I'll Just Put My Random Ramblings Here...Feel Free to Read and Comment

Our second set of magic bands arrived today! We are getting so close even the kids are finally starting to get excited. I have a few updates, but since I am currently posting from my phone, it will have to wait. I just wanted to "check in".
 
15 more days until we leave!

OK, here's the latest twist...

The MK's hours have been extended until midnight on Saturday. My dad, the ever-nostalgic one, told me that his favorite time to be in the MK is at night, after dark. When dad purchased their park-hoppers, the MK was scheduled to close at 7 on Saturday which meant that they wouldn't have time to visit on their arrival day so he bought 6-day tickets. Now, he's really thinking about going to the MK after dinner to start off the trip. My mom won't want to be up that late, my sister and her family will be WAY too exhausted, and my DH isn't interested in staying out late since we are planning to rope-drop the Studios the following morning at 8am. That leaves me. I could keep dad company, probably sitting on a bench in front of the castle, watching the lights and taking in the sounds, and Kami (DD13) has said that she would come too, so she can spend some time "making memories" with Grandpa:love:. Since dad only has a 6-day ticket, he would have to add a day. I calculated the cost to be about $16 and he is still thinking about it. I think the plan right now is to play it by ear. If everyone is pooped, or if it's raining, I think dad's night in the MK will have to wait until later in the week.

I have to work 5 out of the next 6 days (5am-5pm each day) so not a lot of vacation preparation will be getting done this weekend. Next weekend, DH is working all three days (5:30am-5:30pm) so the girls and I will be on our own to get the house cleaned and ready. Then it will be time to start the final packing. We also have to make our annual spa appointments for pedicures and haircuts.

We're in the final stretch...time to start watching the weather:umbrella::sunny:
 
SUPER EXCITED!!!!:yay: We are in the home stretch:goodvibes.

The final preparations are being made...the suitcases are packed...well, most of them...DH won't start packing until tomorrow:rolleyes2.


Today started with a bang...I was jolted awake at 4:10am, freaking out because my alarm didn't go off. I work at 5am so I started running for the shower. DH asked me what was wrong so I started yelling that my stupid alarm didn't go off. He asked me why I was getting up so early....because I don't work on Thursdays:crazy:...so back to bed I went.

When I did get up at 6:30, I got the kids off to school and started with all the laundry that needs to get done. First load of bed sheets...done and in the dryer. Second load is blankets...currently in the wash. Then it will be towels, followed by all of the last-minute clothing that needs a final wash, like pajamas and my uniforms.

Tomorrow, I *will* be getting up at 3:30am so that I can get to work by 5am. I am scheduled until only 11am so hopefully I can get out on time. DH is taking the dogs out to the kennel sometime between 10-noon. After that, he will probably start packing:rolleyes:. Mom and Dad are picking up their rental car at 4:30pm. Then, Dad is driving the rental back to his house to load it up. In the meantime, Mom is picking us up at 4:45pm and dropping us off at the airport, hopefully by 5pm. On the way home from the airport, she is picking up my sister and her kids. They are going to head back to Mom's house, drop off the Tahoe and hop in the rental car with Dad. They are heading to Flint to spend the night before their flight on Saturday and my sister wants to let the kids have a little pool time before bed. My BiL will be driving their minivan with most of their luggage directly to the Flint airport on Saturday morning since their flight isn't until 12:30pm.

That's all for now...I have final preparations to make and a few errands to run.

Stay tuned....
 
Wishing you and your family a most magical trip! If you feel like typing a post trip report, I'd love to read it. Hope your dad finds a good bench for people watching.
 


Hanging out here at the airport...

We did EBCI and got A30-A33 for our first leg. Kam and I got TSA-pre while Kevin and Kaedy did not. Then, my bag of food failed the X-ray...because of the cheese slices:laughing:. They said they saw the solid block and had to check. The agent was super nice and even commented on what a great job of packing I did and he loved the powdered peanut butter.

For our second leg, we have A27-A30, but I'm sure our plane will have folks in it already since it is coming from Denver. I plan to try and catch a nap on that leg. I did manage a 2-hour nap this afternoon after work. DH managed to get packed (this afternoon!) and the dogs were super-excited to go out to the kennel in the country.

I will do my best to update...no laptop with me so everything is coming from my phone or iPad.
 
Time to catch up...

Arrived in Orlando on time at 11:10pm...headed up to the Hyatt where Kam gave us a great laugh. As we walked up to the check in desk, she looked around and said, "This place is a little too fancy for us common folk.":rotfl2:
I had requested a rollaway bed so that the girls wouldn't have to share a bed, but they informed me that a rollaway is not available for a double-queen room....so they upgraded us to a suite at no charge:cheer2:. That was WAY too fancy for us common folk;), and the girls still ended up sharing the bed because neither of them wanted the sofa bed. In the morning, we picked up Starbucks and ate breakfast in the room. I managed to get everyone out of the door by 9:45 and we headed down to Magical Express.

The line looked huge, but we waited for one family ahead of us to scan their bands and then we walked right on to our bus. We were on our way to the Boardwalk within 5 minutes:thumbsup2.

When we arrived, our room wasn't ready (it was only about 11am) so we left our bags with bell services and headed to Epcot. The F&W festivities were in full gear. It was barely 11:30 and there were already lines forming at the booths. We grabbed a sample from Ireland (cheese plate and chocolate cake) and ice cream floats from the desserts and champagne booth. At that point, Kami and Kevin headed toward a Future World for their TT and Soarin' fast pass rides, while Kaedy and I started back towards France for our Parisian Afternoon....I will get to that in another post.

