We're ALL old enough for Disney World--Sept trip w/ 3 boys + g-parents! updated 10/3

[kokotg]

Here we go--another September, another trip report. The title is for my littlest boy, Gus, who looked up at us hopefully every time we mentioned a ride we were going to go on and asked, "am I old enough for it?" It is a sad, sad thing to be an ever so close to 40 inches tall almost 3 year old at Disney World, especially when you have two older, taller brothers.

DH is a high school math teacher, but our county has a funky September break that hardly anyone else has, so half the county descends on Disney World for the week. This was our third year in a row making the trip, but this year we added in a couple of major twists. First, Dave’s parents came along with us. Dave’s mom had toyed with the idea of coming in years past, but always ultimately decided to stay home. And twist number one led us to twist number two: staying……off property. We rented a three bedroom townhouse (“Mickey’s World”) in Windsor Hills. I was deeply conflicted about this choice, particularly in light of free dining, but I thought the space would be a very good thing, and it was so.much.cheaper than renting three rooms on property (I know we COULD stuff the five of us in one room, but no one would sleep that way), that I thought we had to give it a try. Windsor Hills seemed to receive pretty much universally good reviews on the boards, and it was, at least, CLOSE to WDW proper, so I found a nice looking place with a Mickey-themed kids’ room and booked it.

The final difference between this year and the two previous years is that we are probably not going to be coming back for two whole years. . We’re planning to do a big American history themed trip next year to tie in with what we’re learning about this year and next, and, while I’m looking forward to it, I am again deeply conflicted about missing a year at Disney. So the pressure was on to pack in enough Disney fun to last two years.

Oh, wait—yet another twist! I noticed a few months before the trip that our dates happened to coincide with Disney’s Homeschooling Days. And we just happen to be homeschoolers. I didn’t think a whole lot of it, though, until I looked at the ticket prices. Which were super cheap compared to any other discounts I could find. As I understand it, they basically let you have the tickets for the group rate, even though you’re purchasing them just for your family. Kids and adult prices were the same, something like $140 for a 5 day park hopper. So I jumped on that right away. Only problem was that we could only get up to a 5 day, and we had been planning on 7 or 8 day tickets. I decided we’d take a couple of days to see Sea World, since we’d never been.


The Cast:
Me: I’m 33, homeschooling mom to three boys, the planner
Dave: DH, 32, high school math teacher and mostly willing co-participant in Disney trips.
Ari: 7, my brilliant, hilarious, and deeply cynical eldest child. Good at smiling angelically for pictures.
Milo: 5, the middle child. Easily delighted. Also easily frustrated. Good at making ridiculous faces for pictures.
Gus: 2 ¾, the littlest one. Generally easygoing, often solemn. Good at producing toothy grins while saying, “CHEESE” for pictures.
Nana: my mother-in-law on her first trip to Disney.
Grandpa: my father-in-law, also making his first trip.

Up next: departure day

 

[princessjv]

Great start! Looking forward to the rest of the TR!

 

[kokotg]

Thanks, Princessjv!

 

[VanniGirl]

Looking forward to the rest !!

 

[kokotg]

Time to go!

We live in Georgia, and my in-laws live in New Hampshire, so we drove down and they flew in to Orlando the next day.

Last year, in a moment of insanity, we decided to squeeze every drop of vacation fun out of our week by leaving Friday evening, as soon as Dave got home from work, and driving all the way down. We live about an hour north of Atlanta, so between rush hour traffic, multiple potty and food stops, and just the fact that we live nearly 8 hours away from Orlando, we didn’t get in until very, very late. So this year we regained our senses and opted to pack up the car Friday night and try to get an early start Saturday morning. We were out the door a bit before 9, so things were looking pretty good. We dropped the dog off at the kennel and settled in for a good long stretch of driving before lunch. And then Milo started moaning. “My tummy hurts!” he repeated over and over again between moans. Oh dear. Now, Milo is a kid whose tummy hurts pretty much any time he’s in the car for more than 15 minutes, so at first I didn’t think much of it. But then he threw up. Fortunately, he managed to get pretty much all of it into a bag that we’d handed him seconds before…but, still, we were now less than half an hour into our drive and the situation was worrisome. We pulled over at a gas station to clean up, advised him that he should stop trying to color and draw right that second, and hoped for the best. And, indeed, Milo’s tummy didn’t give him a bit more trouble for the rest of the trip. But I did pull over the curb and somehow manage to get the bottom of the van stuck on it on the way out of the gas station. Yep, couldn’t move it forwards or backwards. I envisioned us spending two hours waiting for AAA to show up and repeating last year’s 2 AM arrival. But I got out and Dave took over driving while I studied the problem from the outside, and he finally managed to get us unstuck. Okay! Now we were really off!

