Welcome to the craziness that is my 1st PTR!

[disney 4 5]

So this is my 1st PTR that will hopefully lead to my 1st TR. I have been a DISer since 2005, while I was helping plan our 1st Grand Gathering. I am on here usually daily, post sometimes & have ready many of your trip reports but only commented to a few. Please join me on what I am sure will be one crazy journey. How do I know this? Cuz it’s my family, where craziness runs supreme. I have been meaning to start this since the beginning of January but thankfully I did not (but more on that later).

Introductions:

Hi, I'm Kristy (37). I have been coming to Disney World since I was 5 years old. This trip will be #16. I am a lover of all things Disney & our family planner (in life & for Disney) I am married to Craig (38). He had never been to Disney World until I introduced it to him in 2002. Since then we have been there 10 times together.
Us in December 2011

Then there are our kids.
First up is our oldest (by 10 minutes) son – Jeff (18). He is a senior in high school, typical teenager that will forever cling to the fact that he is the oldest, even if it is only by 10 minutes. His twin sister could care less too. LOL

Second is Jeff’s twin sister – Kayla (18). They are the reason that we are headed to Disney World this time (not that we need a reason but it just makes it more fun when we are celebrating something). We will be headed to the World exactly 1 week after the Twin’s high school graduation. For our twins this will be their 8th time to Disney World.

Third is our other daughter – Alexis (17). She is a junior & will someday work for Disney, hopefully in animation. She is already checking out the Disney World College Program. We have talked to our other teenagers about it, our hope would be for each of them to do it at least 1 time so that DH & I can get 1 ½ years of park discounts. LOL. She is quite the artist (so say those that can draw – not me – my stick figures don’t look like stick figures). On the flight on our way out of Orlando in January she was drawing & one of the stewardesses ask her if she worked for Disney. I said “No, but she hopes to when she grows up.” The stewardess asked how old she was & I said only 17. She said “Oh she looks much older.” Her Dad just grumbled at this comment. This will be her 9th time to Disney World. She is 1 up on her older siblings because her dance group danced at the Orange Bowl in Miami in January & the 3 of us took a little (way too little) trip to Disney as a surprise for her.

Our fourth child is Robert (5 ½). Robert is a fun loving little guy with Down Syndrome. This will be his 3rd trip to the World but the 1st one that I think he will remember anything. He was almost 3 the last time he was there. The last time we were there he hardly slept anywhere except on the Disney buses & in the parks (this is 1 of the reasons for the 3 rooms). He has severe sleeping issues that we are trying drastically to fix. He loves lots of Disney things & most recently has watched the new release of Lady & the Tramp about 10 times in the last 5 days. Which might be great cuz we are staying at Pop & I put in a request for the 50’s section.

Our family in 2009, the last time it was all 6 of us.

That trip was bittersweet. It was a wonderful trip with the 6 of us, my brother, sister-in-law & their 2 boys plus my parents, to celebrate my DD#2’s middle school graduation & my parent’s 40th wedding anniversary. But my Dad was battling cancer & he passed away just over 2 months later. I cried when I walked into the Magic Kingdom the next June. I am so thankful to my parent’s for introducing me to Walt Disney World & to my Dad for encouraging my shared love of all things Disney.

That’s us, now more about our trip. We have just finalized our dates because we booked our airfare last week. So we will be at Disney World, staying at Pop Century (hopefully in the 50’s section, lake facing – which means bldg. 3, the Tramp bldg.) in 3 rooms with the Quick Service Dining Plan (thank you pin code) from very late (our plane lands at 12:05 am) on May 20th – late on May 31st. This is so exciting for us because usually we are there for about 1 week & this will be technically 12 days & 11 nights. My DH & I decided that we didn’t know if we would ever have another vacation that will be just the 6 of us again so we are spending a bit more time there. Thank you again for the pin code for FREE dining that made this possible. Typically we are there the 2nd week in June but the girls dance recital (DD18’s last) got bumped a week. So if we didn’t leave until after that we would have run into issues with DD17’s summer practice schedule. So we are leaving before school is officially out. Yes I will not be making friends at the high school next month when I send in a note saying that DD17 must take finals early cuz we are leaving on vacation. DS5 is still in preschool, so while I hate that he will miss the last 3 days with his friends we just couldn’t make it work any other way. Plus May is cheaper that June, plus the pin code for QSDP so it has worked out for the best.

