This trip came about because my in-laws had taken us to WDW in 1998, back when we only had 2 kids! We’ve been talking about going back for YEARS, but they came to us in March & said they wanted to send us since Bryce was graduating & may not make many more family trips with us. I had a budget from them & priced it out, flying vs driving, dining plan vs not & which one, etc, though I never even considered staying off-site. It was a little tricky finding space for all of us. It did get easier when I realized the baby didn’t count! Yay!! So I settled on the Cabins at Ft Wilderness. I ended up going through a travel agent & saved some $$ there. We decided on 10 days & to fly. Our trip in 98 was a whirlwind 3 days & involved a lot of waiting in lines. This picture is one of the few pretty good ones. I have another of both boys screaming in Liberty Tree because they were STARVING!!
So my next step was to find a better way. I found the DISboards & got a lot of information as well as some fabulous shirt designs & kind of went overboard with that. It was a lot of fun, though! We pretty much had matching shirts each day. I made all but 2 sets of them. A couple of them had the same color & theme, but different designs.
I had already bought the UG & subscribed to the site then heard about TGM. What pushed me over to go ahead & buy was the letter Mike wrote regarding some negative criticism he had received on the DISboards. It was very well written & polite, & I thought I’d much rather be involved with someone like that. Thanks, Mike!!
At this point, I’d already made a lot of ADRs (we waited over 2 hrs to eat at Liberty Tree before), but I realized some of them were on RED park days! AHHH!! Luckily, I was able to change all of them to suit our new GREEN day. Much to the dismay of the TA, who had made a lot of the earlier ones. ;) I figured this was my vacation & why wait for her if I could get us in? We also decided to budget money & reserve a golf cart to get around the massive campgrounds (fabulous idea) & to rent a Disney double stroller for our length of stay. I thought about buying one, but our daughter would really need one & at 65 lbs & 4’5”, she needs a special needs one. Plus, I really kind of hate strollers & so does the baby, so I didn’t want to mess with it at other times. This also turned out to be a fabulous idea. I also brought the baby leash (Don’t judge me!!), because the baby is a bit of an escape artist, as were his older brothers, but we never needed to use it.
So, we are staying at a cabin in Ft Wilderness, we have the regular dining plan for 6, renting a golf cart & stroller, decided on MYW tickets with hoppers & water park option. We didn’t use it to our full advantage, but the cost was less than paying for one extra entrance to anything, so it was worth it. Our older boys did some hopping & went to the water park, too. We decided to go June 1-10 so some people would still be in school & it wouldn’t be too hot. HA!! (Bryce’s HS graduation was May 29th. This also was before most of our local sports camps & church camp, but I was fine with missing some stuff.)
Ok, so our younger kids know nothing of the plan. The 2 older boys know, but Bryce hates to have stuff sprung on him & Alec likes to be in the planning. We decide to tell the kids on Bryce’s b-day (May 25) so the in-laws can see their reaction. Priceless!! Of course, the next week was a nightmare! Last week of school & Disney World to look forward to. Ugh. I would’ve preferred to tell them when we got to the airport, but I was overruled.
Finally we get to June 1 – Departure day!!
We got up at 4 am to get to the airport by 6. (1 hour drive)
I took some Dramamine (the new less drowsy kind) & give some to DH & DS13. Don’t know if it helped but it sure didn’t hurt!
All the kids are fine & excited until the plane gets ready to take off, then Joshua kind of freaks out that we are going to fall. Kind of overthinking for a 2 year old, don’t you think? After that, I decide that Benadryl is a good idea for the next leg. (we had 2 stops) He slept the whole 2nd leg & was fine from New Orleans to Orlando. By this time it’s lunch, (12:20 our time, 1:20 there) so we ate in the airport. I had no idea how long it would take to get to the cabins, & we were starting to have the previews to the meltdown.
We had ADRs to the Hoop Dee Doo Review tonight at 5, too. I considered cancelling this, since it was on arrival day, but we decided to take our chances & so glad we did!!
It was hilarious! Even Bryce, the proverbial grouch, was laughing & enjoying the show. The only thing I didn’t count on was animal heads on the wall. A deer & a buffalo, to be exact. Right on either side of the stage. Emily has a thing about that. We can’t go to most steakhouses because of it. Anyway, Danny takes her outside for a bit before the show & talks her into coming back in. We also put his hat on her, so she could see the show under the brim & not see the heads.
In the end, she did say she was glad she came back in, so a success. The food was really good, service was excellent & so was the show. I would absolutely recommend it & do it again! Great first night activity. We swam a bit & were in bed by 9. (felt like 8 to us!! Or was that midnight!)
Next day, RD at our first park... Epcot!! Would that be a mistake?? Stay tuned...
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