I moved to Florida-it's a VERY Disney year!

[TinkyKat]

So I figured since I am now 45 minutes from The World and we have been going up close to once a month, I should do some TR-ing!

It also doesn't hurt that I am SO excited to turn my baby girl, Lily into a Disney kid so starting her early is a MUST!

Our first trip this year was Jan 2nd so that is where I will begin.....

Thanks in advance for following along with us.

[tazdev3225]

I'm looking forward to reading about your trips and introducing your beautiful princess to Disney. I have to admit that I am a little jealous that you are so close now. My princesses are here i Philly though and I could never leave them, or the 4 boys. Can't call them princes because they like Cars and Toy Story.

[TinkyKat]

I moved to Florida in July. Between then and the end of the year my friends and I made about 5 trips up to Orlando. It's a very quick 45 min drive. Most of my friends and my new boyfriend, Chris, weren't that into going to Orlando....until I came along. You could get the group on an occasional trip but it was a once in a long while thing, that is until we discovered pin trading.

When Chris and I started dating I asked him 2 questions that I told him hindered on weather we could get involved....(1) Do you like cats? I asked because I have 2 kittens. and (2) Do you like Disney? We have been together for 8 months so he obviously passed. He had never been to WDW but said he would check it out. he also told me of his obsession with The Little Mermaid. Our other friend, Allison had some pins and a pin book and when Chris saw them it sparked something. He then went on ebay and bought himself a starter kit of pins and the insanity was born.

We took a trip at Christmas time with everyone to pin trade and see the decorations and he was really hooked. He was like a little kid pin trading, he said it was the most fun he'd had in a while. By the end of that trip everyone that was with us wanted to buy pins and trade too!

The wildfire of pin trading has spread around our group and Allison and her husband, Bill, have more than all of us combined. They are the ones who decided on taking this day trip. Chris had to work unfortunatly. So it was Bill, Allison, our friend Kim, myself & Lily. Lily was almost 3 weeks old and already she was headed to WDW!

Of course I had to get her all Disney-ed up!


Closer...


Our goals were to hit up DTD and pin trade anywhere we could and then hit up the monorail resorts for trading as well.

The Christmas decorations were still up too, which was really cool!




We wandered from the West Side all the way over to the marketplace, stopping CMs every time we saw any with pins. I was VERY saddened to see my beloved Adventurer's Club all covered by bad shrubbery.



I had all our tradeable pins with me on a lanyard at first then i realized that the cup holders on my stroller (its a winnie the pooh stroller btw) were much better used as a pin trading station! LOL



OF COURSE we went to the pin store.




Our first pic in Disney together!


I got some crazy looks for having a baby that tiny out in Disney but whatever. It was a day trip and most of it was spent with her asleep in the stroller.

She did get used 2 times for trading....LOL...we convinced 2 CMs that she was a kid so she could trade off their kid lanyards! One CM acted like it was a shady drug deal, she tapped the stroller and had me put the pin down and picked it up while dropping hers, it was hilarious. CMs asked about her a lot and a few asked if I named her after Walt's wife.

This was her most of the afternoon....


We ended up getting hungry and decided to try our luck at Raglan Road....but the waiting people outside made us change our minds and head to Cookes in stead. We lucked out and got a table with space next to it for the stroller!

I got the fishermans pie with chips. YUMMY! I think everyone got one of the pies. Such a good meal.

Then we were off to the monorail resorts. We drove over to the Poly and parked. Then we found the mother load of pin trading- a HUGE book at concierge. I was kinda loosing interest in the trading at that point so I used my 2 trades for Bill and went over to change Lily into something warmer since the evening was chilly. Turns out the CM said she had never heard of the 2 trade rule and Bill & Allison traded 20 pins from that book! Crazy!!!! The CM even gave them a free pin for doing 20 trades!

Lily & I at the Poly.


We monorailed it to the Grand Floridian and to The Contemporary, doing trading with randmn CMs and at each concierge desk. When we got to the Contemporary I needed to feed Lily so I was about to sit down at a bench when I heard a bunch of booms outside and realized Wishes was going on. So i grabbed the stroller, Lily & her bottle and headed to the windows to watch.

