In reality, we are more often than not “doin’ school” at the kitchen table, and most of the books are squished onto a few shelves.  For the start of this school year, I sacrificed the sanctity of my “formal” living room to add an Ikea-shoe-bench-turned-homeschool-textbook-organizer-and-impromptu-desk. In a slightly less than perfect world, Miss A would sit at the bench doing her schoolwork while Lil’ G happily played nearby with her toys, and I’d hang out on the couch and catch up on some magazine reading time.  It actually happened like that…for about 2 minutes. At which point Lil’ G decided it was more fun to rip all the workbooks, papers, and folders out of their neatly organized cubby holes, Miss A didn’t like sitting on the floor, so spent the next 20 minutes or so arranging a chair so it was “just right” and I tried to visualize myself at Starbucks lounging on a leather chair, thumbing a book, sipping a cafe mocha while jazz music crooned softly in the background (while I cleaned up toys, reorganized books, and stacked unread magazines that were now ripped thanks to a certain little redhead.

In a perfect world, Lil G would nap and/or play contentedly with her toys during designated school hours. But she has decided that such activities are beneath her…not when big sister is having so much more fun with paper, pencils, crayons and what not. I suppose this will turn out to be a good thing  (her dexterity with crayons and pencils is amazing) but at the moment it is nothing short of frustrating.

So I have given up having school in the living room, and we’re back at the kitchen table.

This looks like a nice little scene, doesn’t it?

Lil’ G is enjoying some “big girl” time.

Everything looks to be in perfect harmony – everybody happy and doing their thing…so what’s the problem?

About 10 seconds after I took this picture Lil’ G fell off that chair and I almost had a heart attack. Turns out I can’t help Miss A with her nouns and keep an eye on Lil’ G at the same time.

So if she wants to do school, it’s while strapped into her high chair…which she doesn’t enjoy as much.

Which means nobody is enjoying much of anything…not for long anyway.

I am constantly wondering how families with several kids (many under the age of 4) manage to homeschool with their sanity intact…

maybe that’s it…

they gave up their sanity long ago.

We managed to squeeze a whole lot in on our first day at Hollywood Studios (HS), and didn’t have a meal reservation in the park that day since we had late dinner reservations at the Grand Floridian for the Storybook Dinner with Cinderella and friends (I’ll be getting to that one eventually).  So on our second day at HS, the plan was simple: see the Beauty and the Beast  show, ride Miss A’s 2 favorite rides again, and have lunch at Hollywood and Vine.  We planned to ger out of HS early and spend the evening shopping in Downtown Disney – it was the best plan we could have come up with, because shortly after arriving back at our hotel , it started to rain…and rain…and RAIN.  This was the only time it rained our entire trip (I am so grateful!) and it couldn’t have been timed better.

But I digress, we’re talking Dining now, rides and shows will all come later.

As I mentioned last time, my biggest beef with Disney Dining is the plethora of buffets. It gets old – fast.  First of all, it is frustrating to try and make your child leave the table to get something to eat when they are petrified they will surely miss seeing so-and-so if they leave the table for even a second. So, sure the parent can go and choose foods for their kids, but as a parent, I was petrified that I’d leave the table and miss my kids seeing so-and-so and not get any pictures  – aaaaah! All this tension makes for a less than relaxing dining experience.

Also, like I said before, I’m on vacation – I want to be served, I want to feel taken care of, and after standing in lines all day, I don’t want to stand in line so Miss A can have some mac’n cheese!

The husband was the first to point this out, and maybe it’s because he is about as picky as Miss A and ate the same 2 or 3 items at each buffet…but once he said it, I realized it’s true: no matter where you are eating: the food at Disney is all the same. It all tastes the same. It’s not horrible, but it’s definitely not wonderful…and the buffet delivery just makes it taste even more like cafeteria fare.  I hope this is not the case at the more expensive “gourmet” dining experiences Disney offers…but I have to wonder.

So the food isn’t anything to write home about…and that’s true at any of the buffet meals we had. I would much prefer to sit down and order an individual meal – but I suppose that isn’t as cost or time effective for Disney as the trough. Bottom line is Miss A ate the mac’n cheese wherever we went, and so it could have been worse.

