A 2nd Chance to do "The First Time" - April 2013 Pre-trip report!!! (Post trip -4/29)

[gtpoohbear]

First of all, after thinking some more about our day 7 plans (which I posted last), I decided that I just don't think it's worth spending a 3rd night at MK, just to catch an earlier Wishes. Especially since Owen probably isn't going to tolerate the fireworks anyway.

I'm pretty sure by that by that time in the week, DH and Lily will have stayed to see the 10pm Wishes (since they will have already had 2 opportunities). The main reason we wanted to stay at YC was so that we could have dinner at Epcot on a bunch of nights, so giving up one of them for a dinner at LTT (which I was "meh" about), and a show that Owen is too scared to watch... seemed dumb.

So I moved our Biergarten ADR to that night (instead of lunch on our last day), and we'll hopefully have some time before or after to hang out at Epcot, maybe explore some of the World Showcase or F&G festival. I like that plan a lot better.

Now... onto our last full day

Day 8: Thursday, April 25, 2013

It's another amEMH, at Magic Kingdom this time!!

No plans for breakfast, so we'll have to get room service or grab something from the Marketplace (I showed DH their menu, and despite his no-CS rule, got him to agree that it *might* be okay to do once for breakfast. So we will see!)

My main agenda for the first hour is Space Mountain Like many of the thrill rides, I haven't gone on it in years and years. Probably not since I was a kid! On our First Trip (2008), Lily was scared of all the coasters after a bad experience on BTMRR, so we skipped the rest. Thinking, we'll be back in a couple of years and get to do them, surely! But then I ended up being 6 months pregnant on that next trip, so STILL couldn't do any thrill rides! This had better be MY YEAR, lol!

We'll have to take turns of course, with Owen (hopefully they will let us use child swap). Still not entirely clear on which rides are open during amEMH, but I'm pretty sure the TL Speedway and Buzz Lightyear are, so those might be good diversions to do with Owen while we are waiting.

Eventually, we'll be heading over to Liberty Square, and Frontierland, but they don't open until regular park-opening at 9am. So if we happen to still have some time after SM, we may do a couple of the Fantasyland rides again.

DH and Lily will want to do Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mountain, but since neither of those are good options for Owen, I may take him on the Riverboat, and then to Tom Sawyers Island. (I'm not that interested in Hm or BTMRR, so it's not worth trying to take turns) If they finish in time, they could join us on the island for a bit.

Then I'm hoping to see Country Bear Jamboree. For the simple reason that, in all my trips to WDW, I've NEVER experienced it! It was always something that just never quite made it into actually happening, though we always talk about it. Not sure if Owen will love it or be terrified of the dancing, singing, animatronic bears, lol!

At 11am, there will be the Move It! Shake It! Celebration. Hopefully we will be done with all of our other plans in time to see it. Again, any way that I can have some character experiences without Owen being overwhelmed.

It should end just in time for lunch, and luckily the location will work out perfectly, because... FINALLY, on our last full day, we get to eat with my Pooh Friends at Crystal Palace!!! This is one of my absolute must-do meals. The food is fine, nothing spectacular, but I love the atmosphere, and of course getting to meet Pooh. (Though I'm hoping to sneak in a couple of other chances to meet him earlier in the week too)

(Lily on the left, her cousins on the right)

After lunch, I would really like to stay for the Dream Along with Mickey show at 1:15, hopefully the meal will recharge us enough that we can hang around for it. We really loved it on our First Trip, but I don't think we managed to see it last time.

Then comes the moment of sadness. Time to head back to the resort, after what is likely our last time at MK. (If we REALLY want to, we could come back over here tomorrow morning for a bit, but I'm not really planning on it at this point.) Hopefully we will have gotten to do everything that was important to us by now. But I'm going to be sad regardless.

The only other plans for the afternoon/evening are a lengthy break (as usual), and dinner at Teppan Edo, which DH is super-excited about. I'm a little worried about Owen though - if they cook right at your table, and involve flames at all, he's probably going to freak. We often go to a Mongolian grill here (HuHot), and when the flames erupt, even from across the room, he always panics. But DH really wants to go, so we'll hope for the best.

Other than that, like last night, we'll have some time in the World Showcase. The kids each got Epcot Passports in their Easter baskets, so these nights will be a good chance to work on getting them stamped at each of the countries. And Lily is interested in doing one of the Phineas and Ferb missions in the World Showcase too, so we'll try to fit that in, either last night or tonight. And of course Illuminations will be an option again tonight too.

(I think these may be left over from the F&G festival, though it was long done by the time we were there in June 2008. It was the closest we got to "meeting" Snow White that trip- she was playing hard-to-find apparently!)

