Once upon a dream...our family Magical vacation! Day 1

[skojo]

Hi All!
So I've been planning this trip for over 2 years. Actually, I've been planning this trip in my mind since I first became pregnant. Okay, maybe my whole life to be honest. This is my first time at DW. I've always dreamed of visiting DW but it just never happened. Once I had children, it was finally time. I waited until they would be over 40" in height to enjoy most of the rides and young enough that they would still believe in all the magic. Thank you so much to all on this board. It's helped me plan the most unforgettable vacation my family and I could ever ask for. It may have started with a few hiccups, but the magic definitely came through for us.

So who are we? Let me start the introductions.

Our trip consisted of my hubby Peter, our two kids, Justin and Maia, and myself. I don't have a picture of the 4 of us on the way to DW. It was in my plans to snap tons of pictures, but our departure was a little rocky. This is one of the few hiccups in my plans, but more on that later. So here is a picture of all us in MK.

A few details on each of us:

Justin, 5 years old.
Favorite character: Lightning McQueen
Favorite Princess: Cinderella
Favorite movie: Cars
Favortie ride: Toy Story Mania and Soarin'
Favortie park: All of them

Maia, 4 years old
Favorite character: Baymax
Favrotie Princess: Ariel
Favorite movie: The Little Mermaid
Favortie ride: 7DMT and Soarin'
Favortie park: MK

Peter
Favorite character: none
Favorite movie: none
Favortie ride: Toy Story Mania and Soarin
Favortie park: Epcot
He's indifferent to the whole Disney thing. Only did this trip for the kids. Not where he would choose to vacation. He did have fun on the rides but he never really got into it.

Me, Joanna
Favorite character: Donald
Favrotie Princess: Aurora
Favorite movie: love them all
Favortie ride: Soarin'
Favortie park: MK

One disclaimer before I continue. I am a terrible writer. So I apologize in advance for my terrible storytelling. You've been warned.

I planned a 10 day vacation. Enough time to visit jsut about everything without exhausting ourselves each day. I wanted half days in the park and time to lounge by the pool. I didn't want cranky kids from long days or a cranky husband for that matter. I know my kids and as much as I would love them to take afternoon naps and head back to a park in the evening, naps would not happen. So 10 days was the perfect amount of time.

Travel dates: October 24 to Nov 3
I picked this time of year based on historical low to average attendance and great weather without being too humid. I planned all our MK days on days where there was a Halloween party night so the crowds would be less during the day. I didn't book MNSSHP. I decided that it was just too pricey. Especially with the Canadian dollar being so weak against the US dollar.

Where were from: Montreal,Canada
I had enough points with Air Canada to book 1 ticket on points. I am lucky to work for an amazing boss who gave me his points to book the other 3 tickets. Originally I had booked a flight that had us arriving in the evening. We were just going to enjoy the hotel pool, relax and start our adventure the next morning. I had ordered a custom puzzle for the kids to put together of the Fab 5 for the surprise reveal of our trip. Then Air Canada canceled our 6pm flight and put us on the 8am flight to Orlando. Seeing how we would now need to be at the airport by 6am to have enough time to pass security and customs, making a puzzle at 5am was not going to happen. This plan went out the window. So I added another ticket day to our vacation since we were now landing in Orlando before noon. Now my plan was to just wake up the kids and just surprise them with the vacation.

Here is the pic of the puzzle I had made. Hopefully I'll get to use it on a future surprise trip.

Where did we stay/what we booked:
DAY 1: Art of Animation, Little Mermaid section. 10 day ticket, with the regular Dining Plan
Day 2 on: Bay Lake Tower, Lake View Studio room and I added the 9 day regular Dining plan.
- also booked Memory maker, no park hopper

I used the online Disney dining calculator to figure out which dining plan was best to book. Once I put in all the restaurants and QS meals I had planned, the Dining Plan with one QS per day and one Table meal per day was the best option. I would have to pay approximately $600 out of pocket with this meal plan. If I booked the Deluxe Dining plan it would have cost us a little over $1000 more.

I found a great DVC owner on another website and rented BLT directly through him. He didn't have the whole 10 days available. I really didn't mind as I wanted the kids to visit AoA to see the Cars section as my boy is such a huge fan. So spending our first night there was perfect.

Okay so let's get on with the vacation. How did it begin....with a sick kid and just barely making our flights......

 

[TIME2DISNEY]

Hello Sorry to hear that your trip started out a little rocky. I'm looking forward to reading all about your adventures, especially your thoughts on your Bay Lake Tower stay!

 

[skojo]

Day 1 - Travel day and Epcot

Our adventure begins and it's off to a bumpy start. This story will be a little long but I promise my future posts will be shorter. Just so much drama happened on our way to DW.

First my son had a high fever from the night before. When I woke up the kids in the morning, he was still not feeling great. I gave them the surprise news on our trip and they were super excited. Justin was still sick so his energy was really low. He took some medicine and by the time we were at the airport the meds had kicked in and he was feeling somewhat better.

Next onto airport mess. Although I had checked in online the night before for our flights, I still had to get our luggage tags printed at the airport. I went to the Air Canada kiosk and proceeded to try and print our luggage tags. I kept getting an error message as I tried to swipe my husbands passport. I flagged over an AC Rep and she came over to assist. She too received an error message. That's when she looked over my husbands passport and then tells me that his passport is expired. Expired! Wait, what?

