Coffee on the Verandah - Two by two - 5/21

[Flossbolna]

I am here!!

But what happened to that first post - not sure whether it is my computer, but it seems like all apostrophes have been turned into strange letters. Makes it rather difficult to read...

[mmeb144]

Originally Posted by Flossbolna

But what happened to that first post - not sure whether it is my computer, but it seems like all apostrophes have been turned into strange letters. Makes it rather difficult to read...

I know! I muddled through. It was worth it!

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by jedijill

I went back and read your post on your old TR about your Mom. Wow! She sounds like a truly special lady and I hope she has read what you have written....

Jill in CO

She hasn't read it but definitely knows how I feel. About Disney, her, all of it. Heck, we spent 8 hours while my dad was in surgery last month, largely talking about a giant family trip to the World!

Something involving 1 toddler, 3 tweens, 7 teenagers and treehouses. Insanity doesn't fall far from the tree.

Originally Posted by MaryAz

Hurray!!!Great intros and cant wait to read all about it!!!

YAY! Mary is here. Can I just say we fell in LOVE with AKV?

Originally Posted by Moira222

Your intro made me teary! Love it and cant wait to read. I promise NOT to fall off the wagon...though i will probable be late to the party more often than not!

I'm often late myself, no worries! I'm just happy you are here

Originally Posted by MAGICFOR2

I'm here with my mug in hand! Great intro! I am looking forward to a little of that family resort time and your thoughts on that. I'm hoping we can commando less next trip and let the moments just happen.

YAY! Tammie's here!

Comando has a place and a time, at least for us I've kind of come to that conclusion. In the past, trying to just be unplanned hasn't worked as well and I think that may have been some unintentional conditioning or maybe it just being hard to go back and forth between go with the flow and planned comando. This time as it was all virtually unplanned, for whatever ereason it never felt forced or like there was dead space or the dreaded "I don't know, what do you want to do, I don't know, what do you want to do" that has happened in the past.

I thought of you last month when I was at Skamania. Not that Multnomah Falls is really near you but...must have been the "fall" aspect of it. I never realized how many are right there, definitely didn't pay attention as a kid. What a gorgeous spot!

Originally Posted by Chilly

I'm more of a cocktail girl than coffee but i'm here

All beverages are welcome! We enjoy those on the verandah as well, though start the day with the coffee aspect. The kids prefer cocoa, milk or juice though. I need to go finish your TR, I think I only got through embarkation!

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by Flossbolna

I am here!!

But what happened to that first post - not sure whether it is my computer, but it seems like all apostrophes have been turned into strange letters. Makes it rather difficult to read...

aack!!!!!! I have NO idea what happened there, and it appears it infected some commas too!

I'll try to repost it. what a disaster.

I noticed when looking at it on my phone, versus the laptop, much of the punctuation was missing so whatever it did may have started then. Not sure if it it the font type, some html coding issue or what. AACK!

[MAGICFOR2]

Originally Posted by Flossbolna

I am here!!

But what happened to that first post - not sure whether it is my computer, but it seems like all apostrophes have been turned into strange letters. Makes it rather difficult to read...

Originally Posted by mmeb144

I know! I muddled through. It was worth it!

Originally Posted by eandesmom

aack!!!!!! I have NO idea what happened there, and it appears it infected some commas too!

I'll try to repost it. what a disaster.

I noticed when looking at it on my phone, versus the laptop, much of the punctuation was missing so whatever it did may have started then. Not sure if it it the font type, some html coding issue or what. AACK!

Strange - it looked fine when I read it last night

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by lauren_elizabeth

This sounds like an awesome trip! Can't wait to read all about it

It really was!

Originally Posted by FauntleroyFAN07

good morning, im along for the ride as well.

Morning Dan! and wouldn't be the same without you.

Originally Posted by Flossbolna

I am here!!

But what happened to that first post - not sure whether it is my computer, but it seems like all apostrophes have been turned into strange letters. Makes it rather difficult to read...

I've reposted it, no clue what happened, I'm a bit scared to post my next update though. I did clear out any formatting and posted from notepad which in theory should fix any funky html issues but you never know.