The last night is always so hard though. On our First Trip, we spent the last night watching Wishes from the beach at the Poly after our only nighttime swim, and lamented the fact that had to leave in a matter of hours. It was hard to even enjoy it.

Last time, we spent the evening at MK - EMH until 2am!! Kinda crazy, but since we were leaving the next day we just decided to go all out. It was better to be occupied with something more active, at least. My then-9-yo-neice stayed with us the whole time, the rest of our group went back around 11pm. No pmEMH anywhere tonight though, so we'll have to settle in at a normal time.

(Took at picture of the clock at the Train Station as we were leaving MK just for proof, and you can tell it's dark, so it REALLY was 2am!!)

But we still have a good chunk of the day tomorrow to finish up before heading back to MCO (and reality, lol!)

So here I am already feeling sad that my trip is "practically over," and it's still 17 days away

 

[Elleshoodat]

I know my plans probably freak some people out, but I now know from experience that we are NOT go-with-the-flow types. Our day goes much better when we know exactly where we need to be and when. You know, I always feel just a little bit like a traitor when I "mix" Disney and Sesame Street stuff - he probably would never have even known who Elmo was if we hadn't gone to a Beaches resort a couple of years ago, and they have the Sesame Street characters there. I worked for months to get him familiar with them before we went, now when he still wants something Elmo related I'm like, REALLY??? Why not Mickey Mouse???

LOL! I am the same way.

So here I am already feeling sad that my trip is "practically over," and it's still 17 days away

Aww. I understand how you feel, but that's the joy of writing a PTR and a TR. You get to live your trip three times!

 

[gtpoohbear]

Aww. I understand how you feel, but that's the joy of writing a PTR and a TR. You get to live your trip three times!

Lol, that is VERY true! And I'll do a big scrapbook too, so that's another time I've actually come to appreciate the anticipation of the days and weeks leading up to the trip a lot more, seeing how fast the trip itself goes. Sometimes looking forward to it is almost as much fun as living it. What I need to work on appreciating more is probably the remembering part, instead of just being sad that it's over. Maybe that will be my goal for this trip

 

[gtpoohbear]

Day 9: Friday, April 26

So here we are, at our VERY LAST DAY.

The last day has historically been somewhat disastrous for us. [Quick history lesson] On our First Trip (2008), we spent this morning at Animal Kingdom. The problem was that we had already done all of the stuff we were really interested in on our other day there, and we ended up wandering around, doing a few things, but it was kind of "bleh". And we made the mistake of taking Lily (4yo at the time) on Kali, where she got soaked, and was NOT happy about it. There were several arguments about what to do, a couple of meltdowns...Basically, it was our least favorite part of the whole trip, and it was the last memory from it. Not really the way I wanted it to end.

On our last trip (2010), I thought I had a better plan. A nice character breakfast at Ohana, then some swimming time back at the resort. (Remember that at least some of us had been at MK until 2am) Since the ILs were with us, I figured they cousins would like some time to play and swim, while we leisurely got packed and checked out. It sounded much less stressful, and like a much better way to end things. It would have been a good plan. A GREAT plan. Except that Lily left her autograph book, that she had so proudly collected over 30 signatures in, at breakfast. And of course we didn't realize this until we were back at CBR. Long story short, swimming time was replaced with a frantic cab ride back to Poly, which was still not successful at finding the book, and there were tears. Lots of them. By both of us. Again, a last-day disaster.

So I have a little bit of anxiety about this day. I REALLY don't want a repeat of either of our previous "last days". I had thought at one point that maybe a "last day" is just impossible. Maybe it would be best to just have a quick breakfast and then head to the airport for a mid-day flight. However, neither of my plans for today ended up working out like that.

Originally, we were scheduled to fly home at 8am, so we would have had to leave on ME at 5am. Not even time for breakfast at the hotel! This was making me very sad. The tickets were dirt-cheap, but it was such a shame to not even have any time that morning!

So finally, I stumbled upon another really good deal for tickets, on Southwest. And we wouldn't have to leave until the evening, so I went ahead and booked it, and was able to mostly use points to cover it so it cost almost nothing OOP. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about the early morning tickets I had already bought (on United), but I guess I'm just chalking it up to the price I pay for a bad decision. In the grand scheme of things (and compared the the total cost of the vacation), the $$ wasted on those tickets is insignificant.

We don't have much planned for today yet - I thought it would be good to allow time on our last day to make-up anything we had missed, or repeat some of our favorites. As much as I LOVE having a set plan, I don't want to feel like we had to miss something important because there was no time for a second chance.

