The 13th Birthday "let's be a kid again" Celebration Pre-Trip Report - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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The 13th Birthday "let's be a kid again" Celebration Pre-Trip Report
Hi and welcome to my first ever pre-trip report! I will say sorry right now for the length of this first part but I think without the background, you will never get the “feel” of what this trip means to me. Actually, after reading so much of this board, I have a feeling there will be plenty who will “get” the feeling it has to me! I am not sure if this is too soon to start this pre-trip report but with 87 days to go, I just couldn’t wait any longer.
My background (Vicki - 41): Grew up Disney style, one of the fondest childhood memories I have is my mom and I curling up on the couch every Sunday evening watching The Wonderful World of Disney. We watched it without fail and I always get a sentimental feeling when I hear “When you wish upon a star..” It gives me goose-bumps every time! Our collection of Disney movies is huge because of that I think. Even though we were definitely a Disney family, we had never made it to WDW. We did one time, while visiting relatives in CA, visit Disneyland for a whole very short two days. The most I remember from that trip is first off, loving it but finding we did not have enough time to fully enjoy it. We spent more time running around lost trying to get to the next place we just had to see. We were rushed and never really had time to stop and smell the roses nor, take in most of what it had to offer.
DS (Leo - 12, turning 13 while there) background: Obviously, he grew up in a Disney household. LOL He was watching Fantasia before he even had an understanding of what Disney was. Unfortunately life has its own way of doing things and 18 months after he was born, his daddy passed away to a brain aneurism. We were devastated and went through a really hard time for the next two-three years afterwards. DS went through terrible, almost seizure like nightmares for a very long time afterwards that lead him to a therapist for about a year. I myself, ended up in the same situation with the therapist but instead of nightmares, I went through depression. When all was said and done and we made it through those hurdles, I just knew I had to give him something to make his childhood happy again and what better place to do that then WDW?!? Although, my friends made it clear to Leo that it was just as much for me as it was for him.
Sadly, life again has its ways and the years slipped by us. Being a new single-parent, I ended up going back to school to try and further myself career wise so the money just wasn’t there. When I brought it up to my mom one day, who absolutely loves Disney, she commented that she would love to go too. Now mind you, she said she wanted to go because it would be Leo’s first time but in all honesty, she wanted to go for herself!
I had doubts about it at first because I wanted it to be something special from ME, not grandma and grandpa. And we all know how grandparents get around their grandbabies! That thought didn’t last long as I knew none of us had been there before and it would make it that more special to have all of us with him. We (me and DGMa) thought that it would be better to wait until Leo was old enough to remember it though. And it would work out, or the plan went that I would be graduating the year he was about to turn 8 so that would be the perfect time. Well, as you guessed, life had its way again and we were once again delayed. School didn’t work out the way I had thought and I landed a full-time job working at a Veterinary Clinic that I love. One thing lead to another and the next thing I knew, Leo was 12.
How did we get here then, you may ask, finally making our first trip to WDW?! Luckily one of the vet’s I work with took her family to WDW last year and after she got back, shared her stories and pictures, I KNEW it was time to bite the bullet and make this trip. I called my mom immediately after work and told her we had to have a vacation meeting. We have always taken vacations together as a family since I was very little so this was nothing out of the ordinary except that I hadn’t been on a vacation in almost 5 years. That night, I gathered DS, DGMa, and DGPa and told them exactly what we were doing for vacation this year and when. We were going to WDW the week of Leo’s birthday to hopefully make it the best birthday possible for him. What better way to celebrate turning into a teenager! Fortunately, we got a little early pixie dust and found out later that Disney was doing the birthday special this year making it that more special.
And there is our background. Besides DS and myself, my mom (DGM - 59) and my step-dad (DGP - 54) are going along as well. DGM is a huge Disney fan while DGP is not so much into Disney. He has seen some of the movies, especially when DS cons him into it He’s the person I worry about the most on making this at least somewhat magical for.
As far as our interests:
Myself: Anything Tigger or Eeyore! My two favorites followed by Stitch. My bathroom is decorated 100 acre woods style and Christmas-time, my couch is lined with Christmas Tiggers, Eeyores, and Stiches. I am also really looking forward to AK.
DS: Loves Pluto and secretly loves Stitch too. His biggest two attractions he wants to see is the Hall of Presidents (yes, history geek in the making), and RnRC. Shhhh, he has no idea about RnRC as of yet, he just wants to go because it has Aerosmith featured. He’s not that big on coasters or rides that twirl upside down. He’s apprehensive to go on Splash or Space Mountain, ToT, and EE. I figure if he survives RnRC, he’ll survive the others just fine!
Here’s DS and I (taken at Halfaer Field w/ Leo's travel team):
DGM: Is a classic Disney lover. Not sure she has a favorite but she is excited to go and praying it all works out. She has planned to go to FL twice now and neither time worked out. When it came to this trip, she put it all in my hands hoping I would have better luck then she has. So far, so good!
