The Vacation That Ate the World...

I'm not gonna lie.  I enjoy a good trip to Disney World.  I really do.  In fact, Jack went once when he was about 8 months old and once more about 8 months later.  He hasn't been since.  I went when I was pregnant with both kids.  John and I went on our honeymoon (although that had much to do with a serious case of procrastination and a lack of money rather than a real preference).

For our tenth anniversary, we discussed bringing the kids to Disney.  Fortunately, we didn't book anything because John lost his job in December of 2009.  That ended our plans.  To celebrate our 10th anniversary, we spent two nights down at Foxwoods without the children.

So when John got a new job, and things were looking financially stable we decided that we would go for it:  Bring the kids to Disney. 

Now John is firmly of the belief that Disney is nice, but it is best done sparingly (once every ten years or so).  I would like to go once every couple of years--maybe two or three.  My family, on the other hand, would very much like to go every chance they get.  One sister has managed at least one (if not two) trips a year for the past seven years. 

When John and I were planning our August 2010 trip-that-never-was, we talked about asking either my sisters or his parents to come along.  Then we could get a "villa" and have live-in babysitters.  So when this trip--the August 2011 trip--started taking shape, I told my sister Val about the trip.  She in turn told my sister Karen.

Karen was immediately on board.   Valerie wasn't.  She had been out of work and when she got the new job, she didn't think she'd be able to take the time.  Before I knew it, my parents were on board, though.  That was a surprise.  I didn't think they would be up for the trip. 

At first I felt a little guilty about our little nuclear family trip turning into an extended family extravaganza.  But then I started to think in terms of pictures and memories.  My parents are not going to be around forever.  They are in their late 70's now.  Neither one is very mobile.  This trip is going to take a toll on them both physically.  But my kids will have memories of the trip.  They'll have pictures of it, too.  That's something neither John nor I have, really.  We remember our grandmothers, but all of our grandfathers had passed away before we were born.  I never went anywhere with my grandmothers, either.  I'm trying to convince John to tell his parents to come with us, too.  If we're going to have extended family with us, why not have family from both sides with us?

So my parents wanted to go, but they didn't want to fly.  The last time my mother was at Disney she became very sick and ended up in the hospital.  She is afraid to fly down for fear she would not be able to get back home.  This way if she drives down, we can just throw her in the back of the van and get her ass home.  Um...right.  She actually didn't say the ass part, but she did say the "throw her in the back of the van" part.  My sister Karen decided that she would drive down with the 'rents.  Her two daughters had also decided that she was going to come along, too.  It was going to be my parents, Karen, Liz, Haley, and Liz's dog Kylie driving down from Connecticut.

We asked my sister Lori if she and her family were up for the trip, but it's a tough time for her to get away from work and they were going earlier in the year (May, I think?).  Meanwhile, Valerie figured out she could go, but there was no way she was driving down in the van.  She would fly.  Haley then decided that she didn't want to drive down either; she would fly out with Val.  Then we found out that my cousin Geri and her daughter Kristy were going to come, too.

I started looking into the trip.  I wanted to go around August 5th to coincide with our anniversary (the whole premise of the trip being an anniversary thing...), but then learned that the "off peak" season started on August 16, so we decided to push it back.  Then we found out that Disney would be offering "free dining" to guests staying "on property" beginning August 19th.  So we pushed it back again.  The official trip is August 19th to August 26th. 

I chose to stay at Port Orleans French Quarter.  It's a place I've stayed at before and I like how small it is.  Many of the hotels/resorts on Disney property are very BIG with tons and tons of people.  John is not a big fan of people.  At first, John didn't want anything to do with the planning.  I thought he would enjoy the French Quarter because it really is small and both times I've stayed there before, there hasn't been a crush of people.  Now that we've booked, he's saying that he would rather book a family suite at another hotel (Pop Century) because he thinks it would be nice to have two rooms.  I'm not sure that the amount of people around would make the second room worth it  I dislike people probably as much as my husband does.

We booked our stay through AAA and that is something we will not do again.  We had heard there was some sort of discount, but we didn't get one.  Now we're going through AAA when it would have been just as easy for us to have done it ourselves.  In fact, it would have been easier for us to do it on our own.

Somewhere in here, each of my nieces (Liz, Haley, and Kristy) decided they were going to bring a friend.  Kristy goes to school about an hour or two away from Disney and she'll be moving in the week we are there.  She'll also be turning 21 while we're there.

