All the Makings of a Disaster, The Wrap up 11/20

[lurkernj]

Welcome to my Trip report!!!


Here is a link to my PTR if you want to read the whole sordid affair, but I’ll brief you in here for the short version. (warning: I’m going to cheat, and some of this will be cut and pasted from my PTR)
http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2945703

Where: Port Orleans Riverside

When: September 23-30 with free dining (regular plan), and base tickets

Who: This trip consisted of the following cast of Characters. Me(43), DH(43), DS(17), DS(14), MIL (73), FIL(73) .

We all traveled to Disney about 4 years ago, the six of us. We had a fabulous 10 night trip at POR.

Why: This time around, I was thinking that DS17 will be going off to college next year, and the in-laws are in pretty good shape, but they aren’t getting any younger, so we should do one last trip together.

I love my in-laws dearly, but they truly turned out to be a handful this trip. I have great in-laws and they enjoy Disney and my kids. Sometimes they are a little absent minded and hard of hearing, which turned out to be a bigger issue than I thought. FIL also loves to ask me a million questions, most of them irrelevant, but I was very patient with him, but there were times I just wanted to ask for a timeout so I could just have a thought myself. I think he just gets excited like a little kid about these things. I’ve been with DH for 25 years, since we were 18, and my family is bizarre, so they sort of adopted me, and are more like my parents than my own ever were. They live around the block from us, and actually don’t drive us nuts, however, they are retired and don’t know what to do with themselves. They aren’t comfortable traveling by themselves, and FIL has only flown one time prior to this trip, which was the last time we took them to Disney. They come to all of my kids sports events and are wonderful grandparents. My MIL likes to come over in the morning after I’ve left for work and do my laundry. My friends think this is strange, but I think it’s awesome.

Here they are, we'll call them Pop (hard of hearing) and Nanny(a little absent minded)


Here’s the reluctant teens; Matt(14) and Brian(17)

Now, the reluctant teen part comes in the form of DS(17). He “likes” Disney, but has a “been there, done that” mentality about most vacations, and says they’re only going because I have to act like a 4-year old girl (so, what’s wrong with that?). DS14 enjoys Disney and even did a trip alone with me 3 years ago (best trip evaaaa), but he looks up to his big bro, and has formed an alliance with regard to this trip. I have defended myself by blaming it on nanny and pop claiming that they are getting older and we should go while they are still in good health (I’m shameless).


And here’s DH, (Chuck, 43)- with his "Member of the clean plate club" sticker from 50's primetime

DH enjoys Disney, but not as much as me. He thinks I have an obsession and need to get some help (really?, that’s just crazy talk). Last trip we all took as a group, he said 10 nights was too much, so he joined us all on day 4, which was perfect for all involved. I dragged the kids and in-laws from open to close those first 4 days with not one complaint, then once DH came, we needed afternoon breaks. We did that quite a bit this time around too.

Some side info for this trip: DH had a stroke two years ago (I know! he was 41 and in seemingly great health!) and has made an amazing almost recovery. He was a runner before the stroke and in great shape, but unfortunately he now walks with a bit of a limp and gets tired and needed even more breaks this trip. There were times he was quite a trooper, and others where he pouted like a 4 yr old when he needed his rest (use your words, honey)

And then there’s me (Sherri, 43).

DH is correct, I am obsessed. I am most happy when I’m planning a trip to WDW. I haven’t been to Disney as much as I would like, and am sorely disappointed I only discovered this whole obsession 4 years ago. I always had it in my mind that Disney was so expensive and out of reach for us, so my kid’s first trip to WDW was when they were 10 and 13 (we had been to DL twice-camping- when they were pretty small since we had family out west, but didn’t catch onto the obsession there). I had been once as a child, and DH and I went once before we got married, off property. Had I caught on sooner, maybe I would have been able to convert the boys. This was my 4th trip in 4 years (I also went once with BFF for a short xmas trip). I am an avid trip report reader (lurker, hence the name), but have never done a trip report.