Thankfully I'd saved it in word but I usually end up tweaking it once online so it's probably not exactly the same.

At any rate, I'm so happy you are here!!!!! And thanks for letting me know about the odd punctuation thing. I have seen it happen before elsewhere before though I'm hard pressed to remember the specifics and really should know why it occurs but for the life of me can't recall. Maybe GB will know, though now that it's fixed he can't see it!

Originally Posted by mmeb144

I know! I muddled through. It was worth it!

Sorry you had to muddle through it. If it happens again I may change font type or who knows. VERY odd though.

Originally Posted by MAGICFOR2

Strange - it looked fine when I read it last night

It was fine when I posted it on Sat and looked ok last night but I did notice on the iphone app at the lake in the afternoon that in many cases the apostrophes just seemed missing but when I looked online later last night they were there. Foreshadowing????

[englishrose47]

It also looks finr to me !!!

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by englishrose47

It also looks finr to me !!!

It wasn't, it had truncated all the punctuation, or at least some of it, specifically apostrophes and some commas! It was very odd. I replaced all the text with the original version and that (so far) seemed to take care of it.

[eandesmom]

Welcome welcome to all my readers!

In keeping with the verandah theme, I thought I'd share my view as I sorted through pictures, uploaded and wrote the intro while at a work conference. Some unexpected solo time, well put to use!





Painful I know.

Though some of you may know the backstory to this trip, many of you may not and I thought a little preamble seemed in order to set the stage. Family trips well, they have a learning curve. This most recent venture is the culmination of figuring out what not to do. In the spirit of this trip report, started on a verandah, I decided to write this segment, on my own verandah. With coffee of course. And well, it’s a deck, not a verandah and I’m no longer on vaction. But the spirit of it is the same. Instead of dealing with the scary yardwork that I see as I type, I spent my Sunday morning uploading pictures off of my phone and camera, organizing folders in photobucket and getting ready to bring everyone up to speed. FAR more fun if you ask me. Besides, it’s beautiful out and worthy of coffee outside!



Ok, back to business. While I’ve give you a little intro as to the players, there’s more to our story than that! As a blended family, taking vacations can present it’s own set of challenges. We only “get” so much time with the older kids and as a result try very very hard to make sure we don’t travel on weekends that aren’t “ours” and to take very ounce of vacation time we are allotted. It doesn’t always work out the way we’d like. Our first trip to the world was prior to Jeff and I getting married. A trial by fire if you will, could he handle travling with a group of 20, all certifiable Disney nuts, with 7 kids under the age of 7.





As you can see, he passed the test and we married about 6 weeks after these pictures were taken. It was on that trip that we fell in love with staying on property, based on just the one night we had there prior to moving to the rental houses for my giant family.

In 2009 we did our first trip to the World with all 4 kids. A President’s Week stay at Fort Wilderness. It seemed to be the perfect fit for our camping loving family. In many ways it was but we also learned some valuable lessons that trip. At the time the kids were aged 8, 9, 12 and 15. Our kids are in 2 different school districts, with the dates we booked the younger ones would miss 2 days of school, the older ones 2.5.

We learned.

• Don’t expect teens who can’t make the time change, to get up in the morning.
• Don’t expect all middle school and high school teachers to respond to your requests for information to ensure your child doesn't miss things.
• Don’t expect teens to fully disclose, or to downplay the homework that needs to be done if missing school or tests that should be studied for.
• Do expect wasted time, late arrivals and horrible crowds due to operating on West Coast time.
• Realize that 12 and 15 year olds are basically full sized and double beds are not really your friend.
• Acknowledge that a 7 night trip that includes an arrival at almost midnight and a departure at 6 am really turns into a 6 day trip and part of it is lost to time change and packing.
• Realize that 6 days is not nearly enough.
• Cherish the kitchen and deck at the Cabin and use them
• Celebrate the existence of EMH as it saves your trip in the evenings with teens on West Coast time.
• Realize that an early am departure for return, thanks to the time change, will throw all of you completely out of whack for at least 2 days.
• Do expect tweens and teens to bomb tests that you didn't know about (due to teachers being non responsive), that they didn't study for, upon return.
• Do expect such test performance to be blamed on the adults, not the teen/tween.
• Do realize that once middle school starts, in the future, a trip that misses more than one day is a risky proposition and probably best avoided.

