The Oh So Close Birthday Celebration...A Pre-Trip Report

[NJ2Boardwalk]

Intro: below
Chapter 1: How the planning all started...post 2
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The Oh So Close Birthday Celebration

After obsessing over the very awesome trip reports by our fellow Disers, I decided to give my own a whirl. I love trip reports with pictures but my mother doesn’t like me to post pictures of our family on the internet. So I will still post pictures, just of attractions and pictures without our family in it.

Let’s get on to the cast, more often known as who:

Me-(13)-Now you may look at my age and say, ‘Oh she’s a kid, I’m gonna move onto another report.’ Well trust me I’m ahead of the game when it comes to the knowledge and planning of a Disney vacation. I take a big part in making the magic happen once the major details fall into place. Oh and my birthday is the 26th but we will be celebrating it the 30th (more later). I love to dance, cheerlead , do gymnastics, and school. I’m a girly girl, not as much as my sister is though. I’m a straight ‘A’ student. Oh did I mention I love Disney? =
Favorite Character(s): Tigger, Dumbo, Donald, Tinkerbell, Mickey, Goofy
Favorite Park: MGM
Looking forward to: My Birthday Day (more later)

Mom-(40)-Is most of the time referred to as the ultimate Disney planner and obsesser, but
I think I beat her for that title. She loves everything Disney and we always find time to bond with me discussing some types of Disney related material. She is an ER nurse at two hospitals, which sometimes overwhelms her tremendously . But Disney is always here to cheer he up. She is a great mom and things wouldn’t run smoothly around the house without her.
Favorite Character(s):
Favorite Park: Epcot
Looking forward to: Staying at the Poly/relaxing

Jenny-(12)-She is my sister . Sometimes I just can’t stand her but most of the time I love her. She is definitely the princess of the family and loves everything and I mean everything pink. Has some funny moments that make no sense that our family refers to as Jenny-isms. She gets away with pretty much everything and rarely every gets in trouble . Where do I go wrong? I still love her though. She is my favorite person to be around along with my best friend. A true girly girl who has now outgrown princesses . So sad! She has now moved onto Minnie Mouse because of the tragic loss of her beloved blankie at Coronado Springs in 2005. Let’s just say her blankie needed a cleaning, along with the sheets. She plays soccer and basketball, but that is her only sporty side to her.
Favorite Character(s):
Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Looking forward to: Splash Mountain (was hesitant last year but been on it before)

Dad-(45)-He is the only one who is not as enthusiastic about Disney as much as we are. He claims he wants to ‘explore the world’ and get out more but yet he always caves in going back to Disney each year . It seems as if though he always has a great time when we go. He works hard for his family doing something with inspecting. And to this day I still have know idea what he does. He doesn’t really care about the planning part as long as he inputs the stuff he wants he seems to be fine. No complaining dad!
Favorite Character(s): Grumpy
Favorite Park: Epcot
Looking forward to: Food and Wine

What: Our Family’s 6th Disney Vacation (My Birthday Celebration of course)
Where: Polynesian/Beach Club, yes we are doing a split stay. (more info later)
When: September 29-October 7 (a week off from school, Yeahh!!)
Why: Because we love Disney!!!(and I thought you could answer that one yourself)

As of now we have 89 days to go!!! Everyone is super excited, except for my dad of course. Well we all think he is, he just doesn’t show it.

Next Installment: How the planning all started…Stay tuned.

 

[NJ2Boardwalk]

Chapter 2: How the planning all started…

Well it was a cold winter day and my dad decided we should go to Disney World for 10 days next year ….Wrong!!
It was actually when my Aunt came over for a visit during Teacher’s Convention, when she mentioned going to Disney with her and her twin daughters (age 2) at the time. Immediately I was on the laptop and my mom was looking in her huge red Disney folder already planning for the next vacation. Since the previous vacation (July 2006) my dad said we wouldn’t be going back for a while. So after agreeing he would like to go with my aunt, uncle and the twins, everyone got really excited. We were planning on going that next year during teacher’s convention, November 2-10 to be exact. My aunt was going to come along too.

A few months later my aunt had came back from her house in Florida. She decided it was not a good idea to bring the kids to Disney yet. She noticed that they couldn’t sit in a restaurant every night for longer than an hour, they were tired by 12 and then again at 4, and they were very fussy during anything that had to do with staying still for more than 5 minutes. But what could she expect? They were 2, that’s what toddlers do. Anyway, we were a bit disappointed at first, but heck we were going to Disney when we weren’t supposed to so hey, why complain?

Around March, I was having some pain in my lower right stomach. It was horrible pain and to not go into huge detail my mom took me to the hospital to check for Appendicitis (AP). Well she knew I had AP because she was a nurse, but to actually verify it and not scare me, she waited to tell me when the doctors found I was AP positive. Well when I got my CAT scan the radiologist said I didn’t have AP. An average appendix is 6 mm wide. To be considered an appendicitis it must be 7mm or larger. Well mine had to be difficult it was 6.98 mm wide. And the radiologist said I didn’t have it. My pediatrician told the radiologist and my mom that they should keep me because I would be back at the hospital at 3 in the morning with more pain then before and it would eventually be an actual AP. Well after long waiting I eventually had my appendix out.

