I went ahead and cancelled for Christmas. Some of you may recall I agonized about this before when DD begged to stay home for Christmas this year. I had hoped to convince her otherwise and kept the ressie just in case I was able to do so (no success so far). Above and beyond that, I knew that I had severely underestimated what our gas cost would be last year because our other trips were apparently short enough to give us 15 mpg instead of the 12 mpg we got over Christmas. So this gas price surge was just the final "sign" that Ft. Wilderness wasn't gonna happen this year.
Instead, DD and I are going to stay at Pop Century at the end of August with incredible airfare from AirTran and free dining. We plan to make the movie night we never made in December. Maybe we'll see some of you there - unless you've already packed up to go home for school. DD doesn't start 8th grade until after Labor Day.
DH is a little miffed that we are going without him, but we're taking him to New England instead a week before we go to WDW. For that one, we fly into and out of Boston (AirTran again). DD has already requested Salem and Cape Cod and Plymouth Rock. DH wants to revisit Lexington, Concord and Walden Pond (we went there 16 years ago). I want to go see the White Mountains and eat lobster. Not sure if we can do all this in a week, but we'll try. (So any advice from locals will be welcomed gratefully.)
Thanks for all the encouragement - we'll hope to camp for 2007.