The Year of the Mouse! A SURPRISE trip, with another one in the making! COMPLETE 8/11

[bbak30]

Hi all,
This is my 2nd trip report here on The Dis, even though I'm still working on completing my first one.
We are headed back to the world April 22-27 and will be staying at Port Orleans French Quarter.
This is our 3rd trip in 4 years and we have another one planed for DD9s 10th birthday in October! Hence the name of the TR: The Year of the Mouse!

I'm especially excited for this trip for 3 reasons.
Number one--I still can't believe I was able to talk my DH into this trip. We have been planning the October trip for a while, so this is kind of like a miracle. While DH likes Disney, he likes to do other things too.
Number two--this is actually our very first trip as JUST a family of 4! We always seem to travel with others. My parents, DHs parents, other family, friends, etc... We love that, but this is going to be a nice change.
number three--this trip is going to be a complete surprise for the girls! We have never done a surprise trip and I can't wait. They ask all the time to go back and will be shocked when we tell them we are going again.

Here we are!
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DD5, DH, me, DD9. This was taken during our March 2014 trip at Via Napoli!

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DD4, also known as Kate. She is spunky, with a mind of her own. Sometimes I call her the most difficult child God ever created, but sometimes she is also the sweetest child God ever created. She keeps us on our toes for sure.
Favorite movie: Frozen of course!
Favorite Anna
Favorite ride: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Favorite Disney memory: Meeting Anna and Else and the BBB

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DD9, also known as Allie. She is a sweet, warm spirited child who is very easy to please. She loves everything and thinks she is a teenager already. She is a mother hen and is very helpful.
Favorite movie: Tangled
Favorite Belle
Favorite ride: Expedition Everest
Favorite Disney memory: riding Splash mountain over and over again during our 2010 trip

I'm so excited, I can barely stand it! Next up, our line-up and planned ADRs![/URL][/URL]

 

[bigherofan]

That is so exciting! Can't wait to hear how you surprise the girls. We are taking our DGD9 this summer for her first visit with the mouse.

 

[Jaganessa]

I hope you all have a wonderful time! How exciting!

 

[bbak30]

I hope you all have a wonderful time! How exciting!

Thank you, so excited!

That is so exciting! Can't wait to hear how you surprise the girls. We are taking our DGD9 this summer for her first visit with the mouse.

Aw, that's a great age! My oldest is 9 and she can ride just about everything. Hope you have a wonderful time!

 

[bbak30]

T-minus 14 days and counting. We will be on our way in exactly 2 weeks! The closer it gets, the harder it is for me to keep the secret

On to our plans! We are staying at POFQ, which is a new resort for us. It looks beautiful and we were a big fans of POR. We stayed in a Royal Room in March of 2014 and the girls loved it. We wanted to try a new resort this trip and we got a PIN, so we booked!

Day 1: We are plannig to wake up around 2:30 and surprise the girls! Hitting the road for 3am. It's about a 10 hour drive for us, with stops. I used to think this was a long drive, then I realized so many people drive 20+ hours, so I've since stopped complaining. We will probably drive for a couple of hours, then stop for breakfast and gas. Then another stop for lunch and stretching. Hope to be pulling into WDW around 3pm at the latest. Should be around 2pm with the time change.
Hopefully our room will be ready, if hot we will change in the lobby bathroom and head to MK!

5:05-6:05: FP for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
5:50: Dinner at Be Our Guest
7:10-8:10: FP for Big Thumder Mountain Railroad
8:10-9:10: FP for Splash Mountain

I'm sure we will turn in early after that. It will be a long day of driving and DH will be exhausted.

Day 2: Rope drop at Animal Kingdom. Heading straight to Everest, as my youngest is finally tall enough to ride. After that we will play it by ear and fit in our FPs and lunch ADR.

10:15-11:15: FP for Expedition Everest
1:15: Lunch at Rainforest Cafe
3:30-3:35: Festival of the Lion King
4:35-5:35: Safari (hoping we can fit this in after EE at rope drop)

Other than those things, I really want to catch the Finding Nemo show and ride Dinosaur. And the girls would like to spend some time in Dinoland, I'm sure.
On the way out, we may try Kali for the first time.

