Will writing a PTR make the next 12 weeks go by any faster???

[Kristi391]

I am officially booked for a long weekend trip in October and I have been reading others reports and they have been great and making me even more excited about my trip so I thought I would do one of my own.

Please say Hi if you stop by! I would love to know if others are reading this!!!

There are going to be 7 adults and 1 2.5 year old on this fun filled vacation. I am really hoping to have fun and just enjoy each other's company and hope we don't kill each other in the process!

Participants on this fun filled adventure:

Me with my nephew, Wesley, at Christmas last year.

Me, Kristi, the planner of this trip. I love Disney and I am turning 40 in October and decided I wanted to go down to the World for MNSSHP and it would be fun if my family came with. (Which is kind of odd since my family is crazy). I mentioned this to my youngest brother and he said, “Oh cool, like a destination celebration”


Mom, on our cruise to Italy last year. We looked all over Venice for the perfect mask!

My mom, Sharyn: My mom is my most frequent traveling companion. We went down to MNSSHP last year and we thought it was lots of fun. She is always up for any adventure I suggest.

My Dad, Jack: He is the real reason we are taking this trip. He likes to travel as well, but he has more difficulty keeping up with me, which is why mom takes off on him to go on crazy adventures with me. (I don't have a photo of my dad on this computer or on my FB account...to get a mental image, he kinda looks like friar Tuck!)

My youngest brother, Derek. One of my favorite people in the world. We are 11.5 years apart and I am so glad my parents didn’t decide to stop after 2. (although I am pretty sure it wasn’t a conscious decision) He is awesome!

Derek’s girlfriend Kelsey. They have been together forever so she is pretty much my sister in law and she is very cool. (No pic of her either...tall, skinny, dark shiny hair...very pretty!)

This is the only pic of him I have, but it kind of makes me laugh!

My middle brother, Jeffrey. Jeff didn’t want to go on this trip so he needed a bit of convincing. He is a very intense person and worries way too much about stuff, but when he gets into his good/silly mood, he is so much fun.

Jeff’s wife, Amy. She is a little firecracker…really little, only 4’6” She loves to have fun and would do anything for you.


Finally, the light of my life, my nephew, Wesley. He 2.5 years old and the best little kid ever! He loves running around, spinning in circles, playing guitar and watching Disney Junior. He is the real reason I wanted everyone to come. (Actually, I would have been fine just bringing him down myself, but I didn’t think bro and sil would go for that!)

I have to go get Wes his lunch now (I babysit several times a week).
More to come!!!

 

[BearcatsFan]

Hi! Look forward to reading more details!

And to answer your question, yes, doing my PTR seems to have made the time FLY BY! Plus it is a great place to keep all your thoughts and (changes in) plans organized. October will be here before you know it.

 

[Kristi391]

Hi Bear!!! Thanks for being here!!!

It seems like this would be a fun way to stay organized and share my excitement about this trip. I feel like I drive my family nuts when I bring it up, so I try to keep the Disney chatter to a minimum so they aren't ready to kill me before we get there!!!

 

[Kristi391]

Ok, the toddler has been fed, read to and is now napping.

Where did I leave off...oh yes, I introduced you to the participants on our trip, so I will continue with the when and why.

When: We will be going down Friday October 12-Monday October 15. We will be going to MNSSHP on Sunday October 14. We will most likely be on different flights. I plan to take the earliest flight I can and just meet up with everyone else when they get in. We are staying at Pop Century. I have stayed there with mom several times and Derek and Kels stayed once. I love that it is so colorful and fun. I am also very excited to just walk across the bridge and check out AoA! But yeah, mom and I really like Pop, so I hope others like it as well!

