Well it's been a pretty slow week at the office (finally) so on a slow Friday morning I thought I would put together a quick pre-trip report on our upcoming trip back the World in September.
It's been a few years since we've been to WDW, our last trip was over the Christmas holiday in 2009. In that time away, our family has changed a lot! My wife, Kelly, and I welcomed our first child, Ella Rose, in late September of 2010. The last 9 months have been a blast and we've done pretty much everything we can to ensure she will be a big Disney fan just like her parents!
Now, on to the trip...our intention was to take Ella to Disney for the first time in 2012 when she was up and walking around and maybe talking a bit. We quickly changed our minds thanks to some big time Disney withdrawals and the fact that my wife gets off maternity leave in early October so we thought it would be a great time to get away and have a little fun with Ella without having to plan around her work schedule in 2012. After some quick discussion in early 2011, we checked out the prices on Expedia and decided to book!
The Players:Making the long trip from Edmonton, Alberta will be me (Matt), my wife (Kelly), our daughter (Ella) and grandmother's (both mine and Kelly's mom's) and the last minute addition of Kelly's cousin (Britt) who was also with us in 2009.
Me and Kelly on our last trip
Me and Ella
When:
Originally, our trip was planned for September 6 -13 when we first booked. However, after Disney release the Halloween Party dates, we decided to extend the trip until the 15th so that we could attend the Halloween party on September 13th.
Where:
Again we made some changes to our original plans on where we are staying! When we first booked, we knew we were going to stay on-site at a Disney hotel for the first time. We stayed on-site last trip at the Dolphin but definitely wanted a Disney hotel this time around. The hotel we selected was Port Orleans French Quarter. After only a day, we quickly changed our minds and upgraded to Animal Kingdom Lodge. It looked great on the website and got many great reviews so we thought why not. After about a week, I was a little concerned about the distance of AKL from the Magic Kingdom especially, but to other areas around the World as well. I convinced everyone to change to Wilderness Lodge and we finally decided to stick with that!
The Game Plan:
We know this is going to be a much different trip than we are used to with Ella being there with us. She will pretty much be the boss of the trip and will likely have us spending more time at the hotel/pool than we would normally spend. I think it's a sacrifice that we are more than willing to make as we know this trip is going to create a lifetime of long lasting memories for everyone who is going, even if Ella won't remember it herself. We will certainly be spending a lot more time in Fantasyland as well which is cool and having the grandma's with us will still allow Kelly and I to get on all the good rides without having to do the child swap which is an added bonus!
As I mentioned earlier, we are doing the MNSSHP on September 13 and we've also made reservations at the following restaurants for different meals throughout the trip. In no particular order, we will be dining at 50's Prime Time Cafe, Cinderella's Royal Table, Whispering Canyon Cafe, Rainforest Cafe, Le Cellier, Tony's Town Square, and likely one more restaurant that we have yet to reserve.
Aside from spending most of our time at WDW parks, me, Kelly and Britt will be spending a day at Universal to do something different and get a look at the new Harry Potter world, even though I know nothing about the Harry Potter universe at all!
Well thankfully this has helped kill a little time here at work! We are now under two months away from making the trek back to Orlando, which I am certainly counting down!
I know a lot of pictures will be taken while we are there which I will use for our Trip Report when we get back home!
Thanks to all for taking the time to read my first pre-trip report!
It's been a few years since we've been to WDW, our last trip was over the Christmas holiday in 2009. In that time away, our family has changed a lot! My wife, Kelly, and I welcomed our first child, Ella Rose, in late September of 2010. The last 9 months have been a blast and we've done pretty much everything we can to ensure she will be a big Disney fan just like her parents!
Now, on to the trip...our intention was to take Ella to Disney for the first time in 2012 when she was up and walking around and maybe talking a bit. We quickly changed our minds thanks to some big time Disney withdrawals and the fact that my wife gets off maternity leave in early October so we thought it would be a great time to get away and have a little fun with Ella without having to plan around her work schedule in 2012. After some quick discussion in early 2011, we checked out the prices on Expedia and decided to book!
The Players:Making the long trip from Edmonton, Alberta will be me (Matt), my wife (Kelly), our daughter (Ella) and grandmother's (both mine and Kelly's mom's) and the last minute addition of Kelly's cousin (Britt) who was also with us in 2009.
Me and Kelly on our last trip
Me and Ella
When:
Originally, our trip was planned for September 6 -13 when we first booked. However, after Disney release the Halloween Party dates, we decided to extend the trip until the 15th so that we could attend the Halloween party on September 13th.
Where:
Again we made some changes to our original plans on where we are staying! When we first booked, we knew we were going to stay on-site at a Disney hotel for the first time. We stayed on-site last trip at the Dolphin but definitely wanted a Disney hotel this time around. The hotel we selected was Port Orleans French Quarter. After only a day, we quickly changed our minds and upgraded to Animal Kingdom Lodge. It looked great on the website and got many great reviews so we thought why not. After about a week, I was a little concerned about the distance of AKL from the Magic Kingdom especially, but to other areas around the World as well. I convinced everyone to change to Wilderness Lodge and we finally decided to stick with that!
The Game Plan:
We know this is going to be a much different trip than we are used to with Ella being there with us. She will pretty much be the boss of the trip and will likely have us spending more time at the hotel/pool than we would normally spend. I think it's a sacrifice that we are more than willing to make as we know this trip is going to create a lifetime of long lasting memories for everyone who is going, even if Ella won't remember it herself. We will certainly be spending a lot more time in Fantasyland as well which is cool and having the grandma's with us will still allow Kelly and I to get on all the good rides without having to do the child swap which is an added bonus!
As I mentioned earlier, we are doing the MNSSHP on September 13 and we've also made reservations at the following restaurants for different meals throughout the trip. In no particular order, we will be dining at 50's Prime Time Cafe, Cinderella's Royal Table, Whispering Canyon Cafe, Rainforest Cafe, Le Cellier, Tony's Town Square, and likely one more restaurant that we have yet to reserve.
Aside from spending most of our time at WDW parks, me, Kelly and Britt will be spending a day at Universal to do something different and get a look at the new Harry Potter world, even though I know nothing about the Harry Potter universe at all!
Well thankfully this has helped kill a little time here at work! We are now under two months away from making the trek back to Orlando, which I am certainly counting down!
I know a lot of pictures will be taken while we are there which I will use for our Trip Report when we get back home!
Thanks to all for taking the time to read my first pre-trip report!