Dinner will probably be at the resort if the girls want some resort time, or we may hop to Downtown Disney.

Day 3: I managed to grab a pre-park ADR for Be Our Guest, so that's where we will start off. ADR for 8:10, park opens at 9:00.
From there we will just see what the girls want to ride. My guess is probably time in Fantasyland, or maybe the mountains.

First FP of the day is from 11:10-12:10 for the Tower or Terror. We will play this by ear. If we don't want to leave MK, then we won't until we have to, which is for our TSMM FP at 12:15. Then I have a FP for the Frozen Sing Along from 1:15-1:30. That is another one that we might skip.
Honestly, I really don't care for HS. I could totally skip this park. TSMM is fun, but not a must-do for me. And I really don't like ToT, but will ride for the kids.
However, we are trying the Hollywood Brown Derby that night, with the Fantasmic! Package. We have never seen it, so I'm super excited about this part!

Day 4: This day is our MK EMH day. I LOVE EMHs at MK, so I planned our trip around this. Our first FP isn't until 4:20, so we may start in EPCOT and try to rope drop Test Track. We will see. Whatever the girls want to do.

4:20-5:20: FP for Anna and Else
5:35: Dinner at Ohana--sooo excited about this. Our favorite meal of our last trip and I really hope it doesn't let me down.
8:30-8:50: FP for MSEP
9:40-9:55: FP for Wishes

I'm still kind of on the fence about the FP for MSEP and Wishes. Last trip we caught the second MSEP and it was fantastic. We got great spots on Main Street and it was perfect. We did the Wishes Dessert Party last time, so we will see how it works out.
Planning to close down the park at midnight!

Day 5: Definitely planning a sleep in day here. Last trip we didn't plan around MK EMHs and regretted it. We started off early the next day at EPCOT and everyone was cranky.

3:00-4:00: FP for Soarin'
4:10-5:10: FP for The Seas with Nemo & Friends
5:10: Dinner at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
8:00-9:00: Spaceship Earth

Day 6: Start the drive home
However, this is also the 180 day mark for our October trip. The best medicine for Disney blues is to begin planning another trip!

 

[bbak30]

Just for fun, some of the ideas I'm toying with for our October trip:

MNSSHP for our DDs 10th birthday, but no idea what to do during the day before that.

BOG again, depending on how we like it.

HDDR, haven't done this one since March 2010. We loved it then!

Still waiting to see where we will be staying. My in-laws own RCI/Bluegreen and are trying to trade into DVC. They have had a search set up since March of 2014 but we haven't been matched with anything yet. They are searching for 2 2 bedrooms villas, and are only searching at BLT and AKL. I've tried hinting that we will never get that at BLT. Hopefully we have a good chance with AKL. I do wish they would expand the seach to anything on property though.
And we don't really have a back-up plan yet, so I'm not sure what we will do if we don't match with something soon.

 

[BridgetR3]

Joining in! Your girls are adorable! Twice in one year is going to make for a great year!! We surprised our kids with the trip one of our times. It was awesome to see their faces when they realized!

I noticed some purple and gold in your pics. Are you guys LSU tigers fans by chance? We are from Louisiana.

 

[bbak30]

Joining in! Your girls are adorable! Twice in one year is going to make for a great year!! We surprised our kids with the trip one of our times. It was awesome to see their faces when they realized!

I noticed some purple and gold in your pics. Are you guys LSU tigers fans by chance? We are from Louisiana.

Aw, thank you! I can't wait to see their reactions, we have never done a surprise trip before!
Yes!! We live just outside of Baton Rouge. Die hard LSU fans. In fact, my husbands wardrobe consists of 90% LSU apparel!
Where are you at in Louisiana?

 

[BridgetR3]

Aw, thank you! I can't wait to see their reactions, we have never done a surprise trip before!
Yes!! We live just outside of Baton Rouge. Die hard LSU fans. In fact, my husbands wardrobe consists of 90% LSU apparel!
Where are you at in Louisiana?

lol....funny how the bow in your little one's hair screamed "tiger print" to me! We live on the far southwestern end of the state. Hubby is an LSU fan and I am a UL fan (I graduated UL) so our house is divided!! Can't wait to follow along!

