Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho. It's off to the Grand Floridian We Go! June 2014 (Update: Video)

MarbleBob · Jun 17, 2014

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho. It's off to the Grand Floridian We Go!

Tuesday, June 3 through Sunday, June 15 2014

We just returned from eight nights at the Grand Floridian with a gathering of 19 family members across five rooms. People said we were crazy, but it turned out to be a wonderful vacation (despite the heat/humidity, rain, and crowds)!!!!

Some highlights include:

Our first time staying at the Grand Floridian
Our first trip in the summer with the heat and crowds
Seeing Mark Hamill at Star Wars Weekends
Celebrating DD's 7th birthday with Bibbity Bobbity Boutique, Breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table, Anna & Elsa, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Dinner at Be Our Guest
Big family dinner at O'Hana's
Disney's The Magic Behind Our Steam Trains Tour
Etc.

If you are just joining us, feel free to read through the pre-trip report here. Otherwise, If you want to just get straight to the trip report itself, stand by for a quick rehashing of the background and our cast characters, and then we'll get straight to it. :thumbsup2

Background

My parents and my aunt & uncle decided that they wanted to have a gathering at WDW this summer with their kids/grandkids, and they wanted to do it in style. Mom and dad taking us to Disney?!?!? And my sister and her family are going too?!!?!? And my awesome aunt and uncle who I havent seen in a few years?!?!? Terrific! And my cousin and her kids too?!?! Staying at a deluxe resort? Sounds cool to me! Oh, and my youngest turns 7 while were there and were going to have a birthday party like none other? Wait, Star Wars weekends too? Pinch meand then count us in! :banana:

MarbleBob · Jun 17, 2014

maryj11 · Jun 17, 2014

Hello

Cant wait to hear about your trip. That would be awesome to be at Disney with 19 family members !

MarbleBob · Jun 17, 2014

Meet the Family

About My Immediate Family

DW and I have been Disney fans most of our lives. Both enjoying the classic movies and cartoons as kids, and we each went on family vacations to WDW several times. (She had gone 4 times and I had been twice.) The first movie that we saw in a theater together was 101 Dalmatians in 1996. And when we were first dating, I remember she mentioned that as a little girl, she dreamed of going to WDW on her honeymoon. So, later when get got married, the decision on where to spend our honeymoon was a no brainer! That started the tradition of including Disney in our family vacations and we've been going back for more ever since. And in more recent years, weve done a couple Disney cruises and we took our first family trip with all three kids to Disneyland last October. (It was awesome, you can read my trip report it here.)

Matt (me) - Please dont ask how/why I came up with the MarbleBob screen name, because I don't really remember. (Its hard to believe I joined disboards over 10 years ago.) I'm not related to anyone named Bob and I don't even own any marbles. Some might argue, that I've lost a few marbles, but that's a different story. About me? I'm a web applications developer, skateboarder, gardener, and of course, a Disney fan. I tend to go through phases where I'm super into Disney, and then I focus my interest on other things. But I always come back.

And oh yeah, about the skateboarding.... last year we had to delay and rework our trip to Disneyland because I broke my foot skateboarding, and I had to have surgery the day before we were scheduled to leave. Bummer!!! And this time, I broke my wrist 4 days before we left for Florida. You are probably thinking that I'm too old for skateboarding, that I should have learned my lesson by now, and that I take up golf or something instead. You are probably right, but I'm going to go with the theory that I just need to drink more milk and everything will be alright. :cool1:

Stephanie (DW) - My best friend and awesome mother to our 3 kids. Shes isn't really any more or less into Disney than I am, but she's certainly more consistently plugged in. I think she's listened to almost every DIS Unplugged podcast through the years (both WDW and DL) and she's probably listened to every one of Ricky Brigante's Inside the Magic podcasts too.