Enough about that, the food isn’t why we were there anyway: it was for the interaction with the characters! At Play’NDine, the featured characters are from Playhouse Disney: the day we had lunch, we met JoJo and her pet lion Goliath of JoJo’s Circus, and Judy and Leo from Little Einsteins.

The characters came around one at a time to sign autographs and pose for pictures.

Well, Goliath didn’t  sign autographs – his paws you know, so JoJo did it for him.

The first day we were at Hollywood Studios, we happened to catch JoJo and Goliath at their “Character Spot” (designated locations throughout the park where specific characters will do meet n’ greets). So while it was nice to see them again, it could have been a pass for us.

Then Leo and Judy came around (I don’t know if the other 2 Einsteins characters rotate, or if it’s always these 2).

And while Miss A enjoyed meeting them, they are not very high on her list, and she wouldn’t have been heartbroken if she had missed out. Maybe it’s because, at 6, she’s passed the target audience for these guys, but I wonder what other Character Meals HS could design to appeal to a wider audience.  A Movie Meal with Star Wars and Indiana Jones characters would be awesome!

The interior of Hollywood and Vine wasn’t anything special – it was set up like a cute, kitschy Diner, but it wasn’t better than Ed Debevic’s back home – and not up to the “Wow!” standards of the indoor drive-in theatre of the Sci-Fi diner.

What made me feel as if my money wasn’t completely wasted was the Playhouse Disney Dance Party they held during the meal. All the kids are called to join in the fun in the middle of the diner for dancing and extra time with the characters.

As usual, Miss A was all over that.

She danced with Goliath.

Chatted up Leo.

Had some fun with June.

And marched in a parade with JoJo.

So yes, she had a nice time.  But at Disney, a “nice” time just isn’t enough. You know?

All in all, it just wasn’t a memorable enough experience to warrant a return visit.

Oddly enough, the place we went for lunch at Hollywood Studios the first day we were there was an unscheduled stop suggested by the husband, and it was a great, memorable experience that we plan to do again for sure – look for it, I’ll be dishin’ on it soon.

I’m going to move backwards on our trip – starting with our last Character Meal of the vacation.

Like the way I read magazines: I always start at the back page and browse in reverse…who needs a table of contents?

I scheduled our flight home late in the afternoon, so we had some time to do a few last Disney things. Not enough time to merit wasting a park ticket, but plenty of time to squeeze in one last Character Meal…and since we skipped doing any character meals the day we arrived in Disney, it worked out perfectly as far as meal plan credits went.

Here is something I learned: many of the Character Meals take place at the various hotels on Disney Property, and not in the actual theme parks themselves. Next time I plan a trip to Disney World,  I plan to spread our “theme park” days out, and add at least 1 (maybe 2) days of lounging by the pool and hanging out. A Character Meal at one of the hotels will work perfectly for a chill out day: you are still doing something fun and “Disney” while not being in an actual park, and you’re not wasting valuable time sitting at a restaurant on a day you spent a crazy amount of money to enter one of the parks.  One issue is that Disney does not offer bus travel between hotels – only from hotel to theme park (and Downtown Disney). It’s not a big deal to jump on a bus to the theme park closest to the hotel you want to eat at, and then once at the theme park, jump another bus (or boat or monorail if it applies) to get to the restaurant. Quite a few of the Character Meals take place at one of the BIG 3: what  I refer to as the 3 hotels connected to the Monorail line, and VERY close to the Magic Kingdom: these being the Contemporary, the Polynesian, and the Grand Floridian. We only saw the Contemporary from the window of the monorail this time, but my husband really liked it – so we may end up staying there on a subsequent trip. Either way dinner at Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary is on my list of things we missed this time and must do next time.

On my list of things we DID do this time and MUST do again next time is the Ohana breakfast at the Polynesian Resort.

