Thanksgiving with Mickey again...a November 2016 TRIP REPORT! (DONE)

[kittylady1972]

Greetings and salutations! Welcome to my pre-trip report for our November 2016 trip to see Mickey!

We have done MANY trips to WDW during Thanksgiving time, so we are old pros and touring during what can be a busy time in the parks. What will be new for this next trip is that we will be bringing along my brother, his wife and my two adorable nephews who have NEVER been to Disney before! Really looking forward to watching them experience everything for the very first time!

Just a warning up front, I am notorious for NOT doing regular updates, but I promise to try my best to post something here as often as possible. Right now there isn't much planning to do but things will ramp up as we get within 6 months of the trip. I'm going to be consulting with my sister-in-law about dining options to see what she wants to do with the boys. We don't need character meals with our kids, but I think with hers it will be nice to do one or two.

Up next: the current plan

LINKS:
THE TENTATIVE PLAN
THE NEW NEW NEW PLAN V2.1
DEPARTURE DAY
WE HAVE ARRIVED!
UNIVERSAL PARKS REVISTED
EPIC EPCOT DAY
A GREAT DAY AT MK
A GREAT DAY AT MK PART 2
STUDIO TUESDAY
WILD ANIMAL WEDNESDAY

 

[kittylady1972]

THE PLAN:

So right now the confirmed travel party is as follows:
Myself - 40ish Disney fanatic
DH - 40ish husband of Disney fanatic
DS 16, DD 14, DS 12 - Seasoned Disney fans, they love the parks and still can't get enough of them even at their age

Brother - My younger brother, also in his 40s; his last trip to Disney was with us back in November of 2008 I think? During that trip he was with his girlfriend, not the same person he is married to now though.
SIL - She is in her 30s and is really looking forward to this trip with the boys
DN 4 and DN 2 - My two nephews, ages 4 and 2 at the time of the trip. I know they do watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse but don't know if they are into any other Disney characters or shows. I'll have to check and see if that makes a difference in our plans.

POSSIBLE: I know my mom and dad would like to go with us, but my mom has been battling cancer off and on for about 10 years now. She had almost reached 5-years clear after a bout with breast cancer when something turned up in her regular oncology checkup and she learned she had a tumor in her lung. As a non-smoker all her life, this was quite shocking news. It was discovered early, but unfortunately during a surgery attempt to remove it they found it was too involved with some main arteries and instead she went through radiation and chemo and still continues to work through various chemical treatments. It remains stable, but the doctors insist on keeping her on some kind of targeted therapy to keep it from spreading. The last year or so have been tough for her to go through all the side effects with her treatments, and lately she's been quite weak and not getting around very well, which is hard to see since she is only 69 and has always been quite active. All this to say, that provided she is up for it healthwise, I know she would love to attend this trip with us. I'm hoping that she will be up for it.

BOOKED: We are DVC members, so I currently have a 2BR room booked at our home resort of Saratoga Springs. While we like Saratoga (and my SIL is a huge horse fanatic so I'm sure she'll love it there too) with the smaller kids we would much prefer to be closer to MK so the hope is to probably book something at Bay Lake Tower. Bay lake has become one of our favorites and we've stayed there a few times. We can try to make that switch beginning next month.

Right now we plan to arrive the weekend before Thanksgiving and leave the Friday after Thanksgiving.

 

[kittylady1972]

COUNTDOWNS:

APRIL 20th: First day I can check for other available DVC Resort rooms for our trip. Right now I have one 2BR unit booked at SSR. Ideally I think I want a 2BR and a Studio at Bay Lake Tower. At 7 months in advance, I MIGHT have the chance at a studio, but I checked availability today and there is only partial availability at BLT for my timeframe for both studios and 2BR units, no matter what view. Hopefully our chances of getting one are pretty good.

MAY 20th: 6 months away...we'll need to book our dining reservations. We have two boys going, so I'm thinking at least one character meal will be in order, even though I hate to think of what we will have to pay for that since we have to pay for 5 adults. Still I want to be there to share the experience, and my mom agreed last night. She is also really looking forward to the trip and is working on building up her strength so she can go with us.

