handicap18
<font color=blue>Husband, father of 3, and Disney
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2005
We spent 5 nights at the World from June 3-8. Our plane landed in MCO late on the 3rd so we really only had 4 full days in the parks.
This trip was planned kind of last minute. My DW wanted us to go as a family while we knew for sure that my health was good. That is because I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Rectal Cancer at the end of March 2012. I've had 49 chemo treatments (and still counting), 5 high dose radiation treatments, and 3 surgeries (the 1st to remove the main tumor, the next 2 to get rid of an abscess/infection). The last surgery was April '13 and it took 3+ to recover from that. The chemo I had last year (May-Dec) had stopped working. CT scan at the beginning of Jan '14 showed the tumors left in my liver showed they had started growing again. So in Feb '14 we changed chemo drugs. CT scan 7 weeks ago showed that this drug is working and the tumors have started shrinking again. Next CT scan is tomorrow (I get them every 6 weeks now).
So DW, being the worrier that she is said we needed to back to Disney sooner rather than later. At the end of March I booked our trip for the first week in June. I wanted to go at the end of September so we could go to MNSSHP, but DW was insistent on going while we knew I was doing well. So June it was. Not to bad because we got to go to Star Wars Weekend.
We flew out Tuesday night after school. This way the kids would only miss 3 days of school. Everything was uneventful. Since we were scheduled to land at MCO at 8PM, my plan was to get the luggage ourselves so we could have everything instead of waiting till 11pm or later for magical express to deliver our luggage. Well, we boarded our plan at 4:30pm and landed just after 7:30. Didn't think about dinner time for the kids. They had food on the way to the airport, but that was at 3pm. So after we got off the plane we stopped at Burger King so everyone could eat. By the time we got to the baggage area, our bags had been picked up. Oh well. We got the the hotel and since I did online check-in our room was ready and we spent all of maybe 5 minutes in the lobby to check-in there. We got to our room around 9-9:30. The kids watched TV for a while and ended up falling asleep. Our luggage didn't arrive till just after midnight.
Oh well.
So DAY 1 was spent at the Magic Kingdom. Our party consists of myself, DW, DS12, DD9, DS7 and DFIL (Father-in-Law). I had wanted to get to MK for rope drop, get a few character m&g's and ride a few rides before the park started getting busy. Because of one of the chemo drugs I was getting in '12 I ended up with neuropathy in my feet. It's not so bad that it keeps me from walking, but running and even light jogging is out of the question. If I do to much walking in a day my feet really hurt by dinner time. Because of this I rented a scooter for our trip. That made a huge difference for me. My feet almost never bothered me.
I picked up the scooter at 7:30am, but no one else was ready. We forgot to pack gluten free muffins for my DD who has a gluten allergy so we had nothing for her to eat for breakfast. We had to get her breakfast at the food court so that took up extra time. By the time everyone was ready, we didn't leave the resort till close to 10:00. My original plans were shot so we winged it till our first FP at 11:15. We watched most of the Castle show, then went and rode PoTC. It said it was a 45 minute wait, but we were in and out in 40 minutes. The line moved very quickly. After that it was time for our first FP. Me, DW and DD went to the Cinderella & Rapunzel M&G and my DFIL took the boys to Tomorrowland speedway for a FP there. I wanted to do the m&g because I was on a character hunt. I was looking to get 29 new (to me) characters to bring my overall total to 100. Rapunzel was first on my list. I had already met Cinderella on previous trips. After that we roamed around the new Fantasyland, then met up with the other half of our party and did our FP for Peter Pan then headed to Mickey's Philharmagic. Great show as always. The kids & DW had fun in the shop afterwards. Then we got some lunch. After lunch we headed to Splash Mountain for our next FP and we were running late then had to make our way through the crowd that had gathered for the afternoon parade. That took forever and we missed our FP time (even with the extra 15 minutes they give you we missed it). So we watched the parade then split up again. Me, DW & DS7 went standby at Splash Mountain, DFIL, DS12 and DD went to the little water slash area near Barnstormer. Standby at SM took longer than we expected. A lot of people got in line after the parade went by. But it was still fun. I have video from my GoPro, but haven't downloaded that yet.
