Pre-Trip We are family...I got all my cousins with me

I was going to wait to start a pre-trip report since we haven't even booked yet, but we're GOING to, and part of the hold up is waiting to hear when the rest of the family wants to go and can, and who will be with us. So...details will change as I get them. For now:
Who: My family of 4, consisting of DH (Mark), myself (Susan), DD (E) who will be 13, and DS (A) who will be 11.

My brother and his family, consisting of Him (J) and his Husband (also J, so I will collectively call them JJ) and their daughter (N) who will be 6, and also possibly his in-laws...(brother in-law and parents-in-law) All from Wyoming So, JJ, N, the parents-in-law D and S, and their other son R. My brother is paying for them to go because they have done a LOT for our family. They are amazing people and I am so excited to get to share this with them. I think they will be hooked. If nothing else, they will love the nightlife. But they have treated me like a daughter from day one....like I come with the package, and they helped us out so much last year when my dad died, and they are just so much fun. I don't think I have any pictures of them unless it's from drag queen bingo. Nope...but I raided my brother's pictures and here's one of their family at Mount Rushmore. Granny S must be taking the picture.

And My family plus JJ and N at the Mammoth site in South Dakota)

And also my cousins. My cousin has kids my age, all with their own families, so if everyone in their family comes there are like....13 of them? My cousin and his girlfriend, together known as Jimger, his oldest son B and his 2 boys and possibly a new girlfriend....I think his oldest will be 9, and youngest maybe 7?, his daughter C and her boyfriend and daughter who will be...,8? and then his youngest M and his wife and 2 girls....the oldest will I think be 12, and the youngest maybe 5 or 6? From Iowa and Illinois (Picture is my family, JJ and N, Jimger, C and her daughter L at Mount Rushmore before my 4 went to Disney in 2016)

When: July 20th 2019 for 2 weeks at Disney, and then probably a week in Orlando doing Universal, and other places. (varying depending on who) My kids' last day of school is July 19th, so the 20th is the earliest possible date for us to arrive. 2 or 3 of the cousins are teachers and have to be back in Mid August, so we can't go very late. My brother's family will be there for 1 week.

Where: My family and my brother's will be at CBR, the cousins are looking at Airbnb. My family will also be doing a 4 or 5 night package at Universal for Harry Potter, and then some other places we need to look into. The rest, I have no idea if they are just thinking Disney or a bit of everything.

Why: Well, why not? Basically, we have the money to go again, so we're booking and my cousin's daughter C found out we were going and she was semi-planning as well, but didn't have a timeline and mentioned we should coordinate. Jimger both quit smoking this past year after a health scare, and are wanting to celebrate with a trip to Disney, but none of them have been there since I was around 9 or 10 I guess. So they are a bit out of touch with what it's like now. And if the whole famn damily is getting together, we want my brother's family to be there too. The added bonus being my brother-in-law's birthday and my brother and his husband's anniversary both at the end of July, which we could celebrate at Disney.
So, we could have anywhere between 4 and 25 peolple. The good news is, I only really have to do ALL the planning for my 4. But, the rest have either never been to Disney, or haven't been there in decades (Pre- MGM and AK) and really have no clue about what it is like now. So I am going to be the go-to person, which is why I started this pre-trip now. HELP!!!!!!!
My brother hasn't been since he was 14 I think? Maybe even longer. But he's in his 40s now.

Spoiler: Problem solved, but I'll leave this here for posterity.

His husband and family are dragging their feet because it's expensive. They have never been there and can't imagine it being worth the price tag. So, he's asking me for ways to save money. So....since they are all American, they can't use the deal I get over here in Europe. So...how do you all save the most money? Is it cheaper to stay off property or rent DVC points? How about the campgrounds? Are there rooms that sleep 6 at any of the resorts or would they need 2 rooms? I've been trying to do a Disney trip with my brother since 2010 and he always backs out because of the money. So I need money saving tips and any incentive that shows how much value you actually get for that money. GO!

 

[Songbird76]

I was reading TRs yesterday, and came across Buddy's possible solo trip and was talking about my family and realized I hadn't heard from C in over a month. So I shot her a message asking if she had news on her end and she said they are in!!! Her brother B was trying to talk them into going at Christmas, but her brother M can't time off work around the holidays...he's not senior enough. So that settled it....they are coming with us! I'm so excited! We are going to have so much fun!!

