Whateva...a May 2012 PTR

[merbobear]

Hi! I’m Merideth..and I’m going to Disney World!

I have been to the world twice before, once in 1997 as part of a school trip. We stayed off site and I honestly don’t remember all that much of my time there, other than there were lines galore and it was smokin’ hot (it was in August). Then last year, my family of 3 took a vacation and stayed at POP. I found a little website that we like to call the Dis a couple minutes before we went, and my vacation was unforgettable, to say the least!

I tried my hand at a trip report last year, but I failed…life got in the way. I keep the memories in my mind and heart, but they have not been documented for others to enjoy. This year, I’m going to succeed. I want to have something awesome to look back at and that I can show my grandchildren in 25 or so years…so I can say “See, this is what Disney World was like when your mom was a kid.”

Right now, we are at 43 days pre-trip…and counting! I am so so so excited beyond belief, I need some sunshine and pixie dust in my life!

I guess I should do the thing where I tell you all about me and my travel companions, huh? Well, as I said already, I’m Merideth. I’m 32 and I work as a baby registry consultant at a store near where I live. And, as I said already, this is my 3rd trip to WDW. Here’s a picture for those that just can’t do without a visual.

I’m the grown up. My favorite rides are BTMRR & Test Track (both of which will be closed for refurb during our stay…wahhhh! It’ll be alright though, there are plenty of other attractions to keep me occupied, and I’m pretty sure that I’ll only shed a few tears each time I walk past the wildest wide in the wilderness)! Favorite characters…it’s so tough. I’m a princess lover for sure, but Donald has a piece of my heart too. He does have the sweetest disposition, after all. And Minnie..she’s adorable! And..well, I have many more favorites, but I think it’s time to talk about someone else.

Mike! He’s my other half! He’s 34, a whole 2 years older than I am, a fact that I will never let him forget! lol

He’s super excited about our vacation too, but he is not the planner like I am. He has some input, but most of the time he is very go-with-the-flow about ADR’s and stuff like that..I mean he likes having a plan, he just doesn’t like to be the one actually making the plans. And that, my friends, is fine with me..because I LOVE to be the one making the plans! I live for it! I die without it! :lol:

Adison is another member of our party…Adison is 4 going on 14. Her hobbies are wearing high heels, playing in my makeup, and pretending she doesn’t have a super huge crush on Prince Charming. Whenever I ask Adison if she loves Prince Charming, she responds "Whateva!" and refuses to look at me. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Here she is looking up at him dreamily…Adison & Prince charming sittin’ in a tree!

She basically rocks! Her favorite rides last year were not what I would have expected from a 3 year old. Don’t get me wrong, she loved Fantasyland as much as the next little girl, but she is a huge sucker for thrill rides! She rode Splash twice, BTMRR countless times, Test Track 3times and Dinosaur twice. She was genuinely saddened the other day when I told her that TT was going to be closed this time around!

FRONT ROW!!!

The 3 of us can’t wait to get back to Disney!

In fact, we had so much fun last year, that this year we just had to invite our moms along for the ride!

My mom, Linda, is retired after working for NY State for around 35 years (she retired in 2006). We have vacationed with my mom in the past (well obviously I have..she’s my mom! But I mean Mike & Adison have as well). Our past trips include a cruise to the Bahamas (we also had a day in Orlando, which we spent at Universal) and a weekend trip to Cape Code (before Adison came around), a week in Hampton beach and some shorter weekend trips to the Berkshires (all 4 of us). My mom babysits Adison so I can work, and so she is around a ton and we have a great relationship! Mike gets along with her great as well. This will be the FIRST VISIT for my mom! So excited to show her around Disney!

Mike’s mom, Cheryl, still works..she is a secretary for a surgeon at a local hospital. Adison still sees her a lot, as she lives about 2 minutes from us! We have never been on a vacation together, though she has been to WDW in the past with Mike. Once when he was a little kid and another time in the year 2000 (does anyone else remember that Conan sketch where they would show really bizarre things ‘from the future’ and the theme song to it was ‘in the yearrrrr two thousanddddd"’??? I do. I hope you do too, it always made me laugh..and since I like to laugh, if I ever have to reference that year, I always say ‘the year 2000’ instead of just ‘2000.’ Welcome to my world!). So since she has been to WDW in the past, she knows a bit about it..but let’s be honest, it was 12 years ago in the year 2000 (lololol) that she last visited, so she might as well be on her first visit as well!

