We Fly Down in 10 Hours..the kids are in bed and have NO IDEA! ** 3/9: Final Thoughts

[BlueEyes78]

I am doing the happy dance right now. The car is loaded up, the house is clean, the tickets are in our wallets...and our flight leaves at 7 am tomorrow. We have kept this a secret from our 5 and 3 year old boys for 6 months with several near-misses. They have no idea that we are waking them up early tomorrow and headed to the airport.
Can we pull it off??? How will they react when their aunt, uncle, and grandparents show up?
Stay tuned!!

 

[jillybeene71]

How exciting...I would love to surprise my son but I have a big mouth and could never keep the secret. Cant wait to hear more. Have fun!!

 

[addictedtothemouse]

Oh how fun! I'm so excited for you.

 

[BlueEyes78]

Yeah, DH and I are both big talkers, and we have been planning this so long it was really hard to not slip up in front of them, but I think we've pulled it off.
The problem was that the whole family is coming, and every time we all got together we were whispering and talking in code. I'm actually shocked our very nosy and astute 5-year old has not picked up on it yet, but if he had we'd all know about it!
I've made him a journal and got him the guidebook for kids, and the 3-year old has a big Mickey book and stickers in his backpack. We plan to get them to the airport and then give them their mouse-ears from the last trip, then let the camera roll!
I am SO not going to bed and I need to!!

 

[ntikos]

How cool!

Good luck tomorrow - make sure your camcorder batteries are charged up and go get some sleep! You're gonna need it.

 

[Gena001]

Yeah, DH and I are both big talkers, and we have been planning this so long it was really hard to not slip up in front of them, but I think we've pulled it off.
The problem was that the whole family is coming, and every time we all got together we were whispering and talking in code. I'm actually shocked our very nosy and astute 5-year old has not picked up on it yet, but if he had we'd all know about it!
I've made him a journal and got him the guidebook for kids, and the 3-year old has a big Mickey book and stickers in his backpack. We plan to get them to the airport and then give them their mouse-ears from the last trip, then let the camera roll!
I am SO not going to bed and I need to!!

I am sitting here smiling from ear to ear reading this!!!! Have so much fun! I'm hoping to suprise our DD(11) next month...all depends on how homework & projects work out w/ her teachers since she will miss the last week of the semester! Fingers crossed!

Tell us about it later!

 

[scottny]

What a fantastic surprise for the kids. Have a magical trip.

 

[BlueEyes78]

Well, we pulled it off! First the surprise in the airport, followed by the kids aunt and uncle showing up, and then finally just before bedtime Grandma and Papaw arrived. We're halfway through the trip now, stay tuned for updates and pics!

 

[I Believe In Magic]

Sounds like fun!! Im in!!

 

[noahdove]

Me too

 

[luvmy2babies]

I'm in. I want to be able to find this when I get back. I'm surprising my dd (7) on Saturday for our trip on Sunday. Almost been caught a few times on the computer looking at stuff. Fortunately she knows I plan to take her someday. This past Saturday I was packing all day and she had no idea thanks to the large walk-in closet in my room.

I'm so glad it is almost time to tell her.

Enjoy the rest of your trip.

 

[noahdove]

Once you subscribe to a thread you will find it under your user cp area at the top and then when you click on it, you will scroll down until you get to subscriptions and find it there...Have a beautiful trip

 

[Shannon84]

What an awesome suprise

 

[Disneybuckeye]

I remember reading your last TR and I really enjoyed it. I was probably a lurker. I am also a fellow Cincinnatian. Have a great trip!

 

[Gena001]

I am doing the happy dance right now. The car is loaded up, the house is clean, the tickets are in our wallets...and our flight leaves at 7 am tomorrow. We have kept this a secret from our 5 and 3 year old boys for 6 months with several near-misses. They have no idea that we are waking them up early tomorrow and headed to the airport.
Can we pull it off??? How will they react when their aunt, uncle, and grandparents show up?
Stay tuned!!

Hello BlueEyes78! Are you back yet? I SOOOO want to hear about the kids' reactions! I'm in the same boat w/ DD11 for the 10th of Dec. (Our DD1 knows all about the trip! ).

We watched the HGTV Disney Holiday special again this weekend and my DD11 was ALL over it...she's gonna be so excited!

Hope it was wonderful! DO TELL!

 

[BlueEyes78]

Yes, we are back!! We've BEEN back, but with DS's 3rd birthday and Thanksgiving, then the kids were sick...yada yada! I'll be posting a few chapters today, thank you all for your patience!

