Going Wild Disney Style PTR - April 6-16, 2013 About This Page:

[TuffyCO]

I decided that since I am so excited about my next trip and if I keep talking to my DH about it that I will drive him crazy , that I should go ahead and try my hand at my first PTR (hopefully to be followed by my first TR).

Cast of Characters

I guess the best place to start is with who all is going.

Me: Stefani the mama of the family and the crazy Disney Geek, according to my DH! I am a SAHM and during this trip I will be celebrating my birthday (I’ll give you a hint… it’s a big one and has a 0 and a 4 in it – not necessarily in that order)! I have been a Disney fan for as long as I can remember but didn’t get “hooked” until our trip in 2003 when we went with our kids for the very first time. Seeing the magic in their eyes sold me that this was a magical place and somewhere I wanted to come to many times again. At the time of that trip they were 3-years-old and 6-months-old, I can’t believe how much they have grown. I will save some past stories of how things have progressed for some future posts as they pertain to our resort choice.

DH: Pat is the daddy of the family and although he loves going to Disney parks, he does not like planning it, thinking about it or really doing much in lines of getting there. His idea of a good trip is “show up and tell me where to go next”. He does humor me by answering some questions regarding things he would like to try, see or do, but that is about it. Luckily he married me , we make a great match! We are celebrating our 15th anniversary this July. My DH is an aircraft inspector and works crazy hours and travels a lot! He is home for 2-3 months and then gone for 3-4 months. This makes planning a huge logistics nightmare, but we take our best guess of when he will be home and pray it works out.

Here we are at MVMCP in Nov. 2008



DD: Shana is currently 11, will turn 12 on Wednesday! Yikes! Where did that time go, and man I better get to work on a birthday cake for her! During the trip she will still be 12. She is very talented in art and music and is learning to draw characters. She is a huge Disney fan and wants to either become a Disney Artist, sing in Voices of Liberty or be an architect when she grows up. She still likes the princesses, as long as it’s in the park, at home she acts like she doesn’t but I know she still does. She takes after her mama and is a huge thrill seeker and loves all the biggest, fastest rides – she has no fear! She also collects Disney Jim Shore figurines.

Shana hugging Pooh on her 1st Disney World trip!


Shana at CRT for her 7th birthday in 2007


Spinning plates on one foot at Spoodles in 2008


And being silly in January 2010


DS: Hunter is currently 9 and will turn 10 on January 12th. He will be 10 for the trip, so he will be an “adult” . Sorry my kid is not an adult, but by Disney standards he is. Hunter loves math and science and wants to be an Astronaut, then return from space and go to Disney World to be an Imagineer, and then return to Denver (even though we now live in New Mexico) to be a bus driver! Interesting! Hunter’s favorite character is Pluto and we have to find him on every trip, usually early on or we have trouble. Hunter loves pin trading, Vinylmation and shopping. He is not a thrill seeker and prefers dark rides, shows and meeting characters.

Hunter with Tigger on his 1st Trip to Disney World in 2003


Seeing Lightning McQueen coming down the street in 2007


Spinning plates at Spoodles in 2008 (he didn't want to try on one foot)


and Hunter's 7th Birthday in 2010


Here is a more recent pic of both of them at rope drop in DLP in Feb. 2012


Possible 5th guest: This is still not finalized and will be a surprise to my DD if we decide to do it. We may invite a friend of hers from CO. She is coming to spend a week with us this summer and we will see how that goes and the if it works in the budget. So as of right now we have a cast of four, but may be taking on a new member before the trip.

That is everyone! This is the first time it will be just our family of four, unless we add our new cast member. In the past we have always had my mom or a cousin come with us to help with the kids, but now seems like a good time to just be us.

