Family vacation: Walt Disney World with small kids

Six months have been passed by and the beautiful memories of our Orlando trip still lingers in my mind. There were some not so good flashbacks during our stay in the awesome Animal Kingdom Lodge but I will only dwell on the good ones of course. Our first trip wasn't so bad. We did our homework and fairly enough we expected the events that were waiting for us at Disney World. We stayed there for 4 nights and 5 days with our little sweetlings ages 4 and 2.

Weather. From sunny California to sunny-rainy Florida, the weather reminded us so much of the tropical climate in the Philippines. It was beautiful! The trees are oh so green and the smell of nature is undeniably around. It's really warm and it actually feels good when it rains. Given the weather we packed the following items:

- raincoats for everyone (daddy, mommy, big sister, small sister)
- comfy clothes for warm weather (shorts, capri pants, shirts, sleeveless tops)
- extra shirts and bottoms for the girls
- face towels or small towels to fit inside the backpack
- extra shade for the double stroller
- raincoat for the double stroller
- enough diapers and wipes for the whole trip

Nice weather at Epcot.

It's also important to wear a very comfortable shoes as this trip will be full of walking activities. We took the red eye flight from LAX to Orlando because we do not want to waste the first day for the flight alone so the girls were still sleepy during the first hours of the day. Who wouldn't? We are three hours behind Florida time.

Just landed at Orlando airport. Excited much!

Our vacation package includes the convenience of Disney World taking care of our luggages from the airport to our hotel room so we didn't have to worry about carrying loads of stuffs to drop them off to our room instead they took us straight to the park. So before our trip we already have everything with us in the hand-carry.   Mistake number one: Packing the princess gowns of my little girls in our hand-carry completely slipped my mind. We were reserved for lunch buffet on our first day with the Disney princesses and we wanted it to be extra special  :( but nevertheless, they enjoyed the yummy breakfast with their favorite princess characters in their spring get-up :)

Lunch buffet and princess parade lead by Princess Aurora.

With Princess Ariel.

Food. We also have the Disney Dining Plan. It's an option we decided to include in our trip so we don't have to worry about where to eat and how much to spend on every meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks). There are many participating restaurants inside Disney World that accept the plan. We just present them our room key at the cash register and they deduct the points that will be reflected in the receipt. That way we'll know how many meals we have left at the end of the day. It's paid in advance. Was it worth it? Confusing sometimes but yes yes and yes!

Breakfast with Disney Junior characters.

Morning stroll at Magic Kingdom.

Character dining is the best but hold on! We noticed that breakfast style buffets have much lesser choices than lunch and dinner buffets so we reserved only one character dining during breakfast. If you decide to avail the Dining Plan, use it wisely. Buffet style and character dining are twice the points used in every meal than a regular dining restaurant. Use most of the dining food plan for lunch and dinner buffets or sit-down menu restaurants with menu that looks expensive because you'll never go wrong. (Best tip!) You can also talk to the chef about certain foods you want on your table. This specially goes to the group with any member of the family who has food allergies or someone on a special diet. By the way, they also gave us two medium-sized Disney character cups on the first day of our breakfast. I'm not sure how they decide how many cups to give to their guests but this is where we can enjoy free refills of any refreshment from the restaurant in the hotel. We fill them up after breakfast so we have drinks on our way to the park. How neat is that?

Asian-styled fried chicken.

First dessert of the day: a trio of sweetness!

Our room. It's gorgeous! Bienne and Cielo absolutely loved it! Every morning the girls would go out the balcony to see the wild animals just outside the yard. Zebras, Ostriches, Giraffes, Antelopes are some of the animals we hear at night. The idea of taking the girls to the most affordable African Safari trip entered our mind but of course it will take years for us to do that but who knows maybe someday it's gonna be a dream come true.

View from our balcony.

Hotel pool. We chose to soak in the hotel pool rather than going to the water theme parks. It takes a lot of energy to go there and go back the hotel all wet. It was spring time but it was unbelievably hot as a summer. The hotel pool is perfectly catered to family with small kids.  The kids can borrow life vest for free and towels were also provided as well at no cost but we brought our own life vests because we were not sure if there was a size that can fit our youngest toddler. There were also entertainment like dancing, contests, and surprise freebies beside the pool while the kids swim.

