First off a word of warning… If you are looking for a quick read, this ain’t it. I’m not gonna lie and I’m not even going to try to cut it down. This written account is primarily for me and for my son and I type it as I think of it. I write like I speak, for better or worse, so if you want to ride along on the train of Disney excitement and obsession, keep reading J
This trip had its origins in 2006. When my mom passed away from lung cancer in 2005 I realized, as a mom to 2 young boys, that I didn’t really have forever and any day could be “it.” My own first memory was of my mom telling me my father had been killed in a car accident. I was 5. My next memory was of my mom & I sitting in the “tiki room” and me being afraid of the storm and mom putting her arm around me, assuring me it would be okay. I’m guessing that was 1972, sometime in the months after my father’s passing. As traumatic as the loss of my father surely was, at the age of 5, I didn’t have any comprehension of what that really meant. My mom said Daddy was safe in Heaven and that was that. When I consider my first memories, it is always the tiki room that comes to mind. In 2006, I knew that I wanted to give my sons memories they could look back on and smile and what better place to do that than in the World.
At that point, my son Zachary was 8 and still in the child years as far as Disney pricing was concerned. Also, he was oblivious to the ways of air travel and it would be much easier to surprise him so he was chosen to be the first for the “Mom & Me Disney trip.” I did tell my older son Brian, who was 11 at the time, what I was doing, where we were going, and why. I told him that since he was my “big kid,” he would get to know about his trip ahead of time so that he could help me plan what we would do but that he was to help me now be the secret keeper for Zachary.
I got Zack all the way to the airport, through security, sitting at the gate as the sun came up before he realized where we were. (I’d given him a slightly bogus story about me borrowing some luggage from Ms. Adie & Ms. Lisa on my last girl’s weekend and that I had to send it back to them. “Since the people who were taking it to them were leaving early, we had to meet them early” ;-) So, we’re sitting there at the gate, sun coming up and Zack said “mommy, there’s a plane!!” I smiled and asked “how’d you like to get on that plane and go to Disney World?” He said “no, I want to go with Brian & Daddy.” I gulped. Loudly. I said “well, we have tickets to go on this plane to WDW today,” to which he replied, “no I want to wait and go with my family.” (I’m thinking “what am I, chopped liver???”) I was dying inside trying to figure out how I was going to drag a screaming 8 year old onto this dang plane heading to WDW!!!! Keeping in mind this was a mere handful of years after 9/11 and I’m pretty sure forcing him would not go well. I sat there for a few moments, stunned and finally said “well, if we go on that plane to WDW *today* we can ride Buzz Lightyear as many times as you want.” He said “o-kay” and I breathed the first big breath of the last 5 minutes. Crisis averted. We went down for 3 nights, 4 days and had a blast, despite a day of the stomach bug I endured. Thank Heaven for Disney channel in a pinch. I’m really mad at myself that I didn’t do a full-fledged trip report but time has a way of getting away from you. Somewhere, I’m pretty sure I have notes jotted on napkins & notebooks, and I do remember the important things.
