PreBaby Family Vacation April 2016 Day 1

[snowflakegirl]

In January DH and I were both feeling burnt out from work and started talking about trying to take a family “babymoon” as our last trip as a family of three. We had a pin code offer, Southwest was having a great deal on airfare, our son had loved his first trip to Disney in August and was still talking about it, and we realized we hadn’t spent any time just as our family in the parks (we had gone with our best friends and my parents), add to that that the Flower and Garden Festival would be going on and I’ve been wanting DH to experience it at some point (I’d been one and he’d never been), and suddenly we were calling to book a trip for my spring break from work (I work at an elementary school). I’ve never planned a Disney (or really any) vacation quite so close to the actual trip, but I was pleasantly surprised by the way things fell together. We were even able to book pretty much every ADR we wanted within 10-15 minutes of the time we wanted. I think we had one that we had to change the day we were looking for in order to get it, but that was it. We started out with a Sunday to Thursday trip, then added on Saturday, and then added on Friday. We did end up having to have a technically split reservation with checking out on Friday and checking back in for Friday night, but it all worked out okay.

April 9th - 16th
Overall. it was a GREAT trip and we were amazed at how much we were able to fit in. There were definitely a lot of things we missed, but also a lot of unexpected things that we enjoyed.

April 9th
We had a ridiculously early flight Saturday morning, so we ended up getting a room at a hotel by the airport for Friday night. Unfortunately, the week leading up to vacation was a little crazy at work, so we ended up packing Friday night, not getting to the hotel til about 9, needing to eat something, and then getting up early enough to get to the airport for our 5:45 flight. DS(2) was super excited about “vacation, vacation, vacation” which helped all of us feel a little better about being up and getting ready to leave at 3:30. At this point, he still didn’t know where we were going, just that we had to fly to get there. Although we got to the airport about 2 hours before our flight, the lines at the Southwest desk and the security lines were unreal. We were making our way through the security line, while I was checking my Southwest app on my phone to see if there were any available later flights because I was convinced we were going to miss our flight. A very kind man in the priority security lane pulled us with our 2 year old in his stroller and the couple behind us with a 1 year old in their stroller into the priority lane, allowing us to get through security a whole lot more quickly…. And we were still walking up to the gate as our numbers were being called to board!

The flight itself was quick and easy and we were off the plane in Orlando in a few hours. DS remembered the airport because as we were getting off the plane and walking towards the monorail, he shrieked MONORAIL! and pointed. We waited until we were downstairs heading towards Magical Express (and in a relatively quieter location than the main concourse) to tell him where we were going. We told him that he was going to need this special bracelet to get to where we were going and asked him if he’d ever seen a bracelet like that. He smiled. Then we told him we were going to Disney World. He was excited (exhausted, but excited). He fell asleep on the Magical Express bus (perk of staying at Pop...we were the first stop on the ME), and slept through getting to Pop, getting off the bus, waiting in the check in line, and checking in. The CM who checked us in went above and beyond and spent about 20 minutes on the phone working with the CMs who assign rooms in order to set it up so that we could keep the same room, which was nice.

Our room wasn't ready, so we decided to get lunch at Everything Pop. Very last minute, we had decided to add 2 days to our Park Hoppers to go with the 2 extra nights we had booked. I'm glad we decided to because after lunch, when our room still wasn't ready, we head off to Magic Kingdom. Our first stop was a ride on the train since it would be closed after Sunday and was a favorite of DS’s in August. While we were on the train, I used teh app on my phone to check fastpass availability, made a fastpass for Dumbo and hopped off the train in Fantasyland to ride Dumbo. DS was very excited. We took a spin on the carousel and walked through the castle, both at DS’s request, and caught a high school marching band performing down Main Street. DS, who LOVES music, really enjoyed that. We stopped for a photopass picture and head into Tomrrowland. The plan was to ride the PeopleMover for a sunscreening opportunity, but there was a long line, so we passed on that. We strolled our way out through the stores and then decided to meet Tinkerbell because DS has really enjoyed her movies. He was starstruck to meet her and they had such amazing interactions, it was SO sweet and kicked off a week of character interactions. We happened to walk out as the parade was going by, so we stood on the train platform and caught the end of it, then took the bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner at Boma. We caught the opening drumming, which DS loved, and then strolled around to see some animals outside before our ADR. After dinner, we caught a bus to Animal Kingdom and then a bus from there to Pop and collapsed into bed.

[faline]

Travel days can be very long and tiring!!! Still, you got in some park time and a lovely dinner as well!!

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Thanks for the report, that was an early flight

[Mackflava99]

Wow, that's alot for a travel day! impressive