My girls swimming at the zero entry pool. In this picture they are soaking at 1 foot. There are at least four lifeguards in this family pool.

Transportation. Complimentary shuttle buses will take you to different parks such as Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Downtown Disney, and the water theme parks. They have schedule of drop offs and pick ups at designated locations. Make sure that you know where your bus point of pick-up is on your way back to the hotel. We made a couple of mistakes here because I'm telling you now there are many buses that will take you anywhere inside Disney World. This park is so huge its 1/3 land of Animal Kingdom is the size of our very own Disneyland Resort in California.

The view of Grand Floridian from the monorial.

Outside Disney World. The main reason of the event why we went to Disney World is to celebrate our 6th year anniversary. It was worth it and the girls were so thrilled even while we're still on the planning stage. They love Disneyland so much that when my eldest learned  that we are going to visit a bigger Disneyland she was extremely excited. We planned to visit the nearest church outside Disney World so we had to take a cab. This is our second tip shared by an insider. If you are staying inside Disney World hotels and plan to explore the area outside the park take the complimentary shuttle bus going to Downtown Disney. There are tons of taxi cabs outside Downtown Disney and it's much cheaper. So that's what we did.

Downtown Disney at night.

One of the challenges we expected to meet is the meal for our youngest toddler who has multiple food allergies. I mentioned this in my previous blogs that apart from seafood and eggs, our little girl is highly allergic to cow's milk so we made sure we packed enough milk for the trip - on the plane until the next day. According to my research there's a small grocery inside Animal Kingdom Lodge that has fresh milk and soy milk. Unfortunately, the soy milk they have is not the same soy milk our little girl is drinking she just can't take it. So hubee inquired at the lobby hotel on how they can help us. They gave him a complimentary transportation stub to buy what we need outside the park.

Pictures pictures and more pictures! Don't forget to charge your batteries and bring some extra ones as well. The best fun part of the trip is taking tons of pictures (and videos too!). You'll find photographers wearing Disney uniform in every corner of the park and they are located on the exact spot where they call it the winning background. Our mistake number 3: we failed to order the prints taken from their camera online. It only takes at least 30 days in their file and after that all the pictures in there will be deleted. So if there's a shot that you really like taken from their camera I suggest you order it right away.

Disney World is indeed the most magical place on earth. Hubee and I always feel young at heart when we enter the Disney parks. It was sad that our trip in Florida was short but we did have a great time. Would you believe after just three days of missing Disney World we went to Disneyland Resort? Only thing is our Sleeping Beauty castle now looks smaller than the Cinderella castle in Disney World. We are definitely going back there in the future. Our favorite part of the trip? I'll share it with you in my next blog. Happy travels =)

Education in the Philippines

I would like my blog to steer clear of politics and other heartbreaking news I hear overseas but I love my motherland so much I just can't sit down, read local news and simply watch something that is so wrong and the best way for me to get it off my chest is to share it.

Having no TFC (The Filipino Channel) in my household, the news reached me through Twitter - thanks to my friend @WanderlustWeng, a Philippine senatorial candidate is now being feasted on social networking sites about her response to why a number of schools offering nursing courses were ordered by the chairman on higher education to shut them down because of supposedly substandard education producing students who perform poorly in licensure exams. This woman opposed the move that happened in 2004 where she cited that nursing school owners have already made their investment to these facilities.

Here is an excerpt of the transcript of the exchange between Villar and one of the debate's hosts, Professor Winnie Monsod:   

WINNIE MONSOD: Can you reconcile itong seeming disconnect between your desire to help the poor at pagpanig niyo sa mga may-ari ng education institution na gustong isara ng technical nursing committee at ng CHED (Commission on Higher Education)? (Can you reconcile this seeming disconnect between your desire to help the poor and side with the owners of the education institution which was ordered to shut down by technical nursing committee and CHED (Commission on Higher Education)?)

