17 Disney Days! Too much? 5 kids! Too many?!

[dr&momto2boys]

Hello and welcome to the fastest 17 day trip report you have ever seen!

I promise lots of pictures, a moderate amount of detail, and to respond if you ask questions or leave comments. Please do! I also promise to complete the report!

Itinerary:
We stayed at POP Century 3 nights, Bay Lake Tower 7 nights, and cruised the Eastern Caribbean on the Disney Fantasy for 7 nights


A brief intro to our family...

Mom (Kyrie) and Dad (Marc): Had our first trip to Disney World together 20 years ago, honeymooned in Disneyland 18 years ago, but have become much bigger Disney fans in the last 10 years! DVC members, we've had APs to either WDW or DL for the past three years and hope to continue that trend!


Jacob (8): First trip at 5 months old. Hollywood Studios is his favorite park because he loves Rock n Rollercoaster (his favorite) and Toy Story Mania. There is nothing that Jacob won't ride!

Max (7): First trip at 1 year old. Formerly afraid of dark rides, Max has expanded his horizons on this trip making it a lot easier on us...being able to ride Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion as a family instead of in shifts!


Ella (4): First trip at 7 months old. Braver than her height allows her to be. A fan of Tower of Tower since she was three. Magic Kingdom is her favorite park because there are so many rides.


Zoe (2): First trip at 1 year old. Is a little worried about being scared on rides, but hasn't skipped any yet. Loves everything Disney especially Sofia the First and Doc McStuffins. We found out on this trip exactly what the 'terrible two's" really means!


Zach (3 months old): His first trip!

Pre-Trip Projects (T-Shirts, Fish Extender, FE Gifts, Activity Books)
Day 1 Off to a screaming start
Day 1 Food: Everything POP
Day 2: MagicBands, Animal Kingdom, and POP Century Pool
Day 2 Food: Everything POP, Yak & Yeti, Everything POP
Day 3: Magic Kingdom, the Pool, and Dinner at Art of Animation
Day 3 Food: Everything POP, Plaza Restaurant, Landscape of Flavors
Day 4: EPCOT and moving to Bay Lake Tower
Day 4 Food: Everything POP, EPCOT snack, Biergarten, Contempo Cafe
More pictures of our BLT 2 bedroom villa

 

[dr&momto2boys]

Marc and I kept a blog while we were traveling, so this trip report is actually already complete, however I plan to add some extras for those of you who have some patience to follow along day by day. There will be food porn for sure, which is sorely lacking from the blog. And also more details and opinions.

Before I give you the link to the blog for Day 1, let me show you some of the prep we did for the trip.

Making homemade matching t-shirts has become a fun tradition. Even though we were extremely busy just before this trip (with a newborn and all), I want to do this as often as we can while the kids are still game! I made eight different designs of shirts, at least 36 shirts in total. (I lost count.)



We also made fish extender gifts for our cruise. Don't know what that means? There are more details in the blog. Basically it's a gift exchange for people on the Disney cruise who sign up. We made 50 Disney music CDs with a custom cover to hand out to the participants.


We didn't make our fish extender ourselves. We ordered it off of Etsy. It was too cute not to include here though! This is what we hung up outside of our cabin for people to deliver our gifts.


We made some more custom magnets for our cruise cabin door to add to the collection we've used in the past.


I also made activity books for the kids to keep them busy and happy during sit down meals. They also served as journals for trip memories, and autograph books. Each kids was tailored to their interests and age. This is before they were bound:


And finally, a very exciting part of our trip was getting to plan fast passes since we got to try out MagicBands! We were so excited to receive them in the mail. You'll see how they worked and how we liked them in the blog.

 

[dr&momto2boys]

Okay, here is the link to Day 1.

Now you could just continue to read on since all the days are already posted to the blog, or you could read one day at a time as I post them.

The reason to hang back with me, is I will add extra info and pictures. I will provide dining reviews and pictures for each day too. I don't have time to do it tonight for day 1, but I wanted to give you a day to read before this gets buried on the second page! See you tomorrow with more!

 

[SigalTchelet]

I just read the whole blog which was absolutely delightful! (Zoe meltdowns and all!) I am going on the Fantasy in 9 weeks and loved seeing it through your family's eyes! You have a beautiful family, Kyrie and Chris! Enjoy every moment with them! Zoe and Zach remind me of little Kewpie dolls! lol

 

[reelmom]

I just read the whole blog which was absolutely delightful! (Zoe meltdowns and all!) I am going on the Fantasy in 9 weeks and loved seeing it through your family's eyes! You have a beautiful family, Kyrie and Chris! Enjoy every moment with them! Zoe and Zach remind me of little Kewpie dolls! lol

I went and read it too. So much to comment on but don't want to give too much away. I can't wait to see the additional pictures. You have such an adorable family.

