We're Outnumbered! 6 kids, 5 adults, and 1 hurricane - Sept/Oct 2022 (complete 6/15)

[Disney102015]

Hi all! I’m H - welcome to my third trip report! I’ve previously written about our 2021 Memorial Day getaway as a family of 4, and our winter 2022 trip with a baby on board. This time, we were at Disney for the first time as a family of 5, from 9/24/22-10/3/22!

But it wasn’t just the 5 of us this time - we were joined by my mom, my sister, brother-in-law, and 3 nieces! Hence the title - we were outnumbered, 6 kids to 5 grownups! (For most of the trip, anyway - my mom’s best friend joined for the first couple days and evened out our numbers.)

You’ll also notice from the TR title that Hurricane Ian rolled through and disrupted our trip. I hesitated a little in starting this TR because I came home still feeling a bit bummed about the ways our trip did NOT go as planned. (Testing positive for Covid the day after we came home didn’t help, either.) Don’t get me wrong, we still had a great time and are SO grateful we were somewhere safe and didn’t experience any of the more damaging effects - but I think when you spend so much time planning something (especially a Disney vacation which requires SO MUCH detailed planning) it’s normal to feel a bit bummed when things don’t go exactly according to plan. #First world problems, I know. But starting to go through my photos and write up this report has reminded me how much we DID get to do, and the many many magical moments we did experience, so I’m ready to re-live the fun with you all!

Let’s start with our cast of characters. Like I said, I’m H. I’m a huge WDW fan and usually the main planner of these trips, but this time I had a partner in crime in Sister! I can’t choose a favorite park, but my favorite rides are Cosmic Rewind, Flight of Passage, and It’s a Small World. I love planning our dining for our Disney trips - good food and drinks are a huge part of vacation for me - and especially love watching my kids’ interests change every trip we take.

Husband likes to pretend he just goes along with my love for Disney, but we bought DVC this year so I think he likes Disney a bit more than he lets on He’s not a roller coaster guy but loves Test Track, and he’s always happy to find a cold beverage while watching the little kids so I can get my adrenaline fix.

We have 3 kids - C is 4.5 and he’s got a need for speed! He also loves to see characters, but from a distance (although Mickey high fives became a favorite this trip). Little G is my wild woman - she turned 2 the day after this trip ended (had to get in one last flight with her as a lap baby!) She loves Frozen and Rapunzel, and her favorite characters are Groot and Beast. Last but not least is Baby E, our 3 month old! She seemed to enjoy things with music, like It’s a Small World, and otherwise was along for the ride, being her smiley and easygoing self!

Next up is Sister and her family. As I mentioned, Sister is my partner in crime and BFF. We planned this trip together for over a year and had SO much fun doing it. Her and her husband, my BIL, also have 3 kids, my nieces J (8), S (4), and H (2). J is the coolest 8 year old you’ll ever meet, S is into all things pink and princess, and H is just a hilarious little ball of energy who seemed to enjoy just about everything. It was so, so special to get to take this trip with all of them. It was H’s first trip, and on our last extended family trip J was 5 and S was just a baby - so it had been a while. Rounding out our crew was my mom, and for the first few days of the trip, my mom’s BFF, D. Mom also hadn’t been since 2018, so a lot was new to her.

So that’s our crew, which required 3 strollers and a wheelchair, so all our arms got a workout this trip. It was a bit of a learning curve, especially getting on and off the buses with so much STUFF, but we figured it out and made it work. We did a 9 night split stay between the Polynesian and Animal Kingdom Lodge. At the Poly, we had 3 studios - we were supposed to be there for 5 nights but ended up staying 6, due to the hurricane. Our original plan way back when we started planning was to rent a 2 bedroom at AKL, but then we found out we were expecting Baby E and that pushed us over the room capacity limit! (I told you we had been planning this trip for a long time, haha.) So for the second half of our trip at AKL (Jambo House) we had 1 studio and 1 one-bedroom (savanna view) - this was supposed to be for 4 nights, but ended up just 3.

WHEW - that’s a lot of info before even getting into our travel day so I think I’ll stop there and pick up the next update with travel. Thanks for following along!!

 

[motherof5]

We usually go 9 kids, 4 adults. Always outnumbered, but doable and fun! Enjoy

 

[TinkerPan]

Looking forward to hearing more. We will be 6 adults and 3 toddlers when we go Sept. 2023. (2 sets of grandparents, 1 set of parents) and toddlers (12 months, 2 yr. 10 months and 4 1/2 yr old). So, hoping to gain some insights into traveling with such a crew from your trip report..

 

[rdkeim]

Sounds fun! Minus the hurricane....Following!

 

[footballmouse]

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[piglet1979]

Following along. I can't wait to hear more.

 

[Paulaparm]

Following along

 

[Disney102015]

Travel Day: Off to Orlando!​

I said next up would be our travel day, but I really need to back up a couple days before that, when Tropical Depression 9 first appeared on our radar. At the time we expected this to turn into Hermine but another storm beat it to the punch and this would be the storm that turned into Hurricane Ian.