CYNTHIA VILLAR: Hindi naman ganoon ang istorya noon. Ang nangyari noon ay binigyan nila ng permit 'yung mga schools to open ng CHED. Tapos gusto nilang ipasara. Nag-invest na 'yung mga may-ari ng schools sa kanilang facilities. And then, sinasabi nila na kaya nila gusto ipasara dahil walang tertiary hospital where they can train. Ang sabi naman namin noon na hindi kami kumukontra sa CHED. Ang sinasabi namin kasi, tiningnan namin 'yung syllabus at courses na kukunin nila at nakita namin na after lang sa third year kailangan nila 'yung tertiary hospital so ni-request namin na hindi isara 'yung pre-nursing schools. (That is not really the story. What happened was they gave them permit by CHED to open the schools then they wanted to close down. The owners already invested  their facilities. And then they were telling us that the reason they want them close is because they do not have tertiary hospital where they can train. And we told them we are not against CHED what we were saying, we checked the syllabus and courses that they can take and we found out that after only their third year that they needed to practice in tertiary hospital so we requested not to close the nursing schools.)

WINNIE MONSOD: Bakit bumaba pa ang nurses na na-employ sa abroad, kasi hindi sila qualified? Bakit nag-resign ang Technical Education Committee after 7 months in office? (Why was the employment for nurses abroad became low is it because they are not qualified? Why did the Technical Committee resign after 7 months in office?)

CYNTHIA VILLAR: ‘Yung pagre-resign po ni [Fr. Rolando V. De la Rosa] is a personal quarrel with the owner of the school. Medyo personal po iyon. Pero 'yung amin po, 'yung sinasabi po namin sa kanila na actually hindi naman kailangan ang nurse ay matapos ng BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) kasi itong ating mga nurses ay gusto lang nila maging room nurse, o sa Amerika o sa other countries, ay mag-aalaga lang sila. Hindi naman kailangan na ganoon sila kagaling. (The resignation of [Fr. Rolando V. De la Rosa] is a personal quarrel with the owner of the school. That's a bit personal. But for us that we told them that a nurse does not need to finish a BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) because our nurses just wanted to become room nurse or in America or in other countries, they will just provide care. They do not need to be really that good.)

Thus my open letter to Mrs. Cynthia Villar:

Dear Ms. Cynthia,

The last set of words you said pushed all the right buttons. As a mother, did you ever say those words to your children,"You don't really need to be that good?" When you sided with the school owners who invested their time and money were the Filipino youths also on your mind? See, this is clearly the reason why a third world country remains to be in the same shit everyday, every month, every year, every election day and so on. People like you, Mrs. Cynthia Villar, who are seated in power (and I'm pretty sure under the present administration you are just one of the many) is treacherous to the society, a poison to the innocent minds of the youths of this generation whose dream is to reach their goals and make their future happen. Let me ask you this where do you expect the students to be later on in life with that kind of low mentality?

Be it nursing courses or any other programs, we all wanted to be known as a country with high standard of education and produce graduates who can compete well globally. Remember the spoof from one of the 2007 episodes of Desperate Housewives where Susan said she wanted to check if the diplomas were not from some med school in the Philippines? A mere entertainment or not these are the things that we try to avoid because it hurt us, we are talking about dignity of work. Yes we are sensitive individuals (I don't know about you, you probably don't really care anyway) and one of the things that we could be so proud of is education. And for your information, many Filipino-Americans send their children to the Philippines for college education - most of them in medical school.

So please, keep all the negative aura to yourself. I feel so ashamed already to my neighbors who are all praises to Filipinos they know who earned college degrees in the Philippines and now enjoy success all over the world. Moms like me is frightened to have a leader like you who is supposed to be leading the young Filipinos to success, do their best in their chosen field, and be proud of their hard work  instead of rescuing the businessmen who invested their time and money to schools - which by the way were you ever part of their committee? Seemed to me you pity them more than the quality of education they offer.

And lastly, as a fellow mom I admire your courage to apologize on this issue. It takes a lot of audacity to admit a creepy mistake when people are still hurting. Please bear with them. If you are truly sincere to serve your constituents you must first treat them like your own family. You should know that. You're a mother.

Sincerely,

Filipina at heart, full-time homemaker

Product review: Hair Off instant eyebrow shapers

Part of me as a mom wants to look good even though I know it from my heart that inside our joyful home all I do everyday is to ask myself why my kids' bedroom is always like a party was held for the three little pigs, the crumbs and leftover jellos all over the carpet were like a garden path was built from our dining room to all corners of our bedrooms, and the dirty laundry of my girls that just seemed to keep on coming. Guess what, those are some of the things I actually look forward to everyday. Kids grow and learn faster and before long I may never see tiny legos and torn doll dresses over the floor so I savor every bit of the moment I see. Thank God my hubee is always there to help me. The load is lighter and brighter to me.

