How are we out of Toilet Paper AGAIN???

[tazdev3225]

Please bear with me as it has been a few years since I have done a Trip Report. This title will make sense as we go along

Background - About 5 or 6 years ago my youngest granddaughter came from school with Straight A's for the entire year. She was about to go into 5th grade the coming year and would graduate at the end of 8th grade. I figured the odds were with me, so I made a bet with her. Get straight A's until she graduates, and I would take her on a trip wherever she wanted to go - within reason. I trained her well - she chose Disney World. I figured the odds were with me. From 5th through 7th grade not 1 "B" and perfect attendance all but one year for a funeral.

We were going to Disney. I asked her when she wanted to go and she looked at me, as only a teenager can, and said "Grandmom, I cannot miss any school!" Originally, she wanted to go for her birthday in December. Summertime, heat and rain - YAY!!! Then she started 8th grade. She got a B in English. She was beside herself. I went in for the conferences since my daughter was working. Then I remembered this teacher. My other two grandkids had her and had problems with her. Seriously I majored in English in college, and I would have had issues with her. She would ask for an essay on your opinion of a book and then tell you your opinion is wrong. I asked her how a person's opinion is wrong as all opinions are unique to the individual. I can see spelling, grammar, or punctuation being marked but an opinion? I gave my granddaughter a pass, especially when the school selections were announced. My granddaughter was accepted to the top two schools in the city. Only the best of the best get accepted. She chose the school my 2 brothers also attended, and I was bragging to everyone. I was one very proud grandmother, but that teacher did keep her off the stage for 1st honors at graduation and she was devastated. The trip was just what we needed.

Now when I promised this trip it was to be my granddaughter and me. Then I got the phone call, "Grandmom I want my mom to come since you won't go on roller coasters." Now to be fair as I tried to explain to her it is not WON'T its CAN'T or at least shouldn't. My daughter was coming. That would leave me the odd man out. I decided that my other granddaughter should come too. That was not met with enthusiasm. Actually, it was more like throwing a tantrum like a toddler. Easily solved - "your sister comes or I cancel the trip. Both girls were coming.

So, who all is going on this wonderful adventure of 4 females in one room?

There is me - Mom, Grandmom or Lorrie. This was going to be my 27th trip to Disney and I didn't go on my first one until 1988. My parents didn't believe in wasting money on vacations, so I had a deprived childhood. I did grow up watching the World of Disney, The Mickey Mouse Club and went to quite a few Disney movies over the years at least. In the late 70's I traveled from Tampa to Miami by bus with my brother. We needed to switch buses in Orlando, and I saw posters for Disney World. I vowed one day I would get there. My first trip was in 1988. My first trip on property was in October 2001, right after 9/11.


I am the family photographer so there aren't many pictures of me on most of the trips. This trip was with my aunt to celebrate her 50th birthday and I made her take a picture or two of me.

Favorite Characters: Grumpy or Eeyore. They are just misunderstood.
Favorite Rides - I have a couple. It's A Small World and Carousel of Progress as they are sentimental favorites. I rode them in the 1964 NY World's Fair. To be honest I like all the rides except for roller coasters.
Favorite Parks - Again no favorites as I love them all for different reasons.



Next up is my daughter Jennifer. This was her 6th trip, the first was in 1988 when she was 3. All she wanted that entire trip was to see Winnie the Pooh. He came out as we were leaving for the airport and my mom said we couldn't wait. The trip was with my parent's and my mom is the type that needs to be hours early for everything. We sat in the airport for 2 hours listening to my baby sob "I see Pooh, Please!"


And the closest we got to her Pooh


We went a couple more times after that as I had the Disney bug
1992


1997 - She finally saw Pooh


Me with my 2 girls


2003 - with my oldest grandson. Little did we know that in just a year there would be 2 more grandkids in the family


Jen's favorite character is obviously Winnie the Pooh. She loves all rides and has never claimed to have a favorite park

Granddaughter #1 Crystal, she was just shy of 19 on the trip and had finished her 1st year of college. She loves animals and had thoughts of being a vet but is now leaning towards photography if she can figure out how to make that a career. She is my photography buddy. She has health issues which would come into play on the trip, but she was the granddaughter I added to the trip. I knew that she and I would be off with our cameras while her sister and mom went on the rides. Her first trip wasn't until she was 8 years old. My daughter had her kids very close together, so money was tight for a while. She is a great young lady. She was bullied a lot in school, so I have always been a little protective of her. We often go on photo safaris around the area and have a couple planned for the spring.