Hopefully our plans for the rest of the week will go off without a hitch, but if we end up missing something because of weather, technical difficulties, illness, etc, we have another shot at it today. (By mid week, as we figure out what we want to do, I'm sure the neurotic side of me will go online and make a touring plan, even if it's last minute )

I do have an ADR for breakfast at Cape May, at 7:30am. (There are no amEMH anywhere today, so all the parks open at 9am). Of course we'll have to check out, and check in for our flight before we head out for the day. Depending on how the character meals have gone the rest of the week, it's possible we'll cancel this one as it gets closer. But it's the only character meal in all of WDW that I've never done, and since we are staying at YC this time, it might be my last good chance to do it.

Our flight leaves around 6:30pm, so we'll need to be back to YC by around 3pm. No set plans for lunch, but I'm hoping that we can "eat around the world" at the F&G snack booths. I was skeptical that DH would be on board with this idea, but when I showed him the menus he actually seemed excited. So, if nothing else is pressing, we may just spend the morning at Epcot, exploring more of the F&G stuff, give the kids some time in Innoventions etc. Maybe squeeze in another ride on Soarin' if we're lucky

Lily doing a Velcro activity in Innoventions in 2010

The other possibility that seems likely is that we'll want to head over to MK for a few hours, but we could still maybe take the monorail back to Epcot for lunch. I actually want to be sure that we get to ride the monorail at least once, because I know Owen would enjoy it. So if it hasn't happened yet, we'll be sure to do that today.

I don't seem to have any pictures of the monorail, this one is from my PP CD.

And of course more pool time might be an option too, if we are park-ed out by now. Especially in the afternoon. And that's about it. I've had to severely resist the urge several time to go ahead and plan this day out, and commit us to a park. But I think we'll appreciate having some freedom, and hopefully all this "extra time" will just be icing on the cake, since all of our favorites have a "time" somewhere else.

Our flight arrives in Denver around 8:30pm, which isn't too bad, except that it's 10:30pm Florida time! And we still have a 2-hour drive home. We will actually be leaving our car at the hotel we stay in the night before we leave... so if we are desperate, we'll just get a room for the night again and drive home in the morning.

I would say that it's nice that the next day is Saturday... but it's a busy one! Lily actually has a swim meet here in town that morning, but I'm not sure how much her coach will let her do, having been gone for 9 days. And then her swim team is also doing a 5K run that evening! Welcome back to reality, lol!

Those of you from the April thread already know that there has been much stress lately about DH's job, and there are likely some major changes coming our way after we get back. So I've had a hard time even thinking about Disney this week until today. But I've mostly worked myself out of my funk and am back to counting the days. 15 of them to be exact And of course time will continue to move slower and slower for each one of them!

Here is the most recent version of my spreadsheet, I think I've made some minor changes in the last week or so.

 

[gtpoohbear]

10 days until Disney World!!!

And only 9 days until we officially "leave". Can't remember if I posted this yet, but we are going to drive up to Denver on Wednesday night (4/17) and spend the night near the airport.

It's been a very stressful week here at home, and I've only really been excited about the trip in brief spurts. Which is making me sad, because the anticipation in the last few weeks is so much fun, and I feel like I'm missing it!

DH found out that his office here in town is (most likely) being closed, which (long story short) means that we might have to move to San Fransisco. But we still don't know all the details yet, and the uncertainty is DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! I actually told DH this morning that he wasn't allowed to talk about it any more until we know whether or not it's happening. He is obsessing over it constantly now and I just can't take it!! If I obsess over something to that level, I get attached to it. And then when it doesn't happen, I'm horribly disappointed, even though it completely defies reason to be. It happened last year when they threatened to make us move. Right now, I think I'm fine with doing either (staying or going) but I just don't want to think about it anymore. I WANT TO THINK ABOUT DISNEY, DANG IT!!!

I'm also worried about Lily. For one, she's been a bit sick. We've gone all winter without getting so much as a cold, and now, barely a week before our trip, she's sick. Hopefully there is just enough time for her to get better. And just enough time for the rest of us to catch it and be sick when we leave. I know, I should be so negative, I just can't shake the feeling that SOMETHING is going to mess up this vacation. I've never had that fear before, for some reason.

She's also been having some real attitude/behavior problems for the last week or so, and I'm about at my wits end! I'm hoping that being a little sick has been affecting her mood, and she'll be back to normal soon. But.... she's also just starting to act like a constantly-annoyed-preteen-drama-queen. There may not be a cure for that for quite some time. i just hope she can relax while we are at Disney and remember to have a good time. And let the rest of us too.