​

We had some very brief discussions at that point about whether rescheduling made sense, but the track was so uncertain, and the impact still a number of days away, that we decided pretty quickly to forge ahead. Otherwise, the lead up to travel day was pretty uneventful - I hit my goal of finishing all the packing before heading to my haircut and pedicure appointments the evening before our flight and felt like we were in really good shape! We were bringing 1 more bag than I anticipated but we get free checked bags on Delta so that didn’t bother me too much - I’d prefer that to overstuffing a bag and trying to rearrange things at the counter to get below the weight limit. Am I speaking from past experience? Yes, yes I am.

Saturday morning dawned early but not TOO early - for once, we had booked a flight at the reasonable hour of 11:55am. We had purchased advance tickets for the park and ride, rather than paying for 10 days of airport parking, so this meant leaving ourselves some extra time to get to the airport. We left the house by 7:45am and picked up mom on the way. We pulled into the park and ride at 8:25am….only to be turned away because the lot was full! Gah! We were given instructions on how to get a refund for the tickets we had purchased, and sent on our way to park at the airport. Obviously the airport parking is way more convenient, but it was a bummer to have to pay the (much) higher cost. Oh well, nothing we could do.

The Delta check in process was long and complicated, which was partially our own fault. We had booked the flights using a combination of points, companion tickets, and cash, resulting in a total of three separate reservations. Each reservation had a Delta cardholder on it so we’d all get free luggage, but when we went to the check in kiosk, we were all getting charged for luggage for some reason. Sister and her crew, plus mom’s friend D, were coming from a park and ride in another area (we live an hour apart) so they weren’t there yet, so we printed all the boarding passes and decided to see if we could sort out the baggage situation while we waited for them.

Well, apparently that’s a big no-no. The first thing the lady at the counter did when we got up there was shred Sister’s boarding passes, and said we could reprint them when they got there. Apparently you’re not allowed to print someone else’s boarding pass if they haven’t arrived yet, even if they’re on your itinerary? Oops. Anyway, she got one of our itineraries sorted with the free luggage (not sure why it wasn’t working at the kiosk) but we had to hop out of line and wait for everyone else to arrive before we could get any further.

Sister arrived a few minutes later and we hopped back in the long line to square away the rest of our luggage. Ultimately everyone got their free luggage, as we had expected - again, not sure why this wasn’t registering at the kiosk but oh well. At this point I was very glad we had arrived so early to the airport because just getting TO security was taking a lot longer than I had anticipated!

Security itself went shockingly smoothly! I wore baby E in the Ergo and we got our first of many “you’ve got your hands full!” remarks. But the kids were very attentive and aside from G insisting she needed to take her shoes off (she’s much too little), all was very quick and we were at our gate by 10:30! We had reserved a wheelchair for Mom (this is very easy to do on your Delta account, under “assistive devices”) but she decided she didn’t need it to get to our gate and walked by herself.

Once settled at our gate, we found some open space for the kids to run off some energy. There wasn’t much open near our gate - husband waited in the Dunks line which turned out to be one of the longest lines of the trip! And got some munchkins and donuts for the kiddos. Little G especially was absolutely wild - rolling around and laying on her back with her feet in the air. Yikes. We figured we better just let her get it out of her system before we boarded, and just kind of let her do her thing. I also laid out a blanket to let Baby E stretch her legs a bit before sticking her back in the Ergo for the flight.

Have I mentioned I am a REALLY anxious flier? I am a really anxious flier. I wish I wasn’t, but I’ve done a fear of flying course and everything and it did not help. I used to take a sedative to fly but that’s not super productive with 3 kids, so I was eyeballing the bar next to our gate as soon as we settled in. They didn’t open til 11, and we were scheduled to board at 11:20 so I knew I was going to have to be efficient. As soon as they opened, I ordered 2 beverages to soothe my nerves, and right after that it was time to board.

Boarding also went really smoothly. We had 3 full rows on the right side of the plane, plus Mom across the aisle. I was in the window next to H, with Sister in the aisle. I had Baby E in my lap, and Little G was also still a lap baby (she turned 2 right after the trip), so my husband and I couldn’t sit together - only 1 lap baby is allowed per row. I did enjoy G peeking her little face over the seat to say hi from time to time during the flight! C sat next to my husband and G.

The flight attendants handed out wings to all the kids and of course Sister and I teared up at this adorable gesture. The flight attendant told me I had to unbuckle the Ergo for takeoff, but didn’t have to take it off. I’ve posted on a few threads here about my different experiences with this but basically: allowed to wear Ergo, no questions asked (Delta and JetBlue), made to remove Ergo entirely and hold baby in my lap (JetBlue), and made to unbuckle only (Delta). The lack of standardization is definitely a little frustrating and I certainly feel more comfortable with Baby E snugly buckled into her Ergo for takeoff and landing, but oh well.

Take off was pretty smooth and I felt fairly calm til H said “whoaaaa, so wobbly!” That made me start to feel nervous but then as we got into the clouds I heard C shout “HEY! Where is God?!!” so that laughter helped me relax a bit. I also got a celebratory glass of Prosecco, so that also aided in the relaxation! The flight attendant asked if we were headed to Disney (E and G were dressed in matching Minnie Mouse rompers) and it turns out she used to play Princess Tiana!