And last but certainly not least, a friend of ours is going too..Mikey! Mikey is originally Mike’s friend, they have known each other for ages..but since I’ve been around for a while now, I guess I can call him my friend too! I am, after all, welcoming him with open arms into our big fat family vacation! This is Mikey’s first visit…he is hell bent on making the most of it, so he got a Water Parks & More pass (while the rest of us just got regular Park Hoppers), so he is going to split off from us a couple times so he can do some water rides as well as hit up Disney Quest. Mikey is a lot of fun and I think he will be a great addition to our group!

I will probably throw in pics of the 3 of them at some point, but for now I am working with what I have in my WDW pics from last year!

 

[merbobear]

Chapter Links
Introductions
Day 1
Day 2

 

[MHTeacher]

Hi! Saw May in your title, and came over to check it out. We're going at the end of May!

I must say, your braver than me--going with your mother and your mother in law! In all seriousness, I'm sure y'all will have a great time together!

Addison is a cutie, and that picture of her and Mike on Splash is great!

 

[merbobear]

Hi! Saw May in your title, and came over to check it out. We're going at the end of May!

I must say, your braver than me--going with your mother and your mother in law! In all seriousness, I'm sure y'all will have a great time together!

Addison is a cutie, and that picture of her and Mike on Splash is great!

I do have a bit of fear as to whether we will all get along the entire time, but hopefully that Disney magic will win over and we will be floating on the entire time. I can dream anyway!
And thank you!

 

[merbobear]

I just realized that we are at just under 5 weeks until D-Day. Disney Day, that is! I have had a mental Day 1 plan going on for a couple weeks, but I'm blank after that, so I think if I write out my plans..then it will make room in my brain for Day 2!

So first thing's first - we will wake up, super early! We are having Mikey sleep over at our house the night before, so we will all be getting up at the crack of dawn to take turns with the shower and hopefully consume some caffeinated beverages!

My mom is going to be hitching a ride over to our house with my Uncle, and I am planning to have 3 of us ride in his car, the rest will be in our mini-van. We are so fortunate, a friend has offered to drive us to the airport so we don't have to worry about leaving our (brand new!) vehicle in the airport's parking garage. The van will carry 3 of us, our driver, and our luggage. We will probably cram our carry on's in my uncle's vehicle. It'll be a tight squeeze, but the ride is short, we live less than 15 minutes from the airport.

Our flight leaves from Albany International Airport at 7:35 and we do plan to be there 2 hours in advance, so I am sure we will be bleary eyed upon our arrival...after checking our luggage and making our way through security, we will hit up McDonald's for some greasy breakfast food and more coffee! I'm sure the time will pass quickly and we will be boarded and taking off before we know it.

(side note - What a cute graphic! I was googling for an image of a southwest plane and saw this little crest, reminds me of the DME logo!)
See..?

The flight is scheduled to arrive at MCO at 10:25am, at which point we will hit the bathrooms and go directly to the Magical Express waiting area.

I am crossing my fingers that we will have a *real* ME bus and not the plan Mears bus, I am looking forward to watching the video and sharing that first magical moment with our moms and Mikey, as well as reliving it ourselves! Whichever type of bus we travel on, the destination will be the same....

Old Key West! SO excited to stay at OKW! We have booked a HH area 2 BR villa through The DVC Rental Store (they are wonderful, by the way and we saved a ton of money when compared to making a cash reservation at the same resort - I have done the math over and over, and even with the 30% off or free dining offers, we still saved by renting points!).

Again, I am crossing my fingers that a little pixie dust will find its way into my life and that our room might be ready early. If not, no big deal, we will get to the rooms when we get to them...I just think it will be nice to check out our rooms in the light of day, vs seeing them for the first time when we straggle in at night! Our stay at POP worked out this way last year, and it was good to take the time to check out the room, drop our carry ons, and let it sink in that WE ARE AT DISNEY WORLD! before we hit a park!

