The Skeptical First-Timers made it back home, here's the TR! Completed!

[FosterA]

Hello everybody!!!

Though we just got home yesterday and I have a million and one more important things to do none of them are as fun as talking about Disney.
I figured now was a good time to start my trip report since my mother-in-law is here driving me bonkers following me around the house rattling in my ear. I told her I had to go into my office and get some "work" done. tee hee

If you are just joining in and want some background you should be able to click on my link to the PRE -trip report in my signature

I'm actually going to start the report on my next post since I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing and need to make sure all my links works and such. Be back soon!

Table of Contents for the Trip Report

Day 1-part 1--Tues, Nov 15 (arrival and MVMCP)
Day 1-part 2
Day 1-part 3
Day 1-part 4
Day 1-part 5

Day 2- part 1--Wed, Nov 16 (MK and Fantasmic!)
Day 2- part 2
Day 2- part 3
Day 2- part 4

Day 3-part 1--Thur, Nov 17 (Studios and Luau)
Day 3-part 2
Day 3-part 3
Day 3-part 4
Day 3-part 5
Day 3-part 6

Day 4-part 1--Fri, Nov 18 (AK)
Day 4-part 2
Day 4-part 3
Day 4-part 4

Day 5-part 1--Sat, Nov 19 (Rest day and Downtown Disney)
Day 5-part 2
Day 5-part 3

Day 6-part 1--Sun, Nov 20 (Epcot)
Day 6-part 2
Day 6-part 3
Day 6-part 4

Day 7-part 1--Mon, Nov 21 (Rest day and Hoop De Doo!)
Day 7-part 2
Day 7-part 3
Day 7-part 4

 

[FosterA]

WHEW!!! what a trip.
We just got back yesterday but since I miss Disney already and miss all you guys too, I figured I'd start my report as a way to phase back into the real world.

A disclaimer before I get started: We took about 500 pics but you wont see many of me in them. Without giving too much away, let's just say I got SICK on this trip (me, who NEVER gets sick!) so I looked horrible most of the time with no makeup on and a bright red chapped nose from blowing it constantly. I still had a blast of course but I walked around the parks a hot mess most of the time so don't be expecting too many pics with my mug in it. I will post lots of Dave and the kids though!


DAY 1- part 1(Tues, Nov 15):

Our flight left Austin around 6 am. Tues morning so we had to be up and at 'em pretty early. I finally got smart and realized I needed to take at least 2 days off work in order to get ready to go out of town and that's what I did for this trip. VERY SMART of me! Because I had plenty of time to get out of work mode and into vacation mode, I was actually able to sleep pretty well on Monday night. I was quite surprised since I get pretty anxious before flying somewhere. Not so much "the flight" but the getting out of the house, getting through security, yada yada. But...no sweat. I popped up around 3:30 and showered and got all ready. For once, the kids popped up too since they were pretty dang excited. Dave was calm and actually in a great mood and ready to see what this Disney place was all about too.

So we managed to get out of the house and load up in our truck which we were just going to leave at the airport. What's another 80 bucks for parking after spending loads at Disney right?
Here's some pics of us getting to the airport:

This is Ian making Mickey ears on Allison. He thought of that all on his own which sort of surprised me.

So in the car on the way to the airport I explained my Golden Rule on this trip. The rule was that WE ALL EAT AT THE SAME TIME. It drives me absolutely insane that this family is never on the same page with food and we end up wasting time going here and there and dealing with eating events. The biggest culprit in the family is Allison, beings that she is 14, the Earth revolves around her. When we're hungry she's "sooo not hungry". When we're not hungry, she's going to "pass out she's so hungry". Once we got to the airport and got through security and such, I announced that we will all get something for breakfast and be on the same page. We found some breakfast tacos so all was well and I felt that everybody should be situated until we got to the Poly. Of course I was wrong because 1 hour later when we were in Houston on our layover, Ian announces that he'll just die without some chicken nuggets (it's like 7 am, nobody even starts cooking those things yet!). Allison just MUST have a starbucks and since she's a daddy's girl, he races to get her one though we barely had time on our layover.
Here's daddy and his spoiled Starbuck drinking girl: Obviously this photo must be while we were still in Austin and not during the layover in Houston because there was no time for lounging in Houston since our connection was pretty quick.