 

[Songbird76]

I got these books a couple of weeks ago, but haven't really been able to start reading them yet. I'm still reading my books about Autism. But, the last of our phone cases arrived yesterday, so I decided it was time to update on our preparations. DD, DH, and I all have the same phone. (DD bought hers herself) So we got phone cases to share. The Ravenclaw one with the clouds will be for decoration only. DD put it on her phone immediately and then a few days later, we got a new one and she wanted to change it, but we could NOT get it off. I ended up having to pry it off with a screw driver and I was so worried I was going to damage the phone. We decided not to use that one. We have plenty of others.

I have a question for all you parents with kids with Autism. I know I have to go to guest services to get the DAS pass for DS, but do I need to do that every day, or do I get one pass for the duration of our trip that works in every park? Or do I have to get a different one in each park? Can we use them in the water parks? We didn't know DS had Autism last time we were in the parks....we suspected it, but didn't have a diagnosis yet, so I didn't get the DAS pass last time. This will be a new thing for us, and I'm assuming there's a bit of a learning curve in figuring out how it all works, but I know many of you have used it before, so I'd like to at least know the basics.

 

[Figgy1]

Nope they're good for up to a month. They link it to your MB and he doesn't have to be with you to get a time but he must be in your group to ride. You can make it for him alone or any amount of members in your party up to 6. Hope that makes sense

 

[Songbird76]

Nope they're good for up to a month. They link it to your MB and he doesn't have to be with you to get a time but he must be in your group to ride. You can make it for him alone or any amount of members in your party up to 6. Hope that makes sense

Thanks. So I'm assuming you just get the one pass at the first park you go to and then it works in all the parks for up to a month? Or do I get it at the resort?

 

[Figgy1]

Thanks. So I'm assuming you just get the one pass at the first park you go to and then it works in all the parks for up to a month? Or do I get it at the resort?

Guest relations on your first park day. If you are doing rope drop with a plan it can wait until your in the park or get to the park an extra 20 minutes early. Hope that helps

 

[Songbird76]

The kids have fall break this week, so we are taking advantage! Disney Projects!

If you followed last years trip report for Disneyland Paris, you might remember we made some Minnie Ears to give out to little girls in the parks. Being our first time making them, it was a trial and error process, and we made a lot of mistakes before learning some tricks. (We also had a really hard time finding recipients, which we were quite surprised about....apparently DLP is not a huge crafty community and people didn't seem to want to take gifts from strangers. Well...we ARE pretty strange. ) So this time, we want to do more themed ears...specifically characters. You'll notice the material...the aqua velvet will become Ariel themed ears, the purple diamonds will become Rapunzel, that light greent with lilies will be Tiana, we have an off white with gold and blue dragons what will be Mulan, an off-white with Yellow roses that will be Belle, DD is making tsum tsums out of socks and we will do one pair of Lady and the Tramp (duh!) and one pair of Pooh and Piglet. DD is also considering Eyore. Then we have a bunch of random patterns that we just liked. Since it has been a year and a half since we made any ears, and there was a learning curve then, we decided to start with non-character ones so that if we messed up, it wasn't the end of the world.
(Also why we ended up with Pooh and Piglet...we didn't want to start with the Lady and the Tramp in case DD forgot how to do it.)

So I started with a white pattern that I just liked....if I were going to do a wedding theme with a veil, this would be perfect. I THINK I'm going to put a deep purple bow with this and I might add some purple embellishments, like sparkles or something...haven't decided yet. Anyone have some creative ideas? The basics went really well, so I decided to start on Belle.

It got dark by the time I was done with the basics on it...I'll have to take some better pictures tomorrow in the daylight. Tuesday is market day, so we'll have to check and see if we can get some goldish ribbon for the bow. We are also going to need a LOT more velvet ribbon to line the insides of the bands. We discovered how essential this is when the pair I did not line kept flying off my head in the wind. Tip for anyone who is thinking about doing similar projects: line them with velvet ribbon!!! It's not only more comfortable, but they stay in your hair!