Well let's see, we did get to go to Disney on Ice this weekend!! It was good. Lily was being a bit grumpy (big surprise), but I think she did enjoy it, and Owen was totally mesmerized. He only got restless near the end during the princess part, of course! He is all boy, for sure. The show was Treasure Trove, so it had all sorts of stories in it. Peter Pan (Owen said that was his favorite part, seeing Hook get eaten by the crocodile, lol!), Alice in Wonderland, Lion King, Tangled, Incredibles, and a few more I think.

We have started always making sure the kids bring some sort of appropriate toy from home when we go to these things, totally takes away the temptation to buy some silly thing from the stands in the lobby. Owen brought his stuffed Mickey Mouse, and Lily brought her Julie American Girl doll, dressed in the Minnie Mouse outfit that the Easter bunny brought Neither even glanced at the souvenir stands, and were quite smug that "their toy" was WAY better than what anyone else had, loL!

So anyway, this is our last full week at home, and we won't see much of DH. Tomorrow night he has a mountaineering class, which he will leave straight from to go to Denver for the night, and then is flying out early Wednesday morning to San Fransisco. (The trip is unrelated to the possible move, but needless to say, I'm hoping that being out there will give him a chance to find out some of the details we need to make our decision)

He gets back late Friday night, then has mountaineering class again most of the day Saturday. Then we have a (surprise!) birthday party to go to Saturday night. I hope that he has a chance from Sunday-Tues of next week to recover, because he is going to be exhausted. They usually stay out late partying every night while in SF, but he already admitted this morning that he needs to cut back on that this trip!

 

[danceintherain]

10 days until Disney World!!!

We have started always making sure the kids bring some sort of appropriate toy from home when we go to these things, totally takes away the temptation to buy some silly thing from the stands in the lobby. Owen brought his stuffed Mickey Mouse, and Lily brought her Julie American Girl doll, dressed in the Minnie Mouse outfit that the Easter bunny brought Neither even glanced at the souvenir stands, and were quite smug that "their toy" was WAY better than what anyone else had, loL!
!

What a good idea about the toy. I'm thinking of doing something similar for our trip. At the very least, I'm thinking that we'll take G to Downtown Disney on our first night and let him pick out something special. I'm sure we'll buy him a few other things throughout the trip, but hopefully that will be the BIG thing and we'll let him take it or one of his toys from home with us into the parks. Usually I try to keep his toys at home, because he tends to leave them places when he gets distracted. I'm always trying to keep what I'm carrying to a minimum, but I think one thing should be fine, especially since we should have most of the basket under the stroller available.

 

[gtpoohbear]

I haven't been updating this week, mostly because I have been in a bit of a funk. I am trying very hard to work myself out of it and be excited, but not having much success yet.

Every little thing seems to irritate me to no end, and then I get irritated that I'm irritated, because on some level, I know I'm being irrational. And then I'm very irritated that I feel like I'm missing out on the last-minute anticipation because it's always so fun. And I'm irritated that I'm letting that irritate me too, it all just snowballs!

So, maybe if I type it all out, I can get it off my chest and let it go. Feel free to skip the following vent, it's mostly for my own sake

DH is in San Francisco this week. I was hoping he would find something out about the future of his office here, and we could have some answers about whether or not we will be moving, but I haven't even gotten so much as a text message from him since he left on Tuesday, so I can only assume things are as up-in-the-air as ever. I know the stress of all this uncertainty is playing a big part in my constant irritation. I almost lost it last night when I saw on FB that he was at a special after-hours event at this really cool museum in SF that I've been drooling over for months. I've never felt jealous before when he's gotten to do cool stuff. Maybe I'll feel better once he's home tomorrow.

Besides that, I'm stressing over the forecast for next week - it looks pretty dreary. I was imagining us sitting by the pool in the warm sun every day, not huddled up under our rain coats shivering!!! Oh, and here in Colorado it's supposed to snow the day before we leave, and possibly the day of. Just watch, we won't be able to make it to Denver for our flight.

We are also all on the verge of being sick, I can just feel it coming. I'm probably going to make myself sick from being so stressed out, and then I get stressed even more when I think about that! I keep having strange little pains here and there and start imagining the worst... I probably have cancer, or at least an infection or some sort, or I have a tooth that's about to erupt and need an immediate root canal...I know that's all ridiculous, but it's adding to my stress level nonetheless.

And my arthritis medication has gotten tied up in some insurance red tape, and I probably won't end up getting my next dose before we leave. I'm already overdue. I was in so much pain on our last trip (couldn't have meds since I was preggo), I thought for sure I wouldn't be dealing with the same thing this time!