Those are the two near term target dates I have to think about right now.

 

[kittylady1972]

THIS is the reason to go during Thanksgiving...seeing the parks decorated for Christmas! It's just such a wonderful sight to see and gets us into the Christmas mood even if it is only Thanksgiving!

 

[kittylady1972]

So I've just been going back through our last Thanksgiving trip...November 2014...so many great memories.

Definitely going to miss this:

The Osborne Lights were just so magical. I hope they have something extra special to enjoy in place of them this year. One can only hope.

Most of our trips involve a different travel party than we will have for this next one. It's usually our family of five, plus my husband's parents (who at age 70+ are both thrill seekers) and sometimes my husband's sister and her son.

Quite honestly, we are really all about the rides and being as goofy as possible for the photos as well. I think this one is probably our favorite:

That's us across the back...well minus two of us. My nephew (age 10 at the time) hates this ride and my oldest son...who knows what his deal was that day...probably being a teenager.

He did show up for this one though:

We just LOVE the tower!

However we are just as goofy on everything else.

Like Rock N Roller Coaster:

And EVEREST:

And Space Mountain:

 

[kittylady1972]

However I will say you are never too old to do the character meet and greets either. We had some time to kill, and I convinced my younger two to wait in line for this photo:

These kids are just growing up so fast. I'm glad they still enjoy everything about Walt Disney World. I think we've given them some great family memories over the last few years. That goes for the rest of the family as well. My MIL and FIL are probably just as big of WDW fans as we are right now. We introduced them to the parks and they've pretty much been along for most of our trips. My parents have attended a few, but they aren't as into it as the rest of the family. My mom is not a thrill ride person AT ALL, although we still laugh about the time my daughter got her to ride Big Thunder Mountain RR with her. I think mom had her eyes closed the entire time. The things you will do for your 5-yo granddaughter!

I wonder if mom will do this one this time with one of her grandsons:

Probably not but you never know.

We will provide the rooms for everybody, since we always do that. Unfortunately we don't have the points available to invite my husband's family this time. Honestly my MIL is having major health issues right now, so planning anything in advance with them just doesn't make sense, especially this far in advance. I think if she is feeling up for it, and they wanted to come in November, we would find a way to help them get there. I honestly don't know what the chances are of that really happening though. Cancer sucks.

Anyway so great to just go back and look at the photos from our trips. So many great memories we've made. Makes me smile every time.

 

[ariane37]

Hello there Following along as right now our plan is to go (again) for Thanksgiving this year. We went last year and went the day after in 2012. Last year was great, minus a couple hiccups But the weather was perfect, crowds were not nearly as bad as we thought they'd be and of course the decorations everywhere are SO worth it

 

[kittylady1972]

Hello there Following along as right now our plan is to go (again) for Thanksgiving this year. We went last year and went the day after in 2012. Last year was great, minus a couple hiccups But the weather was perfect, crowds were not nearly as bad as we thought they'd be and of course the decorations everywhere are SO worth it

Yeah! Glad to have a follower and agreed about the decorations. Sorry last year had hiccups for you. We will be doing parks with little ones again so it is sure to be different since it has been a while experiencing it with little ones.

 

[kittylady1972]

A little more reminiscing this morning. I decided to go back to our very first Thanksgiving in Walt Disney World - November 2007. We did a split stay because we had a whole lot of family with us, staying a few nights at Old Key West and then a few nights in a 3BR Villa at Saratoga Springs Resort. It was a wonderful trip and the kids did great on the drive down, which I believe was our first time driving down with them.

Our family at the time:

The Christmas Tree at MGM Studios:

And of course the very first time we viewed the Osborne Lights:

My how things have changed. This was such a great trip.