So, was it really a disaster? Well, there were certainly some interesting parts, but I suppose none of it was actually disastrous.

[lurkernj]

Day 1, A series of unfortunate events, part one
Day 1, A series of unfortunate events, part two
Day 1, A series of unfortunate events, part three

Day 2, Let the Memories Begin, part one
Day 2, Let the Memories begin, part two
Day 2, Let the Memories Begin, part three

Day 3, DHS and another parade fiasco
Day 3, DHS, Boma, and the boys arrive

We interrupt this TR for some random photopass pics to catch up to Day 4

Day 4, The Gangs All Here! part one
Day 4, The Gangs All Here! part two

Day 5, Epcot and some food and wine, part one
Day 5, Epcot and some food and wine, part two

Day 6, DHS and I see Dwarf People, part one
Day 6, Mnsshp

Day 7, Halloween 5k
Day 7, The rest of the day

Day 8, Last Day Blues, part one
Day 8, Last Day Blues, part two

The Wrap up

[wdw4rfam]

Love it. We have a teeneager also who went throught the "disney, again?" phase everytime we booked our trips. Luckily DH is ALMOST as obsessed as me, and of course the 10 and 4 year old are always on board. But I am happy to announce, that my oldest has finally come over to the dark side, and is just as excited in the planning as me. I have her stalking boards too. Keep working on them

[BearcatsFan]

I'm in!

[Sheaboys]

Great start! Thankfully our 14yr old is already talking about going back!

[DISNEYDUET]

You had me at disaster! I'm in!

[shalom]

Originally Posted by lurkernj

DH is correct, I am obsessed. I am most happy when I’m planning a trip to WDW. I haven’t been to Disney as much as I would like, and am sorely disappointed I only discovered this whole obsession 4 years ago.

I think my WDW obsession is strong partly because it was so long between when I first wanted to go there (1970 -- yes, before it was open ), and when I first got there (2010). I wrote stories about going there when I was a teen! Hubby is more interested than he was but not convinced we need to be going there every other year. Have to see what he thinks after I get him to a park, but I dunno if it'll make that much difference. So far, he's willing to indulge me.

My boys have formed an anti-Disney alliance, too, but I'm hoping it'll crumble once they get there. Eldest son was anti-Seaworld before we got there; now he adores the place. I'm thinking I should have tried harder to get him to WDW first, and that'd be the one he obsesses about! Second son was always going to like Seaworld better, but I have hopes he'll end up liking WDW as well. Right now he resents WDW because it gets all the attention he thinks Seaworld deserves. Maybe after he gets a grasp of how big WDW is, he'll be more tolerant of that.

Well, I can hope.

[lurkernj]

Originally Posted by shalom

I think my WDW obsession is strong partly because it was so long between when I first wanted to go there (1970 -- yes, before it was open ), and when I first got there (2010). I wrote stories about going there when I was a teen! Hubby is more interested than he was but not convinced we need to be going there every other year. Have to see what he thinks after I get him to a park, but I dunno if it'll make that much difference. So far, he's willing to indulge me.

My boys have formed an anti-Disney alliance, too, but I'm hoping it'll crumble once they get there. Eldest son was anti-Seaworld before we got there; now he adores the place. I'm thinking I should have tried harder to get him to WDW first, and that'd be the one he obsesses about! Second son was always going to like Seaworld better, but I have hopes he'll end up liking WDW as well. Right now he resents WDW because it gets all the attention he thinks Seaworld deserves. Maybe after he gets a grasp of how big WDW is, he'll be more tolerant of that.

Well, I can hope.

Oh, I missed you before.

I can definitely sympathize. DH indulges me too, but I don't think he'll be anxious to go back for a couple of years.

I do think Matt would go back in a heartbeat. Part of the charm for him is that he's a foodie, like me, so he loves the dining/snacks in WDW. DH and Brian are more into being healthy, skipping dessert, or having something minimal, and both complained we didn't have a gym at our resort.

[DISNEYDUET]

Oh Sherri! What a start to your vacation! Hope things turn out better!

