These Kids Make Me Wish You Could Curse on the DISBoards (May '11 Trip) - DONE 9/14

[nilla]

Let's get one thing straight - I don't write Pre-Trip Reports. Come to think of it, I've only written one actual Trip Report, so take this statement for what it's worth. Anyway, our Pre-Trip build-up is not very exciting, much less worthy of its own thread, so I'll give you the breakdown:

• Book the trip in October or November
• Work from home in the morning so Kristin can get the ADRs
• Start (officially) counting down at 100 days
• Get too excited for our own good
• Watch the ever-changing weather forecast multiple times a day once the 10-day forecast starts to overlap our stay ("It's supposed to be sunny all week! Wait - they just changed it - thunderstorms every day.")
• Start packing early. Usually too early. As in we need to unpack stuff because we have nothing to wear at home. We were not as bad this year, though we were about 98% packed three days prior to the trip.

The big effort (and one that I susprisingly find fun) is deciding what clothes we're wearing on what days. Park and restaurant are part of the equation, as well as having us match somewhat without allowing a repeat of the "it's the green family!" comment from an AK cast member a few years back.

We also have some build-up nuttiness, such as the chain:

and the fridge countdown:

We fly out of Allentown, PA on Wednesday, May 4th, at 5:40, then back in on Sunday, May 15th. After falling in love with Coronado Springs last year, we're back there again. Here's the park and dinner list:

Thu 5 - MK, Cinderella's Royal Table
Fri 6 - Epcot, Coral Reef
Sat 7 - AK, Boma
Sun 8 - HS, Sci-Fi lunch, Cape May Clambake dinner
Mon 9 - Epcot, Le Chefs de France
Tue 10 - MK, Chef Mickey's
Wed 11 - Epcot, Teppan Edo
Thu 12 - Swimming and Downtown Disney, Wolfgang Puck's Express
Fri 13 - Epcot, Biergarten
Sat 14 - MK, Kona Cafe

The ADRs stayed relatively the same between first book and our departure, though we did waffle between Ohana and Puck's on the swimming/DTD day. We discussed the relevance of the minute-by-minute planning breakdowns Kristin created the last few years, ultimately deciding to just wing it this year. But as you can see, that decision didn't hold up too long:

So the new approach is to follow the plans if possible, but to also make some freelanced, game-time decisions during our trip.

 

[nilla]

I'm also rocking the lime green Mickey for the first time ever this year! Complete with username, so my enemies can avoid me.

 

[nilla]

Ok, remember how I said nothing really exciting happens before our trip? That held true for most of the lead-up to 5/4/11, with each kid getting sick prior to the "no more getting sick" deadline near the end of April. Watching the upcoming weather for home, I decided that Sunday was the last day I was guaranteed and opportunity to mow the lawn before we left. I missed that opportunity one year, and we came

home able to find and catch wild Pokemon right there in our front yard. I actually expected to see DiVine in there. I got to it in time this year, cutting it to mere millimeters in length. That should be good for the next two weeks.

As I finish up, Kristin returns from shopping with her Mom and Emily (who is 5, btw, if I didn't mention before). She gets out of the car, and she is in pain - a splitting pain in her right side. She wants

to go to the ER. I see her somewhat as the "girl who cried emergency room" in that she tends to assume the worst when any of us has any kind of health condition. That said, I tell her to just wait it out and see if it gets better. She tries laying down with a heating pad, but it does little good. Eventually, she decides she needs to go. Her Mom drives her to the hospital, as I make the kids dinner.

About an hour later, the phone rings, and it's Kristin. The doctors think she has a kidney stone, and she'll be getting a CAT scan shortly to find out. Oh, man. I heard some nightmares about that from a friend at work who was actually in the hospital for several days with one once, so I'm not my usually, optimistic self right now.

I take the kids outside to play after dinner, and right now, I'm basically bracing myself for the possibility that (1) we won't be going on our trip, or (2) she'll be laid out in bed with the same pain in the hotel room, while I either (a) feel guilty for taking the kids to the park, or (b) stay in the room because I know I'll feel guilty if we go to the park. After proof-reading that last sentence, maybe Kristin's onto something with the "I'm not that compassionate" accusations.

Anyway, you can probably guess that (1) didn't happen, or else you wouldn't be reading this trip report. We fortunately averted that, but when she returned home, she did say that if she doesn't pass it

before Wednesday, she could be having some bad days in WDW.

She takes it easy, and in an effort reminiscient of the 3-push and 2-push births of our kids, she gets that stone out Sunday night, and we are back in business. What a relief. I do try my best to tone down

my "I'm so happy we can still go to Disney World", since it's trumped pretty handily by her "I'm so happy I passed my kidney stone." Either way, it's still great news and a huge wait off our kidneys - err, backs. She does have more in there, or so the doctors told her, but there's no definite chance they'll be affecting her in the near future. Let's enjoy it for now.

