Ready, Steady, SHOP!

I received a most wonderful parcel today! I picked up this hunk of a box and lugged it home to find...

My babushka Samsonite B-lite cases!

I bought a set designed to fit inside each other so that I can take empty suitcases to the states to bring home my goodies. We loved our 4 wheeler suitcases from our trip to Europe so much that we bought Samsonite's newest soft-sided suitcases. The 4 wheels really help with manoeuvrability. And the suitcases are light. The largest 77cm case weighs 3.9kg, the 67cm weighs 3.3kg and the carry on 55cm only 2.6kg. Ok so its no where near as light as the cosmolite but I can't afford $500 per suitcase!

I was going to buy these in the states but was surprised that 1) they were hard to find and 2) the ones that I did find were more expensive. So we'll now be taking 5 suitcases with us with the aim of 3 of them being empty. If we buy more than we have space for, well...the shops are there for a reason! I think Malcolm is really starting to worry about how much I am planning to buy!

Oh, and I do not work for Samsonite...

A Mini Shopping Expedition

The shopping bug has bitten early. We made our first purchase yesterday! Land's End had a 30% off and free shipping offer, along with an additional $10 off down jackets. So we stocked up for Malcolm, Jonah and myself. With a 650 fill jacket only costing $60, how could one go wrong?!?! If we are still cold in New York, we can always buy some more! Besides, I haven't been able to find any for Jonah and I managed to get one for him for only $28. Bargain!

We arranged to have the parcel shipped to Port Orleans Riverside. It will arrive about 2.5 weeks before we check in. I hope that this will be ok with the hotel as there will be many more parcels coming their way shortly!

Glorious Walt Disney World

The original reason for the whole trip! I have to be eternally grateful to our Theme-park strategist and Dining Colonel who have coordinated this segment of our trip with distinction. I should have known better than to doubt their anally-retentive obsessive compulsive traits that all medics own and that is needed to be a true Disney planner!

They dutifully bought and studied the Unofficial Guide to WDW. Trawling through the DISboards for information is a given. Next up we subscribed to Fred Hazelton’s site for access to the crowd calendar and touring plans. To not employ the services of a statistician for planning what seemed to be a strategy for battle would be sacrilege. Thanks to Fred, we re-arranged the days that we would be at WDW. The original trip schedule was much shorter. It consisted simply of 2 weeks at WDW prior to the Panama cruise. However this would put us smack bang at WDW around Christmas and New Year where crowd ratings were the worst for the whole year. Although we dearly wanted to experience the atmosphere WDW at Christmas, we didn’t want to spend hours just waiting in line. Time is precious! Besides, airfares just before Christmas are ridiculously priced.

So a solution was put together. We will leave in early December so as to avoid peak season airfares. We’ll spend around 12 days in WDW before having a 2 week hiatus before the cruise. This will mean that we get to experience the WDW Christmas cheer just before the peak crowds appear. As it turned out, our 2 week hiatus became a trip to New York and Washington DC. Christmas in New York has always been a dream. And as everything remains open on New Years day in Washington DC, it appears that end Dec/early Jan is a good time to visit! Things appear to be falling into place until the announcement came that family Y was unable to get enough leave. This was a big disappointment. The Canadian leave system was not as generous as the Australian. Dad will only get to join the gang for WDW. Nonetheless, mum and baby will come back for the cruise.

I digress…back to WDW! We’re booked into Port Orleans Riverside (the only moderate that will fit 5 into a room), our park tickets purchased and we’re all paid up in light of the recent strength of the Australian dollar. Our park days are mapped out complete with rest breaks, dining, tours, shows and parades pencilled in. A rough touring plan is in place for each day, and contingencies also drawn up incase the parties are required to split up (whether by children’s age or gender preferences). We’re squeezing in the Candlelight Processional with Steve Curtis Chapman, Spectromagic, Illuminations, Fantasmic, and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party with Mother Hen “M” also doing a solo backstage tour. There will, of course, be no time wasting. We have the evening of our arrival day to recover (we arrive at 5:43pm on Dec 9). We will then hit the ground running with a scheduled character breakfast to meet Winnie The Pooh and friends at the Crystal Palace at 8:15am the next day, right before exploring the Magic Kingdom. In an attempt to pace ourselves, we will take a short afternoon rest before heading toward Downtown Disney for our evening meal. Then we are likely to crash from exhaustion. We are hopeful that this will be a cure for any jetlag that we might encounter.

We will end our time in Orlando with a visit to Harry Potter World and Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament. We farewell Family Y and fly off to New York on Dec 21. I would show our spreadsheet but fear that you may stop reading my blog...