DGP: Well, we’ll find out when we get there I guess. I did give him a bit of a quiz on characters and he failed poorly! He couldn’t even tell me who Daisy Duck was!!!! It will be interesting to see if he finds the kid inside him. I guess I should put a little background on him too; he was unfortunate at an early age to lose not only one parent but both in a car accident. He spent most of his childhood moving from one relatives’ house to another, sometimes being split up from his brother and sister. By the time he was 17, he was living on his own. I am really really hoping he finds the kid inside himself on this trip and gets some of that childhood magic back!
Here’s DGM and DGP (watching DS play ball at Halfaer Field):
So that is it for now. Whew! Long-winded I know but that is why our first trip to WDW means so much to me. Up next will be figuring out our plans, where we want to eat, and what parks we’ll be in. I can’t give enough credit to this board for all the help I’ve gotten on any of this!!!! I had no idea there was so much to learn and so much to plan for. A huge thanks to everyone and sorry for such a long start!
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I am so sorry about your DH. That makes me so sad. I lost my mom to cancer when I was 10. It makes kids grow up too fast. I am SO excited about your first trip and can't wait to hear about all of your plans and what you are going to do and where you're going to eat.....so, hurry back with more of what you have planned! Will you be going to MNSSHP?
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Vicki I had tears in my eyes as I read your story. I honestly can say I know what it is like when life just takes those turns that were never planned...and I can truly in my heart know how special this trip will be for you.
How special that your mom and step-dad will be along for the ride...I can't wait to hear your plans.
Make sure you get your 1st timer's pin's and DS his birthday pin to wear in the parks each day, you all will get special attention { especially DS} from CM's !! Have a fav time in the World!! LouigiAnne
I am so sorry about your DH. That makes me so sad. I lost my mom to cancer when I was 10. It makes kids grow up too fast. I am SO excited about your first trip and can't wait to hear about all of your plans and what you are going to do and where you're going to eat.....so, hurry back with more of what you have planned! Will you be going to MNSSHP?
Sorry to hear about your mom. I can not relate other then how it affected him but I do empathize deeply. Yes! We will be going to MNSSHP, my favorite holiday to boot!
Quote:
Make sure you get your 1st timer's pin's and DS his birthday pin to wear in the parks each day, you all will get special attention { especially DS} from CM's !! Have a fav time in the World!! LouigiAnne
That's one tip I thankfully learned from all you experts here. We are looking forward to getting our pins.
I will be trying to get an update soon on the plans. Where to stay, how long to stay, DDP or not, etc. I was hoping to get one up tonight but it all depends on how the last baseball game goes tonight -- parents vs. the kids it should be interesting.
I hope you guys have the most magical trip possible. Like a previous poster said, get the first time pins and DS a birthday pin.
Can't wait to hear your other plans.
Hi again and thanks for joining. Now that we KNOW we are going to WDW, we had some serious questions to answer: how long, where are we staying, will we do the dining plan, and will we drive or fly. Since we knew we were going over Leo’s birthday, we had at least one date down; Oct. 18th. DGM suggested we stay for 5 days and I agreed for a whole 2 minutes I think before memories flooded back of the previous Disney Land trip. Nope, can’t do 4 parks in 5 days, too much rushing around trying to get it in. I wanted to be able to take some time and enjoy it. I don’t think it took much prodding to get everyone to agree we would leave on the 16th and return on the 25th, giving up 8-9 days in the parks. In the back of my mind, I heard the vet I work with tell me her and her family thought 6 days was too much and they wanted to come home but, our family is not her family and I just knew we could easily enjoy 8-9 days there. Yay! One question answered, we had the length of our stay set. At this point DGM handed it over to me and said it was all mine; she would take care of the flight but that was it.
Flight? We can’t just drive down I thought. We have 3 adults that could easily switch places and drive straight through, it couldn’t take that long. Nope, they decided they would rather just fly there instead. Oh well, she would take care of that and I got the rest, couldn’t be that hard could it?!?! WOW what I didn’t know then!
By the time she got that worked out, I wish I would’ve had more time to help with it. The flights she found are getting us up at 4am on the 16th with an arrival time of 3pm in the afternoon Ok well that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to explore any parks and I’m thinking DS and DGP will be tired with the early wake-up call. The 25th, we’ll be leaving, sadly, early in the morning as well so we get back home at a somewhat decent hour to drive home from the airport. No time there either to do much of anything but get our bags out. With help from all the pp experts though, what I figured we’d do is take a resort tour and possibly hit DTD for dinner and touring on our first day. We will still get 8 days to explore all the parks so we’ll be good to go.