They were just so little:

 

[kittylady1972]

Among all of our trips, we have established some traditions but many have changed over time. One thing that we almost ALWAYS do though is have at least one meal at Chef Mickey's. I'm pretty sure that is at least the ONE character meal we will book for this upcoming November trip. It's just a nice tradition. Here is my daughter's first trip to Chef Mickey's...where Minnie held her for a photo (back in 2003):

Then we have January 2006 with the Chef himself (first visit for my son and my nephew):

I think this was the year (2007) that my youngest son wanted nothing to do with most of the characters (much like his first visit) but we did visit with Donald:

However by 2009 it was all good again. We went in May:

And then again in December I think:

Then it was time for our first June trip...in 2011. We were joined by my husband's sister and her husband and our nephew again, as her husband's Disney rule was no more frequent than every five years:

We would return for another Thanksgiving in 2012:

And then again in 2014 (and guess who was back with us earlier than 5 years...divorce will do that for you):

 

[DMGeurts]

Wahoo - I just noticed you have this going! Awesome!

I hope you are able to get BLT in April when you are able to switch... And hopefully you are able to get the character meal you want too.

I loved seeing all of the ride photos and the photos at Chef Mickey's throughout the years - it's fun to watch the kids grow up Disney.

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

D~

 

[kittylady1972]

Wahoo - I just noticed you have this going! Awesome!

I hope you are able to get BLT in April when you are able to switch... And hopefully you are able to get the character meal you want too.

I loved seeing all of the ride photos and the photos at Chef Mickey's throughout the years - it's fun to watch the kids grow up Disney.

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

D~

Yes we'll see if I can follow through with it now! I'm soooo bad about it...unlike you!

I'm hoping we can get BLT as well. I've already resigned myself to a waitlist...the trick is figuring out how to do that because there are only so many you can have at once and I'd like to have a backup resort in mind. I've even considered 3 studios at the Polynesian, but that might be even more difficult. I also love the ambiance of Wilderness Lodge and the fun of Animal Kingdom Lodge. I'd stay at any of those again so we'll see what happens.

Yes the Chef Mickey's photos are so great. I will have to locate the VERY first one...when I was pregnant with my oldest son...and then the next one when it was his first visit. I just don't have them available right now.

I loved all of your growing up Disney photos with the girls too!

Thanks for stopping by and saying hello!

 

[ariane37]

I'm loving all your pictures from past trips, too! We did CM on our first two trips back in 2006 and 2007 and I have adorable pictures of our boys with the characters there - youngest DS was only 11 mos. on the first trip He still enjoys meeting characters but likes to look cool in front of DS13 who isn't so into it anymore, and so he'll often pass up the opportunities. I miss it! Not that I'm above meeting them myself.......

 

[kittylady1972]

I'm loving all your pictures from past trips, too! We did CM on our first two trips back in 2006 and 2007 and I have adorable pictures of our boys with the characters there - youngest DS was only 11 mos. on the first trip He still enjoys meeting characters but likes to look cool in front of DS13 who isn't so into it anymore, and so he'll often pass up the opportunities. I miss it! Not that I'm above meeting them myself.......

Thanks! It really is fun to look back through them. My daughter was also 11 months on our first trip...the one where Minnie Mouse is holding her. I also have tons of other photos, one with Goofy holding her at O'Hana breakfast, her grabbing the faces of Chip and Dale there too. She just LOVED the characters so much, where each of the boys were not that into them during any of our visits when they were younger. My kids don't hesitate to still get into character photos and I will admit I'm the same way.

These were from our cruise...but same rules apply with me and characters. Favorites are Mickey (of course) and Tigger and Stitch.

Then I could take you way back...to what was actually *my* SECOND trip to Walt Disney World in 1981:

Cropped out the rest since this was before they really monitored the lines and there is a boy standing in front of Mickey(not part of my family) and my brother on the other side of him.

 

[kittylady1972]

So I've been working on a few backup plans for where to stay during our upcoming trip, just in case Bay Lake Tower doesn't work out. A few days ago I hopped on the DVC site and checked availability at several places for Thanksgiving week. No surprise...there isn't a whole lot. However one that did pop up that I'm strongly considering is this:

Anybody know?

