"How do you look so relaxed at Disney World" - Our May AoA adventure

[MeeskaMomma]

Hello all!
I have been itching all week to start my TR!
Someone who was looking at my photos asked me how I look so relaxed and all I could say is "all the planning made for a carefree vacation." And all that planning included obsessively reading TRs. The tips I got from reading so many really made this the perfect vacation for our family, so hopefully I can help someone out with mine. .Also, it is just fun to relive the magic this way.

Introductions:
Me, MeeskaMomma


I am a 30 year old stay at home mom living in west Texas...way west Texas...no not near Dallas...about 5 hours west of that ...the desert really. When we move here 2 years ago realized the best way to describe it is to just tell people I live in the cartoon version of Texas.


Did I mention I am an amateur photographer?

Favorite Park: Epcot
Favorite Restaurant: Biergarten
Favorite Food: the Pork Slider at the Smokehouse booth in the flower and garden festival
Favorite Drink: The combination Margarita at the Mexico pavilion
Favorite Ride: The Kilimanjaro Safari and Dumbo

Our DS "Goose".
Goose is 3, he loves Mickey as all his friends, especially Donald and Goofy. He also loves Cars, and like every other child has recently become obsessed with Frozen. He loves Sven and Olaf. He also is obsessed with carrots thanks to that movie, so that is a win.

Favorite Park: Magic kingdom
Favorite Rides: speedway, carousel, and dumbo (go figure)

Then there is my DH "Mr. Incredible".

Mr. Incredible is a 29 engineer and super dad. He is not real social, he works super hard and doesn't take much time for himself. Disney World gives him a great break, we are so busy he can't think about work and he loves floating in the pool with goose. When he is stressed at work we take a walk and talk Disney.

Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
Favorite Restaurant: The Plaza
Favorite Food: Ohana shrimp or pork slider Favorite drink: combination margarita
Favorite ride: Safari

Date: May 6-11
Resort: Art of Animation Cars Suites

Next up: Travel Day!

 

[MeeskaMomma]

Chapters:

[URL="http://disboards.com/showpost.php?p=51459498&postcount=7"]Final Travel Prep
Travel
Poolside Afternoon
Magic Kingdom Morning
The Plaza and Magic Kingdom Afternoon
The Magic continues startin with Ohana
Epcot Perfect I
Via Napoli and Biergarten
Illuminations
Tuskner House
Animal Kingdom Part I
Animal Kingdom Part II
Keeping Cool
Hollywood Studios

 

[arrical8]

Just finished your PTR! Following along

 

[STLMickeyMom]

i'm so in! you look like you're having a blast in the first picture already! can't wait!

 

[Jackiemarie21]

I am so happy you are back! I missed you! Hooray for a wonderful carefre vacation!

 

[MeeskaMomma]

Just finished your PTR! Following along

Welcome! Yay new friends!

i'm so in! you look like you're having a blast in the first picture already! can't wait!

Yay! Familiar friends! I think I need to catch up on your TR! I was already having a blast and that was before we got on the bus the first day!

I am so happy you are back! I missed you! Hooray for a wonderful carefre vacation!

Yay! Jackie is here! I have missed you guys too!!!! ::

 

[MeeskaMomma]

Final Travel Prep

So since I abandoned my PTR a couple months before we left I thought I would show you guys our finalized itinerary. I reevaluated our rope-drop fast pass strategy a couple of times and decided to change some fast passes a couple days before we left. It was a good thing too because suddenly Goose's and Mr. Incredible's fast passes had vanished. I called Disney the lovely cm said she had never seen that before. Se had to rebook all our fast passes (so much for waking up early at our 90 day mark!). Any who it didn't mess up things too much.

This is what the final thing looked like (except we also decided to cancel the wave at the last minute). I think I will redo this as to how it actually worked out and post at the end. Let's see how close we got



The other thing I left out was my fabulous packing. Yes I am overly proud of this. If you read my last TR you saw my technique. I bundle outfits with ribbon and divide by family member with packing cubes. Last year Mr. Incredible gave me hard time for the ribbon so I didn't do his, this year after seeing how convenient it was he wanted in, which ticketed me greatly. He even coordinated his outfits with ours. Awesome sport!