Baby E was a dream and slept almost the entire flight. H watched Daniel Tiger for a while on the iPad (she was obsessed with the Tiger Family Trip episode since we were also going on a family trip - too cute) but started to get a bit more restless an hour or so into the flight. Luckily we had both her and C strapped into the FAA-approved harnesses so she couldn’t escape easily - she did keep trying to unbuckle her seat belt but the harness kept her in place. She got somewhat frustrated and my sister tried to settle her down. “This is just like your car seat, H!” “But this is a PLANE!” she shouted back, totally indignant. Luckily Sister had made all the kids these adorable busy boxes with items they could play with on the plane - these boxes would be a lifesaver multiple times during the trip!

I ended up paying $5 to buy WiFi for the flight since I hadn’t set up my Instacart order yet and wanted to get that squared away. I was surprised how good the connection was on the plane! We landed right around 2:40pm so we were more than 30 minutes early, which was great. Like I mentioned before, we had booked a wheelchair for Mom through the Delta app, and although she decided not to use it before takeoff, a wheelchair was waiting for us when we deplaned so she decided to use it since we knew it could be a hike to baggage and ground transport. This turned out to be a huge help, as the wheelchair assistant was able to help us figure out exactly where we were going.

The luggage came out quickly and we had our (million) bags by 3:20 - which was good, because the kids had descended into total chaos. Speaking of chaos - the Sunshine Flyer outdoor boarding area was BONKERS. Just a huge mass of people with one attendant marking names off on a clipboard. I didn’t have high hopes for getting on a bus anytime soon when I saw those crowds, but our name was actually called very quickly and we were on a bus by 3:37! We were pulling away 5 minutes later and a few of the kids dozed off while we made stops at Port Orleans Riverside, Wilderness Lodge, and Contemporary before pulling into the Polynesian at 4:45!

We hadn’t done online check in but we had faxed room requests for our 3 rooms through Touring Plans, so we went to the front desk to make sure we had rooms close together if possible. Honestly, the next 2 hours were the most stressful of the trip and had me questioning my sanity in bringing 6 kids including a newborn to Disney! Luckily this was the only time it happened this whole trip, but it was a very hectic couple of hours. First the front desk had no record of our room request (which was basically just “near each other”) and as a result we were in different buildings. This was an issue particularly for mom, as someone would have to go to her building and push her wheelchair for her to be able to come and go. It took a LONG wait but eventually they got us all moved to Pago Pago - Sister and I on the second floor, mom and D on the third floor.

(I should mention, we didn’t bother requesting a ground floor room because we assumed we’d have no issue with the elevators. However, the elevators at Pago Pago are fairly small and this proved very inconvenient when trying to get around with 2 double strollers, a single stroller, and a wheelchair. In retrospect, I’d highly recommend requesting a ground floor room at the Poly if you’re traveling with more than 1 rolling item - it just took too many elevator trips to get us all to our respective floors each time we came and went.)

As soon as we were done with check in we got the alert that Instacart was arriving - which was great, except we were still in the lobby with all our luggage, and the strollers and wheelchair hadn’t arrived yet. After several sweaty trips back and forth to Pago Pago, we got the 6 kids (and no strollers!), luggage, and groceries over to our rooms (DVC standard view studios). The strollers arrived shortly after that (so another trip over to Pago Pago) and the crib we rented arrived shortly after that.

(We rented the crib because Baby E sleeps in a Snoo, which is basically a robot crib that rocks her in response to her cries. A few weeks prior to this, we went on another vacation without the Snoo and let’s put it this way: at 2am one sleepless night on that trip, I googled and found Babyquip, a company which would deliver a Snoo to us at the Poly and save our Disney vacation.)

Apparently while I was waiting in the lobby for Instacart, and part of our group was lugging stuff/kids to Pago Pago, C hopped in the elevator and the doors somehow shut behind him before anyone else got in. I am still not entirely clear on how this occurred but I do know Uncle J was quite surprised when the doors opened on the second floor of Pago Pago and his 4 year old nephew was standing in the elevator alone.

WHEW! I am not sure I am accurately conveying how hectic those couple hours were, but by the time all the kids and STUFF were settled in our rooms, we were all totally beat. Any thoughts of evening pool time went out the window - C was super bummed about this but I distracted him with the busy boxes Sister had made and that worked like a charm. We did make it over to Captain Cook’s, which was super crowded - it was almost a 20 minute wait from the time we clicked “I’m here!” to the time our food was ready. The food was just ok - I think maybe it had been sitting out a while before we were notified it was ready? - but it was sufficient for a group of tired travelers who just wanted to grab a quick bite and settle in for the evening.

We got back to the room and found the “Tinkerbell gift” I had ordered from a furloughed cast member company. For each room, there was a popcorn bucket with a squishable (squishamal?) for each kid, plus some candy and snacks. The kids loved it. I unpacked a bit and everyone was lights out by 9:15pm. We had a big day at Magic Kingdom planned for the following morning!

 

[Counting Stars]

Following!

 

[Disney102015]

Magical Morning​

First park day, first park day! I was wide awake by 5:30am - I tried to go back to sleep but was all amped up for the 7am Genie madness and just tossed and turned. I finally got up and got ready, and the kids followed soon after. Most of our crew was outside just before 7am, and I purchased LL for SDMT from 9-10am while Sister grabbed our first Genie selection.

We were at the Great Ceremonial House by 7:17 and cruising away on the monorail by 7:23. Security was fairly quick considering the size of our group, and we were tapping in by 7:35. Early entry was 7:30, so we were off to a great start!