After that we met up with the rest of our party for dinner at Crystal Palace. We have eaten here on every one of our trips. This is DW's favorite restaurant and she LOVES the Pooh characters.
After dinner the kids were pretty much done for the day, so DFIL took them back to the hotel. DW stayed a little while to shop and I stayed back to see how many new characters I could get.
At this point the scooter was feeling sluggish even though it was showing the battery was full. So I headed over to the Fairytale Garden, parked the scooter and got in line for Merida. Once I was done I walked over to Tomorrowland to see if I could get a FP for Tinker Bell. For some reason there was a huge line for the FP kiosks outside Buzz but across the way at Stitch there was no line at all for the Kiosks there. In less than 30 seconds the CM helped me get a FP (4th of the day) that started in 10 minutes for Tinker Bell. Walked back to the scooter and made my way to Town Square. Found a place to park it safely. Did my m&g with Tink, then decided to walk rather than chance the battery on the scooter. Made my way back up Main St and was able to get last in line for Tiana & Naveen. That was kind of a longer wait than I would have liked, but I made it. After that I wasn't sure if Gaston was still doing m&g. Walked over there. He wasn't, but I took some handheld night shots of the new Fantasyland area. Then found the line for Minnie & Daisy was a 5 minute wait and Donald & Goofy was 10 minutes at Storybook Pete's. So I got all them then made my way out of the park. Caught the end of MSEP. Snapped a few quick shots as I was walking. Found the scooter and sloooowly made my way to get bus. Barely got up the ramp but made it. When I got back to the hotel I rode by the luggage area the guys there said hi and I made a comment about making my way very slowly even though the battery showed full. They said to check the dial for the speed. DOH!!!! Apparently the kids were playing around with it and dialed it to the slowest possible speed. I never even noticed. I sped up back to normal and called it a night.
As for my character hunting.... 5 new characters, 9 overall for the day (I've already had my picture taken with the Pooh gang at CP).
This trip was planned kind of last minute. My DW wanted us to go as a family while we knew for sure that my health was good. That is because I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Rectal Cancer at the end of March 2012. I've had 49 chemo treatments (and still counting), 5 high dose radiation treatments, and 3 surgeries (the 1st to remove the main tumor, the next 2 to get rid of an abscess/infection). The last surgery was April '13 and it took 3+ to recover from that. The chemo I had last year (May-Dec) had stopped working. CT scan at the beginning of Jan '14 showed the tumors left in my liver showed they had started growing again. So in Feb '14 we changed chemo drugs. CT scan 7 weeks ago showed that this drug is working and the tumors have started shrinking again. Next CT scan is tomorrow (I get them every 6 weeks now).
So DW, being the worrier that she is said we needed to back to Disney sooner rather than later. At the end of March I booked our trip for the first week in June. I wanted to go at the end of September so we could go to MNSSHP, but DW was insistent on going while we knew I was doing well. So June it was. Not to bad because we got to go to Star Wars Weekend.
We flew out Tuesday night after school. This way the kids would only miss 3 days of school. Everything was uneventful. Since we were scheduled to land at MCO at 8PM, my plan was to get the luggage ourselves so we could have everything instead of waiting till 11pm or later for magical express to deliver our luggage. Well, we boarded our plan at 4:30pm and landed just after 7:30. Didn't think about dinner time for the kids. They had food on the way to the airport, but that was at 3pm. So after we got off the plane we stopped at Burger King so everyone could eat. By the time we got to the baggage area, our bags had been picked up. Oh well. We got the the hotel and since I did online check-in our room was ready and we spent all of maybe 5 minutes in the lobby to check-in there. We got to our room around 9-9:30. The kids watched TV for a while and ended up falling asleep. Our luggage didn't arrive till just after midnight.
