Healing at our Happy Place: making GOOD 2017 memories: Mar, May, Aug, Oct, Dec TRs (3/24 UPDATE)

[kittylady1972]

OCTOBER 2017 Day 4: Magical Day at MK

So after going pretty steady for several days, day four was a somewhat easy day for everybody. There was no rush to get up and get to a park. We had some FP+ rides at MK but they were all after lunch...which was schedule at Chef Mickey's by request. See the friends who were with us had a terrible Chef Mickey experience during their last trip to WDW many years ago, so this would be do-over for them with older kids who wouldn't likely be vomitting on them like the last trip!

My oldest son had a hankering to try at Cheshire Cat Tail at MK, and so he was determined to head there in the morning. So everybody really did a lot of travel on their own today. I think the boys went to MK first with that goal in mind. My DD and the two other girls headed to MK on their own as well...at least I think. I know some of us started at the Polynesian Resort for a quick bite to eat. At some point 6 of us adults met there, though two of our travel party had issues navigating over to Captain Cooks from the Shady Shuttle drop-off so that was a morning to try to get them to where we were located.

At some point the girls did make it to MK and got some photos at the front:


I know I decided to talk the Shady Shuttle path myself this morning:



After finally meeting up at the Poly for something small to eat, I think we all caught the boat over to the MK together where we then tried to meet up with the kids. We did not have a lot of time as this was our plan for the day:



We knew we would need to start walking to Chef Mickey's by about 10:45am at the latest. We kept texting the other 5 kids who were all together at MK and eventually we met them I think near Monster's Inc, which I think is what we ended up doing at MK? Maybe not? I know we kept trying to find ONE ride to do before we would have to leave...and I'm not sure we made it before meeting the kids. I feel like we may have hopped on the TTA instead?

Anyway soon we hopped the monorail over to the Contemporary for brunch. I really have enjoyed the Chef Mickey's brunch over other meals there. The photographer had some fun with our kids as we insisted on some photos of just them. They weren't too amused.



We did do a group photo of course:



The meal was enjoyable as always, and the kids really did enjoy meeting the characters, even if they are all 12 and above.

 

[kittylady1972]

OCTOBER 2017 Day 4: Magical Day at MK (Continued)

More Chef Mickey photos of course:






Even adults love the characters of course:



More kids and more characters:






We left Chef Mickey's with our bellies full, and it was now time to head back to the MK to ride our rides! We would be meeting up the rest of our group at the first ride, Space Mountain.

At this point I should mention that my kids had figured out the system for Space Mountain in terms of dealing with a ride in a wheelchair. They realized that the wheelchair was their way to bypass the lines, because when they approached with one of the kids in one (she had been nursing a very badly injured ankle for a while and really was in quite a bit of pain when she was walking) they were handed a FP to return at the designated wait time to ride. Now they only did this twice that I recall, and we did ride other times WITH our actual FPs, but it was a nice way for them to get a few extra rides at SM, and not really illegal. Anyway coming up next...a few Space Mountain photos!

 

[kittylady1972]

OCTOBER 2017 Day 4: Magical Day at MK (Continued)

SPACE MOUNTAIN FUN:




So this was from two different rides on Space Mountain that morning, one with the FPs and one with the FPs gained by skipping the line with a wheelchair.

As you can see, we had quite a group for this ride, which was always fun, but I worked hard for those FPs for this group!

I don't recall what we did after this and I was so busy enjoying the moments we had to take too many photos. I'm sure most things had lines...perhaps we managed to take in the Monsters Inc show? I'm not sure but our next ride would be BTMRR and I do have some photos from there coming up next.

 

[kittylady1972]

As you can see, I'm trying to finish up the OCTOBER report before getting into the DECEMBER report. CRAZY! My recall isn't the best but I think I'm getting most of it right!

Spent last night trying to organize photos and videos and get my computer at home all setup again. I wiped it out several months ago, totally by accident, so getting it back up to snuff is going to take time. I'm hoping I didn't lose anything too crucial. I'd like to at least get my photo and video editing software working again as I'd love to put together some videos from some of our 2017 trips.

 

[kittylady1972]

So over a week later and I'm still quite behind. I don't know where my weekends go because I haven't had a whole lot going on for most of them. Yet here we are with still a few reports for me to finish.