I tell everyone that "that's it". No one else is allowed to get sick. Wednesday is right around the corner, and we're not letting anything stop us now. Next stop - Wednesday and the start of our 6th yearly trip as a family. Stay tuned!


btw, I was very happy to learn that MEK got better before her trip as well. Disney magic conquers all!

That's it for tonight. I'll try to be back tomorrow night, because we haven't even left the ground yet. See you soon!

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[2xcited2sleep]

My goodness. A lot of drama with this update but you kept me laughing as well! I had a kidney stone once and it is definitely not fun. Thank goodness it didn't happen while you were on your trip- that would have been awful!

I am an obsessive weather checker before trips too. And it really does change as dramatically as you said. Luckily this time it went from t-storms to sun instead of vice versa.

Can't wait for more!!

 

[jegsnakkernorsk]

The big effort (and one that I susprisingly find fun) is deciding what clothes we're wearing on what days.

You must be my brother from a different mother. I secretly enjoy this as well. Two weeks before the trip and I have my suitcase packed and by garage door. My sister and I even talked about what we are wearing each day so that the colors won't clash should we happen on a photo op one day.

I also must admit that I'm kind of regretting packing some of the things already. I've got a mental list of two things I want to get back out of my suitcase to use before I leave, but I'm waiting until there are three reasons for me to open the suitcase and take stuff out...

DSis also has created the laminated cards for each day with pretty much each hour planned out - I'm curious how closely you stuck to yours.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[MEK]

Oh Brother - not the dreaded kidney stone. I had her diagnosed the second she got out of the car. Only need to work in an emergency room for about 3 weeks before you see a dozen people come in with kidney stones. Quite a common problem.

Kristen - I am so glad you passed your kidney stone and are feeling better. No more ice tea - Lots and lots of H20!!!!!

Nilla - love your "PTR". perfect! I can't wait to hear about CRT. That is one place I have never eaten, but I have always wanted to be a princess for one meal. It's definitely on my bucket list.

So I can't see pix right now and I hope I didn't miss anything good. Will check back later!

 

[CastleGazerMom]

Great start on your TR! Your family is adorable and its always good to see that I didn't marry the only man who acts, like...well, a man!

Talk about the stress of a kidney stone and a WDW trip so close together! Glad to see she was able to force that stone out for good of the family trip - - what a great mom/wife!

Look forward to seeing your humorous take on the rest of your TR!

 

[kristin t]

I was very glad that the kidney stone passed as quickly as it did!! I had told the Dr's in the ER that I needed the express treatment because we were leaving for Disney on Wednesday. They did a great job!
Just wait until everyone hears what happened to me later in the trip - when Jon tells me I am injury-prone, he is not kidding!!

 

[kristin t]

Kristen - I am so glad you passed your kidney stone and are feeling better. No more ice tea - Lots and lots of H20!!!!!

This has been the hardest thing for me - giving up my unsweetened ice tea!! I have been drinking tons of water though, so that's a positive.

 

[TanzUnited99]

Great min pre-trip report! I love the fridge magnet countdown - reminds me of the adverts

Yay on rocking the lime green mickey - am debating whether to make one for my bag. I'll probably end up doing so.

Oh no on the kidney stone situation. Am glad it all sorted itself out and you were still able to enjoy the trip. Also lol on the possibility of finding Devine in your back garden if the mowing had not taken place!!

 

[chicagoshannon]

I'm in. I like your fridge countdown. We'll have to do that next time. We currently have a chain for ours.

Now I'm off to read you TR from last year.

 

[nilla]

Welcome, newcomers, and thank you to all for your concerns about Kristin's now-expelled kidney stone! I usually don't respond to everyone's comments individually, but will try to cover them as much as possible in this post.

One thing I wised up about with the chain this year is that I wrote a number on each link, so if we neglected to tear one off at any point (imagine!), we could easily catch up without re-counting all of the links.

Kristin's got cousins in town due to a death in her extended family, so I may not be updating tonight or tomorrow. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for reading!

 

[nilla]

Also lol on the possibility of finding Devine in your back garden if the mowing had not taken place!!

You should see it now. The last time I mowed was two Sundays ago, and the combination of rain and sunshine has turned it into the Maharajah Jungle Trek, minus the let-it-all-hang-out bat enclosure. It's supposed to keep raining until Sunday, so I'm going to need a machete!

 

[nilla]

Kristin and her cousins went out drinking, so I'm here alone with two kids in bed, a PBR cracked, and a trip report update typed up in Notepad, ready to be copy/pasted here! Here we go...

 

[nilla]

 

[nilla]

So, it's Wednesday morning, and our plane flies out at 5:50 this evening. My plan is to work a half day, then come home and pace until it's time to go.