I did the MeeskaMouska mix again, but we decided to ditch the water bottles this year, they were kind of a pain (this was a mistake). We need to restratigize our water battle situation next year. We went from 3 to none, and wended up buying a lot of drinks. I am thinking next year one good solid well sealing water bottle.

I did the same Mickey shirt for John as last year and added two new ones. The Donald Safari, and the eye patch Mickey (thanks to a fellow diser!).







Mr. Incredible liked the shirts so much he said I should do one for everyday next year...ummm done.

 

[Villainess]

Hi! I'm joining in.

Fantabulous shirts you made!

 

[STLMickeyMom]

I'm so glad you're back--I can pretend I'm organized through you! the packing looks great! I was just reading someone's packing tip of using space bags to save room. She was packing princess dresses in them (not something you'd need, probably ) and was loving the extra space.

I'm so glad mr. incredible got in on the matching clothes! He is a good sport!

Oh lady--my TR is done. I was so excited to share I blew right through it, but go read it if you have time. We had a great trip and did so much! We're going back in September for our 10 year anniversary and mickeys not so scary Halloween party. I have a PTR started for that, if you're interested! the links are in my signature

Anyway--can't wait for more!!

 

[katt789]

I'm in!!

Awesome first couple of updates!! Love the shirts and the detailed planning!!

 

[heaven2dc]

Love how organized you are! I think whenever we go on vacation that I'll be super organized but then I procrastinate packing and end up just rolling the clothes up and stuffing into the suitcases

Those shirts are so cute! I wonder if my family would cooperate and wear matching shirts on our next trip. Probably not

 

[natalieguy]

Following! I love organizing and packing so this sounds like a good tr already

 

[natalieguy]

Opps double post

 

[HumblePie]

Wow,impressive packing strategy! Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

 

[MeeskaMomma]

Hi! I'm joining in. Fantabulous shirts you made!

Welcome! I am following your PTR as well. Great start to your PTR!

I'm so glad you're back--I can pretend I'm organized through you! the packing looks great! I was just reading someone's packing tip of using space bags to save room. She was packing princess dresses in them (not something you'd need, probably ) and was loving the extra space. I'm so glad mr. incredible got in on the matching clothes! He is a good sport! Oh lady--my TR is done. I was so excited to share I blew right through it, but go read it if you have time. We had a great trip and did so much! We're going back in September for our 10 year anniversary and mickeys not so scary Halloween party. I have a PTR started for that, if you're interested! the links are in my signature Anyway--can't wait for more!!

Yay! Caught up on some of your PTR, loving it! I will have to go back to the TR sorry I missed it!

I'm in!! Awesome first couple of updates!! Love the shirts and the detailed planning!!

Welcome :: and thank you! Glad to have you aboard.

Love how organized you are! I think whenever we go on vacation that I'll be super organized but then I procrastinate packing and end up just rolling the clothes up and stuffing into the suitcases Those shirts are so cute! I wonder if my family would cooperate and wear matching shirts on our next trip. Probably not

Why thank you! We travel a lot so I have perfected our packing I just wish I was that organized with everything! I love what good sport Mr. Incredible is, we didn't match every day but we did coordinate for the most part.

Following! I love organizing and packing so this sounds like a good tr already

Welcome! And thank you!

Wow,impressive packing strategy! Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

Thank you and welcome!

 

[MeeskaMomma]

We chose a Tuesday as our travel day because tickets are the cheapest and statistically it is the least crowded. There are very few direct flights from our corner of the world, but it makes it nice to divide up the flight. Our first flight was about an hour and half to Houston and the second was a two and a half hour flight to Orlando.

The airport was empty as expected. We got there early and Goose passed the time watching them ready the airplane.



Goose is familiar with that first flight to Houston. He watched his kindle and ate snacks as happy as a clam.

I was a bit worried about the second flight but he ended up sleeping most the flight.