Granddaughter #2 - Ella and the grandchild I lost the bet with. She was 14 on the trip and is a typical teenager. She has a couple friends that I was surprised she didn't try to get added in. I call them the Three Musketeers or the Three Stooges but the girls all get along really great. She texted them constantly. When she was little she loved Minnie Mouse and Jessie. I'm not sure she has a favorite right now except maybe Stitch. Her 1st trip was when she was 3.

2012
Ella and Jennifer


Crystal and Ella


This picture will come into our plans for the trip. Woody took Ella's Jessie Doll and put it in his boot. She was not happy. Her brother and sister thought it was funny


And I have reached a picture limit. To be continued

Please join in and say Hi. All my friends have left here so I hope to make some new friends.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[Paulaparm]

Following along

 

[tazdev3225]

Looking forward to reading more!

Welcome and thanks for joining in. I hope to get an update today or tomorrow.

Following along

Welcome and thank you.

I did trip reports years ago and made some great friends but they have all moved on from here. It is nice to see new faces.

 

[footballmouse]

She would ask for an essay on your opinion of a book and then tell you your opinion is wrong. I asked her how a person's opinion is wrong as all opinions are unique to the individual.

I had a religion teacher do this in high school my freshman year. I had the same reply as you did, didn't get me a better grade. The question was "What is love?".

 

[alohamom]

Following along and love it so far! What an amazing and involved Grandmom you are, your grandkids are so fortunate to have you.

 

[tazdev3225]

I had a religion teacher do this in high school my freshman year. I had the same reply as you did, didn't get me a better grade. The question was "What is love?".

Welcome and my question didn't help Ella either. Love is definitely one where the answer is unique to the individual.

Following along and love it so far! What an amazing and involved Grandmom you are, your grandkids are so fortunate to have you.

Welcome and thank you. My grandmother was the best and I try to follow the example she gave me.

 

[tazdev3225]

Let me try and finish the introductions and plans.

I left off after Crystal and Ella's first trip. The next trip came in November 2017. I had always had a dream of taking my kids and my grandkids on one big trip to Disney. I injured my ankle, quite severely, on some unkempt property. When I found out how severe I contacted a lawyer, It has been 12 years and I still have issues with the ankle as it has no stability but the settlement was enough for me to fulfill my dreams. (Don't feel bad for the property owner - she knew for over 10 years before I fell that her cement was in horrible shape and did nothing.) SO with settlement in hand I called my kids and my daughter by choice. She has been Jen's BFF since they were 6 or 7 years old and she is a huge part of our family. There were 2 requests by all - NO HEAT and don't over plan. That trip wound up being 21 people in all, I didn't pay for the friends that tagged along, I did pay for my family. Only my son refused the offer, secretly I was happy as he is not fun to travel with and my DIL can be overbearing.

Planning the trip kept me sane because my husband had 2 strokes as did my one son in law. The trip did at least give me an idea what I was in for in June because Crystal was a moody teenager back then.
And a couple pictures of them


And some of the group I traveled with. My oldest grandson went with my other daughter quite a bit as they have always been very close


I don't drink often but by the second day I needed this. Never Plan meals for 21 people at the same time. That is the rest of my group in the background.


And the reason we are celebrating - Ellas Graduation




Crystal's Graduation the previous year - that's my husband in the background'




That trip was really fun, but the kids did miss a week of school. Ella still managed the straight A's but when it came to planning this trip she was adamant, she could not miss any school. They did have all their schoolwork done ahead of time.

