How We Ended Up at Disney World

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #15:

Backstory

Last October, my friend Carlie texted me and asked if Scotty and I wanted to go on a whirlwind trip Disney World. First I was like, “Oh, we can’t do that!” but then I looked at the calendar and started daydreaming a little bit and realized we actually could do that. We had buddy passes to fly, and we had a little bit of money. Babysitters were available, and everything just fell into place! So within nine days, we were on our way to Florida. We decided to justify it as our 15th wedding anniversary trip… after 18 years of marriage.

We had always wondered if Disney World would be a good destination for a family vacation, or if we should just stick to Disneyland. We figured the trip without kids would be a great chance to make an assessment. We enjoyed Disney World, but we both agreed that we didn’t need to take our kids there. Disneyland is closer and more accessible. 

But then time passed, and we reminisced about Disney World, and it turned out, we really did want to take our kids there. But it wasn’t a priority. It was just a “maybe someday,” back burner idea.

At the beginning of this year we started looking at options for a vacation, and we considered Disneyland (I’ll have you know that it’s been three years since our last Disneyland trip) (that doesn’t count) (neither does that). As we explored possibilities, we decided to also look into a trip to Disney World… just to see. At the time, flights to Florida were relatively cheap, and we had enough sky miles to fly our whole family for free (since we had two kids get braces last year, Scotty and I each signed up for a credit card with mega bonus sky miles, so woohoo for orthodontia). When we looked at options for lodging, we were shocked to find that we could get a Vrbo with a private pool for about half the price of anything we could book in California. Everything just fell nicely into place and we found ourselves booking a trip to Orlando. If we’d waited even two days longer, it never would have happened because the cost of flights almost doubled by the next week! We just happened to stumble upon the perfect booking window.

We fell into our normal Disney trip pattern where we start small - perhaps we’ll go three days - and end up snowballing - oh, fine. Let’s do six! 

So, six days in a row at Disney World. No days off.

We did that.

Day 1 - Magic Kingdom

In front of Cinderella’s castle

(You’ll quickly notice a trend with Eva)

This is the only day I tried doing my hair

Day 2 - Animal Kingdom

With Expedition Everest in the background

(One of my new favorite rides)

Expedition Everest

(Nicky and Daisy are on it here)

Day 3 - Hollywood Studios

We had afternoon rainstorms almost everyday

Day 4 - Magic Kingdom

In front of the Beast’s castle

(Eva right on cue)

Day 5 - EPCOT

Nemo

Day 6 - Hollywood Studios

(Cameo by Amber)

The last day at Disney World and the biggest storm yet!

And ya know… we all took turns being the unpleasant person in our party, but overall, we handled it pretty darn well. I got a little unstable on Day 5, but I recovered. On Day 6, we called it quits earlier in the day (4:30-ish) so we could get some rest because we also needed to go Universal Studios for two days.

Yes, we are crazy. We don’t know how else to be.