Shouldn't really be stressful, but it is given my current state - but I suddenly got it in my head that when we go to visit my family in May, I NEED to make a quick trip back to Orlando and stay in one of the Royal Rooms at POR. I have no idea where that came from, I've never had any interest in that resort at all, but I can't shake the urge. And I go back and forth on whether we should do it, multiple times per day. Or hour. It's a 4 hour drive from Naples, would end up costing a pretty penny... is it worth it to ease a bit of Disney withdrawal that is sure to have kicked in by then??? I get stressed every time I start thinking about it now. I don't even know if my parents would be interested, and I don't want to bring it up until I've made up my own mind about it.

And then there's just all the normal little daily stressors that have been unusually hard to deal with this week. I just have to keep telling myself 6 MORE DAYS!!! It will all be okay. I think I have just put so much pressure on myself for this trip to be perfect, and be The Most Magical Vacation Ever, that I'm freaking out a little at the thought that it might not be. I need Faith. And Trust, and Pixie Dust, right???

Okay, got that all off my chest, I feel better already!

I have done a LOT of switching around on our plans, mostly because AK changed their amEMH day. So we are NOT going to AK on Earth Day after all. No, I have not mentioned this detail to DH yet, because I haven't talked to him since I found out. Maybe if he would CALL me like he promised to, we could have discussed it first... oh wait. I was feeling better. Well he'll have to deal with it anyway.

So, here is the updated spreadsheet.

This way, we aren't really committed to anything the morning after the dance party, we can see how we feel when we wake up. If we do sleep in a bit, we'll probably skip the afternoon break and head to MK after lunch instead. We did lose our "free day" on our last day, but I think I now have more free time built into each of our other days, or at least a few of them, so hopefully it will work out.

I have to actually start thinking about packing soon! I won't really PACK until Tues-Wed, but I need to be caught up on laundry, errands, last minute necessities, etc.

Lily decided that she wanted some nice dresses to wear to a few of our dinners, not really costumes but dresses that resembled some of the princesses. I ordered a yellow (Belle), blue (Cinderella), and pink (Aurora) one, but the pink one doesn't fit so we are back to the drawing board there. And if she is going to be dressed up for dinner, I guess I should find some polo shirts and khaki pants for Owen, yikes! Nothing like waiting until the last minute

Once I get it all sorted out I'll post some pictures.

Okay, that's probably enough for now. I feel much better than I did when I started writing this so I think it has been therapeutic. I just need to keep Disney on the brain and shut out everything else!

 

[gtpoohbear]

Well I am feeling MUCH better than yesterday, or the rest of the week for that matter! DH is home, which helped immensely. The forecast for Orlando is looking a tad bit better, I'm a little less paranoid about health-related issues, and am actually starting to feel excited again! (Oh, and nothing is settled on the move-situation, but it's looking more and more likely that we will be San Francisco bound this summer. Just having a little more direction now is making me much less stressed about it! We'll worry about the details when we get back from our trip.)

So.... 5 more days!!! It's almost time to start packing!I think I've finally got everyone's wardrobe worked out, well especially the kids. They are each bringing 12 Disney shirts (more than I was originally planning, but oh well!) Lily also has 3 dresses, and I got Owen a couple of nice polos and some khaki pants.

Here are Lily's:

The dress on the left is a D-Signed one - the made by Disney, but not obviously Disney brand. She is probably going to wear it to our dinner at Yachtsman, and then to the Dance Party at DHS. I had ordered a really pretty pink one but it didn't fit The yellow one she will wear to BOG, and the blue is for CRT. All of her clothes pictured are now under "quarantine", lol! She isn't allowed to touch them before the trip to keep them from getting damaged, shrunk, or disappearing. She has a whole closet full of other stuff, so she's good until then.

Owen's:

He hasn't tried on the new polos and pants yet, but hopefully they will work, which will mean we are all set! Unfortunately I can't "quarantine" his clothes until Monday or Tuesday, since the shirts you see pictured here represent almost his entire wardrobe I think he currently has 2 other shirts he can wear that are non-Disney, so hopefully we'll make it to next week without any clothing disasters.

I probably won't be taking any special 'Disney' clothes this time. I used to almost always wear a Disney shirt, but I've gotten to be very set in my ways the past couple of years, and have a certain "uniform" (as DH calls it) and I'm just not comfortable wearing anything else. Here is a peek of my closet just to give you an idea...

Black pants or capris, stretchy cami-tank (w/ built in sportsbra ) and solid color short sleeve tech-shirt. (the kind that are very thin and dry fast, I can't stand to be wet!). Quite often, I am all-black, and DH accuses me of being "goth" I think I'm pretty far from, lol! I'll try to make sure I have at least some color on me every day though.

