Hello and welcome to my Pre-Trip Report and eventual Trip Report! My name is Aryana, and I'm a 17 year old high school student who's in charge of planning and managing what will become one of the greatest Graduation Trips in the history of Graduation Trips. Obviously. I mean, it even has epic in the title. No lies.
When is this trip happening? Not until July of 2011. The 4th-8th (Monday to Friday) to be exact. Why start so soon?
Well, as a group of teenagers planning and handling their own trip, you can expect a lot of hastle and a lot of arguments in general. You think dealing with three kids is bad? Try dealing with six 17/18 year old independant women. So of course we have our fair share of trials.
What I want to do is show people how we're getting there, show everyone that we; that you can do it too. Students worldwide of all ages are notorious for planning huge extravagant trips to all sorts of colorful places. They're also notorious for being broke, dropping out of plans, and letting it slip down the drain. We want to be the other group- the group that made a fabulous trip out of student wage jobs and a whole lot of decipline.
This is for you, your teenage kids, whoever you are. Are you a teen who's never been to Disneyland, but wants to go? Are you too worried about doing it all on your own to put your plan into action? Here's how we're going to do it. Are you a parent who's teens just want to get away and have fun, but depend on you for planning and costs? Share some of our ideas with them and encourage them, because they can totally do it parent-free.
Basically, this is going to be our fairytale. From the idea to the happening, the story of how some lazy and poor students managed to somehow get thier act together long enough to plan a decent Graduation.
First, let me tell you the story about how our idea came to be.
The Beginning
More than a year ago, a few of my friends had an idea. Madison and Victoria and one other friend came up with the first hints of a trip. The outline was vague, but the idea was clear. Upon graduation, they wanted to road trip to Disneyland and cosplay (dress up) as characters from the Disney/Square Enix game, Kingdom Hearts. I'm not entirely sure why they wanted to dress up, but it probably had something to do with them finding pictures on the net of others doing the same thing. I suppose it didn't help that as a group, we go to conventions and cosplay anyway. @_@
But this was just a whisp, and nobody really thought we'd do it.
A while after that as we neared the end of tenth grade, the trip was brought up again, this time without the cosplaying. Just a road trip to Disneyland. At the time, most of us were skeptical because we were teenagers. We slack off and put off as much work as possible. Planning a trip required- believe it or not- actual effort, which not many people were willing to give. If we were going to do it, we were going to do it on our own. Not many of us were willing to own up to the responsibility.
Eventually, a small group emerged that included myself and my friends Victoria, Jenny, Madison, and Megan. Victoria's head flew off the handle right away, coming up with all sorts of crazy things we could do and how we could get there, etc, etc. Of course, Victoria had never travelled alone before, but she still wanted it to be a road trip. Madison and I, we saw the hidden costs and decided to argue against the road trip. It was our first argument of the trip, and it was a toughy.
The First Bump in the Road
Madison hung back and said nothing more than that she wanted to save money and take a plane.
I, on the other hand, came up with all kinds of figures for gas money, hotels, etc. Victoria had already said we'd road trip in two parts, so I just factored in a cheap hotel. I counted 2 extra days of food money, the car rental since none of us owned a car (never mind the fact that we'd be too young to rent one by the time we went anyway, and none of us would have a full license...) and I produced a total that made everyone cringe. Victoria tried to solve it by switching to on RV, to which I answered with "You can pay the $300 for gas, okay?" and that ended that.
And yet she still persisted! Then I found out she wanted 5 days at Disneyland on top of that! I asked what she was thinking, and she said she honestly thought we could have a super-budget trip. To which we all kindly replied: "NO."
We wanted a luxurious (by our low standards) and fantastical trip to end our years in grade school. None of this budget nonsense! A road trip isn't budgeting for 6 people anyway, even if we did all pay our own way. But how were we going to pull off our dream trip? Jenny and I were the only ones who even had jobs! The rest of us survived on allowance and pinching off our other friends.
"I can make it happen," says I.
I can? I can!
"You can?"
"We all can!" I say. "But first you all need jobs. Are we doing this? For real?"
"Of course," they say to me.
"Then you have to be willing to listen. And if you argue with me, I'll toss you off the top of the Matterhorn."
And so I began the task of readying 5 (not yet 6) individuals for a trip some of them might only have once in their lives.
It's a mighty task, as we are the laziest of teens and we prefer to sit around and do mostly nothing. But now was the time to get up and get working. We had a goal now. Get to Disney; have fun at Disney. It may take months of saving and calling castmembers in confusion, and we may even have to break a few laws of physics, but in the end, to Disneyland we shall go!
