Two families take on the World!! *Our first Disney trip/my first PTR* UPDATED 3/24

[KCrystal]

I'm kind of a newbie to the DIS boards and have been secretly stalking PTRs, TRs and DRs for a couple of months now. Well maybe not entirely secretly since I've posted on a few of them I finally decided that it MIGHT just make the time go by just a teeny bit faster if I did my own PTR!
This will be our first trip to Disney as a family and I'm soooo excited! Well technically it's TWO families but we will get to that later. The first family (us) is from good ol' South Carolina! Myrtle Beach to be exact. The other family is from Virginia. Really we are technically one big family since it's my mom and sisters. But hey, who's counting right? A few of us have been before and there's a couple of us (well the little kids) that have never been! I'm going to try to do this to the best of my newbie abilities so bear with me just a teensy weensy bit I'm going to lay out the basic details and as I have time in between working my part time job and going to school part time and being a full time mom and all that goes along with that, I will post on more specific details. So without further ado, get your and HERE WE GO!

So first the when, the where and the WHO of course!

When: April 13, 2014 to April 19, 2014
We are leaving from SC by car in the weeeeee hours of the morning on the 13th and the driving back the 19th with a quick stopover in GA to have a quick visit with my two beautiful nieces that we haven't seen in TWO WHOLE YEARS!

Where: We are staying in AoA in the LM rooms! This is a surprise to everyone except me (obviously haha), my hubby, my mom and the younger of my two sisters. Why? you may ask yourself. Ah, because my two girls are HUGE Ariel fans and my other sister (you will meet her later) is the BIGGEST Ariel fan of them all. I mean seriously, I would be willing to bet it would be a pretty hard task to find a bigger fan than her. The girl has a tattoo that COVERS her thigh of Ariel. I'm not joking. She's kind of hardcore. But I love her and she's a really awesome person that has been through a lot in the past couple of years and especially in the last year so she deserves something pretty special and surprising.

Annnnnd now to move onto the WHO!

First up is yours truly (Kayla)!!

Let's see, I'm 25 going on 5 minus the whining and temper tantrums. Okay, okay fiiiiiine I still whine and throw temper tantrums. BUT in my defense my tantrums generally stem from my hubby trying to squash some of my Disney dreams! I'm the planner of the family. And I'll admit I might obsess just a wee bit. My mom told me when I started planning this trip "It's your trip I'm just along for the ride so you plan whatever you want." Wellllll needless to say after the millionth time I called her to tell her the latest and greatest Disney plan/idea her words to me were "Your sisters and I have discussed it and we decided you need help. You need an intervention and I'm pretty sure they have meetings for people like you." To which my response was "Well duuuuh, of course they have meetings. It's called the DISboards!!!" Ohhh I digress. As I mentioned before, I'm a part time college student and I'm going for my RN degree. I also am the cake decorator at a grocery store. I love cake decorating. It's one of my biggest passions besides helping people. I love to see the look on my customers face when they pick up their cake and are so happy with it. I haven't been to Disney since I was 5 and I've been BEGGING my hubby to let me plan a trip for the last 5 years or so. Of course it's never happened because of having kids or not having the finances. But this time I put my foot down and said we are going and we will just figure it out! I love all things Disney and have forced this love upon my children. They aren't complaining I swear


This is the hubby (a.k.a Don, Donald, Daddy, or Uncle Duck). He's going to be 29 this year We've been together since his senior year in high school and my sophomore year. In case you were wondering, that will be 10 years in March!! We've only been married for 3 years at the end of February but it took a lot of convincing to get him to take the final leap even after three kids He's an assistant manager at a sub shop and works really hard. He seriously deserves a vacation. He's not as into Disney as I am but he puts up with my addiction/obsession. Deep down inside his inner Disney freak is begging to be released though. I mean, seriously, the man ENJOYS his nickname and encourages our nieces and nephew to call him Uncle Duck, as in Donald Duck since his name is Donald. Yea you get it. He has only been to Disney once for his high school senior trip right after we started dating. I was soooo jealous! lol He's super excited for this trip though because he gets a week off of work.