Fast forward a year and a half. We did not have a family vacation the summer of 2009. Between Kendall’s soccer schedule and her mom agreeing for her to take vacation with friends without clearing it with us, all possible time windows were shot. We decided it was ok since we’d had the February one. Not such a great idea as we moved into 2010 all of a sudden it had been a LONG time since all 6 of us had done anything longer than a weekend. A few things happened with Jeff’s family and the idea for a Grand Gathering was born. A deluxe PIN code later and almost a year in the making we took our trip late summer of 2010. It was a mid August trip for a couple of reasons. Cheaper rates, soccer schedules and…soccer schedules. Our trips are really built around a very small window with soccer. It was a wonderful trip, adding Jeff’s mom and her DH to the mix. 12 nights in total, we had 3 nights at WL, 5 at the YC and another 4 over at the “dark side” at the Hard Rock Hotel.

We learned a few more things this go round.

• A red eye can be invaluable in making the time change, teens CAN make the switch! Just make them stay up.
• Indulgent grandparents can be the death of any work you’ve done on the time change and will enable teens to sleep entire days away while on vacation.
• Splitting up, with some hitting rope drop and others sleeping the day away can save a lot of angst and sanity
• Grandparents and teens, when left alone, can make disastrous decisions with their dining plan allotments, even when provided with the schedule of how the table credits should be used.
• The best memories are often a result of responding to what seemed a disastrous decision at the time.
• August is HOT. Miserably hot and humid. With lots of lightening. Pools can and will close, almost daily, whenever you are planning to use them.
• August is HOT. Miserably hot and humid and crowded. Early morning rope drop will ensure some truly great park time before the crowds and heat, but also means missing the best chance of the pool not being closed

The reality, much as it pains me to admit is that the 2010 trip was a battle hard fought. To get the time with the kids we started negotiations a good 8 months out and it felt like it really came down to the wire. It’s stressful and drains one a bit. It has been critical in 2010, it was Taylor’s last summer before HS graduation and we both knew from personal experience that once that diploma hit his hand it would get harder and harder if not impossible to get him on a trip with us for several years as we certainly had no interest in it as his age either! As we looked to the summer of 2011 we decided that honestly, we weren’t up for that kind of fight with Jeff’s ex. We'd gotten a lot of grief about the 2010 trip as she felt strongly that the kids had "been there, done that". Taylor's 17 year old attitude about everything didn't help much. Were it not for the grandparent factor we may not have been able to convince her to give us the time. Even though it's ours (but I digress). While the kids did have a great trip, Kendall more so than Taylor, we didn’t want to interfere with soccer and other plans the kids had to fight to spend a lot of money on something they might not enjoy or appreciate. Instead we planned a family local trip to Whistler, with a late August cruise to Alaska for just 4 of us. The older 2 would not have been able to go during the dates of the cruise due to soccer and work and those dates made the trip possible financially as they were less expensive due to the fact many kids were back in school already. The Alaska cruise was something we really wanted to do, in fact the only way Jeff would go on a cruise at all as documented in the TR “You’ll never get me on a cruise unless it’s to Alaska” and just didn’t seem like something Kendall would be into, at all. Beach or Bahama cruise, yes, but Alaska and scenery for the sake of it, didn't seem the best fit at the time. Taylor probably would have loved it as he is very into the nature aspect but it’s hard to know and we really weren't sure how well it would be populated with older teens. As a family of 6 the reality is we'd need 2 staterooms and that wasn't in the cards financially either. Since our marriage, it would be the 2nd Disney trip we'd done without them, and while they were both amazing trips, we did miss them and felt rather guilty about it even though the trips were at times they couldn't have gone anyway and they might well not have been into it at all.