OK so that is who we are & when we will be there. I will return with some of our plans next. We are trying not to make a lot & just go with the flow (this is hard for my planning type personality). : ) I hope you'll join us!

OK for some reason my pictures look huge sorry about that. I will have to figure out what is going on with them. Yay they look fine now. : )

 

[disney 4 5]

So how did we end up choosing 3 rooms at Pop Century? Well as you can see by my signature it has been our resort to stay at since our last family trip in 2009. This trip has actually been being discussed since we were at Disney in 2008 for our twins’ 8th grade graduation celebration. It originally was to be my family of 6, my parents (this was before my father passed away) & my brother’s family (his oldest son should be graduating too).

We had been looking into renting DVC points or assorted other resorts with bigger rooms. But right before we were headed to Disney World in December, for our all too short trip before our DD#2 performed at halftime of the Orange Bowl in Miami, the Spring Room Only offer came out. So we booked 2 rooms at our beloved Pop Century for 10 days. While we were there, we stayed in the 50’s section (our favorite) but unfortunately had the most uncomfortable bed we have ever had at Disney. After only 2 short nights on a full size uncomfortable bed DH & I were both like, no way can we sleep like this for 10 days. The morning we checked out I called the bounceback extension & could get 2 rooms at POFQ with the bounceback discount put it only about $30 more per night per room than the Pop. I have stayed at that resort but no one else in my family. It was about 15 years ago too & I didn’t remember a ton from it. I, of course, jumped on the DIS as we drove to Miami to find out about it.

Now at this point we have found out that on our trip it will only be my family because my oldest nephew is not going to be graduating on time & my Mom does not feel right come with us without my brother’s family.

After being back from our trip for a couple of weeks we were talking about our trip & our girls did some slight grumbling about how they would have to share a bed while the boys got to have their own. I did tell them that they were welcome to share a bed with DS5 (who is not a very good sleeper period). They were not interested. Also about this time the DIS was full of people getting FREE Dining Pins. So I did some number crunching…If only we would get a FREE Dining pin we could move to Pop in 3 rooms & we would be paying less than our 2 rooms at POFQ. So I started calling Disney to see if we had a pin. Nope you don't. Of course not...For 2 weeks I called about every other day, then finally one morning I called & they said Yes…but there were no Values available for our dates….So I booked it. But for moderates could only get POR or CS. Neither were what we really wanted but no way was I turning FREE dining (even FREE QSD) down. Not with 3 teenagers & a toddler that sometimes eats like a teenager down. Plus we had had FREE QSDP last June when it was just DH & I, we enjoyed it greatly.

Then 2 days later I got all my family out the door one morning & decided to just check to see if I could get one of the values (preferably POP). I got the most helpful CM ever. He said “well sure you can.” It was a long call. Almost an hour but it was an hour well spent. We now had 3 rooms booked with 10 day PH tickets (which we will be changing to APs) & FREE QSDP. YAY!

Now to just pray for good flights….

That is where I will leave you for today. Cuz that is of course another crazy story (can you tell that most things in our house are?) We are at 87 days until our trip & 80 until our Twins’ graduation. I am excited for both but slightly saddened by the second. I am sure a lot of you parents understand how I feel.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

[disney 4 5]

So onto our flights…I have been looking at flight prices for the last month-ish. But I really wanted to wait until we had our final number of people going before I booked.
After getting our resorts all figured out with the AWESOME FREE QSDP I looked to see what prices flights were for us for those days (May 21 – 31). We usually fly Southwest Airlines out of Chicago. It is about a 2 hour & 45 minute drive for us but my DH’s parents live about 15 minutes from Chicago Mid-way and we can park our car at their house & get rides to the airport. Unfortunately this time my father-in-law is supposed to be gone part of our trip, so it will just be easier if we park our car at the airport. Because of this we had been looking closer to home to see if we could get a deal close to what we would pay with parking added plus gas to drive to Chicago in my gas hog of a SUV. I had been finding flights out of Chicago for around $220 per person…not to bad but that price was on Airtran where we would have to pay bag fees. Flights out of Peoria & Bloomington (which are the closest airports to us) were just over $300 per person plus bag fees. Bag fees for us, especially on this trip, are a huge deal, if each of us have 1 suitcase that would be at least $120 per way.

