Trip Report Making Memories: November 9th-12th 2021, Father and Son trip plus Florida family!

KellBelle · Nov 19, 2021

Following along! Looks like a great start so far!

MickeyCB · Nov 19, 2021

Following along and looking forward to reading more!

Songbird76 · Nov 20, 2021

PSM said:
PROLOGUE
I'd love to start off with something epic like, "This trip was a LONG time in the making...", but that's simply not the case. My wife and I were supposed to take our two sons - Michael (3 1/2) and Jack (1) - to New England to visit her family a few months ago, but due to sickness and other pandemic-related factors, she wound up taking Michael by herself while I stayed home with Jack in Texas.

Once that change happened and I needed to use some vacation time, I suggested I should take Michael on a trip to visit my family in Florida since most of them haven't seen him since he was one, and my wife could stay home with Jack (trips get complicated when you include a baby, as I'm sure many of you know). To my surprise, she went for it. And to my further surprise, when I mentioned dates to my parents in Florida, they said they already had a room booked for three nights at Disney World for their anniversary, and they offered to let us stay with them so we could take Michael.

Disney World, you say? You don't have to ask me twice! And since I have a brother and sister-in-law who are cast members, it meant being able to see them, as well, separate from the family we would visit near Tampa the first half of the trip.

Here's Michael on our last trip to WDW in 2019, which he obviously doesn't remember because he was only a year and a half.

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TRIP SCHEDULE
Friday November 5th through 8th - Fly into Tampa and stay with my parents and grandparents at their house near Tampa. Visit with most of my Florida family, including my parents and grandparents, my brother and his girlfriend, and my aunt and uncle.

November 6th through 12th (Tuesday through Friday) - Drive to Disney World with my parents and stay three nights at Port Orleans French Quarter, with four days in the parks. Drive back to Tampa late Friday night, then fly home Saturday afternoon the 13th.

FAMILY VISIT - Friday November 5th through Monday the 8th
I'll keep this part short and sweet so we can get to the part everyone else cares about...the Disney leg of the trip!

It was an early wake up call at 4am or so, but no major hiccups getting to the airport, the shuttle to the terminal, or through security. Michael was super excited to go on a big jet, and even brought his Southwest toy jet.

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I was happy to get to use these after a couple years of them sitting in my night stand:

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And let's hear it for tablets and headphones! Makes a two hour direct flight a breeze.

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Oh, and let's also hear it for no one in the middle seat! Michael made the most of it.

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Long story short for the "family visit" leg of the trip: we arrived at my parents' / grandparents' house around noon on Friday and spent the next three and a half days visiting with a bunch of Florida-based family members who hadn't seen me or Michael in a couple years. You can imagine how excited his great-grandparents were! He was also bouncing off the walls the entire time keeping everyone VERY busy, and it was great to see him enjoying so much time with family he had previously met but didn't really know since he hadn't seen them since he was only one.

UP NEXT: Tuesday morning, and day one at Disney World!

Note: I will be posting in installments as I have time, and will include PLENTY of Disney photos.

Thank you, on behalf of all the passengers on your flight, for making him use headphones! I sat on a flight for several hours across from a family with a child who was playing games on her tablet, sound on full blast with no headphones. While she was making copious amounts of noise with her game, her older brother amused himself by lifting the arm rest and let it drop with a resounding "boi-oi-oing" as it bounced back into place. Mom sat there smacking her gum and texting on her phone with not a care in the world for her neglected children (she never even glanced at them) who were disturbing everyone in the area. I'm sure all your fellow passengers appreciated that you kept your son occupied quietly!

PSM · Nov 21, 2021

Songbird76 said:
Thank you, on behalf of all the passengers on your flight, for making him use headphones! I sat on a flight for several hours across from a family with a child who was playing games on her tablet, sound on full blast with no headphones. While she was making copious amounts of noise with her game, her older brother amused himself by lifting the arm rest and let it drop with a resounding "boi-oi-oing" as it bounced back into place. Mom sat there smacking her gum and texting on her phone with not a care in the world for her neglected children (she never even glanced at them) who were disturbing everyone in the area. I'm sure all your fellow passengers appreciated that you kept your son occupied quietly!

It's not possible to keep them from bugging people 100% of the time, but my wife and I certainly try our best! It's a lot harder on longer flights, especially when connections are involved...

Songbird76 · Nov 21, 2021

PSM said:
It's not possible to keep them from bugging people 100% of the time, but my wife and I certainly try our best! It's a lot harder on longer flights, especially when connections are involved...

I wouldn't expect any child to behave perfectly. It was more the fact that the mom didn't even LOOK at the kids, let alone tell them to turn the sound off, to stop playing with the arm rest, etc. I have kids, too....little ones get bored and restless, but you have to at least TRY to keep them from drivng other passengers up a wall. Mom was too busy with her nose buried in her own phone to take notice of the noise her kids were making, like she couldn't even hear it. I figured a flight attendant might come and tell them to turn the sound off, but no one ever did.

PSM · Nov 21, 2021

DAY 1

The Drive and Check-In at Port Orleans French Quarter

My mom and dad, Michael, and I arose EARLY in the morning and got on the road around 5:45am to make the one-plus hour drive to Disney World, arriving as the sun came up. What a sight!

My mom did mobile check-in before we arrived at Port Orleans French Quarter, and it went smoothly. We walked straight into the room at 7:20am, although our Magic Bands never worked for opening the door, but our phones did. The room itself was nice, about what I expected quality-wise based on other Moderate hotels I've been to over the past few years. We were second floor in building two with a view of the pool.

View from the balcony right outside the room.

MAGIC KINGDOM

For day one, we actually split up. Michael and I were going to Magic Kingdom (where you have to start a trip) to spend the day with my brother and his wife, both of whom were looking forward to spending time with Michael getting to know him. Again, aside from my parents, all of my Florida family had not seen Michael since he was one year old, so my parents decided to let the four of us spend the day together.

Michael and I were on our way out of the room at 7:30am, basically walked right onto a bus pulling up, and were at Magic Kingdom by 7:50am.

Michael was very excited the entire trip to see the character buses, along with the white and red ones, as he has the little toy Disney bus collection and recognized them immediately.

Park open today was 8:30am for hotel guests and 9am for non-hotel guests, so I was happy to make it to the park in time for the initial "rope drop". We waited a short time at the gates before they let everyone in, and crowds were pretty solid.

Man, he looks so much older in photos than in person!

Big crowd waiting for gates to open.

More to come in next post since you can only attach 10 photos at a time...that will likely be a theme here.

PSM · Nov 21, 2021

Next came the moment Michael and I had both been waiting for: his first view of the castle! Remember, he's 3 1/2, so the castle basically IS Disney World as far as he knew. I got a great video of him going around the corner and seeing the castle for the first time, but these photos should give a pretty good idea of how much he enjoyed it.

At this point, I attempted to get us on Peter Pan before the park opening show, but even though we were pretty far up in the crowd for hotel guest rope drop, it wasn't far enough. We got part-way through the line, then had to leave so we wouldn't miss the opening show. I really wanted him to start off his day seeing Mickey and friends in front of the castle, so I wasn't willing to risk that just for a ride since we had two days at Magic Kingdom planned.

We also had a good time seeing the golden Mickey and Minnie statues, which Michael tried to emulate without falling over.

Right after the show, my brother and his wife met us in front of the castle just in time for normal rope drop, and we all headed into the park via Tomorrowland! For the sake of cast member privacy, and since I don't want to accidentally break any rules I don't know about, I will not be posting pictures of them, although there are so many GREAT family photos we now have.

At this point, the rest of the day involved mostly rides, so I will summarize in the following posts with photos and simple commentary to keep this from becoming an extremely long report.

MORE TO COME!

PSM · Nov 21, 2021

Songbird76 said:
I wouldn't expect any child to behave perfectly. It was more the fact that the mom didn't even LOOK at the kids, let alone tell them to turn the sound off, to stop playing with the arm rest, etc. I have kids, too....little ones get bored and restless, but you have to at least TRY to keep them from drivng other passengers up a wall. Mom was too busy with her nose buried in her own phone to take notice of the noise her kids were making, like she couldn't even hear it. I figured a flight attendant might come and tell them to turn the sound off, but no one ever did.

I hear you. It's a struggle much of the time, but as a parent and (hopefully) considerate member of society, you should be doing your best to keep your child from being to loud or distracting when possible, especially in confined spaces.

Songbird76 · Nov 21, 2021

PSM said:
I hear you. It's a struggle much of the time, but as a parent and (hopefully) considerate member of society, you should be doing your best to keep your child from being to loud or distracting when possible, especially in confined spaces.

Amen to that. I don't blame the kids at all. They didn't know better, and it's not like they were TRYING to be annoying. They were just kids being kids. But it looked like you did a great job keeping your little man contained. He seemed happy as a clam, too!

Love the picture in front of the castle with both of you making excited faces. Priceless!

amjt660 · Nov 22, 2021

Great start to the TR
Looking forward to seeing more

Max

cgersic · Nov 22, 2021

Oh my gosh this sounds sooo fun!! Can't wait for more!

Trip Report Making Memories: November 9th-12th 2021, Father and Son trip plus Florida family!

KellBelle

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MickeyCB

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Songbird76

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PSM

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Songbird76

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PSM

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PSM

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PSM

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Songbird76

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amjt660

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