Now, cut to two years after that amazing surprise trip with my younger son. I had plans tentatively in place to take Brian Jr that year but life intervened. My husband & I split and because I worked for his family business, I ended up quitting my job to keep my sanity. Any money that I’d saved up for Brian’s trip got re-routed (temporarily?) to getting back on my feet as a single mom. Each new milestone gave me hope that I’d get Brian there but the years passed and he stopped saying “yeah, you never even took me on my Disney trip.” He said it jokingly and I assured him that it would happen but it had been 8 years as of last winter, when I finally brought it up and told him I’d starting planning it for “either next spring or next fall IF all goes well”. I’d developed a tentative budget (while stuck home on infinite snow days last school year) and we’d start putting money into envelopes to save for each category. He saw I had $400 but knew the trip would be well over $2,000 by the time 2 adults went for a proper amount of time for having waited 9-10 years. This was in February 2015. In late April 2015, I had agreed to work summer school after having been asked 4 times prior. I finally agreed thinking “God must be telling me ‘take the job, you’re going to need the money.” I live in a 115 year old house so was thinking “what’s going to go ka-blooey on the house next?!” That was on a Friday and on Saturday it occurred to me that between this and some sub jobs for my sister, maybe I really could make the trip happen. Sunday, I crunched the numbers and decided that if they offered the free dining plan in late June, early July as they had in prior years, I would look into booking the trip for the fall. I was excited about the possibilities and told both my roommate that night, and my Disney friend at work on Monday morning. I got home from work THAT DAY and my roommate greeted me with “guess what??!” I found out they had released the free dining plan for fall bookings THAT DAY and I spent the next hour on the phone speed dialing. I got through to Disney and was able to book for 5 nights at Coronado Springs, Sept 16-21. I had planned on all-stars or Art of Animation but neither were (supposedly) available so I jumped on CS. Although this wasn’t somewhere I particularly *wanted* to stay, I do eventually hope to stay at each resort so I figured I could cross this one off my list and also score the regular dining plan that included the table service meals for my growing son. Brian will be 21 a month after our trip so sit down meals seemed like a good idea. And yes, I was fully looking forward to a character meal or two. I didn’t care if he WAS almost 21, this trip was due when he was 12 and darnit, I was going to have fun with my kid (whether he liked it or not!!! ;-)
NOW, the fun part comes…..trying to keep my big-disney-loving-mouth-shut and not spill the beans. FOR FOUR MONTHS. Thank Heaven for my Disney obsessed roommate. She didn’t flinch when I went on endlessly with “we’re going to do this, go there, eat here, try this.” (In fact, she now has a trip planned for next year for her, her son, DIL and granddaughter who will be 6… you’re welcome Disney. Lol) I had planned to tell Brian of this trip exactly 3 weeks prior to our leaving but ended up jumping the gun by only a week due to a family party. Everyone else knew of the trip and I was afraid they would slip.
I planned on a deceitfully exciting unveiling of the surprise, as befitting a 9 year wait but yeah… no. On that Wednesday night I said “I need to talk to you both.” I told zack he needed to walk over to scouts on his own and Brian “you wait here in the house a minute.” Brian immediately asked “who died?” I said NO ONE. He asked “what’d we do??” and I had to turn away and walk out the door or risk a face splitting grin. I am SOOOOO not the person you want in on the joke ‘cause I can’t keep a straight face to save my butt. So I walked outside to the sidewalk with Zack and with both our backs to the house told him I was taking Brian for his trip in Sept. He started grinning so I turned to face him (toward the house) so that Zack wouldn’t turn around himself. With zack grinning at me, I couldn’t keep my face from lighting up and I had a feeling Brian was watching from the window so I quickly ducked into Zack’s ‘shadow’ so to speak. I got it back together and told Zack, “wait here a second while I go tell Brian.” He wanted to know why he couldn’t come in too so I told him he could as long as he could keep a straight face!!! So we walked in and Brian was standing RightThereByTheDoor. He said “I think I know what it is ‘cause Zack’s grinning but if it is what I think it is, mom would be much more excited.” Zack, Dude, what happened to keeping a straight face!!!??? Rofl
I quietly, calmly turned to Brian and asked him what he thought it was. I figured for sure he knew it was the Disney trip ‘cause Jen & I were often talking Disney stuff, I’d taken brian shopping for new shorts & t-shirts at the *end* of summer, had 3 different Disney shows on my DVR that we constantly scrolled past.” But ya’ wanna know what he said??? You really wanna know??? When I asked him what he thought it was that doofus said “we won the lottery.” Bwahahaha, yeah right. Kinda took the wind out of my sails a little but I showed him the WDW countdown on my phone that said 28 days and said “we’re going on our Disney trip in September.” He stood there, without grinning, just looking confused and said “how are we going?!” I stared at him a few moments, and said “umm, we’re *flying*… what do you mean, ‘how are we going?’” He said “I’m ADD/lack of executive functioning but I need the backstory.” Turns out he meant “how are we affording this expensive endeavor,” but I laughed at him and told him “this isn’t quite as bad as Zack’s initial reaction but this is SOOO not how I envisioned this.” He IS excited but in that understated, “I’m almost 20 and not going to go skipping through the tulips with Disney excitement” kinda way. Geesh, you’d’a thought I taught him better than that. Lol
So here we are with 2 days before our trip. Okay, fine, 1 day, 17 hours, 47 minutes and 12 seconds…11 seconds…10 seconds…. Okay, focus, Amy, focus. Today is Monday and I’m off work for the Jewish holiday. We leave at the butt-crack of dawn on Wednesday. Awakening around 4:20, leaving for BWI airport at 4:30 (yeah, I’m not a morning person, don’t need wake up time, just throw on clothes & go), breakfast a la Dunkin Donuts. Flight leaves via SW at 6:25 arriving in MCO at 8:40. We’re taking Magic Express to CS. I’ve done the pre-check in so am hoping they’ll have us assigned a room prior to our arrival so we can drop our stuff and hit the ground running.