This is our oldest princess, Riley. She's turning 9 the day we leave Disney to come back home. Sadly we couldn't stay an extra day so she could spend her actual birthday at Disney but due to school and work requirements we have to leave to come back that day. So we are officially celebrating the day before and are going to do little things here and there throughout the week to make it a week long celebration! Riley is our model and dancer and is a SUPER busy kid most of the time. She does competitive dance and practices 3 days a week for at least 4 hours a day. Then Saturdays it's usually her photo shoot days. DEDICATION my friends, dedication. She really loves doing it though and wouldn't have it any other way. But she does need to be a kid and so this trip she's going to do just that. She went to Disney about 3 or 4 years ago right before she started Kindergarten with my in-laws so this will be her second trip!


This is Dillon who just turned 5 this month. He's my only boy and is a total mommy's boy. As you can see my love for Disney has totally rubbed off on him. This was Christmas morning and he was beyond excited that Santa brought him Disney Infinity!!! He has almost every character at this point and has been bugging me every day for the last couple of weeks for the new Frozen playset. He's also a huge Skylanders fan and has a hard time deciding between the two sometimes when it comes to buying new characters. Overall, he's just really into video games. He also enjoys playing Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Cars and with his Toy Story friends. He's really sensitive and gets his feelings hurt really easily but it also makes him really caring towards other people. This will be his very first trip to Disney World and he's SUPER DUPER EXCITED!!

And since it's bedtime (this is taking longer than I thought) this PTR is To Be Continued....

 

[anniebabymu]

Joining in! You guys will love the LM rooms! We stayed there in Oct. 2012 right after they opened and my two girls were in love! Can't wait to hear about all your plans

 

[KCrystal]

Joining in! You guys will love the LM rooms! We stayed there in Oct. 2012 right after they opened and my two girls were in love! Can't wait to hear about all your plans

OH MY GOODNESS! Thanks for joining in! I can't wait to share more of our trip! Just not tonight because I am super tired We are so excited about LM! Well those of us that know at least haha.

 

[KCrystal]

Getting back to the who

This would be Makenna (a.k.a. Kenna or Ms. Sassy Pants) and she is the baby of the group and she knows it and uses it to her advantage constantly. She just turned 3 back in August and is my miracle baby. She's spunky and hilariously random. She loves all things princess and her two favorites are Ariel and Cinderella. Although she is very into Anna and Elsa from Frozen since we went and saw that a few weeks ago. She's not afraid of anything and is going to be incredibly disappointed when she finds out she isn't big enough to go on the big rides with the rest of us but she's just so freaking little that it wouldn't happen poor thing. She also likes to antagonize the crap out of her brother which could get rather interesting being in Disney a whole week with no break from each other.


This beautiful lady (with zombie Riley after a dance recital) is my mom. My madre. My number one bestest friend. yea I love her like a lot. She is a serious lover of Disney and is where my love started. She took me to Disney for my first (and only) time. She went back with my dad, sisters and grandma about 5 years ago and they had a blast. So when I called her up and asked her and my sisters to come with us all expenses paid they literally jumped at the chance. My mom has done so much for us our entire lives and she more than deserves this. She's been a single mom two different times and always made sure we had exactly what we needed or wanted even if she didn't really have the money. She busts her butt every single day to make us happy and has helped me out more than once since I became an adult. So this trip is just my way of showing her how much I love and appreciate her.


This cute little nugget is my sister Courtney. 19 years old and like me, thinks she's 5. She loves princesses but mostly Ariel and Snow White. I mentioned in the last post the rather large Ariel tattoo she has. She would live at Disney if you would let her. I tell her all the time she should move to Florida and be a princess. She's a pretty awesome girl but has been through so much lately. I won't go into details but there's been a lot of heartbreak in her life the last year or so and she more than needs this trip to let loose and just be happy for once. She has no clue we are staying in the LM rooms


And last but not least my baby sister, Sarah. Or Scoob as we've so affectionately called her since she was a little baby. She's 15 and isn't as childish as the rest of us but does like to laugh at us when we get into our antics. Loves Disney just not as much as the rest of us. Her favorite is Simba. She's a huge animal lover and her favorite park is Animal Kingdom. She would stay on the safari all day long if we would let her. She wants to grow up and be a vet for a zoo. The girl has got some big ambitions and she's going places. We both are big foodies and one of the things we are most excited about is all the good stuff we are going to be eating!
So there we have it. The when, where and who. Up next, our plans for Day 1!!!

