OUR DISNEY HISTORY:
My husband went waaaay back in the 70s, with his mom, brother and sister. (dad could not come.) Back then it was just the Magic Kingdom, and only the Contemporary, the Polynesian and what was the Disney Inn-now The Shades of Green. They stayed at the Contemporary, toured for 2? 3? days, and then went to the beach-he doesn't know which one.
Me, I never went growing up. Big family, way too expensive! We might as well have gone to the moon.
After our marriage, we had 2 daughters very quickly: first one born just before my 21st birthday, second just after I turned 23! So, they're 2 years and 2 months apart. We found out that I was pregnant-very unexpectedly!-when they were 9 and 11. We had actually started kicking around the idea of going in the fall of 1995, but the baby would be born in September! No way did I want to take a newborn on mine and the girls' first trip, so we quickly moved it up to May. I was 5 months pregnant.
That was a fantastic trip! We stayed at the brand-new All Star Sports and loooved everything! My only regret was that I could not ride things like Splash/Space Mountain. Animal Kingdom didn't exist. My husband was skeptical that we could actually spend a whole week at Disney World, but realized that Epcot and the Studios-which didn't exist on his trip as a child-really made a week's stay necessary, indeed, not long enough!
We went back in September of 2000. We went during the week our youngest-a 3rd girl!- turned 5. Another great trip. Because we were a family of 5, we stayed at the Marriott Orlando World Center. Wow-what a nice hotel!
After that, our oldest went off to college in the fall of 2001, the second went off to Poland to be an exchange student. September 11, 2001 was a very scary day for her especially, because we live only about 20 minutes from Shanksville, Pa. Both girls heard news reports of a plane hitting the ground "somewhere in Somerset County, Pa.", "80 miles east of Pittsburgh", "not far from Johnstown, Pa.", etc., and had no idea WHERE more specifically, but knowing that all the descriptions could be
us!!
The phone system shut down completely around here, so neither daughter could call us after a while, which made for frantic times! Obviously, we were fine.
Anyhow, we spent the years 2001-2007 putting the 2 older girls through college. I realized our 25th anniversary was coming up, and started thinking of where we should go. I also wanted to take our youngest, who was 12 at the time, to Disney World, because she barely remembered the 2000 trip. We decided to combine the two! We also decided to drive there, which was fine with me. Our oldest was living in the Maryland suburbs of DC, so we drove there, and left on our trip from her place.
I almost forgot, last minute, we decided to take my niece! Her parents had just split up, and she was having a rough time.
Because we were driving, she easily fit into our car, and it was rather inexpensive to add her to our stay-we used the dining plan. She was young enough to be a "child" in Disney's eyes too!
We stayed 5 nights at the Wilderness Lodge, and 3 nights at the Dolphin, using cash + points. We all loved the Wilderness Lodge sooo much! I'd love it even more if it were an Epcot resort, because I love Epcot so much more than the Magic Kingdom.
Next trip was November of 2009, just after Thanksgiving. This time, it was just me, our youngest daughter, the same niece-and her little brother and her mom, my sister. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside. I liked it, but it's certainly not my first choice for a Disney hotel.
We had the free dining plan, and had a great time. My daughter and I would be at rope drop every day, and my sister and her 2 kids would sleep in, eat a leisurely breakfast and get to the park around 10-11. We'd spend most of the rest of the day together, eat supper together and take a bus back together. It worked out well.
I've always wanted to go to the Food and Wine Festival, so my husband and I went last November, from the 5th to the 8th. I'd bought us each a 10-day non-expiring ticket a few years before, for Christmas. We stayed at the Swan, again using cash and points, and spent one day doing nothing in particular, one day at Epcot, and one day at the Animal Kingdom. We went straight to the airport from the Animal Kingdom late in the afternoon, and were home by late that evening!!
So, we still have 8 days on our non-expiring tickets. We also have 10 admissions to water parks, from our trip in 2000!! At that time, the ticket structure was different, I don't remember, but we had admissions to the water parks built in our tickets then. Our oldest was sick for a few days, so we spent an off-day touring a timeshare (strictly for the bonus of $100 Disney dollars!) and hanging out at the hotel pool. Because we didn't go to water parks for 2 days that I had planned to, we still had them on our tickets. Back in 2008, my husband took our 2000 tickets with us, they scanned them and told us we had a total of TEN admissions to either Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach! Yay! I plan to use at least 4 of the 8 days up, and we will probably go to Universal Studios and/or Sea World! And of course, a water park day-if it's warm enough!!
We celebrated our 25th anniversary-Feb. 5th-at Disney World 2008. So where else should we spend our 30th?? 