First of all, the waiting area is very pleasant, and just down the hall is a cafe that serves Kona coffee (not the NesCrape most Disney restaurants serve) so if you’re jonesing for your first cup of java you can enjoy one while you wait. When you sign in at the reception desk they give everyone in the party leis…Miss A loved this, of course, and even her Dada consented to join in the fun and wear one.

This was one of my favorite Disney meal experiences because it was one of the very few that was not a buffet. Thank God! I detest the whole stand in line like a herd of cattle at a trough feeling that buffets give me. I’m on vacation, I am spending way too much money on this meal, I want to sit here and relax and BE SERVED. Also, the characters come around on a schedule, so it’s quite difficult to convince a certain six year old to go get something to eat when she’s anxiously tracking Mickey’s progress to her table.

At the Ohana breakfast you are immediately served juice and coffee and a delicious basket of pineapple Hawaiian bread; between the juice, coffee, and divine bread, I had a perfect breakfast…but they also serve up family style platters of Mickey waffles (I thought they were rather dry and tasteless, but Miss A seemed to like them) biscuits, scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, and some type of sausage (we’re not really a sausage type of family).  Even though we didn’t get to pick and choose from a menu, breakfast food is pretty standard fare, and again, it was so nice to just sit and relax and let people bring everything to us (and our waiter was wonderful, it was so hot I drank a ridiculous amount of juice, and he was great with the refills!) This way we could really enjoy our breakfast, and focus on the real reason we came there: the characters!

At the Ohana breakfast the 4 characters we saw (and I believe are standard) were: Mickey, Pluto, Lilo and Stitch.

Each character spent plenty of time with us at our table, which was great since Lil’ G (who was terrified of Winnie the Pooh, I don’t know if I mentioned that before) absolutely adored Mickey.

Though she is a Princess-Girl all the way now, when Miss A was little, her first Disney favorite was Stitch. She LOVED him (I say she recognized a kindred spirit).  So it was a lot of fun for her (and for me) to meet Experiment 626 and his best pal Lilo.

And even though he wasn’t necessarily a “Must See” character, meeting Mickey’s best pal Pluto was lots of fun too (I get the connection now, Lilo and her “dog” Stitch along with Mickey and his dog Pluto).

Aside from the time they spend with you at the table, they also have several opportunities for the kids to get up and join the characters in a parade around the restaurant, complete with instruments for them to play (Tusker House in Animal Kingdom does this kind of thing too, we’ll get to that in a couple of weeks).

After breakfast, you can give your tummy time to rest by strolling around the hotel’s main building. They have some shops, and a gorgeous central nature display that includes waterfalls, flowers, and all sorts of island greenery. It’s A great place for photos!

Don’t miss the Lilo&Stitch surfboard hiding on the lower level by the windows:

We decided to look around some more, and strolled the rest of the hotel grounds. It made for a very pleasant walk. The hotel is spread out in “island longhouses” and actually covers quite a distance – for the Polynesian’s price tag, I don’t think it’s worth it – I’d want to have something I felt was more convenient than one of the cheaper digs.

The Poly does, however, boast this incredible view:

Yep, that’s Cinderella’s Castle off in the distance. I took this with my sad little point and shoot camera, so the view is actually MUCH better in person. I was standing just behind the pool of the Polynesian – I bet it would be awesome to go for a nighttime  swim while watching Wishes from afar.

Leaving the Polynesian is a breeze, you can hop the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom or enjoy a ferry boat ride to the same place. We really liked taking the boat when we had the time to spare, it was so relaxing!

So, we’ll be doing the Ohana breakfast again for sure – it’s a keeper.

Next week I’ll talk about the Playhouse Disney lunch at Hollywood N’ Vine in Hollywood Studios…which we will NOT be doing again.

When the whirlwind mania of planning our trip began, I hadn’t thought much about it – Lil’ G required baby food, Miss A and the husband are two of the world’s pickiest eaters, and I’m still trying to lose a few pounds, so I wasn’t looking to overindulge with big meals every day…basically, I figured we’d play it by ear and snack here and there. So when the travel agent from Small World Vacations first suggested the Disney Dining Plan, my initial reaction was NO WAY. It would be a big ol’ waste of money.

