Tag Archives: Disney

Remember the last time I did a pre-trip report before Trent’s first Disney World trip and how 90% of it got changed once we were there due to weather?

I even said I wouldn’t make another pre-trip report at the fear of jinxing ourselves again.

But isn’t the planning and anticipation half the fun?!

So I’m going to be brave and give a little bit of a pre-trip report for our trip that starts tomorrow…as much as one can give knowing that a toddler is coming along, I’m pregnant and things can change at any moment due to naps, hunger, tantrums, swollen feet, and of course, weather.

After how sick I felt during our January trip, I can honestly say I wasn’t itching to go back on a trip any time during this pregnancy. But Brett couldn’t let a special event or our passes expire without another visit to the house of mouse. So as soon as he heard about the 24 hour event, he immediately started pressuring for us to book a hotel.

We also plan on doing some maternity photos like we did with Trent. I won’t be as far along as I was with him, but I will probably look just as large

At first, we debated doing it big for our last trip on these annual passes (we probably won’t go again until December) and looked at renting points to stay at Bay Lake Tower. But Brett preferred a longer trip over a more expensive hotel, so we opted for Pop Century…

…especially after we discussed how I wanted to relax with Trent at the pool a few times and seeing this little splash pad/pool area that we think Trent will love. How had we never even known this was there?

Source

However, after hearing Brett wish that he were closer to Magic Kingdom so he wouldn’t have to wake up so early to get to the 24 hour event at 6 am, I switched the first 2 nights to the Contemporary.

I told him Happy Birthday and sent him the confirmation email.

We were a little disappointed that we would be missing out on the Flower & Garden Festival, which ended last weekend, but I had to be at work at that time and didn’t want to extend the trip that long…saving for maternity leave is a PITA.

One exciting note for this trip is I now have 1) a new camera and 2) a new phone with a good camera…so I will TRY to take more photos myself in order to create most of the trip report myself and hopefully get that to you much sooner. Brett plans on taking a ton of photos still, but I think it will be a nice change to share a trip report with photos from me this time. You might actually see Brett in a photo at WDW!

Given that I will be taking more photos, I will also try to share more on Facebook and Instagram in real time. Of course, this is all dependent on Trent letting me!

So here is a little bit of a schedule…as always, there will be a trip report when we get back, so we’ll be able to compare what plans we actually stick to!

 

Thursday: Leave early in the morning, start at Animal Kingdom, then check in at the Contemporary at some point and then hop on the monorail over to Epcot for the rest of the evening.

Friday: The 24 hour event starts at 6 am at Magic Kingdom, so Brett will be getting up super early to be there before it starts and will stay there all the way to 6 am Saturday morning. I’ve been saying this since he decided to do it, but he is crazy. Trent and I will wake up at a normal person time, eat breakfast, play in the pool area and then meet Brett a little later - probably mid-afternoon or so.

Saturday: Brett will be recuperating from getting back to the hotel after the 24 hour event, so we’ll see if he eats breakfast with us or not. We may go to the pool if he decides to sleep late, then Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekend events.

Sunday: We have breakfast reservations at Crystal Palace at 8:15am (we finally snagged one last night!). It is way super early, but we wanted at least one opportunity to get into the park early for some photos. We’ll spend some time at MK after breakfast, then the rest of the day at Hollywood Studios, where we’ll end the night with a Star Wars buffet dinner at Hollywood & Vine (our first time there) and the special Star Wars fireworks.

Monday: Magic Kingdom at night. We haven’t decided whether to hang out at the hotel in the morning, go to MK and take a break, or start out at another park.

Tuesday: Animal Kingdom and then maybe Epcot at night.

Wednesday: Opening day of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Magic Kingdom! We originally thought we’d take it easy this last day, but we now have Fastpasses for the Mine Train at 930am, so an early wake-up will be necessary. We’ll make a trip to IKEA to pick up a toddler bed for Trent (so exciting!) and then drive home.

Thursday: I’ll be asleep at my desk at work while Brett and Trent get to sleep in.

Note: Even over the past few days while writing this, we have changed our plans a few times….this ought to be interesting! Stay Tuned!