We were able to get really good deals on flights.  I had thought, perhaps, we should drive.  I thought that it would be better to keep the crazy (namely unpredictable Julianna) to ourselves.  I figured that it would be the nice thing to do.  John, however, reminded me that it was a flight to Orlando.  The plane would be filled with crazy.  Better share our crazy for a few hours then be stuck with crazy in a car for 24 hours especially when crazy won't sleep in the car and tends to scream on long trips when the car goes belows 60 mph.

Initially we were thinking of flying out of Providence.  It's a nice little airport that's about as far from us as Logan in Boston.  So we watched the flights for a while.  We found nonstop flights out of and back into Providence at decent times for $119 (with taxes).  We didn't buy them right away, even though they were the cheapest flights at the best times.  We went back to the Southwest website a week later and the flights were gone.  It's difficult to play the flight game.  The prices fluctuate so much and randomly that you never know when to buy.  One day the flight could be $90, the next $150.  But if it's at $150 and you wait to buy it thinking the price will go down, it may go up instead.

John was upset, because the direct flights listed were significantly more expensive.  Since both kids are now over 2, they count as "adults."  John immediately did some searching around on the website and found some really cheap flights.  There are a few hitches, though.  The flights are out of and back into Logan.  The flights are not direct.  Both flights have layovers in Atlanta.  The flight out leaves at 6:05 in the morning on the 19th.  The price of the flight makes it so that these things are minor, less than minor even.  We'll stay at John's parents' house on the night of the 18th and have a town car bring us to the airport at 4 the next morning since we'll have to be there at 4:30.  It will get us into Orlando at around 11:30 in the morning.  That gives us an afternoon in the pool and maybe some time in a park on that first day.  The flight home leaves at 10 (ish) in the morning.  We'll have a bit of a layover, but we'll be home in plenty of time.   

I've flown Southwest before and I'm well aware of how the boarding works.  Since there are no assigned seats on Southwest flights (which by now with all the hoops people have to jump through, they might as well start assigning seats), you are allowed to board in the order you check-in for the flight.  They separate the passengers into three groups A, B, C.  The A's checked in first.  The B's second.  The C's after everyone else.  It used to be that if you checked in on line 24 hours in advance, you were able to get in the A group.  I figured that I'd just get up at the crack of dawn on the 18th and check us in.  No biggie.  NOW, Southwest is offering an Early Bird Boarding option.  If you dish out $10 per flight, Southwest will automatically check you in 36 hours in advance of your flight and issue you a number for boarding.  This is no guarantee that you'll be in the A group, but it's pretty sure.  That means that anyone who checks in 24 hours in advance is now the B group, and God help anyone who checks in at the airport.

What a scam!  Just assign the damn seats, already.  Part of me is just pissed, but part of me is ready to dish out the money.  Anna will be allowed to board with either John or myself between the A's and the B's, but if we could be sure(ish) to get in the A's we could all find seats together.  And even if we don't all board together, as long as there is one adult with one kid, it doesn't really matter.  We probably won't all be able to sit together in one row anyway.  BUT does $10 a flight mean, $10 for the whole trip or $10 for our flight from Logan to Atlanta and then another $10 for our flight from Atlanta to Orlando?  Would we paying an additional $80 or an additional $160?  And, honestly, we paid so little for our flights that I wonder if it really matters?  We'd still be about $900 ahead of the game.

And speaking of scams...we went ahead and made reservations for dining.  Everything that I've read has said to make sure that you book as soon as you can and as soon as you can happens to be 180 days out.  Seriously.  I'm supposed to figure out what I'm going to want to eat 6 months out from my trip?  I didn't believe it, but I forced the fam to sit down and decide when and where we wanted to eat.  Since there were so many of us, I wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page.  We did that, actually, on the 180 day mark.  I didn't get around to trying to make reservations for about 5 or 6 days later.  We couldn't get into some places!  They were booked!  The places we did get into, we couldn't get the times we wanted!  Holy crud!

John chalks it up to it being a big rat conspiracy.  Don't tell him, but I'm starting to feel the same way.

In the meantime, I went ahead and bought a quart size baggie for each of us and I've started to load it full of stuff.  I bought travel size sun screen for the kids along with travel size shampoo/conditioner/body wash.  I'll get some toothpaste and tooth brushes next.  Southwest gives us each two free bags, but since our flight gets in at 11:30 a.m. (our room might not be ready) and we're using the Disney's Magical Express (they'll deliver our luggage to the room, but not immediately), we won't have access to our big luggage.  I figured we could pack bathing suits and things to take a shower so we could use the pool once we get into the hotel and then head out if we wanted to before our room was ready. 

So much planning into one week.  It's crazy and more encompassing than John really wanted and I had anticipated.  But honestly, I can't wait for the trip!  The kids are going to have soooooo much fun!  I can't wait to see their faces.