How about now?

Yes the beautiful Wildnerness Lodge. While I think the little ones would love a monorail resort, I think my next highest priority is at least a Magic Kingdom Resort. Grand Floridian is the one DVC property where we haven't stayed yet, and honestly we just have zero desire to stay there. Not to mention the points value there is off the charts! We've stayed at the Grand Floridian one time, back in November 2012, but it was a short stay as we booked 2 nights there before we did our first Disney cruise (on the Dream) and then when we returned we checked into a treehouse villa at Saratoga Springs because we were joined by my SIL and nephew for the rest of the trip. The treehouse was not popular for our group, but honestly I really loved it and would love to stay there again.

Anyway...back to the lodge. Such a beautiful place. Back in 2012 when we made our trek down I didn't tell my MIL and FIL where we were staying because I wanted to surprise them. Now THEY had stayed at the lodge way back in Sept. 2001, but not in a DVC villa. Back then, we had booked a week at WDW for Nicolas' very first trip to Walt Disney World but we were only able to book a room at the Contemporary for our family of 3 (at the time) and so we ended up booking my in-laws at the nearby lodge. Who knew that would happen to be the week of Sept. 11th, so we did end up spending more time in the resorts, especially on Sept. 11th when the parks closed down, than we had planned. My in-laws did love their room there, and we ended up visiting them.

This brings me to my next THEN-AND-NOW photo. We snapped this photo of Nicolas on Sept. 11, 2001, while walking around the resort. When we returned in Nov. 2012, I found the same location, and although it had changed slightly, we took another photo for comparison:

Yes the 12 year old wasn't quite as easy to hold then the 17-month old was in 2001, but I still love the comparison.

Anyway really would love to return to this resort one day, which is probably more likely now that they are building even MORE DVC rooms there. Still a few photos from around the place back in 2012:

The DVC area and the pool, which was never used because it was too cold.

'
The beach...only used one night as we sat there and watched the evening boat parade on the water...while bundled up of course.

Walking path

Watching the geiser erupt

all of us at that same sign from earlier

Inside the villa

Lobby and tree inside the villa building

Kids with the bigger main lodge tree

More photos inside the main lodge building

Seriously this resort really is so nice. Despite the lack of monorail, we used the boat plenty of times and that worked out just fine for us.

Anyway this remains a possible option if we can't get into Bay Lake Tower, and I think it's a strong contender. Honestly I'm happy to return to ANY of the DVC properties. Another strong contender is Beach Club or Boardwalk for it's proximity to EPCOT and easy access to two parks as well. Still we figure we'll mostly be focusing on the Magic Kingdom with the little ones and so a Magic Kingdom resort would work out the best.

Countdown until I can begin checking around for options: 5 weeks

QUICK PS: For anyone interested, the full trip report for that November 2012 trip can be found here:
Thanksgiving 2012

 

[kittylady1972]

THE TENTATIVE PLAN

First of all, what you should know about me up front is that I am a total procrastinator. I do not plan anything out for the most part, always waiting until the last minute.

EXCEPT when it comes to vacations. After all, that's what really matters right? Not work...not school...not bills, housework, etc. just VACATION.

Having been to Disney in November many times now, I already had my November spreadsheet available to clone.

Yes I said SPREADSHEET.

How else can you keep track of park hours, which ones you should/should not visit, expected crowd levels, ADRs and now FastPass reservations?

Anyway while park hours and early entry days aren't setup yet, I can guess based on the history what days and times to put into the spreadsheet and I can just update them accordingly.

I'll share the spreadsheet here if anybody is interested. I use Google Docs to create it and then I can share it with friends and family as I update it. I also maintain a Disney Calendar in Google where I can put information about Disney trips to also have that on hand and set reminders.

