Can We Take The Skyliner To The Boat? An Aug/Sep 2022 TR (Complete)

[cajunfan]

I can't wait to follow along...and oh my word those girls have grown!!!

 

[lchicago]

Excited to hear about your trip! We were there the week before with similarly aged kids. It was hot but kids had a blast.

 

[erinch]

Here!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Looking forward to more. We were there over Labor Day weekend and had a blast!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

I’m here and looking forward to following along! Oh the motion sickness I feel ya on that one, my girls get it and it is such a bummer! I am excited to hear about your trip we overlapped a bit so always fun to see how other people days went!

Thanks for joining! The motion sickness is a total bummer, but at least we knew to be prepared this time. It's major bummer when it shows up out of left field and you've got sick on your fellow passenger's coat. UGH! Are you doing a TR?

Love this start!! And yes people outside of disboards just don’t appreciate the level of work it takes to win at Disney vacations. We do. Bring on the details!!

We were also there over Labour Day weekend, look forward to seeing your experiences and impressions.

My DD also has some anxieties that she didn’t before the pandemic

Thank you for following along! It's true- only those in the know really understand that I prepared for this vacation like it was a playoff game and I want to share my victories!

I think we all left the pandemic with some interesting mental health hiccups. It's just too much of a collective trauma for it not to impact people, especially young kids in formative years. It's going to take time and effort to heal and move forward.

Joining in! Waiting to see how you do.

Thanks so much!!

Tagging along! Can't wait to hear about all your adventures! Your girls are adorable!

Glad to have you on board!

Joining in for all the fun!

Thanks for coming along!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Following along! You know us Disers love the nitty gritty details - I love how detailed your TRs are! Also your girls look SO grown up compared to your last TR! Excited to read more.

Thanks for joining! I am a details person, so I'm happy to hear that literally anyone else cares about the specifics. And, yes, they really got big on me. Any hint of toddler/preschool/baby face has been replaced with lanky big kids.

Following along. Love the girl's costumes

Thanks for following! We got all the outfits on Ali Express. You have to wait several weeks for shipping, but the prices and variety available are incredible.

I`m here! Happy to see you are starting your trip report I can understand the exhaustion when getting home from a long trip, especially with 3 kids and then adding starting school on top of that!

Glad to have you! I was really wiped after this trip, but life must go on. I'm finding myself waking up too early these days and I don't want to bang around the house rousing everyone else. Apparently, 6am is my writing time now...

Can’t wait to hear more about your trip!

Thanks! I can't wait to share.

Following! Can’t wait to read about your trip!
Awesome Halloween costumes btw!

Thanks for hopping on board. The girls watched Alice for the first time this year and they loved it. The fact that we could meet the three characters at MNSSHP made those outfits a no-brainer.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

This is amazing! Following as I am planning a trip for my twins for their 9th birthday. I too use A and B to refer to them. It just makes things easy. I am also a Disney is a sport believer and and somewhat sad I have all my ADRs booked and nothing left to plan. I am a bad mom and taking them out of school for two weeks.,…… thanks for doing this I am looking forward to the read.

Thanks for joining! We're actually planning a birthday trip, too, although it's mostly cruise with a quick MK day. You can hop over to my TR if you want to follow along on that one. Your twins' bday must be close to my trio, as we are also within our 60 days for the birthday surprise.

It does take a lot of the sport out of planning, with only ADRs to book at 60 days. But, without prebooked FPs, you have so many more gameday decisions to look forward to. LOL

Joining in! Looking forward to the report! We leave in 30 days and I cannot wait!

Thanks for following. 30 days- eeek!

Joining in - I have always loved your trip reports.

Glad to have you on board. That's very sweet of you- I love sharing them.

Joining the fun!

Thanks so much!

Joining in! We were there, at the Boardwalk, from August 13th - 20th. A super fun but HOT vacation! I'm reliving the trip through your TR!

Happy to have you following along. And, yes, we picked the darn near hottest time of year, huh?