Why: (Like you really need a reason to go to Disney)

As I said before, I started out wanting this trip as a birthday celebration. Derek was in, but Jeff was not as excited about it and told me and his wife “No”. Well, the weekend after I asked him about going down I was talking with mom and she was telling me that my dad was getting sick again. A bit of backstory here. Dad has had bladder and throat cancer since 2004. He has had treatment for both and every time he has been clear for a while, something else show up. He gets very frustrated and depressed. I really think the best treatment for him has been Wesley. He loves that little boy more than anything and ever since Wes was born dad has been talking about taking him to WDW. Well, dad has been having difficulty breathing lately and his voice has been going in and out for the past few weeks. So, mom said he had a dr. appointment in the next few days, but she was worried the throat cancer went to his lungs. I went home that night pretty upset and was googling throat cancer and lung cancer and of course that made it a million times worse. I decided at that point that regardless of the outcome of the dr appointment, I was going to do everything in my power to get us all down there for a long weekend. I decided that I would take care of the rooms and 2 day park tickets (and most likely MNSSHP party tix). I would take a loan from my 403b or use my Disney credit card. I just knew if anything happened and we didn’t do this, I would always regret it.

I was worried about talking to Jeff about the situation. He isn’t the easiest person to talk to, so I was kind of dreading it. Well, I was at school last week (I am a special ed teacher and I tutor one of my kids once a week) and I got a text from Jeff asking, “When is the Florida weekend?” I told him and then I told him this was important to me so I was going to get the rooms and stuff. He responded with “You want to get gifts for others on your birthday?” I said, “Yeah it was my idea so I want to make it happen.” He asked me a few more questions about it and then I didn’t talk to him about it again. So, on last week I was babysitting Wes at my parents’ house and Amy came to pick him up and we were sitting on the porch talking and I asked her what she had said to make Jeff change his mind about Disney. Her eyes got wide and she said, “WHAT??? We are going???”

Yeah, our family has terrible communication.

We talked a bit more and she said she was going to talk with Jeff about it that night. Apparently, Jeff thought more about my dad’s health and decided he didn’t really have a choice and they had to go. I kind of felt bad that he felt he didn’t have a choice…I don’t like it when people are upset and I kind of felt responsible, which I know is crazy but still.

After Amy and Wes left mom asked if I was going to go tell dad our plans. (We had tossed around the idea of surprising him, but then decided he would like to have it to look forward to). So mom called dad out and I told him he needed to start going to walks down at the track. He said, “Why?” and I told him, “So you can keep up with your grandson at Disney World.” He was all, “When are we going to Disney?” I said, “October” He said, “This October?” I said, “Yes. All of us and I am taking care of the rooms” He looked at me and said, “You guys think I am going to croak!” I said, “No, Wes is free until February.” And mom said, “And we want to take him to the Halloween party.”

Well, dad got so excited about this! We talked about it a little and what our tentative plans were. I told him that the day of the party, Derek, Kelsey and Amy and I were going to go over to Island of Adventure for a few hours to see the Harry Potter exhibit. Mom and Jeff have no desire to see Harry Potter, so the two of them and Wes would most likely stay at the hotel and just hang out at the pool and rest up for the party. I assumed dad would want to do that as well but he got excited again and said, “I want to see the Harry Potter place too!” That shocked me, but if that’s what he wants to do, that’s fine.

 

[Kristi391]

Nothing really to do with actual plans but I wanted to share!

This afternoon when Wes woke up from his nap we watched the MNSSHP parade on YouTube and HE LOVED IT!! He thought it was so silly the Rabit was dressed as a pumpkin and he waved and said hi to all the characters as they went by. It was so cute! He wanted to watch it again when it ended but my laptop battery was down to 5% so we went outside to play.

Ok, off to start dinner. A real planning update soon.

 

[MagicTilly]

Hi kristi :-D

Sounds like an interesting trip you have ahead if you - I would love to go with the whole family, but I can't imagine all the organisation involved, I'm flustered just organising myself and my OH!!

Look forward to further updates, I will be following

 

[Kristi391]

Hi MagicTilly Glad to have you aboard!

This is definitely going to be an interesting trip. I can't wait! I'm not too concerned about the organization aspect of the trip. Everyone is getting their own flights down and I have already booked the rooms so that's pretty easy. I plan to ask everyone to list their top 3-5 things they wan to do and make a tentative plan based on those. Hopefully it isn't too stressful. We shall see as time goes on!