Anyway....here is what I'm thinking generally for our trip:

1. FRIDAY Nov. 18th: Normally this would be my kids' last day of school before Thanksgiving break. They have historically had the entire week of Thanksgiving off. But of course this is the year they have chosen to revamp the calendar, and I think now they only get Wed-Fri off like many other school systems. Clearly this won't work for us, so let's hope those two days they miss (mon/tue) won't be critical. Honestly I'd like to hit the road whenever we can on Friday and begin our drive to Florida. Kids get out of school at 3pm, but I may even pull them around lunchtime/1pm and head home and pack and hit the road by 2pm. NOBODY and I mean NOBODY wants to deal with MD/DC/VA rush hour traffic, especially the Friday before a holiday week.
2. SATURDAY Nov. 19th: Continue our drive and arrive in Florida, hopefully around dinnertime. I'm going to try to book Saturday night at Shades of Green because we won't check into our DVC unit until Sunday, but who knows maybe I'll spring for another DVC room on property for that one night. I'll wait and see what I end up with in terms of booking Thanksgiving week so I know how many points I have left.
3. SUNDAY Nov. 20th: The rest of the family will probably arrive during the evening as they will be driving from NC. We will spend our day at a park most likely, maybe even just try to hit the big rides at one or two or even 3 parks. Last Thanksgiving we attempted doing all 4 parks in one day, but I think we only made it to 3 of them. However that was a group of 9 people (with one using a scooter) and maybe with just 5 of us we could maintain that pace.
4. MONDAY Nov. 21st: I'm thinking of starting the day with a character breakfast (maybe Chef Mickey) to kick off the vacation and see how the little ones respond to characters. There is the possibility that I make it a dinner on Sunday instead once I know their travel plans though. First park on the agenda will probably be Magic Kingdom of course.
5. TUESDAY Nov. 22nd: Probably another MK day and maybe even some time at EPCOT
6. WEDNESDAY Nov. 23rd: Hollywood Studios and/or EPCOT
7. THURSDAY Nov. 24th: MK in the early morning if everybody can hang, then head over to Animal Kingdom around lunchtime. My plan for Thanksgiving Dinner will be Boma because we ate there back in Nov. 2014 and really enjoyed it. My mom still doesn't let me live down the fact that the time they joined us for Thanksgiving (in Nov. 2007) we ate at the Concourse Steakhouse (in the Contemporary) and it was a piece of processed turkey for everybody, no hand-carved turkey and that was just no good. I know Boma will have carving stations with the real deal!
8. FRIDAY Nov. 25th: This is our departure day and right now I'm torn. I may try to do some park time on this day for a while, and hit the road in the afternoon/evening and just drive as far as possible again, then stay overnight and finish our drive home on Saturday, just to break up the trip. We'll see how that works out.

So that is the tentative plan for now, subject to change of course depending on meal reservations and Fastpasses. I haven't thought about the meals we want to have for now, because that's tough with little kids. I think I'd like to have lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern one day. I'm also considering the character meal at O'Hana (breakfast) and maybe even a revisit to the Garden Grill because we haven't done that in years, or even a late breakfast/early lunch at Tusker House at Animal Kingdom because I have booked that meal at LEAST 3 times and cancelled every time! We'll see since paying adult prices for character meals for 5 people is going to be UGLY!

 

[ariane37]

I like the pictures of WL! I'd like to stay there someday but DH has absolutely no desire to

A few days ago I hopped on the DVC site and checked availability at several places for Thanksgiving week. No surprise...there isn't a whole lot.

Hmm....last year we stayed at BWV Thanksgiving week, and booked it at 7 months out (we don't own; rented points from someone). We actually had a good # of resorts to choose from at that point, minus BLT and of course GFV. Right now we're booked at CSR but are thinking of renting points again somewhere, my choice is AKV. DH just takes forever to make up his mind! This makes me nervous though; think I'll tell him what you saw and maybe it'll give him a nudge. Hope you can get BLT!

Clearly this won't work for us, so let's hope those two days they miss (mon/tue) won't be critical

Obviously every school district is different and states vary like crazy, but our schools have always only gotten off Wed.-Fri. and they do virtually nothing on Mon.-Tues. until high school, so I'm guessing they'll most likely be ok missing!