DH has a few Disney shirts, not sure how many he'll want to bring. Some of them are older and a bit too big for him. (He's lost a lot of weight in the past few years and doesn't like to wear a lot of his older "Large" shirts. I haven't managed to build up a very big stock of Medium ones for him yet.) I imagine he'll end up wearing Adobe (work) t-shirts at least a few days, but they aren't too obnoxious at least.

I think I have almost all the other odd-n-ends that we will need, except for OTC meds. I need to stock up on a few things. It makes me feel better to know I have anything we could possibly need on hand while traveling.

At some point, I have to get the kid's "nap fairy" stuff organized, but I have to wait for a time when Lily isn't here and Owen is asleep or otherwise occupied. I'll have a brief opportunity on Tuesday, so hopefully I can get it done. Lily will be getting a set of the Mousekears each day, and Owen will be getting a different Stitch figurine.

I talked to my parent's yesterday (it was my Dad's birthday). Disney is a bit of a sticky subject with them. They both asked a little about the trip, and I could tell there was a bit of tension, but they are also excited that we are coming down there in May to see them, so I think it will be alright. My mom of course, considers herself an "expert" in all things related to BC&YC (even though she's never stayed there), and Epcot in general, so kept trying to tell me all about the IG, and Illuminations, etc. As if I couldn't possibly have any idea already, lol!

We are off to a surprise birthday party for a relative tonight, for which I had to make a slideshow, it's one of the last "stressful things" before our trip (though I'm sure it will be fun too!) Then on Monday, have to take the dog to the vet. Hopefully the rest of the next 5 days will be filled with nothing but Pre-Disney Bliss!!!

 

[Riles_and_Gabe]

Glad to hear that you are feeling better about stuff! You look so organized with the clothes. I wish I could be that good. I like to makes lists...but than I lose them . How exciting that you might be moving to San Francisco! It is on my bucket list of places to visit.

 

[gtpoohbear]

Glad to hear that you are feeling better about stuff! You look so organized with the clothes. I wish I could be that good. I like to makes lists...but than I lose them . How exciting that you might be moving to San Francisco! It is on my bucket list of places to visit.

Haha, it's just an illusion, I usually feel anything BUT organized! I'm so bad at making lists, I guess I just don't have the patience for it. Instead I just try to jump in and start organizing without one, but chaos quickly ensues.

I'm kind of excited about the idea of moving - a little overwhelmed too. I just wish we knew for sure. The uncertainty is driving me nutty!!!

 

[gtpoohbear]

3 days to go... and what a day it is.

I had mostly calmed down over the weekend from some of my earlier stress. Then first thing this morning I get a text form my sister that she *just so happens* to be staying at CSR this week for a seminar and wants to meet up for dinner or something.

THIS is why I was supposed to be keeping the trip a secret from my whole family. It is very hard to explain them, but they are not the easiest people to be around, and everyone's stress level goes through the roof when we have to all be together. Plus of course they totally do not understand how we have the whole trip planned out, it's not that easy to just drop everything and go meet for a few hours.

DH was not happy. Okay that's an understatement. He threw a massive 4-year-old-style temper tantrum.

This is a no-win situation for me. I'm going to make someone mad, and probably everyone since no matter what happens they are all going to feel shorted somehow. So I don't know. I haven't committed to anything with anyone, and there is only a tiny bit of overlap when we will both be there anyway (unless she gets it in her head to try to add a day to her trip so she can "hang out with us longer"...sigh.) But I'm kind of hoping it just won't work out to meet at all. I wouldn't mind seeing her for an hour or so, but I'm not sure it's worth another meltdown by DH.

But now I am back to being a ball of stress and can't even focus on the stuff I need to do to get ready!

As if that wasn't enough on my plate....today, April 15, 2013, is a rough day for my family anyway.

You may recall that on our last trip (2010) we brought all of my in-laws with us - DH's parents, sister, and her 3 kids (OT - but a fact which I reminded DH rather heavily of when he was so upset about the possibility of my sister showing up).

It wasn't really ideal being in such a big group, but I never regretted that decision because it had seemed like the right thing to do, and the cousins enjoyed getting to experience it together. Lots of family memories for sure.

But at the time, we had no idea that we had less than 2 years left with my FIL. One year ago today, he died rather unexpectedly.

It has been a very hard year, to say the least. There are still many days when it doesn't seem real, it even seems ridiculous really!

But we've made it. A whole year now. A whole year of not having anyone to solve our problems for us, not having anyone to come running over to our house at the first sign of trouble to fix something. A whole year of the kids missing their Grandpa.

And now we are about to go back to Disney World, and do all those same things that we did with him last time.

When doing our initial planning over a year ago, this week was actually my first choice for when to go - I was thinking maybe 4/13-4/21. So we would have been there now. But after his dad died on 4/15, I thought maybe it would be best to wait a few days. I didn't want the stigma of the date putting a damper on our trip. And that was probably wise.