Over the few years waiting for this trip life happened ALOT. My husband was forced to retire because of the two strokes he had. For some reason they frown on sheriff's needing a cane and having limited vision. We adjusted to our new life. Jennifer's family had more to deal with. Crystal was being bullied in school, and it started that year we went to Disney. Thankfully with our love and support she is more confident but she has her moments still. She also suffers from a hormonal disorder which makes her heavy and losing weight a bit difficult. Add to that she has extremely high arches in her feet so walking distances becomes very painful - this will come in to play on the trip. My son in law had several more strokes over the next couple of years. They left him unable to drive and his job in jeopardy. He was a warehouse supervisor for a local meat company. They make great lunch meats. Thankfully he is so good at what he does they set him up with everything he needed to work from home. Then their dog got cancer. He was only about 4 at the time and they decided to give him a fighting chance. I'm not sure I would have spent that money, but Link survived. Sadly, the cure killed him and right before we were leaving on this trip, he died from kidney failure. The chemo was very rough on his body, but they did get 3 more years with him. I think we all needed Disney and a break from real life.

My daughter and granddaughter had stayed on property for their trips but at All Star Movies and Sports. I started staying at Pop Century my last couple trips. After some convincing we settled on Pop Century and a preferred room. You read that right - 4 females sharing ONE room. I shared a bed, the real bed, with Crystal and Jen & Ella shared the bed that pulls down.

The time frame was next. I knew when school ended and I knew when school started in the fall. I gave two options - late June and we get the end of the Flower & Garden Festival or late August and we get the beginning of the Food & Wine Festival and possibly Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. June is Hot and August is the armpit of Hades. They chose June. We settled on June 21-June 28. I called and booked the trip and tweaked it once or twice as offers came out.

Airfare was the next to deal with. I like the earliest flight down and latest flight home. They were all OK with that. I looked at airlines. JetBlue goes to Boston before Orlando from Philly. That is out. Southwest goes to Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale or Tennessee, which seems a little unnecessary. Spirit and Frontier actually cost more once you added everything up, so we settled on American. I surprised them with First Class seats on the way home. Going down was a little tougher in choosing seating arrangements. Normally I pay for preferred seating but the cost for the three of us was just way too much money. We decided on 3 and 1 seating and I took an aisle seat by myself. I was at least able to stretch my knee that way.

Rooms booked, airfare booked how do we get to the airport? We live 5 minutes from I-95 and 20 minutes from the airport so it's not a long trip. My mom gets up early, 4 AM, on purpose. She would drive us down. How to get home? My other daughter was going on vacation at the same time, she said drive. My mom said she could get us but we were getting in around 10 PM. I said no, if worse comes to worse I'll get Jim's nephew the Uber driver. Thankfully my son said he could do it. My daughter is NEVER on time for anything. Seriously she was 2 weeks late being born and has never found a way to be on time ever since. We tell her a time at least 30 minutes before we need to be anywhere. It drives me nuts but my mom gets angry. We settled that problem with them spending the night at my house. My couches recline and the AC is better in the living room so that was settled. Nothing is ever that easy as you will find out when I get to Day 1.

All the essentials taken care of we now had another issue to deal with - FOOD. Ella wanted fried pickles. I went on AllEars to look at menus. Only a couple places had fried pickles. On my 60 day mark I was online trying to book ADR's and the site refused to let me do that. I called and got what I wanted. We were doing Hoop-de-Doo Revue, and I am so glad I picked that one. Crystal Palace for breakfast one morning so Jen could see her Pooh. The fried pickles were at Sci Fi Dinner Theater so that was our last meal in the park. We took Tasty-Kakes, a local favorite, and I baked cookies. That covered breakfast most of the time as we are not big breakfast eaters. Lunch was usually something we could share m. Dinners were at the park or the resort depending on the day and our moods.