The flight was a piece of cake, Austin to Houston is only like 30 minutes and then it wasn't but 2 and 1/2 hours or so to Orlando. Ian spotted this hidden Mickey in the clouds. You see it right on top of the wing there. The wing is almost covering it up. You may have to be on magic mushrooms to really see it, but if I knew how to circle it in this photo I would. I swear it's there.

Once we got onto the second and final leg of our flight I started to get pretty excited. I get nervous during layovers (running to get the princess her starbucks doesn't help the anxiety of missing the connection). I checked my phone once we were loaded and I had a nice little voicemail from Garden Grocer letting me know that our stuff was just delivered to the Poly. They were fantastic and ordering 2 cases of water was a genius idea.

I wasn't able to talk to Dave much on the trip there because me and the kids take up the 3 seats on one side and he gets to sit alone across the aisle. Ian likes the window and I have to take the middle seat to keep the kids from beating each other. Dave is like me and not a huge fan of flying plus he just recently got back from a 15 hour Korean flight so he wasn't feeling chatty and perky anyway. All in all, it was a pretty perfect flight situation. Everything was on time and I didn't have an anxiety attack getting out of the house. The teenager almost got beat once or twice but that's not really uncommon It's usually on the plane going somewhere that I have time to think about what I may have forgotten to pack but we did awesome and didn't forget anything for this trip. yipee!! Well...Dave would have liked to have brought his water spray bottle for his hair and to get wrinkles out of clothes and I forgot q-tips and some notebook paper for journaling but those things could easily be bought at the little store at the Poly.

So...up next will be a chapter about hooking up with Magical Express and our arrival at the Poly!

 

[NMW]

Subscribing we will never forget our first trip with the kids that is when we felt the magic

 

[BridgetR3]

Joining in!!!

 

[amytheobald]

Cant wait to hear more!

 

[lilpixiebabe101]

Found ya! Jumping on.
Of course daddy's princess had to have a starbucks lol!

 

[nvsnot]

I'm in . I can't wait to read all about it .

 

[FosterA]

Subscribing we will never forget our first trip with the kids that is when we felt the magic

welcome

Joining in!!!

Glad to have you!

Cant wait to hear more!

Thanks for coming along!

Found ya! Jumping on.
Of course daddy's princess had to have a starbucks lol!

yep, when the teenager aint happy, nobody is happy

I'm in . I can't wait to read all about it .

Thanks! happy to have ya

 

[danimaroo]

I'm here! I actually lurked and read your PTR so I figured I'd come say hi in your TR. I'm hoping you guys had a great trip and hopefully some of your family now gets why Disney World is so wonderful!

 

[Moodyzblu]

I'm in !

Can't wait to hear more.

 

[FosterA]

DAY 1-part 2

For those of you just joining or for those that don't feel like sludging through my entire Pre trip report here's a quick recap. This trip was our family of four. 11 year old boy Ian, 14 year old girl Allison, and me and my husband David. I'm the only one of us four that has ever been to Disney and that was literally just to skim the parks in 2 days. A super quickie trip. I fell in love with it and just HAD TO bring the family. I knew my kids would love it but I was worried about David. It really took lots of begging and whining on my part to get him to agree to let me book the trip. He just wasn't interested at all but of course he caved in for me and the kids. He didn't want any part in the planning and had no pre-conceived ideas on what to expect at all. He says theme parks aren't his thing but he'd be willing to go and get it out of my system. So.......there you have it. I guess when I say "skeptical", I'm mostly referring to David since I already knew I loved WDW and was 99% sure my kids would. So as this TR unfolds you'll get to see if I was able to get David to "get the magic" or not


Ok, so I last left off talking about our flight. It was pretty un-eventful and we landed right on time. yipee I think it was right smack at noon that we touched down in Orlando.
Once we got off the plane I had a little confusion about getting to the Magical Express. David looked at me like "what? I thought you had every detail planned?" I was like "oh please, I didn't plan every single step of the entire trip, so what if we stumble around a little bit getting to Magical Express". Of course we found it pretty quick. Right off the bat I got swept up into the happiness of Disney because the Magical Express people were great and so fun. They had me and the kids laughing right off the bat and we're giving them stickers and offering to take photos of us and waving at us with big Mickey hands on. Disney people are just so friendly right from the starting gate! Here's a photo one of the ME peeps took of us. Oh...it was cute because several of the CMs were giving David a hard time because he was carrying Allison's pillow pal unicorn thing and they kept teasing him about. He was a good sport about it. Me and the kids thought it was hilarious of course. Can you see the little purple unicorn pillow in the background?

