Disney Survivor

Disney in June with two kids under 5 for 5 days and made it out alive! Just kidding but seriously it’s hot in Florida in June and Disney is packed! We took our two kiddos a baby and preschooler to Disney World along with 15 members of our family. By day 5 of Disney we were done. We did have fun though and learned some things along the way.

Fast pass!

If we didn’t have a fast pass we didn’t ride it! To get a fast pass you need to download the “My Disney Experience” app, be sure to book 30-60 days ahead of the time you are going depending on where you are staying. If you are on a Disney property including Shades of Green you can book 60 days out. Rides like the new Avatar were booked 60 days out, we managed to get it but if we waiting we may not be able to. The lines were too long in most rides (up to 120 minutes) and the kids wouldn’t have it. Some regular lines did get down to 15-20 minutes if the ride wasn’t as popular in those cases we would wait. We made sure to get the parent swap on EVERY ride. The parent swap allows those waiting with the kids too little to go on the ride to ride the next go around, they went in the fast pass line and sometimes depending on the ride they had a special waiting area where they got on right after the prior parent(s) got off. The kids that went the first time got to ride again which was a hit.

Wear Matching Shirts

Seriously, wear matching neon shirts! On days we all wore our matching shirts it was easier. We could all find each other when we split up and we were able to get on the rides easier. When you have 19 people sometimes fast passes and child swaps don’t work for all of us but when the staff seen we were together with the same shirt we had no problems. Not only were we easy to spot in a crowd but the characters would say hi to us by name since we had our last name on the back of our shirts, lol.

Stay Cool

Babies in strollers in the Florida heat can get hot. Our solution: portable USB fans. We bought some $10 fans from Home Depot that had clips and USB port that we could attach a rechargeable battery port to. They lasted all day and the babies stayed comfortable. For the adults and older kids the Cooling towels helped you put them in cold water and shake them to get cool again.

See a show

Instead of trying to ride all the rides we explored other things like the shows, parades, characters and other sites. There are so many things at Disney to see and you can’t see it all in one trip. If you try to just enjoy the moment and not rush to everything you will all have a much more enjoyable trip.

Go to the Water Parks

It’s hard to plan a day ahead of time when the weather will be just right for a water park especially when you have to book fast passes 60 days out. What we did was have two days that were somewhat flexible, we booked fast passes in the evening since the water park closes at 6 pm. We did the Typhoon Lagoon water park one day and it was a blast. Not only was the crowd less but it was a more relaxed atmosphere. Kids could do pretty much all the water rides too.  We really wished we could have done Blizzard Beach as well but we didn’t have the time with visiting all the other parks at Disney. If we did Disney in the summer again we will definitely plan to do both water parks during the day or HOT hours and a different park in the evening or morning.

Shades of Green

We stayed at the military resort Shades of Green which is considered a Disney property now. This is a huge benefit! Not only do you get Magic Hours but you can book those fast passes 60 days out. There was also a shuttle to all the parks. Just be sure to check the departure times when planning on leaving the resort and returning if you have plans such as fast passes or meals to get back to.

Magic Hours

We tried the magic hours one night and wish we could have done them more! The lines were short -no fast passes needed. There was also not as many people in the park. We went from 11 pm-1 am at Magic Kingdom, so it was late. The kids lasted about an hour, because the park is closed they give you the strollers to use for free. We grabbed a double and the kids that were older but not able to hang feel asleep in the stroller. The adults all booked it to the must ride older rides. Each park has their magic hours at different days/times. Some were in the morning (we were not early risers with 19 people!) and some were in the night. Magic hours are a must if staying at a Disney resort!

Meal Plan

Not the Disney meal plan but the Shades of Green meal plan was a great deal and we didn’t have to worry about ANY of our meals. Breakfast and Dinner are included in the meal plan but they have stuff for sandwiches which we bought some sandwich bags and took with us to the park. Since Disney allows you to bring food into the park (no ice) we could pack snacks and lunch then be back before 9 pm to eat dinner. We did try one restaurant in Disney Springs and we were not impressed. We booked it 30 days out and they took 45 minutes to seat us and the food was not that good. We got seated in front of an aquarium which would have been find but the restaurant had a light show every 30 minutes and it was hard to see the show where we were at. The restaurant was cool with all the dinosaur scenery but for eating not the best and a little pricey. From that point on we were fine with the food at our resort. Shades rotated the type of food every day so you didn’t get the same meal. They even had cute interactive things for kids where they made their own cookie desert or face painting on Carnival night.

Take Away

We had a great time with the little ones but think it would be easier if all the kids could ride the rides. We would be able to do more and see more instead of waiting for each parent to do the parent swap at the same ride. 4-5 years or 42″ is a great age to see the characters, ride most rides and really enjoy Disney. A little older like 6-7 years or 48″ and you can ride all the rides so no need for parent swap. Whatever your plan the kids will love it! Happy Travels!