Of course, work isn't exactly easy when you know you'll be falling asleep that night on Disney property. I mangage to find creative ways to pass the time, while still being marginally productive (hey, that timecard was really complicated this week!). I set my phone mail message and email reply, and then I'm out the door and headed home.

Unlike last year, I don't wait until I'm completely ready to explode with excitement before cracking my first beer to calm my nerves. In fact, Kristin and I have decided to go to lunch (with Emily, who has AM Kindergarten) at our favorite local establishment, the Bethlehem Brew Works. "BBW", for short. We bought our way into the Mug Club last September for more than I care to admit, but we get discounted beer there now, so we're there at least once a week now. It really is a great establishment with an awesome menu and really good beer. Kid friendly, too.

But enough about that. To read more, check out my lunch TR on the BBWBoards...coming soon!

Completely relaxed now, we head back home and tie up whatever loose ends we need to secure before leaving. Unplug stuff. Feed the fish. Bring our luggage down. I'm very careful going up steps and moving around in general, for fear of doing something stupid and injuring myself this close to go time. I decided a few months back that when it warms up, I really need to start running again, but then decided that can wait until AFTER Disney. The last thing I need is a tweaked knee or pulled hammy lingering when I need to be speed walking for Soarin' FPs. I mean, let's be smart about this, ok?

Dylan comes home from school around 3:00, and he's excited. He starts a sentence with, "tomorrow, on Splash...", but I cut him off. Does he realize what he just said? On Splash. Tomorrow. Unbelievable. It's finally here! You can see now why I need to drink the day of the trip, because it's not a good scene if I don't!

Kristin's parents pick us up in separate cars around 4:30, and we all head out the 3 or so miles to Lehigh Valley International in Allentown, which finally started offering direct flights to MCO two summers ago. MUCH nicer than having to drive to either Philly or Newark. Kristin and the kids are riding with her Mom and the carry-on bags, while I'm with her Dad, the big luggage, and the stroller. We pull up to the curb at LVI...

Up next, the first leg of our voyage begins!

 

[nilla]

We each get out of our respective cars and start to accumulate our bags. We've double and triple checked our bags, so we know we have everything. The only thing that's whereabouts I don't know is Kristin's cell phone. And neither does she. But wait - she remembers; it's at home, in her other purse. Lovely. "Do you need it?", I ask, but she's insistent that she'll have to get in touch with me if we ever split up in the parks. So she hops back into her Mom's car and heads back home, while I get us checked in at the airTran counter, thinking, "oh well, all of this makes for good trip report material!"

I get our boarding passes, and the kids and I wait for Kristin. I start to think that we forgot something else, but it must not have been very important, since I can't even remember what it was now. Anyway, whatever it was, we didn't forget it. So forget I even mentioned that. Finally, she arrives.

Thanks to the cell phone debacle, it's a short wait until we get on the plane. It's a mid-sized craft, one of those 3 seats on one side, two on the other deals (that's actually the technical name for that type of aircraft. I looked it up). Dylan and I sit in the second to last row, Dylan with a great view of the engine smack up against his window. The girls are one row in front of us. Emily's got her gum, and she's ready to go.

The plane takes off, and once we can put our trays down, I try to do the tray-flipping move that Martin Short did in "Clifford" to annoy Kristin in the seat in front of me, but that apparently only works in the movies. So it's Nintendo DSes out and another crack at finally beating the Elite Four in Pokemon Black.

The flight is relatively uneventful, with little turbulence and no victory over the Elite Four. Save and quit; I'll try again on the flight back

Off to baggage claim. We're using Disney's Magical Express, but since we're coming in late, we would rather save time by grabbing our bags ourselves. We find a porter (the bag cart pushing kind, not the delicious dark beer kind), and start to feel bad for him as he waits with us F O R E V E R, watching the same, unclaimed bag from the flight before go around another 8 times while ours gets tossed around by a gorilla behind the scenes. Here comes that bag again. "There's Big Ben, kids. Parliament."

In the meantime, I learn a lot from the airport advertising, such as that former Vikings kicker Fuad Reveiz is now shilling some Habitat for Humanity equivalent in Florida. Oh, and there's a sign for La Nouba, which prompts me to remind Dylan how he used to call it "Naouba". That's pronounced nah-OO-buh. He insists again that's the correct name, even asking me where I see an "L" anywhere in that word. It's small, I say. "Oh."

So why the mention of La Nouba? Did we decide to go see it? Did Emily get recruited to join the cast? Absolutely not, but the word "Naouba" became one of the most uttered words on our trip, as you'll read in future posts, nearly killing Dylan with laughter-induced suffocation at one point. But that's another update.

For now, it's onto the Magical Express and off to CSR!