I did tell Brian “there’s to be no growling or hissing at me when we get up in the morning at any point. You have an unlimited coffee budget, just get up & get moving!!!” I also told him he has to ride all the various rides with me. ALL of them. ANY that I declare non-negotiable. I asked him last week “you’re going to ride Dumbo with me, aren’t you?” (said with sad mommy eyes) He just looked at me. I pleaded. I cajoled. He finally said “yeah, probably.” I said “no, not good enough, I’m spending thousands of dollars on this trip and you are going to enjoy *everything*, J … I need a definite YES on Dumbo.” He finally said yes and I replied “dude, I don’t DO Dumbo, so you’re off the hook.” He just rolled his eyes. Rofl That’s the amazing thing about going with my son as a 20 year old. We laugh, we joke, we discuss, we argue but we have fun together. He knows I’m a Disney dork and he tolerates it. He may rethink that as the week progresses. Time will tell.
Since it has been 9 years since my last real trip to WDW I have enjoyed extensive planning. I’m taking full advantage of fast pass, ADR’s, trying to milk the time for all its worth and hit everything on my must-do list but still have a relaxing fun time. (I think there was a family girls extended weekend trip in there somewhere but that was more a go-with-the-flow trip) I’m guessing this will be my last Disney trip with either of the boys until they are grown with kids of their own. I did tell Brian that I have everything planned as far as which parks, which restaurants but that things are up for discussion… to a point. I think he’ll go with the flow I’ve got planned, I’m just worried about the whole waking-up-and-getting-going part of the deal. He’s not much of a morning person either.
When we arrive on Wednesday, Brian will definitely be jonesing for food so we’re going to check out Café Rix first and foremost. Then off to Hollywood studios for fast passes at Star Tours, Tower of Terror and Toy story mania later that night. He was always afraid of ToT in the past, as he NOW says I told him someone disappeared from the ride. It’s so funny how kids interpret things they hear. We did watch the ToT movie this week to get in the Disney mood. We have ADR for 50’s Prime Time Café, one of my all-time favorites and top of the must-do meals. I am hoping to do Fantasmic. I didn’t know if he remembered it from our trip when he was 10 but I mentioned it and he asked if that was the one where they put the movie on the water. Guess they really do pay attention sometimes. Lol
On Thursday, it is my fondest wish to *finally* get to see the opening show at the Magic Kingdom. The last 2 family trips in 2003/2004, we camped in a popup at Fort Wilderness and just never made it early (or even on time for opening, come to think of it J) It is Extra magic hours so perhaps not my greatest planning but it worked out on paper so we’ll see. 7:40 at the turnstile at MK… can it be done? Stay tuned.
I did score ADR at Be our Guest for breakfast and have pre-ordered our food. This was set up just 3 weeks ago or thereabouts, so if you are in search of BOG reservations, don’t give up, just keep checking. I also managed to tweak our FP times on a few of the non-7-dwarfs-mine-train rides ;-) I hope to see the Trolley show at MK this day as well. We have FP for Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and a visit to the dwarFs (by the way, anyone know WHY they didn’t name it 7 dwarves mine train?) Lunch will be counter service somewhere with dinner ADR at ‘Ohana that evening. After our full travel day and getting up early this am, we’ll be heading back to the hotel room after our 7pm dinner.