I had checked in with the right information as I have a picture of our passports on my phone and used that to check in online. When I packed our passports though, I accidentally took my husbands old passport. Usually when you renew your passport, they snip the upper right hand corner of your old passport once a new passport has been issued. When my husband went to renew his passport, they didn't take his old passport as it had already expired so he had to make a new passport application instead of a renewal. So his old passport was never snipped and I grabbed the wrong one.

My options according to the AC rep was, either me and the children proceed on the flight and my husband gets his passport and takes the next flight or we all stay and go on the next available flight together. Plus we would have to pay for the flight changes. Being that we were at the airport almost 2 hours early and so far I had only wasted about 25 minutes, I decided to move my a$# as fast as possible, get home and get his passport to make our flight. We only live 15 minutes away. It was doable. I run out the door and grab the first cab I see letting someone out. He refuses to take me as it is against airport policy for cabs to pick up travelers at the departure level. So I run back in the airport, have to run across the airport and down one floor to the next level where the arrivals area is and grab the cab from there.

I tell the driver my situation and ask him to drive as fast as he can. Of course I get a driver who gets super nervous due to my over anxious nervous self. As he's driving he misses our exit off the highway for my home by a car length and he has to slowly reverse on the side of the service road to the exit. I get home and I tell him I will be 30 seconds. I run in, grab the passport and run out. My driver is standing outside the car lighting a cigarette. Is he for real?! He looks at me and says, "oh, I don't have time for a cigarette". Again, is this guy for real?! Needless to say he butted it out and we are on our way. Now it's a little past 7am, so rush hour morning traffic is just starting, which causes an extra 10 minutes to the drive. Our flight is at 8:10am but since we are already checked in, as long as security and customs doesn't have long lines we should make our flights just in time. I felt like I was in the Amazing Race. My heart was beating out of my chest and all I kept thinking is that I can't believe I've ruined my families vacation.

But we made it. Just in time. We arrive at the gate, all other passengers were already boarded but seeing as I have 2 toddlers I kindly ask if I can take the kids to the restroom before boarding. Since they were kids, the Air Canada staff allowed it. While I took them to the restroom my husband was able to pick up coffee, juice and muffins for our breakfast to have on the plane. All this and I still hadn't had my morning coffee!

Finally on our way. Justin is still not feeling great and barely ate a nibble.

Halfway through our flight, Justin who had been asleep for the most part, woke up, looked at me and before I can even react, threw up. I rang for the flight attendant while my husband got his change of clothes. The attendant saw the mess and said she'd be back with towels to help clean up the mess. She came back and handed me 8 of those tiny individual square packaged wet wipes. Ummm okay, thank you but maybe some paper towels and a trash bag? There was puke on his clothes, hands, seat, my hands, etc. Anyway I got more towels, cleaned him all up and he said he felt better after throwing up.

Arrival in MCO was on time, we were on the Magical Express after a 20 minute wait and arrived at AoA before 1pm. Our room was not ready so we left our bags at the bell stand and went to explore the hotel. I was told we would receive a text when our room was ready. My son was feeling okay at this point. Still not full of energy but okay to walk around.

The kids loved Radiator Springs. They ran from car to car.

30 minutes passed and no text yet for our room. Justin told me he was hungry, which was a good sign. We went to Landscapes for lunch and he devoured a plate of pasta. Another 40 minutes go by and still no text for our room. I check my emails and see that our room was actually ready 15 minutes after we initially arrived. I never received a text. When I went to the front desk to get our room and asked why I didn't get a text, I was told that they do not text non-US numbers. Maybe they should train the entire staff with that little bit of info. So keep that in mind all international travelers.

It felt great to get in our room, wash up and finally relax. The plan for the night was dinner at Coral Reef, and 2 FP's booked; Character Spot and Test Track.
We were going to cancel Epcot but my son was feeling better and the kids were so excited to be at DW so we decided to go.

Dinner at Coral Reef was okay. The kids loved the tank. My sons never took his eyes off the fish. Our meals were so-so. I had the mahi mahi and it was cold and bland. Peter ordered the Shrimp and Grits. This was pretty good. Maia ordered mac and cheese and seemed to enjoy it. Justin again started to feel sick and had no appetite so he ate nothing. We quickly ate our meals and decided to end the night asap and forgo our planned FP's. I didn't want Justin to get any worse.

That was the end to our first day and I was happy to see it end.

Next up, BLT, MK and Pirates.

 

[TIME2DISNEY]

OMG! What a crazy start to your vacation! You planned meticulously and still your passport nightmare happened. Thankfully you still made your flight.
Your kids are adorable! Hopefully your son starts feeling better real soon cuz it's no fun being sick at Disney!

 

[skojo]

OMG! What a crazy start to your vacation! You planned meticulously and still your passport nightmare happened. Thankfully you still made your flight.
Your kids are adorable! Hopefully your son starts feeling better real soon cuz it's no fun being sick at Disney!

Thanks. It was a really stressfull day. I was really sad for the kids missing Character Spot and Test Track. Things did start to look up though and some Disney magic came our way.

 

[jvz82]

Oh my goodness! I was so worried about my kids getting sick right before our trip. We actually had the stomach flu go through our house one week before we left on our trip, it was awful! I'm sure dealing with all of that while on your flight had to be stressful. Hope the rest of your trip was smooth sailing!