The rest of the drive proceeded as much without incident as a long drive with 3 small boys can. There was bickering and complaining and lots of Dan Zanes and the Wiggles, and a terrible moment when we realized we’d forgotten to charge the extra battery on the DVD player and would not be able to watch Schoolhouse Rock after all….but mostly things went pretty smoothly. We stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s somewhere in south Georgia and let the boys run around on the playground for awhile. I made everyone pose for pictures while Dave rolled his eyes.

We stopped for free orange juice at the Florida welcome center. I made everyone pose for pictures while Dave rolled his eyes:

See? There are palm trees! Because we’re in Florida now!

Then we passed a car that was on fire, which was kind of scary. The whole front of the car was completely engulfed in flames and there were no official-looking response vehicles on the site at all. Just a tow truck with the driver directing all the traffic into the far left lane. I’m pretty sure you can’t tow a car that’s on fire, though.

And, finally, we arrived! We pulled in to the townhouse driveway a little before seven and unloaded the car. We’d had some vague thoughts of trying to go to Downtown Disney that night, but it seemed like it was probably a better idea to hang out and get some rest and be ready for the next morning. We ordered pizza from Giordano’s (per Disboard suggestion ). We ordered one thin crust and one stuffed crust and were astonished by the price…until we actually saw the pizza and realized we’d very easily get two meals out of it. They told us it’d be an hour before the pizza arrived, so Dave took the kids for a swim in the little “splash pool” out back. It was sort of weird in that it was much deeper than we expected. Ari was the only one who could stand up in it, and it came up nearly to his neck. This was a little disappointing, since it meant the kids couldn’t actually “splash” in it at all without help.

Here’s our living room (I never got around to taking a picture of the kids’ Mickey room, but it was very cute):

And the splash pool, with kids and Dave in it:

And now for an interlude in which I offer my perspective on the on property versus off property issue:

I really wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about renting the townhouse. I could see it going either way….maybe we’d be so in love with all the extra space (and the low price) that we’d never stay on property again. Or maybe we’d feel like we were missing something absolutely essential and would return home despondent and empty. I honestly didn’t know.

So let me say first that Windsor Hills was very nice, as was our townhouse. Everyone we encountered was friendly and helpful. Everything in the neighborhood and the townhouse was clean and well-maintained. Our townhouse was really nicely decorated and had everything we needed in it. We didn’t wind up taking advantage of many of the amenities, since we were mostly at the parks, so I can’t comment on the clubhouse or pool or anything. We did check out the playground one night, and the kids enjoyed it. It was very close to WDW, as promised—the drive to the parks was not significantly longer than when we stayed at Pop last year.

All of that said, it definitely felt….dare I say it? ….less magical than staying on property. We didn’t feel as immersed in the experience. And I missed some of the perks, like having the option of extra magic hours, the transportation system, and especially the meal plan. Also, a lot of the reason we’d decided to stay off property is that I thought my in-laws would prefer it, but my MIL kept talking all week about how “next time” we should stay on property (and she took a special liking to the Animal Kingdom Lodge). So it wasn’t a terrible experience by any means, but we probably wouldn’t do it again.

But back at Mickey’s World, the kids finished swimming, the pizza arrived and was very yummy, and we hustled the kids off to bed.

Next: Sunday at Disney Studios plus Nana and Grandpa arrive!

 

[kokotg]

Sunday Morning!

Finally, time to hit the parks!

