ccahpp25
Cat Mom in a Mouse World
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2023
Yes, this pre-trip report is being started 14 months before our trip, as due to some unforseen circumstances I have become a stay-at-home cat mom and need something to fill my time in between administering medications to foster kittens and being a homesteading housewife. Humor me! 
Background info: myself, the main character, I am the moment (gotta hype myself up for this one, I may have bitten off more than I can chew), and the planning mastermind. My wife, our son, my mom, my brother and his girlfriend, and my memaw and her husband. I've been going to Disney since I was 3, and handling my own trips since I was 18. This also isn't my first group trip I've gone on (2009 with 23 people), but I was a kid on that trip and had no part in managing plans or reservations. And I'm sure a group of 8 seems like nothing to some of y'all, but since I turned 18 and started planning my own trips, it's just been two of us for all of them until our June 2023 trip when I had the pleasure of taking my wife for the very first time, so I'm literally quadrupling the average group size I usually coordinate for.
My mom, brother, and memaw haven't gone to Disney since that trip in 2009, my brother's girlfriend and memaws husband have never been to Disney, and my son will be 7, so they're all depending on my knowledge to make this trip fantastic. Thankfully, despite it only being my wife's second trip, she took very well to being married to a Disney fanatic and will be very helpful when it comes to booking dining reservations and scheduling days, so I do have some assistance. She's also an enabler. Before I married her, I was in a routine of taking my son every other year. He went at 1 (2019), 3 (2021), and 5 (2023). I told her that I wished I could justify going every year, she said "why not?" and now we're planning a 2024 trip
We're planning to book two family suites in the Finding Nemo buildings at Art of Animation and will be there October 19-26. We do travel with adaptations, including a wheelchair stroller for our son, DAS for myself and for my brother's girlfriend (by the way- any tips for Disneying with diabetics, especially 18 year old diabetics with a tad bit of teenage girl attitude, are appreciated. She's been managing her diabetes since she was a child, so she's very on top of it, but this will be her first trip without her mom, so my mom and I will be assuming support roles at the request of both her and her mother); we will also likely end up with my memaw and/or her husband needing to rent scooters on occasion, though we're hoping to minimize those needs since they'll be able to benefit from the breaks provided by the two DAS-holders in our party.
We are planning to attend MNSSHP one night, none of us have ever been to any of the Halloween parties, or even done WDW at Halloween at all, so we're super excited to enjoy it for the first time. I did one trip to Disneyland in October several years ago, but WDW definitely has more of my heart, so it will feel like much more of a "first experience" for me getting to do it.
Crystal Palace breakfast will be a must on our dining reservation list. Pooh Bear is my mom's favorite character and was my nursery when I was a baby. Garden Grill breakfast is also on our list (done lunch on a couple of trips now, but never breakfast), as well as Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast (never done this one), and 'Ohana breakfast (did this on our 2023 trip and LOVED it), which we like to do on a non-park day (can you tell I have a preference for dining reservation timing?) We don't usually do that many reserved meals in one trip, but this will likely be my son's only chance to ever go with memaw, and if he ever gets to go with my mom and brother again, it'll be many, many years, since most of my family members don't share my love (read: addiction) for WDW. So I really want to make sure we get a lot of really great slowed-down experiences for the family to enjoy together, and focus a little less on the "runrunrun" aspect of doing everything all at once as fast as possible.
So anyways, that's the current breakdown. Due to the people going on this trip, it'll likely be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so while I am looking forward to this more than I've ever looked forward to a Disney trip, I'm also a little stressed about making sure everything goes well.
Background info: myself, the main character, I am the moment (gotta hype myself up for this one, I may have bitten off more than I can chew), and the planning mastermind. My wife, our son, my mom, my brother and his girlfriend, and my memaw and her husband. I've been going to Disney since I was 3, and handling my own trips since I was 18. This also isn't my first group trip I've gone on (2009 with 23 people), but I was a kid on that trip and had no part in managing plans or reservations. And I'm sure a group of 8 seems like nothing to some of y'all, but since I turned 18 and started planning my own trips, it's just been two of us for all of them until our June 2023 trip when I had the pleasure of taking my wife for the very first time, so I'm literally quadrupling the average group size I usually coordinate for.
My mom, brother, and memaw haven't gone to Disney since that trip in 2009, my brother's girlfriend and memaws husband have never been to Disney, and my son will be 7, so they're all depending on my knowledge to make this trip fantastic. Thankfully, despite it only being my wife's second trip, she took very well to being married to a Disney fanatic and will be very helpful when it comes to booking dining reservations and scheduling days, so I do have some assistance. She's also an enabler. Before I married her, I was in a routine of taking my son every other year. He went at 1 (2019), 3 (2021), and 5 (2023). I told her that I wished I could justify going every year, she said "why not?" and now we're planning a 2024 trip
We're planning to book two family suites in the Finding Nemo buildings at Art of Animation and will be there October 19-26. We do travel with adaptations, including a wheelchair stroller for our son, DAS for myself and for my brother's girlfriend (by the way- any tips for Disneying with diabetics, especially 18 year old diabetics with a tad bit of teenage girl attitude, are appreciated. She's been managing her diabetes since she was a child, so she's very on top of it, but this will be her first trip without her mom, so my mom and I will be assuming support roles at the request of both her and her mother); we will also likely end up with my memaw and/or her husband needing to rent scooters on occasion, though we're hoping to minimize those needs since they'll be able to benefit from the breaks provided by the two DAS-holders in our party.
We are planning to attend MNSSHP one night, none of us have ever been to any of the Halloween parties, or even done WDW at Halloween at all, so we're super excited to enjoy it for the first time. I did one trip to Disneyland in October several years ago, but WDW definitely has more of my heart, so it will feel like much more of a "first experience" for me getting to do it.
Crystal Palace breakfast will be a must on our dining reservation list. Pooh Bear is my mom's favorite character and was my nursery when I was a baby. Garden Grill breakfast is also on our list (done lunch on a couple of trips now, but never breakfast), as well as Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast (never done this one), and 'Ohana breakfast (did this on our 2023 trip and LOVED it), which we like to do on a non-park day (can you tell I have a preference for dining reservation timing?) We don't usually do that many reserved meals in one trip, but this will likely be my son's only chance to ever go with memaw, and if he ever gets to go with my mom and brother again, it'll be many, many years, since most of my family members don't share my love (read: addiction) for WDW. So I really want to make sure we get a lot of really great slowed-down experiences for the family to enjoy together, and focus a little less on the "runrunrun" aspect of doing everything all at once as fast as possible.
So anyways, that's the current breakdown. Due to the people going on this trip, it'll likely be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so while I am looking forward to this more than I've ever looked forward to a Disney trip, I'm also a little stressed about making sure everything goes well.