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

What a beautiful family you have!
We were just at Disney too and our dates overlapped with yours. Looking forward to hearing about your experience. It's great that you were able to go for 10 days so you could work around August weather. It was hot, but also found that the showers had an impact with shutting down rides and having to grab shelter for a bit.

Awe, thank you so much. We definitely felt the impact of the afternoon thunderstorms, too. Thankfully, with such a long trip, we were able to still fit everything in.

Following! Excited to read about your trip! I am a big sister to triplets

Very cool! What's the age gap? I am always fascinated by that relationship with older siblings: you're living your life and suddenly there are three infants in the house. Oh boy!!

I can't wait to follow along...and oh my word those girls have grown!!!

Thanks for joining in. It's crazy to think how much they have grown. Sometimes it sneaks up on me.

Excited to hear about your trip! We were there the week before with similarly aged kids. It was hot but kids had a blast.

Excited to share! We were certainly hot, but I think the lower crowds were worth the high temps.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Here!

Glad to have you here!

Looking forward to more. We were there over Labor Day weekend and had a blast!

Thanks for joining in!

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks for following along!

 

[NJlauren]

Thanks for joining! The motion sickness is a total bummer, but at least we knew to be prepared this time. It's major bummer when it shows up out of left field and you've got sick on your fellow passenger's coat. UGH! Are you doing a TR?

Ugh! Is right!!!

Im not I just don’t feel I have the time but love reading everyone else’s! I did a semi live on since I spent a day home with a sick kid but that was it!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Day 1: A Whole Can!

Why must every trip report start with everyone’s second least favorite part? Bested in ickiness only by departure day, arrival day is a necessary evil to get one’s family to Disney. I’ll try to move through it quickly.

If you didn’t read my TR, then you don’t know how bonkers we were about cost saving during this trip. Wild levels of spending were forced through Southwest credit cards so that two of our kids fly free as companions for 2022 and 2023. Calling the piano teacher and asking her to please pre-bill me for six months of lessons was probably the low point, but who can say? Excessive spending complete, we had two companions just in time for Southwest to all but eliminate direct flight from Philly to Orlando! Rather than dealing with a connection and the risk that entails, we opted to drive the two hours to fly out of BWI, which has a plethora of direction options to chose from. Philly’s long term parking scene has also gotten out of hand, with the discount lots charging $17-19 a night, so BWI’s $7 a day parking was a better deal, even with having to pay gas and tolls.

The other important background for travel day is that my girls have… less than sturdy stomachs. If they cough too much, they make themselves sick. Major crying fit because you’re eight and big emotions are hard? Head over the toilet. Air travel in particular has set all three of them off at one time or another, but this trip we were using every tool at our disposal. Of course, driving to a flight to a bus is relatively high risk for their particular brand of motion sickness, but sometimes you have to do your best and hope it’s enough.

For our 12:10pm flight, I wanted to be at the parking garage by 10:00am, just in case getting a shuttle and getting checked in took longer for Baltimore than I was used to in Philly. Plus, when taking 95 South on a weekday, one should build in at least 30 minutes of construction/congestion/accident traffic time. I wanted to be on the road at 7:30 and we were only 10 minutes late getting out the door. I decided to Dramamine the girls before we left, so that the car ride didn’t prime them for trouble on the flights. They also wore Sea Bands and herbal motion sickness patches and we only did music in the car, no visual stimuli. When I tell you we were using every tool, I mean it!!

There were a few slowed down spots, but traffic was mostly fine, so we arrived at Parking Spot North at 9:54am. The lot seemed very full, but the attendant sent us to a specific area and sent a shuttle just a couple minutes behind us. Luggage and kids were loaded and moving in less than ten minutes, and a good part of that delay was me trying to make sure that any food waste made it out of the car. I didn’t want to find grapes or cheese sticks had been baking in the August sun, stinking things up.

