Tag Archives: disney

18/228/hooray!

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Time for an update.

18 days until our spring getaway! Our dining reservations are set (until the next time I play around with them, which will probably be in, oh, another five minutes?), the basic plan is laid out (we’ll see if we stick with it; a recent analysis of our October, 2010 trip showed that we stuck to our plan from dawn-to-dusk on only four of our nine days. Still thinking about what that means.),  and soon I can start pondering our packing list and debating the merits of online check-in. It’s been a long couple of months at work, and this lackluster spring isn’t making things any easier. This vacation is well-timed.

In other news, the nerds will again be visiting Disney with an entourage – our next trip (after our next trip) is 228 days away and counting! This December I will finally get to experience my childhood dream of seeing this:

Cinderella Castle at Christmastime. Swoon!

I don’t know what it is about the potential of seeing fake snow in Florida, but the idea of Christmastime in Disney gets me a little giddy in a way that I am loathe to admit to anyone over the age of, say, 10. I can’t help it. I’ve wanted to see it for years, and now it looks like (knock wood) I’ll have my chance.

The plans are still a bit unformed – it will be CP and my grandparents at the very least. Perhaps my aunt and cousin(s) will also join? We will be staying in a DVC villa on my grandparents’ points; we’ll find out tomorrow what is available. Hopefully it will be a two-bedroom villa with three bathrooms (especially if our travel party includes four women again), so that would make Kidani Village at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary Resort the two best options. The former costs significantly fewer points than the latter, so that’s where I’m putting my money. Either option – or something else entirely – would be lovely. How can you resist this?

The Animal Kingdom Lodge, decorated for Christmas. (c) AllEars.net

In any case, it will be early December with family  in WDW. I can’t wait.

On tap this week: some pre-trip thoughts before our imminent spring trip, and a comprehensive review of our October Food and Wine Festival- Animal Kingdom Lodge-Incredible 10-Day Extravaganza Trip ™.

In which the nerds visit WDW with an entourage

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The plan for our April, 2010 trip was hatched shortly after we returned from our trip in 2008. This time, however, the nerds would have an entourage. Although the plans weren’t formalized until February, 2010, it was decided that this would be a family trip. In attendance, besides CP and me, were my grandparents, aunt, and youngest cousin, T. The trip was planned to coincide with T’s cheerleading world championship, which was held the last week in April at Disney’s Wide World of Sports.

Since returning from our 2008 trip I had become something of a WDW trip planning savant. I had spent countless hours (days, weeks, months?) reading guide books, websites, and message boards, making spreadsheets and creating custom touring plans, and I wasn’t shy in sharing my opinions. Several marathon planning phone calls with my grandparents ensued, and I lobbied them into staying at a different DVC than they at first might have chosen. Since five of the six on our trip were women, a 2-bedroom, 3-bathroom (hallelujah!) villa at the Animal Kingdom Lodge would provide the most space for the fewest number of DVC points. They were convinced, if a bit dubious. Would it be a good decision?

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On saying uncle; or, how two nerds began a love affair with Disney

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In 26 days, CP and I will be back in the World. It has been 5 months, 24 days since our last visit. 11 months, 8 days since our visit before that. In approximately 7 months, we will go again. I think it’s official: we have a Disney habit.

In the circles we run in (read: cadres of over-educated, left-leaning, corporation-suspicious, MSNBC-watching bleeding heart liberals), there is something of a notion that vacations should be….serious. Exotic ports of call. Patronage of cultural institutions. Service trips. At the very least, haute cuisine. That’s fine. We like those things, too. But a few years ago, something happened – maybe it was the recession, or family/work/school drama, or the drudgery of year after year of terrible New England winters. Maybe it was all of those things. In any case, we cried uncle, and decided it was time for a WDW vacation. Serious could wait. It was time to enjoy some nice weather, ride some rides, be a kid again in a place no one would judge us for doing so.

I think the idea might have been mine, but CP was the easier sell. For several years, I had kept my distance from Disney. On a lark during my sophomore year of college, I applied for and was accepted into the WDW college program. This experience sits squarely in the column of “things I wish I had known more about before I jumped into.” My roommates partied constantly; thus I never slept. My work location was considered one of the least desirable; my coworkers suffered from a dispirited malaise. I felt trapped in a bad decision. Seeing Disney from the inside out was equal parts fascinating and frustrating. Underpaid and overworked, a series of incidents ultimately led to me leaving the program early. I was burned out on Disney. I ran the other way, headlong into my books, my exams, my family drama, and into the uncertainties of the post-9/11 world.

Several years passed, and then we cried uncle. Or maybe I was the one who cried uncle, finally ready to forgive Disney (and myself) for one bad spell in an otherwise unblemished record of lovely childhood trips to – and  countless family memories made in – WDW. It was time to go back and suspend disbelief for a time, to revel in an environment where the real world stopped at the water’s edge. And, as they say, the love affair began.

Up next: A brief stop in 2008, and a retrospective of 2010 as we prepare for our first trip of 2011.