At any rate we ended up not having a vacation with them at all that summer, unless you count going to Portland for a weekend to watch a soccer tournament. At the time of the Whistler trip Taylor decided he’d rather work and earn $$ as it was the summer before college. We’d known he was a wild card but it was a bit sad. Kendall on the other hand went on vacation with a friend’s family. Her mom agreed to it without checking, even though we’d given her our dates and then you end up in a situation where you are the bad guy if you throw a fit over it. We decided not to be the bad guy but it really was a downer, we'd booked something big enough so she could bring a friend and instead felt like our time was stolen away. Her friend trip was also to the Oregon Coast, which we'd wanted to do with all 4 kids and still hasn't happened. Which meant, no full family trip in 2011 and the knowledge that now that Taylor was in college, those days were over, at least for a bit. The four of us that did have a trip together (well two as we did go to Whistler lol) had a blast!









At some point during the cruise we decided that 1) Jeff liked it, more than he thought he would. Sure, he had port issues, didn’t want to repeat anything and 2) he was still concerned about being bored out of his mind on a Bahamain or Caribbean Cruise with too much time at sea or ports he had no interest in. But foremost in both of our minds was that we really wanted Kendall to experience one with us, and we thought she’d like it. Thus “Book it, Buy it, Believe it”, was born. While neither of us were remotely thrilled about the idea of Floriday in July/August, with soccer, we didn't have a choice. Our original thought was a 4-5 day cruise, supplemented with come time at the beach. The shorter cruise was selected for a few reasons. Our time window, again, was August. Which is peak $$ time. Any 7 nighter that worked with our dates really came down to the Fantasy and it was way out of our price league. Leaving from Galveston wasn’t really an option and so we ended up on the 4 nighter that actually started on her 16th Birthday. Which seemed about as perfect as it could be. And hopefully, given that it was a good 3 weeks earlier than the previous trip, we hoped that there might be less rain, less lightening and as a result, less pool closures.

We didn’t tell her right away, or anyone except for the DIS that is. I had homework do to, figuring out the flight and beach part. As things came together I found that I had my heart set on Vero. Disney’s Vero Beach resort that is. Cash prices were high and in my own fuzzy Disney Math way, I convinced my DH that it was the time to buy DVC. It had been in the plan for a while and had almost happened the year before but this time the stars aligned and we went for it. I had booked the 3 nights after the cruise at Vero on points, as we waited to see how flights would pan out. As I’m sure all of you know flights have been insane. We told Kendall in January and had her at “Bahamas”. I haven’t seen her face light up like that in a long time. She’s generally a very happy girl but just not overly excited or demonstrative, more on the quiet side and this was visible, the girl was glowing! Her visible excitement about the cruise negated almost any pushback, for the first time ever, from her mom. Sure we had some issues here and there but they were more procrastination on things on her part than actual push back. We started tracking flights in Dec. Historically we’ve paid $200-225 from Seattle for a direct, if we track and buy early enough. Not so this year. I missed out on some $435 tickets and we decided to go for it at $496 in late January. By far the most we’ve ever paid for a ticket but at least we had them. And you know what? The flight prices for each leg NEVER went down. These were the cheapest we could find and amazingly…extended the trip a couple of days after. But it was only 2 after and 5 before. All of a sudden we were at an 11 night trip, instead of the 8 we’d originally planned. Darn! While the original thought had been cruise first, Vero after (and the in my mind plan had us one night at WDW before the cruise) that needed to be tweaked. I booked 5 nights at Vero, 2 in cash with the DVC discount as the weekend point nights were quite high and 3 weeknights using points. We had a bit of a scare when we made the swap as at first it seemed that it might be sold out but luckily, we got our villa! Now the question became what do to after the cruise.

I’m the planner, and the booker in the family. The 2010 trip had a lot of complexity to it, and a lot of changes, up to the 11th hour due to some date changes with my in laws. As a result, and a weird package PIN code booking issue, we ended up with 5 extra one day base tickets that I’d been able to get pulled off of our room keys at the YC and converted into a stand alone ticket, not tied to any one person as they’d never been activated. I’d used one of them in May of 2011 for my first DIS girls trip but we still had 4.

