Trip Report *COMPLETED* When We're Together - December 2021

"Sure it's nice to open a gift that's tied up with a perfect bow. But the greatest present of all was given to me long ago. It's something I would never trade, it's the family that we've made. 'Cause when we're together, I have everything on my list. And when we're together, I have all I've wished. All around the Christmas tree, there'll be dreams coming true. But when we're together, then my favorite gift is you."

"When We're Together" has held a special place in my heart since the first time I watched "Olaf's Frozen Adventure." It is even more special now that we have the gift that we prayed and wished for, for so long. I am so beyond thrilled to be preparing to take our son on his very first Disney trip, and I can't wait to take you all along with us!

Who: By this point, many of you know me (Katie) and my hubby Jason

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And now we have a little sidekick, our son Lincoln! He will be six months old on this trip.

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We will also be meeting up with some of my extended family while we're down there! My "Disney Aunt and Uncle" - they are FL residents and DVC owners; their son (my cousin) and his wife, and their son who is 8 months older than Lincoln. Not sure if I'll be posting any pics of the family on here, but you'll here about them I'm sure, so we'll call them Aunt D, Uncle B, C (my cousin), E (his wife), and CT (their son).

When: Saturday, December 11th - Thursday, December 16th! We normally do our holiday trip the week after Thanksgiving, but we postponed it this year so that we could meet up with the fam while they're down there.

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Where: Pop Century! Remember when I said that I didn't think Pop was worth the extra money over an All Star Resort?

We did enjoy the Skyliner for getting to/from HS and Epcot, although I don't know that it's really worth the price jump from the All Stars to Pop.


Yeah, I ate my words as soon as we started planning this trip. We want to be on the Skyliner route, since you can push a stroller right onto the Skyliner. I wouldn't be surprised if we drive to AK and MK to avoid lugging a stroller onto the bus! 😬

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Why: A lot of people are probably questioning why anyone in their right minds would take a six-month-old to WDW. Well, first of all, I never said we were in our right minds. 😂 In all seriousness, this is something that we had discussed long before we even got pregnant. We've known for a while that our child would grow up going to WDW at least once a year (as long as we are able to financially make that happen 🙏), so we never saw the point in waiting until they were "old enough" to go on their first trip. We've always said that we wanted to wait until our first child was at least six months old before taking them for the first time, and Lincoln will be conveniently turning six months old on December 5th. Not to mention, he'll be essentially free! No, he won't remember this trip, but Jason and I will never forget it. Plus, that's what photos and videos are for!

We've set our expectations for this trip basically on the floor. If we get on one ride at each park, great. If we have to cancel our dining reservations and eat at the Pop food court every night, no biggie. We know we'll be spending less time in the parks than we have in the past, we're just excited to be going back! By the time we go back, it will have been a little over a year since we returned from our last trip. This is the longest we've gone between trips, so we are ready to be back in the Disney bubble!

Up next: Dining reservations and general plans
 
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k8einwdw

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
First off Lincoln is gorgeous! Secondly I can't wait to hear about what your trip has in store for you.
Thank you!!! I wish I could take credit, but he is definitely Jason's twin! 😂
Can't wait! He is SO cute, and this future TR will help me with future planning and expectation setting 😆
Thank you!! 🥰 I'll test the waters for you and @Back!Elbow!Shoulders! 😂
Can't wait to see more!
Can't wait to share more! :)
Yay for Lincoln’s first trip!!
Happy So Excited GIF

Congratulations! Looking forward to your trip!
Thank you! :)
Lincoln is so adorable. Looking forward to this TR and seeing Lincoln in WDW for the first time. What lovely memories you will have.
Thank you! 🥰 We can't wait to take him to our favorite place!
Absolutely love your trip reports. Can't wait to read how this trip works out for you!
Thank you so much!! Hopefully this one won't take me as long to write as the last one! 😂
Wow how cool! So exciting!! We are pulling out of Fort Wilderness on Dec 10th, so we'll warm the bubble up for ya!
Have fun!! We absolutely love Ft. Wilderness, especially during the holidays!
 

k8einwdw

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day One Plans - Saturday, December 11th

If you've read any of my previous trip reports, you'll know that J and I are creatures of habit. Since we live in the Atlanta area, we drive down to WDW to save some $$$. It's about a 7-hour drive, and we always always leave at 5:00 am. Now that we have a baby who is used to waking up and eating around the same times every day, we're trying to decide how we want to handle the drive down. Do we want to leave an hour earlier so that we'll be arriving to our usual breakfast spot around the time he normally takes his first bottle (and pray to the baby sleep gods that he sleeps in the car on the way down)? Do we leave at our normal time and feed him in his car seat? Not ideal, but I've had to do it before. Do we leave at the same time, but stop earlier for breakfast? Who knows what we'll decide, and I'm sure we'll second-guess ourselves every day until we leave. We normally stop twice on our drive down to WDW - once in Perry, GA for breakfast at Chick-Fil-A, and once at the Pilot gas station in Jasper, FL. With a six-month-old, I'm sure we'll be adding at least one more stop to that list this time around.

