Trip Report First time party of three! **Complete**

Pre-Trip

Hi everyone!! We are finally back!

After our super epic / huge family holiday back in 2019 things went a little crazy didn’t they?! But we are finally back and ready to get on the Disney fun after a very long break!

So, We are Natasha (Tasha) and Adam, we're from the East coast of the UK and we love disney world! If you have caught our last couple of trip reports you know that we love a semi relaxed approach to our holidays in disney and we like to see where the fun takes us. Although that may not be the case this time… more on that later! We both like to take it in turns writing the trip report together. I’ve linked our other trip reports below, including our favourite trip report for Disney wedding (obviously)

Thread 'You and me, we're in a club now! *COMPLETE*'
Thread 'Magical MAYhem'
Thread 'COMPLETED!!! 2 Brits, 2 weeks and 2 Tonnes of fun!!!'

Who, When and where:

We are planning to visit in the start of September this year, we will be staying at old key west resort with Tashas family, this will be Tashas mum and dad (Alan and Joanne) her sister (Steph) and her nieces (ruby and Amelia)

If you hadn’t already guessed by our trip report title, we will also be bringing along one more visitor who joined the family in 2021, me and Tasha have increased our party size to three! Our son Tobias will be coming with us for his first Disney trip, here’s a pic of him getting his first letter from Mickey

He was very excited (I think more to just tear at the paper)

And this is all three of us:

Tickets:

We both have a 14 day Disney ticket and opted to pay the additional fee for genie+ each day. Tashas parents are also DVC members (so we’ll be trying to snaffle some of their discount hehe! )

Planning:

With this being our first trip with our little bundle of joy we are very torn between have a rigid plan or not planning anything to account for nap time and meltdowns hehe! We’re already expecting this holiday to be very different from what we’ve experienced before but also very excited to see how Tobias will react to seeing all of the characters, rides, CMs etc…
Any advice on travelling with a 1 year old / things to buy / tips that helped you with a baby in Disney world is greatly appreciated

Looking forward for the adventure to begin!

 

[Tashifer90]

...AND WE ARE BACK!


In typical fashion we are always late to post as our lives seem to consistently descend into chaos when we return from Disney, usually a combination of putting stuff off till we're after holiday and major Disney blues haha! But here it is! Our first time, party of three trip report!!

Day 1 - September 2nd 2022

Our day started at 0630 (this is sorta normalish now with Tobias) we got him up and dressed and ready to go to his other grandparents house so they could keep him entertained whilst I worked from home and Tasha got the last few things packed. I was the only one of us who thought I could work from home and get things packed here and there!

My main worry was that we packed enough toys to keep Tobias entertained for the whole flight. This was what we bought and packed:

*Spoiler Alert* The poppers were a lifesaver!!!

I saved my lunch break time to pop to my mum and dads and collect Tobias, he was going to be travelling with Tasha's sister and her nieces as they were able to leave early and could get his tea (thats dinner for all non- northen english people) sorted whilst we travelled down after I finished work.

After prying him out of my mothers hands I handed him off to Steph and the first one of out party of three was on his way to Manchester!

With us following shortly after!

We decided to stick strong to our tradition of heading to 5 guys for the night before... This however... did not pay off. Not entirely sure what happened but trying to get to 5 guys in Manchester was nothing short of a nightmare! With tons of one way systems and bus only lanes that I may have accidently strayed into (ooops!!) so I don't think we'll be doing that again! (More on that at the end of the trip report)

But at least we made it! I had all the toppings; cheese, bacon, pickles, mustard, onions, the whole 9 yards basically. Tasha was more plain with a simple bacon cheeseburger

Yum!

Then we headed on to premier inn at Heald Green, approximately 5 minutes drive from the airport, the Guy at reception was super helpful and even a bit of a Disney fan himself, he had various tattoos of various different Disney characters!

In the room!

Eventually we got into the room and time was getting on, it was about 7pm now and we needed to get Tobias relaxed and ready for bedtime but rushing around trying to get the room ready for him was not creating the relaxing atmosphere we needed. That combined with the airplanes flying right over the hotel room as we were trying to get him to sleep made for a tough bedtime (apparently this only happens sometimes due tot he wind direction the guy at the front desk said)

Ready for bed!