It was the best moment, being there with my baby girl and seeing Wishes. It really just made me so excited to show her so many things, Disney & beyond. She changed my whole world, and made it so much better. I've never been more excited about life before. Anyways I'm sidetracking.

I snapped one pic of Christmas decorations.


We finished up the trading and hopped on the monorail back to the Poly. I had one more thing that needed to be done, something I kept trying to do the last few trips but didn't get to.... to have one of these:


Allison tried one too and liked it as much as I do!

Lily how did you like Disney??


LOL.

We headed home after the Dole Whips. It was a great day overall, but I def missed Chris being there and missed him seeing Lily be there for the first time, so next time we will pretend it's her first time I think.

Wanna see the pins I traded for??



Our next trip is going to be the first weekend in February. It's my BFF's and her daughter's birthday week and they are going for an overnight trip. Chris, Lily & I are going to take them to the Ohana Character breakfast the Sunday they are there since Stitch is their favorite. I'm excited to see theeir reactions as well as Chris' & Lily's.

[scott]

sounds like a magical first trip for her with many more to follow.

looking forward to hearing about the future ones.

she is a cutie.

[tazdev3225]

It looks like Princess Lily was very well behaved for her 1st trip. She is so cute.

I have some pins for my grandkids for our trip in August. Jay loved trading a couple of years ago, last trip not so much. I think the upcoming trip will be better since he will have the little ones to help. I can't get myself to trade my pins but then again they are all Grumpy. Can't trade away Grumpy. LOL

[geminiangel]

Aww. Lily is so sweet.

Come on now, we know you named her after Walt's wife.
j/k.

We have quite a pin collection ourselves, and decided to leave all that home on our Oct. trip.

Looking forward to reading about a local's experiences at the world. It would be hard for you to do more than one day at a time. All that drving back and forth.

[TinkyKat]

can someone remind me how to multi quote??

[scott]

hit the "add quote" button on all the posts u want. Then hit "reply". Then go down and highlight the posts and paste. It is really weird how they have set up.

[TinkyKat]

Jan 17, 2012 12:14:09 GMT -5 geminiangel said:

Aww. Lily is so sweet.

Come on now, we know you named her after Walt's wife.
j/k.

We have quite a pin collection ourselves, and decided to leave all that home on our Oct. trip.

Looking forward to reading about a local's experiences at the world. It would be hard for you to do more than one day at a time. All that drving back and forth.

I have been calling Lily "Lily Belle" lately, maybe secretly I did name her after Walt's wife, or his boat.....
If we do plan to stay in Orlando for a few days there are TON of $40 hotels in short driving distance to WDW.

Jan 13, 2012 9:43:17 GMT -5 tazdev3225 said:

It looks like Princess Lily was very well behaved for her 1st trip. She is so cute.

I have some pins for my grandkids for our trip in August. Jay loved trading a couple of years ago, last trip not so much. I think the upcoming trip will be better since he will have the little ones to help. I can't get myself to trade my pins but then again they are all Grumpy. Can't trade away Grumpy. LOL

We ordered lots of misc pin son ebay so we have traders to start with. The pin trading within our group has gotten NUTSO, like they order 100 pins before every trip so they have more for trading!

Jan 12, 2012 21:02:09 GMT -5 scott said:

sounds like a magical first trip for her with many more to follow.

looking forward to hearing about the future ones.

she is a cutie.

Thanks!

Feb 7, 2012 12:47:19 GMT -5 scott said:

hit the "add quote" button on all the posts u want. Then hit "reply". Then go down and highlight the posts and paste. It is really weird how they have set up.

Thanks Scott!


NEXT UP 2/4/2012-one day 2 ressies!

[TinkyKat]

So.... today was a trip to celebrate Laura & H's birthday, which are a week apart. Laura was aware of our plans but H, who turned 13, had no idea. We had a crew of 9 total with us, 7 of us were going to breakfast.

We left early, around 830am, so we would make our ressie in plenty of time. 7 of us squeezed into one car (an SUV) and Michael & Bill went off on their own to visit a comic store in orlando before meeting us at our destination, The Poly, after we finished breakfast.