 

[bbak30]

lol....funny how the bow in your little one's hair screamed "tiger print" to me! We live on the far southwestern end of the state. Hubby is an LSU fan and I am a UL fan (I graduated UL) so our house is divided!! Can't wait to follow along!

haha, I just realized what you meant! We all had matching LSU mickey head shirts on

 

[KathyM2]

Following along too! I'm so excited for you telling your girls about the trip!! And so sneaky waking them up in the middle of the night!! They will be so excited!! Or are you even going to tell them then? Could just hop in the car and not tell them where you're going and hope they fall back asleep lol. You must have a ton of energy though to arrive after a 10 hour drive and go right to the park....I'm such a wuss...I didn't even feel like hitting a park after a 4 hour drive lol. I can't wait to see pictures of their faces when you tell them you are going!! Your plans sound wonderful!

 

[bbak30]

Following along too! I'm so excited for you telling your girls about the trip!! And so sneaky waking them up in the middle of the night!! They will be so excited!! Or are you even going to tell them then? Could just hop in the car and not tell them where you're going and hope they fall back asleep lol. You must have a ton of energy though to arrive after a 10 hour drive and go right to the park....I'm such a wuss...I didn't even feel like hitting a park after a 4 hour drive lol. I can't wait to see pictures of their faces when you tell them you are going!! Your plans sound wonderful!

Hi there! Thanks for joining in!
We actually thought about just putting them in the car and going--but our oldest is soooo nosey!

My hubby swears he will be up to a few hours in the park after the drive. As long as he has an energy drink and some sunflower seeds, he's good to go. The girls and I will sleep on the drive!!

 

[bbak30]

A friend of mine made the girls and I some shirts for the trip! They came out so cute and I can't wait to show them to the girls!

I love the LOVE shirt, how cute is that? The ones on the top are for the girls, the bottom ones are mine.
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We are actually going to try and put their initials on the Mickey heads, looks like it's missing something!
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12 days to go! I need to get the "surprise box" together. I'm going to include the shirts, magic bands, and some other Disney related stuff that I haven't picked out yet. I also need to get some snacks together and a few odds and ends like sunscreen, ponchos, etc...
I work all weekend, so I'll get started next week.

Eeeekkkkk, it's almost time![/URL]

 

[ksinniger]

We had a year of Disney last year, with three trips spread out from January to November. We surprised our girls with the first one, and it was SO much fun. It's the only video I will never erase from my phone.

Enjoy your trip and year of Disney!

 

[KathyM2]

That's so funny how you said your oldest is nosy. My kids are too and ask lots of questions...but we are sneaky and make up tons of things lol...they never believe us now lol. One time we told them we were going to their trampoline class but kept on driving for a weekend away. The funny thing was, it was almost three hours before they realized we weren't actually going to their class lol. I suppose when you get to Disney no matter how tired you are it probably perks you up lol

 

[yeheyprincex2]

hello,We will be there the same times as you guys! April 22-30 PORS RR this time around.
We are almost there
We are also surprising our boys they are smaller than your girls, my four year old asks almost everyday to go back to Disney. I love the shirts.

 

[bbak30]

hello,We will be there the same times as you guys! April 22-30 PORS RR this time around.
We are almost there
We are also surprising our boys they are smaller than your girls, my four year old asks almost everyday to go back to Disney. I love the shirts.

We stayed in the Royal Rooms last trip, loved them. Loved the entire resort. Hope yall have a great time!!!

 

[bbak30]

That's so funny how you said your oldest is nosy. My kids are too and ask lots of questions...but we are sneaky and make up tons of things lol...they never believe us now lol. One time we told them we were going to their trampoline class but kept on driving for a weekend away. The funny thing was, it was almost three hours before they realized we weren't actually going to their class lol. I suppose when you get to Disney no matter how tired you are it probably perks you up lol

OMG she's so nosy. I have a feeling she may already suspect something though. We shall see!

 

[bbak30]

We had a year of Disney last year, with three trips spread out from January to November. We surprised our girls with the first one, and it was SO much fun. It's the only video I will never erase from my phone.

Enjoy your trip and year of Disney!

Thanks so much! I'm kind of nervous about the surprise, but looking forward to seeing their faces!

 

[kastoney]

Subbing in for all the adventures. Can't wait to see how it all turns out.