We eventually got him to bed around 2130, but he was very unsettled for the next couple of hours due to the planes, eventually they stop around 2300/2330 and he slept much better after that!

I must confess though, I was getting very nervous and my parental anxiety kicked in and I started looking at Disneys refund policy for tickets (They don't do refunds by the way... just incase you wondered haha!)

Once I got over myself, we all managed to get some rest ready for our long day of travel tomorrow!

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

Sleeping in new place is rough with a little one. We’ve had good success thus far traveling with our daughter’s sound machine from home.

 

[Katiekitten]

I'm looking forward to hearing more, and Manchester one way systems are so confusing!

 

[Tiggertoo56]

Looking forward to reading this to keep me going til next Wednesday when we (party of 12) travel to Heathrow for 3 weeks in WDW

 

[Tashifer90]

Sleeping in new place is rough with a little one. We’ve had good success thus far traveling with our daughter’s sound machine from home.

Ohhh we never invested in a sound machine! But that sounds like such a good idea! Thanks for the tip!

 

[Tashifer90]

I'm looking forward to hearing more, and Manchester one way systems are so confusing!

Glad it wasn't just me! haha!

 

[Tashifer90]

Looking forward to reading this to keep me going til next Wednesday when we (party of 12) travel to Heathrow for 3 weeks in WDW

Oh that's so exciting!! When we did our trip with a party of 15 it was an unforgettable holiday! We would definitely do it again, can't wait to read all about it!

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 2 - September 3rd 2022

We woke at 0630 as Tobias heard me sneak to the toilet when my silent alarm went off!

As bad as we thought our night was, it was nothing compared to Tashas sister, her nieces were up at 0330 with excitement! We were very concerned as we were banking on them to keep Tobias entertained during the flight!

We got Tobias ready and took him to his grandparents room for them to entertain him whilst we finished getting ourselves ready. We then threw the suitcases in the car and drove off to the meet and greet to leave our cars, unfortunately we were unable to check in online as Tasha had been randomly selected for additional screening. (It was me last time we went so now I guess it's her turn!)

Unfortunately Tobias does not do well sat in a pram and not moving so eventually it wasn't long before we had to take him out and strap him to us, only problem was, the baby carrier has about a 90% success rate for sending him off to sleep...

Spoiler alert... It was not long before he drifted off...

we did however, not to toot our own horn, an amazing job of keeping him asleep, he stayed asleep through bag drop and through security (we had to take him out the carrier, hold him to our chest, walkthrough the scanner, then to the security rep who thought they found liquid in the bag, have a lengthy discussion about how play doh is or is not a liquid, get all our bags and re-strap him back to our chest!)

We walked him to the Bridgewater exchange to meet our family for breakfast where he woke in a super great mood and full into the Disney Spirit!

Some say he has his mothers eyes... I always knew he had her ears

I got the big breakfast which had Cumberland pork sausages, back bacon, black pudding, eggs, baked beans, flat mushroom, roasted tomato, buttered bloomer toast and tater tots, Tasha had the bacon and sausage bun and Tobias had toast and Jam, he loves toast and jam!

After that we let him have a walk/crawl around the terminal whilst we waited for our gate to be called. He had a great time screaming at the top of his lungs and crawling around as fast as he could (He refuses to walk even though we all know he can)

Also... can we just appreciate Tobias's classic Disney pose?

Too cute am I right?

We had a fair amount of time to kill as the plane (aer lingus) was about 3 hours late, apparently this was common for them as they had been running behind all week. in terms of scheduling, not the best air line I've ever experienced, but as far as onboard staff go, they were an absolute delight, they couldn't be more helpful with Tobias and telling us which seats were open and free if we wanted to stretch out with him. They made the flight very comfortable. (Also we got 7.50GBP worth of food vouchers each to spend whilst at the airport) Which was nice!

Then we finally got our gate called! I had to carry the extra bags whilst Tasha went for her additional screening... It's not my best look.

