Pre-Trip The big celebration trip

Hello! I'm new to these forums and this will be my first trip report of any kind. My family of 4 will be heading to Disney for 4 days and then will be heading over to Port Canaveral for our first ever Disney Cruise! Everyone is super excited, but I'm, what my hubby would describe as a bit 'obsessed' with the planning process. o_O

A little about us -
Me - I grew up in South Florida - I'd been to Disney many time, but never stayed on property though I've always wanted to. DH and I moved away from South Florida for 9 years but moved back in 2011. Both kids were born in Nashville TN and had never been to Disney until Nov 2013. Going with the kids made me fall in love with Disney in a whole new way. It was magical like it never was bef

My DH Edward of 11 years had been to Disney a couple times when we met in 2000 and we went with my mom and brother before we moved to TN. Like me, he fell in love when we took our kids for the first time.
DS 10 - Cristian and DD 8 - Nathalie both adore going to Disney and are always up for a day trip, a weekend away - whatever we can squeeze in between both our full time jobs.
 
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englanddg

englanddg

One Little Spark...
Jaly05 said:
Hello! I'm new to these forums and this will be my first trip report of any kind. My family of 4 will be heading to Disney for 4 days and then will be heading over to Port Canaveral for our first ever Disney Cruise! Everyone is super excited, but I'm, what my hubby would describe as a bit 'obsessed' with the planning process. o_O

A little about us -
Me - I grew up in South Florida - I'd been to Disney many time, but never stayed on property though I've always wanted to. DH and I moved away from South Florida for 9 years but moved back in 2011. Both kids were born in Nashville TN and had never been to Disney until Nov 2013. Going with the kids made me fall in love with Disney in a whole new way. It was magical like it never was bef

My DH Edward of 11 years had been to Disney a couple times when we met in 2000 and we went with my mom and brother before we moved to TN. Like me, he fell in love when we took our kids for the first time.
DS 10 - Cristian and DD 8 - Nathalie both adore going to Disney and are always up for a day trip, a weekend away - whatever we can squeeze in between both our full time jobs.
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TN eh?

One question. How bout them VOLS!
 
12in12

12in12

Well-Known Member
When are you travelling? Where are you staying? What are you celebrating?
Regardless of the answers I hope you have a wonderful time with your family!
 
Jaly05

Jaly05

Member
Original Poster
Omg I just realized my whole thing I typed up in word at 2:30am didn't make it over. Haha, that's what happens when you try to do something in the middle of the night because you can't sleep.o_O (Too much coffee too late in the day is not a good idea for me). I'm on my iPad now so not as easy to type up so I will share a little now and finish up later.

We are celebrating both kids birthdays. DS will be 11 at the end of September. Though DD's is in June she wanted a Disney birthday trip too. If we went in June too we wouldn't have been able to do the things we wanted to do for her and then 3 months later do the cruise too. She chose to have a small celebration with a couple close friends (read: cheap) and then it made it much easier to save up enough to be able to relax and not have any worries.
We will be driving up after work on Sep 9th and staying at the AS Sports. We were going to stay offsite the 1st night because we probably won't get there until 8ish anyway. But when I saw the ap discount for sports it was only $20 more than the hotel I was planning on booking. Even for DH it was a no brainer. Being able to have our bags transferred instead of having it in our hot car all day is well worth the difference let alone all the other reasons.

For the remainder of the stay we will be at the Boardwalk Inn. Staying at an Epcot resort is the ultimate dream for me. We originally booked POR but when the ap discounts came out it was POFQ so we switched. Then I was just pricing things because I like to see what's out there and saw the Boardwalk prices and wondered if I could make it work. Crunched our numbers and figured out dropping the dining plan and using our TIW card only ( we couldn't do free ddp anyway since we have ap) we could totally do it. Especially because DS is 10 so we were going to be paying adult prices for him when he still chooses kid meals most of the time. So we made the switch.
When I can get to my Mac I'll share the rest and maybe find some pics of the family.
 
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Jaly05

Jaly05

Member
Original Poster
Jaly05

Jaly05

Member
Original Poster
englanddg said:
Well, welcome to my household then. Half the family is Vandi, the other half UTenn...

<sigh>
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You need one of these!
2190404__15751.1404323791.1280.1280.jpg
 
Jaly05

Jaly05

Member
Original Poster
We are exactly 2 weeks away - and I am just hoping that it goes by as fast as the last 2 months have! Just looking at our plans and making sure we're doing the things we REALLY want to do. Since we live 3 1/2 hrs away and have AP's, we normally will go up on a Saturday early morning and either come back that night or early the next morning (I like to recover the next day so I'm not exhausted at work on Monday), we don't have any need to do and see everything and we really want to do the things we don't normally do - especially since its a celebration for both kids' birthdays. Lots of ADRs and character meals since we normally eat quick service. Our first day is really shaping up to be our busiest day but after that there's plenty of time to take breaks and slow down.
We LOVE breakfast - it's our favorite meal of the day and so we have planned breakfast and dinner and plan to snack in between. Here's what we have planned:

Day 1: Magic Kingdom
Breakfast-7:30am- 'Ohana -

DD has an appt at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at the same time DS has one at the Pirates League (we'll split off and meet back up when done)

Dinner-4:20pm- Cinderella's Royal Table

Wishes Fireworks Dessert Party

We have fastpasses for Buzz Light year, Space Mountain and Seven Dwarfs. I keep trying to get FP for Anna and Elsa for DD and tried a trick I'd read where I looked for just me and copy my FP to her...well I managed to find FP for me, but when I try to copy over for her, it's not available. I'll keep trying but if not, I'll copy mine back to theirs and she can decide if she wants to wait in line.

Just the way everything is timed, we'll be going all day - I know the kids can handle it as it's not much different when we go for 1 day.

Day 2: EPCOT

Breakfast-7:30am Cape May Cafe

Dinner-5:45pm - The Garden Grill

We have FP for Mission Space, Test Track and Spaceship earth

After we finish FP by 12pm we plan on going back to the Boardwalk, cooling off in the pool, hanging out and relaxing and heading back for Dinner and to enjoy the evening back in EPCOT.

Day 3: DHS

Breakfast-EARLY Boardwalk Bakery

Dinner-3:55pm Hollywood Brown Derby Fantasmic!

We have FP for Frozen, Star Tours and Toy Story Midway Mania and probably will take a break again mid day back at the hotel.

Day 4: Animal Kingdom

Breakfast 9:00am Tusker House

Late lunch/Early dinner: Flame Tree BBQ
FP for Expedition Everest, Festival of the Lion King and Kali River Rapids.

We'll leave around 4pm and hang out and I'll do some laundry and pack us up so we can head over to Port Canaveral for our 4 day cruise

Dessert at Beaches and Cream

I don't have as much planned out for the Cruise as I don't really know what to expect plus I want to relax. But here is what we do have planned:

Day in Nassau - No excursion. Plan on going to the Pirate Museum and then spending the rest of the day on the ship. We live so close and there's often deals for the Bahamas that we can go back any time.

Day on Castaway Cay - Bike rentals, Snorkel equipment and plan on just relaxing and enjoying the island.

Day on ship - Couples massage and Remy Champagne Brunch though I'm considering cancelling Remy's and trying to get Palo Brunch once on board. I know Remy's is supposed to be amazing, but it's so much more expensive - I don't eat seafood and I know there's a lot of it and I know they'll accommodate, but I jut don't know...very undecided.

Other than that, just planning on relaxing and enjoying the down time with no phones or email.

I am SO ready!
 

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