I want to go ahead and mention that both of my children have varying disabilities. My DD has AD/HD, anxiety disorder, sensory integration dysfunction and PDD-NOS (close to asperger’s). My DS has high-functioning autism and sensory integration dysfunction. I want to mention this early on as it has a huge impact on our trip planning, vacations and in general our day-to-day lives. You will learn quickly that I will plan nearly every detail of our trip. This is partly because I enjoy planning but mostly because if we don’t have a plan, someone will have a meltdown. As you will see my plans include park time, down time, pool time, meals (including QS) and back up plans. I do allow for flexibility, but it is often followed by me quickly putting together a new plan. After our trip in 2007, we realized how magical Disney is to our family and we let go and have tons of fun even in the midst of plans!

Also, since I am starting this PTR 11-months from our travel date, I will include updates every few weeks as I am making plans. The first few will probably be closer together as I have a lot of new information to share.

Next Up: Where will we stay while Going Wild Disney Style?

[Colexis Mom]

Great start!

[buzzspal2]

Great start. Have fun planning.

[lauriep]

I'm glad you started your PTR early! I love reading about the planning stages of a trip and how it works for different families. Your children are beautiful and are at great ages for a fun trip! Now you don't have to bore your DH with Disney talk. Talk to us! We're only bored when people DON'T talk Disney.

[lazanya]

Great start!

[Cam22]

Great start and cast of characters!

[TuffyCO]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great start!

Originally Posted by buzzspal2

Great start. Have fun planning.

Originally Posted by lazanya

Great start!

Thank you! I am enjoying writing it already.

Originally Posted by lauriep

I'm glad you started your PTR early! I love reading about the planning stages of a trip and how it works for different families. Your children are beautiful and are at great ages for a fun trip! Now you don't have to bore your DH with Disney talk. Talk to us! We're only bored when people DON'T talk Disney.

Laurie, I read this to my DH and he was cracking up. He likes the idea of me geeking out on here then with him every night.

Originally Posted by Cam22

Great start and cast of characters!

Thanks Cam, I think we are a good set of characters.

I should have an update up later tonight or tomorrow. Just working out the kinks.

[disneymom57]

So glad you decided to share your PTR with us. Looking forward to the next installment.

[TuffyCO]

Originally Posted by disneymom57

So glad you decided to share your PTR with us. Looking forward to the next installment.

Thank you! I'm so excited writing it! The next installment should be up tonight as long as the small characters cooperate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[emvenable77]

Great start!! So excited to be following along. Your children are beautiful. I loved seeing the pictures of them as they have grown up each trip.
Your husband reminds me of mine with the planning. He loves to go to Disney but NOT to plan. Just tell him where to go and when to smile for the pictures and he is happy. (which makes me happy )

[JKnott17]

Great start!

[TuffyCO]

Where Will We Stay While Going Wild Disney Style?

Our resort location has been something we have wanted for a long time and I can’t believe it is now booked and in our grasp. As I mentioned Pat’s work schedule is insane and we have no idea whether we have booked a time frame in which he will be in the country. But I am excited nonetheless, and can only pray that the time frame works out.

I’m going to share a backstory of how this has come to be and why I want to stay here so much. I tend to be long winded so if you just want to know where we are going scroll down a little.

In 2006, my family had an awful year. Both of my grandparents on my mom’s side, my step-father and the best man from our wedding all died within 60 days of each other. My grandparents lived in Texas and they were hoarders. My mom was stuck home in Colorado at the hospital with my step-father and so my brother, dad and I had the fun job of cleaning out my grandparents house. During the clean out I was digging through the bedroom and I found an old Magic Kingdom map with the times guide tucked inside. It was from 1971 during the last week of December through the first week of January (this was the only time my grandparents had visited Disney World). I called my mom and told her that when all this was done we should all go to Disney World. Being that our family tends to try and laugh through tragedy, I believe my actual words were “You just cleaned out your hoarding grandparents house, what are you going to do next?”