Our decision to go to Disney was very spontaneous, so we booked the trip barely 6 weeks prior to going. In Disney Vacation Planning Terms, that’s nothing. I  figured there would not be a snowball’s chance in Florida that I’d be able to get reservations for any of the various character meals offered – and told my agent so. By the next morning, she showed me what’s what with  a neatly organized spreadsheet with confirmed reservations for a different character meal each day of our vacation. Seeing that Miss A would get to have one- on-one time with the likes of Cinderella, Lilo and Stitch, Mickey, Donald, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, Mary  Poppins, the Mad Hatter, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, Piglet, Jojo and Goliath, and many others…and add to that the fact that I wouldn’t have to think about where to eat,  or how much it’s costing while we were actually on vacation…well – it all started to sound much more appealing. So I gulped back my shock at the price tag and agreed to add the Dining Plan to our vacation.

I’m not sure exactly how much money we saved by going with the Dining Plan vs. winging it – I didn’t do a meal by meal price breakdown with receipts compared to the daily cost of the plan (that would kind of take away from the whole “not having to think about what it’s costing while I’m on vacation” aspect) but I am quite sure we saved a decent amount. Of course, if we were not on the plan, we probably would not have gone to as many character meals as we did (and hence saved some money in that respect). Without crunching any numbers, I know for sure that we saved at least $100 by having the dining plan for Miss A. Add that to the fact that she had some truly magical moments at these meals (which in turn saved us A LOT of time since we didn’t have to wait in lines to see those characters), and some of my favorite trip memories happened during them and well – it’s pretty hard to put a price on that.

From time to time, Disney will offer a special vacation package offering free dining – of course, this makes for an awesome opportunity to try the program “risk free,” but I fear this will lead the restaurants to be packed beyond anything I experienced during our stay…and certainly inhibit some of the enjoyment. This is simply speculation on my part though, and if we ever venture down to Disney during such a promotion, I’ll let you know if it’s an accurate prediction.

Overall I am glad I added the Dining Package, and am very thankful to our wonderful travel agent for all her help in scheduling the various meals. This was our first time, however, and I certainly learned alot…and have quite a few tips, complaints, and insight on Dining in Disney.  To make it all a little easier to digest (ha!ha!) I will serve up all this commentary in little tidbits. As with anything on a buffet menu – take what you like and leave the rest.

So keep your eye out in the Thursdays to come,  some items on the menu include: a review of all the restaurants we hit (including food, service, ambiance  and character experience), tips on how to make the dining plan really work for you, suggestions on things not to miss (and those that might be better to skip), ideas on how to schedule the meals into your vacation, and some always helpful “I wish I knew that BEFORE” comments that might be useful, and that I plan to implement whenever we go on our next trip.

Bon Appetit! (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself)

Last Wed I came home from work to discover that my just turned 2 year old fridge had turned into an easybake oven. Then, later that evening at sand v-ball my team started strong each of the 3 games, only to (here comes that phrase again) suck out loud at the end and lose ‘em all. Wednesday must also be the all-you-can-eat buffet night for the mosquitoes, because by the end of the game, my ankles were an itchy swollen mess. I arrive home to a crabby sullen husband, so I escaped to the tub to wash the sand and stress away.

This Wed I get a call at 5:30 am – my Dad is going to the hospital…for what appears to be his 2nd heart attack in under 6 months. After a long afternoon in the cardiac waiting room, he comes out  doing well…so I’ll count my blessings and be thankful…but man does it suck…his birthday is next week…and he is too young for any of this nonsense!

So after a day in the hospital I am looking forward to burning off some steam and kicking some butt at volleyball – but the weather turns ominous. 30 minutes before the game they announce that it is “game on!” and  so I pack up the girls and head over to the courts. Just as I pull into the parking lot I get a text saying they decided to cancel afterall.

So I came home, gave the girls their bath, and put ‘em to bed. Had an icy cold Blue Moon with a slice of lemon (I know you’re supposed to do an orange, but I like lemon better), put on some very comfy and unsexy pj’s (the pants have snowmen on them, to give you an idea) and here I am bogging my troubles away.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now.