We were dropped right at the Southwest counters with clear instructions as to where the return shuttle would be, both given verbally and written with our spot number. We checked our bags quickly, happily used our TSA precheck benefits, and were through security by 10:30am, an hour before boarding. Our terminal had both a Starbucks and a Dunkin, so I grabbed coffee while the kids got situated and Hubby got everyone bagels and breakfast sandwiches for late breakfast / early lunch. I don’t even know what we’re calling an 11am meal: the kids had some breakfast stuff that they were supposed to have eaten in the car, but they saved most of it. The adults had eaten our cinnamon swirl bread en route and were still famished.

In support of our prohibition on visual stimulation on the flight, I had put an audiobook on each of the girls’ Kidizoom Cameras/Music Players, which they started in on as soon as they sat down. (Pro trip- libraries have tons of books on CD that you can then rip to your computer and transfer to a device. Free entertainment without needing connectivity for the win!) They were fed and entertained enough that I actually got to mess around on my own phone while we waited to board. We used Hubby’s EBCI benefit from his SW card for this leg of the flight. He gets two free EBCI a year, and companions are automatically checked in with their primary traveler, so four of us were in A boarding and Aurora was by her lonesome in B group. I asked the attendant if I could send my responsible adult husband to board alone instead of the eight-year-old and she said it was fine. As long as we didn’t try to board more than our fair share in A group, no one would care if Hubby and Aurora scanned in on each other’s tickets.

I boarded easily with the girls, took my seat next to C, and had A and B sit window/aisle leaving their center seat open. Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to sit between my kids and Hubby was able to easily grab the seat when he boarded a few minutes later. Come to think of it, if someone really did want that exact seat, we’d have let them know where the girls’ emergency puke bags were and Hubby would have happily taken a spot outside of the potential splash zone!

The flight was uneventful and on time. All of the girls said they felt fine, so it seemed that our prevention measures were working.

After catching the fake-o-rail, I had my first opportunity to truly lament the loss of Magical Express, not for its financial impact but for logistics. Come on, Disney, I’ll pay if you just transfer my bags and let me hop right onto a bus! Instead, we had to go down to baggage claim A, collect our bags, take the elevator back up, cross over, and head down to ground transport in B to find our bus. It took 25 minutes that could have been 10 if I didn’t have eight-year-olds dragging bags like their arms were about to fall off. I gave them the lightest, smallest rollers, but you’d think I was having them carry each other uphill!

We were taking advantage of the Sunshine Flyer kids ride free deal, which was by far the cheapest way to get five people onto property. We had considered them at normal prices, but three free kids absolutely sealed the deal. We checked in at 3:04 to see a bus already waiting for us; it got moving at 3:10 with stops at Pop, Boardwalk, Swolphin, and Coronado. The bus was clean and spacious, playing old, non-Disney cartoons. We were at Pop at 3:37 to drop off the first family and then Boardwalk at 3:47pm. Our flight had landed at 2:30pm, so 75 minutes to the resort is right in the old ME sweet spot; we would absolutely use Sunshine again if we were doing a shared airport transfer.

On the bus, in addition to refreshing Facebook for new classmates, I was seeing if our room had been assigned yet and double checking our grocery order. Just before our trip, several Chase credit cards had received a free Instacart + trial and statement credits for using the service. That meant we’d have no delivery fee, reduced transaction fees, and $10 back on our credit card, which would seemingly make Instacart a no-brainer. Except, oh my goodness, the pricing on Publix was comically expensive. We weren’t buying much, but over $5 each for bagels or English muffins was going to wipe out that $10 statement credit fast. After some back and forth on Dis about how marked up items seemed, someone mentioned they used it for Aldi, so I switched stores. Unlike Publix, the Aldi pricing was much more in line with what I’d expect from my groceries ($2 for bagels, $1.50 for English muffins) and I was happy to buy only their store-exclusive brands to keep the cost down. In the meantime, the internet was listening and I received a targeted Paypal offer for $20 off an Instacart purchase: woohoo! I packed a lot of dry goods in the luggage, so our order was things we didn’t want smashed (chips, bakery), fresh fruit, and dairy items. Between packed snacks and the grocery order, we would be stocked up for breakfasts in the room, snacks in the park bag, and snacks at the pool. Our shopper was able to get everything we wanted, so our order was ready and waiting for us at Boardwalk. Our room was not yet assigned, though, so we gave nearly all of our bags to the valet and kept only our pool essentials carryon with us.