I didn’t think anything about this again until a month or two later when my mom called me and said she was taking my family and my brother’s to Disney World! I immediately started planning. Unfortunately, we could not work out a time for all of us to go together, so my mom decided to take each of our families on separate trips. We were initially looking at moderate resorts, then my mom looked into Animal Kingdom Lodge and wanted to go there. She decided to book us a savanna view with bunk beds for the kids. During this trip we all fell in love with Animal Kingdom and after my mom took my brother, she bought into DVC with Animal Kingdom as her home resort. She alternates years with the points, using them one year for herself, one for my family and one for my brother’s. Since we like going together we have gone with her on her year and her with us on our year.

Here are my favorite pictures in the resort during our 2007 Animal Kingdom Lodge stay:

The kids loved the bunk beds. We had a rule of alternating the top bunk each night.


Hunter wiped out after a long day at the parks.


This is my favorite picture I have taken of the animals at Animal Kingdom. This giraffe was beautiful in the sunrise or sunset (I can't remember).
I'm going to have to photoshop that date out of this picture.



In August Pat and I started looking at DVC because we were planning a trip to DLR and thought we wanted to stay at Grand Californian (we had been thinking about buying in for awhile). We also heard BLT was almost sold out and thought we might want points on the monorail line. But during that time there was very good deal on AKV and Pat does not like the Contemporary very much. We were looking initially at just a small contract so we could extend our stays when we got my mom’s points but my DH shocked me by saying we should get 220! This way we could go every year and then the years we got my mom’s points we could stay longer or in a larger room.

I ended up taking the kids in October to DLR for fall break (Pat was out of the country) and we took our planned trip to DLR in February. But this trip will be our first DVC trip on our points at our home resort. We also will receive my mom’s 2013 use year points so we talked about whether to extend the trip, take a cruise after the WDW portion or stay in a 2-bedroom or club level. I didn’t think too long and said we should shoot for club level. I had a back up plan to get a savanna view in Jambo if we could not get club level.

So what did we end up with?
Well, we are Going Wild in a 1-bedroom at Animal Kingdom – Jambo and doing it in Disney Style in Club Level!

I was so stressed the last two weeks watching the website and checking to see if our dates were available every day. Since I was booking using my mom’s points and we would have to borrow from the points she gets in September 2013. I couldn’t have her just transfer the points to our account (they would then stay in 2013 use year and couldn’t be borrowed). So I had to book the first five days of the trip under her contract on the 6th and then had to wait till the 11th to book the second half under ours. Those 5 days were excruciating!

I kept preparing myself just in case club level was not available that we would just switch to Kidani and get a savanna view. I kept going through reasons this was a good plan – we would have a guaranteed savanna view, be able to enjoy the pools at Kidani (yes, I know we could do this anyway, but I know we wouldn’t go over there just for the pool), we love all the artwork at Kidani, we could eat the bread service at the bar at Sanaa and the larger rooms. I got myself so convinced that when I booked club level I was a little let down. Then I thought “Who Cares!” you have club level for 10-nights!

I think this will be a fabulous first DVC stay at our home resort. Just need lots of pixies in hopes that Pat’s schedule works out, otherwise I will have to initiate a back-up plan and I don't like back-up plans.

Oh I should have mentioned in the last post that we don't tell our kids when we are going to go. With their disabilities they get over-excited and tend to have major issues the week before that don't let up until half-way through the trip. So we have found not telling them works, then they are excited but not anxious.

Up Next: What Wild Adventures Should We Plan??

[TuffyCO]

Originally Posted by emvenable77

Great start!! So excited to be following along. Your children are beautiful. I loved seeing the pictures of them as they have grown up each trip.
Your husband reminds me of mine with the planning. He loves to go to Disney but NOT to plan. Just tell him where to go and when to smile for the pictures and he is happy. (which makes me happy )

Thank you, I had fun going back through the old pictures looking for one from each trip. I went through all several hundred each trip looking for ones I love. That is my hubby to a "t", he loves going and really loosens up (he's former military, so that's not always easy) on the trips, but he gets very annoyed if I talk too much ahead of time.

Originally Posted by JKnott17

Great start!

Thank You!

[Colexis Mom]

Congrats on the resort!

[Cam22]

We AKLV, especially the one bedrooms.