Flights

The one thing that I am truly dreading is the flight to America and the jetlag that follows. 11 of us will be leaving Sydney at 1130 in the morning on a 13 hour and 45 minute flight to LA where we’ll have 3 hours and 45 minutes to go through immigration, pick up our luggage, go through customs, drop them off again for our next flight, go through security and then find our way to our next boarding gate for our connecting flight to Orlando…with 6 children in tow. Hopefully all flights will go ahead as planned and we will be in Orlando 5 hours later unscathed. We arrive at 543pm and who knows what our stomach will think that we’re up to by then. Hopefully the Magical Express won’t take too long to take us to Port Orleans Riverside. We’re hoping to catch a quick bite to eat and then crash. I keep telling myself that if I could survive flying to Europe, then I can survive this…I know I can. I know I can. I know I can.

The flight home should be marginally better as we’ll be flying out from LA and will only have the one plane to catch to reach Sydney. The flight leaves at 1045pm and so here’s to hoping that the children will sleep most of 14 hour flight away!

We’ve tried to include as many domestic legs as we can on our international ticket so that we can utilize the more generous international luggage allowance. How could we possibly pass up the opportunity to take 10 pieces of luggage per family? Think of all the shopping that we could do! All joking aside, I am actually starting to wonder how light I can pack for a family of five given that I’ll have to cater for the extreme cold of New York and Washington DC as well as for the tropical weather of Central America, not to mention the fact that we will be away for over 6 weeks. I am so tempted to just buy everything over there. Not sure how well that will go down with DH…

Meet the Adventurers

There will be 5 families involved in this madness.There is our fabulous family of course! And then there is...

Family K
Our “gaming”, “church” as well as “dinner at 530pm” buddies with 3 children whose ages are similar to our children. They are also in for the whole hog! We’ve been on many holidays together but never for 45 days straight! Let’s hope our friendship won’t be tested too hard over this long trip...

Dad – A colleague of Mal’s who enjoys the finer things in life. Let’s hope he survives the non-espresso coffees in the States. He has been assigned to be our Dining Colonel, the one in charge of organizing our ADRs for WDW and for finding restaurants elsewhere.

Mum – A clinically retired medic like me! An amazingly capable woman who always manages to keep all juggling balls in the air.

7 – A high school musical fan and a keen soccer player!

5 – A little girl who is as sharp as a tack. Can’t trick this little one!

2 – The princess lucky enough to have a birthday while we’re at WDW. We will be celebrating in style at Cinderella’s Royal Table.

Family Y
Our other “gaming”, “church” and “dinner at 530pm” buddies. Close friends who have recently moved to Canada for training/work for a year. Unfortunately, because of work commitments, the whole family can only join in for the WDW

Dad – Yet another medic…but of the bone carpentering sort. Our theme-park strategist, he has dutifully created wonderfully complex spreadsheets full of minute details and will be on hand to shepherd us around at WDW.

Mum – The last of the clinically retired medic! One of the main reasons for the whole group going is fulfill our promise to take her to a “Disney Park”. Yes, she has incredibly NEVER been to ANY Disney park EVER! This trip also serves well as reunion of sorts. We would not have seen each other for about 6 months when we meet up in Orlando.

1 – A most precious little boy conceived after years of trying. A real cutie and babbling away non-stop is his current past time. He is on a crash course to survive the nursery on the cruise ship...

Family M
The “older” family and the only non “Drs.” on the trip. They have generously offered to help with the younger children to give the parents a break, thus have a most pivotal role on the journey…The family will be on the New York leg as well from Port Canaveral onwards.

Dad - A fine wine lover and fishing enthusiast

Mum - The mother hen, and the other Disney nut. She will be in for nearly the whole hog except for the Washington DC leg where the whole M clan will head to New Jersey to visit family friends.

21 – A talented “media” person, handy with video, graphics and all things techy.

18 – A hit with the “little” ones, we have high hopes that this will bode well for babysitting opportunities…

Family P
The last family making up our group for the cruise. Also “Drs” but of the dental kind. They will be bringing temporary fillings in case anyone chips their teeth as well as Ultra Carbon in case anyone poisons themselves. They will be doing their own thing but will be joining the rest of the crew for the cruise.

Dad - another coffee connoisseur and also a lover of fine wine.

Mum – A lady who has lost in incredible amount of weight and is now our fashion trendsetter! The woman by the pool looking great in the Monroe-esque 50’s style bathers will be her!

