Let the Storm Rage on...our family of 6 is coming to Disney

[maddiesdaddy]

Hello everyone. This is my first pre-trip report. My wife did one prior to our Disney wedding...but I have not..yet, as the first trip with our entire family, I thought it was the time for it.

But first...introductions.

I am merely the person documenting this journey...and part time planner. My amazing wife is both the brains and the beauty behind this endeavor.

This is us...on our most recent trip to Disney..June 2014. This was not a full family trip..more on that later..but just wanted to introduce you to us.

The beautiful woman on the left is my sweet wife...I am the lucky guy on the right.

So..a little about us. This is long..so sorry...but important as to why this trip is special to us.

We are a blended family. For both of us, it is our 2nd marriage. From my previous marriage, I have a daughter, now 10..we went to Disney on our first trip when she was 4..after her mom and I got divorced, I thought what better way to have a bond then for us to take our first trip each..together..at Disney.

My wife, has a son, now 7 from her first marriage. They want to Disney on their first trip when he was 2.5...after her and her husband were divorced, with some advice from me..more on that...she took her son on a bonding trip to Disney.

My wife and I met through work, though not at the same company, our jobs interacted...after we were both divorced. She was fresh off of hers and we were friends as I guided her through the ups and downs of the first few months after. I told her I was taking my daughter to Disney.

That trip was incredible for my daughter and me and I talked about it a lot. At the time, while friends, our jobs drifted off differently and we lost touch, but she remembered how I talked about my Disney trip and a year later, she emailed me to tell me about her first trip to Disney and how, after listening to me rave about the bonding experience, she was going to take her son.

She emailed me her trip dates..and what do you know but my daughter and I had already booked a return trip and our last weekend in Disney for Trip 2 was going to overlap with her first weekend of her Trip 1. My daughter and I met them on the MK and spend the weekend hanging out and slowly realizing through the magic of Disney, that there was something more to our story.

We took our first trip as 4 one year after her and her son's first visit.

In December of 2010, I surprised her with an adult only trip..where this happened in the Rose Garden of the MK:

We married that September of 2011 (our favorite month to do to Disney) and all the amazing pics are in my signature...but suffice it to say, it was the best day of our lives

Here is one of the first pictures of our new family of 4. In this picture, my daughter, now 10 was 7 and her son, now 7 was 4.

So...our family is amazing and our kids are so great together...that we decided we would have one together.....but someone had different plans, so, despite no family history of twins, we had them. One boy, one girl...

And so that makes 6. And 6 is pure chaos. Because our kids got their own trips, we decided to treat our twins to their own first trip...and that was this trip in June.

There were many rainy days on that trip..but we made the best of them. In this picture, they are 3 weeks away from turning 2, which they are now.

That June trip was a precursor to our first FULL family of 6 trip to the Disney. This September. 21 - 28.

There has been a lot of angst about this trip as the bigs are adjusting to life with the littles. And how are we going to make a successful trip with the age gaps of these 4.

Lots to talk about and explain.

And I am excited to share it with all of you.

We have accommodations to discuss. Dining plans. MNSSHP. FP+

I have been inspired by so many of your trip reports. More to come.

Thanks for reading thus far.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

This trip has been planned since before they were born. Our last trip to Disney before the twins' trip this June was March of 2012 before the twins were born. My wife was pregnant and we wondered when we start up our trips again. At that time, we planned a September 2014 trip with all 6.

Through various summer trips, we began to learn how much our bigs felt 'dragged down' by their little siblings. Not in a mean way, but just in a way where their fun was somehow lessened. And we felt we needed to do something.

We realize we're going to have to split time on this trip, with one of us taking the bigs and the other taking the twins and so neither of us wanted to miss 'first trip things' with our twins. And we didn't want the bigs to be bored by the endless posing for first trip things with the twins...so we booked a long weekend in June for just us and the twins.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

We realized the first snag of our new family...a regular room doesn't work. When our own kids were little on their first trips, we stayed on Monorail Resorts to ease in naps and meltdowns and ease of getting back to the room after long nights all over Disney.

Even in those rooms, 6 doesn't work..so what were we going to do. These were the first decisions we needed to make for our trip. Monorail was important because we would have not 1, but 2 two year olds to manage, but 2 rooms were out of the budget.

