Disney World: Day 1 -- Getting There and Downtown Disney

So it's over.

We've been planning this trip for so long now...researching the best times of year to go, where to find the best deals, how to make the trip special and now it's time to blog the experience.

We knew we'd be doing Disney World for our next Disney trip after our last Disneyland vacation in May of 2010. We thought we might do the beginning of the year in 2012 but, came to find out, that's nearly always when Splash Mountain and many other rides are closed for refurbishment. We wanted the lowest crowds, cheapest prices, mildest weather, Autumn younger than 3...and open attractions.

That meant no summer time, no holiday breaks, not September because of hurricane season...all that boiled down to the second week of November for us. Disney World sees an increase in attendance during the first week of November for "Jersey Week" when the NJ schools have some special break and lots of Snooki sounding folks flock to the resort. Then, of course there is Thanksgiving week which is among, if not THE, busiest week of the year (Christmas, Easter and Spring Break are obviously going to be the others).

So the week in between Jersey Week and Thanksgiving week sounded like the best week for the S family to take their first trip to the World as a family. Jason hadn't been there since 1991 when it was just Magic Kingdom and EPCOT. I last went in October 2001 with my mom, Lauren, and my ex husband so there was still some things that were new to me this trip, which was nice...more on those later.

In addition to that second week of November being best for low crowds and mild weather, it's also "value" season and historically during that time the last few years, Disney has offered their dining plan for free to get people to come. We were keeping our fingers crossed they'd offer it again and booked our trip earlier this year knowing we had until 45 days out to get our $200 deposit back.

One morning a little over 6 months ago I woke at 4 a.m. to make all our dining reservations. Yes, you have to do it that early for many of the restaurants even in the off seasons.

Then, in early September, Disney World did indeed offer free dining...but you had to check in November 13th or later. Initially we'd planned on arriving on November 12th but we were able to change our dates back a day and got the free dining plan!!!

The dining plan includes a table service (sit down) meal, a quick service (counter) meal, and one snack per person per night of your stay. You can use them however you wanted, though, so we could've had only snacks one day and only table service meals another. It just meant each of us had 7 of each to spend through the length of our trip. Children under 3 are free at Disney so while we didn't have to pay for Autumn's tickets, she also didn't count on the meal plan but we knew she'd be able to share with us and at buffets they said she'd eat for free. Score!!!

We may or may not have opted for the dining plan this trip if we'd had to pay out of pocket, but it was a nice bonus and saved us about $900.

Another way we saved was by paying for our trip in gift cards. You see, Sam's Club offers $100 gift cards at a slightly discounted price: maybe $98.24 or something which isn't huge but the leftovers went into our souvenir fund. The thing with buying them at Sam's is that you also get a $10 Disney Store gift card as a free bonus! Seriously! So yes, I made two separate cast members take all our gift card numbers over the phone but then we got lots of gift cards we can spend at the Disney store. We bought each kid 2 pairs of new Disney jammies before we left and last night we went and bought all of this year's Christmas ornaments (4 total) from there plus a stuffed Snow White doll that Autumn picked as her "all-done-with-paci" reward and we've STILL got lots of $10 gift cards left. Earlier in the year I paid our $200 deposit with those same gift card deal and used the $20 to the Disney store to buy Autumn all the stuffed Fab 5 gang for her birthday. An awesome awesome deal that not too many people are on to, it seems.

Anyway, finally it was time to start counting down to our trip. You may have noticed our countdown calendar I'd made in earlier blog posts.

I used paint chip samples I'd collected over a few visits to Home Depot. It was a highlight every morning for the kids to remove one of the Mickey heads.



