What was I ever thinking.. A Grand Gathering with me at the Helm

[RemixBoyNJ]

This is my first trip report (or pre-trip report, or what ever you want to call it).. so bear with me cause it might not be perfect (heck I would just be happy with it being somewhat readable).

I am gonna start with a bit of background:

Picture it Disney world June 2006, my partner and I having a blast through the parks, no kids (we don't have any unless you count our 2 dogs, a cat, and fish), no worries just us having fun, when my mind starts going, Wouldn't it be great if we can get both of our family's together and have a Grand Gathering? Unfortunately my mind actually instructs my mouth to say these words out loud to my dear partner and its off we go, we get everyone interested, and I get to do all the planning.

We gotta fix the ac right now, so I am going to be with out power for a bit.. I will get a cast list up on my next post.

 

[RemixBoyNJ]

Me (Adam): The ring master, Soon to be 33, total disney fanatic (yes i am the one with the stock options I get through my job, turned around and sold them so I can buy up some disney stock.)

Tim (DP) : I drive him nuts, he lets me. He will be 33 before me (by a month, a week, and a day and I never let him forget he is the older one) and yes another disney fanatic.

My Family

Sandi (My Mom) : I wont bother saying her age, she would kill me if i did. Was pretty much dead set against going back to disney. That is until we got back from our last trip and got her all excited about going.

Peter (My Stepfather) : Has a tendancy to talk to EVERYONE, the stranger the better, and if no one is around will talk to himself. Has a small problem with stress and blows things out of proportion a lot. He is also the injured member of our little party with a bad back, we have already started trying to tell him "you can go on this ride, but probably not this ride"

Side note, I invited my two sisters as well, but they were both unable to make it this time around, my youngest sister just brought a house, and the middle sister was not able to go due to the time we chose being during the school year (she is a teacher)

DP's Family

Elaine (DP's Mom, PM) : She is so looking forward to the trip, she is more excited about not having any kids to worry about this time around

Sandra (DP's Younger Sister) : The crazy one of the group, a bit wild, and a bit unpredictable, but fun to be around (most of the time)

Steph (DP's Older Sister) : Mother of three, and is totally excited about taking em all to disney, when we mentioned the idea to her she said she didn't care if she had to brown bag lunch, She is sooo going

Freddy (Steph's husband, Brother In Law) : Haven't really hung out with him all that much, but he seems like a good guy

Raven (Niece) : In her early teens, when we told her about the trip, turned around and said "I am NOT hugging any princesses". I have a feeling she will change her mind.

Stephen (Nephew) : I wanna say he is around 10-12 (watch he is 11), and the one I really cant wait to watch as his eyes pop

Jilly (Nice) : 3ish (god I am awful with remembering numbers) and a bit of a terror.. she will let you know when she has had enough of something, and if she doesn't like you. (She always punishes me with NO BEZERT)

Neighbors

Alexis : Just all around fun to be around, a bit hyper, and a bit crazy, but totally fits in with the rest of our crazy family.

Mike : Really easy going, sort of go with the flow type.


And that wraps that up for the day I am done typing

 

[RemixBoyNJ]

Ok, I know I have been really really bad about posting to this report lately but work and life have been a bit crazy lately..but now that I have some free time (ok its not really free time as I am doing laundry as I type this I have some time to catch everyone up on what had been going on with this trip that i am planning....

Well to start off, I am a little bit obsessive when it comes to planning, not that its a bad thing (at least I don't think that its a bad thing and that is all that really matters ), I really really tried to get everybody involved with some of the decision making but it most of the conversations went like this

me: So, Any thing special you would like to see or do when we go to disney?

anyone: Not really, we will just do what ever you want to do.. Its fine by us.

me: Are you sure? There is no place you would like to eat, because I am trying to plan our days a bit and get all the ADRs out of the way.

anyone: You do it. I am sure anything you choose will be fine.

me: Ok, cool, I would get you a list with all the reservations the next time we speak.

So that week I get on the phone with Disney and make all the dinner reservations for 13 people at all the restaurants for 9 nights

So far soo good.. but the following week the phone starts ringing...

To be continued

 

[RemixBoyNJ]

You know you are in trouble when you just booked everything, have all your ADR's placed with confirmation numbers for all 13 people when the phone starts ringing... its that automatic eye twitching, I am not sure if I should answer the phone due to the fact its going to ruin my day and its going to be a few hours on the phone all over again.

First call is my mom,

Mom : Did you book your plane tickets?
Me : Yes all booked and paid for.. Why? Whats Up?
Mom : And you already hooked up the magical express thing?
Me : Yes I did that already for Tim and I.
Mom : Well I was wondering if you can link ours up as well?
Me : Sure thing no problem.

At this point I am still in a pretty good mood, one phone call, not a big deal. So I make a few of my own calls asking if anyone wants me to do this for them as well. A few road blocks cause at this point Steph has not booked the flight for her family yet but other than that it went pretty smooth, that is until I actually got on the phone with disney..

Mom's reservation - No problem

Tim's Mom's reservation - No problem

Alexis and Mike's reservation - PROBLEM

You see the problem all starts back a few months when we originally made all the reservations back in September, we were all living in NJ. In January when my lease was up, Tim's father was looking to sell his house in PA, so we jumped on the opportunity to become first time home owners and brought the house. Mike and Alexis came up to the house when we started moving stuff up to PA and found the area nice and found a house down the block and moved to PA as well. Now on to the problem...

I changed my address with disney the week before we moved..

Mike and Alexis not so much, so when the cast member on the phone asked me for their address I got it wrong, not once but twice =) It seems when i updated my address book I erased their old address and tried to guess it the second time around. A quick update on the situation is that they still have not changed their address, and are now responsible for making that phone call themselves. (83 days and counting)

Everything is good until the phone the following week...
to be continued