And finally, DD's (12) handiwork for the day. This is all her own design and work. All I had to provide was the materials:

The only thing is that she loves them so much she doesn't want to attach them to the hairband because then she won't be able to take them off. We are thinking of ways to attach them without hot glue....ways in which they would be detatchable, but not noticeable. She thinks perhaps snaps? I thought maybe velcro, but I'm worried it would be visable, or too easily pulled off? Thoughts?

 

[Songbird76]

We went to the market on Tuesday and got some supplies. Monday we went to Arnhem and got more foam rubber stuff to put in the ears. It's a good thing we didn't wait until Tuesday, because where I've gotten it before, they didn't have any. So, now we've got plenty. We got our gold ribbon for Belle ears, as well as some clear rose buttons to put in the middle of some bows. We also got more velvet ribbon to line the insides of the bands, we got some dark purple lace for Haunted Mansion ears, and we got various ribbons, including some checkered ribbon that will go with the Lady and the Tramp ears perfectly. So here is our work for the last few days:

DD's Ariel ears....we got some dinglehoppers and obviously none of these are finished. We haven't glued any ears to bases or anything, finished any bows. We have discovered that velvet is really hard to work with.

These are DD's Rapunzel ears. She decided to do flowers instead of just a bow:

And DD's Haunted Mansion ears. We bought the black roses and DD put glitter on the tips:

These are the Cinderella ears I made. It's supposed to look like a dress....the left ear is the top, like a lace up corsette style, and the right side is hard to see, but it's covered in organza, so it's kind of sparkly like the skirt of a dress. DD did the same thing with her Rapunzel ones. This is before I put foam and cotton into the ears, so they are a weird shape.

And these will be Sleeping Beauty, and will have a rose button in the center of the bow, because in Dutch, she's called Thorn Rose:

These are my Mulan ears. I haven't decided what to do for the middle...a bow doesn't seem very "mulan-ish", but I don't know what to replace it with, because a tiara is also not an option. We'll see.

And just for fun, while we were shopping in Arnhem on Monday, we went to Primark. They have Disney and Harry Potter stuff, of which we are fans. So DD tried this on and I love it....I'm thinking I may need to get one for our trip next summer to wear in restaurants where the AC is cranked.

We had some issues on Monday getting supplies. The store where we buy the wide hairbands only had 3, so we had to get some others at a different store, but they pinch more behind the ears and are not as wide...just not as nice. So we'll maybe look tomorrow and see if they've gotten more in. We also had to walk all over creation to find foam rubber stuff. I'm also trying to figure out how to make some tiaras, because the only ones we found were 10 or more euros, which defeats the purpose of making everything ourselves. But once we get all our supplies, we have plans for Tiana, Merida, possibly Moana, Anna, Elsa, and we're making some rainbow heart ones for my niece in honor of her 2 daddies. We may find inspiration for more....who knows. We're just making whatever sparks us that we find the stuff for. Ideas are welcome!!

Our group may be a BIT smaller. My cousin's brother is dragging his feet, so he and his boys might not be coming, which would be sad, but I get it. But I'm trying to find out all the girls' favorite colors and characters so we can make ears for them. I have no crafts for the boys anyway, since I can't really make hairbands for them.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

That Stitch sweatshirt/coat is very cute. Nice job with the ears! I think the Haunted Mansion ones are my favorite.

 

[MinnieM123]

We went to the market on Tuesday and got some supplies. Monday we went to Arnhem and got more foam rubber stuff to put in the ears. It's a good thing we didn't wait until Tuesday, because where I've gotten it before, they didn't have any. So, now we've got plenty. We got our gold ribbon for Belle ears, as well as some clear rose buttons to put in the middle of some bows. We also got more velvet ribbon to line the insides of the bands, we got some dark purple lace for Haunted Mansion ears, and we got various ribbons, including some checkered ribbon that will go with the Lady and the Tramp ears perfectly. So here is our work for the last few days:

DD's Ariel ears....we got some dinglehoppers and obviously none of these are finished. We haven't glued any ears to bases or anything, finished any bows. We have discovered that velvet is really hard to work with.
View attachment 322420

These are DD's Rapunzel ears. She decided to do flowers instead of just a bow:
View attachment 322423

And DD's Haunted Mansion ears. We bought the black roses and DD put glitter on the tips:
View attachment 322425

These are the Cinderella ears I made. It's supposed to look like a dress....the left ear is the top, like a lace up corsette style, and the right side is hard to see, but it's covered in organza, so it's kind of sparkly like the skirt of a dress. DD did the same thing with her Rapunzel ones. This is before I put foam and cotton into the ears, so they are a weird shape.

