We took our first family vacation to Walt Disney World in May of 2011. I loved it so much, I just couldn't wait to return. Here is our trip report from the first time. We made plans and reservations for another trip in May of 2012. Then the most wonderful thing happened... my husband gave me the go ahead to book a surprise trip for just my 5 year old son, Dominic, and myself.
Dominic's favorite holiday is Halloween. I decided to book for October 30th - November 4th. This would allow us to be able to attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, the Food & Wine Festival & see my favorite band, Hanson, perform at Epcot's Eat to the Beat concert series.
We already had a surprise 50th birthday party planned for my mother in law at our house for October 29th. Our flight was for 7:10am Sunday morning (October 30th). We decided to wake up Dominic at 3am to tell him the big surprise and head straight for the airport.
The two surprises worked out well together. My mother in law took the kids for the two days prior to her party date to give me time to "pack" when in reality, we were packed already and I was just using that time to prep for her party. We told her that we had hired a Mickey & Minnie Mouse to surprise Dominic with the big news on Saturday when she brought the kids back. They pulled into the driveway and we opened the garage to reveal everyone there for her surprise party. She had no idea!
Of course I hardly slept that night. We woke up Dominic and showed him a slideshow that I had made to surprise him with the news.
Then we gave him a box full of surprises... a tshirt that said "this is my first plane ride", a Nightmare Before Christmas stuffed toy, activity book for the plane, pirate costume for that night at the Halloween party, and a few other things. He was so excited.
We arrived at the airport and said goodbye to daddy & Lucy then we found our gate, then waited about 2 hours before getting to board. Here's a picture of Dominic at the airport:
I was super nervous but still really excited. This was only my second time ever flying and doing it alone with my 5 year old was making me even more nervous. The flight went great. We landed ahead of schedule and found the Magical Express line with no problem whatsoever.
Finally! We were home.
We landed at 10:45 and we checked into Pop Century Resort at 12:15. Our room was ready and we got all of our requests (ground floor and near transportation). We were close to the room we had on our first trip.
Since we didn't have any breakfast or lunch, we decided to go for a quick snack in the food court. We were on the deluxe dining plan which was an AMAZING experience. Luckily, we were given the quick service dining plan for free through a promotion that Disney had going on, we opted to pay an extra $250 to upgrade to the deluxe dining plan for our entire trip. To give you an idea of how much food that was. A quick service plan would allow 2 quick service meals & 2 snacks per person, per day. Then there's the regular dining plan which includes 1 table service (sit down meal), 1 quick service & 1 snack per person, per day. We got the deluxe dining plan which included 3 table services & 2 snacks per person, per day.
A table service is either equal to one buffet (including a drink) or a sit down meal (including an appetizer, entree & dessert plus a beverage). So yeah, LOTS of food. Luckily, we were going during the Food & Wine Festival which is at Epcot. They had around 30 booths set up representing all different countries and several items to choose from at each booth. Most of the items counted as snack credits. Since we had 20 snack credits to use up, this was a great time to go!
Also, included with the dining plan is one refillable mug for each person. These are available at your resort and you can refill them as much as you want. They have stations set up in the food courts to do this. Each mug retails for $14.99 so that in itself is $30 savings to start us off with.
To show what a great deal the dining plan was, I'm going to keep track through all of the meals and snacks. I'll keep totals of what it would have costed had we paid OOP (out of pocket).
Nachos & Cheese at Pop Century Food Court:
1 snack credit used - 19 snack credits left
Actual Cost - $3.99
Grand Dining Total - $33.97
After our light lunch, we headed back to the room to try to take a nap before headed to Magic Kingdom for the night. Well, you can guess how well that worked out. I was so excited, there was no way I could sleep. Dominic slept for maybe 30 minutes. We got up, got dressed in our costumes and headed for the buses! We ended up at Magic Kingdom with about an hour to spare so we sat and watched everyone start to roll in for the party. There were lots of princesses & tinkerbells dressed up. Then the cast members came out and they were all dressed in costume for the party.
They started letting everyone in for the party at 4pm sharp. We headed straight for the group of CM's to get wristbands for the night. Later on in the night they were checking people for wristbands and if you didn't have one, you got kicked out. The party tickets costed us just over $130 extra besides purchasing our regular park tickets. We got a picture in front of the castle using our Photopass and proceeded to The Plaza where we had our first ADR (advanced dinner reservation).
We had an ADR at The Plaza for 4:20. We checked in at 4:10 and got a pager then walked around the area a bit to take a few more pics. I took one of Dominic and sent it to daddy back at home. Our buzzer went off at 4:25 and we were seated immediately.
We quickly ordered. I got:
Grilled Chicken Sandwich - grilled chicken breast topped with shaved ham and Swiss cheese served on a flour-dusted Kaiser $12.49 which also came with a salad.
