We are really going to the Castle! Mommy and Selah Do Disney! 5-2 thru 5-6

[wish_upon_a_star35]

First I'd like to welcome and thank you all for reading my little trip report!

Let me start with the introduction for this trip!

Me-My name is Leah and I LOVE Disney! I went once as a child and as an adult I went back to back in 2009 and 2010 on Make a Wish Trips.

Selah- My seven year old daughter!

This is a mommy and daughter trip! I am actually a single mom of 5 kids, all with special needs!

Not in attendance this trip.

My dd Courtney age 16!
My ds Chase age 5
My (soon to be adopted son, who is actually my half brother) Mark age 1.5
My (soon to be adopted son, who is also actually my other half brother) Matthew age 1.5

A little background! As I said I am a single mom of 5 kids. Courtney is my biological daughter. I adopted Selah and Chase respectively, from our lovely fostercare system!

Mark and Matthew are my half brothers from my biological father. I am currently in the process of adopting them.

We went to Disney World in 2009 for Selah's Wish Trip! We had an awesome time but we were definitely Disney Clueless! We kind of just showed up and went with the flow. We had an awesome time and have many, many magical memories!

In 2010 I was contacted about a Wish for my son Chase! We were blessed to be able to experience the generosity and magic of 2 wish trips! Our second trip was much more organized thanks to this board!

Last year in 2011, I decided that I would start a new tradition. Mommy and Me trips. I started with my oldest, Courtney. She wanted to go to Universal. So we did and had a blast.

When I asked little Miss Selah, where she wanted to go for our Mommy and Me trip she did not hesitate to yell DISNEY!!!

I have to admitt, I was very, excited!! I really wanted Courtney to pick Disney, but she did not!

So...the planning began!

 

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After going back and forth, and back and forth, I decided to stay on Disney property this time. I had such a hard time deciding where to stay. I looked at review upon review..and looked at so many pictures. I asked so many questions and decided we should stay at a Deluxe....now...which one?

It was a hard choice, but we chose Disney's Beach Club!!! I was beyond excited after looking at all of the pictures of Storm Along Bay. I have to say that I love staying at hotels, and some of the other resorts had that Cheesey Theme to them...(sorry if I have offended anyone) The Beach Club looked very nice, comfy and right up my alley!

So I began to plan for this trip late February of this year! I knew that I wanted to do some table service meals and of course Cinderella's Royal Table was at the top of my list! We'd done the Epcot lunch with the princess for her wish trip and alough the character interacation was great...I found the food to be yucky!

I realized that I wanted to do some things on this trip that we had not done before. And if you are a Disney-Holic like myself...you know that you coudl do Disney 100 times and no trip will be the same!

 

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My next dilema was the dining plan. I initially decided to go with the regular dining plan...but once I started making my ADR's I realized I'd better upgrade!

I changed my ADR schedule sooo many times, and even changed it during our trip

I decided we should go early May, due to the reported low crowds and LOW HEAT!!!

when we went to Disney in 2010 we went in late June. I have to say..unless someone is giving away a FREE trip to Disney..I will NEVER go in the summer again!

I told Selah that we were going in May..but she informed me that she did not want to know the date!!

Oh Goody!! Another suprise trip! I am very good at keeping secrets and suprise trips are my favorite!

 

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I am a master procrastinator when it comes to packing but I managed to get our stuff all packed up and hid. She had no idea we were leaving.

The night before we were set to go, I gave her a bath and put on a Disney shirt and some leggings (this would prove to be helpful at 4:30 in the morning).

Selah has a very serious lung disease and we often have to make middle of the night ER visits. So, my mom arrives to pick us up and I go in and tell Selah that she was wheezing and coughing in her sleep (she actually was) and that we were going to go to the Dr's

She sleepily gets out of bed and gets ready (since she was already dressed, this took all of 10 minutes!)

We throw a movie in the dvd player in the van and off to the airport we go!

 

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So once we get close to the airport we asked Selah if she knew where we were at and she didn't say anything.

Once we pulled up to curb side Selah said..ummm...this doesn't look like the doctor's office. I said do you know where we are? She light up like a light bulb and said "Disney World!!!"

We get our bags and off we go. It was pretty early in the morning and security was a breeze thank goodness.