Anyway back to the point of telling you about my appendectomy. I was out of school for 8 days, so of course I was planning and lurking on the boards. My mom and I finally decided between the Poly and the Beach Club. We couldn’t narrow it down, and between the family’s decision, it suited everyone’s needs. My needs because I wanted to stay at the Poly bad, for a new experience and such and my sister wanted to be at the Beach Club for SAB, I secretly wanted this too but I didn’t want to sound greedy ….Anyway, my mom loved the Poly idea but she was not to hesitant on anything, she is a pretty easygoing person when it comes to choosing the hotel, as long as it is a deluxe. My dad wanted something in Epcot because he loves, loves, loves food and wine and since we have been at the BW twice and my sister and I aren’t big fans of it, we went for the Yacht and Beach Club.

We decided we were going to go to the Yacht because compared to the Beach Club there are more if not all full balconies and that is one of my mom’s requests. So at this point in March we had half Poly and half Yacht club. This is where we hit a rather large pot hole on our way to leaving for Disney. As it got closer we waited and waited for JetBlue to release there flight prices for our time. When they released we noticed that they were way above our price range, when at other times of the year for JetBlue were between 89 and 120 dollars. So, after watching the prices stay the same for a long time, my mom and I sat down to see if there was anything we could do.

By now it is mid April, we looked at our options, and the one that seemed most reasonable (with the least cons) was changing the date. Our ideas were either late August or early December. We nixed August because of the heat, missing F&W, we would be there at that time next year (because I can’t miss school once I get to High School), and the fact that we didn’t know if we would get good ADRs for the fact that the 180 day mark passed a while ago. And we nixed December because of being too close to the Holiday season, we would miss a lot of school, a lot of work before the holidays, and my dad couldn’t take off of work that week and the next, and any closer would be Christmas and we didn’t want to do that.

At this point we were out of options, until the trusty light bulb went of in my head. I wasn’t sure if my parents were going to accept the idea of going in September so I laid out all the pros and cons on a piece of paper to prove to them that this was a good time to go. Here is what my list looked like:

Pros
~Low crowds
~Value season
~Cheap Airfare
~Food and Wine
~My B-Day
~MNSSHP
~HW is light

Cons
~Missing school
~Dad work


Now look at this list and think to yourself, wow look how many pros and so little cons. Well at least that was what I was thinking when I gave my presentation. And after thinking about it my parents actually agreed. What?! Is she kidding, is probably exactly how you are thinking right now. Yeah and that’s what I thought when they told me it looked good. I did a great job with my presentation!! I guess all those days in English did pay off? Lol. At this time our dates were going to be September 22-29. I know what your thinking; but you said before that you nixed August for being so close, well we thought about that and looked and saw 180 days still hadn’t come yet!! Yeahh. And missing school was going to be a con in everything except for August, but since I pointed out that there is light work since it is so close to the beginning of the year, my mom agreed. And you don’t even know how excited I was. I thought that I would never be able to go to Disney on my birthday (26th) because it was so close to the beginning of the year. Well my dream came true. And then it became partially crushed.

My dad came home from work one day that week and told me that these dates were a no go. I was so upset I didn’t know what to do with myself. My life long dream was crushed and yet I was Oh So Close (hence the title). Yes, it sounds selfish, but my sister had celebrated her birthday last July and boy was I jealous. And who wouldn’t want to spend their actual birthday at Disney? So we made a compromise. My mom said with our new dates (Sept. 29-Oct.7) that we could celebrate my birthday the first full day. This lifted my spirits almost completely, but as my dad says I am never happy, well actually this time I was. I realized it was close so I didn’t fret. I asked my mom if we could pretend it was real and she said yes. We are even going to ‘ignore’ the fact that it was my birthday on the 26th to wait until Disney. Nothing on my birthday…no presents, cake, or anything. I want it to be real on my birthday on the 29th. I know you may think I am crazy, but I want it to feel as real as I can get it to feel.

It was the end of April and we had everything set. We were going to go September 29-October 7, celebrating my Birthday the 29th. We would have Annual Passes and DDE. Staying at the Poly until the 3rd then moving to the Beach Club. Poly Garden View and Beach Club water view. Taking JetBlue at 8:35 am on the 29th and leaving Orlando (oh so sad) at 2ish pm. Hope you like what you’re reading so far!!! Sorry if I go into too much detail.

Next Installment: ADRs, Our Preliminary Schedule, and a Surprise…

 

[NJ2Boardwalk]

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[NJ2Boardwalk]

Just to let anyone know who is out there...I hurt my wrist so i won't be able to type the rest for a bit. And i will be on vacation. Maybe in the next two weeks or so...Thanks.