I didn’t want to deal with poolside changing rooms, and our check in time was fast approaching, so I hopped in line to see if the front desk could give me any guesses as to when we’d have a room. While I was waiting, a refresh of MDE showed me a room number- huzzah! I walked over to Bell Services to get our luggage and groceries and the cast member told me to head straight to my room as someone would be up right away. We all went up and got changed for the pool. When everyone was ready to go but luggage hadn’t arrived, I sent Hubby and the kids down to swim while I waited for the bags.

The kids were living their best Disney pool life while I unpacked the rest of the bag I had, opened out all of the beds, and waited… and waited. At 4:25, I called down to see where my bags were. Apparently, they had marked them as going to room 4005 instead of 4085, so they hadn’t made it to me. Why they didn’t call me after the misdelivery, I don’t know, but bags were once again on their way.

Our standard view balcony looked out over the driveway into the resort. My request had been “upper floor near elevators” as the Boardwalk hallways can get long. We were about 10 rooms from the elevators, so not the closest, but certainly not far, and we had an upper floor. We were also right next to the ice machine room and across from stairs that lead directly to the pool, so I was happy with the room assignment overall. The luggage arrived at 4:40pm and I got to work putting away groceries and unpacking suitcases. Under different circumstances, I am very much a live-out-of-the-suitcase traveler. But, with a family of five and eleven days in the room, unpacking was a necessity. Without kids underfoot, I was able to situate everything in about thirty minutes. Just as I was wrapping up, Hubby texted to ask me to bring down food as the kids hadn’t eaten anything since bagels 6 hours earlier. Ooops! Armed with potato chips and leftover fruit from the carry on bags, I got down to the pool at 5:15pm to really start our vacation.

After the kids chowed down, we bopped between the pool, slide, and hot tub. We stayed to play as long as we could, but a very exciting ADR was calling. There wasn’t time for showers, but we ran up to the room to get changed and the girls found their first Tinkerbell gift. I took a page out of @StarWarsMomofGirls! ‘s book and Tink brought them a set of PJs, which they adored. Prior Tink gifts had been small tokens, like figures and pins, so they were psyched to see she was branching out. We checked into Beaches and Cream at 6:23 and were seated at 6:40pm. The kids knew that dinner would include a fun surprise, but I hadn’t provided any more details. The girls got grilled chicken and burgers, while Hubby and I split the Rueben and a side of tots. All of that was fine, but we weren’t really there for the main courses. The first time the lights flashed and a Kitchen Sink was presented, they looked at me like I had three heads and asked, “Are we getting that?”

The photos do not do justice to how enormous this is or how excited the girls were that we ordered it. We barely even scratched the surface, but their joy was worth every penny.

On the way back, we caught some jump ropers on the Boardwalk. We didn’t hang around too long, though, because we all needed showers and an early bedtime before our first rope drop in the morning.

The kids were in bed by 9:00pm and we could just make out a hint of fireworks from our balcony. After a long travel day, the adults didn’t stay up much later before we crashed as well.

All in all, we had a great travel day. Flights that don’t include upset stomachs are the gold standard here: the fact that everything else went smoothly was a bonus.

Food Budget:
Instacart order: $81.67 minus $30 in credits
Front desk grocery fee: $6
Airport coffee and breakfast: $22.51
Beaches and Cream: $102
Day 1 Total: $182.18

 

[snikki]

My daughter also gets car sick. She can do planes and rides just fine but forget it in the car. I feel your pain. She's 16 now and she still gets it.

We also fly out of PHL (South Jersey/Cherry Hill area here!) and have almost done BWI but each time something has come up for PHL that was worked with our price range. But that was years ago. SW flights out of PHL seem to suck lately. No direct flights except for Saturday last time I checked. This trip we got something decent with American but I do miss the two checked bags with SW.

You guys made really great timing with your drive to Baltimore. Even with leaving a few minutes late. So glad to hear there were no vomiting or sickness episodes! All the preparing really paid off.