 

[Kristi391]

Ok, back to our plans…

I called Disney Reservations last Saturday to book our four rooms. The automated system seemed to be having some difficulties and I couldn’t always hear the options. I finally got an actual cast member after being on hold for about 10 minutes. I had never booked more than 1 room at a time and I had never booked for a toddler, so I had a few questions. The whole process took about 45 minutes because I had to book each room separately and I could only do 3 rooms with the AAA discount. (I am still hoping to get a fall room only PIN, but I am not holding my breath). We got 4 standard rooms at Pop and the CM said he noted on the reservations to try to keep the rooms together. I was hoping that I could check in for all 4 rooms because I am most likely going to get to the resort first, but the CM said each room would have to be checked into individually. I was really hoping I could put some fun gifts and decorations in everyone else’s rooms, especially a fun gift for Wes from “Mickey”. Oh well, I will figure something else out. One funny thing about the phone call, for each room the CM asked, “How many adults and how many children?” I did Jeff and Amy’s room last so when I said, “2 adults and 1 child.” The CM yelled, “Hooray, a child is coming to the World!” I was amused by that.

Not long after I had finished with the reservations, my mom called and told me that she had been showing my dad pics of Pop. I was kind of nervous that he wouldn’t like it because he tends to enjoy a bit fancier hotels, but mom said that he loved the pictures and was very excited about it. This made me very happy. I had considered trying a moderate, but really couldn’t justify the extra cost for the 4 rooms. Mom and dad had also been checking out a few different character dinners. Dad loved Mickey’s Backyard BBQ, but unfortunately we couldn’t get an ADR, so I will keep checking, but we are looking at other ones instead. We are thinking maybe the breakfast at Hollywood and Vine because Wes loves Disney Junior. I also couldn’t get a dinner reservation at T-Rex, which I really wanted to take Wes to because he is really into dinosaurs right now, but will keep checking on that one too. I am not sure if we can't reservations because we are less than 90 days out or if it's because we are a party of 8 or a combo of both. Either way it is a little disappointing, but we still have fun.

Now I have some real life stuff to do...tutoring this morning, gym after that, pick up Wes at daycare...busy Tuesday!

 

[Dream426]

Joining in. I am going back to read everything now. I can't wait to hear how your 2.5 year old nephew does because my daughter will be almost 2 when we go.

 

[Kristi391]

Hi Dream!!! Glad you are here!

I also can't wait for Wes to experience the World! I think it is going to be great!!! I think I am going to take SO many pictures!!!

 

[Dream426]

I bought a better camera just for my daughters first Disney trip in March because I knew I would be taking a million pictures. Haha

 

[Kristi391]

I bought a better camera just for my daughters first Disney trip in March because I knew I would be taking a million pictures. Haha

Ha! That is so funny because I was considering buying a new camera for this upcoming trip. I quickly decided that the camera I have is fine and I don't need to spend any more money before going!

Isn't it hard not to take a million pictures all the time! If they would just stop being so damn cute!

 

[Dream426]

Ha! That is so funny because I was considering buying a new camera for this upcoming trip. I quickly decided that the camera I have is fine and I don't need to spend any more money before going!

Isn't it hard not to take a million pictures all the time! If they would just stop being so damn cute!

I know it is so hard to not take a million pictures. I couldn't pass up the better camera. Costco had such a good deal for a bundle package that I went for it.

 

[Kristi391]

Decided to change up the color, just for fun!

Only 79 days to go!!! (Man, that seems so long!!!)

My dad is SO excited for this trip. He doesn't use the phone that often due to his voice coming and going unexpectedly but yesterday he called with a million questions about the trip and places to eat and things we could do. I am so happy he has this to look forward to.

Last night I was babysitting Wes and Jeffrey asked me AGAIN when we were going! I get so frustrated with things like this because I had already told him (several times) what our dates were...I even cut it down by a day because he didn't want to take 2 days off. Ok, whatever. I told him again and he told me to talk to Amy about it when she got home. He was saying that he didn't know when they would be flying down. Amy can take both Friday and Monday off, Jeff has already committed to taking Monday off and he can kind of make his own schedule on Fridays (most Fridays he has a really light day and works from home) so I hope they get a decent flight time!