Then about a week after getting our rooms all booked I was on Southwest’s website & found flights for $174.60 per person (yes that is with taxes) but there was a catch (there always is). The catch you ask! We had to fly in the night before we were booked currently. Should be no big deal right? Except 1) they had already told me that they were low on available value hotels around our dates. 2) Our weekend before is crazy (notice the ongoing theme here?). On the Friday & Saturday before we leave our kids are part of our high school’s American Cancer Society Relay for Life, which DH & I chaperone. We will be up all night not going to bed until after 6 AM on Saturday. That means about 4 hours of sleep for me before my mom brings DS5 home. Later on Saturday our girls will have their 2nd to last practice for their duet for their upcoming dance recital (the last for our DD18). Then on Sunday afternoon our DDs have their last finale group practice for dance recital until 4 PM. But with it being such a good price I called DH at work to discuss it. We can get the last flight out of Chicago Midway at 8:55 PM. Does DH think we can do it?

Of course he does…so we will take the girls to practice then pack up the car to pick them up when they are done and head for the airport. DH thinks we can do it but will Disney have 3 rooms that we can add to our reservations for the night before….they DO! YAY! We are now booked in 3 rooms at Pop Century with 10 day Park Hoppers (which we hopefully will be tuning into Aps) & the QSDP (for FREE) from May 20th – 31st. YAY! So excited!
Booking our flights was a whole process too because we had credits for myself, DH & DD17 from our trip in December/January. We had rebooked our flights 3 times because the price of them kept dropping. With Southwest you can only use 4 payment types on any transaction. I had those 9 credits (3 each) plus 5 gift cards & the rest on my credit card. I had to book us in groups of 2 for our flights going to Orlando & 2 groups of 3 for our flights back. How crazy (continued theme in our house). LOL But we got a great deal on our flights & are now booked for 12 nights. It will be super late when we get into Orlando but that’s ok.

Next up: So we got FREE QSDP will we do any table dining…(the answer is yes so be on the lookout to see where).

 

[disney 4 5]

Sorry to those of you that had started reading that it took me so long to put up this post but we have had a few exciting things happen in our house recently that have taken some of what little “free” time I have away.

The first is that we added to our family. We are now a family of 10. DH, me, DS18, DD18, DD17, DS5, 3 Dogs & 1 Cat. Our new dog is an 1 ½ year old Husky/Border Collie Mix that we named Maya.

Isn’t she beautiful?

Our 2nd exciting news is that our DD17 & the elite group of dancers from our dance studio have been invited back for the 2nd time to dance during halftime of the Orange Bowl Game in Miami, Florida (4 ½ hours away from Disney World). Last December we just had DD17, DH & myself & we were able to spend 2 very short days at Disney World before heading down to meet the rest of the dance group in Miami. This time we have decided to bring the whole family with us but we are going to stay in Orlando except for the day of the game. DD18 & DS5 have no desire to sit through a football game, so DD18 will be staying with DS5 at Disney. But our news got even more exciting because we found out DH’s sister & her family will be at Disney World from December 28 – January 4th (the game is on January 1st). Our older kids wanted to be at Disney for Christmas Day but I couldn’t not spend some part of Christmas Day with my Mom. We will fly out first thing in the morning on December 26th (unless I can get the last flight out on Christmas Day). Yesterday I booked us in 2 rooms with QSPD (unfortunately not free this time) at All Star Movies resort. This will be our 1st time staying at All Star Movies. The kids are excited to try another resort & it was $5 per room per night cheaper than Pop Century (our home away from home). Over our 10 night trip (we are checking out January 5th) that is $100 that we could save to eat “hopefully” at the new Be our Guest restaurant. We are just so excited that we will get 22 days at Disney World this year!

For our 3rd exciting update we found out early last week that my brother & part of his family now WILL be able to join us for part of our trip in May. My brother, sister-in-law & DN9 will arrive May 28th & my Mom will be coming with them. For all of them this will be their 1st visit to the world since my dad passed away right after our 2009 trip. I am sure it will be very emotional for all of them. I am just so thankful to my Dad & my Mom for introducing me to Disney World when I was 5. I have loved every visit & am SO excited that we will get to spend part of both of our trips with our families this year.

Next update we will be back on course, discussing what sit down meals we will be enjoying. Thanks for stopping by & following on our crazy journey.

 

[FairestOfThemAll]

I'm really enjoying your PTR so far - you have a very engaging writing style. And I must admit, I'm very curious to see which TS restaurants you'll choose.