Maybe it was the beer.

One of the nice package perks of staying on property was the “Magical Express”  – which is free transportation from Orlando airport to your hotel and back again. That in itself is great, but it also includes worry-free transportation of all checked baggage. When your trip info comes in the mail, luggage tags will be included – these tags make it possible for your luggage to get from the airport into your Disney hotel room without you doing anything more than putting the tag on (of course, you’ll need to bring the luggage with you to the airport and check it – but after that, it’s taken care of!) We had zero problems with this service – everything worked exactly as it was supposed to, and it really made our arrival easier.

The Magical Express service itself was wonderful, simply because I didn’t have to try and arrange for some sort of transportation to the hotel – and it was so easy to just follow the gigantic signs (and herds of other families clearly on a Disney vacation) to the pick-up spot for the buses that would take us to the hotel. It made me think of when the husband and I arrived for our honeymoon in England, and a hired car the travel agent had arranged for us swept us out of Heathrow and to our hotel – for someone like me who doesn’t travel often, it just felt luxurious and, well, fun. Compare that to the nerve-shearing nightmare we had at the Dublin airport, where we had to get ourselves a rental car, and drive said rental car from the airport to our hotel in Dublin…being mapless, clueless, and on the wrong side of the road in a teeny tiny car going HOLYSHIT fast. Oh, and when we  – mercy of mercies -  find our hotel, we realize we can’t park the car anywhere but in a parking garage…and then realize we don’t have any native currency yet. I still, 8 years later,  am in awed gratitude of the awesome dude in that parking garage who, without being asked, just fronted the quid so we could park our car. Thank you again, sir.

But I digress – the point is the Magical Express takes all that stress out of the equation. You get on board the big air conditioned bus with cushy seats and cool foot rests, sit back and look at the palm trees fly by. Yes, there is a silly infomercial that plays…but so what? You’re on vacation and you’re going to DISNEYWORLD!

Miss A loved the Magical Express ride, she thought it was just so cool. It was a great sign that if she was enjoying just the Disney bus ride this much, then this vacation was going to be worth every penny.

And it was.

Really, we are. There’s a big Harry Potter exhibit currently at the museum, I think it will be a lot of fun. Once we get past the whole driving into the city and parking thing.

So back to today’s Disney post  – I also planned to talk about packing – what I found to be the most useful, what never ended up getting unpacked, space saving ideas – etc. But again, I’m tired, and I have 2/3 of a book left that I need to finish before Monday night’s book club meeting.

So I just want to say 1 thing.

If you are packing for a trip to Disney World, and are fretting over whether or not to pack the costumes – let me make this easy for you…

DO IT.

It is so worth it, and if you’re like me and bought a lot of the princess and fairy costumes at clearance prices, the money saved vs. buying them at one of the shops at the resort could take you on a whole ‘nother vacation.

I do want to spend some more time talking about the whole packing costumes thing – but for now, I just want to say thank you to a special friend who let me borrow her daughter’s Mary Poppins’ costume. When she first offered, I was skeptical because I had planned on taking quite a plethora of costumes with already – and really, Mary Poppins is nice – but she ain’t Cinderella. Plus, the costume was huge, with layers upon layers of white silk and a big red sash. But it fit in Miss A’s suitcase (remember, you saw a picture?) so I took it with.

Thanks to the handy dandy dining reservations my travel agent made – we had breakfast on our first full day of vacation at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian.

While having breakfast,  Tigger,  Pooh, Alice and the Mad Hatter visit you – and so does Mary Poppins. The dining hall was filled with girls dressed as  Belle, Aurora, Jasmine, and there were even quite a few Alices.

But only Miss A looked like this:

What you can’t see in this pic are her sandals…it was hella-hot during our trip (this is freakin’ Florida after all) and there was no way Miss A was going to suffer through wearing that hot costume all day – so we made Miss A’s Dada suffer instead by stuffing it into his backpack. Miss A had on a cute little sundress that we threw the costume right over while waiting for our reservation  in the air conditioned heaven of the hotel. And then I ended up making Miss A suffer anyway while I forced her to pose for pictures (hey, this was my vacation too).