Oh well.So DAY 1 was spent at the Magic Kingdom. Our party consists of myself, DW, DS12, DD9, DS7 and DFIL (Father-in-Law). I had wanted to get to MK for rope drop, get a few character m&g's and ride a few rides before the park started getting busy. Because of one of the chemo drugs I was getting in '12 I ended up with neuropathy in my feet. It's not so bad that it keeps me from walking, but running and even light jogging is out of the question. If I do to much walking in a day my feet really hurt by dinner time. Because of this I rented a scooter for our trip. That made a huge difference for me. My feet almost never bothered me.
I picked up the scooter at 7:30am, but no one else was ready. We forgot to pack gluten free muffins for my DD who has a gluten allergy so we had nothing for her to eat for breakfast. We had to get her breakfast at the food court so that took up extra time. By the time everyone was ready, we didn't leave the resort till close to 10:00. My original plans were shot so we winged it till our first FP at 11:15. We watched most of the Castle show, then went and rode PoTC. It said it was a 45 minute wait, but we were in and out in 40 minutes. The line moved very quickly. After that it was time for our first FP. Me, DW and DD went to the Cinderella & Rapunzel M&G and my DFIL took the boys to Tomorrowland speedway for a FP there. I wanted to do the m&g because I was on a character hunt. I was looking to get 29 new (to me) characters to bring my overall total to 100. Rapunzel was first on my list. I had already met Cinderella on previous trips. After that we roamed around the new Fantasyland, then met up with the other half of our party and did our FP for Peter Pan then headed to Mickey's Philharmagic. Great show as always. The kids & DW had fun in the shop afterwards. Then we got some lunch. After lunch we headed to Splash Mountain for our next FP and we were running late then had to make our way through the crowd that had gathered for the afternoon parade. That took forever and we missed our FP time (even with the extra 15 minutes they give you we missed it). So we watched the parade then split up again. Me, DW & DS7 went standby at Splash Mountain, DFIL, DS12 and DD went to the little water slash area near Barnstormer. Standby at SM took longer than we expected. A lot of people got in line after the parade went by. But it was still fun. I have video from my GoPro, but haven't downloaded that yet.
After that we met up with the rest of our party for dinner at Crystal Palace. We have eaten here on every one of our trips. This is DW's favorite restaurant and she LOVES the Pooh characters.
After dinner the kids were pretty much done for the day, so DFIL took them back to the hotel. DW stayed a little while to shop and I stayed back to see how many new characters I could get.
At this point the scooter was feeling sluggish even though it was showing the battery was full. So I headed over to the Fairytale Garden, parked the scooter and got in line for Merida. Once I was done I walked over to Tomorrowland to see if I could get a FP for Tinker Bell. For some reason there was a huge line for the FP kiosks outside Buzz but across the way at Stitch there was no line at all for the Kiosks there. In less than 30 seconds the CM helped me get a FP (4th of the day) that started in 10 minutes for Tinker Bell. Walked back to the scooter and made my way to Town Square. Found a place to park it safely. Did my m&g with Tink, then decided to walk rather than chance the battery on the scooter. Made my way back up Main St and was able to get last in line for Tiana & Naveen. That was kind of a longer wait than I would have liked, but I made it. After that I wasn't sure if Gaston was still doing m&g. Walked over there. He wasn't, but I took some handheld night shots of the new Fantasyland area. Then found the line for Minnie & Daisy was a 5 minute wait and Donald & Goofy was 10 minutes at Storybook Pete's. So I got all them then made my way out of the park. Caught the end of MSEP. Snapped a few quick shots as I was walking. Found the scooter and sloooowly made my way to get bus. Barely got up the ramp but made it. When I got back to the hotel I rode by the luggage area the guys there said hi and I made a comment about making my way very slowly even though the battery showed full. They said to check the dial for the speed. DOH!!!! Apparently the kids were playing around with it and dialed it to the slowest possible speed. I never even noticed. I sped up back to normal and called it a night.
As for my character hunting.... 5 new characters, 9 overall for the day (I've already had my picture taken with the Pooh gang at CP).
who knew. We got a family picture with Goofy and Donald, then went out and the line for Buzz & Woody was real small, so we did that for the kids. Again DD was in heaven. Great interaction with them.
