We Came, We Saw, Did we Ride Anything? A Sept/Oct TR

[Disneychix]

Hello! I am going to try and do a quick and picture telling TR of our latest WDW vacation-Sept 28-Oct 3 2011.

This years trip was a little different for a couple of reasons:
1) We had an addition to the family with us!
2) We were staying for the 1st time as DVC members!

Now, I had all these ideas in my head and written out about how our vacation would go. I had an idea of what DS(4) would want to ride and what he'd be tall enough for. I planned that the little guy would have his first rides on Dumbo, IASW, Pooh, etc. I knew certain places my DH would want to eat (and drink!).
Well, my family is a bit different They had other ideas about how they should spend thier time...

Coming up is a tail about a family who spent 6 fun-filled days at WDW. We had park-hoppers, a 2bdrm villa at SSR, a rental car, lots of character dining planned-and a mission to take Baby Brother on his first Disney vacation!

 

[Disneychix]

Day 1
We had an early morning flight. I usually do not do this to my family. They are not morning people. I'm only a little sorry I forced my DH to wake up at 4:30am. Only a little

We had a plan-mom up 1st, she wakes DH and DS1 (who so conviently slept in our bed 1/2 the night so it was easy to wake them both up at once!), 3 big people get washed up and ready, wake the baby and pack everything up!

Sounds easy---it was! DS was sooo excited about going to the airport and getting on the plane to Disney. I am happy to say I didn't forget anything and we were out the door in a jiffy!

The hard part was next to come-we had to drive 15 mins to the airport, drop off Dh and DS, 2 suitcases, 2 carryons and 1 stroller. THEN I had to drive 5 mins to my mom's house to pick up her and her DH drove us back to the airport to drop us off with the baby, 2 suitcases, 2 carryons, 1 stroller and 1 carseat!

This really did work out ok! We eventually all got to the same place and hoped all our suitcases made it on the same plane!

We got on the plane at 7am. I had hoped DS would sleep a little but no luck-he was good though-he played games on the Ipod touch and watched his shows. We flew Jetblue so he loved watching the 'plane' on the map. (and then I think he watched ESPN)
The little guy had his bottle at take-off and fell asleep pretty much right after that. I felt badly because I didn't give him his usual breakfast oatmeal but he acted ok. The flight was 2.5 hours and he slept probably 2 hours of that time.

After we landed we had to split up again. This time it was Grandma and DS who left to go find DME and DH and I took the baby to pick up our rental car. We only rented a full-size vehicle and there was no way all our luggage would fit. So DME carried all our bags for us and we had to tranport some carryon's and the stroller
My DH does not do WDW transportation. It's just not something he enjoys, and he doesn't mind driving-so we usually get a rental. I LOVE the idea of disney transportation but sadly it usually irritates me too-so if we can afford it we get rental cars. The only exception is when we stayed at WL, the boat transportation was wonderful!

We got our rental, changed the baby and installed the carseat. We brought our GPS so we were on our way to SSR!
When we got there I was greeted at the door by DS!! He was sooo excited and was a good boy for Grandma on DME. They had gotten there about 10mins before us.
I did not do online checkin and was ushered straight to a waiting CM for regular checkin. I had requested a 1st floor villa in the Grandstand section. I received EXACTLY that! AND it was ready(at only about 11am)!!
We split up yet again-DH and DS took the car and me and DM(grandma) and the baby walked since the Grandstand is very close, and has a nice path, to the Carriage House (checkin).

Grandma eating her apple for lunch at the 'counter' at SSR

Boys lounging in the living room

(terrible picture) Rosie by the sliding doors in the living room. You can see we had a nice view of the golf-course.

 

[saintstickets]

I'm in. Looking forward to your TR. We are fairly new DVC members as well and loving it!

 

[mandas08]

I'm in cant wait to hear all about your trip!

 

[mommy2mb]

Joining in!! Can't wait to hear about your trip!

 

[RooRach0906]

Hey Im in!! Can't wait to hear about your SSR stay!

 

[lexmas]

Hey, so you never got any further in this, huh? Well, if you ever decide to come back and finish it up, I'd love to hear about it!

We're going to buy DVC in a few years...we're just going to save up the down-payment first, which is going to take a bit longer since we're still going to take trips in the meantime. If we skipped this year we could probably buy next year no problem, but I can't bring myself to miss trips during the time between when J.J. is 5 and 7...those are the best years! Did you buy straight from Disney? I think we're going to buy resale at AKL since it's the cheapest way to go, and since we're used to staying at Pop, the studio at AKL is still a step up!

Okay, rambling. Anyway, I hope you start up again, I would love to hear about your trip!

 

[OneTreeHillAddict]

I wonder if I am mentioned in this one... I'm subscribing so I can read everything. I have missed a LOT!