Maya's beautiful! A Sibe/BC... she must keep you on your toes!

 

[disney 4 5]

I'm really enjoying your PTR so far - you have a very engaging writing style. And I must admit, I'm very curious to see which TS restaurants you'll choose.

Maya's beautiful! A Sibe/BC... she must keep you on your toes!

Thanks so much for stopping by & for commenting. You're my 1st comment & compliment. Yes Miss Maya is definitely keeping us on her toes. Luckily she starts obedience training Monday.

Keep an eye out for our picks for table service. It should be posted Sunday or Monday. I just need to upload some of our past trip pictures to go with it.

Thanks again for stopping by to all of you reading along.

 

[disney 4 5]

Oh my goodness I didn’t think I would ever make it back to post about our table service meals. So if you have been reading along (thanks) you know that we have FREE QSDP (if this is your 1st time to stop by welcome & thanks for stopping by). But we are celebrating our Twin’s graduation from high school & that just can’t be celebrated at counter service meals. We asked them where they would like to eat for our celebratory meal. First they said California Grill, which has been a family favorite for years. But we let them know the last 2 times we went there we were disappointed in everything (service, food, overall experience). We are hoping that with the revamp it is supposed to be undergoing it will again be one of the best restaurants on property. Part of the reason that we like the California Grill is because of the ability to see the fireworks. The twins decided that Narcossee’s would be a good option too. The view isn’t as good as CA Grill but still good. The Friday night that we are there we are scheduled to eat at Narcossee’s & should be getting dessert or just finishing up as Wishes is starting. If for some reason we are done early we will go to the beach at the Grand Floridian & watch them from there.

Not only are we celebrating our twin’s high school graduation but we are bringing our DS5 for what will probably be his 1st trip that he remembers. Now he loves just about everything on Disney Junior, so we decided that we must take him to eat at Hollywood & Vine at Hollywood Studios. Our 2 things to accomplish with him at Hollywood Studios is eating at that character breakfast & going to see the new Disney Junior show. We took him to eat at Hollywood & Vine the last time he was with us & he loved it. Now that he watches Oso, Jake & the Neverland Pirates & Little Einstiens it will be even better.

The 1st time we took him to Disney World he was just under 2 years old & one of his favorite character interactions was at the Crystal Palace with Pooh & Friends. We will be going back this year. He has all of the Pooh Stuffed Characters & enjoys bouncing along with his bouncing Tigger.
DS#2’s 1st trip to the World in 2008, Crystal Palace was his 1st character interaction.

All 4 of our kids in 2008

Unfortunately these are the only 3 sit down meals we are planning. We might squeeze in a trip to Planet Hollywood for dessert to use up our vouchers. But it is not a for sure thing. Plus DS#1 came home the other day kinda upset because his Planet Hollywood keychain broke & he lost the picture of DH, DS#1, DS#2 & myself from our 2009 trip. He said we need to go back & have that picture retaken so he can add it to a new keychain. <3 I love that. With him being 18 I don’t always get kind & loving comments like that.

The older kids are excited about the QSDP because they don’t like all of the planned meals. I can understand that but I will miss the guaranteed family time. This will be our 1st family trip that we have not eaten some meal at O’hana. It has been a family favorite since the 1st time we ate there in 1995. We have had many wonderful meals with wonderful servers there over the years & it will be missed this year.
Our last family meal at O’Hana (DH & I have been back; in 2010)

We are at 67 days till arrival day, 60 until our twin’s graduation. Next up what all are we planning to do? Typically I have a game plan for every day…Will this be a typical trip?

 

[wakica]

You have a lovely family - and large!!!lol - of course I AM comparing it to my tiny little family of 3

I'm jealous of how many times you've all be there!!! I sure wish we lived closer. I wonder if they would take a Canadian in the Disney University program??? Maybe then I could get DD in there in a few years. LOL

Looking forward to seeing more

 

[disney 4 5]