Is there anything like that first view of the castle once you step onto Main Street? Our first stop was for a group photo, which I am SO glad we did - with a group this large we got very few pics with the entire group so I am so grateful we have this one. We immediately got our first DAS for Winnie the Pooh, with a return anytime after 7:42, but first we were headed to It’s a Small World! Riding this first is a family tradition.
This was our first time using a wheelchair in Disney so we weren’t entirely sure of the procedure. Turns out it can be a bit different at every ride. A CM directed us to the wheelchair entrance and we made our way down the ramp. The CM at the bottom asked if mom could transfer and there seemed to be some confusion about that because she let the next wheelchair accessible boat pass us by. Luckily mom decided she felt comfortable transferring so we were on a boat in just a few minutes.

The ride was cute as usual - it was great to watch the kids’ faces as they took in their first ride of the trip (or first ride ever, in the case of Baby E and Little H!) We were off by 8:20 and decided to do the Carousel. Again there was some confusion with the wheelchair situation - we were sent to a different entrance but there was no CM over there so we got forgotten about for a while. It was no big deal, just confusing. Once we got someone’s attention we were on quickly. Next we stopped to see if anyone could pull the sword from the stone - no such luck, but we did get some awesome Photopass photos of each kid trying their hardest! Then we popped into Sir Mickeys for some pixie dust before heading to our DAS at Winnie the Pooh. The posted wait was 20 minutes and we waited about 7. We scheduled our next DAS for Dumbo, which was booking for just 5 minutes out but we had a few other stops to make first!

We had our LL for SDMT so we split into 2 groups to ride - we didn’t need to use rider swap since we had LLs. Sister and I waited with the 3 littles and I gave E a bottle while we waited for them to come back, then Sister and I rode. Everyone was off by 9:30 and we hit the teacups next. A 10 minute wait was posted and that was just about accurate. Mom and her friend decided to sit this one out so I was able to leave the baby with them and ride with Husband and the big kids. We were off by 9:56 and headed to our Dumbo DAS. Little G was not at ALL sure about this flying elephant business and had me keep the elephant down low most of the ride - til the end, when all the elephants go up to the top, which she did not appreciate! Luckily she didn’t seem too traumatized.

Next up was Barnstormer, which had a posted wait time of 10 minutes at 10:30, which was again accurate. It was cool to see a peek of the Tron construction from the line. The Barnstormer was exciting because H was juuuust big enough to ride and she was so pumped. Everyone had watched lots of ride videos leading up to the trip and she had insisted she was going to ride Slinky Dog but we knew she’d be way too small (she’s just 2.5) so it was great she was able to ride this. She absolutely loved it! G was just a smidge too short so she waited with daddy and Baby E.

We had had a great morning but the littles were starting to fade so it was time for a break. We ended up following a cavalcade down Main Street as we made our way out - that Magic Is Calling song makes me tear up for some reason and I had tears streaming down my face by the time we got to the exit. We had been planning this trip for so long and I was SO grateful everyone was here and healthy and enjoying themselves. We were just having the best day! We were on the monorail by 11:15 and back at Pago Pago by 12:04.

Next up, our MK afternoon!

 

[Disney102015]

MK Afternoon ​

We were back at Pago Pago by 12:04 and I had G and E asleep by 12:15, while everyone else hit the pool. The little ladies were exhausted! This was a little bit of a bummer because it meant I missed out on pool time but such is life when traveling with 3 littles! I knew E would nap on the go but G would not enjoy her afternoon if she didn’t get a nap. I dozed for a few minutes myself but not long. It was still nice to get off my feet and be lazy in the a/c for a bit. There was also the issue of needing to set an alarm to continue to book Genie reservations which interferes with my slumber. At 12:30, I picked up our next reservation for Peter Pan for 4:35-5:35.
We had meant to leave MK a bit earlier than we did so our afternoon break was a little abbreviated but still worth it, I think. We were back on the monorail by 2:13 and tapping back in at MK by 2:23. This is why I love staying at the monorail resorts, especially with small children who need a midday break. It was hot, hot, hot and super sunny this afternoon. Our first stop was to lather everyone up with sunscreen, then we were off to meet Mickey and Minnie!
Mom’s friend D is super crafty and had made all the kids matching dresses (and a shirt for C) with Mickey and Minnie fabric. These were perfect to wear to meet the mice!


We tapped in to our Genie+ reservation right at 2:30 and had a short wait before meeting the characters. G and H were absolutely nuts during the few minutes we were in line and it made me very thankful for Genie+, even though I don’t love the system. Next up was Pirates. Have I mentioned yet how hot it was? Surface of the sun hot. It was so nice to get inside at Pirates where it was cool. We had also stacked up Genie+ for this ride - it looked like the line was still huge from the outside but it moved very quickly. G was a little nervous in the darkness on Pirates but mostly did fine. Afterward it was time for more sunscreen!

Next we split off from Mom and D. We had a reservation at Skipper Canteen and the menu wasn’t really appealing to them. I think they stopped at Casey’s on their way out of the park while the rest of us headed to the restaurant. We had 2 reservations 5 minutes apart and asked to be seated near each other. We ended up in the same room but not at tables near each other, which was a bummer but we knew there was no guarantee. We just hadn’t had any luck getting a reservation for a party of 10.