Lily was all princess-ed out and ready to go!


The drive was uneventful and we made it with about half hour to spare. Everyone else ran to the concierge desk to pin trade and I went upstairs with Lily to check in at Ohana. This is where I learned that Lily needed to be classified as an infant, and the CM asked me to see her this is what we found...


LOL.

Everyone met me upstairs shortly there after and we got leid and waitied to be called. I opted out of the photo, we figured we would have enough opportunities for group pics.

When we were called H STILL didn't know we were dining with the characters, she just thought we were having breakfast. Our "cousin" who seated us was really great! He had birthday buttons for Laura & H and was really funny. When we got to the bread station he told H "Since we are cousin's you need to help with the chores- here hold this bread basket!" We all laughed and our friend Kim laughed the loudest. Our cousin didn't skip a beat he said to her "Well since there are a bunch of you let's get 2 baskets and YOU can carry this one!" We all laughed!

We were seated in a corner at a huge table to the side, not the best view but it was ok. H finally was told who was at breakfast with us and she shrieked!

So we chowed down, waited for characters and got Lily out of the stroller.
Of course she needed a diaper change so I grabbed a diaper and wipes and ran to the bathroom to change her before the first character made it to the table. I'm thinking it's going to be a fast change of the diaper, Lily however decided to pee on me when I took off her diaper, right onto the one underneath! So I called Laura (her godmother BTW) and had her bring me another one. That will teach me not to take the whole diaper bag with me!

The first character was on the way to the table shortly after we got back to the table. it was Lily's very first character.....Pluto!

SHE LOVED HIM! She stared and stared at him!! I was so excited that she seemed to like him. He was cute with her , playing with her and goofing around!



Of course we took a group photo.
L-R Allison, Laura, H, me, Chris & Lily


I was on cloud nine that Pluto didn't make Lily cry! We took a few "family" pics in between. (I look kinda creepy, sorry)


We made Kim get her own pic, she is our resident animal lover so she loves Pluto & she has never been to WDW before!


H was weirded out for some reason LOL


I <3 this pic!


Next up was Lilo! (Notice Lily still trying to see Lilo!)


Next up was The Big Cheese himself- Mickey Mouse! I have a video of the meeting but I have yet to take it off the camera, sorry! Here are pics tho!









Our server was awesome, she was from NY! She brought out cupcakes for Laura & H and we all sang to them.





Apparently all the excitement knocked out my little princess....


She had a long day ohead of her so we let her crash with Chris for a while, she didn't even wake up when Stitch came!

Laura & H LOVE Stitch, its the whole reason we did this breakfast, they had both wanted to for so long. It was our gift to them for their birthdays!



I love the smile on Laura's face!






We spent almost 2 hours at breakfast, it was great! we all had so much fun and everyone was really into the Mickey waffles. Most everyone had never been to a character meal before so it was really cool for me to have them there experiencing something new!

We took a stroll around the grounds of the Poly for a while, waiting for the guys to arrive. I really love The Poly, the vibe is just so awesome. Everyone else seemed to love it too!

Now we were on our way somewhere to meet up with yet another friend, Jim.

The day did not end here by any means....there's much more to come!

[tazdev3225]

I love the pics. Ohana is one place I am looking forward to on our trip. I enjoyed it in October and my SIL's aunt told the family they will love it there.

Lily looks so cute and Chris looks like a really proud Papa.

Can't wait to read more.

[geminiangel]

Very nice to have so many "character meal virgins" with you!
Can't wait for more.

[lesprivate]

What a cutie, that is one of the best character breakfasts in Disney.

[TinkyKat]

So we spent a few hours at Ohana for breakfast for Laura & H.

H & I did some hidden mickey searching before we left and saw this neat one at the Kona coffee bar!


And I saw these in the gallery shop- I LOVE them!!




We headed out to the buses to hit up downtown Disney and meet our friend Jim, who had driven up to hang out with us too!

