DisneyRegulars
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
Alternate Thread Title: You know you're a DVC member when Pokemon Go playing is at the top of your Disney vacation list of things to do. But I thought this title was a bit too long to fit, so I went with the shortened version. Anyways....On with the report....
It's official! It's 8:00pm on Christmas Day and we are making our way to Disney. After missing the Southwest opening of Christmas flights, and not being willing to pay $1800 for plane tickets we were originally going to be, once again, driving to Disney. However, a few months later on a whim I started searching all airports within a 6 hour radius of us and found us round trip tickets on Frontier Airlines for $638 total for all three of us including one checked bag. So that's where we are headed now, down to Philly to catch a flight on an airline that gets less than 1 star TripAdvisor rating. Wish us luck!
This trip is going to be our longest ever! 13 nights! We are so psyched. We have 6 nights to ourselves in studios (yup, it takes me a while to learn), five nights with a family friend and his daughter in a 2-bedroom, and 1 more night on our own. Here's our resort layout and the cast of this trip.
The Resorts:
BLT - Studio, Theme Park View, 1 night only (Yes, I said we would never stay here again, especially in a studio, but it's not the first time I've made extreme claims and then changed my mind) We have our fingers crossed that our cheapskate airline will get us in on time so we can watch Wishes from the room.
AKV - Value Studio - 5 Nights!! (Wait, didn't I just get done writing a trip report about how much we hated studios? And now we are staying in the smallest one for 5 nights? I must have lost my mind?)
SSR - 2 Bedroom Standard - 7 Nights
That's 13 nights total, our longest trip ever. I'm just now realizing it's going to take me years to write this trip report.
The Cast:
This is us in Vermont this summer after a BMX race:
Me: Exhausted college professor in much need of a vacation. I love llamas, taxidermied furry creatures, and horrid reality TV. Yes, it's true, I just can't get enough of Teen Mom. I justify this obsession because their kids are the same age as mine, so we've kind of been in this parenting journey together. When I'm not preparing for work I can be found playing with my beastly child, laying lazily on the couch watching TV, or more recently trying to complete a 4000 piece jigsaw puzzle that has been out since last April. To be fair it's a map of the world and 80% of the earth's surface is covered by water, so I've been working on the blue parts for about 6 months now.
Grizzly:Husband. Pretty awesome bear. Took on the job of feeding the family this past semester so that I could survive. We only had popcorn for dinner a few nights, so I think he did a good job. Grizzly likes ghosts and we recently went on our first real ghost hunt and had a blast.
Tigger aka Beastly or Mongrel: Almost 7 year old boy. He's in first grade this year. I started writing these reports when he was 2! Completely and utterly obsessed with Pokemon. I cannot stress this enough. In fact, go back and reread that sentence two sentences ago because it's important.
Uncle B: My husband's best friend from childhood will be joining us for 5 nights of our SSR stay. Uncle B has been separated from his wife for over a year now, and this is his first Disney trip with his little girl as well as his first solo vacation with his little girl. I get along great with Uncle B.
Monster Child: Uncle B's four year old little lady. Probably not actually a monster, but I call my own kid beastly, so monster child seems to fit. Last time I saw monster she was quite shy and didn't want much to do with me. Hopefully she'll warm up after a day or so. Grizzly is worried that monster will throw lots of tantrums because last time he visited Uncle B she had a major meltdown over a tv being turned on. I'm not too concerned. I think he has totally blocked out all the memories of our own child throwing tantrums over minor things. It's what kids do. I can guarantee there will be tantrums. Let's just hope they are from the 4 year old and not from my beast.
This is our very first trip without a stroller. In fact last trip we couldn't fit our beloved stroller in the car home so we left it at the Tree House Villas bus stop. To combat the lack of stroller, we have been secretly training Tigger to walk long distances by playing Pokemon Go. You should see how far this kid can walk to hatch an egg. It was not unusual for us to go on 2 hour pokewalks on weeknights or spend an entire afternoon pokemon hunting when the weather was warmer. All our secret walking training may have backfired on us though because Tigger is obsessed with Pokemon Go. OBSESSED! We've been telling Tigger about all the Pokemon in the parks down at Disney and he is super excited to go hunting down there. We are hoping for two things:
1. The Pokemon hunting will keep him walking without complaining.
2. We can figure out how to Pokemon hunt in the parks without getting in people's way. I can already envision Tigger suddenly stopping to catch a dratini and getting run over by a scooter.
Due to the busy time of year we planned the first week to be up to the parks at rope drop, ride rides until it got busy, then have a late lunch before heading back to the hotel to relax. One the restaurant docket are:
1. 50's Prime Time Cafe
2. The new Jungle Cruise Cantina Place
3. Tepan Edo
4. Via Napoli
5. Sanaa (New Year's Eve -- Tigger to Simba's Clubhouse so us adults can rejuvinate and have one relaxing meal together.)
We don't usually do sit down meals. Tigger is kind of terrible at restaurants and the whole situation just ends up more stressful for us than it should be. We'll see how this plan shapes up.