The girls look so excited with the kitchen sink!!!! What a great arrival day!

 

[Avery&Todd]

EEEKK!!! Another TR!! Your girls are the cutest and you do a great job planning and reporting on your Disney trips!

Can't wait to read more!!

 

[StalCA]

We were there at the same time as you. I think my son was blowing bubbles in your girl’s faces on the way to Epcot one morning.

 

[Woth2982]

with the discount lots charging $17-19 a night, so BWI’s $7 a day parking was a better deal

I feel this! Boston discount lots are around $25 a night I think and like a mile away! Providence Garage C (which they do not advertise) is $9 and I can walk to the terminal! It isn't as close as A or B, but for $63 for a week I will gladly walk the extra few steps

Come on, Disney, I’ll pay if you just transfer my bags and let me hop right onto a bus!

Right! I miss this and RAC sooooo much! We have rented a car the last couple times we traveled as a family. With DD in a car seat it just makes the most sense. Now that she is 2 and we HAVE to buy her a ticket putting her in the car seat on the plane is just the easiest route to take. We spent the $5 for the luggage cart and it was worth its weight in GOLD. I sent hubby to get the luggage and DD and I went to the car to install the car seat and get her strapped in.

The photos do not do justice to how enormous this is or how excited the girls were that we ordered it. We barely even scratched the surface, but their joy was worth every penny.

The look on their faces is PRICELESS! I love it! I can feel their excitement through the photos!

Yay for no one getting sick! You were smart to be prepared this go around! Looking forward to more!

 

[lilkitty819]

Hey if you ever fly from BWI again, have your hubby drop you and the girls off at the terminal with the luggage, that is what my hubby and I do. Makes it easier for your husband to just park the car and catch a shuttle without lugging the suitcases in and out of the shuttle. We also use the guys outside of the airport to check our luggage, they don't charge they work on tips. Quicker than waiting in the line to check your suitcases, after all we wait in enough lines at Disney.

 

[JenLovesMM]

Wow how the girls have grown into beautiful little ladies! You accomplished a lot on that first day, I'm impressed!

The kitchen sink is so fun! We did it once for supper. The kids knew about it in advance and thought it was the cooling this that supper would be ice cream. Even with 4 of us being hungry, we weren't even able to finish it. It is really big, but so cool. The girl's excitement is coming through on the pics, such great memories!

 

[amazingact21]

Of course, driving to a flight to a bus is relatively high risk for their particular brand of motion sickness, but sometimes you have to do your best and hope it’s enough.

I hate when travel includes multiple types of transportation. It's risky business, but like you said, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

delay was me trying to make sure that any food waste made it out of the car. I didn’t want to find grapes or cheese sticks had been baking in the August sun, stinking things up.

Smart!

Free entertainment without needing connectivity for the win!)

I love audiobooks for kids!
I feel like we both travel with kids the same way. I guess this is the joy of having little ones with motion sickness issues.

Come to think of it, if someone really did want that exact seat, we’d have let them know where the girls’ emergency puke bags were and Hubby would have happily taken a spot outside of the potential splash zone!

I 100% understand this sentiment. If someone really wants to sit next to my kid, by all means...

Our flight had landed at 2:30pm, so 75 minutes to the resort is right in the old ME sweet spot; we would absolutely use Sunshine again if we were doing a shared airport transfer.

I'm glad the Sunshine Flyer worked out.

Unlike Publix, the Aldi pricing was much more in line with what I’d expect from my groceries

Publix can be ridiculously expensive. We were lucky and they were having a Buy 1 Get 1 deal on bagels when we were in Florida. The kids complained once, because that was breakfast every morning, but when you can get it for cheap.
I love Aldi's though!

The first time the lights flashed and a Kitchen Sink was presented, they looked at me like I had three heads and asked, “Are we getting that?”

These pictures are wonderful. The girls looked so excited. It's those kind of shots that you can look back on and remember how fun and special family vacations are.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

As I have found over and over again, no one in real life wants this level of detail about how our vacation went.