Friday will be a mixed day of Animal Kingdom in the am, followed by Epcot in the afternoon. We have FP for Festival of the Lion King, Kali River Rapids & Expedition Everest. Brunch will be counter service with ADR at Via Napoli for a late lunch. Planning on Illuminations that evening.
Saturday takes us to 1900 Park Fare for our character meal (Mary P is my favorite!!) then back to Hollywood Studios to finish up whatever few things we didn’t get to on Wed. We have FP for Rock’n Roller Coaster, Lights/motor/action and MuppetVision 3-D. If we managed to get everything done on Day 1, this will be a Downtown Disney day with a side of DisneyQuest. See I can be flexible. Lol
Saturday afternoon we’ll head over to MK to knock out more stuff and Celebrate the Magic, with Wishes and Main Street Electrical Parade. Not sure that we’ll watch the whole parade, I just need to get a little MSEP fix with the lights and music before we keep rocking the attractions. I need to scope out the best vantage point to get a gander and then go ‘cause I know there are some places where you get locked in by the parade. Good thing I thought of that ahead of time.
Sunday Brian finally gets to SLEEP IN!!!! That is *exactly* what it says in my little notebook. I showed it to him on paper so that he knows that I did plan some down time for him to catch his breath. Lol We have ADR at Whispering Canyon Café at 12:35 so he truly doesn’t need to be up and running before 11am. My Disney friend Maria knows my mantra is “we can sleep when we’re home!” or “we’ll sleep when we’re dead,” depending on my mood. After his lazy morning and lunch at Wilderness Lodge, I have tentatively planned for Epcot in the early afternoon followed by MK for ADR dinner at Tony’s Town square. Then we get to enjoy the Halloween Doin’s with Mickey & friends. I’ve been to MNSSHP 2 times prior (my cousin Jeff makes such an awesome Cruella that even *she* was impressed. Lol) but Brian has never been. I’m especially looking forward to the headless horseman leading the parade and then seeing HalloWishes after seeing the sweet version of Wishes the prior night. I told him the other day that I’d bought him “his costume.” He was leery until he saw it was a black t-shirt with a neon green skull on it. He can live with that. lol
Monday brings a dose of reality when we have to check out of CS and then head to (tentatively) MK for FP at Big Thunder Mt, 7 dwarFs mine train and Tomorrowland Speedway. I’m hoping we’ve already done all these attractions by this point but who knows. We have for the airport around 4pm for our flight home at 7:10. I will then have to drag my sorry, tired butt to work the next morning but have off that Wednesday for the Jewish holiday, followed by 2 more days of reality before the weekend.
The new restaurants for both of us this trip are: Via Napoli, Be our Guest, ‘Ohana, Café Rix, Tony’s Town Square.
Attractions new to both: Toy Story Midway Mania, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Expedition Everest, 7 DwarFs mine train, Turtle Talk w/Crush, Seas w/Nemo & Friends, Finding Nemo/the musical and Under the sea/Little Mermaid.
Attractions new to him will be Tower of Terror, Lights/motor/action, Halloween parade & party, Mission Space, Stitch’s great escape, Dinosaur, and possibly Star Tours. Wow, I didn’t realize there were SO many things new to either him or me. I’m going thru fits of excitement today but still have a few more things on my to-do list. I’ll admit that I’ve been totally packed since yesterday (not counting my sons 2 missing-brand-new-pairs-of-shorts-I-bought-him-a-few-weeks-ago L) Speaking of which going over to their house (they now live with their dad 10 min away) to go thru piles of possibly icky teen laundry was SO not how I wanted to spend my day but if that’s what it takes to track down said missing shorts, I will do so. Lol
And FYI: I could apologize for my pre-trip report being so long but you were warned. If you hung with me this long, more power to you. I hope that I can share a bit of the Disney magic and help others with their countdown excitement along the way. Stay tuned for the rest of the story, next week or two. Thanks for reading!!!