My plan for Thanksgiving Dinner will be Boma because we ate there back in Nov. 2014 and really enjoyed it.

That's an idea I agonized last year over where to book for Thanksgiving day and ultimately went with the Wave. Their Thanksgiving buffet looked awesome! Unfortunately we had to skip it since I woke up that morning with the stomach bug Right now I'm thinking I may book it again for this year, but then part of me wants to book something in a park. Decisions, decisions........

 

[kittylady1972]

I like the pictures of WL! I'd like to stay there someday but DH has absolutely no desire to

Hmm....last year we stayed at BWV Thanksgiving week, and booked it at 7 months out (we don't own; rented points from someone). We actually had a good # of resorts to choose from at that point, minus BLT and of course GFV. Right now we're booked at CSR but are thinking of renting points again somewhere, my choice is AKV. DH just takes forever to make up his mind! This makes me nervous though; think I'll tell him what you saw and maybe it'll give him a nudge. Hope you can get BLT!

Obviously every school district is different and states vary like crazy, but our schools have always only gotten off Wed.-Fri. and they do virtually nothing on Mon.-Tues. until high school, so I'm guessing they'll most likely be ok missing!

That's an idea I agonized last year over where to book for Thanksgiving day and ultimately went with the Wave. Their Thanksgiving buffet looked awesome! Unfortunately we had to skip it since I woke up that morning with the stomach bug Right now I'm thinking I may book it again for this year, but then part of me wants to book something in a park. Decisions, decisions........

Well there is construction at WL now, but I am looking forward to the new cabins and think I'll want to try those out. However I really did enjoy the ambiance of WL, sorry your DH won't give it a try.

You may have better luck for Thanksgiving week if you are booking studios? We have a family of five and are trying to save points by only booking 2 rooms for all 11 of us, so I'm looking at most likely a 2BR and a studio. I'm sure I can probably get a studio at various places, but the 2BR is not as easy to find. I'm okay with a lockoff, so hopefully we can get that (1Br + Studio) and then another studio. Plus there aren't as many studios that sleep 5 people so that limits us as well.

I think we'll be okay with the missing school thing as well. I imagine the schools have to know people travel for that week, especially since ever since the kids have been in school they have ALWAYS had the entire Thanksgiving week off...so that's the last 11 years for my oldest! I'm sure it will take some people by surprise next year. We never used to get the entire week of Easter off, and then one year they changed that, and at the time I still had kids too small to stay home alone...so I had to plan to take time off from work for that which sucked. Now at least they are all old enough that next week they will be home by themselves all week so days off don't bother me as much anymore.

Hmmm...I may have to look into the Wave as well as an option. Boma was good and lots of variety. I don't think I'd attempt something in the park on Thanksgiving day myself. Many years we just did meals at Turf Club too, which was nice...but we had Prime Rib and Fish entrees instead of turkey, because we didn't feel we HAD to have turkey for Thanksgiving.

 

[kittylady1972]

Looking on the BRIGHT side

So even though I will miss the Osborne Lights tremendously this year, there are still good things about visiting Disney during the holiday season.

We will definitely take the time to visit this:

The GF Gingerbread House is just such a cool site to see.

Of course so is the castle. I have plenty of photos from Main Street, but love this one from across the water:

However this is one of my favorites of the kids:

Quick story about this one. This was an early December trip, and not Thanksgiving. We had all gone out to eat that night at one of our favorites...California Grill. The rest of the family was just done and ready to go back, but I had yet to see the castle all lit up and was determined to go. I took the kids with me while my husband took his family and they went back to our resort, which was Saratoga Springs.

I took a few photos up and down main street with the kids. I think we were going to do a ride or two but the lines were still long. We may have made one or two anyway.

If you notice in this photo, while it was December, there was NO tree at the Magic Kingdom on main street.