I forget if I mentioned this was a party night, but we saw two women dressed as Rapunzel and her mother while we were waiting outside the restaurant. C said “mama I want to go say hi…but I’m worried about HER,” pointing to the mother. He begged me to go over and say hi to Rapunzel for him, which was very cute. I went over and told her a little boy wanted to come say hi but was too shy - she gave C a wave, which made his day. He was convinced it was the real Rapunzel.

Skipper Canteen had just started serving alcoholic drinks (other than wine and beer) a week or two before our visit, so Husband and I each indulged in a beverage. I had the Skipper Sangria which was delicious - not too sweet - and Husband had the Golden Haze Margarita. I ordered off the kids menu since I wasn’t feeling too adventurous - our waiter explained something about each item being charged separately when you order off the kids menu as an adult which was fine. I got the kids steak which came with a huge helping of potatoes as well. It was really good! The bad part of the meal came when I was holding E and noticed the front of my dress was all wet…then noticed the back of E’s outfit was all wet…and brown…ugh! Yes, we had a diaper blowout at Skipper Canteen. Luckily I had a spare outfit for E, but no such luck for me and I had to rinse my dress out as best I could in the bathroom. At least being in a soaking wet dress helped keep me somewhat cool? The joys of traveling with babies!

We left the restaurant at 4:50 and were tapping into Jungle Cruise for a Genie+ reservation at 4:52. (We had snagged this right at 10am.) The wait was posted at 40 minutes and the boarding area was a zoo. G was pretty amped up from sitting still at the restaurant and…don’t judge me…we decided to break out her leash. Yes, I brought a leash for my kid. No, we don’t usually do this. But G is a very, VERY active little one and is very fast, and we knew we’d also have our hands full with 2 other little kids, so we decided buying a backpack with a leash might be safer for her on this trip just in case. We probably should’ve tested it out at home first because as soon as we put it on her she promptly ran as far away from me as she could get, and face planted when the line ran out of slack. She was fine though, and the leash kept her from landing in the water while we waited for our boat. The Jungle Cruise was funny as always. We had a great skipper.

Next up we had Genie+ for Peter Pan. We were hustling a bit as the park closed to non-party guests at 6:00 and we still wanted to accomplish a couple things. We tapped in at 5:35 and a 50 minute wait was posted, but we were on and off in about 10 minutes. We had one final DAS booked for SDMT - Sister and her family decided to skip this as they wanted to hit one of the stores on Main Street before 6:00 hit. Since we had 2 adults and 3 kids, 2 of which were too small to ride, we were doing rider swap for SDMT and C got to ride twice, once with each parent. Since it was so close to closing, they were doing an “internal rider swap” - so instead of putting the swap on our Magic Bands and having us come back, they had us all wait at the ride exit for the rest of the party to come back. This was a bit of a challenge as I was holding Baby E, and Little G was SO DONE and kept trying to run into the crowds of people exiting the ride every few minutes. (I had not thought to bring her leash into the ride area.) It actually took about 25 minutes to get both of our parties through the ride. But it was totally worth it to get to ride - we tapped in right at 5:55 and the wait was posted at 50 minutes.

Soon we were headed back to our stroller and out of the park, under some seriously dark and threatening skies. We were kind of swimming upstream as most people were entering the park for the Halloween party. We made it to the ferry line just as the skies absolutely opened up - luckily we were just barely under the tent when they did! We were on the boat at 6:37 and back in the room by 6:58 - soaked to the bone after running back from the boat in the rain.

We were all full from dinner and everyone was too exhausted to bother hitting the pool once the rain let up. C was playing with the couple of toys we brought and tossing around an empty water bottle and I heard him quietly singing to himself “it’s a small water bottle after all,” haha. He was asleep by 8:00 which is relatively early for him - he actually fell asleep sitting up on the bed! I did make a run down to Tiki Terrace to grab a nightcap for DH and I - Hippopoto-Mai tai for him and a Tahitian torch for me. Everyone wound down for the night in preparation for a big Epcot day tomorrow!

 

[Disney102015]

Epcot​

We were up bright and early for our Epcot day, and our first time trying out a Virtual Queue! My notes from this day are a bit sketchier because the day was a bit more…let’s say arduous than the prior day, which had gone so smoothly. It certainly wasn’t a bad day, just a long one with a sort of comedy of errors thrown in

But I’m getting ahead of myself! At 6:30 we placed our order for Captain Cook’s breakfast and showed up right on time for our 7am arrival window. We ate a quick breakfast and in the meantime got our VQ for Guardians - boarding group 102! We were hoping to ride Guardians twice so also purchased a LL and got 9:45-10:45. We also bought Genie for this day which I really regret because I don’t know if we ended up using it at all. We booked a LL for Remy’s at 7:02am but it was already booking out to 6pm. Our optimistic plan was to spend the morning at Epcot, take a midday break, then go back at night, but we knew that’d all depend on how the kids were holding up and ultimately (spoiler alert!) we didn’t end up going back in the evening. Oh well, live and learn!

