A Retro Trip Report...10th Birthday/First Trip June 2012 Disney/Universal

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A Retro Trip Report...10th Birthday Celebration/Our First Disney Trip! June 2012
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Hey, welcome to my retro trip report! I was looking at my facebook memories today and our album from our 1st Disney Trip 5 years ago popped up. Looking at all those pics brought back so many memories and I decided before I forget any of them, I should get them all down in a trip report. I know the trip was 5 years ago, but back then I didn't have time to do a trip report and then I kinda forget to do one. Better late than never right? It was a very special trip for us since it was my son's 10th birthday celebration and our very first family Disney vacation. So hopefully some of yall will enjoy reading about it!

The Trip
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When: June 15-24 2012
Where we stayed: Tremar Villa (rental home in Davenport)
Where we went: MK x 2, AK, HS, Epcot, TL, BB, USO

The People​

First off, let me introduce everyone. My name is Shayna. At the time of the this trip I was still in my 20s (ahhh to be young again haha) but I am now 30-something. I am the main Disney-lover of the family, but I have managed to raise my kids to be just like me and have even rubbed off on my husband a little bit finally. I also love Harry Potter, the beach, music, crafts, and thrift stores. Back in June 2012 I was a brand new nurse, which is what I still do for work to support my disney habit now. Going to Disney had been a life long dream for me, I had been once when I was a kid but was too young to remember much of it. My kids and hubby had never been. I figured what better time for our first trip than to celebrate the big 1-0 birthday! And that is how the planning got started.

My husband's name is Tommy. He was also a youngin' for this trip and still in his 20s at the time too Now he is old like me. He was not super thrilled about this first trip, he was excited for the kids to get to experience it but he was not expecting to enjoy it much himself and had other vacation spots he would have much rather went to. He also thought the cost of the trip was insanely ridiculous so that probably had a big part in him not getting too excited about it. Spoiler alert-after 2 trips he is now a Disney convert and is really excited to plan on 3rd trip this December with me! Also he cries during Wishes but tries to pretend like he doesn't haha

Me and Tommy a few weeks ago

The main reason for the trip was for our son Gabriel's big 10th birthday! He grew up on Disney and his favorite game is Kingdom Hearts (a disney-fied final fantasy type video game) and he had begged to go to Disney World since he was like 7. He had never rode a roller coaster before this trip, but he rode them all and I think his favorite was Space Mountain or Expedition Everest. Also joining us was our daughter Chloe who would be just under 3 for this trip. She was already a lover of all things princess and Minnie Mouse, and when she got to meet them she was absolutely star struck! Cutest thing ever.

My babies, this was Easter 2017 not 2012 lol they were smaller then

Finally, my best friend Heather decided to join us with her 2 kids, Bayley who was 9 at the time, and Nala who was 3. They had been to Disney once already about a year before and they were excited to come back with us for part of our trip.

Heather and her babies (also 2017, not in 2012 lol)

More to come...
Not sure how I managed to attach an extra photo but I cant figure out how to remove it lol, so bonus pic of me and Tommy I guess

 

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Saved for chapters

 

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Chapter 1-Learning the Ropes of Disney Trip Planning
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As soon as we decided we were going to Disney, I started researching everything I could to find out how to make it the most amazing vacation ever. Which is how I found the Dis! I got a lot of help here and from other sites online. Pretty soon I had a touring plan, ADRs, fastpass plans (this was pre-magic band era when you still had to go to the kiosk to make a fastpass in the park), an itinerary, etc. Tommy thought this was pretty hilarious because I have NEVER been much of a planner, my previous idea of a vacation was laying on a beach until I felt like getting up to eat and then wandering til we found somewhere that looked appetizing. So to say this was a departure from my normal vacation style is an understatement. Now I can't imagine not planning and it was spilled over into other aspects of my life too lol. I have actually became somewhat organized!