He woke up and and had fun with sticker book we bought last year. It is so funny watching him do the sticker book compared to last year. Last year he stacked all the stickers on top of each other this year he created a story. The cat went in the tree, the fish in the pond, etc.



We love the Orlando airport. Goose was excited for the train and remembered it from last year. We went straight for the front.





We said hi to Mickey (excuse the blurry picture)


Then it was off to the Magic Express. Quick note, have your magic band ready, you can use them for the Magic Express. I has our paper tickets ready, and didn't dig out the bands, so I missed our first opportunity to use them. Next time we will wear them on the plane!



Here is Goose watching the video. I really like the new video.



There is the sign.



There is our resort.





Check in went super fast. And we headed to the cars section. We were amazed at how much Goose remembered!





That takes care if our arrival!

Stay tuned for our poolside afternoon!

 

[lauren_elizabeth]

Joining along! I love how you pack with the ribbons

The shirts you made are adorable, too.

 

[MeeskaMomma]

Side note, until Day 2, most he pictures are from Mr. Incredible's or quick phone snapshots. Since I have started studying photography I have started putting way too much thought into my photos, which can take me out o the moment, my goal at Disney was to try to temper that, take pictures, but stay in the moment with my family, as a result I waited to get my camera out, and when I did I used auto a lot, which I am kicking myself now that I have them on the computer, I would have chosen different settings if I had not had it on auto, but my goal was to be a mom at Disney World not a photographer. All I am saying is, the photos get better stay tuned! On our way to the room we said hi to some of our favorite cars. I mentioned Goose's obsession with Frozen. Part of this obsession includes building makeshift Olaf's out of anything he can get his hands on. This includes piles of laundry, trash, anything. He was very excited to see the Mickey towel art, which apparently gave him an idea because he imedately re-purposed the towels for an Olaf. His best one yet! We have been looking for an Olaf on line with no such luck, but Mr. Incredible wasn't worried because "there will be tons of Frozen stuff when we go to Disney World!" um....no...in case you haven't heard, there is not. I began to suspect this might be the case when I saw the Dis updates about the frozen merchandize per guest limit. This was confirmed when we started asking CMs about Olafs There reaction most often was something like this But more on that epic quest later. After exploring the room we got the swim suites out of our carry on and headed to the pool. The plan was to spend the afternoon while we wait for our luggage. This plan became a necessity for Mr. Incredible because he wore his dress shoes on the plane and I didn't put flip flops in the carry on, so it was either walk around it dress shoes and a swim suite or run with hot feet to the pool and stay put until the luggage gets there. He chose the latter. After swimming we braved Landscapes of Flavor for a delicious Veggie Pizza. We learned last year this is the way to go. Landscapes of Flavor was just as chaotic as we remembered it, but luckily the pizza was just as good. After Goose's bath we walked around the resort and let him play in the arcade or "with the robots" as he calls it.






I was worried he would be too jazzed to sleep well, but nope, he was out as soon as his head hit the pillow and slept until about 7 am . Next up Magic Kingdom!!!! Did our itinerary work? Was the Plaza the amazing place hubby remembered? Want to hear about the extra bit of super special pixie dust surprise for Goose? And most importantly did we find an Olaf!!!! Stay tuned! Now back to the real life of a princess

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Joining in!

We stayed at AoA a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it! Stayed in the Nemo suites. DD has since been lobbying to go back again to AoA and try a different suite.

Looking forward to the rest of your trip report!

 

[STLMickeyMom]

we always stop at that mickey in the airport for a picture too! it's like a little welcome to Disney before actually getting to Disney!

i'm so excited to see all your AoA pictures! I just think it looks so awesome, but I've promised my friend that we won't stay there or visit because we're all going together in 2017 and staying there. we want to experience it all together, but I do LOVE looking at pictures of it! and I think all your pics look great. I take all my pictures with my phone now, but I have seen some great ones that people who actually know how to use a camera have gotten.

I was on an elsa quest before easter, but have given up on that. hoping that by the time we get there in September there might be something in the parks, but not counting on it. can't wait to hear how your search goes....