 

[KCrystal]

So we are getting hit by this lovely and rare winter storm here in good ol' SC! It's icy, cold and downright yucky out! We attempted to go out and play and only succeeded in sliding all around the sidewalk and grass so inside we came. Since I'm stuck inside my kids are running around acting like a bunch of wild animals I decided to come work on my pre trip report! Let's get to it!!!
Day 1 also known as our arrival day!!!
The plan is to leave home no later than 7. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we make it because with this crew, being on time for anything is a really hard task. I have a bad feeling I'm going to be fighting with some of my late risers all week.
We are going to pack breakfast and lunch so we only have to stop every 1 1/2 to 2 hours. If I had my way we would only make one stop the whole way but I know with the kids and my mom's pea size bladder it will be a lot more than once.
I'm thinking that we should arrive at Disney world around 4 providing there isn't a whole bunch of traffic but there probably would be considering it's Spring Break week for a lot of people. I just got anxiety thinking about it. Did I mention I get really bad anxiety around heavy traffic and a lot of people? No? Oh....well I do and this is going to be a HUGE test of my strength and ability to cope with my anxiety.
When we arrive we will check in and hopefully with a little bit of we will have our connecting room request granted! I'm going to need extra pixie dust when it comes to this because I checked last week and LM is SOLD OUT for the week we are there.
After we check in my mom and I are going to do a quick sweep of the rooms before we take anything in, and look for the dreaded BBs because, you know, I'm as freaking paranoid as they come. Once everything is determined to be A-Okay we will unload, unpack and grab our first meal at Disney from the AoA food court that I've heard so many amazing things about! After a quick dinner and a change of clothes it's off to the pool so the kids can play around after being cooped up in the car all day long. Then an early bedtime because the next day is our first park day and I for one plan on being up early to get there! We will be entering the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy!
Who can guess where we are going for Day 2, our first park day?

 

[KCrystal]

So I've been gone for awhile between school, work, kids, house and life in general I just haven't had time to keep up with my PTR. However, I just went down to only working on Saturdays and Sundays and we are in the week before spring break so my school load is slightly lighter and I thought I needed to get as much of this PTR updated as possible!!! Let's go!
So when we last left off I was about to get into our Day 2 plans! This will be the first day we are actually in the parks and where else would we spend it but in good ol Magic Kingdom of course!
Now, my mom had this brilliant idea to do half of MK one day and the other half the other day we are there. Well duh why didn't I think of that?! So this day we are going to spend it in Adventureland and Frontierland with a slight detour at lunch time over to Fantasyland. After a quick breakfast at the AoA food court, which I hear is A-Maz-Ing my plan (and hope) is to get there at rope drop. We will see how this goes though. My mom, Courtney and Riley are morning people because they are used to getting up early. Sarah HATES to be woken up early and is the devil when she does get woken up early. Unfortunately Kenna takes after her Auntie Sarah. Dillon is a kind of go with the flow kid and Don and I can wake up early if we need to but I have a feeling I will be so excited I will be up with the chickens every single morning. So we will ride a few rides in the morning with no specific plan of action but just going with the flow and getting our feet wet. Maybe get on the Jungle Cruise since I've been checking the wait times daily on my MDE app and that seems to get pretty crowded as the morning goes on and into the afternoon. And quite possibly Pirates. We will just have to see what everyone is in the mood for. Then we have a FP+ for BTMRR at 9:45-10:45 which we will most likely have to do a rider swap for but maybe not. Kenna is less than 1/2 an inch away from that sacred 40" mark for her to ride most of the rides and I'm PRAYING to baby Jesus that she grows lol. I know there's still some she's not going to be tall enough for but I'm hoping she can go on most with us. If not that's what rider swap is there for. Depending on the wait times we might do another ride, check out the Swiss Family Treehouse or get some autographs. After that we will probably make our way over to Fantasyland for our FP reservation at Be Our Guest! I was able to nail down an 11:20-11:50 for my group and 11:50-12:20 for my mom's group so I'm thinking that if we get there right before 11:50 we will get in about the same time. After our lunch we head to our 12:00-1:00 FP+ for Peter Pan's Flight and then straight to Space Mountain for our 1:15-2:15 FP+. Space Mountain will be another one of those RS rides because Kenna for sure won't be tall enough for that one and I'm not sure how Dillon is going to feel about it either. I'm hoping we can catch the 2:20 Dream Along With Mickey show before getting a good spot to see the brand new Festival of Fantasy Parade at 3! Then we will head back over to Adventureland and Frontierland and ride Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Splash Mountain and anything else that looks fun for us. The rides I'm naming specifically are on our MUST ride lists though. Dinner is planned at Columbia Harbor House since I have heard so many fantastic things about it and it had a menu with lots of things my mom can eat. Did I mention she has a gluten allergy and can't eat anything with tomatoes in it either? Her stomach is really bad so we have had to preplan every single place we are going to eat so that she could make sure there was something on the menu that she could have. She's so lucky I love her After dinner and some walking around it will be time for our Tomorrowland Terrace Wishes Dessert Party reservation!! Sarah and I are BEYOND excited for this! I literally jumped for joy when my husband said I could book it for this trip. After the parade we will head out to Main Street for the MSEP. Our character meets we are hoping to do this day are:
Fairies at Tink's Magical Nook
Aladdin and Jasmine
Chip and Dale (although this isn't a big deal as we will run into them multiple times in this trip)
Marie and Mary Poppins
Buzz, Woody and Jessie
Tiana and Naveen
Peter Pan and Wendy
After the parade it will be back to the hotel and bed so we can make it to our second park of the trip at rope drop the next morning!
Up next Day 3 Plans!