We were at the TTC just before 8am - let me tell you, those ramps look a LOT bigger when your group is pushing 3 strollers and a wheelchair. Remind me to do some hill training before our next trip with kids, haha. We were on the monorail at 8:08 and moving by 8:13, and off by 8:23. The first stop was sunscreen - remember when I said the day before was blazing hot? Well, this day felt, by far, like the hottest day of the trip. We ended up doing a lot of walking and backtracking around due to the construction walls so maybe that’s why it felt so hot but WHEW, we were soaked in sweat before 9am.

I believe our first stop was Spaceship Earth, which I believe we had a LL or same day DAS for. Baby E cried the entire ride - I felt terrible for anyone sitting around us but Sister was in the cart next to us and said she could barely hear her so hopefully it wasn’t too bad. This was the only ride she cried on! Next we headed to our Guardians LL. I was so, so, so excited for this - we had watched ride videos to see if it might be something DH would ride, but it’s so dark in there I still had no real idea what to expect. DH and mom decided to sit out the first round to see what we thought of the ride and then would decide after if they wanted to ride during our VQ time slot.

We were headed into Guardians right at 9:35 but didn’t get on the ride until about 10:00. Even the LL was moving pretty slowly. Here is a parenting tip for you - always test out a ride before bringing your kid on it if you aren’t sure what to expect, especially if they’re juuuust squeaking by on the height requirement. In an epic parenting fail, Sister and I brought our 4 year olds S and C on the ride and WOW was it more intense than we imagined. We should’ve known right from the pre show when S started crying (“Are we really in space??!”) The ride was amazing but I spent most of it trying to look at C and reassure him that death wasn’t imminent. I’m not sure I succeeded. When our car pulled back into the exit, S was in tears, C just kept repeating “I don’t want to do that again, I don’t want to do that again,” and even J (who is 9) was pretty freaked out! We felt pretty badly - although in our defense, they had all been really excited to ride!

Needless to say, we reassured mom and DH that they had made the right choice in skipping the ride since they were iffy about it in the first place and it was pretty intense (amazing, but intense!) We had to make a stop at the gift shop because Little G’s most favorite character is Groot. She loves the little shorts on Disney+ and thinks he is hysterical. We ended up bringing home a Groot stuffy and a few Groot figurines of varying sizes.

Next up we had Soarin at 10:30. This is where the day sort of went haywire. First, things got very confusing with DAS + rider swap, where you aren’t allowed to bring strollers in the building. It was super crowded at the entrance and things were just very chaotic. We were told by the CM to bring in the Magic Bands for the people riding in the second group to get the swap put on the bands at the Soarin entrance, but then the CM at the entrance made it seem like this was not what we were supposed to do and it was all very confusing. Also, there was only 1 elevator running so we waited almost 20 minutes for the elevator to get down to the level where the ride was, then we waited quite a while to actually board the ride. (I think this is important to mention for DAS purposes - you still may end up needing to wait in a lengthy line at times and should have some strategies for coping with that if possible.)

Altogether it took almost an hour for our first group to get through the line and ride (including the elevator wait time). We got back outside and sent our other group in, while the rest of us took the little kids to The Seas to get out of the blistering heat. I think this was the only other time we broke out G’s leash, as it was very crowded in there and our adult to child ratio was not ideal. One very funny thing happened while we were looking at the tank - we were all wearing matching shirts that said “Disney squad” on this day. There was a diver in the tank who was signing messages to everyone watching and he caught sight of me with 5 kids under the age of 4 all in matching t-shirts. He made a big show of counting them all up them pointing at me like I was crazy! I shook my head and pointed to the 3 that are mine (still kind of crazy!) It was really cute and the kids got a kick out of it.

It was almost noon by the time our second group got through Soarin and we trekked back to Test Track, where we had made a same day DAS reservation. By now everyone was hot, tired and hangry - we were fading fast but decided to squeeze in one last ride before leaving. We once again did rider swap and I think the posted wait was around 60 minutes. Luck was not on our side today as the ride went down while our first group was waiting and they didn’t get on the ride til almost 1:00. Meanwhile we waited outside and kept the littles busy with popcorn and a bubble wand. It would not be the only time the popcorn bucket and bubble wand helped save our sanity this trip! I entered the queue with our second group around 1:08 and we got stuck in the car designing room for quite a while - maybe half an hour. An announcement came on that there would be an extended delay. Luckily it wasn’t toooooo long and we ultimately enjoyed our ride, but boy was everyone ready for a break after that.

We contemplated getting lunch before leaving Epcot but all the mobile order windows were pretty far out so we headed out. We mobile ordered Captain Cooks to bring back to our respective rooms so everyone could take a breather and get off their feet for a bit. After everyone was a little refreshed and fed, we headed down to the pool! I love love love the Poly pool and if I have one regret from this trip (well, other than the hurricane) it’s that I didn’t get a whole lot of pool time. But we made the most of it this afternoon! The adults grabbed a few much needed adult beverages and the kids had a ball in the splash pad area and taking turns going down the slide.

It was a really nice hour or so before the clouds rolled in just as we were getting ready to head back to Epcot for our 6:00 Remy’s LL. The skies opened up and it was thundering and lightning quite a bit. We all reconvened in the lobby of Pago Pago and no one was comfortable venturing out to walk to the TTC with all the lightning (plus we doubted if the monorail would be running). It was a bummer, but it didn’t look like our evening at Epcot would be happening. DH and I would’ve gone over after the storm stopped (our kids are night owls anyway) but our kids were unusually sleepy that night so we decided to skip it. We were a little bummed but we had an excellent Epcot day later in the trip so that totally made up for it, and I think everyone benefited from getting a bit more rest. Once the storm stopped, we ordered Kona Cafe to go at 6:50, with a a 7:50 arrival window. We ate and called it an early night!