Now...as much as I'd like to keep this TR happy and give everybody out there with grumpy skeptical husbands hope, it was at this point that I knew David was not gonna get the "magic". David never said anything negative nor did he complain about anything but he also NEVER SAID ANYTHING POSITIVE either! That's how I know he's not into something. I thought that at this point, he'd say something about how nice it was that ME took care of the baggage, how they were all friendly, how it was nice to not rent a car....SOMETHING! but no....he just was neutral the whole time. I was just a little surprised that's all. I mean it's just so wonderful to not have to drag bags around and get rental cars and such and I suppose I wanted him to acknowledge that too. Oh well...It wasn't a big deal, I brushed it off to he was just tired from the flight and he'd perk up once we got settled at room.

It took a bit to get onto the bus and actually pull away but me and the kids were pretty pumped up so it was just fine. Ian thought it was cool to get on the huge bus but later told me the only thing he didn't like was the whining babies on board. He has this thing where he hates to hear babies crying Well....newsflash, that wont be the first whining baby we'll hear on this trip! Oh....and at one point we passed the Epcot "ball" and Allison said "what's that?". I said "That's Epcot" and she's like "the park is in the ball?". yep....the family has no idea about WDW.

So.....we're off!
We arrived at the Poly and naturally it was just as gorgeous as all the pics out there. A CM greeted us and sort of chatted to us as we walked in though I would have preferred to walk alone so we could check out the scenery and check out the little pond and such. I felt a little rushed getting off bus and entering Poly with the herd of people that also were entering plus having the CM asking us questions and such. But the CM was super nice and just trying to be helpful. Once we entered we got our leis which was a nice touch. I headed to the desk and Allison grabbed my camera and her and Ian ran off to look around. Here's a couple pics they took:

Dave and I walked up to the desk to check in and of course the CM was over-the-top nice. She got us all set up and I even got the requested room I wanted which was 3rd floor facing volcano pool. David was interested in the CMs nametag and thought it was neat that it said where they were from. yay! something was "neat" to him so far on this trip since he didn't seem too impressed by the ME. It's the little things. lol It was probably only 1:30 ish at this time but our room was all ready to go. We headed over to the room and when Ian saw the pool he started to flip and freak out and wanted to get in it ASAP. Allison was in awe over the landscaping and taking photos of every single flower and blade of grass. David didn't say much unless I asked and he'd be like "yeah, it's nice". Not grumpy-like but not mass enthusiasm either. I thought for sure for sure he'd be blown away by how green and lush the place was since we are living in a crisp and brown dried-up TX right now. Anyhooo....I told the fam that we needed to get up to our room and get settled and then they could swim and we'd eat lunch etc etc.
Like I said, we got the 3rd flooring facing volcano. We were in the very very last room on top, so the tip top corner. There was lots of foliage so I couldn't see a lot of the pool but could see the volcano which was nice because I could stay in the room and just pop out on the balcony every so often to make sure Ian was still climbing up the volcano and using the slide which he must have done thousands of times. He'd get up to that landing and wave at us before sliding down. Sure is nice to have older kids so I can be lazier nowadays and not have to sit and hover at the pool the whole time. Allison didn't hang in pool much but did migrate off to the beach with her ipod and laid out alot. Here's a couple pics of room and such.

This was taken off our balcony.

Ok, I just loved these lights over our beds. There were four in all and they were the dimming kind. Oh how I love dimming lights! you just twirled the little knob and could have it very dim or very bright which was awesome to read in bed without waking up everybody or whatever.

Ian ripping down the slide, first of thousands of times.

I thought it was so cool that I could see the Grand Floridian in the mirror from my bed!

Allison created this masterpiece on the beach.

I gotta end this for now. Next chapter I'll talk a little more about our room and settling in and trying our first meal at Disney (Cook's).