 

[nilla]

We finally get our bags, and it's onto the Magical Express. MEK, whose trip was ending the next day, asked me to shoot her a text when I got down there. Here's what I can do with my $10 phone:


On mme to csr I
suck at texting
hope u had a great
trip nilla



I don't know how to type punctuation, for one. Anyway, Kristin reminds me that it's DISNEY'S Magical Express, not MICKEY'S Magical Express. Shame on me. Thank god no one else saw that! I'm surprised MEK's even replies after that fiasco.

MEK does send a text back, though, saying that Kristin should try the mango blueberry margarita at La Hacienda in World Showcase. Will do. As Mary Ellen and the crew from this great trip report watch Illuminations, we head on out to Coronado Springs, somehow missing the Nickolodeon resort on the way.

We arrive, Kristin grabs the room keys, and the kids watch some great cartoons.

Dylan and I both wish they would start airing these again, and not the cut-up "Have a Laugh" clips they now show between regular programming. What could be more entertaining than watching a Mickey-build robot beat the crap out of a gorilla? When you think of something, let me know, because I can't think of anything.

I grab a few more pictures, battling the difficulty our camera has taking inside shots at night:

Not too bad, actually. I walk over to check in on Kristin. She's a bit disappointed that we did not get the building she requested (Cabanas 8), and that we'd be staying in Casitas 3 instead. I remind her that she was also disappointed that we did not get Cabanas 9 last year, only to later fall in love with building 8.

So, one more pic at the fountain...

...and it's off to Rix to get our mugs and a beer. We both buy refillable mugs (new design - take that, re-users!!!), though Kristin uses hers maybe twice since the kidney stone put a big crimp in her unsweetened ice tea drinking. In fact, she drank so much of it last year that I wouldn't be surprised if that's what gave her the stone to begin with.

I grab a Dos Equis, and she gets a vodka and cranberry at the bar outside. Now to go find our room...

 

[nilla]

Building 3, and our preferred, corner room in particular, are only about two buildings away from El Centro, which is +1 to begin with for this new location. After getting our bags into the room, we step outside and admire the view - AWESOME view of Lago Dorado, which is another +1. We are on the exact opposite side as the main pool, but we can deal with that walk if necessary. The quiet pools in this area are nice, and fountains in the courtyard are beautiful. You can either wait until later in this TR to see some pics, or you can go visit any of KatMark's TRs right now. Sorry, I'm too lazy (and too IN THE ZONE) to go looking for a link right now

We start to unpack, and Dylan instantly turns the TV on and to channel 18, or as we call it, "Disney Hype". He actually doesn't need to change the channel, since these TVs automatically go right to that channel when you turn on the TV. If it involves marketing, Disney WILL think of it! Dylan points out "Naouba" when the show gets to it.

Finally set up in our home away from home (which looks surprisingly similar to last year's home away from home), I head out to grab another drink. I grab Kristin a double this time, ordering a Dos Equis draft for myself. They have Yuengling Lager on tap here, and not for cheap, which is funny since that's our local beer and can be bought for under $20 a case in PA. Then again, I can probably get Dos Equis that cheap, too, but I'm buying into the Mexican theme, so I'll justify it that way. Not to mention, if someone as cool as the "World's Most Interesting Man" drinks that stuff, there's no excuse for a lamer like me to not follow along.

We polish off the drinks and get ready for bed. The kids WERE going to share one of the two queen-sized beds, but they just keep goofing around, so they're split up. Kristin finally figures out how to turn the air conditioner up (i.e., cooler), calls for a wakeup call, and it's off to dreamland.

Tomorrow is our first real day in WDW, and what was intended to be a rope drop arrival at Magic Kingdom. However, the late arrival and our desire to NOT run the kids into the ground on day 1 has us planning on getting up a little later than we would if we were shooting to make it for park opening. Besides, MK's got morning Extra Magic Hours, so there's no way we'll be there by 8:00. Our plan is to roll in around 9:00, but will that be early enough to avoid a long wait to meet Rapunzel and Flynn Rider? And if not, what will become of our lamenated touring plans? Will all of the Winnie the Pooh Fast Passes be gone?

Find out in our next update, coming soon!

...but not tonight.

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[MEK]

More great and funny updates! But I am brain dead, so let's see if I can remember what I read.

Oh yeah - for the record - I always have my phone on and at my side. I have teenagers. Just wait - it will happen to you, too. You will probably be wearing it around your neck and you will most certainly learn to text with one foot, let alone your hands. Teenagers have a way of improving skills you never knew you had.

So glad you had an uneventful flight and arrival. How great to be that close to the airport. Who flies out of ABE? I'm guessing Air Tran?

to arrival drinks. Can't wait to see pictures of your room location. Cynthia went to MK the same day as you. She needed an MK fix. I forgot to tell her to look for your lime green Mickey.

Great update. Can't wait for more.