This trip had its origins in 2006. When my mom passed away from lung cancer in 2005 I realized, as a mom to 2 young boys, that I didn’t really have forever and any day could be “it.” My own first memory was of my mom telling me my father had been killed in a car accident. I was 5. My next memory was of my mom & I sitting in the “tiki room” and me being afraid of the storm and mom putting her arm around me, assuring me it would be okay. I’m guessing that was 1972, sometime in the months after my father’s passing. As traumatic as the loss of my father surely was, at the age of 5, I didn’t have any comprehension of what that really meant. My mom said Daddy was safe in Heaven and that was that. When I consider my first memories, it is always the tiki room that comes to mind. In 2006, I knew that I wanted to give my sons memories they could look back on and smile and what better place to do that than in the World.
At that point, my son Zachary was 8 and still in the child years as far as Disney pricing was concerned. Also, he was oblivious to the ways of air travel and it would be much easier to surprise him so he was chosen to be the first for the “Mom & Me Disney trip.” I did tell my older son Brian, who was 11 at the time, what I was doing, where we were going, and why. I told him that since he was my “big kid,” he would get to know about his trip ahead of time so that he could help me plan what we would do but that he was to help me now be the secret keeper for Zachary.
I got Zack all the way to the airport, through security, sitting at the gate as the sun came up before he realized where we were. (I’d given him a slightly bogus story about me borrowing some luggage from Ms. Adie & Ms. Lisa on my last girl’s weekend and that I had to send it back to them. “Since the people who were taking it to them were leaving early, we had to meet them early” ;-) So, we’re sitting there at the gate, sun coming up and Zack said “mommy, there’s a plane!!” I smiled and asked “how’d you like to get on that plane and go to Disney World?” He said “no, I want to go with Brian & Daddy.” I gulped. Loudly. I said “well, we have tickets to go on this plane to WDW today,” to which he replied, “no I want to wait and go with my family.” (I’m thinking “what am I, chopped liver???”) I was dying inside trying to figure out how I was going to drag a screaming 8 year old onto this dang plane heading to WDW!!!! Keeping in mind this was a mere handful of years after 9/11 and I’m pretty sure forcing him would not go well. I sat there for a few moments, stunned and finally said “well, if we go on that plane to WDW *today* we can ride Buzz Lightyear as many times as you want.” He said “o-kay” and I breathed the first big breath of the last 5 minutes. Crisis averted. We went down for 3 nights, 4 days and had a blast, despite a day of the stomach bug I endured. Thank Heaven for Disney channel in a pinch. I’m really mad at myself that I didn’t do a full-fledged trip report but time has a way of getting away from you. Somewhere, I’m pretty sure I have notes jotted on napkins & notebooks, and I do remember the important things.