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[BridgetR3]

Well I hope that your DH comes around eventually to at least enjoying Disney. My DH got VERY VERY ill on his first time at Disney with some type of virus (read: 4 days in the room) SO .....he is not a Disney fan. He tolerates it only because I am in love. I do hope to "convert" him one day!

 

[brea]

I'm joining in! I have almost the same situation going on with a trip to the Poly coming in Jan-Feb with my DW being the skeptical one.

I told her about your husbands reaction to ME and she said he was probably thinking "for the amount we paid they better carry our bags"

I just started our PTR today so I'm definitely going to be following this one.

 

[joy13]

Great first day so far! Can't wait to hear the rest!

 

[Moodyzblu]

Great pics !! I LOVE the GF in the mirror one .. SO cool. I sure hope hubby comes around eventually !

 

[joshua4]

OK - lurker coming out of the closet here to tell you --keep on writing! We will be at the poly in January and I havent stayed there in a long time. Cant wait to read all about your experiences there. Also, we are taking a 14 year old and 11 year old with us who have never been to disney so I am dying to know your kids reactions. Waitng for more . . .

Lauren

 

[FosterA]

Well I hope that your DH comes around eventually to at least enjoying Disney. My DH got VERY VERY ill on his first time at Disney with some type of virus (read: 4 days in the room) SO .....he is not a Disney fan. He tolerates it only because I am in love. I do hope to "convert" him one day!

eeek. 4 days in the room, poor guy! thanx for reading along

I'm joining in! I have almost the same situation going on with a trip to the Poly coming in Jan-Feb with my DW being the skeptical one.

I told her about your husbands reaction to ME and she said he was probably thinking "for the amount we paid they better carry our bags"

I just started our PTR today so I'm definitely going to be following this one.

Welcome! I'll need to go check out your PTR! The funny thing about my husband is that he had no idea how much anything cost and I did that on purpose so he wouldn't be complaining about how such and such wasn't worth it. I mean, he had a ball park figure of how much the entire trip cost but he didn't know how much tix were and room was and food was necessarily. I saved and paid all cash for the trip so he can't even look at CC receipts. HA! Well, he did see the price of one thing and I'll fill you in on that episode in another couple chapters!

Great first day so far! Can't wait to hear the rest!

Glad to have you aboard!!

Great pics !! I LOVE the GF in the mirror one .. SO cool. I sure hope hubby comes around eventually !

Thanks for reading along!

OK - lurker coming out of the closet here to tell you --keep on writing! We will be at the poly in January and I havent stayed there in a long time. Cant wait to read all about your experiences there. Also, we are taking a 14 year old and 11 year old with us who have never been to disney so I am dying to know your kids reactions. Waitng for more . . .

Lauren

Come on out of that closet! yay Have your kids been to WDW before?

 

[FiveBoys]

I'm a longtime lurker who finally decided to make an account. I followed your PTR, now I'm subbing in to hear about the trip!

 

[FosterA]

DAY 1-part 3

So after getting checked in and everybody (except Dave) ooooing and aweing every tiny thing we got all settled in the room. We had some stuff but our luggage from ME had not yet arrived. The kids had carry-on suitcases so that was good so they were able to change into their suits. I gotta say that the weather while we were there was PERFECT every single day. Now, right in the middle of the day, it got a little toasty out in the sun but if you moved into some shade you were just fine. The nights were beautiful. We never needed jackets ever and pretty much did capris and t-shirts or jeans and t-shirts the whole trip. Plenty warm enough for swimming during the day. Here's another couple of photos.

Anyway....by the time we checked in and got a little settled it might have been 2-2:30 ish and we were all pretty starved. We did not do the dining plan (which I'm glad). We did not have any ADRs this first arrival day either. The plan was to relax and get settled and then work our way over to the Christmas party this first night (not getting there at 4:00 but more like 6ish). So we wandered over to Cook's to check out our first Counter Service experience. And.......I LOVED that place! It took us a few minutes to figure out "how" to order and what not. I had no idea (though I did vast amounts of research ahead of time) that you order using a touch-screen thingy. It was so fun! Disney just makes it such a blast to spend gobs of money! Anyhoo....once we figured out what to do, we all ordered stuff. Ian and I did the flatbread pizzas and Dave did a burger I think, oh and he got a beer too. Allison ordered some noodle veggie dish. We also got 2 of the infamous refillable mugs. I just drink water so I didn't care about the mugs. David pretty much veered toward alcoholic beverages most of the time so he didn't care about the mugs either. However, Ian thought he died and went to Heaven as far as being able to drink as much coke as he could stand. Here's Ian thinking he died and went to Heaven.