The resort. We only debated on this for half a second, on or off property. I wanted this to be special so there was no doubt it would be on property; but where? This is when all my research really got started. The vet I worked with had told me her family stayed at the family suites in ASMu I believe it was. She has a family of 5 so I figured that would work well for us too. Our poor TA must have loved us in the beginning of our planning because we switched so many times. As I started researching, and looking through all the posts here, (passporter was a must have according to the vet I work with--agree 110%) we decided we really should have 2 rooms and we were going to try POP Century just for its theming. What was really weird is we were expecting the cost to go up with 2 rooms instead of one but it was just the opposite. Some more pixie dust blown our way!
We did put in a request that they were connecting rooms and were in the 50’s section. We not only liked the location but DS is really into music (and listening to some of DGM’s stuff) so we thought the giant jukebox would be perfect.
So we’re all set, WOW, I can’t explain how excited I was/am about all this! I know so many of you understand, but wow, I am amazed how much I feel like a kid again at times!
Staying at the Pop Century from Oct. 16th – 25th and we did decide to do the dining plan. We did contemplate one or two table services but ended up going with just the one per day. We didn’t want to bog ourselves down to eating all day. I thought that then but after making all our ADR’s, I still feel like that will be a big chunk of our time, eating. I had NO idea what was all involved!!! (a warning, that comment will be said a lot ) It will work for us in a few ways though: 1) we won’t have to worry about a huge chunk of our money having to go towards food, it will all ready be paid for and 2) with DS and DGP’s appetites, we should be coming out ahead in savings doing it this way. Did I mention DS has 10 empty toes and two empty legs that he has to keep filling every half hour?!?!
Next big score for myself: MNSSHP!!! Halloween is my favorite holiday of all and I get to witness it Disney style! (Can you see me jumping up and down in my chair right now?!?!) I am sooooo extremely pumped to see this, I can’t even explain. None of you make it any better either, repeating just how great it is.. geesh, make a girl drool at her computer and it’s not even for food! ::LMAO:: My biggest problem with this event was if we should get tickets for two nights instead of just one. I don’t want to miss anything (even though I know that’s the reality). After asking the experts, the general consensus said one night is good so that’s what we went with. We will be hitting up the party on the 20th. As I’ve learned on here by most of you; if I don’t get to see it all, I just have another reason to go next year.
I feel like the little girl standing there stomping her feet while repeatidly… I just can’t wait, I just can’t wait…..
Up next: ADR’s, park days – and plenty of: I just had NO idea what was all involved!
About This Page: 
I am not sure if this is too soon to start this pre-trip report but with 87 days to go, I just couldn’t wait any longer. 
It will be interesting to see if he finds the kid inside him. I guess I should put a little background on him too; he was unfortunate at an early age to lose not only one parent but both in a car accident. He spent most of his childhood moving from one relatives’ house to another, sometimes being split up from his brother and sister. By the time he was 17, he was living on his own. I am really really hoping he finds the kid inside himself on this trip and gets some of that childhood magic back!
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Pixie Dust
That makes me so sad. I lost my mom to cancer when I was 10. It makes kids grow up too fast. I am SO excited about your first trip and can't wait to hear about all of your plans and what you are going to do and where you're going to eat.....so, hurry back with more of what you have planned! Will you be going to MNSSHP?
LouigiAnne
PassPorter Guide Author
it should be interesting.
Liz 
Now that we KNOW we are going to WDW, we had some serious questions to answer: how long, where are we staying, will we do the dining plan, and will we drive or fly. Since we knew we were going over Leo’s birthday, we had at least one date down; Oct. 18th. DGM suggested we stay for 5 days and I agreed for a whole 2 minutes I think before memories flooded back of the previous Disney Land trip. Nope, can’t do 4 parks in 5 days, too much rushing around trying to get it in. I wanted to be able to take some time and enjoy it. I don’t think it took much prodding to get everyone to agree we would leave on the 16th and return on the 25th, giving up 8-9 days in the parks. In the back of my mind, I heard the vet I work with tell me her and her family thought 6 days was too much and they wanted to come home but, our family is not her family and I just knew we could easily enjoy 8-9 days there. Yay! One question answered, we had the length of our stay set. At this point DGM handed it over to me and said it was all mine; she would take care of the flight but that was it.
Oh well, she would take care of that and I got the rest, couldn’t be that hard could it?!?! WOW what I didn’t know then! 
Ok well that doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to explore any parks and I’m thinking DS and DGP will be tired with the early wake-up call. 
The 25th, we’ll be leaving, sadly, early in the morning as well so we get back home at a somewhat decent hour to drive home from the airport. No time there either to do much of anything but get our bags out. With help from all the pp experts though, what I figured we’d do is take a resort tour and possibly hit DTD for dinner and touring on our first day. We will still get 8 days to explore all the parks so we’ll be good to go.
As I started researching, and looking through all the posts here, (passporter was a must have according to the vet I work with--agree 110%) we decided we really should have 2 rooms and we were going to try POP Century just for its theming. What was really weird is we were expecting the cost to go up with 2 rooms instead of one but it was just the opposite. Some more pixie dust blown our way! 
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