 

Be sure to follow along on my social media (mostly Facebook and Instagram) as I will post live (or close to it) during our trip. If you want to see EVEN MORE Disney fun, follow Brett’s Facebook and Instagram, as he will probably post even more than I will!

 

Confused about SEO and Internet Marketing and don’t know where to begin to have your website get noticed in search results to bring in more traffic? We hired our local SEO Company, Search Simplicity, to manage the company website’s SEO and internet marketing and the results were phenomenal! They knew exactly what to do. Let them use their knowledge and expertise to help you increase sales and traffic without you having to take time away from what you do best.

 

One of our favorite places to eat in Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World is 50′s Prime Time Cafe. They serve “mom’s old-fashioned cooking” and the servers are your family that tell you to take your elbows off the table and no dessert until you clean your plate.

Luckily for me, when we went last year, I had my dessert at the same time as dinner…with their delicious Peanut Butter & Jelly Milkshake! It’s like having a peanut butter & jelly sandwich without the crust and with ice cream instead. Sounds like a good replacement to me!

Well, you don’t need a reservation at 50’s Prime Time Café to enjoy this treat (although I would highly recommend one if you haven’t been before)…you don’t even need to be in WDW (although that would sure be nice too!). This recipe is super easy and I bet you already have all the ingredients to make it – especially if you have kids.

Ingredients (makes 1 shake):

2 cups Vanilla Ice Cream

1/4 cup Milk

2 tbs. Peanut Butter

2 tbs. Jelly (we used grape, but you could probably use strawberry too!)

Are you ready for these super difficult instructions?

You might want to write this down…

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy…that’s it!

For added deliciousness, top it with some whipped cream and a fun straw…a cherry too if you have them.

We thought this would be something Trent would enjoy…he has his picky moments (a.k.a. every moment) and he won’t always eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Trent got his served in a little kid cup with a fun straw. He was a happy camper and drank the entire thing!

This one will definitely be a regular treat in our house and your kids may not look at peanut butter & jelly sandwiches the same after enjoying it!

 

This recipe was featured in the April issue of WDW Magazine (Look who’s on the cover!!). Click here to learn more about WDW Magazine!

 

One drink our extended family likes more than anything is coffee! If you also have a love for coffee, check out Coffee Corner Club, the best coffee club online for coffee, family & friends, and a perfect blend. Who says wine-lovers are the only ones that can get together to discuss their shared love? Step inside Coffee Corner Club’s community and feel the charm. Coffee is not just coffee, and everyone is invited to come interact and discuss your favorite blends, techniques, recipes (like a chocolate smoothie with coffee…yum!) and, most of all, have fun!

 

Here is a fun craft with some beautiful flowers to enjoy and even display your love for Mickey. When it came time to contribute to WDW Magazine recently, we took inspiration from our baby shower 2 years ago, which was Mickey-themed, and decided to recreate a Mickey Flower Pot that was the centerpiece of the food table.

 

Here is what you’ll need to get started:

1 flowerpot

Acrylic paint

Paintbrush

2 White Buttons

Hot Glue Gun / Glue

Skewer Stick

3 Styrofoam Balls (1 medium, 2 small)

Pretty flowers

I was lucky enough to find a red flowerpot, so I didn’t have to paint it, but you can use any flowerpot you have or find and just paint it red using acrylic paint or spray paint.

To make the flowerpot look like Mickey’s shorts, just hot glue the 2 white buttons on the front of the flowerpot towards the top.

Place the flowers into the pot, adding additional dirt if necessary. Viola…you’re done with that part!

Poke the skewer stick into the medium Styrofoam ball then remove it, put some hot glue in the hole and then reinsert the stick. This will help the Styrofoam ball stay in place. Then, make the Mickey ears by attaching the two smaller balls to the medium ball using hot glue. By using hot glue, it allows the two balls to mesh together.

Paint the Mickey head and the stick black.

Then, finish up by sticking the skewer stick with the Mickey head into the dirt.

Place in a spot to enjoy your own little Flower & Garden Festival at home!

 

This article was included in the March Issue of WDW Magazine. You can find out more about WDW Magazine, including all the fun stuff in each month’s issue and how to subscribe, by going here!