Now, cut to two years after that amazing surprise trip with my younger son. I had plans tentatively in place to take Brian Jr that year but life intervened. My husband & I split and because I worked for his family business, I ended up quitting my job to keep my sanity. Any money that I’d saved up for Brian’s trip got re-routed (temporarily?) to getting back on my feet as a single mom. Each new milestone gave me hope that I’d get Brian there but the years passed and he stopped saying “yeah, you never even took me on my Disney trip.” He said it jokingly and I assured him that it would happen but it had been 8 years as of last winter, when I finally brought it up and told him I’d starting planning it for “either next spring or next fall IF all goes well”. I’d developed a tentative budget (while stuck home on infinite snow days last school year) and we’d start putting money into envelopes to save for each category. He saw I had $400 but knew the trip would be well over $2,000 by the time 2 adults went for a proper amount of time for having waited 9-10 years. This was in February 2015. In late April 2015, I had agreed to work summer school after having been asked 4 times prior. I finally agreed thinking “God must be telling me ‘take the job, you’re going to need the money.” I live in a 115 year old house so was thinking “what’s going to go ka-blooey on the house next?!” That was on a Friday and on Saturday it occurred to me that between this and some sub jobs for my sister, maybe I really could make the trip happen. Sunday, I crunched the numbers and decided that if they offered the free dining plan in late June, early July as they had in prior years, I would look into booking the trip for the fall. I was excited about the possibilities and told both my roommate that night, and my Disney friend at work on Monday morning. I got home from work THAT DAY and my roommate greeted me with “guess what??!” I found out they had released the free dining plan for fall bookings THAT DAY and I spent the next hour on the phone speed dialing. I got through to Disney and was able to book for 5 nights at Coronado Springs, Sept 16-21. I had planned on all-stars or Art of Animation but neither were (supposedly) available so I jumped on CS. Although this wasn’t somewhere I particularly *wanted* to stay, I do eventually hope to stay at each resort so I figured I could cross this one off my list and also score the regular dining plan that included the table service meals for my growing son. Brian will be 21 a month after our trip so sit down meals seemed like a good idea. And yes, I was fully looking forward to a character meal or two. I didn’t care if he WAS almost 21, this trip was due when he was 12 and darnit, I was going to have fun with my kid (whether he liked it or not!!! ;-)
NOW, the fun part comes…..trying to keep my big-disney-loving-mouth-shut and not spill the beans. FOR FOUR MONTHS. Thank Heaven for my Disney obsessed roommate. She didn’t flinch when I went on endlessly with “we’re going to do this, go there, eat here, try this.” (In fact, she now has a trip planned for next year for her, her son, DIL and granddaughter who will be 6… you’re welcome Disney. Lol) I had planned to tell Brian of this trip exactly 3 weeks prior to our leaving but ended up jumping the gun by only a week due to a family party. Everyone else knew of the trip and I was afraid they would slip.
I planned on a deceitfully exciting unveiling of the surprise, as befitting a 9 year wait but yeah… no. On that Wednesday night I said “I need to talk to you both.” I told zack he needed to walk over to scouts on his own and Brian “you wait here in the house a minute.” Brian immediately asked “who died?” I said NO ONE. He asked “what’d we do??” and I had to turn away and walk out the door or risk a face splitting grin. I am SOOOOO not the person you want in on the joke ‘cause I can’t keep a straight face to save my butt. So I walked outside to the sidewalk with Zack and with both our backs to the house told him I was taking Brian for his trip in Sept. He started grinning so I turned to face him (toward the house) so that Zack wouldn’t turn around himself. With zack grinning at me, I couldn’t keep my face from lighting up and I had a feeling Brian was watching from the window so I quickly ducked into Zack’s ‘shadow’ so to speak. I got it back together and told Zack, “wait here a second while I go tell Brian.” He wanted to know why he couldn’t come in too so I told him he could as long as he could keep a straight face!!! So we walked in and Brian was standing RightThereByTheDoor. He said “I think I know what it is ‘cause Zack’s grinning but if it is what I think it is, mom would be much more excited.” Zack, Dude, what happened to keeping a straight face!!!??? Rofl
I quietly, calmly turned to Brian and asked him what he thought it was. I figured for sure he knew it was the Disney trip ‘cause Jen & I were often talking Disney stuff, I’d taken brian shopping for new shorts & t-shirts at the *end* of summer, had 3 different Disney shows on my DVR that we constantly scrolled past.” But ya’ wanna know what he said??? You really wanna know??? When I asked him what he thought it was that doofus said “we won the lottery.” Bwahahaha, yeah right. Kinda took the wind out of my sails a little but I showed him the WDW countdown on my phone that said 28 days and said “we’re going on our Disney trip in September.” He stood there, without grinning, just looking confused and said “how are we going?!” I stared at him a few moments, and said “umm, we’re *flying*… what do you mean, ‘how are we going?’” He said “I’m ADD/lack of executive functioning but I need the backstory.” Turns out he meant “how are we affording this expensive endeavor,” but I laughed at him and told him “this isn’t quite as bad as Zack’s initial reaction but this is SOOO not how I envisioned this.” He IS excited but in that understated, “I’m almost 20 and not going to go skipping through the tulips with Disney excitement” kinda way. Geesh, you’d’a thought I taught him better than that. Lol
So here we are with 2 days before our trip. Okay, fine, 1 day, 17 hours, 47 minutes and 12 seconds…11 seconds…10 seconds…. Okay, focus, Amy, focus. Today is Monday and I’m off work for the Jewish holiday. We leave at the butt-crack of dawn on Wednesday. Awakening around 4:20, leaving for BWI airport at 4:30 (yeah, I’m not a morning person, don’t need wake up time, just throw on clothes & go), breakfast a la Dunkin Donuts. Flight leaves via SW at 6:25 arriving in MCO at 8:40. We’re taking Magic Express to CS. I’ve done the pre-check in so am hoping they’ll have us assigned a room prior to our arrival so we can drop our stuff and hit the ground running.