We had one BIG problem with meals. For the last couple of years I was having issues when I ate certain foods, but they weren't the same foods. I was at my great-grandsons birthday party which had a mixture of foods. I got some salad that I thought was a pasta salad, it was a seafood salad. I pushed it aside but suddenly I was one giant hive, literally. I bruised my arm I was scratching so much some of the dressing from the salad mingled with the other foods. I saw one of my doctors a couple days later and he overheard me telling the nurse about what had happened. Right away he was in the room asking for more details. I told him the last couple of years I had some weird things like that happen when I had a lobster dip one arm got itchy. He asked about anything else and I told him that on my anniversary I had bacon wrapped shrimp and scallops, I love them, but that night I spent the night in the bathroom praying for death. I just thought they might have been bad, it turns out that was also a symptom of a very severe seafood/shellfish allergy. I found a new primary right away, my old one had died and I didn't look for one during covid. She agreed with the diagnosis and ordered Epi pens immediately. The problem is that I can't eat fried foods anywhere until I make sure there is no cross contamination, and I am diligent with my questioning. Many restaurants cook everything in the same fryers/oil - french fries, chicken, wings, shrimp, etc. I know Disney is good with allergies usually, but this was going to play huge in our dining plans and at times my relationship with my daughter on the trip. I am still adjusting to the allergy a year later.

All the details in place we looked forward to our much-needed vacation and I looked forward to spending some time with my girls. The granddaughters are getting older and will be out and on their own before I know it, so I wanted to make some more lasting memories to carry them through life long after I am gone.

Coming up Day 1 - (Hint it won't explain the title)

 

[Noreen411]

Can’t wait to hear more. You have a great writing style and I’m totally absorbed already.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Cute pics so far!

 

[lynxstch]

Loving this Taz, can't wait to read more!

 

[dazedx3]

Love it so far

 

[dznymemories]

You have a wonderful writing style Taz and a beautiful family. I look forward to following your journey.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Wow sounds like this was a much needed getaway! looking forward to reading more.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

I love all of the old photos from past trips! Following along to hear how the trip went.

 

[tazdev3225]

Can’t wait to hear more. You have a great writing style and I’m totally absorbed already.

Welcome and thank you.

Cute pics so far!

Welcome and thank you I tend to take a lot of pictures so choosing them can be difficult

Loving this Taz, can't wait to read more!

Welcome and thanks for joining in

Wow sounds like this was a much needed getaway! looking forward to reading more.

Welcome. It was a much needed getaway for us all. I love your name. My daughter has 3 boys and wouldn't want it any other way.

 

[tazdev3225]

I love all of the old photos from past trips! Following along to hear how the trip went.

Welcome and thanks.

One more picture I forgot to post from the first trip, When we went as I said Ella was 3 and LOVED Minnie Mouse. We were several days into the trip and we were finally going to see her Minnie. The line was quite long and I'm not sure who was worse waiting - my husband or my grandson who we later verified (although I already knew) was Autistic and ADHD, a lovely combination. My husband wanted to take Mikey out of line but I said no! I watched Mikey and Ella from the time they were 6 weeks old and my daughter went back to work. I understood Mikey. I distracted him by showing him some of the pictures on my camera. I was so glad because we were now the first in line to see Mickey and MINNIE. Ella peeked around the curtain and I got my absolute favorite picture of the trip



The excitement on her face was worth the wait.

And with that teaser I will be starting Day 1 tomorrow while my husband watches football. I have no interest in the playoffs or Superbowl this year. My team collapsed their last 7 games and lost in the wild card game.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

When we went as I said Ella was 3 and LOVED Minnie Mouse.

That is perfect!!!! 3 is the perfect age! They think they are seeing the real character! It is the best!! Love it!!!

My team collapsed their last 7 games and lost in the wild card game.

Is your team perhaps... the eagles? We live in south jersey right outside of philly.... so eagles talk is all around here...

 

[tazdev3225]

That is perfect!!!! 3 is the perfect age! They think they are seeing the real character! It is the best!! Love it!!!


Is your team perhaps... the eagles? We live in south jersey right outside of philly.... so eagles talk is all around here...

Thank you it really was the best picture ever and she was so happy to see her Minnie.

Yes my team is the Eagles sadly. Hopefully the new coaches will turn things around.

Sorry I never got to do the update the other day but I had a meeting and was exhausted when I got home and my great grandson turned 3 so time got away from me. Day one will be coming soon.

 

[suse66]

Great start to your report! I am looking forward to reading more.