 

[KCrystal]

So today is the day we are going to Epcot! Rope drop isn't essential for this park but I would really really like to make it. There will be a lot of this I'm sure. Again another quick breakfast in the AoA food court. We aren't huge breakfast eaters so doing this most every morning won't be a big deal for us but we do have two mornings with breakfast ADRs. Don't worry those are coming up. So I'm really super stoked at the fact that Flower and Garden will be happening while we are there. I just love looking at beautiful flowers and topiaries. I know the kids won't so much enjoy it but there are the cool playgrounds that they have set up and there's also Kidcot and Agent P's. So I figure as soon as we get there someone is going to have to run over to Norway and get in line for Anna and Elsa since word on the DIS is the line for them is out of control and we might have an international incident on our hands if my kids don't get to meet them and show them the special page in their autograph books that's just for them. While we take turns standing and waiting for our time to meet the sisters I figured we could walk around and do Innoventions, ImageWorks, Journey into Imagination, and possibly SeaBase while we wait on the World Showcase to open up. Then we will head straight for the International Gateway and pick up their Evil-Detection Devices so they can do Agent P's World Showcase Adventure. Then around World Showcase we go! We will make a pit stop around lunch time at Liberty Inn since the menu there looked yummy and I've heard very good things about it. Then some more exploring in World Showcase before our 2:20 FP+ for The Seas with Nemo and Friends and our 3:20 FP+ for Turtle Talk! We should have some more time to walk around before heading to our 4:35 ADR at The Garden Grill Café with Chip and Dale! See I told you we would run into those guys again! After dinner Courtney and Sarah have a 5:20 FP+ for Soarin' while the rest of us have one for Test Track. I know you are probably scratching your head at this point wondering why the rest of us aren't going on Soarin' since it's "the" ride to go on in Epcot. Simply, Don and I don't really do heights. I can go on roller coasters all freaking day long. But that whole hang gliding experience isn't really for me so we are passing. We will probably do RS unless Kenna is tall enough and all three want to ride it. After that we might hang around World Showcase for a little longer or head back to the hotel and hang in the pool. It's going to depend on our mood that day. Character meets for the day to include:
Anna and Elsa (of course)
Winnie the Pooh and gang
Mulan
and Duffy the Bear!!
Then off to bed fairly early because the next day we have an early morning ADR with a very special chef and his gang!
Up next: Day 4! Where do you think we are going for breakfast?

Side note: before I started really writing this PTR I thought "oh my god I've way over planned this trip and it's going to not be fun because it's too structured and I'm going to have a meltdown because everything isn't going to go by my timeline." But now that I'm writing it down, putting it out there and reading it we have a lot of like "laid back, go with the flow or whatever happens to float our boat at that particular moment" time. 10,000 weights were just lifted off my shoulders and I'm relaxing about my crazy over planning now hahaha