Prepped with Sippy cup and 'Omar the Octopus' (fun fact, you do not have to empty a infants water cup prior to going through security, just incase you wanted to know!)

Plane finally ready for take off!!

To be continued...

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 2 - September 3rd 2022 - Continued

So the flight was an absolute dream! Tobias was so well behaved and had all the stewards, stewardesses and even other passengers smiling and laughing at him. He enjoyed all of the flight it seemed and we didn't have him cry once! (unfortunately this meant we cashed in all our luck for the flight back, more on that later...)

Stacking cups are a win! (We don't advise using them if someone is sat in front though) he took great delight is smashing them against the television screen and throwing them over the top of the chair just to clarify we're not 'those parents' and there wasn't anyone sat in front of Tobias!

Food with Aer Lingus is good, nothing fancy but it did the job, pastry's as snacks, pie and veg dinners etc. In fact the kids meals often looked better than the regular food!

It got Tobias's seal of approval anyways.
(Side note: I'm not 100% certain of the wrap around headphones effectiveness or if Tobias was too distracted to watch TV but I probably wouldn't recommend them for infants just over one?)

But he was happy to just zone out and watch the colors on screen whilst putting himself into a food coma with chocolate mousse

Movie selection was fairly decent. If I was child free I would maybe have found just enough to keep me entertained throughout the flight with new releases etc but as we had our little bundle of joy i managed to watch just the one movie (i was very surprised i managed to get that to be honest!)

You will notice the pillow stuffed in the middle of the chair. Weird thing with Aer Lingus... The arm rests only go to 45 degrees and dont always stay up so we were unable to put Tobias down in his seat to sleep without the threat of it hitting his head. It seemed like a weird design choice because it seemed pretty useless either way, either that or it was just general wear and tear over time? But definitely very odd either way.

At least he was comfy...

All in all out flight experience was not bad at all. I was more than anxious for it as i usually have issues with my ears on planes so I was worried that Tobias would have a similar experience, but the worst he did was just rub at his ears as we was coming into land.

We planned to take at least 9 toys with us, i cannot overstate how amazing the poppers were. Just one of these kept him entertained for 2-3 hours plus. We barely used any of the other toys on the way over there cause he was so engrossed with the popper!

Video so you can also see his level of concentration!




We landed at 1600 Orlando time, but due to MCO immigration we didn't get through to baggage claim until 1800! I have no idea what they do there to make it so slow. We did see one of the ambassadors walking around asking if anyone had kids and we said yes and he just walked away? So we wasn't sure with us being a family we could have got through quicker or not? But either way information communication was pretty poor. Staff themselves were pleasant but the organizational structure needed a little more work I think. thinking back I wonder if we'd arrived at shift swap and this is what slowed us down?

We got a nice standard sized SUV from Alamo (i think it was a ford escape?). By the way: Can we just say Alamo customer service is next level! You may have recalled from our last trip report that we had to change our car three times so they gave us vouchers up to 75 USD towards our next rental. During covid and everything a customer service rep who I emailed multiple tie during the pandemic just kept updating and reissuing us new vouchers to use. Eventually they stopped issuing vouchers but they let me make the booking, provide them with the reference number, and then they knocked off the amount. Really, really good stuff from them!

Our Only major issue was the car seat, using a USA car seat instead of a UK one was a bit of a headscratcher, luckily Tashas sister was a bit of a whizz with this stuff and she managed to get it locked in for us. You might not know but the little extra chest clip that you find on american car seats aren't legal in the UK as theyre deemed unsafe! We eventually left the airport around 1930 and was starting to get worried as it was technically wayyyyyy past Tobias' bedtime in the UK and also getting way past his bedtime USA time!

Although he was still in good spirits when we arrived at OKW even a little shocked to be in Disney! hehe!

He even enjoyed a little TV in the lobby whilst we checked in

After getting our celebration badges we grabbed some food from goods to go and headed to the room for tea!

Again... we suck and because of the rush we forgot to get pictures of the food (We eat their plenty more times during the holiday so don't worry we'll show you their entire menu eventually!)

