We are heading home from our Waterpark Week in Tennessee, and I’m sharing one more Vacation oldie but goodie repost with you today.
Isn’t Disney one of those iconic vacations that seem to be legendary family trips?
I know Disney isn’t for everyone… there are plenty of Disney haters, but we had an absolute BLAST when we went TWO years ago. {I can’t believe it’s really been two years!} We were ready to go back almost the moment the trip was over, but, hello, legendary does NOT equal cheap. We planned to wait two years and go again in September of this year when Davis was almost 3.
Well, that was before I ended up going back to work, and there ain’t no way this teacher is getting a week off of school in September.
So our plans have been modified to be tentatively set for May of this year as soon as school is out. Usually our school gets out a week or so earlier than the other schools, so that gives us at least a teensy bit of a feeling that we’re getting a break on the crowds.
I am so sad that this is our only option, but getting days off in the middle of the year just isn’t a possibility unfortunately. So we are stuck with the crowds and the heat. Yup.
This will actually be Davis’s FIRST trip since being the cruel parents we are, we decided to leave him with the grandparents last time since he was about to turn 1.
Ironically, this child out of all my three is completely obsessed with all things Mickey. Loves him.
I think he does it just to twist the knife of guilt for leaving him at home.
He also weirdly is enamored with all the giant costumed people you see everywhere instead of being deathly afraid or at least cautiously wary as a normal 2 year old usually is.
He loves Monkey Joe, and recently tried to set a record for how many times he could get the CFA cow to try to awkwardly bend down and hug a tiny person.
He would just thrust out his little arms and the poor cow person would hunker down as best they could and stick their hooves around him. Of course, I’m sure it was most definitely their pleasure to do so, you know.
In honor of Davis’s first trip to see his beloved Mickey and what he calls Mickey’s castle, we will be setting up our fabulous Disney Countdown again! The kids loved it so much last time and it helped at least somewhat with their concept of time knowing how long they had to wait!
Although, I do think it would be fun to do one of those surprise we’re at Disney moments too, because now that I think about it, Davis will likely ask us ad nauseum where we are going the entire way down there.
Just to reassure himself he isn’t getting left out this time.
…………… Countdown to Disney {originally posted August 2011………….
Tomorrow we are just TWENTY FIVE days away from our FIRST FAMILY DISNEY vacation experience!!!!
This is a big deal, people. If not solely for the fact that we are dropping a LOT of dough on this. I still can NOT get over how much they get away with charging! $85 a day? Each adult? And only a bit cheaper for kids at $80 a day!
Disney really knows what they are doing too since every additional day you go the ticket prices drop SIGNIFICANTLY!
Price Options for a family of FOUR {including tax} through Mousesavers… Price in parentheses is the OLD price before it was raised. :(
1 day = {$333} $350
3-4 days = {$908} $946 {same price for four days as it is for three days…}
5-6 days = {$926} $988 {same price for five days as it is for six days…}
7 days = {$950} $1048
I am SO SAD that we will be paying the NEW… just raised ticket prices!! Boo to the double Hoo. The prices just went up the middle of June… :(
To get those price options, you have to sign up for Mousesavers newsletter and wait for the next issue to come out. {It’s only sent once a month.} Then you have to order them online and have them mailed to you. You’re really not saving a whole lot, but every little bit helps! Four seven day passes on the Disney site with tax is $1097… so at most we’ll be saving about $50.
Since we were going to spending so much, I really wanted to help the kids see what a big deal this really is!
I don’t remember where I first heard of the idea of doing a Disney Countdown, {I’m pretty sure it was Pinterest.} but I have since searched the whole wide internet looking for ideas.
I loved the idea of an Activity Countdown with something for the kids to take down every day showing them a fun Disney related activity to do that day. I found this Disney Countdown that used Home Depot Mickey Head paint samples and this one using red and yellow chains … both of which were pretty cool. :)
I also ran across this poster… How many more days to Disney?? which would be a veeeery simple way to do a Disney Countdown. Just print, laminate, and use a dry erase marker to keep track of the days.
Because I can’t do anything “simply,” I decided to do the Countdown using the Mickey Heads!
Chris and I went into Home Depot for our mission. I honestly did feel bad taking that many paint samples, but I thought of nine hundred plus reasons to justify it.
YaknowwhatI’msayin????
We both started grabbing heads and then stopped to do a count. In the time it took for me to get around TWENTY, he had managed to grab SIX.
SIX!!!
The Mickey Heads actually peeled off from their square background, but they were soooo thin they curled up a LOT! I fixed the issue by making sure to peel up some of the backing too {that you’re not really supposed to peel} which gave it a sturdier back.
I used my cricut to make all the numbers for the countdown using a variety of scrapbook paper. I ended up writing down all the numbers I needed and then crossed off each number as I cut it so I could keep up with what numbers I was cutting.
After my numbers were cut I debated how to lay out the Mickey Heads…
I considered putting them in the shape of… well, a Mickey Head.
But in the end thought that may take away from the fact that all the numbers are in the shape of the Mickey Head too, and I thought that was pretty cool. :)
After laying out all the heads in random-but-evenly-spaced colors, I had to divvy out the letters using the “random” method again so I wouldn’t end up with two colors or patterns too close together. :) I like to LOOK spontaneous… not BE spontaneous, OK??
My Little Gems shared her countdown activities to go on the back of the Mickey Heads, and I adapted it to make MY OWN VERSION of Disney Countdown Activities… added what I wanted and included some sources of where to get the printables I used. {You can click the link above to get your own…}
And like I said earlier, I can’t do anything simply. I just can’t resist making stuff look cute. It’s some sort of sickness, really.
Here’s some of the activities I found… a Disney Word Search for Haylee and Disney Coloring Pages for Wade. The actual Disney site linked to all these Disney Crafts that were pretty amazing… a lot of them were things you could print and make fairly easily!
Things like a Rapunzel Crown, a Tangled Activity Kit, a Toy Story Character Set, Mickey Bookmarks, Mickey Airplanes and much, MUCH more. I also found this printable Free Kid’s ID and I made these printable luggage tags. There are even more Disney Countdown Activity ideas here.
For the Disney Gift Day, we bought some Disney things at Walmart that we’ll give them, and the rest we’ll pack in the suitcase to be their “souvenirs” during the week we’re there! Ha! Walmart is much cheaper than WDW gift shops! :)
I printed the page of activities, cut them out, and glued them on the backs of the Mickey Heads. I decided to laminate them too so it would be something I could reuse if we ever rob a bank er… save up to go again. :)
I masking taped them all to a poster board for easy removal and even made a nifty title for the project…
This really was a SIMPLE project, though I worked my “magic” and made it much more complicated, ha ha! :)
Though now that I’ve done all the work, maybe it won’t be so difficult for YOU!
Feel free to download a copy of all that hard work for your very own Disney Countdown!!
Disney Here we Come Poster Title
Here are some fun Walt Disney Quotes for you…
“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”
Walt Disney
“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.”
Walt Disney
The Countdown BEGINS TOMORROW!!!!
You can also check out these other disney posts to see what a grand time we really did have…
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