Trip Report November 2013 - Day #1 - Flying, Driving, and Port Orleans Riverside Alligator Bayou

It's October 31, 2013 and the McKnights are heading to the airport.  We were ready to embark on this epic Walt Disney World and Disney Cruise Line vacation.  Twelve nights total with three of them on the Disney Dream to celebrate Doug's parents 40th Wedding anniversary.  It will be the first time we travel with family to our favorite destination. It was a crazy busy day with school Halloween parties for Sam and Clair.  (Alden had to miss his Kindergarten Halloween party to make it to the airport in time, he seemed okay with the trade off of Disney World a day sooner.  

Because we were traveling on Halloween we thought we should all be in "costume" so the girls went with a Star Wars theme and the boys went Avengers.

Sam and Clair at the Airport with their Her Universe outfits on.

Sam spent the travel day as her favorite Star Wars character Ahsoka Tano and Clair was R2D2.

Almost as entertaining as the back side of water.

R2D2, Asoka, and Captain America ready to fly

My trio of mini Disney Experts.  The kids liked the extra attention they received from their outfits.  Their were a few other people dressed up a little for the holiday.  

Alden on the first flight from Omaha to St. Louis.  

We flew on Southwest down to Orlando.  At the Omaha airport the Southwest employees were the only ones in costume for Halloween.  The flight attendants told the kids they weren't allowed by the government to wear costumes when they asked.  

Sam was already hard at work on home work.  

Clair was doing her "homework" too.

The first leg of the trip we sat girls in one row and boys behind us.  I was wearing a Asajj Ventress Tunic from Her Universe. 

And a shot of Alden doing his home work just to prove we did it.  I was proud of the kids for working on it so much on the flight down.

Alden kept trying to boss Doug around because he was the "captain" of the Avengers.  Doug would simple reply that no one can tell Iron Man what to do.  They were a little too into the outfits at times.  

The kids about to board the plane.

After a stop in St. Louis we were getting back on our way to Orlando.  In St. Louis, we were able to grab a greasy bite to eat.  As you can, see we make the kids pull their own weight by carrying their own back packs.  We really like the back packs that have a chest strap.  This prevents them from letting it just fall off their shoulders.  The backpacks we like best are from Pottery Barn Kids. 

From STL to MCO I got to sit with the oldest and Doug got the pleasure of sitting with Clair.  It really is a toss up on who you want to sit by.   We fight over Alden as he is the best travel buddy.  The girls are higher maintenance, but over all they all travel very well.  We try to force feed Clair something as the plane takes off and lands.  Usually fruit snacks or something chewy so there is lots of saliva to swallow.  This was the first trip that Sam and Alden could handle gum.  Our flight out of STL was possibly the roughest we have ever had as we took off in a thunder storm.  Our kids though it was cool, Doug was glad he had put on a patch (for motion sickness), and about 30 middle school Softball players on our flight thought it was a good reason to scream like they were on the Tower of Terror.   

Here we are waiting for the bags to arrive and letting Alden test his camera skills.  Since we got in late and we were renting a car we had to pick up our bags.  One huge advantage of staying at a Walt Disney World Resort is the Magical Express and their bag service.  You get to skip picking up your bags at the airport.  You get a tag to put on them at home and then they are delivered to your room, but it takes a few hours so if you are arriving late in the day or evening you might want to grab your own bags or you could have a bell hop show up at your door at 11:00pm.   We rented a van for this trip because we need to drive to the port and we were switching hotels 3 times.  

The picture we take every trip to show how much stuff I pack and make Doug lug around.  However Alden is starting to become useful at pulling bags.  Samantha and Clair still have a ways to go.

Headed down with our bags to rent our van and found this nice big line at Alamo.

But no line at the kiosk so we swiped our drivers licence and it pulled up our reservation and after a few screens we were out in the parking lot picking out our van.  

After a very low stress drive we have arrived  at "Where Dreams Come True".  

