The Tinker Family is headed to WDW-PTR Dec.1-7th, 2011

[disneygma11]

I am fairly new here but thought I would follow suit and make a PTR like so many of you have done here. I already have a blog devoted to our Disney Trip but thought I would keep this one updated as well.

A little about us. This will be our first trip ever to Disney. It will also be my families first time to ever fly. We always wanted to take our kids when they were little but could never find the time nor the finances to do so.

There will be 8 of us going. Me (43), Hubby (45), DD, (21), DS (20) DS, (18), Sons GF (18) GD (3), GD (2).

I am a Part time Self-Employed Mom/Grandmother, who is also a full time College Student, majoring in Psychology. My husband is a retired Minister.

We are actually planning two Disney trips, this will be the first one though so I am using this PTR for it solely. We are planning to stay at the All Star Music Resort on December 1-7th, 2011. We just booked our rooms today. We got a Family Suite for all the kids and grands and a Standard room for hubby and myself.

I do not know the first thing about Disney other than what I have read online and in books. So this is proving to be somewhat of a challenge for me. I am sure I will have a multitude of questions as I go and this looks like a great place to come to for answers.

I will do my best to keep this updated as I go along. If you have made it this far, thanks for reading this.

 

[disneygma11]

So today I got a few things accomplished. I was able to book two hotel rooms near the airport as we live about a three hour drive from the nearest major Airport and i did not wanna take a chance on getting the granddaughters up too early and having to make the road trip and then a plane trip on top of all that. So hubby and I decided to go up the night before and stay in a room right across from the Airport. Hopefully we can get a little sleep, depending on how loud the Jets are, I guess.
I don't have our flights booked yet but have been looking. I probably will not book until Early May, due to financial constraints. We are not using Credit and will be paying Cash for all of our expenses so we have a strict budget we are using to accomplish our goals.
I am so looking forward to the trip. At first my daughter was not too excited about it (She is 21 and has two little girls) she was just going to let us take the girls and stay at home for some R & R for herself but we finally talked her into it and she is sort of getting excited about it now.
We are not doing the Disney Dining Plan. I looked at it but am afraid our budget would not tolerate it at this point. So, we have opted to eat in the room. I am sure we will probably eat out a couple of times while we are there though. We just will not be eating out at every meal. Does anyone know if Coolers are allowed in the theme parks? I have not gotten around to asking or finding the answer to that question yet. Ill post more later.

 

[disneygma11]

Hubby and I have been talking and we have decided to make this The Year for Disney. Since we will be taking our first trip in December, we have decided to bring Disney into our home all year long. Someone gave us a New Christmas Tree this year after Christmas, they had just bought it and did not need it, so it is 7.5 ft tall and prelit. So we are going to be buying Disney Themed Ornaments all year long. We will be Decorating our Tree the day before Thanksgiving this year and yep, you guessed it It will be done in all Disney Characters. We have also decided to throw a party the day before we leave for our trip. Since our granddaughters are 2 and 3, they really have no concept of time yet, so we knew that we could not countdown too far ahead of time or they would at some point feel it was never going to get here, so we decided to start a countdown calendar with them beginning on the 1st of November. For the Party we are planning a Mickey Mouse theme and we are getting matching shirts to wear for the whole family, that says "Off to see the Mouse!" Since every party needs gifts, we have decided to put together some handbags with things that they can keep occupied with during the flight and at the airport as well as nights in the resort. We are just going to pick up some Disney Themed stuff all year long. I have started a Container just for my Disney items and will be placing stuff inside all year long. I am so exited I can hardly contain myself. Until next time....