Once we finally arrive in the bubble, we plan to check in to Pop first thing, and hope that they have our room ready so L can take a break from the car seat for a bit. 🤞 We'll probably just grab lunch in the food court at Pop. We don't have tickets for our first day, so we plan to head to Disney Springs to do some shopping, and then we have a 6:00 dinner reservation at Wine Bar George. I'm hoping I can find an earlier reservation between now and then so that we can try to get Lincoln to bed close to his normal bedtime of 8:00, but I'm not going to stress too much over it if we can't get in earlier. We actually had Wine Bar George booked for our December 2020 trip, but then I got pregnant, and what's the point of going to a wine bar if you can't enjoy a drink? 😂

After dinner, we'll head back to the room and get L bathed, fed, and put down for the night, and Jason and I will figure out how to entertain ourselves without waking him up.

Up next: Our first park day plans!
 

Back!Elbow!Shoulders!

Omnia mutantur, nihil interit
Premium Member
Now that we have a baby who is used to waking up and eating around the same times every day, we're trying to decide how we want to handle the drive down. Do we want to leave an hour earlier so that we'll be arriving to our usual breakfast spot around the time he normally takes his first bottle (and pray to the baby sleep gods that he sleeps in the car on the way down)? Do we leave at our normal time and feed him in his car seat? Not ideal, but I've had to do it before. Do we leave at the same time, but stop earlier for breakfast? Who knows what we'll decide, and I'm sure we'll second-guess ourselves every day until we leave.

I think so long as you have flexibility in your plans you’ll be good. Every time I think I can predict something about lil BES she changes. (Hence why I’m up at 3am today.) I’m sure around trip time the plan will be more clear based on his schedule then.

Excited to read about your trip. And because I’m sure you can’t hear it too much- what a cute baby!

Happy Surprise GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants
 

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
Day One Plans - Saturday, December 11th

If you've read any of my previous trip reports, you'll know that J and I are creatures of habit. Since we live in the Atlanta area, we drive down to WDW to save some $$$. It's about a 7-hour drive, and we always always leave at 5:00 am. Now that we have a baby who is used to waking up and eating around the same times every day, we're trying to decide how we want to handle the drive down. Do we want to leave an hour earlier so that we'll be arriving to our usual breakfast spot around the time he normally takes his first bottle (and pray to the baby sleep gods that he sleeps in the car on the way down)? Do we leave at our normal time and feed him in his car seat? Not ideal, but I've had to do it before. Do we leave at the same time, but stop earlier for breakfast? Who knows what we'll decide, and I'm sure we'll second-guess ourselves every day until we leave. We normally stop twice on our drive down to WDW - once in Perry, GA for breakfast at Chick-Fil-A, and once at the Pilot gas station in Jasper, FL. With a six-month-old, I'm sure we'll be adding at least one more stop to that list this time around.

Once we finally arrive in the bubble, we plan to check in to Pop first thing, and hope that they have our room ready so L can take a break from the car seat for a bit. 🤞 We'll probably just grab lunch in the food court at Pop. We don't have tickets for our first day, so we plan to head to Disney Springs to do some shopping, and then we have a 6:00 dinner reservation at Wine Bar George. I'm hoping I can find an earlier reservation between now and then so that we can try to get Lincoln to bed close to his normal bedtime of 8:00, but I'm not going to stress too much over it if we can't get in earlier. We actually had Wine Bar George booked for our December 2020 trip, but then I got pregnant, and what's the point of going to a wine bar if you can't enjoy a drink? 😂

After dinner, we'll head back to the room and get L bathed, fed, and put down for the night, and Jason and I will figure out how to entertain ourselves without waking him up.

Up next: Our first park day plans!
Just from my own experience, I'd leave a bit early in any case, because everything always takes longer with a baby....you may have to stop somewhere along the way to feed him, or he might get an explosive diaper where it's not just a quick diaper change, or he may scream the whole time and you have to take breaks to calm him for a bit before continuing on. (We have had all three of these things happen while traveling when our kids were babies.) Traveling with babies or toddlers is so unpredictable....it would probably be good to have some extra time built in so you have time to get to your ADR no matter what happens. And if you are early getting there because you didn't need the extra time, is more time at Disney really a bad thing?
 

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