she still has her chemical issues I'll be happy to avoid those foods, unlike DH.

replies above

 

[lexmas]

EMH Park Hours

Just trying to type this out so I can figure out when things are, and where better to type it than here!

9/24- Evening EMH- EPCOT

9/25- Morning EMH- DHS

9/26- Evening EMH- MK

9/27- Evening EMH- DHS

9/28- Morning EMH- EPCOT

9/29- Morning EMH -AK, Evening EMH- EPCOT

9/30- Morning EMH- MK

October EMH's are unknown at this point!

10/1-

10/2-

10/3-


I can already say this throws a kink in my plans. The only ideas I had of what I wanted to do were MK the first day and AK the second day, because J.J. LOVES animals, and he will go crazy for Animal Kingdom. We can do MK during the day on the first day and then go to Epcot for EMH, that will be fine, but I don't know what to do about day 2. In general, I would say that if there are morning EMH we should be there. The kids get up at 6, and some days that's sleeping in, so waiting until 9 seems like a long time, so EMH are perfect for us. I will have to ponder this one over. It might depend if there are Morning EMH for DHS on our October days...

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

My guess would be that Saturday, Oct. 2 would be EMH in the morning at DHS.

 

[lexmas]

My guess would be that Saturday, Oct. 2 would be EMH in the morning at DHS.

How would I have guessed that you'd know? Thanks!

 

[-Hope-]

Karen is a Disney Jedi master.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

 

[lexmas]

Karen is a Disney Jedi master.

Yes, indeed. That's why I'm so glad to have her along for my PTR! I don't even need to look things up, I just need to pose the question and poof Karen will have it for me! (or you, since she's already schooled you in her teachings...)

 

[Charlefours]

Morning EMH attract the crowds, so if you can hold off and go to AK that day instead--it will be quiet I bet. You know your family best--do what you think is going to be the best situation for your family.

 

[Nettaboo]

dropping by to see if you have let the cat out of the bag yet
I think I agree with the poster ahead of me about AK..it will probably be really empty that day