So please, follow along with us on our 13 day extravaganza as we survive a week in studios, a budget airline, a Tigger that is obsessed with Pokemon Go, and friends that may or may not have a child that throws an extraordinary amount of tantrums.
It's official! It's 8:00pm on Christmas Day and we are making our way to Disney. After missing the Southwest opening of Christmas flights, and not being willing to pay $1800 for plane tickets we were originally going to be, once again, driving to Disney. However, a few months later on a whim I started searching all airports within a 6 hour radius of us and found us round trip tickets on Frontier Airlines for $638 total for all three of us including one checked bag. So that's where we are headed now, down to Philly to catch a flight on an airline that gets less than 1 star TripAdvisor rating. Wish us luck!
This trip is going to be our longest ever! 13 nights! We are so psyched. We have 6 nights to ourselves in studios (yup, it takes me a while to learn), five nights with a family friend and his daughter in a 2-bedroom, and 1 more night on our own. Here's our resort layout and the cast of this trip.
The Resorts:
BLT - Studio, Theme Park View, 1 night only (Yes, I said we would never stay here again, especially in a studio, but it's not the first time I've made extreme claims and then changed my mind) We have our fingers crossed that our cheapskate airline will get us in on time so we can watch Wishes from the room.
AKV - Value Studio - 5 Nights!! (Wait, didn't I just get done writing a trip report about how much we hated studios? And now we are staying in the smallest one for 5 nights? I must have lost my mind?)
SSR - 2 Bedroom Standard - 7 Nights
That's 13 nights total, our longest trip ever. I'm just now realizing it's going to take me years to write this trip report.
The Cast:
This is us in Vermont this summer after a BMX race:
Me: Exhausted college professor in much need of a vacation. I love llamas, taxidermied furry creatures, and horrid reality TV. Yes, it's true, I just can't get enough of Teen Mom. I justify this obsession because their kids are the same age as mine, so we've kind of been in this parenting journey together. When I'm not preparing for work I can be found playing with my beastly child, laying lazily on the couch watching TV, or more recently trying to complete a 4000 piece jigsaw puzzle that has been out since last April. To be fair it's a map of the world and 80% of the earth's surface is covered by water, so I've been working on the blue parts for about 6 months now.
Grizzly:Husband. Pretty awesome bear. Took on the job of feeding the family this past semester so that I could survive. We only had popcorn for dinner a few nights, so I think he did a good job. Grizzly likes ghosts and we recently went on our first real ghost hunt and had a blast.
Tigger aka Beastly or Mongrel: Almost 7 year old boy. He's in first grade this year. I started writing these reports when he was 2! Completely and utterly obsessed with Pokemon. I cannot stress this enough. In fact, go back and reread that sentence two sentences ago because it's important.
Uncle B: My husband's best friend from childhood will be joining us for 5 nights of our SSR stay. Uncle B has been separated from his wife for over a year now, and this is his first Disney trip with his little girl as well as his first solo vacation with his little girl. I get along great with Uncle B.
Monster Child: Uncle B's four year old little lady. Probably not actually a monster, but I call my own kid beastly, so monster child seems to fit. Last time I saw monster she was quite shy and didn't want much to do with me. Hopefully she'll warm up after a day or so. Grizzly is worried that monster will throw lots of tantrums because last time he visited Uncle B she had a major meltdown over a tv being turned on. I'm not too concerned. I think he has totally blocked out all the memories of our own child throwing tantrums over minor things. It's what kids do. I can guarantee there will be tantrums. Let's just hope they are from the 4 year old and not from my beast.
This is our very first trip without a stroller. In fact last trip we couldn't fit our beloved stroller in the car home so we left it at the Tree House Villas bus stop. To combat the lack of stroller, we have been secretly training Tigger to walk long distances by playing Pokemon Go. You should see how far this kid can walk to hatch an egg. It was not unusual for us to go on 2 hour pokewalks on weeknights or spend an entire afternoon pokemon hunting when the weather was warmer. All our secret walking training may have backfired on us though because Tigger is obsessed with Pokemon Go. OBSESSED! We've been telling Tigger about all the Pokemon in the parks down at Disney and he is super excited to go hunting down there. We are hoping for two things:
1. The Pokemon hunting will keep him walking without complaining.
2. We can figure out how to Pokemon hunt in the parks without getting in people's way. I can already envision Tigger suddenly stopping to catch a dratini and getting run over by a scooter.
Due to the busy time of year we planned the first week to be up to the parks at rope drop, ride rides until it got busy, then have a late lunch before heading back to the hotel to relax. One the restaurant docket are:
1. 50's Prime Time Cafe
2. The new Jungle Cruise Cantina Place
3. Tepan Edo
4. Via Napoli
5. Sanaa (New Year's Eve -- Tigger to Simba's Clubhouse so us adults can rejuvinate and have one relaxing meal together.)
We don't usually do sit down meals. Tigger is kind of terrible at restaurants and the whole situation just ends up more stressful for us than it should be. We'll see how this plan shapes up.
So please, follow along with us on our 13 day extravaganza as we survive a week in studios, a budget airline, a Tigger that is obsessed with Pokemon Go, and friends that may or may not have a child that throws an extraordinary amount of tantrums.