 

 

For this trip, we decided to split up our trip into 2 videos…1 for the WDW portion and 1 for the cruise portion.

I wanted to record so much more (as I always do) but between it being cold in WDW, an umbrella stroller that required two hands to push, feeling icky and carrying a toddler…I felt like I would have needed about 3 more arms in order to accomplish any more video recording.

However, we got over 17 minutes worth of video for you after making some cuts….and that’s in addition to the Snorkeling Video I already posted. Not too bad!

 

As always, thanks so much for watching and following along on our adventures. I hope you enjoyed this trip report (except for that last day…yuck!) and if you haven’t already, you can read our trip report starting at Day 1 here!

Stay tuned for our May trip…Brett will be tackling the 24 hour event at Magic Kingdom and we’ll be attending Star Wars Weekend!

 

Welcome to our trip report! Click here to start reading from Day 1!

Today was our last full day on the Disney Dream and also our day at sea. We didn’t really have any plans, but we started with a delicious breakfast at Cabanas. I sure could get used to pancakes with strawberries & whipped cream and bacon every day.

After breakfast, we took Trent to Nemo’s Reef for some more splash pad fun. After a little while, we brought him to go down the little slide in there. Oh my goodness, that thing is fast! The kids were flying down it. Trent got a little freaked out and from then on he was kinda cranky and not really playing with much, so we decided to head back to the room for an early nap…for all of us!

Well, at first we were just going to let Trent nap on his own, but he was being a little stubborn, so I laid down with him on Brett’s small bed since that’s where Trent already was and Brett laid on the big bed. Maybe it’s because the bed was sideways and not the normal direction of the beds, but I couldn’t fall asleep and after a little bit, I started to feel sick…and had to run to the bathroom as fast as I could. And THAT was the beginning of a very long day…a day I will never forget because it was absolutely awful.

It must have just been a perfect storm of morning sickness, getting out of whack from laying sideways and the upcoming rough seas (it started storming that night, so I must have felt it sooner than everyone else)…because I was sick all day and could eat absolutely nothing. Everything I ate came back up and even when I didn’t eat anything I threw up. So I just laid in bed all day absolutely miserable. I felt even worse for Brett and Trent, they left the room a few times, but there just wasn’t much for Trent to do on the ship. So they basically stayed cooped up in the room going stir crazy. Brett brought me a few items of food, but after throwing it all up, he ended the day with a can of ginger ale he found in one of the stores. That helped a little but I basically just had to ride it out until we got back to Port Canaveral early the next morning. I hate to sound dramatic, but this was probably one of the worst days of my life.

At one point, Brett took Trent to get our newly purchased Disney Dream replica ornament to the Captain to get signed.

 

While Trent was laying in bed with me a little later in the evening, Brett took one last opportunity to take photos around the ship. He said most of the ship was empty, as it was around dinner time and it was raining out with rough seas. Here are some of the photos he took.

The Walt Disney Theatre.

Walking towards the bar/lounge/club areas.

An empty, wet deck. Brett said he had the hardest time staying upright with the boat rocking back and forth.

I was really sad that being sick meant we didn’t get to enjoy Cabanas for lunch one more time (since we slept through it on the first full day) or enjoy the restaurant we were looking forward to the most, Animator’s Palate. We thought Trent would really enjoy Animator’s Palate way more than the other two restaurants that were mostly unthemed.

So that was our day. Interesting, huh?

I think if I wasn’t pregnant, I could have taken stronger medicine, or maybe I wouldn’t have even felt sick, since I had never been sick on a cruise ship before. While I may be nervous to go on a cruise again, it won’t stop me. It will have to be on a bigger ship, maybe in a mid-ship room, and on a ship with more for Trent to do…and I will get medicine beforehand to take…and I won’t be pregnant!!!

 

Day 7:

Day 7 was Disembarkation day. We had left our luggage outside the room the night before, so we just had to gather the last few things and then headed to breakfast. Breakfast on the last day is at the restaurant you had dinner the night before. We were glad we would at least be able to experience Animator’s Palate, even though the screens that supposedly play Crush, just displayed the logo. Our table was right next to a screen, so we were even more disappointed that we missed dinner because Trent would have had a front row view of the action.

