July 4th at Disney World

Oh I already know, it's going to be hot and humid and crowded, blah blah blah. I'm still totally psyched!

Photo courtesy of The Disney Blog.com

I mean, come on, July is supposedly the most crowded month because it's the month when 'most' kids have the entire month off from school and the week of July 4th is THE most crowded because parents don't need to take as much time off of work because of the holiday... and CHECK THIS OUT, I managed to get the following ADRs:

• Mon. 7/1- Be Our Guest 8:05 pm
• Wed. 7/3 - Chef Mickey's 7:30
• Thurs. 7/4 - Biergarten 6:45
• Fri. 7/5 - 'Ohana 7:10 

I purposely did Biergarten on July 4th because my plan is to see the Magic Kingdom's 4th of July fireworks on July 3rd ;) So, on the 3rd, we have dining reservations at Chef Mickey's for 7:30 pm. Immediately after dinner we can watch the fireworks from either:

• the breezeway between the Contemporary Resort and Bay Lake Tower
• OUR ROOM at Bay Lake Tower
• The Top of the World Lounge at Bay Lake Tower
• if we have enough time, maybe the beach at the Polynesian :)

Then on the 4th of July, we'll be in Epcot to catch Illuminations - it starts at 10 pm instead of 9 pm and has a special holiday ending! The only thing I couldn't work out was making it to DHS. Disney’s Hollywood Studios will have a special 4th of July fireworks presentation at 10:15 pm.

I am SOOOO STOKED!

Gearing Up Again

I can't believe we are almost at the 2 month mark until our next WDW vacation! We have never been there over the 4th of July, so I'm excited to go - despite the heat and humidity I am anticipating.  We'll be resort hopping again too!

June 30 - July 3 we will be at Port Orleans Riverside.
July 3 - July 6 we will be at Bay Lake Tower, in a one bedroom villa with a theme park view. However, I did put us on a wait-list for the Beach Club Villas :)

We will also eat at Be Our Guest for the first time! Although I couldn't get a reservation earlier than 8:05 pm, we're still all looking forward to it!

We are going back to Chef Mickey's too. Some of you may know CJ and I don't really like Chef Mickey's, but the last time we were there it wasn't too bad and the kids loved it!

Disney During Christmas Week

In 2012, we took our first trip to WDW during Christmas week. We arrived on Dec. 27th and checked out on Dec. 31st. Since we drove, we did get 5 full days out of the trip. The one I question I always get is, "was it crowded?" Well, what do you think?

Yea, it's crowded. It's also completely AMAZING there during Christmas week - this coming from ME, Christmas is my least favorite holiday.

If you have never been to WDW, I do NOT recommend your first visit be during this time of year, I don't care how sappy you are about the holidays and how magical you think it will be. If you don't know how to navigate the parks and crowds, you'll be miserable!

Don't worry though, I'll be posting my top tips for taking a WDW vacation during Christmas week - stay tuned!

We're Back From Disney

We have been back from our Disney trip since January 1st. It was a blast and returning to 'reality' really stinks!

So what did I do? I booked another trip - but I'll get to that later. For now, I just want to outline what's coming:

• Reviews! Lots of them! Port Orleans Riverside, Disney Quest, 1900 Park Fare, and Chef Mickey's to name a few.
• My thoughts on Going to Disney during "Christmas Week"

On Disney Vacation Trip Reports:

• Finish our March 2012 DisneyMoon Trip Report
• Give a summary of our October Trip
• Start (and finish) our December 2012 Trip Report

All Packed for Walt Disney World!

Amazingly I got us all packed (for the most part) without the boys noticing! We head out tomorrow. We're driving and of course the weather all along the east coast is going to be crappy. Snow, sleet, rain from here in Pa to probably Maryland, then rain, some heavy rain at times, severe thunderstorms, hail, wind gusts up to 45 mph, and oh, maybe tornadoes...fun...

We're leaving here around 7:30-8am, hopefully we'll get out of here before the snow/sleet hits us and then by the time we get near NC/SC the worst of the thunderstorms and wind will have passed. If you want to stay in the loop, I post real time updates and photos on my blog - Disney Family's Adventures and Plans as well as my Disney Facebook Page so keep up with me there :)

Checked In To Port Orleans Riverside

I just completed the online check in for POR! I cannot believe we'll be there in just 10 days! I am soooo excited, I feel like I could burst!

WDW in 16 Days!

Not sure why my little countdown thingy says 15 days, it's actually 16 BUT we are leaving in 15 days, so I'll take it! Keeping this from the kids is killing me! The only one who could possibly find out by reading these blog posts or seeing something on Facebook is Olivia and she has never really bothered to pay attention to either site. I hope this isn't the time when she decides to start reading!

I cannot wait to take in the view of all the parks and as many resorts as we can see! I just LOVE this photo of Mickey and Minnie: