Do they look ready or what?
Moi
Are we there yet? As a matter of fact - we are!
Helen is worn out after racing to finish the school year and then hopping in the car for a long road trip
Checking out the Wilderness Lodge
The pool from our balconyFriday May 22, 2009
I'm finally ready to finish blogging about the road trip we took this past summer. We tossed around a number of ideas for our road trip before deciding to take the road trip to Florida this year - mainly because Disney World was offering some enticing incentives.
The school year was coming to a close so Helen was extremely stressed trying to tie up loose ends. Helen and I were playing tennis, the boys' long baseball season had just ended and they had started swim practice.
We really wanted to stay at the The Wilderness Lodge in Disney World and the only way I could get a reservation there for the week, was to start the booking on Friday, which was Helen's last day at school. So that's what we did. It was a whirlwind getting things ready. As soon as Helen got home we headed out. It was a long 8+ hour drive and we didn't get there until almost midnight, but we were all pumped to start our trip.
I lived in Pompano Beach until I was 7 and remember going to Disney World when it first opened. There wasn't much going on then. I didn't go back again for another 10 years (when I was in High School). I remember it being OK, but kind of lame in terms of thrill rides.
My first time back as an adult was in 2003 when Derek was 4 and Adam was 1. It was a spur of the moment trip between Christmas and New Year. I was doing some research online for the trip and remember telling Helen about the incredible amount of Disney information and all the "insane" Disney people with their own language. With the help of MouseSavers.com we put together a quick trip. In Disney terms, we stayed "off property" at Caribe Royale, one of the hotels recommended by MouseSavers. We went in with low expectations and didn't really expect to do much since the kids were so young. We were blown away by the scale of Disney World and of Orlando in general. Our typical day would include a nice long breakfast at the hotel breakfast buffet, pool time while Helen fed Adam, lunch and naps, and then trying to get out to a park - usually around 5 pm. Luckily, the Magic Kingdom stays open until midnight or so, but we pulled up to Animal Kingdom about 5 pm one day thinking all the parks stayed open late and found out that it closed at 5:30. Live and learn. We also went to Kennedy Space Center and Sea World on that trip to check them out. We were late getting to them as well and certainly didn't get our money's worth. Overall, a nice trip to get the lay of the land, but we left knowing there were plenty of things we did not do.
We went back again in the summer of 2005 with Helen's family and stayed for a week at a timeshare condo complex near Disney World. The condo complex was nice and had a big pool that we all enjoyed. There were a total of 10 people on that trip. Big family trips sound fun on the surface, but trying to get everyone to agree on where to go, when to go, where to eat, what to eat, when to eat, etc is a pain. Walking 10 abreast through a hot crowded theme park is not the way to do it. On that trip, we went to Magic Kingdom, Universal, and Sea World.
In 2007, we decided it was time to really do Disney World the right way. Derek was 8 and Adam was 5. We stayed "on property" at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. We had the best time! Disney threw in the "Water Park and More" option to our Park Hopper tickets and the boys ended up loving the water parks more than the theme parks. We hopped from park to park. We checked out other resorts. We got stuffed on the Disney Meal Plan. We parked our van for the week and just used Disney's transportation to get around. The "on property" rates are crazy for what is basically a Holiday Inn hotel room, but there's something about being immersed in the Disney experience. That trip was immediately after school was out on Memorial Day week. We were worried about it being crowded, but it wasn't bad at all. As a high schooler I only thought about how Disney needed better rides, but as an adult I am blown away by all that is Disney World: the cleanliness, the landscaping, the grounds, the resorts, the people - it's all really first class. We were going to head home Saturday morning, but our park hopper tickets were still good for the day and we still had meals and snacks remaining on our dining plan so we ended up staying late into the night and driving into home as morning was breaking. We didn't want to leave!
It was with the 2007 trip still in our minds that we were so eager to return to Disney World and kick off our 2009 road trip.
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