Wow! 2013 already!! So much has happened since I TRIED to do my trip Report for my last trip in June 12’!!! Since then we have expanded from a family of 3 to a family of 4! (That’s where the title comes into play) On January 25 we were blessed with the birth of our 2nd son Cristian. He is currently 5 months old, and has enriched our lives so much. We are already planning on his first official trip – his first unofficial trip was in June unbeknownst to us! It was a great surprise to find out when we came back from our trip that we were expecting! Our son Michael graduated Kindergarten & is ready for 1st grade! We couldn’t be any more proud of him for how amazingly great he is doing in school. He has embraced the role of Big Brother with everything he’s got and is a wonderful big brother! He loves to hold him, and is always saying how he cannot wait for Cristian to be older so he can fully play with him! It makes me and the hubby very happy to see that jealousy has not reared its ugly head with our boys! In fact, Mikey is constantly asking when we are going back to Disney to take Cristian!
Honestly so much happened after we came back from our trip in June that I just could never get around to typing up our Trip Report. That and the fact that we were in that Post Disney Depression, I just couldn’t get myself to type it up. But here’s a quick rundown of our trip. We went for Star Wars weekend! We went the first week of June. I must say, while seeing Storm Troopers waiting for us to enter DHS, and see all the characters was awesome…we didn’t enjoy it as much as we hoped too. Don’t get me wrong, we had a fantastic time after all we were at Disney, but it was hot, and more crowded than we are used too, which we did expect, but didn’t like it. I kept getting nauseous, which I though was due to the heat but obviously it wasn’t, hubby got sick and literally missed out on almost 2 days of the Parks with Mikey & me. We didn’t want Mikey to miss out, so I’d head out with him and then hubby would meet up with us…or we’d all go together and then he’d leave and head to the room to rest. The whole trip wasn’t a bust by any means. We did have some major awesomeness on the trip, our son had a magnificent time – and conquered 2 coasters – Splash Mountain & Big Thunder! He rode Soaring and LOVED it. He fought Darth Maul, defeated the Dark Force & became a Jedi! In the end as long as he had a good thing and enjoyed it all, that was all that mattered! One thing I did come to realize this trip was that the Free Dining plan totally works for my family! This trip we used the % off the room, and paid for food & I can say I really missed having the dining plan. I know it’s not for everyone, but for us, it just works! It makes things for me a bit easier. We have always stayed at Value resorts so the Dining Plan does put us ahead on saving. My son can eat, and loves snacks while at the Parks…I mean who doesn’t want a Mickey Ice Cream for breakfast!?!? While at times it is a lot of food if hubby & I each get a meal, but we share meals here and there and we really don’t end up having to pay for a third meal every day. Our son loves the kid’s menus and eats EVERYTHING. My favorite thing to eat is Wolfgang Puck Express. I know it’s not “Disney” but it’s DELICIOUS and so worth it! Yes I know sometimes it can be a lot of food. But we do have a system with it and it works out so great we rarely pay for any food out of pocket unless it’s alcohol. We usually split a breakfast combo at the resort, for the drinks we’ll get water or PowerAde for the day, our son gets his own, for lunch hubby & I will again share and for dinner we each get our own. Since kids meals are cheaper we pay for one out of the pocket if we must. We always ask for a cup of ice water with our meals, we have cut soda out of the diet and if we do drink it’s very rare and for the drink that comes with our meal we’ll get something we can carry and drink later. I know it’s not for everyone, but for us this works.
At the end of the trip we had talked about going back somewhere between January – March 2013, but with my due date being 1/30, me having a C-section on 1/25 – booking a trip with a newborn and mom that had had major surgery just didn’t seem too enjoyable and we really debated going before I went back to work, but still Disney with a 12 week old just didn’t seem too enjoyable for me. So we decided that for the first time in our Disney Vacationing history we would go and see the parks decked out in Holiday Cheer!
We have created some amazing memories during all our Disney Trips and we cannot wait to create some more! Our trips have always been about our son. Of course we always did stuff we wanted. A churro and Margarita in Mexico, Sake in Japan, deserts in Germany & many others. As a parent you just want to make your trip to this Magical place as wonderful as can be. I cannot wait to go with our 2nd son, and have him enjoy it as much as his older brother did on his first trip! This will be like a first for all of us! Our first vacation to Disney as a family of 4!
So as I was typing this & planning for our hopefully soon to be booked trip I get a wonderful little email letting me know I have a Pin for free dining and guess what? It’s during the dates I was interested in going in!!! So after some number crunching, checking flights, the cost and doing a bit of comparing and convincing my 5 year old that Pop Century is so much cooler than AoA – he loves Pac-man and a room in the 80’s section sounds about right we will be staying at Pop from Nov 16-25 with the free quick service DP. Now – we were debating upgrading it to the Regular DP, but we are going with a 10 month old…and quite honestly you never know what mood they will be in. I remember the first time we did the DP with Mikey he was almost 2…and for ½ the meals he was either asleep and it was a pain to be seated with the stroller OR he was cranky by the time dinner came around. So the QSDP will be perfectly fine for us! So now the fun begins. Planning out what park were doing what day…and whether or not to do MVMCP. I did the MNNSHP twice. It was fun, but honestly not worth the price. All the character lines were so long that we’d spend the ENTIRE party time waiting in line for ONE character. We ended up with a lot of candy! Lol. However, this being Christmas & honestly probably the ONLY time we’ll go around this time I was thinking of doing it. I need your help here…what do you think about the MVMCP? Yay or nay?
