Summertime Surprise: an Unusual (for us) Disney Vacation

[mmackeymouse]

Greetings from the Hoosier state!

I will spend the first couple of posts talking a little bit about the backstory of our trip. The basis of our trip is based in tragedy, actually, so I will lay the foundation for everything, but we will get to the happy, fun stuff eventually, I promise!

So, we have not gone on a peak time Disney vacation in 15+ years. Once my sister and I became of age, and especially as my parents began to retire, scheduling became easier, and we became an off-peak Disney family. The prices were better, the crowds were better. The weather was (sometimes) better. The last peak Disney vacation we did was actually Christmas to New Years, so it's probably been closer to 20 years since we've done a summer Disney trip.

In fact, we are the people who when our friends would travel to Disney in the summer would be like, "Noooooo don't do it, wait till fall, wait till January. It's soooooo much better." Or we'd look at their photos and either cringe at the crowds or laugh and be like "Glad that's not us."

So, the whole story starts when my aunt, uncle, and their whole family, also frequent Disney travelers themselves, had made plans for a May 2019 trip. My mom and dad (hereby known as Mom and Dad or Nanny and Papaw) were also on board. However, my sister had some big trips, work and leisure, planned for the year, so she wasn't going to be able to do it. As for me, between my work schedule and it being Memorial Day weekend, and being not sure if I would have plans with my then boyfriend, I decided to bow out as well. Sadly, the boyfriend dumped me in April, so I kind of found myself wishing I had made plans with my parents to go to get my mind off things, but...as you'll find out later, it's good I didn't.

We rented points for their stay early in the year, but since it was just 4-5 months out, SSR seemed to be their only option, other than doing a 5 way split stay of some sort. My Dad loves SSR, it might even be his favorite DVC resort, so he was perfectly fine with that. My other relatives would be staying at Beach Club Villas, so it was a bit of a bummer that they wouldn't be closer, but with transportation at Disney Springs to the other resorts, it wouldn't be too bad. And my aunt and uncle, etc would likely be spending some time at DS as well, so it wasn't a worst case scenario. However, due to my parents just planning to go with the flow according to what everyone else was doing, we hadn't really made any advance plans. No ADRs, no Fast Passes, no grocery delivery....we didn't even buy any park tickets; they figured they would just buy them when they got down there, if and when everyone else goes. Again, as it turns out, it's good we didn't.

I will also add that we were already in the middle of planning a big immediate family trip for 2020, a land and sea with a DCL cruise, which had already been booked at that point and a few days at World (Just booked VGF yesterday, woo hoo) So, for my Mom and Dad, this was to be a pretty casual mostly resort, hang with the family type of visit. The major Disney planning will take place next year.

So Friday May 18th, my parents drove a couple of hours to my relatives' house, as they were staying the night with them prior to a 6 am flight they had Saturday morning, and they would be returning the following Saturday. They all went out to dinner, and from all indications, it was a great start to a great vacation. As for me, I had been babysitting my niece and nephew, got in for the evening, was watching some Netflix as one does. Then, approximately 10 pm, the house phone rang. I didn't answer because a) I was comfy on the couch and b) scam calls are ridiculous. But, scam callers don't usually call at 10 pm, so I got up to go check the phone. When I saw the caller ID and heard the voice message, I had a sense that I probably shouldn't ignore it. And I was right. And, just like that, my parents' Disney trip became very complicated and even less likely.

 

[mmackeymouse]

The call was from my Uncle, that is, my Aunt's husband. On the other side, not the ones they were staying with. Now, there is no bad blood on that side of the family, not at all, but we weren't super close. It wouldn't be unusual to get a periodic phone call from them, but that late at night didn't quite seem right. There was a message from my Uncle saying he needed to talk to my Dad and that it was important. But, he seemed otherwise calm and not emotional, so while I had a bad feeling, I still did have a little hope that maybe it wasn't something super serious.

I texted my Mom immediately, and after that, well it's a blur. Approximately 10 minutes later, my Mom informed me that my Aunt had passed away. Now, bear in mind this is all happening less than 8 hours before their flight, less than 5 hours before they need to make a decision whether to leave for the airport or not. So, again, it's a blur. At this point, they had no idea of when the funeral would be, so they were still considering going on the trip and maybe coming back early if the services were later in the week. (They were having an autopsy, and weren't even sure when her body would be released, since it was a weekend) But, then what if it would have been on Tuesday or Wednesday? My sister and I encouraged them to go, but I don't think there was a right or wrong answer. It would have been good for them to have something to keep their mind off things, but at the same time, maybe they wouldn't have been able to enjoy it.

I felt helpless because it was the middle of the night, there wasn't really anything I could do our anyone I could contact. Just had to wait it out, and wow, that was a long night. Eventually, about 5 am, my parents informed me that they would not be going into vacation, and with that, I went into vacation planner mode. Luckily, their flight was with Southwest, so I was able to rebook their flights for a random date, at no fee, just to make sure they don't lose their funds. Now, the rented points was going to be a lot more complicated.

The gentleman we rented the points from is the true hero in all of this. I knew that the possibilities were varied. They could lose all their points, the first day's points, we were prepared for everything. Or almost everything. There were several emails back and forth between me and him. He was willing to help us out, but we were aware that best case scenario would be that DVC would let him put the points into a holding account which would have to be used within 60 days. I don't know or remember what was going on this weekend, but I do remember that guest services was having some major waits and delays. This man, bless him, was on hold multiple hours every time he called. I think he was on the phone with them most of the day. Well, as the day went on, my parents' check in time had come and gone, so we figured that the first night's points would for sure be taken away, if not the entire point amount.

Things were pretty dicey for a while, but on Sunday morning, we got news that the points had been saved. And, to our relief, they only took away 2 or 3 points. They were also giving us till May 2020 to use them, rather than the 60 days. So, kudos to DVC member services for being so very generous and understanding. And to the gentleman, who if he is reading this knows who he is, who went above and beyond.

So, the next step was to figure out when to re-schedule the trip for. My parents didn't want to go by themselves (even though they have before, numerous times) so they insisted that whenever they re-scheduled for, they wanted my sister and I to come. So, now we have entered the phase of deciding when/what kind of vacation we wanted to have. And in the next post, now that we are past the worst of it, we'll have our eyes on the happiest place on earth (That's right, Disney. I am not changing my vernacular despite your "Most Magical Place on Earth" specification)

To put a period on the situation that created all of this...just in case anyone is curious, to make a long story short, my Aunt passed from carbon monoxide poisoning. She left her truck on in her garage, and while the house door was shut, it still must have leaked in somehow. Our guess is that either she had to go to the bathroom and ran into the bathroom really quick, and forgot that she left the car running. Or perhaps she wasn't feeling quite right, sat in the chair, and maybe suffered a mini-stroke, which she had been having in prior months. According to those close to her, she hadn't been quite right in months before her death. But, it was a hindsight is 20/20 thing. She was normal most of the time, but she was having memory issues, and a mini-stroke related car accident, and other incidents. But, since she was able to take care of her husband and continue to work and still be involved in her community...no one knew how serious it was.