[lurkernj]

Originally Posted by wdw4rfam

Love it. We have a teeneager also who went throught the "disney, again?" phase everytime we booked our trips. Luckily DH is ALMOST as obsessed as me, and of course the 10 and 4 year old are always on board. But I am happy to announce, that my oldest has finally come over to the dark side, and is just as excited in the planning as me. I have her stalking boards too. Keep working on them

Unfortunately DH isn't as obsessed as me, however, Matt (the 14 yr old), asked me on Monday when we were going again!!! So I think I did manage to convert one to a degree. I did catch the other one wearing his Halloween 5k shirt to school yesterday too but I still don't think he's a fan

Originally Posted by BearcatsFan

I'm in!

Great to see you over here!!! I hope to provide you with some entertainment while you're laid up with your foot issues

Originally Posted by Sheaboys

Great start! Thankfully our 14yr old is already talking about going back!

Thanks! As mentioned above, my 14yr old is asking for another trip. If we do go back, I think I'm going to just make it the two of us.

Originally Posted by DISNEYDUET

You had me at disaster! I'm in!

lol, after my initial posting, I came right back on to claim my space for links and there were already 36 views. We are indeed a morbid society. No one wants to read a boring trip report about being happy and skipping through the parks anymore

Day 1, part 1 coming shortly

[lurkernj]

We’ll start with a little pre-cursor here in case you weren’t tempted to read the whole pre-trip ramblings.

The plan was initially for all of us to go together on 9/25, but I didn’t feel like it was long enough for me, so I asked DH if he cared if I went on the 23rd, and he would come on the 25th with the boys (they had off on the 26th, so they were only missing Thurs/Fri). He didn’t care, so I mentioned it to Nanny and Pop and they jumped at the chance to come earlier. I told them I wasn't going to be hanging out with them during the day since I had some things I wanted to do, but would meet up with them for dinner. The were fine with this.

Well, a couple of days prior to our trip, Pop wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t sure if he’d come on Sunday or Tuesday with DH. He got put on some strong antibiotics and decided to come on Sunday.

Sunday, September 23
So, Sunday morning rolls around, and they are supposed to be at my house at 7:30 to pick me up, they are notoriously early, so they are there at 7:15. Pop drives pretty slow, so I was giving this 1.5hrs to get there. He isn’t feeling well and wants to know if I would drive. ABSOLUTELY! (he drives like, well, an old man) I got us to the carpark in an hour and ten minutes.

The van dropped us at the Southwest terminal. We went in and checked our bags. We each had a personal item to carry on with our books, snacks, etc. As we’re going up the escalator, I notice Pop doesn’t have a bag on his shoulder.

“Pop, where’s your bag?”

“Oh cripes sake, I left it in the van”.

Apparently all his money and medications are in this bag. I tell him not to worry about it, I’ll call them to come back. I pull out the business card, call, and they do indeed have the bag and bring it to us about 15-20 min later. Crisis averted. No big deal, we had lots of time.

We get to security, and Pop sets off the alarm due to his artificial hip, he gets called aside and gets the pat down. Forgets his belt on the conveyor belt and some nice gentleman approaches us to see if it’s ours. I guess it's that obvious that we don't have our act together.

We get to the gate and have some coffee and settle in for our boarding. Pop is a nervous wreck over this seating thing on Southwest. “What if we don’t sit together?” was his big concern. I said don’t worry about it, you and Nanny will be together (I was secretly hoping to sit alone so I could watch a movie I downloaded on my Ipad). Our boarding numbers were B13, B18, and B36. We did all end up together.

I got myself comfortable, told them I was going to watch a movie, and plugged in my headphones and watched SnowWhite and the Huntsman. They were reading peacefully for about 15 minutes, until Pop decided to pull out his ancient cell phone. I don’t know what he did, but next thing I know, he’s tapping me on the shoulder asking if I know what “car mode” means, and why does it say this across his screen.

I pause my movie, play with the phone, can’t figure it out, tell him it’s supposed to be off anyway, and go back to the movie. He does not turn off the phone and continues to play with it until he does actually figure out what caused it, then taps me on the shoulder to tell me what button he pushed.

We landed about 15 min early, at 1:30 instead of 1:45, got on ME by 1:50p,

and were the first stop. We were checking in at 2:30, pretty impressive.

[lurkernj]

Surprisingly there were no lines to check in.

I sent over a fax before our trip and requested ground floor and as close to the main building as they could get us since I was traveling with the older folks. We paid for standard room, so I wasn’t expecting a primo location.

Good thing, because we got rooms 3401 and 3402. They were connecting and on the ground floor, but they were in one of the furthest buildings from the main building. I thought we’d check it out first before I complain. We got significantly lost on our way to our rooms. Dropped our bags and went back to the food court to use our first counter service credit.

Here's some room pics before we filthed it up:




This coat rack cracked me up, look how pointless it is.








I did have a corner room, which I love with the two windows. We had one last visit we all went too.

So, off we went to the food court. We all got the make your own pasta, I just love this stuff.



We are all halfway through our food and Pop announces he needs to get back to the room, as his stomach isn’t feeling well. He started a strong antibiotic two days before and well, you probably know how that can go. So he leaves us and we finish our lunch.

I get my first (and only) Mickey bar for the trip for my dessert.


We head back to our rooms and get lost again. Once there, Nanny knocks on my door and tells me Pop isn’t going to go to Epcot with us.

He apparently got lost on his way back to the room and, without going into gory details, an incident occurred.

So he’s going to wait in the room for the bags to show up. I decide I need to try to do something about this and call the main desk to see if we could get something closer. The girl who answers is appalled that I’m asking and points out that we are very close to the west depot. I tell her that’s great, but these two aren’t able to navigate to/from the main building and we’d like something closer if possible. She says they’re at capacity and we can’t be moved.

[wuzzy6]

I am always dumbfounded by rudeness and self-entitlement some people display.

[WDW2012]

Joining in! I was wondering how the fast pass + would work for parades and from your report, it doesn't seem too well. Hopefully they will fix it soon!

Kudos to you for going solo with your in-laws. I love my in laws (at times) and would never in a million years go alone with them! I am, however, cracking up that they just put their keys in random doors to figure out where their room was! Totally sounds like something my in laws would do! We just came back from WDW with them two weeks ago and that was enough for me. Never again and they are only 65 and 68. I can't imagine when they are in their 70's.

[lurkernj]

Originally Posted by luckylady

It's funny the things we see in pictures afterwords. Did you notice the fist she made like she was going to hit him?

I didn't!!! That's hysterical. I'll have to get that one printed for her

Originally Posted by wuzzy6

Oh no!!! Of course, I'm feeling really guilty about wanting to read all about it! We are all such voyeurs here at the Dis!

Don't feel guilty! Someone might as well get some entertainment out of this

Originally Posted by WDW2012

Joining in! I was wondering how the fast pass + would work for parades and from your report, it doesn't seem too well. Hopefully they will fix it soon!

Kudos to you for going solo with your in-laws. I love my in laws (at times) and would never in a million years go alone with them! I am, however, cracking up that they just put their keys in random doors to figure out where their room was! Totally sounds like something my in laws would do! We just came back from WDW with them two weeks ago and that was enough for me. Never again and they are only 65 and 68. I can't imagine when they are in their 70's.

That parade situation was very uncomfortable and annoying. Definitely need to work on that.

The in-laws are just a trip, Nanny does these spastic things then Pop gets so bent out of shape with her. We found it funny that he was the one who left his bag in the van at the airport when it's usually her leaving her purse all over. If it was Nanny who did that, he would have made such a big deal out of it, but since it was him, he didn't want us to share it with the family.

I'm pretty sure this will be the last trip with them. I've tried to do a girls only Christmasy trip with Nanny and my two sisters-in law, but Nanny won't leave Pop, even for just a few days. He gets so anxiety ridden he makes himself sick.