Post by dollbaby323 on May 16, 2012 13:40:54 GMT -5
It's been almost 8 months since we met up with Joshua (the hubs) in Orlando for R&R and now that life has settled down a bit, I thought I'd post a trip report (I wrote one for the blog I write so most of it is cut and paste but most of my blog followers are military families and not all are Disney people like everyone here).
For those that don't know, my husband deployed to Afghanistan when I was about 4 months along a high risk pregnancy and our son was 2 and a half years old. We opted to bring Joshua home for R&R when our daughter was a little over 2 months old (he was, however, thankfully, able to watch the delivery via skype) for several reasons...
A-we wanted R&R to be away from our home for our son's sake-having Joshua come home for two weeks and then leave again would have been much more difficult than meeting him somewhere else...
B-if Joshua came home for the delivery we wouldn't see him for seven month...having R&R later broke up the separation a little more...
C-if he came home for the delivery much of the time would be spent on the girl and our son could easily become jealous
So we opted for a Disney trip (where else could we get away and still feel at home?!)
Here's what happened...
First of all, the Army (as it so often does) messed with the dates on us a couple of times but thankfully we were able to swap things around and didn't miss any of the important ADRs but we did have to add a night to the beginning and a night to the end of our reservation off property which ended up working out great because those were the two nights we wanted to just spend together doing nothing.
(Our very first family of four pic...kind of ironic that it's a cell phone pic since I'm a little crazy when it come to photography)
The next day, we checked into our Disney resort. The All-Star Movies. We picked it because the boy is in love with all things Toy Story so we opted for a preferred room in the Toy Story building. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much because I haven't stayed at an All-Star since I was a kid myself. But, much to my surprise, it was great. The boy loved it. We were super close to the main building. The pool was fun and the cast members were wonderful-especially Bob at the arcade. We loved Bob. I wish I had more pics of the resort but as always upon check-in,
I said "Babe, let's go take some pics of the kids at the resort"
Joshua, as always replied, "No, we'll do it later. I promise. You'll get pics of the resort this year"
And then, as always, it didn't happen.
So, moving on. Our first park visit was Seaworld. It was a first for all of us and thanks to their military discount, it was free. To be honest, I would have been disappointed if we had paid the $200+ to get in because although we had a good time, we discovered it's not a very small child-friendly place. You are not permitted to bring strollers into most of the aquarium buildings. Fabulous. So, we won't be returning until the kids are totally out of strollers but then I'm sure we'll go back.
One of our favorite things was the Shamu show, One Ocean, but fair warning when Seaworld says it's a soak zone, it's a soak zone. The two month old baby was not a fan of the soak zone. Ooops. Parenting fail.
I had the pleasure of feeding the dolphins. Joshua and boy both got to touch them earlier but stayed with the baby while I fed Flipper(s).
This was the boy's favorite ride at Seaworld. It's the kind that goes straight up and then just drops. Not. My. Idea. Of. Fun. But the boy loved it.
For those that don't know, my husband deployed to Afghanistan when I was about 4 months along a high risk pregnancy and our son was 2 and a half years old. We opted to bring Joshua home for R&R when our daughter was a little over 2 months old (he was, however, thankfully, able to watch the delivery via skype) for several reasons...
A-we wanted R&R to be away from our home for our son's sake-having Joshua come home for two weeks and then leave again would have been much more difficult than meeting him somewhere else...
B-if Joshua came home for the delivery we wouldn't see him for seven month...having R&R later broke up the separation a little more...
C-if he came home for the delivery much of the time would be spent on the girl and our son could easily become jealous
So we opted for a Disney trip (where else could we get away and still feel at home?!)
Here's what happened...
First of all, the Army (as it so often does) messed with the dates on us a couple of times but thankfully we were able to swap things around and didn't miss any of the important ADRs but we did have to add a night to the beginning and a night to the end of our reservation off property which ended up working out great because those were the two nights we wanted to just spend together doing nothing.
(Our very first family of four pic...kind of ironic that it's a cell phone pic since I'm a little crazy when it come to photography)
The next day, we checked into our Disney resort. The All-Star Movies. We picked it because the boy is in love with all things Toy Story so we opted for a preferred room in the Toy Story building. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much because I haven't stayed at an All-Star since I was a kid myself. But, much to my surprise, it was great. The boy loved it. We were super close to the main building. The pool was fun and the cast members were wonderful-especially Bob at the arcade. We loved Bob. I wish I had more pics of the resort but as always upon check-in,
I said "Babe, let's go take some pics of the kids at the resort"
Joshua, as always replied, "No, we'll do it later. I promise. You'll get pics of the resort this year"
And then, as always, it didn't happen.
So, moving on. Our first park visit was Seaworld. It was a first for all of us and thanks to their military discount, it was free. To be honest, I would have been disappointed if we had paid the $200+ to get in because although we had a good time, we discovered it's not a very small child-friendly place. You are not permitted to bring strollers into most of the aquarium buildings. Fabulous. So, we won't be returning until the kids are totally out of strollers but then I'm sure we'll go back.
One of our favorite things was the Shamu show, One Ocean, but fair warning when Seaworld says it's a soak zone, it's a soak zone. The two month old baby was not a fan of the soak zone. Ooops. Parenting fail.
I had the pleasure of feeding the dolphins. Joshua and boy both got to touch them earlier but stayed with the baby while I fed Flipper(s).
This was the boy's favorite ride at Seaworld. It's the kind that goes straight up and then just drops. Not. My. Idea. Of. Fun. But the boy loved it.
