Lifelong_Dreamer
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2007
- Messages
- 15,138
Another look at our Disney history.
After our 1989 trip to Disneyland we did not visit another Disney park until December 1997, the year of the ugly pink castle cake.
Dad hates Disney which is the main reason for this, he also hates "wasting" money and to him a Disney vacation is a waste of money. Good thing he doesn't need to go with us anymore, in fact, we don't tell him that we go to Disney at all!
Our begging and whining finally wore him down (a nice cash bonus also helped as well). My dad was in the Canadian Navy and we were living in the States on an exchange posting at the time. Since we had been out of the country for x amount of years they gave the family a couple thousand dollars in bonus travel money which was decided would be used to fund a WDW trip and so we were booked for a Christmas vacation at Disney World.
We were living in Virginia Beach at the time and we drove down to Florida with a few stops along the way.
We stopped and stayed the night in Charleston. We did a city tour and visited a local plantation house.
We also spent the night in Savannah. We didn't do much exploring there as we arrived later in the evening and the weather was overcast.
Once we hit Florida we briefly visited St. Augustine and then spent a day at Cape Canaveral visiting the Kennedy Space Centre, Dad is a real space geek so he enjoyed that part of the trip.
After that it was off to WDW! Since Dad was on exchange with the military we were able to stay at the Shades of Green property on-site which is owned by the US military, I remember the room being really big and I remember a Mickey shaped pool.
Unfortunately for us the weather during the trip was not wonderful. It was overcast and rainy the whole time we were in Florida. Luckily it was a warm rain instead of a cold rain. Little did we know that this was the beginning of our rain curse.
I recall that we never stayed in the parks past dark on the trip and I don't think we ate in the parks either except for a few snacks here and there. It was insanely crowded and this was in the days before fastpass so all the lines were extremely long. I still remember vividly waiting in line to see "Honey I Shrunk the Audience". The line stretched out of the building and wrapped around several times and it seemed like we waited for hours.
There is only one family picture from the whole trip, it is also the only picture that I am in as I was the photographer most of the time. I was going through my "don't take my picture!" phase. We went to Blizzard Beach on Christmas Day, we figured we might as well since it was raining and we were going to get wet either way.
Amazingly this is a picture I took of a little picture inside one of those keychain viewfinder things, I think it turned out pretty well.
Here are some pictures from the trip.
In the picture below you can see Dad mocking Disney and the "fake" friendliness that he hates, one of his main pet peeves about theme parks.
No idea who the other kid is in this picture.
After WDW we continued our trip and went down to Miami, Key West, Naples and then Savannah again on the way back home. Pretty much the whole trip was paid for courtesy of the Canadian military, our tax dollars at work!
This will be my last PTR update until after Christmas. I know everybody is busy with work and getting ready for the holiday.
After our 1989 trip to Disneyland we did not visit another Disney park until December 1997, the year of the ugly pink castle cake.
Dad hates Disney which is the main reason for this, he also hates "wasting" money and to him a Disney vacation is a waste of money. Good thing he doesn't need to go with us anymore, in fact, we don't tell him that we go to Disney at all!
Our begging and whining finally wore him down (a nice cash bonus also helped as well). My dad was in the Canadian Navy and we were living in the States on an exchange posting at the time. Since we had been out of the country for x amount of years they gave the family a couple thousand dollars in bonus travel money which was decided would be used to fund a WDW trip and so we were booked for a Christmas vacation at Disney World.
We were living in Virginia Beach at the time and we drove down to Florida with a few stops along the way.
We stopped and stayed the night in Charleston. We did a city tour and visited a local plantation house.
We also spent the night in Savannah. We didn't do much exploring there as we arrived later in the evening and the weather was overcast.
Once we hit Florida we briefly visited St. Augustine and then spent a day at Cape Canaveral visiting the Kennedy Space Centre, Dad is a real space geek so he enjoyed that part of the trip.
After that it was off to WDW! Since Dad was on exchange with the military we were able to stay at the Shades of Green property on-site which is owned by the US military, I remember the room being really big and I remember a Mickey shaped pool.
Unfortunately for us the weather during the trip was not wonderful. It was overcast and rainy the whole time we were in Florida. Luckily it was a warm rain instead of a cold rain. Little did we know that this was the beginning of our rain curse.
I recall that we never stayed in the parks past dark on the trip and I don't think we ate in the parks either except for a few snacks here and there. It was insanely crowded and this was in the days before fastpass so all the lines were extremely long. I still remember vividly waiting in line to see "Honey I Shrunk the Audience". The line stretched out of the building and wrapped around several times and it seemed like we waited for hours.
There is only one family picture from the whole trip, it is also the only picture that I am in as I was the photographer most of the time. I was going through my "don't take my picture!" phase. We went to Blizzard Beach on Christmas Day, we figured we might as well since it was raining and we were going to get wet either way.
Amazingly this is a picture I took of a little picture inside one of those keychain viewfinder things, I think it turned out pretty well.
Here are some pictures from the trip.
In the picture below you can see Dad mocking Disney and the "fake" friendliness that he hates, one of his main pet peeves about theme parks.
No idea who the other kid is in this picture.
After WDW we continued our trip and went down to Miami, Key West, Naples and then Savannah again on the way back home. Pretty much the whole trip was paid for courtesy of the Canadian military, our tax dollars at work!
This will be my last PTR update until after Christmas. I know everybody is busy with work and getting ready for the holiday.
Merry Christmas!
I just posted on your report! We must have been reading each other's reports at the same time. Thanks for joining in!
No wonder I called them Bros GRIMM!!!
Nyquil does the trick every time, nothing knocks me out faster. 
Wishing all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