As the minister who did his funeral told us, "Don't avoid travel because he's not here and you think he would have LOVED that. Travel. Go. See the world in his memory, BECAUSE he would have loved it." So that is what we are going to do.

Today we are all a little sad and stressed and apprehensive about what our future holds. But I hope to goodness we can let all of this go on Thursday morning and truly make this The Most Magical Vacation ever!!!

I'm not sure if I will be posting another update before we leave Wednesday afternoon, but I will definitely post a recap when we get back.

 

[danceintherain]

I'm sorry about your FIL. It's always rough to lose people.

Lily's dresses are adorable! I definitely like that approach better. I'm not a huge fan of the Disney made princess dresses.

In your sister's case, I'd probably tell her that she can meet you somewhere. Don't plan on going out of your way. Since she'll likely have a car, have her meet you for a meal outside the parks (maybe add her on at Yachtsman?) and be firm when you have to leave.
Or just tell her no...if that's what you prefer. She'll get over it eventually.

As for the clothes...I've struggled for a long time with trying to perfect my wardrobe, and I actually found something online that has you pretty much pick 3 colors and ONLY buy clothes in those colors, so everything always matches.
I've had a problem in the past of buying clothes that I hardly end up wearing...

 

[Elleshoodat]

Big hug! I hope all of your stresses melt away and that you and your family have your most magical trip yet.

 

[gtpoohbear]

Well, we are back. I'm not sure that I'm going to do a full trip report, maybe in a few weeks when things settle down a bit I'll think about it. But I thought I'd give just a quick summary of our trip here.

I said many times in the report that I am a planner, and that my family does much better when we have a set plan and follow it. We had done that on our two previous trips, and it worked great. I loved not having to think about details at the time, or make any decisions while we were there. The thought of "going with the flow", or doing anything "spur of the moment" made my stomach clench with anxiety. We NEED a plan, simple as that. We LIKE having a plan. And following it. And I thought I was pretty darn good at making plans that would work well. Especially with all the research and careful thought I put into them. Surely this trip would be no different.

(Sound foreboding yet???)

I don't know what happened this time. Maybe I've lost my touch, and can't make a reasonable plan anymore. Maybe it's different with 2 kids. Maybe it's different having a 2-year old. And an attitude-challenged 9-year old. Maybe the stars just weren't aligned right.

But my plan totally fell apart by the 3rd day.

All of our park days got switched around. All but a few dinner ADRs got switched around. (And remember, we had ADRs for almost every meal for the whole week).

The biggest problem came down to sleep. I don't know why everyone (especially DH and DD) were wearing out so quickly. Our schedule was no more ambitious than our previous trips, and with Lily 3 years older, and DH in MUCH better physical shape, I figured it would no problem at all. But, such was not the case.

By our second day, DH was acting like he was going to fall asleep standing up, and the kids were both falling asleep on the bus. I sighed, and asked DH if we were going to be able to make EMH at AK the next morning. He said he didn't think it was wise. So... there was no point going to AK on an EMH day if we weren't going to get there early.

And the great shuffle began. I think we ended up going to Epcot that day instead, which meant we didn't want to go back there the very next day (when we had planned), and everything got moved around in the ripple effect. We ended up not going to any of our other planned EMH mornings, and didn't even make RD most of the time! It drove me a little crazy, to be honest. We never have trouble getting up early at home, and never have before at Disney either. Still not sure what went wrong this time.

So, long story short, we didn't get to do everything I had wanted, because we had a lot less time in the park, and missed a lot of the prime-touring times when the lines would have been shorter. But, we did still get to do a lot, and the kids had a lot of fun.


Speaking of the kids... Owen was very nervous about most of the rides. Even by the end of the trip, he still cried every single time we got on.Though he was usually okay once it got going. The only rides he got on happily were Small World and anything that resembled Dumbo. (Flying Carpets, Triceratop Spin, etc.) And he was deathly afraid of the fireworks. I know before the trip he said he didn't want to see them, but his reaction (even when seen from outside the park at a large distance) was far more extreme than what I expected. We had several stressful nights trying to get back to our room while Illuminations was going on, and on more than one occasion, he ran screaming into the building like he was being chased by a demon. So... no 4th of July fireworks for us this year, lol!

But, on a good note, despite my worry, he LOVED meeting the characters. The first couple of meetings he was a little shy at first, but after that he went right up with no hesitation at all, and was always asking to meet someone else. So, he definitely had a good time. Just this morning, he climbed into my lap and started asking if we could go to Disney World today, sniff, sniff.