I'd love to put together a quick video for here, but I'm struggling a bit with the video software I'm using, which is new to me. We'll see if I can figure it out.

This week I have some really busy evenings ahead and so many things I feel like I need to do when I'm home. With any luck I'll get to finish the October PTR and the December PTR before I have my next trip planned. Right now I'm still contemplating a quick trip in March, a quick trip in April or May/June, a family trip in July for a few days and then possible a trip in October (for my 20th wedding anniversary) and for sure our November return trip. We'll see how many of those happen though.

 

[KathyM2]

My oldest son had a hankering to try at Cheshire Cat Tail at MK,

How did he feel about it? I LOVED that snack personally lol

The meal was enjoyable as always, and the kids really did enjoy meeting the characters, even if they are all 12 and above.

I'm glad you had fun and you are making me want to try it again. Like your friends we had a pretty bad first experience at CM years ago and didn't really want to go back, but maybe I will reconsider...

You have so many trips coming up! I'm very jealous as always. I wish that we could get super cheap flights from Canada like you guys can get in the US..I would for sure go more lol

 

[kittylady1972]

How did he feel about it? I LOVED that snack personally lol

I'm glad you had fun and you are making me want to try it again. Like your friends we had a pretty bad first experience at CM years ago and didn't really want to go back, but maybe I will reconsider...

You have so many trips coming up! I'm very jealous as always. I wish that we could get super cheap flights from Canada like you guys can get in the US..I would for sure go more lol

My son LOVES those Cheshire Cat Tails. When we returned in December, he made a point to go get one then as well.

CM will always hold a special place for us, so I'm sure we'll keep returning. It's still a crazy expensive meal, but I think lunch is the way to go for us from now on for sure.

I don't have too many more coming up, unfortunately for me, but I did mention to DH last night that I was considering another one. His response was that he feels I need a 12-step program.

 

[kittylady1972]

So what do you do when you don't have a trip to plan for yourself? You help others plan their trips of course!

Last week I met with a friend who plays tennis with me and we spent 4 hours in a restaurant discussing her plans for her first trip with her family. She is doing in September to celebrate her 50th birthday, plus she has two small kids and it will be their first trip. She came to dinner prepared, and I've sent her information since our meeting so I think she's well on her way. She is insisting on staying offsite, and I get her reasoning so I'm not pushing that too much. We'll get together again in early March to lay out some plans for meals for her.

In the meantime, I also have a coworker planning a trip for her family including her two COLLEGE AGED sons in March for their spring break. She is doing Disney and Universal, so just 3 Disney park days. Yesterday we finalized her plans for Animal Kingdom and got her 3 FP+s there all set, and they may do Studios in the morning that same day. I think she has a pretty good basic plan in place right now.

***********

Then there is me...what a mess! I spoke to my son a few days ago about plans to head down to Disney in either April or June for a long weekend to do the Dining with an Imagineer lunch. He's excited about that, but we have nothing set in stone yet. And then, to complicate things...yesterday I snagged a Dine with an Imagineer DINNER at Citricos, which I'd really prefer to do. Now I'm trying to figure out a way to swing that one, since the timeline is shorter. I'm not sure if we will or not at this point but you never know. I'm so over these frigid temps in Maryland that I'm ready for some warm weather and sunshine!

Oh and I had to cancel a planned trip I had for a few nights in July this week also. Seems the ONLY available 2BRs at Aulani in August were Oceanview, which is the highest points category for DVC. I needed some extra points to book it, so I had to cancel the July nights to get those points returned. So now we are officially booked in Aulani for 3 nights in August, though I'm waitlisted for other category rooms just in case.

So that's the current Disney trip planning situation for us! I've got a few busy days coming up with doctor and dental appts today (for me and kids), and then 4 nights in a row of tennis playing late at night (Fri at 9:30pm, Sat at 10pm, Sun at 8:30pm, Mon at 8pm) so at least I'm keeping busy and that keeps me warm. This morning the outside temp here was ELEVEN. UGH I'm ready to move to Florida now!