Oh my goodness what a 2 weeks it has been since I last posted. A few days after I posted last time Central Illinois (where we live) started to have unseasonably warm weather plus I came down with a nasty sinus infection. So after not sleeping well the night it warmed a ton with the windows open I decided to kick the air on as the kids were leaving for school & take a short nap while our DS5 was at preschool. I woke up 1 ½ hours later sweltering to death. It was 82 degrees in the house & the air had been “running” for almost 3 hours. I try shutting it off & kicking it back on…nothing. I text DH at work, he says he’ll look at it when he gets home from work. Great! I open the house back up & there is no breeze what so ever. Long story short (well kinda), the next day & $240 later, we find out our air conditioning is dead…Totally dead not to be resurrected. Wonderful, NOT. Fast forward a week & ½ to today & we are waiting on the last companies quote to decide whom to go with to install a new air conditioning & furnace, but to the tune of around $8,000. Hello people do you not know that we have 2 trips to Disney World coming up. This is more than our whole trip for either time. With another $8,000 I could have a 3rd trip this year. Ok enough whining but that is what I have been up to for the last 2 weeks.

That & stressing about our quickly approaching May trip. Why am I stressing you ask? My DH is an engineer for a large construction equipment manufacture & a few plants a couple hours away from us are under contract negotiations with their union workers. The current contract is up May 1st & they as of today have not signed a new one yet. DH has an assignment that if one of those plants union workers decides to strike then he will have to go fill one of their positions. Because of this he is under a “no travelling outside a certain radius” for vacation. In other words they have to sign a contract before May 19th for us to be able to go. DH says that we should just go without him if this happens but I said absolutely not. As we are getting closer to our date (53 days from today) I am stressing out about this more. Nothing I can do to change it & that greatly irritates me (I hate things I can’t do anything about). Because of this I have not sat down & decided where we are going to be each day that we will be there (very unlike me). It’s almost like I am setting myself up for less disappointment if it turns out we don’t go. I mean we will go just when besides our December trip is questionable.

Hopefully a new contract will be ratified soon & we can get on with planning. I am behind my usual schedule. Usually by now I would have each day planned out & be starting to work on our packing list. With everything we have going in our household in the next 7 weeks, less than 7 actually, it will be here before we know it.

A slight update on our December trip…we have changed resorts…we will not be in the Little Mermaid rooms at the new Art of Animation Resort. So excited for that!!

Up next…are we going in May or not?

 

[disney 4 5]

You have a lovely family - and large!!!lol - of course I AM comparing it to my tiny little family of 3

I'm jealous of how many times you've all be there!!! I sure wish we lived closer. I wonder if they would take a Canadian in the Disney University program??? Maybe then I could get DD in there in a few years. LOL

Looking forward to seeing more

Thank you so much for the compliment. They (the kids & pets) are a handful some days but I wouldn't have it any other way. DH & I both come from small families. DH has 1 sister & I have 1 brother...maybe that is why our family is so large? But I have said that our house is offically closed after our newest addition.

Disney is a great love for our whole family. Over the years it has been the place the kids always want to go. For us it is the perfect place with something for every age group to do.

Right now we have 2 out of our 2 teenagers wanting to do the College Program. Hopefully DS18 will decide he does too.

I hope you aren't disappointed by the most recent post...I am kinda a Debbie Downer today. Thanks for reading along though.

 

[wakica]

OH NOOOOO!!! I sure hope you don't have to cancel

 

[abcangie87]

fellow may-tripper here..... we are going down end of April. Sounds like you have a lot going on! Crazy!!

So question about southwest.... if you find your flights cheaper after you've booked them, will they refund the difference? how does that work?

I'm doing a PTR/TR too...it's in my signature...come by for a visit !

 

[disney 4 5]

OH NOOOOO!!! I sure hope you don't have to cancel

I know I am trying not to stress about it...but it's not working too well. Just have to pray everything works out & wait until it does...I'm not very good at waiting.

 

[disney 4 5]

fellow may-tripper here..... we are going down end of April. Sounds like you have a lot going on! Crazy!!

So question about southwest.... if you find your flights cheaper after you've booked them, will they refund the difference? how does that work?

I'm doing a PTR/TR too...it's in my signature...come by for a visit !

Welcome fellow may-tripper.

We always have a lot going on in our house but normally it isn't as insane as it seems to be right now.

Southwest..we love them My advice is to book your trip to your destination seperate from your trip coming back. This way with southwest if after you book your rate goes down you can rebook & get the credit to use on a future trip (I think it must be used within 12 months). If you book your trip there & back seperate & only 1 leg goes down but the other goes up you are still able to get the credit. Does this make sense?

I will definitely stop by your PTR/TR too. Hopefully when my youngest goes down for a nap today. Boy does he need it.