So, depending on whether the room is ready or not, we will either go to the room, or drop our carry on's with Bell Service, and head straight out to Magic Kingdom! At this point, I am estimating that it will be approximately 1-2pm, and we will probably be very hungry, so our plan of action is to find something to eat. Depending on the time, we may grab a full lunch at Columbia Harbour House, or we may just grab a snack somewhere on Main Street - if it is later, I don't want to fill up, we have a big ADR coming up for dinner!

In the meantime of walking to our lunch or snack location, we will be grabbing a fast pass to meet our favorite Princesses! Is the return time for this still really fast? If it works out like I plan it to, we will grab a fast pass, ogle the castle, eat, and then M&G with the Disney Princesses. After that, we will head into fantasyland and try to grab a FP for Peter Pan's Flight, take a spin on the carousel and get IASW stuck in our heads and generally enjoy the magic that is Fantasyland.

Our ADR might put a cramp in my style when it comes to the FP, however, as we do have a 5pm ressie for Chef Mickey! If we won't have enough time to ride PPF, we will save it for later. Whatever happens, it's fine by me..it's our first day of vacation and WE ARE AT DISNEY! No FP return time is gonna spoil that!

We will monorail over to the Contemporary for our ADR and stuff ourselves silly. I'm literally so excited for this reservation that I am dancing in my chair right now! The characters, the monorail running right through the resort, the napkin waving..I CANNOT WAIT! Watching the monorail roll into the resort is something that I am so excited to see our family experience! It's just so fun and something that you won't see anywhere else, and I really think everyone will get a huge kick out of it, as I did last year!

After eating our weight in buffet food, we will roll back over to MK for the rest of the night. The loose plan is to do as much as we can in Fantasyland and then head to Tomorrowland and try to efficiently work our way through the attractions. We will definitely take the time to enjoy Wishes though, before we finally make our way out of the park and our tired legs take us home for the night!

Times:
7:35 AM Depart from ALB
10:25 AM Arrive at MCO
1 PM (approx) Check in / Head to MK/Lunch or Snack/Fantasyland Playtime
3 PM CADCT Parade (if the mood strikes us - could do this instead of Pan FP idea)
5 PM Chef Mickey ADR
9PM MSEP
10 PM Wishes <3

Disclaimer: Photos in this post are not mine - borrowed straight from google images. Thank you if any of these images are yours!

 

[merbobear]

I typed up our entire itinerary for my travel group to look at...I made a facebook group several months ago to share trip updates and details, which has turned out to be a nice idea, it made it really easy to keep everyone updated! I wonder what the world did before we could interact without actually being face to face

This is what I posted for Day 2:
Tuesday May 8
8:00 AM Rope Drop @ Epcot
EMH 8a-9a
Open 9a-9p

CS Lunch
La Cantina De San Angel (Mexican - Mexico Pavilion)

5:00 PM Dinner at Akershu's (Norwegian buffet & plated entree - Norway Pavilion)

So as you can see, we will be waking up in Disney World bright and early and heading to Epcot! Test track is scheduled to be closed ..oh well, more time for Soarin'!

We'll probably spend the first part of our day touring Future World, then head to Mexico sometime around noon for lunch. We'll take our time walking through the WS until it's time to check in for our 5 pm ADR @ Akershus! The priorities are: Meet Mulan, do some Kim Possible missions, eat copious amounts of snacks and drink some margaritas!

After Akershus, we will probably be too stuffed to consume any more snacks, so I imagine we will spend the rest of the evening back in FW, until right before Illuminations. We'll take that in and then make our way back to OKW for the night...have to rest up, the next day is another early one!

 

[merbobear]

I have been checking things off of my to do list non-stop today! First I got our sunblock at target (buy 2 select coppertone and get a $5 gift card - for the 2 I bought, it ended up being about $10 after accounting for the gc amount!).