 

[kittylady1972]

 

[kittylady1972]

OCTOBER 2017 Day 4: Magical Day at MK - GIRLS NIGHT!(Continued)

So when we last left we had finished up Chef Mickey's and headed back to MK to ride our few remaining rides. I'm pretty sure we hit up BTMRR since I took these:



I think we had time to kill before our next FP reservation, and somehow I convinced the group to do one of my all time favorites:


Yes I was singing along...and yes it was torture for the kids...but they survived.

At some point during the day we stopped to view the parade from the train platform...and we even rode the train though I don't recall which way and when, but I did take this photo:


Soon it was time for some of us to depart the Magic Kingdom because 6 of us had a reservation at Charley's Steakhouse. This was a request from on of the guys in our group, who had fond memories of delicious food at this chain but from the Tampa location.

Warning: we should have know location makes a difference.

This was probably one of the worst restaurant experiences for a high end chain I've ever experienced, and thankfully we were able to laugh a lot about it. We felt a bit bad for the friend, since it was his wife who was getting the worst end of this meal. The waiter was really bad, at some point even disappeared for a while never to really return. Food came out at different times, and while it was good you hate to sit and eat when one person has no food. The manager decided to smooth things over by comping one of the meals and free dessert (3 of them for all 6 of us) but it really was pretty bad. No plans to return there ever...next time we'll have to drive to Tampa!

After dinner, we all returned to MK and met up with the group again for our last FP for that day:



This was our last FP so we had nothing else to do but I really wanted to try to see the Happily Ever After show. There was a good portion of the group who wanted to return to Animal Kingdom and try to ride FOP during the last part of the evening. Some were torn, but in the end there were four of us who decided to hang at the MK and the rest of the group headed over to AK.

We decided to try to head to Main Street to see the show and stake out a spot, but it was after 8:15pm and we were being told we couldn't head across to Main Street because it was closed, but we were all being directed towards Tomorrowland from Fantasyland. I decided we should try something else, so we backtracked and headed towards Liberty Square but there were still people redirecting us away from any attempts to head towards Main Street. So we went into a Christmas shop to try to circumvent the cast member on the main walkway. We ended up finding a small spot with a sled where we could catch a side view of the castle and fireworks, and there was a family sitting at a table nearby. They were on the sled but the woman there insisted that the 4 of us take the sled while they took the table, even though we told her it was fine. Eventually we did end up on the sled and while it wasn't the best view, we saw some of the side castle projections and heard the music and saw the fireworks from a side angle. I was disappointed overall but it was what it was I guess.

After that we were going to try to ride Peter Pan and I figured the wait wouldn't be too bad, but we got in line and after about 30 minutes (or more) we barely moved...so we gave up.

At some point I know we ended up at "NEW" Fantasyland. We rode Little Mermaid first with pretty much no wait, and then headed over to ride Dumbo.





At some point we had to stop to pose for photos:




It was now getting late so we figured it was time to head back, but first things first...we hit up the ice cream place on Main Street and each of us got sundaes and grabbed a table to enjoy it. It was the perfect end to a good day. Ice cream done, we then headed back to catch the bus back to our resort.

 

[kittylady1972]

As you can see above, I managed to squeeze in one more TR update from OCTOBER! Now I just need to finish the last full day of that trip and then I can start on December. With any luck that will happen soon, but so hard to get myself to do that.

I thought I'd get some time at home this week to work on it due to government furloughs, but wouldn't you know it they kicked the can further down the road and I only got to stay home from work for one day before offices were open again. We will see what happens with the next deadline on February 8th.

Since then, I've been dabbling in dates for a quick trip for my oldest son and I do take, plus looking at a quick non-Disney trip next week for the kids and I during their day off. We'll see what I work out for both of those.

When I do book something, you'll hear it here first...probably before my own family!

 

[kittylady1972]

I definitely have a problem...and I have the ADRs to prove it!

I can't even tell you how many I have right now for trips I may not take but there area about a dozen or so, including a few Dine with an Imagineer reservations until I figure out which one we will keep.

I'd love to go early March since that one is at Citricos, but it would mean my 17yo missing at least that day of school. We could fly out early that morning but can't fly out after school as that would risk us missing the dinner.

I have another on in April, on a Monday. That would mean we could do a weekend trip, and be back Monday night since this one is a lunch. It would be soon after my son's 18th birthday too so we could celebrate.