Wes and I watched a little bit of Nemo before bedtime. He knew who Nemo was before this, but he had never watched the movie. He liked it so far, but he kept mixing up Nemo and Marlin. He thought the sharks were really funny. Hopefully we will pick up where we left off before bedtime next week.

Mom and I were talking about how when we went last year lots of people had fun decorations in their room windows, so I am hoping I can find some cute things to put in ours! I also would like to find a fun Halloween-y type shirt for myself. I am not really into dressing up, but I would like a festive shirt. I have been looking online for ones with a simple rhinestone type pattern, but all I can find are a few rhinestone pattern transfer ones...I found a great one that is a mickey pumpkin with a witches hat, but it was $26 but I am not so good at DIY projects and I don't want to waste the money. I also saw another shirt on here that someone made that was the mickey pumpkin drawn in glow in the dark fabric paint on a simple black tee. That would be perfect if I had any type of talent. I am going to talk to Kelsey who is very artistic. Hopefully, she is willing to help me out on this!

 

[BearcatsFan]

If you're looking for cute stuff to put in your windows, check out the Creative DISigns board. Just be aware, this can become an obsession verrrry quickly!

Don't say you weren't warned!

 

[tangled up]

Hi there, sounds like you have a fantastic break planned. Looking forward to more xx

 

[Kristi391]

74 Days to Go!!!

Haven’t been on the boards for the past few days…summer is supposed to be my easy time, but the past few days have been pretty busy. I have had lots of Wes time, which I love. His grandfather will be visiting from Alabama next week, so Amy will be taking a few days off so she won’t need my stellar babysitting/awesome auntie services.

Last Friday we had a play date with my best friend from college who has a son who just turned 3, so it is fun to get together and let the boys do some parallel play while we get to catch up. We can’t wait until they actually have real conversations because we have the feeling they will be hilarious when they think we are not listening.

On Saturday he and I headed to Harvard to attend a lacrosse game with a friend of mine who has season tickets. I had never been to a pro game and it was very family oriented and Wes loved it. He had lots of fun cheering and waving to the mascots, although at one point he asked me if Mickey was going to be there, so I had to tell him, “No, we won’t see Mickey for a long time.” He was also disappointed when we were driving home and we stopped in traffic in Harvard Square and he saw the Curious George store and he was yelling, “Curious George, Kristi, Curious George…I go see him???” I had to tell him, no we were not going there…perhaps if it hadn’t been so busy and if there was parking available we might have stopped. We will have to try another time and perhaps take the T rather than drive.

Yesterday I had to work my part time job at Toys R Us and when I was getting ready to leave Amy texted me and said she, Jeff and Wes were coming in to get Wes a new helmet and then they were taking him to the ice rink for his first time on skates (well, ice skates, he rollerblades in the house quite a bit). I asked if I could join them and Amy said sure so I waited for them and then off we went to the rink. It was so cute! Wes loved being on the ice. Jeff held him up by the arms or Wes pushed milk crates and did fairly well for his first time. He didn’t want to take off his skates at the end. It was great. Jeff and Derek both play hockey so it was a given that Wes would start skating fairly early. We shall see if he continues to like it as he gets older.

Amy and I did talk about the trip a little bit this weekend. She had done some research on character meals and really thinks we should do Hollywood and Vine for breakfast.

So far these are the plans, which are subject to change (I can’t wait until we all have our flights so our plans can become a little bit firmer). I talked to both Amy and Derek and they both thought they sounded good. My parents don’t care what we do. They are just happy to be there with us all. Jeff doesn’t want to talk about it at all, so I don’t mention the “D” word at all when he is around.

Friday: Mom and I are planning on taking the 6:30 am flight out of Manchester which is a nonstop. My dad may take this as well, depending on work and medical treatments scheduled for that day. Everyone else will most likely get in that night. Mom and I love resort hopping, so that is most likely what we will do when it is just the 2 or 3 of us. I am dying to check out AoA and I have always wanted to try Beaches and Cream for lunch, so hopefully we would be able to do that. Mom loves visiting AKL and she would love to show it to my dad, so we will most likely head over there at some point during the day. Hopefully we will have some other dining companions for dinner, but if not, that is ok too. Not sure where we will eat dinner that night. (Again, this is probably dependent on flights) I am kind of stressed about the whole dining situation with 8 people. Most of our meals are going to be CS, but I am hoping to do a few TS for all of us and it could be difficult if we don’t make our ADRs really soon! Anyways, back to Friday night. I plan to stay up until we are all at the resort to welcome everyone there. Hopefully everyone gets in at a reasonable hour!