View attachment 322431

And these will be Sleeping Beauty, and will have a rose button in the center of the bow, because in Dutch, she's called Thorn Rose:
View attachment 322436

These are my Mulan ears. I haven't decided what to do for the middle...a bow doesn't seem very "mulan-ish", but I don't know what to replace it with, because a tiara is also not an option. We'll see.

View attachment 322443

And just for fun, while we were shopping in Arnhem on Monday, we went to Primark. They have Disney and Harry Potter stuff, of which we are fans. So DD tried this on and I love it....I'm thinking I may need to get one for our trip next summer to wear in restaurants where the AC is cranked.

View attachment 322439

We had some issues on Monday getting supplies. The store where we buy the wide hairbands only had 3, so we had to get some others at a different store, but they pinch more behind the ears and are not as wide...just not as nice. So we'll maybe look tomorrow and see if they've gotten more in. We also had to walk all over creation to find foam rubber stuff. I'm also trying to figure out how to make some tiaras, because the only ones we found were 10 or more euros, which defeats the purpose of making everything ourselves. But once we get all our supplies, we have plans for Tiana, Merida, possibly Moana, Anna, Elsa, and we're making some rainbow heart ones for my niece in honor of her 2 daddies. We may find inspiration for more....who knows. We're just making whatever sparks us that we find the stuff for. Ideas are welcome!!

Our group may be a BIT smaller. My cousin's brother is dragging his feet, so he and his boys might not be coming, which would be sad, but I get it. But I'm trying to find out all the girls' favorite colors and characters so we can make ears for them. I have no crafts for the boys anyway, since I can't really make hairbands for them.

You and your daughter are so talented with crafts. I like seeing your artistic creations.

 

[Songbird76]

That Stitch sweatshirt/coat is very cute. Nice job with the ears! I think the Haunted Mansion ones are my favorite.

We went back and bought the Stitch sweatshirts for Christmas. And it was crazy, because we went, and I was so sad....they only had XS/S size. Like, 20 of them, all that size. But it had looked HUGE on DD, so I decided to try it on, just to see if it fits, and it does. I will look periodically to see if they get bigger sizes in, but at least it fits.

And I agree, DD did a GREAT job with the Haunted Mansion ears. We've also decided to do Carrots. I need to find a red bandana, but we have black material, we have gold hoop earrings, and we have skulls. And we got eye patches and hooks today to wear on the ride with the ears. We'll be all "carroted" out.

 

[Songbird76]

You and your daughter are so talented with crafts. I like seeing your artistic creations.

Thanks! We are having so much fun with it. We've probably gone a BIT crazy, but we'll probably be giving most of them away (if we can find takers this time! ) And I think we might also make some wish bottle necklaces to match some of the ears.

 

[93boomer]

So much talent!!! The Haunted Mansion are my favorite too! Nice work!!

 

[Songbird76]

Thanks! This weekend, we started a new project: Minnie Mouse dress for DD. I have only VERY basic sewing skills, so Oma is helping.

We did run into one problem, that DD is an uneven size. We did her measurements, and her chest measurement was a size 12, but her other measurements came out at a size 16, so we cut everything out and put it together for a size 16, but then it was HUGE on her when we went to fit it. So obviously, that was not correct. I don't know what we did wrong. So Oma took it in everywhere and basically made it a size 12, and now it looks way better. I think it will be adorable. And it's still big enough that she's got room to grow, plus it's stretchy material. So it will be good.

Here's the pattern (A):

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Please post a picture when it is finished! Good luck with the sewing.

 

[Songbird76]

Please post a picture when it is finished! Good luck with the sewing.

I certainly will post pictures. We're planning on making me a dress, too, so it may be a while, but then I can post one of both of us in our dresses. I think they will be super cute!!