And I have another one in June...because this one works out as it would be a graduation gift for him. Plus if we are lucky perhaps we can also score tickets to the DVC Member Magic after hours party at Typhoon Lagoon that same week. That would be cool and it gives me time to save for the trip.

Last one is also for Citricos...for five of us...on my youngest son's birthday in July. This would be really fun and we'd make it a family trip.

I can't decide really, but part of me says I should cancel the idea of the March trip and lean towards the April or June trip instead. That gives me time to save.

In the meantime, I had these pesky 18 or so DVC points that need to be used on a reservation this year. So what could I do but book two nights at the Polynesian in June when I saw it was available. This would be after the kids are out of school so we'd all go. I'm completely crazy and yes I know that.
*************

So that's what I've been busy doing, and checking out prices for some of these shorter mother-son only trips. I honestly don't know if it will happen. I still have a little time to figure it all out though.

In the meantime, life goes on at home. We are spending more time as a family these days, having family dinners at home to save money when we are all there. The 1 year anniversary of my mom's death is fast approaching and it's looming over me. Thankfully it will be followed by a day of fun and feasting at our house for our annual Superbowl Party. I just really miss hearing her voice and talking to her sometimes. I so wish I she was still around.

 

[dalmatian7]

Losing a parent it so hard. I feel ya. Take it one day at a time and don't be hard on yourself for how you are feeling.

 

[kittylady1972]

Losing a parent it so hard. I feel ya. Take it one day at a time and don't be hard on yourself for how you are feeling.

Thank you.

 

[kittylady1972]

Back from our mini-vacation to Camelback Resort. We had a FABULOUS time there even though we were there for less than 24 hours! It was still worth the trip.

Friday night we spent the evening at their indoor waterpark Aquatopia. We enjoyed some great indoor slides, the indoor/outdoor hot tub:



and the adults enjoyed the pool bar:



The had an indoor surfing machine that several of our group braved (no I wasn't one of them) and I enjoyed watching! The lighting isn't great since this was at night and they had some backlighting, but the kids had some fun here:




There were also some other indoor activities for the kids mostly, like a ropes course, lazer tag, rock wall, indoor minigolf and arcade. Kids seemed to enjoy themselves with all of this stuff too. Well most of them...I have an almost 18-year-old who I probably should have left at home as he just sucks the fun out of EVERYTHING with his complaining. I wanted him to go because it was a family thing. In the future I really think we need to leave him behind if that's what he wants, and that seems so sad to me.

At least this girl rolls with it all:


The next day we spent more time at the waterpark and then before leaving we did just over an hour of snowtubing:





Bottom line is this place was such fun for all of us and we'd love to return. They have a great outdoor waterpark in the summer months that the kids would love to try as well. We may have to look into it. The kids wanted to ski, but we just didn't have the time this trip. It's on our agenda to do a ski day trip sometime soon though.


Anyway so glad we had this little mid-week break. With no vacations planned in our immediate future, this was a fun last-minute thing for us.

**********

Hawaii Update: Yes I can't believe it, but we have BOOKED our flights to Hawaii in August. We've been stalking prices for a while, and in fact I even applied for a credit card to try to build up some frequent flier miles to get a free ticket. As it turns out, the flights dropped so much that it was cheaper to just pay cash for all of them over cash for some and frequent flier miles for another one. So this morning I've gone ahead and booked them! We've still got plenty of other pieces of the trip to plan, a resort stay on one of the islands, rental cars, and activities but for now we have this one part out of the way and I can probably stop researching flights.

As for my other plans for that mini-trip with my oldest son. Well if you read the above, he really is not a good travel companion and honestly I'm not sure I want to plan any kind of trip with him right now, as sad as that sounds. I think he'd just end up complaining and I'd just be upset and hurt and it's not worth it for me. Therefore I am probably going to drop the dining reservations I have and just forget about that trip. Perhaps we can manage a short family trip for a few nights this summer, if only to do the waterparks, but we'll have to see how that works out.

 

[Mopedmom1]

As for my other plans for that mini-trip with my oldest son. Well if you read the above, he really is not a good travel companion and honestly I'm not sure I want to plan any kind of trip with him right now, as sad as that sounds. I think he'd just end up complaining and I'd just be upset and hurt and it's not worth it for me. Therefore I am probably going to drop the dining reservations I have and just forget about that trip. Perhaps we can manage a short family trip for a few nights this summer, if only to do the waterparks, but we'll have to see how that works out.