Even the table and dinnerware were more fun.

I was able to eat a little bit, but kept it light because I still wasn’t feeling so great. Breakfast service was rather slow and we heard our waiter yelling at his assistant for not giving us menus and being slow. :-/

After breakfast, we got in line to disembark, which was backed up into the lobby. I felt like we were getting off with the entire rest of the ship all at the same time. It was so crowded and cramped and we even stopped moving for like 15 minutes. I felt so hot and dizzy and felt like I was going to both pass out and throw up and even had to kneel down a few times. There must have been some issue that caused us to stop, because once we started moving, we flew through the line.

When we reached the luggage room, there was a line of porters waiting to assist you. On our last cruises, we had opted just to get our luggage ourselves and not get help. But after reading someone in a forum prior to the cruise say to make sure you utilize a porter and to tip them very well because they will take good care of you, that’s exactly what we did…especially because we had a toddler with his this time. The first guy to ask us if we needed help got our business…and he looked like the tallest, most built man there…so double score for us! He found our luggage (which wasn’t difficult) but then loaded EVERYTHING onto his dolly, even the bags off of our backs, except for Brett’s camera bag because he never gives that to anyone. The porter got us right in line and conversed with Brett the entire time, and got us into the fast line to go through customs and we were out so quickly. He loaded everything in our car, got his tip and headed back to do it all over again for someone else. That was money well spent on our part and I highly recommend it if you have more than one bag with you.

Port Canaveral was rainy and cold…definitely not welcoming weather. We had even heard that parts of the highway we needed to travel on was closed due to ice…IN FLORIDA! What on Earth were we coming back to?! Luckily, by the time we got to that portion of the highway, they had reopened and we didn’t have any issues getting back.

As for how I was feeling, it definitely took a few days for me to get back to normal. I kept my eating light, but nutritious. I just don’t know how other pregnant women do it that have morning sickness much worse than I do…I would never want to be pregnant every again!

 

Ok, so here’s our little round-up of opinions on the entire trip. Remember, this is just our opinion based on one trip. Not everyone will agree, and that’s ok, but we want to share a little bit about how we feel about the cruise itself.

Overall, we were glad to have experienced a Disney cruise, especially the Dream, and we were glad to have taken a cruise, since we didn’t think we’d do that for a few years. We had some fun moments and absolutely loved our day at Castaway Cay and getting away from the cold weather for a few days. I love that I got to celebrate my birthday with a fun trip.

But with all that being said, we probably won’t do a Disney cruise again in the near future. The ship was clean and beautiful, but I think there was much left to be desired. We didn’t enjoy the food as much as we were expecting or the limited options and hours…I should be able to eat at any hour of the day on a cruise without having to rely on room service. The lines for characters were still long and Disney wasn’t as present throughout the ship as we would have liked, so Trent didn’t really benefit from that aspect of it. There just wasn’t enough for Trent to do…it would have been nice if there was an open playground that didn’t require you to check him in and leave him. The service was mediocre…in both our stateroom and in the dining rooms. There were also things we couldn’t take advantage of, like the new movies in the theater or the pools, because Trent was too young. For the price, we could have had a 7 day cruise on a Royal Caribbean ship with much more to do. Many people reading this may have only experienced Disney cruise line, and that is why they may be shocked, as people tend to be loyal to theither first cruise line…but we have tried 3 so far, so we are able to compare. Of course, every trip, no matter where to, can be extremely different than the next when it comes to having a toddler along…and being pregnant. Yikes, what a combination, eh?!

However, we do recommend you try Disney Cruise Line if you’ve ever thought about wanting to. Why not, right?

Keep in mind, this is just our opinion, as shocking as it may be considering how much we love anything Disney. Maybe I will work on posting a more detailed review of our thoughts on the cruise, and maybe even a comparison breakdown for a future post.

I’m glad you stopped by to read our trip report and we hope you enjoyed it!

 

Click here to watch our videos from the trip…there’s 3!!

 

You can read our other Disney trip reports, our other cruise trip report, or our other travel adventures!