 

[BlueEyes78]

For those who haven't read the pre-trip report, I'll sum up the cast of characters quickly:
Myself (Becky), age 32, stay-at-home mom most days, with a part time job working in higher education two days a week
DH (Shawn), also 32, computer programmer, who after his first trip last year is now an official Disney-aficionado
We've been married ten years, and one of our favorite things to do together is travel.

DS1 (Caden), 5 1/2 who is now in KINDERGARTEN which I can't believe - charming, talkative, imaginative, and who just got his first pair of glasses a week before we left - he loves to read and play video games, and his current favorite Disney movie is The Incredibles
DS2 (Connor), who would turn 3 the week after our trip, and probably remembers very little about our 09 trip. The first word everyone uses to describe him is CUTE. He loves to play trains and is utterly devoted to his big brother. He just makes us laugh all the time, oh, and he's "the gross one." I'm told every family has to have one.

After our first family trip last year, we couldn't wait to start planning our second. We were going through a rough time this year, when we unexpectedly lost Shawn's grandfather, who was very close to the boys. We decided to go away and spend some time together as a family, and planning the trip (which Grandpa would have gotten a kick out of), really lifted us out of some dark times. We decided early on to try to make it a surprise, which we knew would be hard...this became harder when we decided to invite my family (consisting of my mom and Dad, brother & Sister-in-law), because every time we got together this was all we could talk about!

We were so excited when they all decided to come along...especially my Dad because we are always ribbing him for how "cheap" he is, plus he hates crowds and gets motion sickness, so Disney is like his worst nightmare. His coming along is a testament to how much he loves his grandsons...but I was secretly afraid he wouldn't have much fun..we'll get to that! Here is my Mom and Dad last Christmas...aww, aren't they cute? They've been married 35 years which I think is pretty special!

At the opposite end of the spectrum is my sister-in-law, Casey, who has been to Disney 13 times. She is Disney-crazy, so we didn't figure we'd have to do too much convincing. Here is Casey and my younger brother Nathan on their honeymoon at...where else?

At first we thought we'd take advantage of Disney's "buy 3 get 2 free deal" and booked two cabins at Fort Wilderness for 5 nights. We knew it would be a little cramped but it was more space than a suite. The cabins were about $1000 each. Then, I was surfing on Dis Boards and read a trip report of a large family that rented a villa off-site for close to $1000 and couldn't believe it. What was the catch? But after doing a lot of research we realized that was pretty going-rate for this time of year, and we realized we could get a 4-bedroom, 3-bath off-site for 7 nights for $1200 - saving a whopping $800!! Well my Dad loved getting that call.

We went with Romancing the Mouse - we read a lot of good reviews and liked the fact that it was family-owned. We also liked that we'd all have our own bathrooms! We weren't too worried about the drive to the park now that Connor is giving up naps and since it was the off-season.

So...fast forward till the first week of November...we're all pretty psyched and 3 big events have occurred since our original booking - Caden now has glasses to keep track of, my Dad made the decision to retire (so Mom is on cloud nine)...and drum roll...DSIL is pregnant!! So we have another person in our party but luckily Bananahead (as Connor named the baby) is free! I don't have a picture of Bananahead yet, so this will have to do:

And now, let the trip report commence!!