Sadness but I get it. At some point they truly do come around. Maybe a college graduation present instead?

Despite his attitude it looks like you had fun!

 

[kittylady1972]

Sadness but I get it. At some point they truly do come around. Maybe a college graduation present instead?

Despite his attitude it looks like you had fun!

Yeah hard to say...nothing wrong with him being a homebody really. As for college graduation...let's just say I'm not holding out hope that he will be on that plan.

 

[kittylady1972]

Another day and another lack of updates for me. I want to do more TRs really...just so hard to get motivated and pretty soon it will be gone from my brain. My brain is pretty mushy these days anyway. I hate to call it chemo brain...but it could be because I refuse to think that at age 45 my memory is this bad. I can't recall simple things sometimes.

So we had a bunch of people over last night for Superbowl, as we have large parties every year at our house, and it was fun. Our friends that are part of our Hawaii travel group were there so we couldn't help but talk a little bit about our upcoming trip. We're definitely very excited even though it's about 6 months away. We've been looking at resorts on our first island and now that it will just be seven of us on that first leg (instead of 9) we have new options to explore. I have a few tours in mind for our first leg of the trip, and we'll have even more to do on the second part. Today I made some slight modifications to our Aulani stay because I found an island view room had opened up, so that saves me points. I've now booked the 1st two nights in one room view, and the last night in another room view, and I'm waitlisting that last night as well. I think my chances may be pretty good to get that Saturday night...or at least I hope so.

That leaves me with points I MUST use by the end of this year. So of course what did I do but book another night at Walt Disney World...for June. So now I have these 3 random nights in June booked at WDW in case we want to make a short trip, but if not I'll try to put those points towards a different room and resort for our November trip. I think my nephews would love Animal Kingdom lodge, so we'll probably try for that one. I can't do that until April though.

I haven't totally given up on the trip with my oldest but I'm not actively looking into it right now either.

 

[kittylady1972]

So a few things going on right now, and let me just say that 2018 really isn't making me happy. Our dog has been battling health issues for a while now, I think I probably mentioned it during this trip report about this time last year. We have been trying to figure out the cause of her health issues, and the tests until recently were not really conclusive. Last week we had another scan because she was having more troubles recently, and we got the results we kinda thought we might get on Friday night...cancer. She has masses throughout her liver right now, but so far she is doing okay. We don't have a timeline for her, we are taking it day to day and hoping we'll just know when she's done. In the meantime, she gets extra spoiled, we are basically short order cooks for her since she started refusing all dog foods and even some people food she was doing well on before. We struggle getting meds in her but we try our best. She will be 9 this year, a little too young for her to already been having health issues, and she is the BEST DOG EVER. Anyway...I may be a cat person but I do love our dog as well:



So please send us all the good thoughts you can muster that we have as much time as possible with her and she doesn't suffer. Vet even told us she could end up bleeding out at some point, and we could just come home and find her gone. This does not make me happy.

I think perhaps I'll have to start a new PTR and TR at some point for 2018 and maybe I can focus on good stuff only there. I feel like I'm always bringing bad news here. Cancer sucks.

Adding to the medical fun at our house, my husband has had some recent issues with his back and he got some test results also on Friday...and he gets to have BACK SURGERY this year. Oh yeah. He's hoping to get that scheduled for the Spring.

***********

What does this mean for my upcoming Disney plans? Well I've cancelled any plans to travel in early March. As fun as it would have been, the timing right now just isn't great and I just can't see that changing. I cancelled our Dine with an Imagineer at Citricos for March, so hopefully some luck person will snag that one.

I'm still keeping the possibility of an April trip open, but leaning more towards May/June for an after high school graduation gift instead. I am hoping he'll enjoy that trip more, and since we really haven't had a ton of really really cold weather here, I'm not feeling any extra need right now to escape to Florida even if I really could use a few days of sun. With a sick dog and a sick husband, planning any travel right now would be crazy.