Jeff had forgotten about them. Or maybe never even knew to be honest. With the way it all played out with our changes, they’d essentially been a wash cost wise so it’s possible I didn’t bring them up but just hung on to them, knowing we’d be back. But we had them. And a plan was born. Animal Kingdom Villas for 2 nights, with one park day at Animal Kingdom. Why AK? For whatever reason it’s the park we both feel always gets shortchanged on our trip, and a park we love. Why AKV? With having almost 3 days there, it’s a resort we knew we could spend time at and not feel the pain of not being in the parks. Plus there is some pretty great food there! I’d always wanted to stay there and this seemed the perfect close to our trip, about as different from the beach and cruise as things could be. We also decided we wouldn’t tell the kids about it. I LOVE surprises and always try to have a few things up my sleeve on trips. We’ve done surprise trips, surprise special experiences, all kinds of things. For this it would really come down to how well, or not, Kendall was tracking the actual date of when we were coming back. She had to know, as did her mom, for HS soccer. The boys weren’t paying attention to that date, assuming we flew home after the cruise. Kendall, at least before the trip didn’t seem to pay much attention either. Things seemed pretty well set until Jeff decided to take a trip to an airshow with his dad. It was the week before our trip and while at first he thought he shouldn’t go, I thought he should and just meet us there. It didn’t take much twisting and more flights were booked. During this time too it appeared that Kendall might end up with a soccer conflict after all and have to meet us just before the cruise, flying in on her own. With those balls in the air, the idea of getting the rental car and being at the beach for 5 nights, possibly having to go back to get K from Orlando somewhere in the middle, just didn’t sound like the best plan. Plus on the heels of tropical storm Debby, which impacted several DISers at Vero…I worried about what the heck we’d do there during a storm, for that many nights. Thus a night at WDW at the start was born. One night at OKW to help us make the time change, let us get off the plane and go without dealing with rental cars and just chill. Hit DTD without feeling rushed for once. So I dropped a cash night at Vero and booked a villa on points at OKW. Voila, not only “easier” but we saved money! As it got closer and budgets got crunched, 2 nights at OKW started to sound really nice. We were already moving 3 times, being able to relax the first day without rushing out the door in less than 24 hours…sounded much better. One more cash night at Vero dropped and another at OKW added! More money saved!

Our final itinerary looked like this.

July 26 – red eye to MCO for 4 of us. Jeff would fly in separately on the 27th from his airshow.

July 27-28 OKW 1 bedroom villa.

July 29-31 Disney’s Vero Beach, 1 bedroom Villa

August 1-4 Disney Dream Family Stateroom with Verandah

August 5-6 Animal Kingdom Villas Jambo, 1 bedroom Villa

August 7 return home, flight at 6:25.

Oh and Taylor? Don’t feel too bad that he didn’t make this trip. He had just arrived in London as I typed this, and was headed to the Olympic closing ceremony "after party" concerts! As of this morning, we do know he made it, went to the concert and is a jet lagged mess. Poor baby!

Next: Here we go here we go here we go!!!!!!!

[treece2122]

So excited to start reading your TR and living vicariously through your adventures!

Great start!!

[Mndisneygirl]

I had been following along on your PTR, and now your looking back at the process to get to this trip - OY! You did go through a lot!
I am so glad it was a great trip!

Taylor - oh yeah, no sympathy from me!! Lucky guy!

[KatMark]

First off, Taylor gets absolutely no "oh poor Taylor" from me. Lucky him being at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics.

I do not know how you do it. I would be a crazed person and probably giving up even trying for a family vacation. You have my admiration.

And tell Taylor and Jeff -- GREAT JOB on the hat picture.

[DisMomAmy]

Great recap of the events leading up to the trip. Now I'm ready for the trip to begin.

[rentayenta]

Soccer = I feel your pain.


Great recap!

[englishrose47]

Oh I love the PLAN!!! Seeing it all together is great!!