Gus is ready to go:

We drove over to Disney Studios and got to the turnstiles about 20 minutes before park opening. Dave handed everyone their tickets, and Gus was very, very sad not to have his own. Dave “shared” his with him, though. The Homeschool Days tickets were sort of odd. They all said “youth” on them, and we never had to do the finger scan to use them. And another thing I didn’t like about not staying on property and having a package was the flimsy paper tickets. Half the time we had to put them through more than once before the machine would read them. But we all made it in and walked over to the rope to watch the opening ceremony before making the dash for Toy Story Mania. We decided to wait and pick up a stroller after that, so as not to slow ourselves down.

Here's Milo, leaning against a trash can while waiting for the rope drop. hey, at least they have clean trash cans at WDW:

Countdown, and then we headed, along with the rest of the crowd, toward Toy Story Mania:

We waited maybe 10 minutes in the very cool line:

…and we were on! The sad thing about having 5 people on Toy Story Mania is that someone either has to ride by him or herself or someone doesn’t get a cannon. Dave was the one who was stuck with two kids this ride. I rode with Ari, and he beat me, but I might have sort of held back just a bit in the bonus round. Everyone was very impressed with Toy Story Mania. We just got a Wii and Carnival Games for it at home a month or so ago, so the kids had the concept down pretty well already. After the ride, we grabbed some fastpasses for later.

While that was going on, Ari took some pictures:

And sprayed himself with his fan:

Last year we bought fans for $5 from Wal-mart, and they lasted about 2 days before breaking. This time we bought fans for $2.50 at Target, and they lasted about the same amount of time. Actually, the blue one seen here didn’t even make it that long, as later this same day Gus accidentally knocked it off the top of the stroller and it came apart. I didn’t find the heat too unbearable most of the time, though. It was right around 90 for most of the trip, but the sun ducked behind the clouds fairly frequently, so we got a lot of breaks from the worst heat. And we saw no more than a dozen love bugs the whole trip, so, overall, we couldn’t complain.

So, Toy Story Mania taken care of, Dave took the two little boys to rent a stroller (double strollers are now $31/day! When did that happen?! We got the length of stay rental, so a small discount, but yikes!) while Ari and I went to ride Rockin’ Roller Coaster. This was closed last year, and the year before that Ari wasn’t tall enough yet, so this was his first ride. The line wasn’t bad at all—maybe 10 minutes. Ari’s most intense coaster before this was probably Everest, so I wasn’t sure what he was going to think. But he loved it! Yay! (although it should be noted that, while he is very brave about most rides, he always has his eyes closed when we see the on-ride photos). We met back up with Dave and the kids, and checked in with Milo to see if he was willing to give Tower of Terror a try. He was game, so I took over Gus duty while Dave headed off with the two oldest. I bought Gus a popsicle:

He was very solemn about it. It occurred to me that it had been quite awhile since he’d last gone potty. Gus has been in underwear full time for maybe two months now, but he still tends not to pee unless we remind him to. I was very excited to make our first diaperless trip to Disney, but also a bit nervous. So we headed off in search of a bathroom. Later I would notice the ones right next to Tower of Terror, but I completely missed them at that point and headed off back toward the entrance. We passed another bathroom in a blocked off, under construction area, and wound up not finding one until we were all the way back at the entrance. By then, Gus had about 2 bites left of his very drippy, very messy popsicle. “Are you finished with that?” I asked, and he muttered something incomprehensible. I took it as a “yes” and threw the popsicle in the trash. This was a mistake. “Hey!” cried an outraged Gus, “you threw my popsicle away! I wasn’t finished with it yet!” I apologized profusely for the misunderstanding, but he was not appeased. “I’m going to tell Daddy!” he threatened. I finally convinced him to go pee, and we headed back to Tower of Terror just in time to meet back up with the rest of the family. Gus promptly ratted me out for the popsicle thievery. No one in my family, except for me, much cares for Tower of Terror. Dave reported that Ari told him, as they were dropping, “now I remember why I don’t like this ride.” Milo wasn’t too rattled, but he definitely wasn’t interested in going again.

