Is Three Months Enough Time To Plan a Disney Trip? Yes It is!!

[Aidan's Mommy]

Is three months enough time to plan??

Ha! I have been planning my next trip for the past 5 years! I just needed the dates and the money .

A little background of our travelers:

My DDad (Duane) who gave the final blessing on this trip (I will explain later). My dad is 62 yrs young and enjoys a good Disney trip every couple of years. He enjoys spending time with his grandkids and is a diehard Packers fan (being from WI, that's almost a given ). This is his 5th trip to Disney and first time staying onsite.

My DMom (Candy) who is a Disney lover like myself. She loves a good Disney movie, especially the older ones. She has always wanted to see Disney at Christmas time. She has been there in January, June and August prior to this trip. She helps us out a lot with watching DD and DS on certain days of the week. She helps feed into my Disney obsession..she's an enabler This is her 4th trip to Disney and first time staying onsite.

My DH (Vince) who enjoys going to Disney but isn't obsessed like me. (I know, what WAS I thinking....j/k Dear!!). He is the Director of Golf at a golf course here in WI so he works a lot of hours in the summertime and not so many hours in the winter. Unfortunately, it also limits our vacations to being in the off season and always in the winter time. We spent our honeymoon (12 years ago) at Disney World and on the Disney Wonder. It was ah-maz-ing. We had so much fun. We stayed at the Beach Club in the beginning of December and really enjoyed staying onsite for the first time (for me..it was his first trip there, but he had been to Disneyland previously). This is his 3rd trip to Disney and second time staying onsite (Beach Club and now ASMu).

Myself (Trish): Like I said previously, I am the obsessed one. I also like to plan things. I am a Supervisor in one of the health care organizations here in WI. I like my job but there are days when a Disney vacation just sounds SO much better! I am also the klutzy one of the family and when I injure myself, I do a "bang up" job of it. Most recent injury was last February when I slipped and fell on a small patch of ice and partially tore my ACL . Lots of Physical Therapy, lots of working out at the gym (I lost 12 lbs too! ) and finally it was not hurting all of the time. Will it hold up to all of the walking at Disney?! This is my 6th trip to Disney and third time staying onsite (Beach Club, Ft. Wilderness Cabin and now ASMu).

DS (Aidan) who is going to be 10 in January. He is very much like his dad and is pretty laid back but has a little streak of me in him when he cranky or in a mood. He can be kind of shy and really does not like his picture taken very much. He loves roller coasters to a point and loves Disney. He will watch any non-princess movie with me! LOL. His first time at Disney was for his fourth birthday. He and I went with my SIL and her niece the following year. We stayed at Ft. Wilderness Cabins then he loved it. It was his first time sleeping in a bunk bed and I think he was just as excited about that as going to Disney! I surprised him with that trip and we had a great time together. This was the March before I got pregnant with Kaia (in May) so I cherish the fact that we got to do a trip just the two of us. This his third time at Disney and his second staying onsite.

DD (Kaia) is going to be 4 in January. Yup, both kids in January..right after Christmas AND four days apart!! Thankfully we can get away with just throwing one birthday party right now for the both of them! We decided that we were going to celebrate their birthday a little early at Disney since it wasn't that far off. Kaia LOVES Cinderella and Mickey and his friends. She is also really getting into Doc McStuffins and Sophia. She is our little peanut (small for her age and seems smaller to us because Aidan is so big for his age) and she is also a little spitfire. She has a personality similarly like mine and knows what she wants and when she wants it (now of course!)

Here is a picture of all of us:



Coming Up: The Big Tease!

 

[ljcrochet]

Can't wait to read about your trip

 

[Aidan's Mommy]

Let me preface this post by saying that it has been my mom's dream to see Disney at Christmas time. She has been hinting and talking about it with my dad for quite awhile. They have been wanting to go as a family for quite some time, however my DH and I are pretty tight financially with student loans and having two kids .

My dad started getting travel deals in his email starting in about June/July that he kept forwarding to me and my mom. Stay at Disney and kids stay free, cheap airfare, Free dining at Disney..yadda yadda yadda. When we questioned him if he was looking to go to Disney he then figures that it's too expensive and we should wait another year. Another week goes by, more emails...<sigh> after about a month of this, we kind of cornered him down and asked him for a final decision because he is teasing us now. He kind of smirked (my dad has an odd sense of humor) and said to see how much different options would be and he would think about it.

So, onto the different travel sites I went! I searched through Disney, seached through Orbitz, searched through ebates through Orbitz. With airfare and tickets and the hotel we figured out that it was cheaper to just go through Disney, we'd get the free dining (we ended up upgrading ourselves to the regular dining plan because we stayed at a value) and then got our airfare through Southwest, who had a decent deal going on of $109 from Milwaukee to Orlando and $120 back (plus free luggage). We decided on staying at the All Star Music resort in one of their family suites instead of getting two different rooms. I was a little leery because I don't usually like sleeping on sofa beds but I figured we'd be exhausted by the end of the day, I probably wouldn't even notice.

Long story short, the deal I came up with was within my parents budget and we got the all clear to go ahead and book! There is just something about calling Disney and setting up your vacation that makes you feel like a kid again. We picked the dates 12/12-12/16 that way we missed most of the Pop Warner stuff and got free dining too. It was also near Christmas but not so much that the crowds would be insane. Since my parents wanted to enjoy some of the sit down restaurants and wanted to take Kaia to a princess breakfast, we decided to upgrade to the regular dining plan instead of the value. Money well worth spent! We also bought tickets to the MVMCP. My dad's only stipulation was he had to be the one to tell my kids. I did not have a problem with this at all...I was going to Disney!!

Coming Up:....and now we wait.

 

[Aidan's Mommy]

I have learned that I have zero patience when it comes to having to wait for vacations. We made our reservations and the end of September....and we have to wait until December!! Ugh!!

Some of the things that we did to help the time pass quickly for me..err I mean the kids is we created a countdown calendar. My mom has a Cricut machine and has a ton of Disney cartridges for it. The kids and I spent a Saturday over at their house picking out several different Disney shapes to put on our calendar for each day that passes. I didn't get a picture of September and October, but remembered to get one of November and December.


(not sure why this looks dirty in the picture

Every night when the kids got ready for bed, they would put a shape on the day to mark it. Kaia really got a kick out of this and it helped her keep count of the days we had left. We also picked a Disney movie to watch every Wednesday night and we coordinated our dinner around it. The first night, we watched Tangled and had Spaghetti (it was as close as I could get to long hair LOL). Another one is we watched Toy Story and had Pizza from "Pizza Planet".

We created our account on My Disney Experience and watched the days tick down on there too...then it was 60 days and we could order our Magic Bands! I knew I was going to get Pink, DH wanted Blue and Aidan wanted Blue, then Red. My dad also got Red, my Mom got Green and Kaia started with Orange, then wanted Blue, then decided she wanted Green. Once we got that set, we basically just waited until we got them. I swear that was the LOOOONGEST wait! They definitely could lessen the amount of time they give you to choose what color Magic Band you want.

Once we got our Magic Bands, I started following a thread on here regarding decorating your Magic Bands. I wanted to add a little bling to the girls bands so I got some sparkly nail polish, a top coat and then we added some rhinestones to them. We ended up getting a LOT of compliments on them. Here is a picture of them after I applied to the nail polish and started putting the rhinestones on. I will have to take another picture of mine and Kaia's to show you the completed bands.