So let me tell you that whenever we go out I take more time fixing my hair and putting some light beauty touches on my face so I was thrilled when I saw this product during one of our occasional trips to the grocery. I do not have the skill on how to shape my eyebrows ever so upon seeing this magic box I bought it quickly without hesitation.

After finishing half of the first pad without success, I can honestly say these eyebrow shapers are perfect gift to someone you hate. I do not understand the shape of the eyebrows and absolutely there is no magic in here.

These strips need to be cut out first according to the shape of your eyebrows.  There is no way you can actually put them right on the spot, press and peel it unless it's Halloween and you want to make your eyebrows look naturally shapeless and scare tiny tots with your horrible look.

These strips are good to keep for my scrapbook projects along with my scotch tapes and glue sticks.

I don't know how to justify the price but take my word on this, just go to the parlor have the professionals do their best to shape your eyebrows.

Bottom line: stay away from these shapers. It's scary, confusing, and a waste of money >=(

Product review: Tommee Tippee and Nuk tumbler cups

Transitioning from feeding bottle to sippy cup is just one of the many things a child and a parent experience in their lifetime. It's challenging but exciting. Under our colorful roof when our child reached her first birthday we slowly introduce her to sippy cup. Thank heavens our two beautiful girls were very much open to try new trainer cups except the part that it took us at least an average of three sippy cups before we were able to find the right one. (Beat that!)

My eldest who is now more than four years old has been a loyal user of Munchkin Click Lock 2 Count Insulated Sippy Cup. From Munchkin Mighty Grip Trainer we switched her to an insulated cup so her milk will stay fresh and cool longer so we found the Click Lock 2 and she didn't have problem with that. For two years hubee and I just thought it's time for her to use the straw cup and yes we did buy Foogo by thermos (told you - at least three) and there was quite a protest there. We failed to get her to use the straw until I discovered Nuk Insulated Tumbler Cups.

These cups were amazing! First of all let me tell you how happy I was when I learned that the insulation has served its purpose and it's truly spill proof.

It's also easy to clean. I don't use sterilizer anymore but the way I clean them I soak them in hot, soapy water and leave them for at least half an hour then I wash them in warm water. It only has three parts to clean: the cup, the lid, and the replacement valve (see the white one in the picture?) It's light and comes in different colors and designs. How cool is that?

Tommee Tippee Explora Easyflow Cup with Dura Spout is what my two-year-old is using. If only my younger toddler has no issues with cow's milk we would be sticking to just one product without having to clean different tumbler cups unfortunately we don't have that option. Our younger child has multiple food allergies and one of which she is most highly allergic to is cow's milk so we certainly do not want to contaminate her cup with anything that is dairy.

So, this tumbler cup is equally impressive. The soy milk stays fresh longer because of its insulation power. We also did not encounter any leakage. So far, so good. The only thing about this cup is that there are more parts to clean: the cup, the lid, the valves with soft and hard part (see the picture above). Everytime I clean this cup I need to separate the silicone valve from the hard valve and assemble them again making sure they snap into place to prevent any leakage. I don't have issues with the cleaning part but for those who are always on the go and cleaning time matters then settle for the Nuk Insulated Tumbler cups.

In terms of pricing, Tommee Tippee is expensive by $4 or $5. Both trainer cups are 9 ounces and comes in two per pack with different colors and designs to choose from. BPA free and dishwasher safe. Tommee Tippee Explora Cups Qs and Nuk Insulated cups Qs

The spouts of Tommee Tippee and Nuk were surprisingly sturdy in a sense that it's not too soft and not too hard. My kids during their teething months can bite the spout in all their glory but ours didn't show any breakage. Both cups do not have spare parts for spout but they do have the replacement valves mostly sold online.

I have also observed that there were times when both cups make a slight noise (funny how I describe it but really it sounds more like a chuckling piglet) perhaps it depends on the flow of the milk which does not affect the functionality of the cup.

In terms of handhold, Tommee Tippee outshines Nuk with its grip. Nuk's cup is smooth and can fit the standard cup holder of any stroller but Tommee Tippee's cup although both at 9 ounces is bigger in size has better grip for tiny hands.

My findings: I love both brands. It basically met the important points that hubee and I were looking for in a trainer cup. We're happy, the kids are happy, everyone's happy. =)