Now I am new to the baby in Disney thing so I had to ask at the desk what I am supposed to do with her in the stroller on the bus. I was told I had to have the stroller folded up no matter how old the baby is. I don't think that's very safe for a newborn but that's just me. I would much rather have her strapped into the whole stroller system than in the car seat not strapped to anything, but I did what they said. I had the car seat next to the window and Isat next to it. my knuckles were white the whole time, i didn't like it one bit. We arrived with no incident and began trolling the shops for pins and we glanced a bit at the merch too. LOL.

Turns out Jim was on the West Side so we split into a few groups, some to get Jim, some to pin trade and some to relax and people watch. I people watched. I parked the stroller and chilled out for a while. It was awesome.

I eventually got a candy apple from Goofy's....dipped in dark chocolate and coconut! I know we also hit up Ghiardelli for some free samples too. We did stroll around the shops some too.

We did have another ressie to keep so we rounded up the troops that were coming with. We also split up here too. It's so hard to go with groups as big as ours so we try to do things together but dining is ALWAYS the issue. So some didn't want to do this ressie and some did- so we split.

The rest of the group who didn't come stayed around DTD to pin trade and planned to meet us at the place where our ressie was..... the Grand Floridian. Figured out where we were going yet?? Tea!!!!

We were late to the ressie due to the bus being super slow to get there, but they took us in just a few minutes with no issue. I needed a few minutes to change Lily and get her fed, or at least start feeding her, so I grabbed a spot on the couch.

So i plan to embarass my little princess one day by telling her all the weird places in WDW I changed her diaper as a kid, so I took a pic before I changed her, on that couch I sat on....



We were seated shortly there after for our tea. We had a lovely table by the windows. It's so cute in there!!!

Some pics....





I had the Mad hatter blend- SO GOOD!

The view...


Lily's view for the beginning of tea, from the car seat sling.


L-R Laura, Bill, Allison, H, Me & Lily


So H really enjoyed the tea and really wants to go back with her friends. I still cant believe she turned 13, she is such a beautiful little lady.





Laura snagged this one of me talking to Lily


This is my fav pic....Allison's face says it all....Bill had taken out his pins and was sorting through them...he is a BIT obsessed. Put it this way- he catalogs all the pins he has and plans to write a phone app for pin cataloging!


H didn't like the bitter bottom part with the tea leaves LOL!!!


We spent a while enjoying our tea, we all finished our pots! We did order some food too. Bill had the Gentleman's tea, L & Allison had the cheese plate , I had the tea sandwiches, H had the triffle and we shared an order of scones. Everything was really yummy. I want a whole plate of pear & gorgonzola sandwiches!!! & the onion tart was delish too!

The rest of our friends arrived and we all went up to check out the pin board they have out at 6pm in the shop upstairs. We wandered the shops as well taking silly pics.





We did some trading then all hopped on the monorail to the contemporary for their pin board and to see about some fireworks.

Jim went home at some point and we all decided to wait around the Contemporary for Wishes and watch from the outside deck on the 4th floor. We staked out a spot, got some snacks and hung out. I fed the small fry while we waited too.





H wanted to try taking some pics and a few came out neat...






Not bad , right??

A few min before Wishes started a bunch of people came out and mostly blocked our view. I wqas annoyed but took Lily in the sling up to the railing and made us a spot to watch from.

It has been so neat being able to bring her so much because every time we go she is seeing more and more. I can't begin to describe how cool that is for me. This night she saw the fireworks for the first time, like wide eyed saw them. I bawled. I always cry during Wishes but it made it that much more tear worthy that Lily seemed enthralled with the bright lights. I love that I can share this stuff with her, I'm so lucky to have her and be so close to Disney that I get to share these kinds of moments with her!

We hopped back on the monorail and back to the Poly for our car. We stopped at McDonalds for some dinner along the way and were home around 11pm that night.

Another great day spent.

Another update is coming soon, we went back yesterday with Chirs' mom & are going back Wed for the leap year 24 hour Disney day!!!! So excited!

[lesprivate]

I love the Grand Floridian tea, it is so much fun. I have never watched the fireworks from the deck at the Contemporary but we are thinking of trying is in August after we have dinner at Chef Mickeys.