As we ordered our family already hit their first hiccup, Tasha remembered to ask for fries with hers, but most of the meals come with chips by default (obviously in the US these are very different things so tashas family was not impressed in the beginning)
Although i do have to say, there handcooked chips were pretty sensational!

We unpacked the essentials (night light, books, nappies etc) and everything else stayed in the suitcases till the morning.

We all got to sleep around 2200

 

[Darstarr]

But he was happy to just zone out and watch the colors on screen whilst putting himself into a food coma with chocolate mousse

Chang he to she and you have the title of my memoirs.

 

[k8einwdw]

(He refuses to walk even though we all know he can)

I have one of those My son didn't take his first steps until he was 14 months old. He walked about 10 steps, and then waited another two weeks before walking again. He knew how to walk, he just didn't want to. Now, he's on the move at all times, from the moment he wakes up, until the moment he goes to sleep. Don't rush it!

 

[Tashifer90]

Chang he to she and you have the title of my memoirs.

100% would read those memoirs!

 

[Tashifer90]

I have one of those My son didn't take his first steps until he was 14 months old. He walked about 10 steps, and then waited another two weeks before walking again. He knew how to walk, he just didn't want to. Now, he's on the move at all times, from the moment he wakes up, until the moment he goes to sleep. Don't rush it!

Funnily enough he waited until we got back home and he started walking at 15 months! (i really was hoping for his first steps to be in disneyworld but i suppose our kitchen floor is just as good!)

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 3 - September 4th 2022

Our day started at 0330! Then again at 0430... and finally again at 0700

Luckily we had snail and the whale set up on the Ipad, so we played that to him at his 0430 wake up to soothe him back to sleep.

of course trying to wake him at 7 was actually a challenge as he wanted to sleep longer! haha!

It was a little difficult getting ready as we still hadn't unpacked from the night before. But we wolfed down some cereal and Tasha got Tobias ready whilst me and Ruby walked to hospitality to top up everyones mugs!

Lovely day for it!

We got out the room and was at the bus stop by 0830 ( a far cry from our childless days being at the park for 0630 some days!)

Someone was already feeling the heat and was getting tired waiting for the bus!

Jet lag is not fun!

Then it was onto Tobias's first ride... The BUS!! (side note: These were his favorite rides no matter what we did

Was he going to make it to Magic Kingdom awake??

!Spoiler Alert!... He was not...

There was quite the queue to get in, and it was roasting!! 90 Fahrenheit/32 Degrees and i assume 150% humidity lol

We got through after hearing that serotonin boosting sound of 'ding' as you place your finger on the scanner

I should note at this point that our park tickets for the trip were a two week park hopper with the water parks included. we were also able to by a genie plus add that would work for each day for £99 (I guess around $112 dollars with tpodays terrible exchange rates for us brits)

Then we were on to our first tradition, riding Jungle Cruise lightning lane!

But not before taking our traditional photo in front of the castle!

3 years on, i can't tell which one we look more tired in? haha!

We had hoped tobias would join us for the photo... But he insisted on having his own solo pose...

His first impressions? He was just overwhelmed by the magic!

After this it had been about 40 mins since he fell asleep so that's usually his good power nap time and we took him on Jungle Cruise with us!

He was so excited for it...

The only time he got a little upset was when everyone shouted 'BACKSIDE OF WATER!' for the joke which i kind of expected anyway so i was ready to sooth him before he kicked off too much haha!

Mostly he enjoyed it and was just generally astounded by all of his surroundings!

Then we went to take him on Pirates but it was a 35 min wait so we did Tiki room instead, i was supper excited to see his reaction to this as we have a budgie at home and Tobias LOVES him!... The feeling is not mutual unfortunately, as our budgie loves the quiet life

He really enjoyed it as well! He was getting a little clingy as he kept swapping between me and Tasha but he loved staring at the birds!

Then it was onto Aladdin!

Unfortunately the ride broke down halfway through so it was only a mini experience for him but he was definitely fascinated by it all! he jumped soo much when the ride did its emergency stop procedure and we dropped from the highest point in a fairly quick but controlled decent.

The ride breaking down worked well in our favor as we needed to get to our lightning lane at Buzz Lightyear which ended at 1055 and i think we 'buzzed in' at 1056!

To be continued...

 

[amjt660]

There was quite the queue to get in, and it was roasting!! 90 Fahrenheit/32 Degrees and i assume 150% humidity lol

I bet the humidity was up in the 80-90% range since this is what 150% humidity would look like

Enjoying the report

Max

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 3 - September 4th 2022 - Continued

Tobias was bewildered by the space stuff on Buzz and was more fascinated by LED screen score counter and joystick which he loved grabbing!

BTW, taking a 1 year old on Buzz lightyear is really bad for your highscore. Who knew?!

We were starting to feel a little peckish by this point so thought we would grab our usual pretzel and cheese for brunch, although in very sad times they were all out. So we opted for the cream cheese pretzel, which was really nice and sweet with a frozen coke!

Tobias even stole a bit of the pretzel for himself

He then chilled with his Auntie Steph in the cool air con at Cosmic Rays whilst we did a lap on the Speedway!

We then came back grabbed him and took him on a nice relaxing ride on the TTA! He was gripping onto us very tightly when it got dark!

He loved the views whilst cuddling into his mum though...

Then he decided to have a snooze whilst we popped on space Mountain for our LL! (We didn't manage to get our photo though... )

He carried on snoozing whilst we took it in turns on pirates of the Caribbean, then our photopass luck continued to plague us as we never got the photo from this one! Our photos really only started working when we got our magicband+ ...Suspicious...

After we were done on POTC Tobias had woken up so we quickly nabbed a LL for small world and took him on it!

The repetitive singing and dancing was definitely a big hit for him!

We decided to leave the park (about 1530) as the heat was slowly beating us down and we still weren't fully acclimated to it yet. Although i think we struggled for most of the holiday haha!

We dashed to the pool for Tobias to get his wriggles out as we were very much aware he had been sat in a parm or sat in a ride for most of the day and we also wanted to cool off!

To be continued...

 

[Tashifer90]

I bet the humidity was up in the 80-90% range since this is what 150% humidity would look like

Enjoying the report

Max

Wait till you see some more of our photos... i do not cope well in humidity...

 

[Tashifer90]

Day 3 - September 4th 2022 - Continued

We grabbed some food by the pool and got Tobias an uncrustable. (Something that does not exist back home) and oh my days what a genius idea! I think Tobias could have lived on these the entire holiday if we let him! I totally forgot to pick up some grape jelly/jam before we left as well as he is a big fan of the smuckers jelly/jam. (We don't get grape jelly/jam on our side of the pond either)

Although there was never very much left...

Then it was time for a swim!!

Tobias loved the pool at Old Key West, although he's quite the ladies man so most of the time liked to flash a smile at the lifeguards.

Although he did partake in a little swimming, this was one of the first times we actually saw him using his hands too!



The family went out for dinner/tea afterwards. They went to Millers alehouse, whilst we opted to stay back at the room to get Tobias to sleep and try and get him 'on schedule' for the next few days.

he was feeling playful...

The family soon came back as Millers was totally packed out due to it being labor day weekend! they decided to join us and we all decided pizza would be easy and hopefully tasty.

We ordered from papa johns via uber eats and it wasn't too bad! (Totally forgot to get a photo as we were ravenous) Side note though... I think the papa johns Butter garlic dipping sauce is hands down the best pizza dipping sauce around? But Tasha is very much a dominoes garlic sauce lady? What's everyone else's opinion on this? I'm 99% if you add butter to anything you make it better so i'm somewhat bias

I also popped to hospitality to grab us some drinks and the sky was amazing!!

we eventually collapsed in bed around 22:00 ready for another busy day!!

 

[Back!Elbow!Shoulders!]

No grape jam/jelly?!? It’s always so surprising to me what you all have or don’t have across the pond.

 

[amjt660]

Tobias pics in the pool are soo cute!!

Great pictures of the night sky too!


Max