However the very next morning, we saw this:

From the opposite end of Main Street, but you can clearly see the tree right in the middle. I thought it was so cool that just OVERNIGHT all these street decorations went up (tree and wreaths) and got a photo of the kids with the tree:

Yes the magic of Disney never ceases to amaze me. Plus we were out at the MK until probably after 10:30pm and the reason I remember that is because the kids and I hopped a bus late that night back to Saratoga Springs. However there are many bus stops at Saratoga, and I honestly couldn't recall which one I needed for our area. I had one kid asleep in my lap, and another one sleeping next to me and a third pretty groggy too. Before I knew it, we were at the last SSR stop...and it was not ours! So I got off the bus, carrying one sleepy child and dragging another sleepy one by the hand...and I knew we had a walk ahead of us.

So what did I do? Called my husband of course, waking him up and asking him to come get us. In the meantime, we started walking...with cranky kids...yeah you know how fun that must have been.

The walk wasn't as bad as I though, and before I knew it I saw our building and called DH back to cancel...as he was walking out the door of the room.

Can you imagine how happy he was also?

Only thing he said to me that night was that if we had cranky kids the next day in the parks, I was on my own in dealing with them.

We made it though and I don't recall any issues the next day.

 

[kittylady1972]

No DVC site up this morning means I can't check the current availability of resorts AGAIN for Thanksgiving week. No matter...not like I can book yet anyway!

Apparently last week my husband had lunch with his parents and they mentioned for us to keep an eye out for rooms for them for Thanksgiving. I guess they would like to join us but DH mentioned that we don't have the points for anybody else this time. They are fine with paying their own way, and I told my husband there was no need for me to wait because I'm sure there are rooms available NOW for Thanksgiving week if they wanted to book. It would cost only a 1-night deposit to hold a room and *IF* any discounts come out for that week they wouldn't happen until later this summer anyway. So they could book now or wait and see, but I'm not sure how much I'll really be looking for discounts for them since I won't need to worry about it for myself.

We were looking at old video last night from our Sept. 2014 trip to Disney. That was such a fun one. We got to do another drawing at Animation, which was one of my favorite activities and I'm really going to miss it:

We had a LOT of rain for those few days:

When it wasn't raining, we soaked up the sun:

We had a great stay at Shades of Green, the whole family had never stayed here (but I had) and we saw this from our back porch one day:

We rode 7DMT for the first time:

And we all experienced Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party together:

The rain had the biggest impact on this trip. We are used to rain in Florida, and we were prepared, but it was much worse this time than any of our previous trips. Although we tried our best to make the most of it, the only thing that disappointed us was the night of the Halloween Party. We LOVE the Halloween parade and really wanted to see it, but we made a mistake in that we decided to SKIP the first parade, riding rides instead during that time, and then wait for the later parade. Unfortunately they had to cancel the second parade, and the kids were so disappointed. If I could do it over again, this time we'd see that first parade and spend time on the rides later. Too late now though.

Anyway watching some old videos of that Sept trip made the kids want to go back...of course. Alas they have to wait until another time...meaning 8 more months to go! I am sure it will be here sooner than we realize.

Right now I'm trying to just focus on spring and summer. Spring Break is this week for the kids. I feel bad we didn't make any big plans, and I'm jealous reading about friends online who are taking vacations to sunny places. It's just not in the cards for us right now. We will have to settle for a few staycation ideas and I'm already thinking of working some shorter days at work Wed and Thur this week and doing some half-day local trips, maybe to the zoo (which is free) or to some of the DC Museums (also free) since the weather is supposed to be in the 70s later this week. On the bright side, the Six Flags parks open up this weekend and we have season passes to those, so we may hit our local park on Friday and I'm half considering hitting the one in New Jersey on Wednesday or Thursday. We'll see.

My parents are supposed to arrive in town this weekend to celebrate Easter and my oldest son's 16th birthday with us. Haven't heard from them this weekend but hopefully that is still their plan. They cancelled their regular visit up here to see us for Thanksgiving as well as Christmas, so I'm a bit skeptical if they will make the trip now. I'm hoping they do.