The Kids in the lobby of Port Orleans Riverside

We found our way to the lobby of Port Orleans Riverside where we will be staying for the first part of our trip.  It is also the portion of the trip we will be using the Disney Dinning Plan.  The dining plan comes with refillable mugs, so we grabbed those from the food court before we left for our room.  We were in building #39 which is about as far from every thing as you can get.

A map of Port Orleans Riverside Resort find more info on the resort at the website
www.portorleans.org

The Disney World Moderate resorts all have a large foot print and are quite spread out.  It was about a 7 to 10 min walk to the food court/lobby.  

As a family of 5 our choices our limited when choosing a resort.  Port Orleans Riverside is the only moderate that can sleep five.  The beds have Louis from Princess and the Frog movie on the pillows.  The painting on the wall also features characters from the movie.

This is where Disney got creative with having a 5th person in the room. During the day it was nice to have the bench under the TV.

The cabinet under the TV folds out to reveal a bed.  This bed was fought over the whole time as to who's turn it was to sleep with Louis and Ray.  The bed was easy to put up and down.

A mickey head greeted us as we entered the room.

They put the bayou theme everywhere and hid lots of little gems like the "92" on this wash board is for the year the resort opened in 1992 as Dixie Landing Resort.

The refrigerator is in the cabinet with the coffee maker and ice bucket on top.  

It almost feels like you are taking a shower in a wash tub.  

The curtain is nice for the mornings when I was up getting ready. It let the kids and Doug get a little more sleep.

It was late and we had to get to bed but it is tough to fall asleep when you just arrived in Disney World.  So the kids watched the "Must Do's" with Stacy to help unwind.

After a mean game of rock, paper, scissors  Clair won the rights to the special bed for night #1.

By this time it was about 11:30pm Eastern Time, so we had to get them to sleep so we can hit rope drop at the Magic Kingdom in the morning!

Trip Report Day 2012 #11 - Flying Home

Well, my fiends, we have come to the VERY last day of our 2012 trip! Coming up soon is our 2013 trip to Walt Disney World! 

This is what a 3 year old looks like after 10 days of Disney.  A total of nine rope drops, one water park rope drop, and one Halloween Party and now it is time to head home.   The bad news is that this is our earliest morning yet and it is for a ride no one wants to take.  

After returning the rental van and checking our bags it was time to head through security.  TSA in Orlando use to be the best because they had a family lane for people with strollers and small children, but that went away and was replaced with a TSA pre check or "fast lane" type of thing, so I'm sorry if my 3 year old is annoying to you "Mr. Business Traveler." =)  

This is as good of a picture as you can expect at the end of a trip in the airport.  

A few seconds later was a much more accurate picture of how they were behaving.

This was the last picture taken on the trip!  

To wrap it all up we experienced lots of new things on this Disney World trip.  We started the trip with a 6, 4, and 2 year old and we returned with a 6, 5, and 3 year old.  We stayed in three different resorts.  Ate at lots of new restaurants that we had never tried before.  We used rider swap like crazy.  We learned that a soon to be 7 year old still needs stroller time to save legs on a longer trip.  Until our next post ~ I hope everyday is magical for you! 

Trip Report 2012 Day #10 - Alden's Birthday, Magic Kingdom Rope Drop, Teppan Edo, Hollywood Studios

Good Morning!  We find ourselves on the way into the Magic Kingdom to celebrate Alden's Birthday!  We have lots of big plans for his Golden Birthday at Disney World (He turned 5 on October 5th)!

Yes this monorail picture is in the morning and it is still dark out!  Right after this picture is taken we discover that I left my phone in the van somewhere.   So, Doug stayed on the monorail and returned to the TTC. I got off with the kids at the Magic Kingdom stop.  

We are first in line, but without Doug and my phone.  I took Doug's phone with me so he could call me once he got back to the park.  