Ha! Why? WHy don't they want to hear every little detail!?!?! Sigh....

Great photo!!

And, I am competitive (certain friends just don’t play board games with me anymore).

I was cut throat at the triplets age... no one wanted to sit next to me playing uno.

They were eight years old on this trip, a last hurrah before they started third grade. We actually found out their new class assignments and were following FB threads of who had which other kids in their classes on the bus to the resort.

So fun! We found out Morgan's 6th grade classes when we were at Sanna once. It's a strange core memory but is one!

Belle, second child and the peacemaker. When everyone is butting heads, she’s the first one to give in to try to restore calm.

Funny, true middle sybling trait!

That dress is amazing!

hey way that played out as park exhaustion set in, well, I guess you’ll have to wait and see…

Disney exhaustion is soooo different!

So, if time stamps and food budgets sound like fun to you, I’d love you have you join along as I relive our incredible vacation!

You speak my language! Ha

Hubby would have happily taken a spot outside of the potential splash zone!

Ha! I can imagine. Can you imagine if a stranger did try and sit between them and they barfed... Oh the calamity it would have been.

The flight was uneventful and on time. All of the girls said they felt fine, so it seemed that our prevention measures were working.

YEAH!!!! Watching screens really messes with you. Even just reading a book! Morgan get car sick, not air sick. But in the car she only listens to things. And a full stomach helps! Glad they survived! I will warn you they might get worse around the preteen / teen years for awhile. The dreaded change really messes with your equalibrium. At least it did for Morgan.

y first opportunity to truly lament the loss of Magical Express, not for its financial impact but for logistics. Come on, Disney, I’ll pay if you just transfer my bags and let me hop right onto a bus! I

I mean really, ALL they had to do was change it to a paid program. Almost everyone with kids would have just done it!

took 25 minutes that could have been 10 if I didn’t have eight-year-olds dragging bags like their arms were about to fall off. I gave them the lightest, smallest rollers, but you’d think I was having them carry each other uphill!

Oh man, once we flew in super late, and had to get our bags because it was so late. And it felt like an eternity. Andy was dragging 2 bags because Gwen couldn't handle the suitcase and was crying. Morgan was crying because she was so tired. It was a rough 30 - 45 minutes...

ur flight had landed at 2:30pm, so 75 minutes to the resort is right in the old ME sweet spot; we would absolutely use Sunshine again if we were doing a shared airport transfer.

Not too bad!

Between packed snacks and the grocery order, we would be stocked up for breakfasts in the room, snacks in the park bag, and snacks at the pool.

Always the way to go!!!

t, but certainly not far, and we had an upper floor. We were also right next to the ice machine room and across from stairs that lead directly to the pool, so I was happy with the room assignment overall

Is it sad that I always want to be near an ice machine? We always seem to run out of time in the morning and getting ice seems like a burden.

There wasn’t time for showers, but we ran up to the room to get changed and the girls found their first Tinkerbell gift. I took a page out of @StarWarsMomofGirls! ‘s book and Tink brought them a set of PJs, which they adored.

YEAH!!!! Spreading the magic! FYI - Tinkerbell doesn't deliver to Disneyland. It's Mickey and he only does 1 delivery on the first night. It's a fact.

Prior Tink gifts had been small tokens, like figures and pins, so they were psyched to see she was branching out. We checked into Beaches and Cream at 6:23 and were seated at 6:40pm.

You can't go wrong with PJs. They will use them after as well.

hen Sink was presented, they looked at me like I had three heads and asked, “Are we getting that?”

Love there faces!

The photos do not do justice to how enormous this is or how excited the girls were that we ordered it. We barely even scratched the surface, but their joy was worth every penny.

It really is more about the expierence for sure!

All in all, we had a great travel day. Flights that don’t include upset stomachs are the gold standard here: the fact that everything else went smoothly was a bonus.

Glad you made it! I don't know if we can do Baltimore. The stress of the drive and getting to the airport on time... If costs are too much we def will at some point. We will see. thankfully we are good for our next trip.