Stuck on the tarmac for 6 hours

Our 4 month old’s first flight and we are stuck on the tarmac in Seattle for 6 hours! My kids are champs though🙌 no fussing. Flight attendants said in 20 years of doing their job never seen such well behaved kids.

That’s right our babies first light which is only supposed to be a seven hour flight to our destination ended up being 13 hours. We were stuck on the tarmac for six hours in Seattle due to their first snowstorm. The pilot kept thinking we were going to take off, we would get de-iced and then something else would come up; the ice wouldn’t come off the airplane or we needed more gas because we are on the tarmac for so long. The flight attendants were joking and pretty amazing and actually all the passengers on a flight were in good spirits which made the time go by somewhat better. Now the worst part was we had a four-year-old and a four-month-old, how do you survive six hours on a plane that is not in the air, hence no noise with a four-month-old. Did I mention 3 out of 4 of us were sick? Good times! The four-year-old was pretty plugged into his Kindle fire but he did get a little restless asking when we’re going to take off, as we all were. The key to our success was taking a red-eye for our first flight we left at midnight so our baby slept that flight, on the second flight he was so tired from only sleeping three hours he just slept the entire time…. it was pretty amazing. Anytime our four year old got restless I reminded him how good he was doing and that once we got to San Diego he would get ice cream.

He was really looking forward to getting to the beach and eating ice cream so he settled down pretty quickly. The baby got hungry a couple of times so I just fed him and he fell back asleep. He woke up for a little bit and explored the in-flight magazine which is fun to grab onto. We finally took off after six hours and both the kiddos fell asleep, at that point our flight was only 2 1/2 hours from Seattle to San Diego. We landed in San Diego and the flight attendants announced over the loudspeaker that they would like to thank the parents that endured the time and had such well behaved and kids, in the 20 years of being a flight attendant they never seen suck well behaved kids they were amazed, everyone on the flight applauded us.

Once we got to San Diego we were missing a car seat. Wonderful because if you have kids you can’t go anywhere without a car seat. We spoke with the airline and they gave us a brand new car seat that we did not have to return. We ended up getting our car seat and missing stroller the airline met us and delivered it to us. This point we were not getting any compensation for the six hour delay. My husband emailed the airline explaining the situation and how we had to pay extra for a rental car since rental cars do not allow for any time leeway on picking up or dropping off beyond a two hour period. The airline wrote us back and gave us miles plus certificates for each of us towards the next flight.

Don’t worry we kept our promise and got that ice cream!

Virtual Baby Shower

My sister lives far away and I am unable to visit her before baby arrives so I decided to throw her a virtual baby shower. I search many different online options but they all wanted you to pay a fee to create a website. Which is a good choice but I choose to spend my baby shower money for other things.

First thing I did was create a event on Facebook called Baby (name) virtual Baby shower.

I created a invitation:

Then invited my sister, family and her friends to the event. Those invited can add others as well.

I put the description to the event as follows:

“I am throwing an online baby shower for my sister since we live far apart. There will be games, polls and more all on Facebook, there will be prizes to the most correct answers! Answers will be posted on 10/16. This is her first little one. She is registered at Amazon under Mommy’s Name”.

Then I created polls with Facebook and asked a variety of questions that I found on Pinterest and added 3-4 choices for each:

I added a couple of questions every day or so to keep interest and remind people of the registry. I also did a few questions with images such as what is mom’s belly size? (added as a poll option), how many baby wash cloths fit into bunny jar? (Special prize $10 Starbucks card for correct answer). I also added a few give mommy to be advice such as: Best way to put baby to sleep? Favorite moment raising kids? Things I wish I knew before having a baby…

I mailed my sister a goody box with a note explaining this was a baby shower box with the following a sash, bunny jar with baby wash cloths (online contest), baby stickers for baby book, baby book, treat for mom and put colored grass at bottom to make it look cute when opened. My sister wore the sash when opening presents and added the pictures to the Facebook event when she opened the gifts.

All questions had to be answered by specified date and time of virtual baby shower event. I posted answers on the baby shower date. There was a three way tie for correct trivia question anwsers so I asked an open ended number related tie breaker question. The closest correct anwser won. I printed a copy of the event postings and mailed it to my sister for her baby book. I also mailed prizes to winners. I decided on gift cards to be the prizes since they are easy and cheap to mail. Overall it was really fun, inexpensive and easy to put on.

Packing List when traveling with a baby

I am a planner and make lists of what we need to pack before we start the packing process to insure that we do not forget anything. I created a packing list on excel for warm climate travel, cold climate travel and camping packing. This list is for use when flying as I would adjust if traveling by car or train. My list includes packing for a baby of course. I separated the list into categories eg. toiletries, clothes, electronics, etc. to help with sorting through my items as I pack. Here is the warm climate travel list: Warm climate travel list

The cold climate and camping lists start off with the same basics but just adjust to fit the situation. I hope this helps you in your packing!