When Mary arrived at our table, she was so excited to see a mini-Mary!

She spent a great deal of time with us, and Miss A glowed from all the attention.

I think it’s fun for the performers too (I mean “cast members”), it can be kind of depressing to feel like you’re always 2nd fiddle to a girl who cleans house for 7 short dudes.

Lil' G was fascinated by Mary's hat (we ended up not packing that).

The whole dining room watched and smiled along with us as Mary and Miss A chatted and posed.

Despite my initial misgivings, taking that costume along was totally worth it. It kicked our first full day of Disney off to a truly magical start, and made for some wonderful memories.

So there’s the Drama Mama Disney advice for this week:  find costumes for some of the “lesser known” Disney characters that your children enjoy (Miss A does really like Mary Poppins alot, especially when she sings that “Super-Pickle-ishish” song) it is likely to score your little ones some great extra time and attention.

Thanks again to my wonderful friend who let us borrow the costume in the first place!

I love this picture of her: the dress, the clutch, the cars...what a great era.

I woke up and lay in bed pondering it for awhile before realizing what the date was  – 5 years ago this week my grandmother passed away. When I nudged my husband and began to describe my dream to him he sleepily mumbled, “You always dream about her this time of year.”

Fishing in a halter top...saucy lady!

It’s true..before I consciously take note of the date on the calendar, my brain somehow acknowledges the anniversary of my Nanny’s death – and each year since she passed away, I have all sorts of dreams involving her and her home. Sometimes they are memories of past events – sometimes they are very real, and very much in the present, and I can clearly recall that as I’m dreaming of having a conversation with her, my mind is simultaneously telling me not to wake up, because as soon as I do – she’ll be gone again.

Lil’ G is almost the exact age Miss A was when my grandmother died…and I so wish she could have known both my girls…hopefully, somehow, she does.

With a very tiny Miss A.

I miss you Nanny, and love you so very much.

As I mentioned last week, this trip was mainly planned for Miss A.  So I put quite a bit of thought into how I wanted to tell her. Our trip was scheduled for a little less than a month after her birthday,  so on her birthday weekend we gave her a Disney Princess suitcase to open: it’s very cute with rollers and a sliding handle and it’s in the shape of Cinderella’s coach and best of all it is PINK.  Why didn’t I save myself some time and just show you a picture?

So I had this great plan to stuff the suitcase full with Mickey Mouse balloons and shout.” You’re going to Disney World!” when Miss A unzipped it. Only a bunch of balloons didn’t fit…I managed to squeeze 2 in there safely. When the big reveal happened it took some time for the excitement to set in – you see, Miss A has been wanting to go to Disney for more than half her life (which granted given her age is not that long) and we  told her we would plan a trip when she was 9 or 10 and Lil’ G was 4 or 5 (I didn’t want to go to Disney with a baby…and while I’m very glad we took Miss A now, my instincts on this issue were spot on…more about that some other time). So when I told her she was going to Disney World, she was like, “Ok – sure, fine I know, whatever.” It took awhile for her to realize she would be going in 3 weeks, not 3 years. Once she figured that one out, she started the belated happy dance. Of course, the rarely used video camera had been put away by then.

Part of the fun of a trip like this is all the anticipation and the build up of what’s to come…like Christmas with a giant mouse instead of a fat bearded man. Like me, Miss A loves count down calendars of any kind, so making a few for her was a must do. There are some great calendar printables on the Disney website, and you can customize them and add various icons for birthdays and such…so I printed those for her to pin to the fridge. Then I went a step further and created a “Count Down” coloring book for her.

Basically it is a binder I filled with coloring pages printed from various websites that offer free printables. I photoshopped text detailing the days of the countdown, printed them out and organized them into the binder. It was cheap and easy, my favorite kind.