Saturday: I think we are going to do Animal Kingdom today. I think Wes will really like this park and it should be lots of fun. Derek really wants to get there for RD, which really made me happy. I always get up early and I am ready to go by 6:30-7 and worried that he and Kelsey might be the ones to not want to do that. I was all set to propose that early risers head to the park early and meet up later with those who wanted to sleep in, so I was happy he mentioned that. I have never spent a full day here and despite the fact that it will be slower due to having a 2 year old and a 72 year old, I think we will be able to see our must dos in 1 day. Amy is convinced that Wes will nap in his stroller so we will have to see if he needs a break mid-day or not. Since AK is only open until 6 this would be a great night for a family table service dinner. Since our top choices are booked, we talked about going to Trails End and then hanging around for the camp fire with Chip and Dale. It sounded like it would be fun, so we shall have to see if that works out. Another thing I was thinking about doing was going to Jellyrolls that night. I have never been and after reading things on here about it, it sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I mentioned it to Amy and she was shocked…you see, I am not a bar goer so she was really surprised I want to go. (I am also not really girly and recently I bought strappy white sandals that she loved, had a pedicure with sparkly polish and bought a Coach purse, so she thinks she is really influencing me!) I said we just need someone who isn’t interested in going to stay at the hotel with Wes and mom piped in with, “Yeah, normally that would be you, Kris.” Hey, I can step out of my comfort zone and shake things up a bit…especially in Disney!

Sunday: This is our MNSSHP day. I figured this would be a good day for those interested in going to IoA to do that in the morning. Jeff and my mom definitely have no desire to see Hogwarts or drink butterbeer (actually, I have no desire to drink butterbeer either) so I thought having them have a relaxing pool day while the rest of us go to IoA would be good for Wes. Still not really sure if this is going to work out. Amy didn’t know anything about IoA or the Harry Potter thing but she said she wants to go and she thinks Wes would like it too. I don’t know about that, so there will have to some more conversations about that. I only want to see Harry Potter and Poseidon’s Fury, so if we can get there for opening, I think it is totally do-able and allow us to leave between 2-3 and get us back to MK for 4 pm. Amy has been looking online for a costume for Wes. It is hard to pick one that is appropriate for New England Halloween weather and October Florida weather. We have really cute ones at TRU, but they would be way too hot for Florida. I think he will probably end up being Jake. One thing that made me a bit optimistic about my grumpy brother was that when Amy was looking at pirate costumes for Wes, Jeff said, “Hey, I have a pirate costume, I could dress like a pirate too!” I was shocked he had any type of enthusiasm for this trip. I guess there is some hope!

I had asked Derek if he and Kelsey were going to dress up. Kelsey is very creative, so I thought she might want to and if she did, she would convince Derek to as well. He said at first she didn’t want to, but then thought we should do some type of group costume, so we are thinking of what we might do for that.

I don’t really have a plan for the night at MK yet. I will have to talk to others about what their top things are and try to come up with a plan for that.

Monday: Hopefully we all will have late flights. Mom, Dad, Derek, Kels and I are hopefully all going to be on the 7:45pm flight, which will give us a good chunk of the day to play.

If all works out ok, we will go to HS today. Amy is shocked it isn’t MGM anymore (she also thought it was in Epcot, which I don’t get). The plan would be to do breakfast at 8 at H&V and then just pop over to TSM and then just do other things for the rest of the day until we have to go back for ME.


Ok, I think Wes is done eating his banana so we are off to the park...it is beautiful outside today!

 

[Kristi391]

If you're looking for cute stuff to put in your windows, check out the Creative DISigns board. Just be aware, this can become an obsession verrrry quickly!

Don't say you weren't warned!