So, again, not a bad day but ultimately probably my least favorite day of the trip. It was just SO hot and there were some frustrations we definitely learned from for future trips. This was also the day when the impact of the incoming storm was becoming more and more likely, although the exact track was still wavering quite a bit. We spent a lot of time on this day talking about possible scenarios and trying to make some kind of plan for the next few days. It was stressful and made even more so by the fact that it felt like any announcements from Disney were very last minute (which is maybe understandable from a business perspective but made things more stressful as a guest). I hesitated to include all this because I don’t want to sound like I am complaining - I know we were SO lucky to be on a Disney vacation at all, and we knew there was a possibility of a storm impacting our trip. But a lot of times I see people on message boards or FB talking about how fun and exciting it is to ride out a storm at Disney and that just was not our experience at all. Especially the day leading up to the storm just felt incredibly stressful just not knowing what to do or what would happen.

Anyway - the following day was going to be our rest day and we decided instead to do a park day since it was becoming more and more likely that we’d lose at least one park day later in the week due to the storm. Which park did we decide to go to?? Stay tuned to find out!

 

[Paulaparm]

Really enjoying reading about your trip. Looking forward to more

 

[Disney102015]

Really enjoying reading about your trip. Looking forward to more

Thank you!

 

[rosiebean]

I’m loving this trip report! I can’t wait to read more.

 

[KPeterso]

We were there at the same time for the hurricane. And I feel very much like you did about the communication in the days leading up to the hurricane. Our check out day was supposed to be that Thursday when the hurricane would be hitting and getting information on if we would still have a room at Boardwalk was just impossible. It all worked out in the end, but it was definitely stressful in the moment. We got extended the extra night we needed, but it was not until that Wednesday after 3 PM when the state of emergency kicked in and no one else was being allowed to check in.

 

[Disney102015]

I’m loving this trip report! I can’t wait to read more.

Thank you!

We were there at the same time for the hurricane. And I feel very much like you did about the communication in the days leading up to the hurricane. Our check out day was supposed to be that Thursday when the hurricane would be hitting and getting information on if we would still have a room at Boardwalk was just impossible. It all worked out in the end, but it was definitely stressful in the moment. We got extended the extra night we needed, but it was not until that Wednesday after 3 PM when the state of emergency kicked in and no one else was being allowed to check in.

Sorry you had the same experience! I’m about to update with the day before the storm and we had the same frustration - no confirmation of being able to extend our stay til the last minute. Very stressful!!

 

[Disney102015]

Topolino’s Breakfast​

Our third full day was meant to be a rest day, but when it became apparent we were going to lose a park day or two due to the storm we decided to squeeze in some park time on this day. We all had morning plans though, so park time would wait til this afternoon!

Our crew (me, mom, D, DH, C, G and baby E) were headed to Topolino’s, while Sister and her crew were doing Beaches and Cream. Of course, however, our kids were up at the crack of dawn so we were all down at Captain Cook’s for coffee and a light breakfast by 7am. I also booked ILLs for Avatar for 2:30pm.

I went to the front desk to see about the hurricane lodging situation since we were due to checkout of the Poly and into AKL in the middle of the storm. By now I think the only official Disney communication had been that check ins would be paused during the storm. I wanted to make sure we wouldn’t be booted from the Poly during the storm and also find out how much it’d cost to stay the extra night (we were staying on DVC points). I had the ODDEST interaction with the cast member at the front desk! I explained my concerns and asked if there was any info available or how we could go about extending our stay. She stared at me blankly and said “well, you won’t be able to check in during the storm.” I told her I understood that, and wanted to make sure we could stay at the Poly at least 1 extra night when we couldn’t check into AKL. She again said “well, you won’t be able to check in during the storm.” She seemed to think I was totally nuts to be asking the question of whether or not we were confirmed to be able to stay the extra night or not. I finally realized I wasn’t getting anywhere and decided to come back later. There was a HUGE line for the front desk and it was really unsettling not to have any concrete information yet.

We hung out at the Great Ceremonial House for a while before heading back to Pago Pago to get ready for brunch. My BIL had accidentally jumped in the pool with his phone in his pocket the day before so he had to run to the Verizon store via Uber to pick up a new device. Luckily that went pretty smoothly for him and he was on his way in no time.

We planned to take a Minnie van to the Riviera but soon realized we’d need more than one vehicle for all of us. Since Minnie vans are so expensive we sent DH, C and mom in an Uber while D and I waited for a Minnie van with the little girls. (We had brought a Bubble Bum booster for C but needed the Minnie van with car seats for the baby and G.) We were sweating it out a bit because there was quite a wait for the Minnie van but we made it just in time. They’re pretty expensive but I do love Minnie vans in situations like this.