We found our selves truly blessed with a good friend who owned DVC. Through extensive research, we realized that a one bedroom villa will normally sleep 5, but if the 6th is a child under 3, they will allow 6.

The one bedroom will have a separate bedroom which will be invaluable for our family and the kitchen will help when we have to eat in. The twins, are in a word, challenging. So, we'll need to eat in whenever possible.

So, with some working out of different point values, for a very reasonable price only available through the grace of good friends, we are doing a split stay rental at the Villas at the Grand Floridian and Bay Lake Tower. Because of groceries, we are a bit stressed about the split stay, but this was the only way to make it work.

We are excited. Sort of. We have always historically stayed at the Grand. But because the twins were so young on our trip, we stayed at the Contemporary so we could walk back and forth to the MK. Our stay at the Contemporary was very much less than magical, for many reasons and we longed for the Grand often during that trip.

So, to have the opportunity to stay at the Villas is thrilling, but due to points and availability, we could not stay the whole week. So, we split at BLT and are nervous to say the least, after our stay at the Contemporary.

We couldn't do this without a very generous rental rate from a very good friend so we really should count our blessings and I do realize that. So, we're just realizing the amazing opportunity we have to be so close to the MK where many of our nights will likely end and once the lodging was decided, we were off and running with our favorite part....

PLANNING.............so much to do!!!

 

[TinkerbellsMom0923]

I love your story of how you met and your pictures. We are a Disney family too but only have 2 kids, one is 24 and one is 21. They grew up at Disney and have very good memories. My 24 year old son in fact works at Disneyworld now and lives nearby. Cast discounts are good and we go often. We'll be there at the same time as you, Sept 26-Oct 5 at Boardwalk. My husband, son and I, daughter will be back at college and is very upset about missing trip. I love watching kids at Disney, yours will be fun.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

I love your story of how you met and your pictures. We are a Disney family too but only have 2 kids, one is 24 and one is 21. They grew up at Disney and have very good memories. My 24 year old son in fact works at Disneyworld now and lives nearby. Cast discounts are good and we go often. We'll be there at the same time as you, Sept 26-Oct 5 at Boardwalk. My husband, son and I, daughter will be back at college and is very upset about missing trip. I love watching kids at Disney, yours will be fun.

Thank you for reading. That's a great story. I hope my kiddos have great memories. We are all having so much fun...so I hope this lasts for awhile. My oldest still believes in the princesses..which I'm sure is due to her little sister who calls every single princess 'Ella'.

I would love it if one of the kids wanted to work at Disney World. For now, the oldest wants to have her wedding there..so progress...kind of!!!

We also love the Boardwalk area resorts..on our adult trip, we stayed at Beach Club...but with the kids, it's the monorail for us!!!

Thanks again for reading..your story is great....our oldest were sad when we told them about the twin trip..but excited to all go together.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

One of our favorite parts of planning is the food....we all have our favorite restaurants and we all take turns accommodating those!

Older daughter - Princess Akershus Breakfast - yes, she does love Cinderella and CRT used to be her favorite, but her favorite rides are all now at EPCOT so she likes location better!!!

Older son - Chef Mickey's. Mickey is his favorite character so this is a no brainer.

My wife - Citricos..it's a sentimental favorite as it was where we had dinner the day of our engagement and have eaten there at least once each trip

Me - Teppan Edo - I love Chinese food and especially hibachi style..so this was a hidden gem for us when we first ate there so many years ago.

So, because the twins are a real handful, especially eating out, Disney dining plan or no disney dining plan was really the question.

We were torn with trying to minimize sit down meals with trying to allow everybody one favorite restaurant. Since each is a sit down, we decided on the regular dining plan for our trip. We have tracked in the past and if you do indeed go to sit down restaurants, we have saved an average of 23% off the 'rack rate'.

So, we decided to give it a shot for a few sit down restaurants - we had to figure it out quickly so we could get all of our ADRs.

 

[TinkerbellsMom0923]

One of our favorite parts of planning is the food....we all have our favorite restaurants and we all take turns accommodating those!

Older daughter - Princess Akershus Breakfast - yes, she does love Cinderella and CRT used to be her favorite, but her favorite rides are all now at EPCOT so she likes location better!!!