The rest of the family landed early....about 20 minutes early, which is remarkable considering the flight is only supposed to be 2.5 hours. We headed back to the Boardwalk and met them when they got off the bus. Our rooms were both ready and we are pleased with how close they managed to put us considering the high occupancy right now. My family is in 4082 and they are right down the hall in 4069/4071. Once they got situated, we headed to Disney Springs for dinner. We had a great meal at Earl of Sandwich, but the crowd was a little too much for dad, so we headed back to the room. He was too tired to even think about hitting the MK for his late night...but don't worry...there is still more to come...
 
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Sunday morning...MY BIRTHDAY:bday:!

Amazingly, we got everyone up and over to the Studios by 8:05am:teeth:. We rode RnRC, ToT and TSMM, all without fastpasses and all before 9:15. It was Emilee's first time on ToT and she say with me. When it was over, I asked if she liked it, to which she replied, "Oh no, Aunt Kris....that was horrifying!" Grandpa asked her if she'd go on it again...."Papa, you have got to be kidding me":rotfl2:

Then we used our fastpasses for Star Tours, Frozen singalong (I laughed so hard I was in tears:laughing:) and The Great Movie Ride. At that point, it was about 1:00 and my kids wanted to swim so we headed back. The others stuck around to try and meet Olaf, but the line was over an hour, so they started back too.

At 4pm, we started the walk towards the front of Epcot. For those interested, our group of 10 (one stroller and walking-folks ages 8-68) going at a "purposeful" pace, took 30 minutes to get from the Boardwalk (not our room, the actual Boardwalk) to the entrance to Spaceship Earth. We hopped the monorail to the TTC and walked to the Poly. We arrived at 5 for our 5:30 dinner. Dinner was delicious, but there was nothing exceptional to report. We had a great time and we all left stuffed:drinking1.

We took the monorail back to the TTC and then the monorail to Epcot. We were hoping to ride Spaceship Earth before heading back, but the line was about 30 minutes and we had another early morning rope drop planned.

Up next....Monday morning....and dad finds his bench:cloud9:.
 



Yay! I love it! Also, happy belated bday to you. Sounds like you had a fabulous day! You were able to do so much in a short amount of time. Wow! I appreciate Emilee's review of ToT. DD and I are on the fence about this ride. We did not go to HS during our first WDW trip, but we are this time around. We will definitely do RNRC and Star Tours, but we might chicken out on ToT. Looking forward to more updates . . .
 
Oh boy...I certainly slacked off on the rest of this trip report:blush:...

I will try and load some pictures of the Parisian lunch from Sunday. Kaedyn really liked it and I was so proud of her for trying everything. She couldn't even finish her macarons:scared1:...and they were the whole reason she wanted to do the lunch. She discovered that she loves vichyssoise (good grief, did I spell that right?:scratchin) and she also learned that some things might look and sound terrible, but they are still worth trying because it might surprise you.

I will get into more details later, but one thing that Kim and I learned on this trip is that our husbands do NOT want to go again. About halfway through the trip, we realized that we had added two additional children to our group...and they were prone to meltdowns and needed frequent naps:lmao:.

On the flight home, Kim had a thought....she started planning a trip for 2018 which would not include our husbands. How fun! Me and Kim and our 4 girls who will be 15, 13, 10 and 7, taking a fall break and doing the MNSSHP:goodvibes. Of course, the wheels of planning started turning right then and there. I looked at my points' situation and realized that I will have enough points (195) to do 6 nights at AKV in a 2BR standard view in October. The plan was set....

...and then Kim realized that she has a wedding in NY that fall and will not be able to afford two trips:sad:. We decided to put it off until 2019, but it will be a little longer. Kim is planning on going down on a Friday and returning the following Saturday. My girls and I will come down on Saturday and we will stay that first night at Pop Century since I only have enough points for 6 nights at AKV. Kim is planning on Friday and Saturday at Pop Century and she said she will probably do non-park activities for those first two days. The plan was revised...

...and then we told Dad:teeth:...

...and of course, he wants to come too! Now, he and mom are planning on joining us:love1:. Remember how crazy my dad is:crazy2:? Well, let me tell you.... HE ALREADY BOUGHT PARK PASSES:faint:. UndercoverTourist had a deal going on and dad bought (2) 7-day park hopper tickets for a total of $838! My dad will be 70 years old when we go and he is as excited as a kid in a candy store:cool1:. He got the SWA Visa card so that he can use the points to pay for their airfare. He asked me how much I wanted for "his share" of the DVC points that we will be using. Yeah, right...like I am going to charge my family to come with us:rolleyes2. So, he said he will use whatever points he has leftover in his SWA account when the time comes and he will book our flights with his points to compensate me for using my DVC points for the lodging. He has even started his blog for this trip! It's so funny because he talks to me about it almost every time I see him, like we are going next year or something. It's funny because he and mom are taking a Panama Canal/Costa Rica cruise in February and he rarely mentions it! I think he would rather go to Disney World:earsboy:.

There's lots to do between now and 2019. My family (of 4) is heading to HHI for the first week of April. Then, in October 2017, one of my best friends is coming with me to AKV for her very first F&W festival. In October 2018, I am planning on taking my girls back to AKV. One of my other friends is interested in coming along and, ironically, it will be a trip that is exactly 10 years since she came along with me and the girls back in 2008.

So much planning....and a LOT of time to do it:tink:.
 

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