Until then, I bid you good night!
When is this trip happening? Not until July of 2011. The 4th-8th (Monday to Friday) to be exact. Why start so soon?
Well, as a group of teenagers planning and handling their own trip, you can expect a lot of hastle and a lot of arguments in general. You think dealing with three kids is bad? Try dealing with six 17/18 year old independant women. So of course we have our fair share of trials.
What I want to do is show people how we're getting there, show everyone that we; that you can do it too. Students worldwide of all ages are notorious for planning huge extravagant trips to all sorts of colorful places. They're also notorious for being broke, dropping out of plans, and letting it slip down the drain. We want to be the other group- the group that made a fabulous trip out of student wage jobs and a whole lot of decipline.
This is for you, your teenage kids, whoever you are. Are you a teen who's never been to Disneyland, but wants to go? Are you too worried about doing it all on your own to put your plan into action? Here's how we're going to do it. Are you a parent who's teens just want to get away and have fun, but depend on you for planning and costs? Share some of our ideas with them and encourage them, because they can totally do it parent-free.
Basically, this is going to be our fairytale. From the idea to the happening, the story of how some lazy and poor students managed to somehow get thier act together long enough to plan a decent Graduation.
First, let me tell you the story about how our idea came to be.
The Beginning
More than a year ago, a few of my friends had an idea. Madison and Victoria and one other friend came up with the first hints of a trip. The outline was vague, but the idea was clear. Upon graduation, they wanted to road trip to Disneyland and cosplay (dress up) as characters from the Disney/Square Enix game, Kingdom Hearts. I'm not entirely sure why they wanted to dress up, but it probably had something to do with them finding pictures on the net of others doing the same thing. I suppose it didn't help that as a group, we go to conventions and cosplay anyway. @_@
But this was just a whisp, and nobody really thought we'd do it.
A while after that as we neared the end of tenth grade, the trip was brought up again, this time without the cosplaying. Just a road trip to Disneyland. At the time, most of us were skeptical because we were teenagers. We slack off and put off as much work as possible. Planning a trip required- believe it or not- actual effort, which not many people were willing to give. If we were going to do it, we were going to do it on our own. Not many of us were willing to own up to the responsibility.
Eventually, a small group emerged that included myself and my friends Victoria, Jenny, Madison, and Megan. Victoria's head flew off the handle right away, coming up with all sorts of crazy things we could do and how we could get there, etc, etc. Of course, Victoria had never travelled alone before, but she still wanted it to be a road trip. Madison and I, we saw the hidden costs and decided to argue against the road trip. It was our first argument of the trip, and it was a toughy.
The First Bump in the Road
Madison hung back and said nothing more than that she wanted to save money and take a plane.
I, on the other hand, came up with all kinds of figures for gas money, hotels, etc. Victoria had already said we'd road trip in two parts, so I just factored in a cheap hotel. I counted 2 extra days of food money, the car rental since none of us owned a car (never mind the fact that we'd be too young to rent one by the time we went anyway, and none of us would have a full license...) and I produced a total that made everyone cringe. Victoria tried to solve it by switching to on RV, to which I answered with "You can pay the $300 for gas, okay?" and that ended that.
And yet she still persisted! Then I found out she wanted 5 days at Disneyland on top of that! I asked what she was thinking, and she said she honestly thought we could have a super-budget trip. To which we all kindly replied: "NO."
We wanted a luxurious (by our low standards) and fantastical trip to end our years in grade school. None of this budget nonsense! A road trip isn't budgeting for 6 people anyway, even if we did all pay our own way. But how were we going to pull off our dream trip? Jenny and I were the only ones who even had jobs! The rest of us survived on allowance and pinching off our other friends.
"I can make it happen," says I.
I can? I can!
"You can?"
"We all can!" I say. "But first you all need jobs. Are we doing this? For real?"
"Of course," they say to me.
"Then you have to be willing to listen. And if you argue with me, I'll toss you off the top of the Matterhorn."
And so I began the task of readying 5 (not yet 6) individuals for a trip some of them might only have once in their lives.
It's a mighty task, as we are the laziest of teens and we prefer to sit around and do mostly nothing. But now was the time to get up and get working. We had a goal now. Get to Disney; have fun at Disney. It may take months of saving and calling castmembers in confusion, and we may even have to break a few laws of physics, but in the end, to Disneyland we shall go!
Until then, I bid you good night!