In the pocket I placed various info material that our wonderful travel agent Lori (I mentioned her last week) sent us. Aishtyn loved ooing and ahhing over everything from the park maps to the hotel brochures. She would take them out again and again. You can also get a really cool set of 4 customizable maps (1 of each of the parks) sent to your house for free. Just fill out some info at the Disney site. I think you can order a set once every 6 months.

I also added some other stuff Lori sent us, like brochures about the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and the Dining Plan. If it had a mouse or a princess on it, I inlcuded it. For the cover, I simply cut a page from one of the travel brochures and taped it to the front.

I left the binder on the kitchen table and every morning she would rush down to mark off her calendar and then sit to color her picture for the day…always taking a moment to count how many pages left until she reached the final page: Cinderella and her castle.

Of course she enjoyed passing the time til the big day by watching the corny info DVD they send you, and watching Disney movies to prime her Princess checklist…and shopping for a new Ariel swimsuit with matching hat, towel, and flip flops…and telling everyone from the bank teller at the drive-thru to her doctor to my dentist that, “Hey, guess what? I’m going to DISNEY WORLD!!!”

So if you’re planning a trip – I highly recommend you milk it for all it’s worth and build that anticipation every way you can. It’s almost as much fun as going on the trip itself.

Almost.

Check out next week when I review the whole packing and travelling angle of the trip…my least favorite part.

And if you really don’t want to spend an hour searching for free printables and making your own countdown pages, feel free to borrow some of mine – available below the fold.

Then I got busy with something else.

But I really want to torture bless y’all with our Disney experience. So what to do?

The only thing that seems to work for me: schedule a date and make it “official.” It’s crazy how motivating the simple act of assigning a specific date/time to something can be.

So from this Thursday til infinity (and hopefully probably not beyond), you can catch a bit of Disney Magic…Drama Mama style.

I’m going to start at the very beginning… a very good place to start…when you read you begin with A -B-C, when you sing you begin with (do you know the rest? Can you name that tune?)

So – why Disney? Um…..Miss A is a little girl in love with all things Princess.

And even more in love with all things Peter Pan.

And even more in love with all things Mermaid.

And even MORE in love with all things Fairy.

So really, this trip was for Miss A. There is no denying I enjoyed myself…but a healthy chunk of that enjoyment was watching how much fun Miss A had.

The husband and I had bounced the idea of a Disney trip around for awhile…always thinking it would be a few more years down the road – when both girls were old enough to enjoy it. Then I happened to have lunch with a friend who was leaving soon for a – you guessed it – trip to Disney. After hearing how cheap it was (the buy 4 days, get 3 free promotion was going on at the time) I started to wonder “what if…” just a bit. Then I told my husband about it and he sealed the deal with a simple “Let’s do it.”  Miss A was the perfect age to really enjoy all the magic of a trip to Disney: old enough to remember everything and young enough to love everything about it.

Of course,  the actual scheduling and arranging of the trip wasn’t quite so simple. Let me tell you here and now – don’t waste your time stressing about it – find a travel agent that specializes in Disney vacations. Their services are free, and priceless in the time they save you:  from planning the trip, to making hotel and dining arrangements, to finding out about little extras and special deals,  a great Disney travel agent is the first step to a great Disney trip (I should be making commercials for these guys).  Our travel agent was Lori Bandera, part of Small World Vacations, and I found her through the MouseSavers website.

That’s another thing…websites. There are an insane amount of websites devoted to Disney travel, and you could go insane trying to read them all (I did get the feeling many posters to these sites are a bit mad in the hatter). My favorite was MouseSavers, but I also found AllEars quite helpful. After that, they tend to blur together. These two sites distinguished themselves from the rest and seem to offer the most variety of info in the most depth, and they both offer e-letters with updates on all things Disney.

I think that’s enough Disney for one day; to review (in case you’re a skimmer):

1: If you are speculating on a Disney trip – go for it, there are lots of great deals right now.

2. Get a travel agent who specializes in all things Disney.

3. Use the sites to help you plan, but don’t get sucked into the insanity.

Next time: we plan how to surprise Miss A with the big news, and some ideas for creative fun ways to build the anticipation.