I did tell Brian “there’s to be no growling or hissing at me when we get up in the morning at any point. You have an unlimited coffee budget, just get up & get moving!!!” I also told him he has to ride all the various rides with me. ALL of them. ANY that I declare non-negotiable. I asked him last week “you’re going to ride Dumbo with me, aren’t you?” (said with sad mommy eyes) He just looked at me. I pleaded. I cajoled. He finally said “yeah, probably.” I said “no, not good enough, I’m spending thousands of dollars on this trip and you are going to enjoy *everything*, J … I need a definite YES on Dumbo.” He finally said yes and I replied “dude, I don’t DO Dumbo, so you’re off the hook.” He just rolled his eyes. Rofl That’s the amazing thing about going with my son as a 20 year old. We laugh, we joke, we discuss, we argue but we have fun together. He knows I’m a Disney dork and he tolerates it. He may rethink that as the week progresses. Time will tell.
Since it has been 9 years since my last real trip to WDW I have enjoyed extensive planning. I’m taking full advantage of fast pass, ADR’s, trying to milk the time for all its worth and hit everything on my must-do list but still have a relaxing fun time. (I think there was a family girls extended weekend trip in there somewhere but that was more a go-with-the-flow trip) I’m guessing this will be my last Disney trip with either of the boys until they are grown with kids of their own. I did tell Brian that I have everything planned as far as which parks, which restaurants but that things are up for discussion… to a point. I think he’ll go with the flow I’ve got planned, I’m just worried about the whole waking-up-and-getting-going part of the deal. He’s not much of a morning person either.
When we arrive on Wednesday, Brian will definitely be jonesing for food so we’re going to check out Café Rix first and foremost. Then off to Hollywood studios for fast passes at Star Tours, Tower of Terror and Toy story mania later that night. He was always afraid of ToT in the past, as he NOW says I told him someone disappeared from the ride. It’s so funny how kids interpret things they hear. We did watch the ToT movie this week to get in the Disney mood. We have ADR for 50’s Prime Time Café, one of my all-time favorites and top of the must-do meals. I am hoping to do Fantasmic. I didn’t know if he remembered it from our trip when he was 10 but I mentioned it and he asked if that was the one where they put the movie on the water. Guess they really do pay attention sometimes. Lol
On Thursday, it is my fondest wish to *finally* get to see the opening show at the Magic Kingdom. The last 2 family trips in 2003/2004, we camped in a popup at Fort Wilderness and just never made it early (or even on time for opening, come to think of it J) It is Extra magic hours so perhaps not my greatest planning but it worked out on paper so we’ll see. 7:40 at the turnstile at MK… can it be done? Stay tuned.
I did score ADR at Be our Guest for breakfast and have pre-ordered our food. This was set up just 3 weeks ago or thereabouts, so if you are in search of BOG reservations, don’t give up, just keep checking. I also managed to tweak our FP times on a few of the non-7-dwarfs-mine-train rides ;-) I hope to see the Trolley show at MK this day as well. We have FP for Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and a visit to the dwarFs (by the way, anyone know WHY they didn’t name it 7 dwarves mine train?) Lunch will be counter service somewhere with dinner ADR at ‘Ohana that evening. After our full travel day and getting up early this am, we’ll be heading back to the hotel room after our 7pm dinner.
