AKL is fantastic! It is on my bucket list for one day!
Too funny. I just bought a hidden mickey book for my girls for the next time we go to Disney!
This is a great idea! I wish they sold Fried Chicken Picnic Lunches for you to take to the island and eat. I think that would be great! Or even packed up lunches to take from one of the restaurants near by..
Ha! My youngest is going to be big enough to go on Space Mountain this time. I have a feeling she may be the same!
Man, my 8 year old is NO where close enough to drive by herself! She was hoping she would be for our next trip. Not happening. But apparently your kids got your DH's height. Mine are stuck with my short self.
I love these kinds of photos!
That is pretty cool! It must be from the Magic bands. Similar to the It's a Small World ride, maybe?At the end when the hitchhiking ghost gets in your car, our ghost was holding a sign that said "Minnesota Here I come!"Ummm what? At first I thought maybe it was a coincidence, but I glanced back at the car my mom was in and it actually had her first name on the sign! So I'm assuming they use our magic bands somehow to get that info. (Does anyone know?) I know the last time I was on the ride 3 years ago, before magic bands, they definitely didn't have anything like that.
Hello all!! This is my first DTR (not my first Disney trip though!) and I loved reading the DTRs before my own trip so I thought I would give it a try!
First to tell you a bit about me and my family!
I'm Vicky and I LOVE Disney. My family took trips every couple of years when I was growing up and I've had many magical Disney moments. I'm 34 now and this was my 3rd trip with my own family (our last trip was 3 years ago, and the trip before that was about almost 6 years ago).
My husband is 39 and he basically tolerates Disney. He knows I love it and agrees to go, but has yet to really enjoy it the way that I do. His first trip was with me about 10 years ago. He is 7 feet tall and there are some rides he can't go on because of his height, not to mention he doesn't like crowds because people always ask him how tall he is (it's really annoying actually).
I have 4 kiddos. My oldest son is 7.5. He likes Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and hates princesses. My only daughter is going to be 6 next month (I'll just refer to her as 6 to make it easier!) and she LOVES princesses and pretty much anything Disney. My next son is turning 4 tomorrow and he adores Mickey Mouse (in fact he's having a Mickey Mouse birthday party with his brother tomorrow). I was worried about him with Disney World because he has ZERO patience (I mean it's ridiculous) and I didn't know how he would handle waiting in the lines. Then my youngest son turns 2 on January 1st. He is a busy boy!
Our trip was scheduled to start on Friday December 16th after school and work ended. We would start our long drive from snowy Minnesota and be there Saturday night! Instead, we heard rumors on Wednesday that a huge blizzard was coming. By Thursday, it looked like it was definitely coming. We were in a storm warning from Friday at noon through Saturday at 6 pm! We were really nervous about waiting until Friday evening to leave, especially since the storm system was going to hit all the way down through Illinois. It would have been either an impossible drive, or a really long one. So we made the decision to pull the kids out of school and leave Friday early morning!
Here are the kids at 6 am on Friday morning, all excited for the trip!
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It took my 4YO about 45 minutes before he started asking if we were there yet. He then proceeded to ask every 10 minutes from that point on if we were there yet or not. It was wonderful.
I have to say though, despite that, my kids were rock stars in the car. They got out at gas stations for bathroom breaks and got back into the car with zero complaining. We drove straight through the night so my husband and I took turns sleeping. We didn't want to eat out at all, so we had a cooler full of food and a basket full of snacks. We also wrapped DVDs and gave each kid a turn opening a present throughout the drive to make it more fun for them. This back fired a little, as my 4YO kept wanting it to be his turn! Oh well.
We constantly checked the weather and were literally staying JUST head of the snow storm the entire time. It was the right choice to leave early!
We made AMAZING time and arrived in Orlando at 7 am Saturday morning! It was 24 hours of travel, plus the time change.
All along the way when my 4YO asked if we were there yet, I would say "Do you see any palm trees yet? We're not there until you see palm trees!" So when we parked the car and saw palm trees in the parking lot, we decided to take a picture in front of one.
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Unfortunately, arriving earlier than planned did have some downfalls. I'll be back later to write about our first couple days in Orlando! Thanks for reading along so far!
I am loving your trip report! We are from minnesota as well and although we have never driven to DW we are big CBR fans! Next month we are trying out POR, and I will admit we are all a tad nervous that it won't live up to CBR.Happy 2017 everyone! I am really enjoying reliving our Disney experience through this DTR.
When I left off, we were on our way to CBR and had just gotten our exciting text that our room was ready!
This was our first time staying at CBR (or any moderate resort) so I had no idea what to expect. As I mentioned before, we were going to stay in Jamaica 45. I was thrilled at how pretty the buildings at Jamaica were!
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Looks like a tropical paradise, right??
As I was loading in bags from the car, I caught a glimpse of these two rascals watching me from our room, lol.
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Here are my kids, who were basically jumping out of their skins with excitement to finally be in our room!!
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Their favorite part was the murphy bed. There were already some heated discussions about how they kids were going to take turns on the bed during our stay.
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Look at lounging Mickey in the back of the bed! I love the small touches like that in Disney resorts.
By the time we had loaded our suitcases into the hotel room and got somewhat organized, the kids were already wearing swim suits and begging us to go to the pool. We headed across the bridge and admired the resort more.
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I have to say, I was SO EXCITED for the pool at our resort! Probably more excited than the kids. CBR has the pirate themed swimming area for younger kids and the Spanish fortress themed pool. The pictures made it look so AWESOME!
It did not disappoint.
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It was zero entry so it was perfect for my toddler, but with all the water slides and "hidden passageways" to get to the slides, it was perfect for older kids too. I barely saw my 7 year old, and every time I saw him he was grinning ear to ear.
We decided to check out the pirate play area for younger kids. My daughter really wanted to go with us. It's supposed to be for kids under 48" and I know she is over that. :/ As I mentioned earlier, my husband is 7 feet tall and my daughter towers over almost all kids her age. She is 5 but looks like an 8 year old. I told her she might not be able to stay because she is too tall. At one point, the cast member who was monitoring this pool area called her over to get measured. My poor daughter.She wanted to stay soooo bad! She was slinking down to try to appear shorter, but it was obvious she was too tall. But we got lucky, and the cast member was so nice. She had been talking to my husband about how tall he is, and so she understood that my daughter is very tall for her age and she agreed to let her stay. My daughter's face just lit up! Talk about Disney magic.
Here she is, taking my 2 year old by the hand up into the pirate ship.
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This lasted all of 30 seconds until he got to the top and walked under the water streams. He started crying and came back down to Mom!
But he started having fun after that.
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It really was a unique and fun water play area. The kids had a blast and it was nice that it was gated in so I didn't have to worry about kids wandering off. That made it much more relaxed for me as the parent.
After playing at the pirate ship area for a while, we headed back to the big pool. My 7YO was still having a blast. He was super brave with all the water slides! We stayed all afternoon. I don't think the smiles left my kids' faces the entire time! The weather was beautiful.
Before it was time to go, we hit the hot tub. There were actually 2, and one of them was really busy but the other one was a little more hidden away (I had found it by accident while exploring with my 4YO earlier) and totally empty!
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The sun was starting to set at this point, so it was nice to sit in the hot bubbly water.
After we were done swimming, we decided to head over to Old Port Royale to pick up our Disney mugs and fill them up!
The kids were sitting by the fountain outside of Old Port Royale and I took one of my favorite pictures of them.
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On our way back to our room, the kids talked us into letting them play at the playground and how could I say no to those faces?! My husband had to go pick up our stroller though that was being delivered to the main building, so he left to get it and I stayed with the kiddos. Unfortunately, we couldn't play long because the sun went down and a cast member stopped by to tell us she was closing the park. The kids weren't upset though, and we headed for home!
Back at our room, we got the kids ready for bed and everyone snuggled in bed in their jammies while watching Mickey Mouse episodes on one of the Disney channels in the hotel room. They had these weird Mickey episodes I've never seen before (my son kept saying they were "classic Mickey" but they definitely weren't) but all the kids loved them.
My husband returned with the most massive stroller I've ever seen, lol. It was a Bob double stroller, which I chose because it was the tallest and I thought it'd be easiest for my husband to push. But holy cow, it was huuuuuge!
So that was basically the end to our day! I have to say, it was a wonderful day. It was relaxed and everyone was happy, the weather was perfect, and WE WERE FINALLY AT DISNEY WORLD!!!
Join me tomorrow when we spend a day at EPCOT!
Great updates! Sorry that CM yelled at you when you were also dealing with DS. I've had those moments when the kids were little too. Not fun! Looks like you came out of it and continued on with a fun day! Looking forward to the princess lunch!
My mom sewed our outfits. Mine is basically just a $2 tank top from target that my mom sewed on some extra fabric from my daughter's dress. My daughter's dress is a knit stretchy fabric so it was super comfortable for her! 
One of my favorite memories! 
She loved it! 
Loving your TR! Nice you were able to have a mom/daughter lunch and didn't have to deal with those pesky boys
Thanks for reading! I love that you both dressed as Aurora! Your mom did a great job! So cute!
I remember the first time we did CRT lunch, my daughters were 5 and 3 and dressed as Cinderella and Snow White. They were so excited and the interaction was great. My son was like 1.5 and the princesses would call him a prince and give him a kiss. The pictures are priceless. I miss those days! lol
Anyway, glad you could enjoy such a magical experience with your DD! She will always remember it! I like how Jasmine drew 1 sparkle for each year of age...great idea!
I love this picture with my 4yo leaning all casually on Buzz, lol. 
super sweet about the nice moments though like your 7yo saying it was the best day ever. So awesome you were able to get in the CRT lunch with just DD - definitely nice to have that special time with her, and it looks like it was really great! (And loved the lunch on Tom Sawyer Island idea, too, for the boys!!).
Your TR is getting me so excited for my trip -- and oh, man! Tomorrowland Speedway! The kids always think it's the greatest thing but it is literally my least favorite ride in all of Disney. If it was done with electric cars I don't think I would be as bothered but it's always hot in the sun and all of the diesel exhaust fumes make me want to throw up by the time I'm done with it. We watched some Disney planning videos last night to get C even more excited about the trip, and he lit up at the TS clip asking if he will be able to go on it. I'm like...sure....with Daddy!!
Just read through the whole report!! Looks like such a wonderful vacation! Sorry about the tantrums
Edited to add - I loved your Disney bounding outfits too, your Aurora shirt is so cute!
Thank you for reading!