So, I put Wes down for his nap and thought, "I can pop on to the Creative DISign board for a few minutes to check it out before cleaning up from lunch."

Here I am an hour and a half later! You were right!!! I can see myself becoming addicted very quickly.

Thanks for the warning!!!

 

[Kristi391]

67 Days to Go!!!!

Things continue to be very busy this summer. We have had some issues with Dad’s health, so he has had lots of doctor’s appointments and not too many answers, which is kind of frustrating. He has more tests coming up this week, so maybe we can get an actual diagnosis and start a treatment plan. The good thing was that the pulmonary doc said, except for the mass, which may or may not be on his lungs, his lungs looked good. So, at least one positive thing to take from all the not knowing.

So, trip stuff…most of us have our flights booked!!! Mom and I were going to book our flights last Thursday, but dad ended up being at the hospital until after 7 that night, so we just decided to wait until Friday…we should have done it Thusday. (I hope these difficulties are not a sign of things to come…I would rather have all the planning go poorly and have the trip be smooth sailing).

Well, after Wes went home on Friday (one of our regular babysitting days) I went on the Southwest website to book me, dad and mom on the 6:30 am nonstop on Friday and the 7:45 pm nonstop on Monday. So, I get all the way to the page where you put all your information in and the page kind of freezes, so I go out and start over. Then I start getting error messages, so I try again. I try again, this time on my laptop. More error messages. I log all the way out and start over. Now the price has gone up from $140 to $207 on the Friday flight. I am so frustrated at this point. I try again and it goes back down to the original price but tells me there are not enough seats on that Friday flight. At this point I give up and start checking other airlines, none of which had the good nonstop flights. So, I call Southwest explain the issues I was having with the website. The rep asks for information about what flights I was trying to book and what my last name was. After giving him the information he needed he punched some things into his computer and started to chuckle. He said, “I have good news and bad news.” I told him to give me the bad news first. He said, “All of your attempts went through and you bought out all the rest of the seats on the first flight.” In all I bought 33 seats on each of the flights! He refunded all the excess ones and for the next 24 hours I got a million emails from Southwest confirming both reservations and cancellations. It was kind of crazy. I also pulled up my credit card statement and saw that I had over $8500 of pending charges. This made me very nervous as my limit on that card is only $7000, so I called them right away. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be charged an overage fee. The woman said I wouldn’t but that I wouldn’t have any credit available until all the charges were reversed. Whew!

The whole situation was nerve wracking and frustrating. I spent a good deal of time printing out all the emails and matching up the reservation confirmation with its corresponding cancellation confirmation. I only had 2 cancellation ones that I didn’t have reservation ones for but I guess that is better than the other way around!

The next day I went to hang out with Derek and Kelsey and told them about the whole airline debacle. Derek checked the website and saw that the flight out he wanted (a nonstop at 4pm) was at a decent price and he was going to take the Monday flight home with us. He booked his flights right then. Hopefully Jeff and Amy will end up on the same flight as Derek and Kels, as that is the one Jeff was talking about booking a few weeks ago and then taking the same flight home as the rest of us. It will be great if they all take that 4 pm Friday flight.

Derek and Kelsey and I talked a lot about plans for the weekend. They are pretty much on board with what I had kind of planned out, so that is good. They seem pretty excited, so I hope we all have fun.

I was at the mall on Saturday and went in the Disney Store and they had tee shirts on sale for $8 so I couldn’t resist getting Wes a Tow Mater one that glows in the dark! I think he is going to love it! I am starting to get stuff together for a gift bag I want to have ready for his room when they get in. I am thinking of making a trick or treating bag to put the stuff in, but I might end up just buying one at the store. So far for the bag I have a little Toy Story look and find book, some Mickey temporary tattoos and the tee shirt. I was also thinking some fun pajamas, one of those things that kids buy before fireworks or fantasmic that lights up and spins around (figure if I can find one pre-trip it will be cheaper) and maybe get him some Mickey ears once we get down there.

School starts in just a few weeks so I think time will fly by once that happens!

 

[BearcatsFan]

I hope your Dad gets some answers soon. And YIKES on the airline tix thing! Thank goodness they were able to get it straightened out!