Friday will be a mixed day of Animal Kingdom in the am, followed by Epcot in the afternoon. We have FP for Festival of the Lion King, Kali River Rapids & Expedition Everest. Brunch will be counter service with ADR at Via Napoli for a late lunch. Planning on Illuminations that evening.
Saturday takes us to 1900 Park Fare for our character meal (Mary P is my favorite!!) then back to Hollywood Studios to finish up whatever few things we didn’t get to on Wed. We have FP for Rock’n Roller Coaster, Lights/motor/action and MuppetVision 3-D. If we managed to get everything done on Day 1, this will be a Downtown Disney day with a side of DisneyQuest. See I can be flexible. Lol
Saturday afternoon we’ll head over to MK to knock out more stuff and Celebrate the Magic, with Wishes and Main Street Electrical Parade. Not sure that we’ll watch the whole parade, I just need to get a little MSEP fix with the lights and music before we keep rocking the attractions. I need to scope out the best vantage point to get a gander and then go ‘cause I know there are some places where you get locked in by the parade. Good thing I thought of that ahead of time.
Sunday Brian finally gets to SLEEP IN!!!! That is *exactly* what it says in my little notebook. I showed it to him on paper so that he knows that I did plan some down time for him to catch his breath. Lol We have ADR at Whispering Canyon Café at 12:35 so he truly doesn’t need to be up and running before 11am. My Disney friend Maria knows my mantra is “we can sleep when we’re home!” or “we’ll sleep when we’re dead,” depending on my mood. After his lazy morning and lunch at Wilderness Lodge, I have tentatively planned for Epcot in the early afternoon followed by MK for ADR dinner at Tony’s Town square. Then we get to enjoy the Halloween Doin’s with Mickey & friends. I’ve been to MNSSHP 2 times prior (my cousin Jeff makes such an awesome Cruella that even *she* was impressed. Lol) but Brian has never been. I’m especially looking forward to the headless horseman leading the parade and then seeing HalloWishes after seeing the sweet version of Wishes the prior night. I told him the other day that I’d bought him “his costume.” He was leery until he saw it was a black t-shirt with a neon green skull on it. He can live with that. lol
Monday brings a dose of reality when we have to check out of CS and then head to (tentatively) MK for FP at Big Thunder Mt, 7 dwarFs mine train and Tomorrowland Speedway. I’m hoping we’ve already done all these attractions by this point but who knows. We have for the airport around 4pm for our flight home at 7:10. I will then have to drag my sorry, tired butt to work the next morning but have off that Wednesday for the Jewish holiday, followed by 2 more days of reality before the weekend.
The new restaurants for both of us this trip are: Via Napoli, Be our Guest, ‘Ohana, Café Rix, Tony’s Town Square.
Attractions new to both: Toy Story Midway Mania, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Expedition Everest, 7 DwarFs mine train, Turtle Talk w/Crush, Seas w/Nemo & Friends, Finding Nemo/the musical and Under the sea/Little Mermaid.
Attractions new to him will be Tower of Terror, Lights/motor/action, Halloween parade & party, Mission Space, Stitch’s great escape, Dinosaur, and possibly Star Tours. Wow, I didn’t realize there were SO many things new to either him or me. I’m going thru fits of excitement today but still have a few more things on my to-do list. I’ll admit that I’ve been totally packed since yesterday (not counting my sons 2 missing-brand-new-pairs-of-shorts-I-bought-him-a-few-weeks-ago L) Speaking of which going over to their house (they now live with their dad 10 min away) to go thru piles of possibly icky teen laundry was SO not how I wanted to spend my day but if that’s what it takes to track down said missing shorts, I will do so. Lol
And FYI: I could apologize for my pre-trip report being so long but you were warned. If you hung with me this long, more power to you. I hope that I can share a bit of the Disney magic and help others with their countdown excitement along the way. Stay tuned for the rest of the story, next week or two. Thanks for reading!!!