7 – A space enthusiast and lover of the garbage truck. His career of choice until recently had been garbologist much to the horror of his grandmother.

3 – Another dear little girl whose favourite princess is…Daddy!

It's Time

Yes, the time has come. We are officially only 30 days away from our American Adventure. So lets spill the details on what has been in planning for well over a year now. If you've already read all this on my DISboards pre-trip report then you can read it again!

This trip will be mammoth in more ways than one. The most obvious gargantuan factor is the length of the adventure. We’ll be away from home for a total of 6 weeks and 3 days. The next factor contributing to the epic nature of this journey is the number of people going. There are 21 travelers going on various portions of the trip. Brave or stupid? Time will tell…

Quick recap...We zoom back to 2009. Malcolm and I had only just discovered the existence of of DCL a few months prior to our Mediterranean cruise! Prior to our April cruise, our Disney travel record had been sadly dormant and confined to pre-kids-still living with our parents-era. We came upon DCL by chance whilst doing research to take the children on their very first trip to WDW in Dec 2010.

The original plan was to tack on a Caribbean cruise at the end of our WDW stay. And then…the kids sail free offer for the Mediterranean cruises came up. Malcolm decided to “try before we buy”. Yep, my arm was twisted. We embarked on our 11 night Mediterranean cruise on the Magic for our Disney “preview” to whet our appetite. Besides we needed an opportunity to book our “real” cruise whilst onboard for the extra savings. By then, the Caribbean cruise had morphed into a Panama Canal cruise and the plans had evolved to include New York and Washington DC. The number of participants had also slowly grown from just the 5 of us to the magical number of 21. It appears that we sell the idea of Disney very well! They all couldn’t resist wanting to come along with us for the magic…

Here's a run down of our Adventure!

Dec 9 We leave for Orlando!
Dec 21 Fly to New York
Dec 28 Catch the train to Washington D.C.
Jan 2 Return to Orlando
Jan 4 Transfer to Port Canaveral
Jan 6 Hop on to our Panama Canal cruise
Jan 21 Fly home
Jan 23 Arrive home

Feeling the need to squeeze every single bit of value into the expensive airfares and long traveling times, and not to mention the chaos that we’ll be putting our body clocks into, we have decided to go for as long as our budget and leave will possibly permit us to go for.

We’re beginning our journey on December 9 on a 13 hour and 45 minute Delta flight bound for LA. We chose to forgo continuing on the “international” flight to Atlanta (where we’d have to connect to a flight for Orlando) and opted instead for a direct 4 hr 45 min flight from LAX to Orlando. This means no more on-demand inflight entertainment…Hope we don’t regret the decision!

Our first stint at Orlando is solely dedicated to Walt Disney World. Sorry, I lie. We’ll be spending our last day at Universal Studios to satisfy the Harry Potter fans.

We then head to the bright lights of New York for a week where we’ll spend Christmas. It is then a train ride to Washington D.C where we’ll stay for 5 days before heading back down to Orlando.

Following that is a transfer to Port Canaveral in preparation for the Panama Canal cruise, a necessity for our journey west to LA. Sadly our adventure will end there as we board our flight back home to Sydney.

Princesses & Pirates

I am feeling rather overwhelmed. We have so much going on at the moment. We have an event to go to on every single day of every weekend until we leave for the USA. To add on top of that, we also have to submit our application for our new home before we leave. Malcolm has been busily engrossed in completing his take home exam for his ultrasound course. So yesterday, the rest of the family attended a very fun Princess and Pirate party. The pictures below speak for themselves! Thankfully today Malcolm announced that he had completed his exam, my parents hung on to Lara and Elliot which meant that we only had Jonah to contend with while we trotted off for lunch at the Woolwich Pier Hotel. As usual, it was a relaxing and wonderful way to spend the afternoon, eating and chatting with friends. So relaxing that I forgot to take photos...

Happy Birthday Annelise!

Ethel's labour of love...a beautiful cake befitting a princess!

The birthday princess with her 2 of her guests

Lara, delighted to be Snow White again

Annelise

Reluctant pirates

A princess busy making her tiara...

...and her treasure box

The boys with their own version

Concentrating very hard

The generous spread provided by the Kohs

Mrs Koh's special yam cakes

Fried wontons

Jonah doing his own thing as usual

Waiting to decorate cupcakes

Cake time!

A princess trying to find some a quiet place to enjoy some nibbles

Waiting in line for a bash at the castle pinata

Lara showing off her muscle

Its finally broken!

Uncle Jason making sure there's nothing left inside

The rush for the treasure!