I am the product of a single mother who pulled me out of (private) school often for vacations all the way through my school career. She had no choice; when she had conferences that took her out of town several times a year, she usually took me with her. (She could usually find a friend or babysitter to watch me for individual sessions she attended.) Most of the time her conferences were scheduled at interesting vacation destinations, and she would add a few days on one end of it so we could do things together. I always got my work done, I never got behind, and I never thought of missing school as that big a deal. Once I got to middle and high school, there were certainly weeks I could not miss, if there was a big test, project due, or theatre production I was in, but, honestly, I consistently missed school for family vacations.
I learned very early to find a school/life balance, which translated in adulthood to a very healthy work/life balance. I am a firm believer that children learn as much or more from seeing the world and seeing how other people live, as they do from reading about it. We've pulled our children out of school for vacations for two to three weeks a year every year. (Some of these are cruises, including Disney cruises.) I have an 8 year old who has eaten crepes in France, explored the British Museum in London, climbed ancient Mayan temples in Belize, stared open-mouthed around great cathedrals in Spain, snorkeled coral reefs in Honduras, and swum with, and studied the lifecycles of, sea turtles in Grand Cayman. He's done these all during vacations he took during the school year, with the blessing of his school, (who believes, as I do, that family time is important.)
Missing school does not work for all children, or for all schools, and it certainly isn't practical all times of the year. Only you know your own child's tolerance for disrupted schedules, and how easily they can make up work and get back into their routine. I HAD to learn to be adaptable as a child, I was going to be pulled from school. There may come a time when our kids don't want to be pulled from school because they may not be comfortable with it, but so far, our son is displaying the same adaptability I acquired as a child.