Princess (DD14) - My oldest daughter. Obviously, that's not her real name, but that's the name that we'll use for this trip report. (We went with "Ninja Potato" on the last trip report, and apparently she's moved on from that silly name. :rolleyes1

) As mentioned above, she's grown up going to Disney World, and loving Disney princesses. She outgrew the princess loving stage a few years ago, but her love for Disney hasn't diminished. She also loves everything Nintendo and Japan, and of course, her favorite Disney attraction is the Japan Pavilion in Epcot.

Buddy (DS11) - Also not his real name, but this is what we usually call him around the house. He's our engineer. He loves building things with his monorail sets, Legos, Rokenbok, trains, etc. And of course, his favorite past time is playing Minecraft on the computer. Visiting the various Disney World Minecraft servers makes it ever better His favorite Disney attractions are the trains, monorails, Expedition Everest, and California Screamin. Hes really looking forward to the Steam Train tour on this trip.

Pickle (DD7) - We don't really call her this too much in person, but she owns up to her nickname, and it fits her well. Very sweet and loving, but she can be a bit ornery and spicey too! She's very much still in the princess stage, and her favorite is Cinderella. Shes very much looking forward to spending her next birthday at the Magic Kingdom!

The rest of the cast

My Parents

Guy (my dad) and Karen (my mom, who goes by DisneMimi on the boards. Well call her by her disboards name from here on out.) They are the the best grandparents in the world. Theyve been to Disney countless times, with kids/grandkids and without.

My sisters family

Cassie (my sister) and Randy (my brother-in-law) joined us too. I couldnt ask for a more awesome big sister and I had a blast spending a week with her gang. They have three boys. Were gonna call them Huey (15), Dewey (10), and Louie (14). (I guess that makes me Uncle Donald?)

My Aunt and Uncle

My moms sister, Denise, and her husband Steve came down from Pennsylvania. They are kindred spirits and we always have a blast with them.

My Cousin Beth and her family

My cousin Beth and her husband Steve came down from New York. They have three kids, twin boys and a baby girl. The boys turn 3 in July. Well call them Chip and Dale. And then the baby is about 3 months old, well call her Baby. This will be their first WDW trip as a family.

Baby was hiding under the blanket in the photo above, so she gets her own photo. Isn't she adorable!

MarbleBob · Jun 17, 2014

maryj11 said:
Hello Cant wait to hear about your trip. That would be awesome to be at Disney with 19 family members !

Cool! My first reader. Yahoo! :cool1:

Thanks for joining in and we look forward to having you along for the trip report :thumbsup2

aimeebarb · Jun 17, 2014

Great crowd of family! Looking forward to reading more and also interested in how the baby did. We will be in the same situation this December.

MarbleBob · Jun 17, 2014

Thanks aimeebarb! From my perspective, the baby did fine. And it's especially helpful when you have grandparents (and other family) to help out!!!

MarbleBob · Jun 17, 2014

Day 1 - "And we're off like a herd of turtles!"

We had family members traveling to Orlando from New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. The plan was for us all to meet on Friday afternoon at the Grand Floridian.

The kids last day of school was on Tuesday, so my group planned to get a head start with a day at Jacksonville Beach on Thursday before meeting everyone else on Friday.

I left work a little early on Tuesday to get home and help get the car ready to go for when Pickle got off the bus. I couldn't do any heavy lifting due to my freshly broken wrist, but I've developed a knack for getting all the luggage to fit nicely, into the back of the van, so I helped the best that I could :hippie:

The bus arrived promptly at 4:30pm and Pickle walked straight from the bus and climbed into our van.

Our plan was to drive to Nashville, TN and stay the night near the Grand Ole Opry. So, we pulled out of the driveway and headed east.

"And we're off like a herd of turtles". (My mother-in-law always uses that phrase and it's become a tradition for our kids to say that when leaving on a road trip.)

It turns out that there was a St. Louis Cardinals game taking place that night, and traffic was backed up pretty bad as we headed toward the city. Off to a slow start, just like those turtles...

Passing the Arch and crossing the Mississippi...