Target also had a package of quart size baggies, so I grabbed those for our carry ons. I don't intend on bringing a ton of liquids, probably just my travel sized sunblocks and some hand sanitizer, but the bags will be nice just to keep those things from leaking on the rest of my carry on!

When I got home, I was just browsing kohls.com and I found Crocs on sale, then used a 20% off code and stacked a free shipping code, so I got my crocs for less than $20!

Oh and this morning I paid for Adison's autograph book (I found a freebie deal and just paid shipping on a photo book).

So, that knocked out about half of my shopping list!

On to day 3...

Wednesday May 9
8:00 AM Rope Drop @ Animal Kingdom
EMH 8a-9a
Open 9a-6p

CS Lunch TBD (somewhere in Animal Kingdom)

7:05 PM Dinner at Boma (African buffet - Animal Kingdom Lodge)

So as you can see, we will be hitting AK bright and early! I love rope drop!! The basic plan is going to be to ride the Kilimanjaro Safari first thing and then just see what we can get done...Dinosaur is a must for us! I think that we will try to just tour one of the trails this day, and save the other for one of our other AK days. Of course we will try to fit in as much as we can this day, but I won't completely stress if we miss anything, as we will be back!

Lunch will be a CS, and sadly I am not super excited about it. Last year we had Pizzafari, and we basically all agreed that it was fine, but nothing exciting. The problem with AK CS is that it seems to be a ton of meats, and not much choice for a veggie like me! Whatever we eat, I'm sure it will be sufficient....lunch doesn't matter much when jyou know that dinner will be at BOMA later in the evening!

We will stay until the park is about closing and then scoot over to AKL, where we will soak in the gorgeous scenery and ambiance, and then check in for our meal at Boma. I can't even begin to list how many foods I am looking forward to for this meal!

There are NO plans for the evening after we are done at Boma. MK is open until 10 that evening, however I don't think we would have time to get there and do much of anything...we might just end up going for a swim back akt the resort and calling it an early night!

 

[merbobear]

I was dying to get on the Dis last night to post this..and the boards were down for the server migration!

I got Mickey Mail!!!! Our Magical Express documents arrived yesterday, which means we are SO close to our vacation! It'll be 3 weeks tomorrow! Weeeeee!

 

[lbuzz52]

Hi meridith

Don't feel bad about your other TR. I'm still working on my from last May- after a lengthy hiatus. I am curious- hat did you do for your autograph book? Did you put special pages in it? I'd love to see it. We did a family trip before I can say good and bad things about it the best part was actually getting to ride some things with my husband. The worst was trying to please a lot of different personalities who didn't want to vocalize their opinions unless they were tired. We will do it again- but we will specifically schedule some things apart or stagger the trip so that we are there a couple days with kist us that immediate family time together is just so nice

sorry for the typos. I'm posting from my phone and it's doing odd things

I like your park plans so far. You like longs days like we do. Will you take a stroller for Addison?

 

[merbobear]

Hi meridith

Don't feel bad about your other TR. I'm still working on my from last May- after a lengthy hiatus. I am curious- hat did you do for your autograph book? Did you put special pages in it? I'd love to see it. We did a family trip before I can say good and bad things about it the best part was actually getting to ride some things with my husband. The worst was trying to please a lot of different personalities who didn't want to vocalize their opinions unless they were tired. We will do it again- but we will specifically schedule some things apart or stagger the trip so that we are there a couple days with kist us that immediate family time together is just so nice

sorry for the typos. I'm posting from my phone and it's doing odd things

I like your park plans so far. You like longs days like we do. Will you take a stroller for Addison?

I will have to check out your TR!
The autograph book is a photo book and the pages were made on photoshop (some by me and some by another Diser...I can find the thread and post it for you!). Basically each page is a jpeg image file. It works out nice to have a special page (or portion of a page) for each character. Plus they are nice hardcover books, so they are a good keepsake. I'll get her a standard autograph book too (because Minnie simply must sign her book each and every time they meet - lol).

I am taking a stroller - we have a Maclaren Techno XLR that is great for Disney! I'll be updating again tomorrow, I need to get my plans all down because our trip is SOON!!