Going home to find the pixie dust!

[flipflopmom]

This trip scares me to death. Last year was our "Kids are at the cheapest disney ages, let's blow it out for a once in a lifetime trip". There was sooo much pixie dust, starting on arrival day:
For our very first ADR, first meal at WDW, first character encounter, my girls were picked to open Chef Mickey's

 

[flipflopmom]

The girls got to wake up Tinkerbell

 

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DD was in the DHS HSM show:

 

[flipflopmom]

We had lots of other pixie dusted memories:
*Ariel's grotto with no wait
*Watching Alice ride teacups, riding with no wait, then meeting Alice
*Finding characters with little/no wait
*Bus coming right as we pulled up

Then there were the surprises: Wishes Cruise, Mickey's Welcome in room, CRT breakfast, First Haircut.

We really had the most amazing week ever. In fact, DH kept saying how it was the best week of his life, how much the research I had done on Dis made a fabulous trip.

BUT.... he said "That was no where near a vacation". We were on DxDp, always going to an ADR, breakfast almost every morning at 8am somewhere, we opened and closed the parks.

There were things we didn't love - the heat being one. This is a picture of DD's ears, after an hour in the car at 11am during our goodbye nrunch at Chef Mickey's .

 

[flipflopmom]

We also hated the buses. HATED waiting with the thousands staying at Pop after fireworks. Hated being at a resort that was landlocked, hated having to deal with a fridge swap or pay $70 to have one. Hated not having a coffee pot for morning coffee. Hated afternoon naps at the hotel taking 2 hours of travel time round trip, plus 2 hours for a rest, out of our day.

Pop was a lot of fun. The girls loved the theming, we weren't too far from the pool/food court. But it was always sooo busy. Lots of people, all mostly courteous, but made for crowded buses.

We started looking at all the signs for "the best kept secret" Not at all a secret. Only stopped once to check them out, but he said he needed at least an hour. Sorry, ADR's to get to. But we did talk a lot on the 12 hour ride home.

Got home, got on Dis, other sites. Started all the research for DVC. Called a guide. Crunched the numbers. Came up with the following conclusions:
#1. Disney is where we want to be.
#2. There is so much to see and do, we could go for a week a year and never do all we want.
#3. With the rate Disney hotel stays are going up, DVC would save a lot of money in the long run.
#4. We never want to stay in a landlocked hotel again.
#5. DH decided that if we bought DVC, I would know that we would be there every year, and would slow down the touring. This would lead to more of a vacation for him. I am a teacher, so I have lots of down time. He only gets 2 weeks off a year, so this one week needs to have some down time built in.

So, we signed on the dotted line, just in time to close on my birthday!