My husband actually does leave for California this week, heading out to attend his sister's wedding...her 3rd wedding if I haven't mentioned that. So he and his dad will fly across the country for that, and he'll fly home on Monday while his dad stays behind and does some visiting out there with his brother (DH's uncle) and some other friends. I just couldn't justify our whole family flying across the country for a long weekend for wedding #3 for my sister-in-law who I'm not particularly fond of honestly. I suspect beyond this weekend, we will see little of her in the future and that's fine by me. I'm sure that when the day comes that her dad needs surgery (oh yeah, he is also planning to have knee surgery this year) we will be the one helping out with that here. Just as my DH did most of the helping out with his mom during her final year or so here. It is what it is I guess.

Anyway updates here...I promise they will happen eventually.

 

[kittylady1972]

OCTOBER 2017 Day 5: Animal Kingdom Day (Last full day of vacay)

So my brain is pretty fuzzy but I'll do my best to recall this last day of vacation. There were not a ton of photos taken, but we'll see how I do here.

I'm guessing we had breakfast at SOG again, just because that was always easiest and fastest for us. I *THINK* everybody made it to the van for our last day and I drove us all to Animal Kingdom. Around 11am I was posting this photo:



Our plans had us with FP+ reservations at Expedition Everest around 1pm, the Safari around 2pm and finally we would all be riding FOP together at 3:25pm. I do recall it was an overcast morning and they were calling for some light rain.

Since we were over here in Dinoland, I think I sent everybody off to ride Primeval Whirl, something I'm not terribly fond of and so I sat out...and filled my popcorn bucket...and got this:



It is NEVER too early for ice cream! Pardon that sticket you see that looks like a big swoosh in the middle of my chest. That was one of several stickers placed on me during my radiation treatments which I wasn't allowed to remove.

At some point I know we rode Dinosaur without a Fastpass for it. I'm going to assume it was sometime that morning. I'm going to have to search for that photo.

Ok I do remember one thing...it began a light rain not too long after we arrived and we were heading over to catch the Festival of the Lion King Show. Everybody stopped near a restroom and put on ponchos/raincoats, but we knew it was just a passing shower and some of us waited it out without the coats. See?



I do recall as we approached the entrance to the FOLK show, it was about 5 minutes before it was to start and one of the kids went off to use the restroom. We waited and waited for him but we were concerned at some point we'd have to miss it...or he would. I must say while we tried to do our bio-breaks in groups at once, it didn't always work out that way.

We did get to catch the show and since we had a child in a wheelchair they had us all seated up near the front, which was very cool. I think everybody really enjoyed the show, as much as my kids in particular complain about having to go to SHOWS! We had a good time.

We then went to ride Expedition Everest and then the safari I imagine, though I can't say for sure. My EE photos were taken around 2:15pm and the safari photo I have was around 3pm, so I'm guessing we just went from one to the other. I also have the ride photos to prove it at least. While in line for EE, my husband spotted his name:




Views from the top of the ride:


And of course ride photos:



My poor oldest son had no idea his dad was going to hug all over him like that for the photo!

I tried to catch the big cats on the safari...can you see?



We would have been getting off the safari right around the time for our FOP FastPass, but I do recall we went over to grab some food first, knowing we had some time. We decided to head to lunch at Satu'li and I just remember that I arrived with some of the tail end of our group to find two of my kids outside trying to hold tables for all 14 of us to sit together. I wasn't starving but I walked inside to see the line. I came back outside and remembered about the online ordering feature. Sure I wouldn't get a discount, but that was fine. I ordered my food (a kids quesadilla) and then within about 5 minutes it said it was ready and I walked up the counter to get it, looking for my family and friends in the long line. Once DH spotted me WITH my food already, he got out of line and I handed him my phone so he could place his order as well. This worked out quite well for us, and soon we were outside enjoying some food and waiting for the rest of the party to join us and eat.

I think it was after this that we finally head over to ride Flight of Passage together with our FP+s and it was so much fun. This is just by far our favorite ride in WDW for sure. It was cool that we took up almost an entire loading area for the ride and in two different ride rooms once seated. We just had so much fun.

Honestly I can't recall what we did after this, as it would have been approaching dinnertime. I don't have any photo evidence to indicate what we did with the rest of our final day, but I feel like we ended back up at the room at some point, and perhaps we grabbed something at Shades of Green?