Mom and Dad planned to drive down, so they left on Friday. Our family was flying out of Dayton at 7 am Saturday, and DB & DSIL were flying out of Cincinnati at 11. Shawn took Friday off and he and I did all our last-minute errands, cleaned the house from top to bottom (I’m anal about coming home to an immaculate house), and while Caden was off at afternoon kindergarten and Connor was having quiet time, we did most of the packing.
My parents stopped by on their way out, and we gave them the boys’ air purifier, the stroller, a bag of snacks, a couple of board games, and loaded up a cooler full of meals. It worked out so great that they drove, we were able to take a TON of things but only a few of them flew with us. Mom and I were doing the happy dance as we hugged goodbye, knowing that when we saw each other the next day it would be in FLORIDA!
Then it was back to packing - a few things had to wait until the boys went to bed. Connor kept wandering into our room saying, “Hey! What you guys doing?” but an almost three-year old is not as suspicious as a five year old and he was pretty satisfied with our lame excuses. : )
We got the suitcase hidden in the closet about 5 minutes before Caden’s bus arrived. Next it was time to drop off our car for some repairs and have dinner. We went to Skyline for some coneys and were just positively giddy the whole time and dropping little inside jokes at each other about how much we had to get done this weekend.
Back home we bathed the boys, gave them Benadryl instead of their normal Zyrtec, and had them completely zonked by 7:30. Now it was time to load up! We put all our outfits in one giant suitcase, all the swim gear in a small carry-on suitcase, and loaded a backpack up with sticker and activity books for each boy. We also had a child-sized rolling suitcase full of video games. In addition, Shawn had our camara bag and his laptop bag, and I had a backpack. I put the boys jackets and shoes in the van, so the only thing we had to load that night was the boys, and their favorite stuffed animal and blanket.
We were pretty much done by 10 but I was too excited to sleep until 11:30…and of course when I happened to wake up and realize it was 3:30 (the alarm was set for 4:00), there was no way I was going back to sleep. I couldn’t believe 6 months of planning and secrecy had all led up to this moment!
At 4:00 the alarm went off, and we sprang into action. We dressed, turned down the thermostat and programmed the GPS. At 4:30 it was time to wake our sleepy-heads. Shawn went into Caden’s room and I got Connor. As we walked down the dark hallway I heard Caden protesting groggily, “Heeey. Heeey. What are you dooooing?” Shawn told him it was a surprise and to just rest. We got them in the van and were soon on I-75 north.
Here is a picture of each of them in the dark van, they were pretty out of it (and yes, Connor is groggily picking his nose - I mentioned he was gross, right??):

I didn’t really think they’d go back to sleep, but they were quiet for awhile, other than remarking on the fact that it was so dark, and why were people out driving around in the middle of the night? Caden kept wanting to know where we were going, so we went with the pre-arranged story, that we were going to go to Dayton for something special.
They were a little more awake by the time we drove through Dayton, and then past it towards the airport, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It was really dark, but then all of a sudden we could see the runway lights and control tower. Caden wanted to know what all the lights were.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Hey, Shawn, do we have time to take a little side-trip and go figure that out?”
“Yes, I think we do.” He replied. We quickly found a spot in long-term parking close to the front door and started unloading the suitcases from the back.
“Hey,” I said, “There are suitcases back here. I’ll bet they have clues to help us figure out what this place is! Let’s take them inside!”
Connor had never seen his backpack before, it was brand new, so he was excited to wear it in even though it was just about as heavy as he was (I underestimated how much all those sticker books weighed!). Caden was excited to see his roller suitcase and he was practically skipping across the lot pulling it behind him, while I brought up the rear and tried to help Connor along. Dayton is a pretty small airport so we didn’t see any planes taking off or landing and there was nothing really obvious to announce to the boys where we were, which made it even better.
Once inside, we saw a few other kids in Disney-themed PJs so we decided to let them in on the secret before someone else did. We set down our bags and Shawn got out the camcorder. I told the boys that we were at an airport, and that meant we were going on a trip. I asked them if they’d like to see what was in our bag. Then I opened the suitcase that had their Mickey Mouse ears laying on top. Caden was speechless for just a few seconds (a long time for our little magpie) and then blurted, “Disney? Are we going to Disney World?”
“Yes,” I said, near tears, “We’re going to Disney World.”
“For real?” he said.
“Yes, for real.”
Here is a frame from the video we took, when he first digested the news:

Right after this was taken, he immediately took off running towards the baggage check machine and tried to throw his carry-on suitcase into it. We were laughing and had to stop him and explain that he got to take it on the plane with him. The next few minutes were tough on him because he had to wait for Shawn to check our 1 piece of baggage plus the booster seat, but he was really good. I think Connor was just too tired to take it all in at this point. I tried to fold up his night-night and put it in a bag to make security easier, but he cried when he couldn’t see it, so I just let him hang onto it.
Our first "OUCH" moment occurred when they weighed our suitcase and declared it 3 pounds over - and hit us with a $50 overage fee. YIKES! So much for saving money by taking one bag! We made a mental note to send home dirty clothes with Mom and Dad!
After a few minutes it was time to go through security. There was no line to speak of, but WOW is that tough with little kids! I think we took up about 11 bins between our 7 carry on bags, plus jackets, shoes, blankets and stuffed animals. Connor got VERY upset when they put his blanket in a bin, he thought they were taking it from him. Once we got all packed up on the other side, we walked to the farthest gate which wasn’t that bad in a small airport, but there was no way Connor could carry his bag that far so I took it for him.
We got to the gate and they were both fascinated to see the plane, which was waiting for us. They each had a cereal bar and a potty break, and then got to see their special new Disney items in their backpacks, which kept them more than entertained while we waited to board. Caden especially loved his Kids Guide to Disney, and his nose was buried in it most of the trip. Best $9 I spent on the whole vacation!
Here is Connor examining his Mickey "seek and find" book:

Connor was really tired and I don't think he quite "got it," but as you can see here, Caden still hadn't wiped the slap-happy grin from his face. THIS picture is what I'd been dreaming of for six months:

They started to board by 6:30. We put Connor’s car seat by the window, with me next to him, and Shawn and Caden were across the aisle from us.

We started to pull away from the gate at 6:57, just as the sun was peeking red over the horizon. The kids really enjoyed the take off, and the sun climbed in the sky as we did, so it was hard to see out to the eastern side.
Once we were airborne, Caden had no interest in looking out the windows – he had his nose in his book. Connor played with his new sticker book and they both loved getting their snack. We had juice and cookies. I leaned over Connor and saw the Smoky Mountains around 7:50.

When I checked again at 8:30 I could see the ocean in the distance, so I knew we were in Florida! On our last trip we drove to Orlando over the course of two days. I could really get used to getting up in the morning and being there before breakfast!!
We landed just before 9, and lugged ourselves to the baggage claim. We saw a HUGE line waiting to get through security which made us a little nervous about the trip home, but it was the end of Jersey week, so maybe that explained it? The boys were fascinated by the baggage claim but were getting pretty tired, especially Connor. We let Caden grab his booster seat off the conveyor belt which was a big deal for him!
We texted our family that we were on the ground, and my brother and sister-in law responded that they were through security back home. We had our bags by 9:30 and went to the Alamo line next, which took a few minutes. Now the natives were restless and I had to contain them while Shawn waited in line. When he was done, we got to cross the street into the garage and pick whatever car we wanted. That was new for me, last time I rented a car (which was probably our honeymoon in 2000), they just assigned you one. We found one that looks like a PT cruiser and hopped in, and were on the toll road towards Disney by 10:15 or so. We gave Holly at Romancing the Mouse a call to let her know we were in town – they said we could check in early as soon as the house was cleaned up, and they’d give us a call, so we had some time to kill. Our plan had been to grab a quick fast-food breakfast and then possibly go grocery shopping if we needed to, but by the time we remembered that it was after 10:30 and they weren’t serving it anymore. So we decided to go for the first Denny’s we found on I-4. Unfortunately that happened to be at the exit that’s nearest to the “back entrance” to the World, so there was quite a bit of traffic.
We noticed that besides the Denny's there was a Fuddruckers which is SUPER exciting! All the midwest Fuddruckers closed about two years ago and we LOVE their burgers!
We were finally in Denny’s around 10:45. It was a little “brisker” than I was expecting, but just warm enough to go ahead and change the kids into the clothes we’d packed in their carry on, shorts and T-shirts. Once inside, the kids ordered the kids pancakes, Shawn got the “healthy” grand slam, with eggs whites, buckwheat pancakes and turkey sausage. Now here’s what you need to understand about me – I’m cheap, and not a big eater. It doesn’t take much to fill me up and I hate paying for food that I’m not going to eat. I was really in the mood for French toast – but the only way to get it was as part of a $10 Grand Slam – 2 pieces of toast, 2 meats, 2 eggs…a ridiculous amount of food for me. But I’m a firm believer in “you never know until you ask.” I asked the waitress if there was any way to get a smaller version of that meal, and she very helpfully pointed out that the senior version is half the size – and she had no problem serving me that meal. That was super nice of her!! We were served pretty quickly and on our way out by 12:30 or so, and back on the road with a quick wave to Mickey.
Our route took us back onto I-4 to 192, where the main park entrance is. Just a few miles past World Drive was our next turn, Formosa Gardens, and 2 miles south of 192 was our resort, Windsor Palms.

Next up....exploring Romancing the Mouse!

 

[BlueEyes78]

For those who are interested, here is the planning chart I created for the trip. I got the idea from another poster, and LOVED it:

 

[DisneyDreamerMom]

I love your son's reaction to the news! It sounds like it is going to be a great trip. I can't wait to read more!

 

[WeLoveToyStory]

I've got a feeling we are probably neighbors...Cincinnati, Dayton, Skyline, I-75North. We reside in Campbell Co. Are we close?