Now...another photo disclaimer: I did not take any food porn pics. sorry I guess I figured there is already ten billion photos of every dish at WDW somewhere or another on the DIS and you could just do a search if you were curious. Plus, my husband already thinks I'm a freak and I didn't want to deal with his eye rolling everytime I took a photo of my food!

Everybody seemed to really like their food and there was no complaints. Now, that also could have been that we were starving. Oh and David did not know how much anything cost on this trip which was all part of my scheme. I didn't want to deal with him saying "that burger cost how much?!" etc etc etc. I managed to keep him out of the loop the whole trip. Yay me! Now of course he has eyes and could see the menu and prices but I don't think he put alot of time into tallying up any totals and such. I paid the entire trip cash (We've been Dave Ramsey'd) and David (my David) more or less knew the total cost but not really what cost what if you know what I mean. So.....since he already had a bit of an attitude about Disney I figured it was best to not let him sweat how much an order of fries was. We ate our lunch outside of Cook's and it was not the least bit crowded. The ducks walked up to us and it was super nice and peaceful.

After eating we went back to the room and our luggage was already there. So fast! The kids were either on the beach or at the pool so I got domestic and started setting up the room. David plopped on the bed and commented on how nice it was just to be able to relax and not have to immediately rush to anything. He complimented me on the fact that I "scheduled" in plenty of down time before racing off to any parks or anything. So I patted myself on the back. Then...he should have quit while he was ahead because he says "man, that beer was good, I should have had you order a case of it with our groceries". I swear I almost smothered him right then and there. I had been planning and researching this trip for over a year and downright begged him for his opinion or input on several things during the planning process and he always just said "whatever you want dear". I specifically remember when I went to order from Garden Grocer and calling him at work to see if he wanted to order anything special or any alcohol or anything and he's like "no, just get whatever you want". To have him lay on the bed and said he wished I'd ordered beer made me want to beat him over the head.

So after I simmered down and he took a nap (good thing because I was already sick of him) I got everything all neat and tidy. I brought a pop-up hamper which was an EXCELLENT thing to have. I also brought one of those organizers to hang over door with little pockets but didn't actually use it. Felt like the Poly bathroom had plenty of counter space and little drawer things. Ian took the pull out couch as his bed and Allison got her own bed. Me and David had the other bed. It was a nice big room, no complaints. Well...if there were 2 bathrooms that would have been Heaven since Allison is such a hog about the bathroom.

I then ran down to the front desk to see about picking up my Garden Grocer stuff and they said that they'd have somebody bring it up to me. How nice can these folks be Well, not but a few minutes later a man hauls up my water, some fruit, chips, etc. Seamless and wonderful. It was only after this poor man walked off that I realized I forgot to tip him. I felt horrible. I mean he probably had a hernia with the two cases of water.

Anyway....so the room was set up, everybody had lunch, Dave had his nap, Ian was sliding away, Allison was lounging by beach. I left everybody alone for awhile but around 5 pm I said it was time to get the party started and go to our first ever park. I bought tix to the Christmas party. I gotta admit that I bought these tix mainly for the parade and the short ride lines. We are not character people at all. More on that later.

I could barely drag Ian out of the pool and Dave and Allison were a little resistant about leaving the beach. Dave was already working on a mai Tai or something. I had to pretty much beg them to go to MK! Everybody changed and freshened up and we headed for the friendship boat to zip over to MK. It was 5:30 ish and the sun was just dipped down enough to be out of your face and everything was so beautiful and had that glow to it. The weather was fantastic and it felt great to be on that boat with the wind hitting you. Here's a pic of me and Dave at the dock. I swear I don't really have triple chins!

Next chapter will be all about our first ever park experience. MK for the Christmas Party!!

 

[204charity]

Subbing!