After we made it past the Mississippi, we had smooth sailing all the way to Nashville. It rained a little bit, but nothing serious. We could see storms to the south, so we must have been on the edge of the weather. At least we got to see a rainbow!!

We stopped in Mt. Vernon, IL for dinner (which is about 1.5 hrs east of our home). Stopping at the Mt. Vernon McDonalds is a tradition for us, as we usually have breakfast there on our typical drives to the east coast.

It had been a couple years though, and we were surprised to see that it was remodeled. Oh well, who cares about McDonald's anyway... We are on our way to Florida!!!

Oh, and you may be wondering, "What's up with Stephanie's styling socks!?!?" They are compression socks that her doctor wants her to wear when traveling long distances to avoid blood clots. She felt a little funny wearing them, but it was too hot for long pants. LOL.

We ate and then hopped back in the car for the rest of the drive. Big kudos to Stephanie for driving the entire trip. My arm was still hurting pretty bad and I was on pain meds, so no driving for me. We decided to pass the time with some podcasts since my phone can connect to the car stereo. Stephanie was all caught up with the Dis Unplugged, but luckily Ricky Brigante released an an Inside the Magic podcast earlier that day, so we listed to it first. It made the drive go so much faster. Ricky is awesome!!! After that, we decided to try something different. We started with the "Be Our Guest Podcast" but weren't feeling that particular episode, so we moved on to WDW Radio's podcast. The most recent episode was their top 10 favorite Quick Service restaurant choices. That was a lot of fun and really got us in the mood. The previous one or two before that was about camping at Fort Wilderness. I always wanted to try camping at WDW, so it was an interesting episode too!

Before we knew it, we were approaching Nashville. We stayed at the Hyatt Place next door to the Grand Ole Opry. No particular reason for staying there, other than I had some Hyatt points available that made it free. We got checked in and went straight to our room. The room was nice and pleasant, with a fold out couch that worked well for our family of five.

We pretty much went straight to bed without any issues. Good night moon!

Dwheels · Jun 17, 2014

I'm interested to hear all about your trip! We r doing a big trip in December with 16 of us celebrating 30 years together at Disney!

MarbleBob · Jun 17, 2014

Dwheels said:
I'm interested to hear all about your trip! We r doing a big trip in December with 16 of us celebrating 30 years together at Disney!

Cool! An early congrats on 30 years together!!!

We had a wonderful time with all 19 of us. The size of our group wasn't an issue as much as the June heat and crowds. Assuming that you are going before the Christmas crowds in December, you are set to have an amazing trip with your group of 16 :thumbsup2

annegirl · Jun 17, 2014

So excited to read along! :cool1:

disney meema · Jun 18, 2014

Reading along ... Beautiful family : )

Dwheels · Jun 18, 2014

MarbleBob said:
Cool! An early congrats on 30 years together!!! We had a wonderful time with all 19 of us. The size of our group wasn't an issue as much as the June heat and crowds. Assuming that you are going before the Christmas crowds in December, you are set to have an amazing trip with your group of 16

I hope so we are going December 2-7th

KelleyK75 · Jun 18, 2014

Following you over from your PTR. Can't wait to hear all about your trip.

Tiggeye · Jun 18, 2014

I'm in! Going to read your pre-trip report now.

bellesBFF · Jun 18, 2014

following along! i always find it so interesting when people drive down. living in northern ontario, it's too far of a drive.. 36 hours worth of driving. NO THANKS.

kgoodb00 · Jun 18, 2014

Following along! My brother lives in O'Fallon/Dardenne Prairie, MO right outside of STL.

Can't wait to hear all about your trip.

AAshleySEG · Jun 18, 2014

Now that I am back from my trip, I am very much looking forward to reading all about yours and how you guys enjoyed the Grand Floridian!! :cheer2:

jedijill · Jun 18, 2014

And you're off! Can't wait to hear all about your adventures.

Jill in CO

cstorm65 · Jun 18, 2014

Came over from your PTR. Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho. It's off to the Grand Floridian We Go! June 2014 (Update: Video)

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