Older son - Chef Mickey's. Mickey is his favorite character so this is a no brainer.

My wife - Citricos..it's a sentimental favorite as it was where we had dinner the day of our engagement and have eaten there at least once each trip

Me - Teppan Edo - I love Chinese food and especially hibachi style..so this was a hidden gem for us when we first ate there so many years ago.

So, because the twins are a real handful, especially eating out, Disney dining plan or no disney dining plan was really the question.

We were torn with trying to minimize sit down meals with trying to allow everybody one favorite restaurant. Since each is a sit down, we decided on the regular dining plan for our trip. We have tracked in the past and if you do indeed go to sit down restaurants, we have saved an average of 23% off the 'rack rate'.

So, we decided to give it a shot for a few sit down restaurants - we had to figure it out quickly so we could get all of our ADRs.

I love Teppan Edo too, we have a reservation. The Norway Princess Breakfast is the best, I went with my girlfriend 2 years ago.
As far as memories, my kids have a lot of great memories. My daughter wants to get married there too and wants a princess dress-she's 21!
Enjoy the time with the kids, they grow up fast!

 

[TinkerbellsMom0923]

PS Perhaps in all the magic, we'll see your beautiful family there. I'll be sure to say HI!

 

[maddiesdaddy]

PS Perhaps in all the magic, we'll see your beautiful family there. I'll be sure to say HI!

Please do...have been busy at work and need to update this.

Thanks for stopping in to say hi...

And I received a PM...when I noted that I love Teppan Edo because I love Chinese food. I should mention that I recognize it is Japanese fare and not Chinese..I should have been more generic in stating that I love all food that is Asian in nature and that's why Teppan Edo is my favorite.

Anyway, thanks all who have read and commented.

Detailed trip information to follow soon.

Thanks all.

 

[maddiesdaddy]

Ok all, sorry for the delay - very busy at work..not that it seems to matter to many!!!

I do need to give a shout out to another St. Louis Disney lover whose PTR inspired me to write mine

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3230103

I doubt many who read this one haven't read hers, but I did want to make sure she was recognized for a great TR...from someone likely in my own backyard!

 

[maddiesdaddy]

So, really as we thought about dining, we had to think about how we were going to structure our plans...and that is where all the fun in this is..

In our first trips with our oldest, we went right after Labor Day and the parks were empty. I remember one Sunday in HS and I honestly thought maybe it had closed, because there were so few people in it.

Well, people caught on to this fun phenomenon (it's cheaper too) and my job made trips at the beginning of the month not workable..so as we have moved back into later September, we have encountered surprisingly large crowds that we learned had a lot to do with F&W.

So, we did extensive research on crowd levels and trying to minimize time in parks that would have the largest crowds, per these predictive models. It's not a perfect science I know, but we had to start somewhere and it was that basis that let us to the great trip plan of 2014.

The first half of our stay at VGF is Sunday - Wednesday and that half is described in this post. Part 2 will be later today or tonight.


Day 1

We arrive Sunday and per our family tradition, we bolt off to the MK for our first castle shot of the trip. We ALWAYS do this. It has just become habit...nothing kicks off a Disney trip like standing on main street...and getting our picture taken. We can have a longer discussion about Memory Maker if you would like.

We have FP+ for Space Mountain, Under the Sea and Enchanted Tales with Belle. Our last trip was our first experience with ET and our big kids are excited to take part in the play. My daughter is a born actress...so that should be fun for us.

This is a MNSSHP night so our night will end early here and we will have dinner back at the hotel room after stopping in at Gasparilla's.

We promised the big kids lots of swimming so they will likely hit the pool while we get the little ones to bed.


Day 2

And so it begins....we will have had groceries delivered from Garden Grocer and so we'll all eat in the room and head out for our first EPCOT day.

EPCOT's tiered FP+ system forced some creativity here so we got a FP+ to start at the Character Spot..this was 2 fold...because it' really a waste of a FP+, but we wanted to get it over with early so we could burn through our 3 FP+s in hoped of adding the other Tier 1 ride...it's a long shot because we know that FP+ for headliners are all gone by the afternoon..but we're still giving it a try.