Lily had fun too, but as I was afraid of, she spent much of the trip in an uptight funk. I don't think this was Disney-related, it's just how she has been for the last few months. Hopefully it's just a phase. she really enjoyed the pool though, and really loves all the thrill rides. She bought a Duffy bear near the beginning of the trip, and carried him EVERYWHERE for the whole week. And she got to meet "big Duffy" on our last full day too

Fortunately, with all of our plan-changing, I had pretty good luck moving our ADRs around last minute, and there wasn't really anything I wasn't able to get that I really wanted. We never got to Tutto Italia, but only because we had less total time in Epcot than I had planned. (Probably my biggest regret, there was a LOT we didn't get to do there, even though it was the closest park to our hotel). And we ended up not doing Crystal Palace, because we had already had a couple other chances to meet Pooh, and decided that the character meals were not working out so well for us.

We DID get to do a few restaurants that I hadn't planned - Kouzzina for breakfast (twice), since we gave up on getting to the parks so early it worked out well. And we did our very last meal at Liberty Tree Tavern - it was good and SUPER FAST! We were in and out in less than 40 minutes. We also had one dinner at The Wave. It was nothing special, but I'm glad we did it just because I think it has cured me of my urge to stay at Contemporary next time. It's fun, but doesn't quite hit the spot like I was thinking it would.

Speaking of resorts, YC was okay. There was nothing really "wrong" with it, but it wasn't really my style. I think it was a little too quiet and "stuffy" feeling. Honestly, I don't think anything other then Poly is ever going to make me happy. I told DH that if we ever go back, I'm done trying out new resorts, I want to go there again.

And yes, I know, I did say "IF" we go back. Actually, I'm sure we'll go back eventually. But I'm not in a huge hurry right now. Maybe in 3-5 years. And if we do end up moving to San Fransisco, we might have to become DisneyLAND fans instead.

So, I guess the biggest question is, was the trip everything I thought it would be? And I have to say that it just wasn't. Don't get me wrong, we had a LOT of fun, and made a lot of good memories, but it definitely didn't recapture the Magic of the First Time. But I'm kind of okay with that now. There were a lot of valuable lessons learned and a lot of good memories that we brought home.

And I'm actually MORE excited now about the Tinkerbell Half-Marathon at DL next January. The thought of trying something totally new seems much more appealing than it did a few weeks ago. Now I just have to train for it...

And last, a few of my favorite memories from the trip:

One of our first character meetings, Mickey was so sweet, and Owen was just awed! I was so afraid that the characters were going to scare him, and so pleasantly relieved that he enjoyed them. I've never actually met Mickey at m&g before, I thought it was much better than at character meals.

After our second evening in Epcot. We watched the American Adventure show (which I hadn't seen since I was a kid, and REALLY enjoyed!), then listened to a little bit of the Village People Concert. Probably my favorite evening of the trip.

Probably the single-best moment of the trip - at H&V, as we were being seated, Jake was just coming up to our table, and played peek-a-boo with Owen from behind a post. I've never seen Owen so excited about something, it was PRICELESS!

One evening, we were watching it rain and worried that all our plans would be "washed out", but instead of whining, the kids cuddled in a chair on the deck and said they were having "bonding time". One of many lessons learned on this trip.

One of our favorite afternoons - we toured Epcot for lunch, stopping at 5 of the F&G snack kiosks. Everything was delicious and unique! It was also the first warm day after 3 straight days of cold and rain, so we were all on a bit of a "high".

Dinner at Be Our Guest - what an awesome experience! The food is only "okay", but it's worth it just for the atmosphere. The Beast loved Lily's yellow dress. He thought she looked like Belle, and was practically falling all over himself, even the CMs were laughing at him.

At Animal Kingdom, while DH and Lily were riding Everest, Owen wanted to meet the Pooh characters. We ended up being first in line, and since Owen was wearing a Tigger shirt, the CM called Tigger as he was coming out, and had him come escort Owen down to the greeting area! It was a long walk too, and Owen was beaming the whole time.

Leaving Magic Kingdom, headed back to YC to catch ME. The only reason I say this is a "good' memory, is that we finally broke the LAST-DAY CURSE!! Those few hours at MK were some of our best of the whole trip. We did a lot of attractions we had never done before, and really enjoyed, and everyone was mostly in a good mood

Okay, I could keep posting pictures all day, but I'll stop there. As you can see, despite the frustrations with our planning, we really did have a lot of good times.

 

[danceintherain]

I'm sorry your plans didn't work out very well, and especially that you didn't get to go to your flagship restaurant. My trip was eerily similar.
Traveling with a two year old is definitely rough, but I had a more difficult time wrangling the other adults.

Yay for great character interactions though!