Next: more Disney Studios and then we really and truly get to the part where we see Nana and Grandpa

 

[kokotg]

We decided to go hit the The Great Movie Ride before lunch. We waited maybe 10 minutes to get on. Last year Gus had slept through the whole ride. The past two years he’d been too young to really get when Disney was trying to scare him, so stuff like Haunted Mansion and Great Movie Ride were no problem. This year I wondered how he would react. He was just fine. He sat perfectly still and watched everything intently, then declared in a somber little voice, “that ride was really fun” when it was all over. This was what he did for nearly every ride, actually.

Next we headed over to the ABC Commissary for lunch.

This was actually the first year we’d done counter service at DS. Last year we ate at the Sci-fi Dine In, and the year before we’d only made a quick visit and hadn’t eaten a meal there at all. It was still early, and the restaurant was close to empty. I found a seat with the kids while Dave got the food. Kids had nuggets, I had fish and chips, and Dave had the chicken curry with rice (and was very impressed with it).

We’d never been on the Backlot Tour before, so we decided to do that next. On the way over, we saw these guys:

There wasn’t much of a crowd for the Backlot Tour—our group was probably only half full. The kids were a little restless during the show they do at the beginning, but we all enjoyed the tram part of the tour. Milo was thoroughly freaked out for a minute in Catastrophe Canyon, but once I managed to reassure him that it was supposed to be happening, he was fine.

The Backlot Tour made Gus tired:

We were well into our fastpass window for Toy Story Mania, so we went back that way. The standby line was at something like 50 minutes by now; we waited 10 or so with our fastpasses. Ari, incidentally, strongly objects to the fact that fastpasses do not mean that a cast member immediately escorts you to the front row of your chosen ride. “They’re not called go fast and then stop and go really slow for the rest of the time passes,” he complained. We told him that when he grows up he can open his own theme park and make his fastpasses work however he wants. “Only you won’t be able to call them fastpasses,” I added, “because Disney already used that name.” Thinking of new names for fastpasses turns out to be an excellent way to pass the time in those pesky lines.

After another super fun Toy Story ride (I was the canon-less one this time), we walked through the Streets of America and over to Star Wars. Gus, as I’ve mentioned, is heartbreakingly close to 40 inches tall. We figured we’d go ahead and see what he could get on and what he couldn’t, so we took him through the line on Star Tours. The people with the measuring stick looked right at him as if considering his height, and let us walk right on by. Okay, then! So Gus got to go on Star Wars. After a couple of disappointing encounters with the measuring stick later on, we decided to stop toying with his emotions and just skip all the 40 inch rides for him, but he adored Star Tours, so I’m glad he got to do it anyway. After Star Tours and Gus’ usual, “that ride was really fun” comment, we called to check on the status of the grandparents’ arrival. They were already on the ground and picking up the rental car, so we decided to make one more trip over to the other side of the park so both grown-ups would get to hit the two biggies there, and then head back to the townhouse to meet up with them.

I can’t remember the details of how we managed to get back on Rockin Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror without waiting in line forever, but we did. Fastpasses were involved somehow, as were parent swaps. Also, Mickey bars:

I had to beg Ari to go back on Tower of Terror with me, but he finally relented. And then he very happily went on Rockin Roller Coaster with Dave and then again with me. After that, he suggested that maybe he’d reached his daily limit for that particular coaster, as his head was not feeling so hot. While I and the little kids waited outside of Rockin’ Roller Coaster, Gus spotted a very, VERY tiny frog on the ground. I didn’t believe him that it was a frog at first; it looked like a piece of dirt on the ground. But I leaned in close and sure enough….frog. The CM working at the booth next to us overheard us. “A frog…really?” she asked nervously, “I don’t really like frogs.” This seemed like an odd fear, but I reassured her that it was a really small frog and that it had, at any rate, already hopped away.

The frog made Milo tired:

But not too tired to pose for a picture:

And now it was time to go. The kids had Disney dollars burning a hole in their pockets, so we stopped at a gift shop on the way out. Gus bought a plastic sword, Ari bought a remote control safari truck, and Milo bought a remote control monorail. Surprisingly, the remote control things are still working more than a week later!

On the tram, with sword:

We drove back to the townhouse, and just a few minutes later….Nana and Grandpa arrived! There was much rejoicing. We all feasted on leftover enormous pizza and got ready to head out for the evening.