 

[blessedby3]

Joining in on this report! Cant wait to read it...Im trying to hold back from reading past the first installment....ugghhhh!

 

[dr&momto2boys]

Thanks, Jill! Have a great trip! Let me know if there are any questions I can answer for you about the Fantasy! I'll try to take a peek at you PTR later. Where will your cabin be? Are you in a FE group? So fun!

Thanks, reel mom! I'll do my best to add more pics and comments in a timely manner with the chaos that is my life! This was my first week back to work since Zach was born and Marc's first week watching all five kids and homeschooling on his own all while trying to do the unpacking and mountain of laundry from this trip! But we made it through the week!

And Blessedby3! I always appreciate your comments! I will do updates on weekends and Wednesdays. You're so kind to try to hang back with me!

We have a picture appointment this morning, so I plan to be back this afternoon for more updates.

 

[dr&momto2boys]

After our long travel day, we quickly checked out our rooms and went to have dinner at the food court, Everything POP.



This counter service restaurant is huge and has many choices. There are several different stations, each with its own menu board. You can pick up food from as many stations as you need to and then pay for it all at once.

This apparently works for them, but it didn't work too well for us. We of course wanted things from different stations. My kids are still too young to just go pick up their own food, and my hands are full with babies, so Marc gets mine for me too. So it is one station at a time for us, leaving the food a bit cold by the time we're ready to check out.

We did not have any dining plan. But we did have the Tables in Wonderland card which saves us 20%. This is one of the few counter service restaurants that accepts it.

Marc had a veggie burger and fries with the famous tie dye cheesecake for dessert. He liked the veggie burger so much that he had it again the next time we ate here. The cheesecake tasted good but the kids thought it was Playdoh and I can't get past thinking about how bad food coloring is for you (not that cheesecake is a health food anyway!)


I had the pasta with Italian sausage and the Oreo Mickey cupcake for dessert. The pasta tasted just okay. They forgot the breadstick that is supposed to come with it. In fact, I was halfway finished eating before I remembered it too. The Oreo cupcake was good though and this is the first I've seen of their cupcake cases. I wondered if they had these available at Starring Rolls in DHS where I love to get my Butterfinger cupcake to go. But they did not. Anyway, this cupcake was moist and delicious. It had a surprise filling. I may have been vanilla crème. There is also a chocolate version that I did not try.


The kids all ended up choosing the snack pack tonight. I didn't take a picture, but from memory it included a yogurt, a small PB&J snack bar, cheese flavored crackers, and carrots and grapes I think. It was supposed to come with a drink, but they didn't tell my husband when he checked out. I made him ask about it when he went to get my breadstick and he got the four kids size water bottles that came with it then. I have to say I was really not impressed with the service here and not just on this occasion unfortunately.

The kids were supposed to pick a small treat for dessert (after sharing our desserts too.) Marc ended up letting them have these Rice Crispy treats.


The girls didn't finish theirs, and Jacob wrapped most of his up for later but never ate it. Our kids are not used to so much sugar so I am glad that they often didn't finish all of the desserts!

 

[2Pirates2Princesses]

Joining in on your TR! I followed the link to read about Day 1 on your blog and I can't wait to read more about your family's Disney adventures. 10 days WDW and 7 days DCL sounds like an epic vacation! We are expecting our fifth baby soon so it always delights me to read about vacations of other large families with young children. I am going to try to read each of your other trip reports too.

 

[dr&momto2boys]

We were so fortunate to get connecting rooms at POP. I think that made our experience much better than having side by side rooms. Each room had two beds so the kids slept in one room and the we slept in the other along with the baby.

While I feel that the value resorts have as much Disney magic as the deluxe resorts, they do not have as big of beds! The beds are full or double beds versus the queen or king beds we have come to appreciate.

We brought along instant oatmeal, paper bowls, and plastic spoons for the kids' breakfast the days we're at POP. It was cheaper, faster, and healthier than using the food court. Mmmm! Doesn't it look, uh, delicious?!


We wanted to make rope drop or close to it this morning (even though we didn't have to dash off to any attractions thanks to our fast pass+ reservations) because we know it's less busy in the morning and it will be even hotter in the afternoon! So Marc and I got up first and got ready. Marc got us some breakfast from Everything POP... cause oatmeal from hot sink water is fine for the kids but not so much what I want.


So Marc brought back this bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich served on a bagel and a chocolate muffin just in case I didn't like the sandwich. I'm kind of picky, but I didn't like the sandwich. It's about what you'd expect for counter service food though. To me, it was tough to chew and just not tasty. The bacon was paper thin and tasted like paper too. Unfortunately, the muffin wasn't much better. The top was coated in so much granulated sugar that it was hard. I pulled that off and it took a bunch of the underlying cake with it. That part tasted good though.

Eating breakfast this way, we were able to just get the kids up 20-30 minutes before we wanted to leave and they could get ready and eat in plenty of time!

 

[ericstac]

Where did you get that family iron on?!?!?!

that is awesome

 

[dismom9761]

reading along and enjoying

 

[dr&momto2boys]

It's a good thing we weren't in a hurry when we got to Animal Kingdom! These people kind of popped out at us and lured the kids over to earn a Wilderness Explorer Badge (like from the movie UP!) They gave them pencils and booklets and told them to look out around the park for places to earn more. The kids never really got into it though because they were more interested in just going on rides.


Here is the rest of Day 2!

 

[dr&momto2boys]

Joining in on your TR! I followed the link to read about Day 1 on your blog and I can't wait to read more about your family's Disney adventures. 10 days WDW and 7 days DCL sounds like an epic vacation! We are expecting our fifth baby soon so it always delights me to read about vacations of other large families with young children. I am going to try to read each of your other trip reports too.

Thanks for joining in! Your family is beautiful! When is number five due? After reading this trip report you may understand why DH said, "It's a good thing number five was on the way before Zoe turned two!"
I'm pretty sure he was just joking though! Seriously, we had a good time and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Congrats on the new baby!

 

[dr&momto2boys]

Where did you get that family iron on?!?!?!

that is awesome

Thanks! And thanks for joining in! The design was made by Barb on the Disney Cruise section of the DISboards. She makes them for free, all you have to do is request and provide the details. She also designed the CD cover for me.

All I had to do was print the design on transfer paper and iron it on! (I used light transfer paper since I didn't want a border.)

The other designs for shirts and magnets came from kind people on the Creative DISigns section.

 

[dr&momto2boys]

reading along and enjoying

Welcome! And thanks for chiming in!

 

[ericstac]

Thanks! And thanks for joining in! The design was made by Barb on the Disney Cruise section of the DISboards. She makes them for free, all you have to do is request and provide the details. She also designed the CD cover for me.

All I had to do was print the design on transfer paper and iron it on! (I used light transfer paper since I didn't want a border.)

The other designs for shirts and magnets came from kind people on the Creative DISigns section.

Awesome! I will go hunt this Barb person down

 

[dr&momto2boys]

One of the best meals of the trip was at Yak & Yeti!

Besides being a nice cool place on a steamy hot day, the restaurant has a nice atmosphere. Sorry, somehow I didn't take any pictures inside or out (except for the food.)

They do not take the TIW card here. They do have a restaurant chain membership that gives you a discount. Can't think of the name, but it's the same company that owns Rainforest Cafe. We do have that card and received the discount. It's nice that they can look it up for you so you don't have to have the card.

The appetizers looked really good here, so we decided to order two and split an entrée.

Lettuce Wraps:


Spring Rolls with plum sauce:


Beef and Broccoli with brown rice: (after being split in half)


The kids were less happy with their meals, although I thought the choices were fine. They would have appreciated orange chicken or some kind of Chinese choice besides just a spring roll.

Both Jacob and Ella picked the spring roll which comes two choices for sides. Ella picked rice and fries? Jacob picked rice and fruit. Neither at much of the spring roll. It was not served with sauce. Finally we asked for some and Jacob ate most of his at least.


Zoe had chicken tenders, fries, and apple sauce of which she ate very little.


And Max had a hamburger, fries, and applesauce. He does not like Disney's applesauce though because it tastes so watery. He's used to unsweetened, so I'm sure his reasoning is correct.


I think the kids meals came with ice cream. Marc and I shared this:

Cream cheese dessert wontons. They were quite good! Better than the I remember the first time we tried them years ago. I'm glad we tried them again!

We left very satisfied.

 

[WDWaddictt]

Joining along...

Great TR! Wow five kids I don't know how you do it.

 

[2Pirates2Princesses]

Thanks for joining in! Your family is beautiful! When is number five due? After reading this trip report you may understand why DH said, "It's a good thing number five was on the way before Zoe turned two!"
I'm pretty sure he was just joking though! Seriously, we had a good time and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Congrats on the new baby!

Congrats on your new baby too! Our new baby is due New Year's week so we will be celebrating both a new year and a new bundle of joy I have to commend you on making all of those neat matching shirts and all the other custom goodies for your trip. To do all that along with planing your trip, caring for and adjusting to a newborn baby, and taking care of four other young children is truly inspiring