Strollers

So a big concern to think about for some of us is how to handle the strollers. We were just planning on renting from Disney World. One less thing to lug through the airport. Chris did point out maybe buying a couple cheap strollers down there and then just donating them to the Salvation Army when we go home.

Stroller prices are below.

Single Stroller
One day rental - $15/day
Length of stay rental (pay for the whole stay at once) - $13/day

Double Stroller
One day rental - $31/day
Length of stay rental - $27/day

I don't know if the length of stay rental has to be consecutive days or not. That poses a slight problem because of breaks in days at the park. However, I figure you could do a 2 day rental, have a break, then do a 5 day rental, just as an example.

With purchasing a collapsable stroller with a canopy, the kids can be fairly comfortable and you would have something to push them in outside of the theme parks as well. I have posted the link to a good stroller FAQ below. It also has comments from people that have done various things.

http://allears.net/pl/strol_faq.htm

Right now we have been leaning towards renting, but I think we are going to take a look at other options as well.

Character Breakfast

I was able to make reservations for a character breakfast. We are going to be having breakfast at Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. It will be on Sunday at 9:20 am. So we should probably get their when the park opens at 9. Get some pics going up main street and end up at the restaurant about 10 minutes before our seating time. They were able to do the reservation for 12 of us, but will have to split us between two tables.

The characters are generally Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet.

Ground Transportation

I have 3 Full size cars reserved. Weds evening one from Avis and one from National, both located right at airport. I will pick both up and drive them around to baggage so it will be easy for loading up and then we can go to the resort. Friday morning I have another reserved at Avis and will drive to the airport and park my other one while picking up the new one and meeting Michael and Lisa at baggage so it will be right there for you also. All cars will be turned back in right at the airport. They will be a Chevy Impala or similar size 4 doors. All cars will be automatically charged to my card so nothing is required from anyone.

Lodging

I have changed the timing of the Timeshare. The timeshare timing will be Friday May 8 - Friday May 15th. I have reserved the first arriving group to stay at the timeshare location for Weds & Thurs night and have us all staying in rooms at TownPlace Suites for the last night in town. This saves me about $170. Good deal and less moving for the first of us arriving.

Grandma Arradien

I have invited my Mom and Dick down for Friday - Sunday evening to visit. I will have them stay in the unit Mom and I are in and they will have the fold out sofa. I don't know if I will get tickets for them or not yet. This will be a rar chance for you kids to see her and Dick and a real rarity for the Great Grand kids.

Tickets

I am buying 6 day Park Hopper Passes for each person inscluding Mara. They will expire 14 days after first using them. With Some of us arriving on Weds Evening the 6th and Michael and Lisa arriving the morning of the 8th, there is really only 6.5 days for Michael and Lisa and 7.5 days for the rest of us to use the passes. Since we are having Lurlene and her family down on Sat. afternoon, it seems that it will be a tight squeeze to use all the days but it is cheaper then buying 5 days and wanting to maybe go into the parks for a few hours one day.

Universal

For all of us big kids, I have secured at least 3 free tickets to Universal. If Banana dork can get 3 more, than all of us big kids can take a day at Universal for some grown up fun.

Dining Reservations

As we are less than 90 days to departure, woo hoo, I thought this should be the first post. Disney allows you to make dining reservations up to 90 days in advance. I highly recommend that anyone making their own dining reservations do so 90 days out. You can get information regarding the restaurants at Disneyworld via the two links below.

Official Disney Site

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/restaurants/

Non-Official site with menus and all sorts of good stuff.

http://allears.net/din/dining.htm

The number for making dining reservations is below.

(407) 939-3463

Dad spoke of doing a couple special family meals. He said one of those would be the character breakfast we were talking about doing in the Magic Kingdom. We are looking at doing the reservation at 9am. That is at park opening time. They do allow you in a bit early if you have some dining reservations. We thought it would be an awesome Disney way to start the awesome Disney trip. Another time to go would be 10am. The idea would be to get about 45 to 50 minutes of rides in right at the beginning when the park opens to beat the crowds a tad and then eat breakfast. I would personally like to eat breakfast first at 9.

It Begins

Well, with less than 90 days left to our ginormous family Disneyworld vacation, I was looking for a way for the family to communicate information and make more plans for the trip. Lisa suggested creating a blog, so here it is. I will work on getting it setup so everyone can start posting to the blog. I will also post pictures and put up links in the blog to information on planning and what is down there to see. I will also try to pick a couple of topics to blog about and include links to more info on them.