Anyway, aside from that one just to fill up a spot, we have Soarin' and Mission Space as FPs. If we haven't tried it at Space Mountain, Soarin' will likely be the spot that we try our first Rider Swap so that our big kids can ride it twice and Mom and Dad will get a chance to each ride it.

We have meals today at Teppan Edo and likely the QS Mexican spot which has some pretty amazing food..and margaritas!!

If the twins fall asleep, we will stay for Illuminations, otherwise, we'll head back to the hotel to prepare for tomorrow's big day.

Day 3

Today is MNSSHP day...this is a family favorite event that we are very psyched about today. But the beginning starts out with a Chef Mickey breakfast...yum. Nothing says Disney like a Mickey Waffle in the morning!!

Overall, this is a MK day and we have a FP+ for Peter Pan in the morning and then we plan to go back to the hotel to eat lunch at the hotel and everyone rest up for our night.

MNSSHP has been a part of our trips whenever we go this time of year. We have really evolved into making this a full family event. On my first trip with my daughter, she dressed up as her favorite princess Cinderella and it really struck her how everyone called her princess that day. The next year, we did the same thing, but she chose Belle, but my wife, who went solo with her son that year dressed as a lady bug while he dressed as an adorable Tigger.

On our first full family of 4 trip, we decided to make it a full family party and my daughter dressed up as Ariel, and I wore a mermaid skirt, long beard and muscle shirt to play Ariel's dad, King Triton. My wife and her son went as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. His Mickey costume had an ear that squeaked.

That trip was a lot of fun. The big kids really enjoyed having us participate with them so we had to keep the tradition going when we went on our wedding trip.

For that trip, we did a Peter Pan theme and my daughter was Tink, I was Peter Pan, my wife was Wendy and her son was the crocodile!!!! He had a great costume and we had an iphone recording of the tick tock sound playing. We actually got in line for the Villains show and really had fun with Hook..who was a great sport and really made it so very magical.

That was our last full family trip during September so when we planned to go this year, we really had to come up with a new plan. But this time..for 6.

I do have to admit that we followed the masses and went with a frozen theme...hard to do anything else since the oldest plays Elsa at home with a blue cape and calls her little sister Anna. There was nothing else we could dress up as that would resonate so we did do a Frozen Theme...

The oldest daughter will dress up as Elsa and our oldest son will dress as Olaf with an amazing costume we found on Etsy.

The twins will dress up as Coronation Dress Anna and Sven. The sven costume is basically a Lederhosen brown onesie with brown pants and reindeer antlers on a headband!

Because the theory going around that Rapunzel and Flynn were at Elsa's coronation because A&E's parents were on the way to their wedding, the wife and I are dressing up as Rapunzel and Flynn Rider.

That is also good for us since our little guy's middle name is Flynn as homage to our Disney Wedding!!

Now we had a little debate on Rapunzel hair since Rapunzel came to the coronation post haircut/color. But, my wife wanted to be truly iconic Rapunzel so we got the wig. We just need to get flowers for the braid!

So, those are our plans for the Tuesday night party...we will plan mostly to meet characters and see parades and shows, going back Friday night not in costume to ride rides.

We realized that wasn't the best planning because Wednesday is moving day..

Day 4

Moving Day...today we have to have everything packed to move resorts..so we have to pack smart and we are thinking about packing kid groups in 4 bags..but 2 per bag per half of the trip..so Big kids will share Bag 1 that will have all 1st part of the trip clothes in it and Bag 2 which will have all 2nd part of the trip clothes in it. Same for the twins.

But alas, it's still a park day..at some point..so, a quiet breakfast in the room as everyone eats and we get packed up.

Eventually, we will make our way to HS where we have FP+ for Toy Story, Disney Junior live stage and The Voyage of the Little Mermaid.

There we will eat our favorite lunch of Pizza Planet and because the oldest boy is finally tall enough to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster, we plan to Rider Swap that because it's a favorite for all. And the big kids will get to ride it twice!!!

After a full day yesterday, early back to the new hotel, but stopping first at the Grand for a 1900 Park Fare dinner. Our youngest daughter is severely allergic to eggs and, on our last trip, the chef at 1900 Park Fare was amazing and the buffet is great so we're heading there to enjoy Cindy and Prince Charming before we head home.

Well..that's the 1st half. I hope I haven't put anyone to sleep. More later for part 2.