Next: An evening at Epcot

 

[Pryncesa]

Great report so far! Great-looking set of boys you have there! Also, looks like we're neighbors, since I'm in NW GA, myself. Looking forward to more!

 

[larson_family]

Great report. I can't wait to go back so right now I am living vicariously through you guys.

 

[kokotg]

Thanks, you guys! I'm resolved to get the next installment up this weekend!

 

[kokotg]

Sunday Night: Epcot

While Nana and Grandpa would probably just as soon have gone to bed early, we were determined to squeeze every last ounce of excitement out of our 5 day tickets, so off to Epcot we went. We only had one full day scheduled for Epcot, and we ALWAYS run out of time there, so I thought it would be a good idea to do some of Future World tonight so we had fewer things on our must see list later in the week.

We all piled into our minivan and drove over. It was around 6 when we got there, so we had 3 hours before the big attractions closed.

Gus with Nana. I love how he has his hand in his pocket:

Test Track is probably the single most discussed attraction at our house when we’re not at Disney. The kids talk about it all year. “Is this faster than Test Track?” they ask about a wide variety of vehicles. So Test Track was clearly the most important thing on the agenda. Dave went to get fast passes for it while the rest of us walked over to The Universe of Energy. Dave met back up with us and we walked in to a very uncrowded room and the movie already 1/3 of the way over. Milo had started protesting as soon as he found out where we were going. I thought it was just because he didn’t want anything standing between him and Test Track, so I was getting kind of annoyed with him. But eventually it became clear that he vaguely remembered the ride from 2 years ago (we skipped it last year) and was TERRIFIED. Poor kid. I tried to reassure him that 5 year olds can handle things 3 year olds cannot, but he was highly skeptical. We moved on to the ride part with Milo clinging to me, prepared to be eaten by an animatronic T-rex. But, predictably, once the ride started he was in love with it. “You were right, Mama!” he exclaimed repeatedly, “the dinosaurs are COOL!” He was even enthralled when the movie kicked back in at the end. (Warning: Universe of Energy spoiler ahead!) The Final Jeopardy question at the end of Ellen’s dream is something like “What kind of energy never runs out?” “I know!” Milo said, “the SUN!” It turns out the answer they want is “brainpower,” but I thought Milo’s answer was pretty good. Really, the sun will last a lot longer than any individual brain, in fact.

Okay, time for Test Track. Yay—Test Track! We love Test Track! Our adoration for Test Track knows no end! Etc. Encouraged by our success with Star Tours, we confidently got into line with Gus.

The CM at the Fastpass return entrance didn’t give him a second glance. Everything went smoothly until we got nearly to the front of the line. The CM there stopped us and measured Gus…and he came up just a bit short. Oh dear. Up past his bedtime and running on no nap, Gus was in no condition to deal with such a crushing blow. He started sobbing when he realized he wouldn’t be able to go on the ride. Dave and I sent the older kids and the grandparents off for their test ride, resolved not to try for any more 40 inch rides with Gus this year, and took him off to comfort him with a room full of GM cars to climb in.

Gus made a heroic recovery by the time older siblings and grandparents emerged, and we decided we’d go over to The Living Seas and do the Nemo ride before going home, so that he’d get to ride something. We did Nemo and then hung out with the shark for a bit. I am not very good at taking pictures like this, it seems. A better picture, from a wider angle, would have allowed the viewer to tell that this is, in fact, a shark, rather than just SOME kind of anonymous grey animal with large teeth. Oh well.

It should perhaps be noted at this point that our family has an unusually large collection of photos of our children being eaten by sharks. In addition to Epcot shots, we have pictures of us all standing inside a giant shark outside a t-shirt shop in Port Aransas, Texas.

Ari really liked this shark quiz:

And then it was time to go. Giant golf ball!

Next: Monday at the Magic Kingdom

 

[Pryncesa]

Nice update and pictures! Too bad about Gus not being able to ride TT. Glad he didn't wallow in his disappointment too long, though. Next trip, he'll be in!!

 

[kokotg]

Next trip, he'll be in!!

yep, he's already talking about it: "next time we go to Disney World, can I ride on Soarin?"