 

[Songbird76]

We've been busy again since the kids have vacation. So, Carrot ears:

These have been the source of a lot of harried shopping, trying to find the materials. We looked EVERYWHERE for red bandanas. Could not find them anywhere. So we decided to think up some alternatives. I had red organza, so I thought about using that as a bandana instead, and then we found the black bandanas, so we decided to bling up the black with some red bling stones. We also found party flags with the skull, so we got a set of the flags and I think it works well....perfect size. And of course the gold hoop earrings. We still have not found anything resembling a mini parrot that can sit in the middle instead of a bow. DD is making swords out of hors 'd oeuvres prickers to cross over a plastic skull decoration we got around Halloween. So I think they are going to look amazing when we get them done, despite our lack of red bandanas.

She also just came up and showed me her finished Little Mermaid ears. You can't see the dinglehopper through the bow really well....too dark, but it's there.

She also just finished her Rapunzel ears, and she made a bow and set of arrows out of the hors d' oeuvres prickers and toothpicks for the Merida ears. Super cute.

 

[Songbird76]

Finally booked our Universal Studios package, so our Itinerary is as follows:

July 20th, check into Caribbean Beach
August 3rd, Check out of Caribbean Beach, rent a car, and check into an as yet unknown hotel somewhere in the Orlando area.
August 7th, Check out of said hotel and into Royal Pacific resort at Universal Orlando.
August 11th, check out of Royal Pacific and fly home.

We haven't booked our flights yet. The kids' last day of school is July 19th, so I'm KIND of hoping we'll be able to get either a redeye type flight from Amsterdam to MCO on the 19th, or a very early morning flight on the 20th so that we will arrive in the morning and get on US time immediately. Last time, we arrived somewhere around 2:30 pm and we were STARVING and our room wasn't ready, so we couldn't shower or freshen up before our dinner ADR after something like 15 hours of traveling. We won't be going into the parks on our arrival day because we have 14 day tickets, and since we're not leaving Orlando on our checkout day, we have that whole day to use a ticket, so we'd rather do that than waste one on the arrival day when we don't have the whole day.

We could use some advice for inexpensive hotels with a pool for the days between Disney and Universal. We know the kids will be wanting pool time, so we need something with a pool, but we don't need a deluxe hotel, and even nicer hotels off property are cheaper than Disney Value Resorts, so we don't want to stay on property.

We also need to figure out which restaurant we want to do on our arrival day. It needs to be at either a resort or in DS so we don't have to use a ticket to get there, but we can use Disney transportation because we won't have a car until we check OUT of CBR 2 weeks later.

The list of restaurants we want to go to in the 2 weeks at Disney:

1. Homecomin’
2. Teppan edo
3 .Biergarten
4. Ohana
5. Garden grill
6. 50’s prime time
7. Liberty tree Tavern(lunch)
8. Akershus
9. 1900 park fare Breakfast
10.1900 park fare Dinner
11.Trattoria al forno(bon voyage breakfast)
12. T-REX
13. Boma breakfast
14. Whispering canyon
Hoop dee doo
Beaches & cream
Via napoli

We have the dining plan for our 2 weeks, so 14 credits. The last 3 places on the list we'll be paying out of pocket for because they are not a good value on the dining plan, and we only plan to get ice cream at Beaches & Cream.

I'm leaning toward's Hoop Dee Doo for arrival night because then we aren't missing any park time by going there, and I think it will be a fun way to start. The only downside is that if something happens and our flight is delayed, we would miss it.

Questions, comments, observations?

And for fun, DH glued her Haunted Mansion ears together last night.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

I like your idea of going to the Hoop de Do on arrival day or really doing that on any day. It is a lot of fun and the food is great too. I would be worried about flights but once you get your flights and times then you can get that all figured out and see if it works. Or you could plan to do one of the Disney Springs restaurants (like T-Rex) on arrival day and Hoop De Doo later on in the trip.

 

[Figgy1]

If for some reason TRex doesn't book on the site you can call them directly. They don't release all their ADRs to Disney to book

 

[Songbird76]

I like your idea of going to the Hoop de Do on arrival day or really doing that on any day. It is a lot of fun and the food is great too. I would be worried about flights but once you get your flights and times then you can get that all figured out and see if it works. Or you could plan to do one of the Disney Springs restaurants (like T-Rex) on arrival day and Hoop De Doo later on in the trip.

We did the Wild Bill show at DLP that you suggested and we LOVED it. It was one of our favorite things of the trip, and we did that for our arrival night as well....it set the tone for a great trip. And I think that's a similar idea to the Hoop Dee Doo show...which is why I was thinking it would be great for arrival night.