It turns out that my phone some how slid under Clair's car seat and Doug had a heck of a time finding it.  He asked some one walking by to call it and that is how he finally found it. (Most people are very nice in the Disney theme parks!)  So, lesson learned to keep calling the phone even with the ringer off, because he was able to see it glowing under the car seat.  Anyway, he hustled back from the van to the ferry and sailed back over to the Magic Kingdom and was through the gates and back to meet us as we exited The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  In the picture you can see the smoke from the fireworks when they open the park.  Doug reported that the Ferry was packed full of people and that is why we try to beat the masses of people by getting to the gates 60 minutes early.  Doug was glad he did not have to go through bag check and could just sail on through the gates to meet us.

This is Doug's cell phone pic saying "I'm Here" as he waited by the exit of the ride.  We had already done Peter Pan and then the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, when he met up with us.  Considering the distance between the parking and those attractions, he made good time.

We then took a spin on Barnstormer.

Smiles on Dumbo the Flying Elephant.

We met the Great Goofini - which had just opened the day before at Pete's Silly Sideshow!

Donald

There is lots of little details and other hidden gems as you exit the tent.

The birthday boy with Goofy.

They think they can spin it sooooooo fast.

And another spinning ride - Prince Charming Regal Carrousel.  Doug has to watch the tea cups and the carrousel because they make him sick. 

I took a picture of Sam so she didn't get too jealous of the birthday boy.

Clair as photogenic as ever.

No luck with the Sword in the Stone on his birthday.

Ooops!  

A good family picture.  Clair was being extra clingy that day.

We stopped for a light lunch at Sleepy Hollow.  We had a 4 o'clock Dinner so we did not want to eat a big lunch.  We really like the waffles at Sleepy Hollow. Doug always goes with the Nutella and Fruit and I go with the Strawberries!  The kids split a couple of waffles between the 3 of them and everyone is happy with the free ice water!

After our light lunch, we went to use a Fastpass over at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  I'm not sure what Doug and Clair did but I'm sure they had fun.  We then road again with the Rider Swap pass that Clair so nicely got for us.  

We then traded kids again and Doug took the big kids and I took Clair.

Alden and Sam played a little more Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.

Then they went on the Tommorwland Transit Authority People Mover for the birthday boy.

The lights were on in Space Mountain, so Alden though that was extra cool for his birthday.

Not exactly pretty.

We met back up and hopped on the monorail to Epcot, all the excitement had gotten to Samantha and she fell asleep on the way to Epcot.  

A view of the work going on at Test Track.

Alden's Birthday Dinner was at Teppan Edo in the Japan Pavilion @ Epcot.  Not where a normal 5 year old goes at Disney World for their birthday, but if you know him you understand.  You sit "family" style so we sat with a nice family from Virgina.  

All three kids ate all their food.  They let us split a meal between the girls because we really were not sure if they would eat anything.  

The Chef was great at talking to the kids and entertaining them.  She made Samantha try the noodles and Samantha learned that she liked something other than mac and cheese!  The food here is great.  Even if you are not an adventurous eater the food here is fabulous! (I'm not an adventurous eater…)

Clair being Clair

See what we live with.

Alden got a hat for his birthday with an origami Skull on it to match his shirt.  

On the way out of the World Showcase Clair stopped to make a call.

They all tried to enter at the same time.  It was like something out of a cartoon.

We got a nice picture of the Birthday Boy and his new hat.

Hard to believe he is 5!

We hopped back on the monorail to head back to the car that was parked in the Magic Kingdom at the TTC.  They kids were pretending to like each other.

This was our last day in Florida and I have a problem where I just can't stop.  So we got in the car and headed over to Hollywood Studios.  We waited out a down poor in the van then went in for the last few hours it was open.  Doug and Clair basically just waited for us to ride Star tours 3 times.

He let Clair take a Picture.  So this is what you get.

After our spins on Star Tours we got a snack from Sweet Spells and took it over to the ABC Commissary to sit and eat in the AC.  

Once we got the chocolate off of their faces it was pointed out to us that they never got "EARs" on the trip.  They were right, so we let them pick some out and we got one last picture on the way out of the park.

It is always really hard leaving the park the last time not knowing when you are coming back.  We had an idea of when we would be back but nothing was set in stone.  We left knowing we had sucked every last bit of park time and fun out of our last day helped lessen the sad feeling and left me with less tears.