This Surprise Trip brought to you by Annual Passes! (With a little EPICness Sprinkled in)

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Welcome to another trip report! I am not sure what number this trip report is, but it isn't my first, and won't be my last (hopefully). This trip report will be a fairly short one, as this was a quick get away to celebrate our oldest's birthday! I was super excitied that we were able to do this. I have been wanting to do this for both girls. One down, one to go!

So, Who are we?
There is me, your tour guide for this trip report:
Untitled
My name is Ariella and I am def the Disney obsessed one in the family! Planning trips has def become my hobby!

I am closely followed in fandom by Gwen:
Untitled
I have pretty much created a monster with her. She has taken to creating her own scavenger hunts and Disney trivia whenever she has too much down time.

My closet Disney Lover is Andy, my DH:
Andy and Ariella
He does love Disney, he just doesn't want to plan them until the week before. And we all know how well, that goes! But I do think he likes the trips just as much because I plan them all.

This trip was all for this lady:
Morgan on bus
Morgan turned 11 this year. And is really becoming a young lady and less and less of a kid. (which I know, I tend to mention on her alot)

So, what was this trip for? A Suprise Trip for Morgan. We decided to get Annual Passes for all 4 of this year and go at our regular Feb. trip in 2019 & 2020. And then make our summer vacation be a Disney trip as well. Well, at some point, we decided to squeeze in a quick trip for Morgan's birthday since we had the passes! Makes sense right?

But where to stay? Yacht Club, Waterview Room. I was super excitied when we decided to do this and stay here! I knew we would all love it! And the pool was def a perk for the girls.

We went May 3rd - May 5th. Which wasn't without some stresses, that all worked out in the end.

So, follow along to hear how Morgan liked having her birthday in Disney, if I planned everything to her liking, and some Star Wars... cause, well it's in my board name!

 

[DLo]

Woo hoo another TR ! Looking forward to reading about your surprises and GE and YC ( my fave )

 

[ariane37]

Always surprised at myself when I make the first page!

 

[disneyAndi14]

I’m joining in! How nice to have a Birthday at Disney!

 

[jrmint427]

I’m still catching up on your last report, but excited to see a new one too! A birthday at Disney sounds extra special.

 

[Verstehen]

Following! What a fun way to spend a birthday.

 

[sahu]

Joining in! Can't wait to read about it!

 

[Isabelle12345]

Following!
I have enjoyed reading your previous reports Can't wait to read this one too!

 

[Lesley Wake]

I’ll try to keep up better with this one!

 

[Raeven]

Following along!

 

[lvcourtneyy]

Joining in!

 

[amazingact21]

Have I said I'm here? I don't think I have....either way, I'm in and excited to read about Morgan's surprise birthday trip!

 

[missangelalexis]

Joining in!! Can't wait to hear how this quick trip went!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Hello Everyone! I am going to post the first installment after I complete some replies now!

Woo hoo another TR ! Looking forward to reading about your surprises and GE and YC ( my fave )

Thanks for coming over to this TR! spoiler alert, we LOVED YC! (and GE)

Always surprised at myself when I make the first page!

Right? I get SUPER excitied when I get the timing just right!

I’m joining in! How nice to have a Birthday at Disney!

I know, right? I want one! Which I probably will when we do a trip for Gwen, as she is 2 days before me.

’m still catching up on your last report, but excited to see a new one too! A birthday at Disney sounds extra special.

Glad you are here! i know how easy it is to fall behind on trip reports!

Following! What a fun way to spend a birthday.

Thanks for following along!

Joining in! Can't wait to read about it!

Thanks for following along.

Following!
I have enjoyed reading your previous reports Can't wait to read this one too!

I am so glad you have followed me over to this new trip report!

I’ll try to keep up better with this one!

We will see about that! You have good reason to fall behind on this one!

Following along!

YEAH!!!! I need to catch up on your trip report! I have fallen behind.

Joining in!

Thanks for coming over to this report!

Have I said I'm here? I don't think I have....either way, I'm in and excited to read about Morgan's surprise birthday trip!

YEAH!!! Glad you are hear! Up next the "big" reveal!

Joining in!! Can't wait to hear how this quick trip went!

thanks for coming over. I think I am behind on your trip report. I am behind on a bunch.

 

[Cloe Colton]

Joining in! Can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[Lesley Wake]

We will see about that! You have good reason to fall behind on this one!

Seriously! I don't know how much I'll be on the Dis when I'm overseas!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Ok, folks, So, let's get this trip report started!!! This will be the usual travel day / reveal day!

Travel Day!

This trip kind of came together fairly quickly. One night Andy suggested we go for Morgan's birthday. I JUMPED at this and started planning! I did some texting with @Lesley Wake on hotel room options. I also looked into off site options and did some DM-ing with @pepperandchips about those. But in the end Lesley helped me out with a good rate for Yacht Club and I knew Morgan would love the pool there, so we went with that!

Since we started planning it late, it was a little easy to keep the secret, as we didn't have to keep it TOO long.

We had to do some planning with the girls teachers, as Gwen was taking standardized testing this week, and I wanted to minimize what she missed. Thankfully, Gwen had Morgan's old teacher, and Morgan's teacher was married to Gwen's teacher. They were great and totally understood.

So, on Thursday, we decided to sent the girls to school without telling them, we didn't want Gwen to rush through her test or be distracted while taking her test.

I got the usual text that our flight was delayed, so we were able to leave them in school a little longer than we had originally planned. And Gwen was able to complete the testing for the day. (which was perfect as she only missed one day of testing)

We picked them up early from school, and met them in school office. Which we were greated with a MILLION questions. Why are we leaving? Are we going to Disney?

Andy and I said nothing the whole way home and just said you will see.

We got home and Morgan found this on our dinning room table:
Birthday Gifts

YEAH!

Needless to say... Morgan was excitied
Morgan Excitied

We weren't on a huge time crunch, so we took our time, let the trip settle in. The girls changed into Florida approriate clothing and then headed out.

Opening Gifts in the Car
We let Morgan bring 2 of the gifts with her in the car to open. (Mostly because one was new head phones as her had JUST died a few days earlier and she was going to need that on the plane)

Books!
The other were these books, which we felt ok leaving in the car.

Books
She is in love with this book series and has been devouring them!

Gwen

Before long we were at the airport, we parked in long term parking, and headed to the terminal. We were flying Frontier this trip, which we don't love but it was the cheapest by far! I don't think I paid extra for choosing our seats, but I checked us in right at the 24 hour window and was able to get us 3 and 1 seats towards the back of the plane both ways, so no issue there.

We got to the airport, got our bags checked and went through security. We headed to our usual spot, Chickie n Pete's for some dinner! We were able to grab a table at the newer "outside" area. Which we now perfer, as it's not as dark and feels less like a bar.

Cheers!
We ordered drinks and were able to do our usual cheers!

Birthday Girl to be
Happy Early Birthday to Morgan! I think she was still in shock at this point!

We ordered some food.
Crab Fries
Crab Fries for Andy and I. Gwen ordered plain fries for herself.

Mozzarella Sticks
Morgan had Mozzarella Sticks.

While we sat, we got another notification that our plane was delays MORE! There were some bad thunderstorms all along the east coast and there were just delays everywhere! I know @ariane37 flew in earlier in the day and had delays. And @pepperandchips & @ArielSRL were stuck in Atlanta and had WAY worse delays than we ended up having!

Waiting for delayed plane
But we made due and tried to be patient.

Eventually we made it on a plane!
Finally ready to go

Let me tell you.... this was the worst flight I have ever been on!!!! I have heard worse stories on the boards (@lvcourtneyy - your story def tops mine!)

The people on this flight, I don't know, they just were rude! No one listened to the safety speech, which I know no one really listens to but most people just ignore, not talk over the flight attendants. And then we had a lot of turbulance, so we had the seat belt sign on most of the time. And people just kept getting up anyway.

And then we had a family with kids behind us, which I know kids aren't always quiet, but these 2 girls were screaming and screaming. And for no reason. They kept standing on the seats. The Stewardess had to repeatly ask the kids to sit down and not stand on the seats. The one girl seriously screamed for what felt like half of the flight.

But the best was once we landed, someone got up to use the bathroom while we were still taxi-ing. The flight attendants were yelling at the person to sit down. She didn't listen. So, the pilot literally stopped the plane where we were and we waited for her to come out of the bathroom. They were banging on the bathroom door to get the lady out. It was bizzare. And then once she was finally done and back and her seat, we taxied some more and then had to stop again, because there was lightening in the area and the ground crew had to go inside.

But we evenutally made it the gate and were able to get off. Oh that was the other thing! When did it become a thing that people in the back don't wait till the rows in front of them get off? The people 4 rows behind us got up and walked literally half way up the plane. And then the Dad got mad because the wife wasn't pushing there way farther up!

BUT eventually we were seeing this!
Magical Express

And even better... This was what the lines looked like:
NObody here

At this point, I am not sure how long we waited but I think after the flight we didn't really care!

Magic Bands
We took our magic bands pic!

And we were off and FINALLY had made it to our desination!!!
Finally at Yacht Club
Yacht Club. My picture is time stamped with 8:50 when we arrived. But it had felt ALOT later than that.

I had been texting with Lesley about meeting up this evening. She was trying to pull off a surprise but between not getting a room text and all of our flight delays, they hadn't worked out quiet right. But we were working on something else instead!

Checking out the Globe
We checked out the lobby a bit and then went to find our room, as we had gotten a room text.

Map Carpet
Gwen and I Disney Geeked out on the map carpet as we walked.

Compass in Carpet
And of course, we went the wrong way and made our walk alot longer than it needed to be! But we found our room.

Room

Bathroom
I took some room pictures when we got there. Which I don't know why I bother, as I don't take the best ones.

Room

We checked out our view and we had a perfect view of the pool! It was 8:57 at the time, so we waited till 9:00 to see if they were

Continued in the next post:

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Travel Day Continued

We checked out our view and we had a perfect view of the pool! It was 8:57 at the time, so we waited till 9:00 to see if they were closing the pool at 9:00 or not.
Pool From our Room
They didn't! So, the girls put on there baithing suits to test out the pool. Andy and I decided against it as it was so late already.

We headed down to check it all out!
Ready to Swim

Whirlpool
The girls discovered this whirlpool area, which really did kind of spin you around. They spent some time in there.

M&G in the Lazy River
And they checked out the lazy River. Which they said was too lazy.

Lazy River

Gwen Floating
The pool was pretty dead this night, so they really enjoyed the pool to themselves.

Ship Wreck
After about an hour, we tried to pull them out of the pool, to eat some sort of dinner and get ready for bed.

At this point, Lesley was on her way back from Hollywood Studios. And we were hoping to meet up.

We went over to the Beach Club counter service area to get some food. I had forgotten goggles for the girls, but found some in the store there, which was good. The girls decided to split a flat bread pizza and Andy and I split a sandwich they had.

Sandwich
The sandwich was AWFUL!!!!! Probably one of the worst things I have eaten on Disney property. It was bad!!!!

I also grabbed 2 cupcakes for the girls to eat back in the room.

I was trying to juggle all the food, drinks, goggles and text Lesley on meeting up! But eventually got my **it together and checked out. At this point Lesley was back. So, I sent Andy and the girls to eat there dinner outside while I went on a secret mission!

Andy and the girls went out the door right by the Beach Club Counter Service and poor Lesley was hiding behind some bushes trying to not let the girls see her. Thankfully, they are all oblivious and didn't see her. I met up with lesley adn we headed to her room.

Which was on the other side of the resort from us!!! And met up with @disneyAndi14 in there room. Lesley had spent part of her rest time blowing up balloons for Morgan! She had brought with her Star Wars balloons and some other Star Wars decorations and gifts! all the way from California with her.

Caroline, Lesley and I managed to carry all the gifts and decorations in one trip all the way across the hotel to our room. And get everything decorated before Andy came back with the girls. Which he got lost on the way, and after they found everthing, assumed that he has done it on purpose!

Balloons!

Happy Birthday!
Lesley had thought of everything, she had siscors and tape with her. She was prepared!

BB8

We were able to get everything set up. Carline headed out and Lesley hide in the stairwell for the girls to come back and then come in.

Morgan was super surpised and again I think still a little in shock about the whole trip!

Star Wars Gift from Lesley
These are the gifts she got for Morgan, and seriously they were so thoughtful and SOOO appricated!! Andy may have wanted the one book for himself to read! @Lesley Wake - I can't thank you enough!!!! You have been so thoughtful to everyone on these boards! And I am sure I speak for everyone, we all appriciate it!

It was 10:30 by now and the girls were EXHAUSTED! So, Lesley said goodby, and we got ready for bed.

Tinkerbell Pj's
I was able to also throw the Tinkerbell gifts out as well. Which the girls found and promptly put on.

They ate cupcakes in the room.
Goofy Cupcake

Minnie Bow Cupcake
Checked out the book Lesley gave Morgan. And it was soon time for bed!

Boardwalk from our room
Good Night Yacht Club!

It was a long day but we were super excitied to be tehre!

 

[DLo]

what a wonderful surprises at the beginning and the end of the day- the travel part not so much ugh. Lesley is so thoughtful. You are lucky to have met her and become friends in "real life",

 

[orangecuse]

Can I just say I have 2 boys (8 weeks old and 2 years old) and I am so excited to be able to surprise them with things like this. Love your reports! You are clearly a great mom and have a great family!