We had about an hour to spare and Selah was starving so we stopped to get a bite at TGI Friday's. Selah promptly reminded me that we have eaten here before! What a memory!

Selah eating her bagel!

 

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I ended up getting a yummy breakfast sandwich with potatoes!

 

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The flight attendants on our flight were so nice to Selah. They were asking her all kinds of questions and she was just eating it up!!

For some reason whenever we fly to Orlando, I get a very bad pressure headache. This only happens when we land...and only in Orlando This time was no different. But hey, we were going to Disney World and I surely was not going to complain!

Once we landed we got a little turned around (Okay, I got lost) But I quickly got my bearings and found my way down to the Disney Magical Express area.

There were two ladies working on small portable desks giving out Fast Pass cards! We ended up getting four. It must have been a promotion. They said they were doing a survey and that I would get an email confirmation reminding me to use my fast pass cards on the day we signed up for. And they also mentioned that once we were home they would send another email asking me to complete a survey on how using the fast pass cards worked out!

I chose Toy Story Mania, and a few other things that I can't remember now. They give you four! This was one of many instances of Pixie Dust that we were lucky enough to get on our trip!

 

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We finally board the Magical Express! Selah was so happy!! For some reason she loves vehicles. School buses especially, but she also loves planes,trains and motorcycles. She has been waiting forever to ride the Magical Express! It was a good ride. I let her pick the seat. She picked one right by a tv screen. We settled in for the ride to the Beach Club!

The bus made several stops along the way, but in no time we pulled up at the Beach Club. I watched Selah grow more and more excited! This made me very excited. We were giggling and ready to go.

Once we got off the bus we were greated by great CM's at the Beach Club who pointed us in the direction of the check in desk!

I was greeted by THE BEST CM ever. Her name is Heather!! She took great care of us during our trip. She gave us our room assignment and some VERY good news!! Our room was ready. It was only 11:15 or so and I was extremely glad to hear it!!

She also gave us our packet, that included our room key which would would use often being on the DDP!

Heather asked us if we were celebrating anything special? I told her that Selah had just made straight A's and she finally has a good health. I explained to her that we were at Disney previously through Make A Wish. We chatted a little about that experience and Selah's illness and Heather's eyes began to well up with tears. I am such a softy, I prayed she wouldn't start crying, because I knew I would too!!!

After a few more minutes we were off to our room! It was a very long walk to room 2503. But I LOVE exercise and walking!! So I was definitely game! In fact, I actually lost 4lbs on our trip...I have no idea how with all the eating we did but Hey! I'm certainly not going to complain!

Our room at the Beach Club!

This was one HAPPY little girl!

Another view of our room

 

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Now, I had done a lot of planning, researching, make ressies and all to make sure this trip would be fantastic!!

I pulled out my handy dandy itinerary cards to see what I had planned for our first day. I was happy to see that I was smart enough to make lunch ressies at the Rainforest Cafe in DTD!!! I didn't want to overwhelm us with a park day on our first day, because I knew we would be on auto pilot for the rest of our trip. So we quickly got freshened up and changed so that we could head to DTD!

Selah decided that she wanted to walk around the resort a little first, and since we had some time, I thought that was a great idea!

I took some pictures along the way and it occured to me...I probably would not be in most of the pictures because I would be taking them. Oh well, that's what Photopass is for!

Selah wanted to try this out!

 

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We decided to kick off our shoes and walk in the sand for a bit and go for a swing on the swing!

Pretty soon, our stomachs started to growl and we knew it was time to head to the bus stop. We were STARVING!!

Selah at the Bus Stop.

I read a lot of reviews about using Disney's transportation to get back and forth to resorts/parks/DTD and I have to admitt I was a little worried. A lot of people mentioned the transportation getting to and from DTD to be less than desirable but we had no problems whatsoever! We waited 3 minutes and the bus pulled up!

We did a little bit of looking around before heading over to the Rainforest Cafe. We had about 30 minutes to kill. So Selah rode the train and the carousel. And we also stopped at Legoland!

Selah really got a kick out of the dinosaur so I let her take the picture!

 

[appleorchard]

Sounds like a wonderful trip! She's a cutie!

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

Thank you! She's an awesome little girl. I am so blessed to be her forever mommy!

 

[Reberella]

I'm following along! I stayed at the Beach Club before and I loved it!
She's a little cutie!