I did a lot of research on budgeting tips, as a brand new nurse I wasn't exactly rolling in the money but I also wanted to have a really long, amazing trip. I worked baylor shift at the time (where you only work 12 hr friday and saturdays but get paid for 32 hours) so I saved enough time to take off 2 weekends. That gave me quite a long stretch of time off work. Tommy could only manage to get like 6 days off though, so we ended up deciding to leave on Friday the 15th and return June 24th for him to get back to work. While I was researching budget tips, I came across something called the Disney YES program (Youth Education Series). At that time they offered a phenomenal discount on tickets. I think they were close to half off if I remember correctly. Now they don't offer anywhere near that discount but it is still a really good program and I would love to do it again. Basically you sign up for an educational class at the parks, and you get tickets at a discount for doing so. We signed up for a class at Animal Kingdom because it sounded cool to learn about all the animals there. We got 5 day water parks and more tickets with our class. We planned to use 2 days at MK, 1 day each at AK, HS, and Epcot, and one day each at the water parks. We also got 1 day Universal Studios tickets thru Shades of Green, which only saved us tax money on the cost but every little bit helps.


Once I started talking to Heather about our trip and how cheap I was getting tickets, she decided they wanted to join us as well. Even better, we figured we could share a rental and split the cost which would save us both money. Since any room on Disney that would accommodate all of us would be more expensive than we wanted to go, we decided to rent a home offsite. I am glad we did this for our first trip, because the 2nd time we stayed on site and now I feel like I could never stay offsite again lol. I got spoiled :/ But for this trip I didn't know what I was missing out on and staying offsite was perfectly fine! Honestly it wasn't bad at all and I would do it again, I just wouldn't prefer to. I like being in the Disney bubble. We found our rental home thru a suggestion from someone on here. It was called the Tremar Villa and was in Davenport, FL about 15 minute ride to Disney. There would be plenty of room for us all and our own pool, which at the time sounded great but realistically we weren't there enough to use it lol. I think the total cost when we split it between the 2 of us was around $400 each for 8 nights!

















Once we had tickets and accommodations down, all that was left was the details. And the details took me forever to figure out! I went back and forth about which park to do which day, which ADR to make, what fastpass to try for first, what order to do all the rides in, etc. This part has NOT changed lol. I am currently at this stage of planning for our upcoming trip. But it is also my favorite part of planning! Especially the dining part! It is my goal to one day eat at every single possible place to eat in Disney World. I am slowly crossing them off the list. Being our first trip, I had so many choices and not enough days to do them all. We were also paying for dining out of pocket so we had a budget to keep in mind. I ended up booking T-Rex (I knew Gabriel would love it, and I needed something not in a park for our first day), Via Napoli (based on reviews, spoiler alert-we did not love it), Planet Hollywood (also for a non-park day), Sci-Fi, and 50s Primetime Cafe. I couldn't decide between the last 2 so we did both! Also planned a few offsite meals and planned to pack snacks every day to save money. Now that I look back I would have done a lot of stuff differently but it was a learning experience!

My next favorite part of planning was all the crafts. I made a lot of shirts for us to wear for our trip. I didn't know about making mickey ears yet, but I did score us some free mickey ear caps from the Disney Store for their 25th Anniversary, so that was pretty cool.



More to come...

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Chapter 2- A Surprise Reveal and 10th Birthday Party!
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Originally the plan was to go Gabriel's actual birthday, but for some reason I can't remember we had to change dates up a little bit. So my first plan was to have his birthday party the night before we left and reveal the surprise by having him open some disney related presents and a card saying we were leaving for Disney in the morning. Once we had to change the dates around that wouldn't work unless I wanted to have his party later in the week which wasn't the best option either. Plus I just could not hold the surprise in that long lol so I ended up telling him on Easter. We did a scavenger hunt with clues to disney and trip related items hidden around the house that the kids collected in their easter basket. The final clue lead to the trunk of the car which had balloons and letters to solve a word problem written in chalk on the driveway that said "We are going on a 9 day vacation to Disney World". He was so excited! Of course a little bummed when I had to tell him the trip wasn't for another 2 months almost lol. But excited!

For his birthday party which we ended up doing the weekend before our trip, he got a suitcase packed full of shirts, ears, and other disney stuff, as well as some spending money. I made his cake too! We just did a small party at a park with family since the big present was the trip!












Chloe and Tommy also got a few things for the trip





More to come...