I cannot say enough good things about our brunch at Topolino’s! We loved the location and view, the food, the character interactions, everything! G was pretty timid and Baby E was obviously not interested, but C is at an awesome age for characters. He’s a tiny bit shy but loves seeing them come by and is really into giving high fives. It was just an overall great time and I’m so glad we did it. Baby E dozed off in her stroller partway through and we have some really precious photos of the characters next to her making a “shushing” face.

After brunch we had a little time to kill before meeting Sister and her crew, so we did a very quick DVC tour at the Riviera. I didn’t expect to love the Riviera as much as I did but I really enjoyed seeing the rooms and especially all the artwork. I am so excited to spend a night there on our upcoming trip!

Next up is our Animal Kingdom afternoon!

 

[Disney102015]

Animal Kingdom and Grownups’ Night Out​

Next we hopped on the bus over to Animal Kingdom. Sister and her group beat us there and headed to do the Animation Experience, which their girls really enjoyed! We met back up to head to the Safari.

(I should have mentioned before, since we moved our park pass reservation to this day due to the storm, we lost our advance DAS reservations for our Animal Kingdom day later in the week. I was able to do the online chat with DAS the day before and they were able to give us an extra LL for the two rides we had prebooked for DAS so we wouldn’t lose out on our advance reservations due to the storm. This was very, very much appreciated.)

This was the BEST Safari I have ever been on. There were so many animals out and being super active - we saw lots of rhinos, hippos, zebra, giraffes really close to the truck, you name it. It was so exciting for the kids especially. The best part was when we got to the lions - one of the lionesses strutted out to the end of the rock and just sat there roaring as we passed by. It was truly amazing.




Next up, Sister and her crew were hungry so they decided to grab Sautuli Canteen while DH and the kids and I went to do the Maharajah Jungle Trek since we weren’t hungry. We met back up and DH, mom and D stayed with all the kids while Sister, BIL and I headed to our ILL at Flight of Passage, which was amazing as always. Then we had a DAS/Genie for Navi River Journey which G loved - she kept saying “ohhh Nemo! Ohhh, see Moana!” No idea what she was talking about but she was thrilled!

Of course, there was the prospect of the hurricane casting a bit of a shadow over the day. We placed an Instacart order for some more food early in the day and I was anxiously watching to see if it was actually going to arrive. At precisely 5:17pm, what sounded like a loud siren started going off in the park - but it wasn’t a siren, it was the sound of hundreds of cell phones beeping with the emergency alert about the impending storm. It was really surreal!


(I also forgot to mention mom’s friend D was supposed to leave a few days later but rescheduled her flight to get out ahead of the storm. Well, she thought she was all set til she got a notification the night before that her flight had taken off…while she was still at the Poly. JetBlue had rebooked her for a flight leaving in an hour rather than the flight for the next morning. Of course, by the time she could get through to an actual representative the early morning flight had filled up! This meant she got to join us for the Animal Kingdom day but also meant she was cutting it really close to getting out before the storm - she ultimately took off about an hour before the airport closed. On the plus side that meant we got her for an extra day )

We were running short on time at AK as we had a babysitter booked for that night (!!!) Dinosaur is a MUST ride for C (he’s a huge dinosaur lover) and we didn’t really have time to do a rider swap so I waited outside with J, H, G, and E while the rest of the group rode. C also picked out a little Dino set at the gift shop.

I love Animal Kingdom - it might be my favorite park right now - and it was a little bit of a bummer to only have half a day there this trip but we got a LOT done so I couldn’t be too bummed about it. We were also supposed to attend Moonlight Magic this trip but that obviously got canceled due to the hurricane. Maybe next time. It was grey and drizzling as we left the park and felt very much like the calm before the storm. Next it was time to hightail it out of the park, because the grownups had big plans!

That night was just the relaxing night we needed before hunkering down with 6 kids. A friend had a sitter she’s used for years in Orlando so we felt comfortable asking her to watch 5/6 of the kids while we did the monorail loop. (I wasn’t comfortable leaving Baby E with a sitter yet so she was coming along to party with the grownups.) We settled the kids in Sister’s room and headed to Tambu Lounge for some apps and drinks. While we were eating, we watched storm updates on CNN and saw the following:



Gulp. I know Disney is built to withstand hurricanes and all that but I’d be lying if I said we weren’t all pretty nervous about the coming days. I peeked down at the lobby to see if I might be able to get our room situation squared away but there was a MASSIVE line so I resigned myself to waiting til the next morning.

Next we headed for the monorail because we had our sights set on the Enchanted Rose. None of us had ever been there and we were intrigued by the menu. It did not disappoint!







Next up was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. DH and I are new DVC members and I was dying to try the Top of the World lounge but didn’t know if it’d happen. Well, we arrived at the Contemporary about ten minutes before the fireworks were scheduled to go off! We were told we’d have to wait if we wanted a table but were welcome to go right up if we just wanted to be outside to watch the fireworks. We got upstairs just in time and it was just perfect! It was the Halloween fireworks which were really cool to see.


Baby E slept through the whole thing thank goodness. The Lounge cleared out right after the fireworks and we were able to grab a table to grab a quick bite. We got a few apps and drinks, and of course a slice of the signature cake. It was a great end to a great night with lots of laughs. I am SO glad we were able to do it.



We got back to Pago Pago and everyone was asleep except my night owl, C, who was watching tv. We said goodnight to the sitter and all went to bed.

Next up….a few stormy days. ⛈