Honestly so much happened after we came back from our trip in June that I just could never get around to typing up our Trip Report. That and the fact that we were in that Post Disney Depression, I just couldn’t get myself to type it up. But here’s a quick rundown of our trip. We went for Star Wars weekend! We went the first week of June. I must say, while seeing Storm Troopers waiting for us to enter DHS, and see all the characters was awesome…we didn’t enjoy it as much as we hoped too. Don’t get me wrong, we had a fantastic time after all we were at Disney, but it was hot, and more crowded than we are used too, which we did expect, but didn’t like it. I kept getting nauseous, which I though was due to the heat but obviously it wasn’t, hubby got sick and literally missed out on almost 2 days of the Parks with Mikey & me. We didn’t want Mikey to miss out, so I’d head out with him and then hubby would meet up with us…or we’d all go together and then he’d leave and head to the room to rest. The whole trip wasn’t a bust by any means. We did have some major awesomeness on the trip, our son had a magnificent time – and conquered 2 coasters – Splash Mountain & Big Thunder! He rode Soaring and LOVED it. He fought Darth Maul, defeated the Dark Force & became a Jedi! In the end as long as he had a good thing and enjoyed it all, that was all that mattered! One thing I did come to realize this trip was that the Free Dining plan totally works for my family! This trip we used the % off the room, and paid for food & I can say I really missed having the dining plan. I know it’s not for everyone, but for us, it just works! It makes things for me a bit easier. We have always stayed at Value resorts so the Dining Plan does put us ahead on saving. My son can eat, and loves snacks while at the Parks…I mean who doesn’t want a Mickey Ice Cream for breakfast!?!? While at times it is a lot of food if hubby & I each get a meal, but we share meals here and there and we really don’t end up having to pay for a third meal every day. Our son loves the kid’s menus and eats EVERYTHING. My favorite thing to eat is Wolfgang Puck Express. I know it’s not “Disney” but it’s DELICIOUS and so worth it! Yes I know sometimes it can be a lot of food. But we do have a system with it and it works out so great we rarely pay for any food out of pocket unless it’s alcohol. We usually split a breakfast combo at the resort, for the drinks we’ll get water or PowerAde for the day, our son gets his own, for lunch hubby & I will again share and for dinner we each get our own. Since kids meals are cheaper we pay for one out of the pocket if we must. We always ask for a cup of ice water with our meals, we have cut soda out of the diet and if we do drink it’s very rare and for the drink that comes with our meal we’ll get something we can carry and drink later. I know it’s not for everyone, but for us this works.
At the end of the trip we had talked about going back somewhere between January – March 2013, but with my due date being 1/30, me having a C-section on 1/25 – booking a trip with a newborn and mom that had had major surgery just didn’t seem too enjoyable and we really debated going before I went back to work, but still Disney with a 12 week old just didn’t seem too enjoyable for me. So we decided that for the first time in our Disney Vacationing history we would go and see the parks decked out in Holiday Cheer!
We have created some amazing memories during all our Disney Trips and we cannot wait to create some more! Our trips have always been about our son. Of course we always did stuff we wanted. A churro and Margarita in Mexico, Sake in Japan, deserts in Germany & many others. As a parent you just want to make your trip to this Magical place as wonderful as can be. I cannot wait to go with our 2nd son, and have him enjoy it as much as his older brother did on his first trip! This will be like a first for all of us! Our first vacation to Disney as a family of 4!
So as I was typing this & planning for our hopefully soon to be booked trip I get a wonderful little email letting me know I have a Pin for free dining and guess what? It’s during the dates I was interested in going in!!! So after some number crunching, checking flights, the cost and doing a bit of comparing and convincing my 5 year old that Pop Century is so much cooler than AoA – he loves Pac-man and a room in the 80’s section sounds about right we will be staying at Pop from Nov 16-25 with the free quick service DP. Now – we were debating upgrading it to the Regular DP, but we are going with a 10 month old…and quite honestly you never know what mood they will be in. I remember the first time we did the DP with Mikey he was almost 2…and for ½ the meals he was either asleep and it was a pain to be seated with the stroller OR he was cranky by the time dinner came around. So the QSDP will be perfectly fine for us! So now the fun begins. Planning out what park were doing what day…and whether or not to do MVMCP. I did the MNNSHP twice. It was fun, but honestly not worth the price. All the character lines were so long that we’d spend the ENTIRE party time waiting in line for ONE character. We ended up with a lot of candy! Lol. However, this being Christmas & honestly probably the ONLY time we’ll go around this time I was thinking of doing it. I need your help here…what do you think about the MVMCP? Yay or nay?