On each head was a different activity or something to do or think about in regards to our upcoming trip (typed in Disney font, I might add). So there was things like, "Watch Lion King today" (which they hadn't seen before) or "Put this new Disney Jibbitz in your Croc shoes" or "What should you do if you get lost at Disney?" or "What character do you most want to meet?" or "Eat Mickey Mouse sandwiches today". I copied some ideas from this person but made up lots of my own as well. Go me, right? ;)

I also got to work on some tie dying and sewing. I'd read about how to make Mickey head tie dyed shirts and found a kit that has all our family's favorite colors...we all had white tees in our closet so I got to work:

If you're my Facebook friend, those are the ones that Dalton said, "We're going to rhyme!" :)

Then I had this idea of my own to make the boys bowling shirts that sort of "echo" the costume or look of their favorite Toy Story characters. I was going to make a little Jessie-type dress for Autumn and that was going to be how the boys would coordinate. But then the boys thought it would be cool if Jason had a Zurg bowling shirt to go with theirs. And then it was like, "Well, Mom should have something too" so then Autumn wasn't going to be the only one NOT in a bowling shirt...so she got one, plus a little cow print denim skirt. I cut the legs off some 6 month sized jeans she used to wear and added the cow print ruffles:



I bought the bowling shirt pattern in the kid sizes but then had to make my own pattern for Jason's and my shirt so again, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. The kids' buttons were some of my favorite details. Dalton had the idea to use multi-color buttons on Easton's Buzz shirt because the Buzz toy has 3 little buttons you can push to make him talk. For Dalton's Woody shirt I found yellow star buttons (as in Sheriff Woody) and then I found some silver rimmed mother-of-pearl type buttons nearly exactly like the ones Jessie has.

Finally all the counting down and sewing and crafting and such were done and it was time to go!



Another way we saved on this trip was to fly on two separate airlines. We had a free flight on United from frequent flier miles and two free flights on Southwest. So the boys and our bags flew on Southwest:


And the girls and the stroller flew half an hour later on United. I'd packed lots of snacks and activities into the kids' backpacks so the flights down there really weren't bad at all.

The boys killed some time before Autumn and I arrived in Orlando:






We joined up at that fountain and headed over to catch Disney's Magical Express...if you're staying on Disney property, they'll pick you up and deliver you to your resort for free! We used 100% Disney transportation so no rental car and--Jason's favorite part: no car seats!!! Plus, Magical Express will claim your luggage for you and deliver it to your room within a few hours! So cool! So here we all are together waiting:


And on the Magical Express:




We arrived at Port Orleans French Quarter and Jason had to again kill a lot of time with the kids during the lengthy check-in process (the computers had crashed earlier that day, apparently):




But we were on our way to our room, 6241:


In a twist of Disney magic, we got a water view room that we had not paid for:






We didn't spend much time in the room and headed down to catch the river taxi to take us to Downtown Disney. We had reservations at the T-Rex Cafe there. It is not on the dining plan but I'd earned a $25 gift card from MyPoints (let me know if you want to join and I'll refer you *wink*wink*) and 99 cent kids meal coupons I'd printed out online long ago. We went to the original T-Rex Cafe in Kansas City a few years back and given the choice of Rainforest Cafe or T-Rex, they boys chose T-Rex. Dinner was fine and the atmosphere was fun:








Autumn was tired and couldn't decide between her milk or her paci:


Some Chip and Dale Hershey Nugget wraps I'd made for the boys:


After dinner we went to the Build a Dino (same company as Build a Bear) where the kids had been planning to each pick one of the mini dinos they have. Well, they didn't have the one Dalton wanted and he was given the choice to order it online when we got home or pick out a different one then. He chose to wait to order one at home and handled it just fine when his brother and sister each had a new "soft friend" to sleep with that night.

Other than that, we just wandered around Downtown Disney...the Lego store:








The gigantic World of Disney store:







Where I found my nutcracker for 2011:




We headed over to Team Mickey:




Dalton cracked me up when he said, "Look Mom, a hidden Mickey!" pointing at this Mickey sippy cup someone had hidden behind some shirts.


Autumn wanted a picture with Pete and wasn't afraid!




We posed with these "No Climbing" statues in the pin trading store:








And then we caught the boat back to our resort where our luggage had been delivered, changed into some of the new Disney jammies bought for this trip:

(all our essentials for the first night were in a carry on, just in case our checked bags didn't make it to our room in time for bed).



And chilled out in front of the tube for a bit to get ready for some sleep.

Florida is 2 hours ahead of us, remember, so it took awhile to fall asleep that first night. To keep the room dark-ish for falling asleep, Jason had to hide with my phone under my hoodie while he updated his fantasy football roster:


We went to sleep dreaming of our first day in the parks the next day. Stay tuned for all that!