This was fantastic! It was a huge portion and I was only able to eat about half (still too excited I think)... but I still had dessert coming up. Dominic ordered:
A Mixed Salad & Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich - with grapes and bananas.
Dominic loved all of his food. He ate pretty much all of it which is rare for him! Then it was time for dessert. I ordered New York Style Cheesecake served with strawberries $5.49
This was great as well. I wish I could've eaten more but already, the deluxe dining plan effects had hit me full force. Too full! Dominic ordered the Mickeylodeon and yes, it was every bit as cool as the name made it sound.
2 table service credits ussed - 28 table service credits left
Actual Cost - $36.69 (without tip)
Grand Dining Total - $70.66
Would we return? Yes, for sure. I would rather not waste a table service credit though, seeing as though the food is fairly cheap (according to Disney standards). The service was excellent. We were in and out in under an hour total and on our way to enjoy the park before the party got started at 7pm.
We had good intentions searching for the Seven Dwarfs line up. On our way, Dominic spotted this play area. He couldn't resist a few trips down the slide. Then we found where the dwarfs would be and decided against wasting 2 hours of valuable park time just to get a picture with the rare Seven Dwarfs. In the end, I'm glad we made that decision. We got sooo much done in those 2 hours before the party started.
Our first ride of the trip had to be Haunted Mansion. This is Dominic's ultimate favorite (despite whatever he may tell you)... he always gets so excited going through the line and getting to play with all of the special effects they have set up. We walked right through the line and into the stretching room.
After the ride, we saw a stand selling all kinds of Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise. Dominic just HAD to have the Jack Skellington doll. After purchasing Jack, we headed over to It's a Small World. I enjoy this ride even though my husband hates it (maybe that's why I like it, haha). The ride was a walk on. Dominic pointed out all kinds of interesting things on the long, torturous boat ride.
After seeing all of the dolls, we headed over to try the Sword in the Stone.
No luck.
We took a walk over to Tomorrowland. Jack was kind enough to offer us each a hand.
Dominic spotted the People Mover and insisted that we had to ride it right away.
By the time we got off of this ride, it was pretty dark. I was so worried about rain but luckily, it held off enough to enjoy the party. We spotted a lineup for candy and walked right through the line. They had barrels of candy and were using 2 hands to take out the fistfuls for each person. Between the two of us, I knew we would be getting a lot. The first festivities we witnessed were the dance party with Goofy & Stitch going on in Tomorrowland. The music was loud and so full of energy. It hadn't even felt like I had one hour sleep in the last 37 hours. Dominic danced a bit and then we headed over to the castle to claim a spot for the parade which was at 8:30. We were dead center with the castle on the otherside of the hub.
and here come the balloons
and the man of the hour gallopped by (rather quickly!)
Shortly after the horseman rode through, there were two cast members walking down the street. one of them had a giant bag full of candy. He tripped and fell and spilled the candy everywhere. The other cast member motioned for all the kids to come and grab some candy. Dominic ran out there and then they started yelling only two per kid. He came back with 2 Mickey suckers and was upset that he wasn't able to grab two more for myself & daddy. lol... Now it is time for the Boo to You Parade!!!
After the parade, we moved across the street to the center of the hub. Dead on with the castle. Dominic enjoyed a Mickey sucker.
After Hallowishes, we made our way up to the castle to watch the Villains show. We knew we had to get in line before the show started in order to meet one of them immediately following the show (this is where good planning comes into action!) Our man was Captain Hook and we were first in line! The cast member yelled for everyone to line up behind Snow White (me) if they wanted to meet Captain Hook.
Dominic was so excited to meet Captain Hook finally. Afterwards we headed over to the Haunted Mansion to go for another ride and get some Photopass pictures taken. We saw a lady selling light up toys and decided to get a light up skull. We wanted one of these last time we were here.
We saw a maid just outside the Haunted Mansion and stopped to get our picture with her. Then we did some more trick or treating & a few more Photopass stops.
After getting pictures taken we stopped to buy a bottle of water & a popcorn souvenir bucket. I paid for these out of pocket since I didn't want to waste a snack credit on a simple water. The popcorn bucket could not have a credit used. But it was just too darn cute to pass up. Here's a picture of Dominic, hanging out with all our goods.
By this point it was a little after 11:00 and it started to drizzle lightly. We started heading out of the park but passed by Diamond Horseshoe and just couldn't pass it up. There was a Toy Story dance party going on inside. As we entered there was a trick or treating point where we got even more candy. The music was loud & fun. Woody & Jessie were line dancing with everyone. It was a nice break from the park for awhile.
We started heading out of the park after this. Only one more stop...
The wait was less than 5 minutes so we just had to do it. I wish we would've gone into the Princess line as well seeing as though it was 40 minutes but we were pretty tired by this point. We got back to the resort and the lights went out by 1am. Tomorrow was actually Halloween & Epcot Day.
Here's a picture of all our candy from that night:
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