Pre-Trip My Dream Vacation...a June 2014 PTR

I know, I know, I have a really long time before our trip, but I'm so flippin' excited that I wanted to share with y'all!
Who: Me (Amy), my husband Brian, Logan (10), Lily (8), and Owen (5)
My mom and dad (or Nanny and Papaw to the kids)
My brother Scott, my SIL Beth, and my twin nieces Macy and Allison (3)

Here is a pic of my parents and kids from our last family trip in Oct. 2011

Here is our family

Here is one of my favorite pics of me and Brian

And here is one of my favorites of the kids

Here is one of me and Owen from our trip last December

I still have to get permission from my brother and SIL to post pics of my nieces. So hopefully I can have some up soon.

What: A 3 night Bahamas cruise on the Disney Dream followed by 4 days at WDW

When: We set sail on June 19, 2014

Where: We will be staying in deluxe oceanview staterooms with verandahs. Our rooms are all in a row so we can open the partitions and have 1 large verandah. We are in rooms 6044, 6042, and 6040.

Thanks to Tammy(@Disneyfalcon) for all her help getting this set up for us!!
 
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LeCellier.Lover

LeCellier.Lover

Well-Known Member
I cannot wait to read about this trip!
Your family looks so adorable! I love all of your pictures, especially the one of your kids all lovin' each other! :)
I know it probably seems far away, but trust me the time will fly and before you know it you guys will be setting sail! I'm so jealous this sounds like such a fun trip! :D
 
TheMouseFan

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
LeCellier.Lover said:
I cannot wait to read about this trip!
Your family looks so adorable! I love all of your pictures, especially the one of your kids all lovin' each other! :)
I know it probably seems far away, but trust me the time will fly and before you know it you guys will be setting sail! I'm so jealous this sounds like such a fun trip! :D
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Thanks! I only wish they would be that way more often! It is definitely far away (399 days)! But I know it will go quickly!
 
TheMouseFan

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We had a cookout today to tell all of the kids about our trip. I would have liked to keep it a secret, but I needed the kids input for our WDW part of the vacation. We are only going to be in each park 1 day, so I need them to help me prioritize!!

We had Mickey and Minnie tableware.

And Mickey cupcakes.

My mom made buckets for each of the kids.



After we ate, I had a call scheduled from Mickey to tell them about the cruise. Here they are just realizing who is on the phone. They couldn't stop giggling!


Here is when Logan realized what the call was actually saying.

My three were super excited! My nieces were excited because my kids were excited, but they didn't quite grasp what the call meant.
Here they all are after the call. Macy is in the hot pink shirt and Allison is in the light pink shirt.

Here is a better pic of the girls.

We ended the day by watching the planning video from DCL. Looking back, this was the best part of the day for me because my husband started getting excited for the trip. A little back story about that, the whole reason we are going on this trip is that my grandmother died earlier this year and after her house was sold, the money was split between my mom and her siblings. At first, my mom was going to divide the money between the 5 grandkids and have us put it in their 529 accounts. Then she contemplated dividing it between me and my brother for us to be able to pay bills and such (Owen just had surgery to pin his broken elbow and we have a huge deductible and we just had to buy a new washer and dryer, etc.) Then my mom came up with the idea to take the cruise and go to WDW. My brother and I both told her it was her money and her decision. She decided that my grandmother would have wanted us to go and have fun as a family. Well, Brian thought the money could have been used more wisely and was being a real downer about the whole thing, so I was very pleased when he turned his attitude around after seeing the video.

Only 389 more days!!!
 
TheMouseFan

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I finally started to get myself organized today for this trip. I finally made a Disney binder for myself to keep everything together. After each trip, I kept telling myself that I needed to make one, it just never happened!:oops: Well, since they announced when rooms and packages would be available for 2014 today, I figured it was finally time to get it done!


I have a pencil case where I keep all of my Disney gift cards and Disney Visa Reward card.

I made dividers for each section. Here is the one for the cruise:

I also have one each for resort, dining, and miscellaneous. The others are not decorated yet.

This trip is stressing me out already!! It will be the first time there for my brother's family and my mom is counting on me to plan everything so that they will have a good time! No pressure or anything!!:p I'm not worried about my parents. They are very low key people and just go with the flow most of the time. Last time we all went, they truly didn't care what I had planned, they just wanted to see my kids enjoying themselves! Now, my brother and SIL are another story. We don't always see eye to eye on things. They are never outright confrontational, but I sometimes sense that they don't agree with the way my husband and I do things! (and we certainly don't agree with the way they do some things!!!:rolleyes:)

So, I told everyone up front that I would do the general planning, but that we wouldn't be spending every waking moment together. I made it very clear that since we were going in June, it would be hot, it would be crowded, and it would be HOT!!! I warned them that the best way to go about it is to be up first thing in the morning and get as much done as possible at rope drop, then to take it easy later. I told them that was what my family would be doing, and they could sleep in if they wanted, but I would be leaving them at the resort and they could meet up with us later! We'll see what happens!:)

The plan is to stay at AoA in a Little Mermaid room the night before the cruise. We will likely go to DTD and swim a little. I am looking to book a private transfer to the port since there are 11 of us.

We plan to stay at Pop after the cruise and spend 5 days in the parks (6 if we can get a late enough flight). We'll spend 2 days in MK and 1 in each of the other parks. I figured we would plan one TS meal together each day and other than that, we could spend time together, or not, depending on what everyone wants to do. My mom has already said she will take Owen to ride rides with my nieces since he will want to do different things than my older two will want to do! That will be very helpful.

I'm a little concerned about this MM+ stuff (specifically the FP+). That is just going to make my life harder if it goes live before our trip! Oh well, I'll just have to wait and see!
 
TheMouseFan

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
HouCuseChickie said:
Wow! Love love love the surprise! ...as well as seeing the kids' faces as they realized what was going on. Sounds like you also have a great plan. In fact, your planning is making me feel highly disorganized! ;) Can't wait to hear about more of the details as plans unfold! :)
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Thanks! I really would have rather surprised them with the whole trip, but as I said, I really needed their input this time, so the call was the next best thing. I thought I was busted the day before the cookout because Lily asked me why there was so much Mickey stuff. I kind of thought fast and said,"you know how much Mommy likes Mickey!" She actually bought it!:eek:
 
TheMouseFan

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I got the autograph pillowcases I ordered today! I can't believe how cute they turned out.

I also got some earrings to wear on the cruise.

I'm also excited that I finally found some comfy flip flops for our trip. I usually wear tennis shoes when I'm at WDW, but I know that won't cut it in June, so I've been looking and couldn't find anything because my feet are so narrow. It used to be that I could wear any old flip flop all day long and not have issues, but now I need a little more support. Today I found the Croc Capri IV and I am in love!! Even better, they were buy one get one 1/2 off! So of course I got two pair. One black and one brown. Now, I'm hoping the Mickey ones they have at WDW will fit as well as these do!

Only 355 more days!:p
 

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