I am cheap.
Not buy-my-wedding-dress-at-Walmart cheap, but I definitely know how to stretch a dollar until it screams for mercy. And I ask you, is it wrong to feed your kids generic brand cereal? To re-use aluminum foil? To steal extra shampoo from the mousekeeping cart? To buy your pregnancy tests at the dollar store? If thats wrong, baby I dont want to be right.
But Im also lazy. My motto is: why stand if you can sit, and why sit if you can lie down and take a little nap? Im often trying to reconcile my cheap side with my laziness, and thats how I end up working a few extra hours so I can pay a cleaning lady, so I can take a nap on Saturday afternoons. That whole conundrum is getting easier as the girls get older and can handle more chores around the house (DD13, go throw in a load of laundry, would you? Mama cant get up off the couch. And hand me the remote on your way out of the room.).
OFF TOPIC: Please dont get all outraged and post about child labor laws. Ive stopped making them chop firewood, and I rarely ask them to drive to town to get me cigarettes anymore, O.K.?
Ive just learned that there are things I will pay for, and things I wont. I will pay for a trip to Disney, but I wont pay for a deluxe resort. I will pay for a preferred room, but I wont pay over a thousand dollars for us to fly to Orlando. I will pay for tickets to Blizzard Beach, but I wont pay $8 for a little plate of eggs and toast for breakfast. If these things dont make sense to you, well, you should start a support group with my DH. And you definitely should stop reading this right now, and go do your taxes or something.
How a Cheap Person Chooses a Resort
After our first few trips (Rack rate at the CR? Seriously?) and after discovering the DIS, I realized with better planning we could go back the WDW more often. DH, bless his little heart, was right on board with that, as were the girls (duh).
So we started our odyssey of trips to the All Start Resorts. We found ourselves in the minority of people that love All Start Sports, and we usually splurge on a preferred room. It is a little piece of heaven, after watching Wishes and waiting in line for 7 hours and 45 minutes for a bus, to know we are just a few steps from our room.
I know when we check in at Sports, no one says Welcome home! But it feels like home. Especially the out-of-date pictures on the walls (you know, the sports stars from, like, 1992...just like home). With Nana and Papa along, we put one of the girls in their room and we have plenty of space for everyone (not that I would ever consider putting five people in a room that allows only four, oh no, not me, no sir). We always get a room looking over the pool and close to the laundry room (easy access for DD13).
We also like the food court, another thing that puts us in the minority. But I think the variety is great, the prices are livable, and we can watch T.V. while we eat (just like home).
DD13 and I were shopping in the GF one time, and she came up and whispered, Mom, this is the same stuff we have in the shop at our hotel, but why does it feel like it is more expensive? Lets just go back to our hotel, like the good little rednecks we are. Thats my girl!
So, All Start Sports (cheap) preferred room (lazy). Check!
How a Cheap Person Saves on Airfare
Driving (cheap, but requires effort) versus flying (not cheap, but much easier, and we can pack as much junk as we want) was harder to decide. But weve come up with a system, and to save $1000 we can live with it. I come home from work Friday evening and go to bed, while DH finishes loading the car, feeds the kids, does baths, and gets them to bed (I like this part of the plan I sleep while he works). We get up and leave around 2:00 in the morning, with me driving.
If I really haul butt, I can have us in Tennessee by the time they all wake up. We get some breakfast, I crawl in the back of the van, and DH takes over. I sleep until lunchtime in Atlanta. Then we cruise through the rest of Georgia (Bor. ing.), and hit Valdosta by dinner. We stop for the night, get up early, and get to WDW before noon. No muss, no fuss. Until this year.
We got up, as usual, and hit the road. Everyone (expect for me) fell back to sleep, I fired up the iPod, and set the cruise control. And it started to rain. Not cute little drip, drip, drop, little April showers but more like the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down thunderstorms. And the windshield wipers werent working. You know, when they leave that really wide strip of rain directly in your line-of-sight? I was suddenly driving like I was 95 years old, terrified of every little splash and noise. But I couldnt slow down! We have a plan! Atlanta by lunch time! Have. To. Keep. Driving. I thought they were going to have to surgically remove my hands from the steering wheel, I was gripping it so hard.
Then, out came the raccoons. (DO NOT read on if you have a weak stomach, or are a member of PETA). Driving on backroads in the middle of the night, I swear I hit seven raccoons on the road this year. It was disgusting, and I made a mental note to get out and make sure we didnt have roadkill stuck to the front of the van before the girls got out.
And the fog rolled in. How can it be foggy and rainy at the same time? Doesnt seem possible, but I drove through pea soup from Dayton to breakfast time.
Speaking of Dayton, thats where the construction began. Not little two lane back ups, but were completely demolishing the entire interstate construction where you have high concrete walls on either side of you. Yep, just me and the semis, which I couldnt see clearly through the rain-covered windshield and the fog. It lasted, off an on, all the way through Ohio and Kentucky.
And DH and the princesses slept away. Buttheads.
But we had a schedule to keep, so I kept driving, and driving, and driving.
Through the mist, through the woods, through the darkness and the shadows
DH woke up around 7:30, and asked, How are thing going? I wanted to bludgeon him with the iPod, but I couldnt unfurl my hands from the steering wheel.
As soon as he woke up I was done. I took the next exit, pulled into a gas station, got out of the van, and walked away. In the rain. Took a few deep breaths, and maybe let out a little scream of relief. I felt better, and DH had the usual talk with the girls about how Mama is a little crazy, but thats O.K. because we love her, yadda, yadda, yadda. He has to do that once in a while.
I went into the gas station and asked if there was an Auto Zone nearby, and the clerk told me there was one right around the corner. God love her. DH dropped us at a Burger King, and went to Auto Zone for new wiper blades. He asked them for the best, most expensive pair they had, and for the love of God, make it quick because we had a schedule to keep.
After breakfast and potty, we got back on the road. I was in the back, with a beautiful, fabulous little bed all set up, and as I drifted off the sleep, I noticed that it stopped raining. Seriously.
(ANOTHER WARNING: way too much information ahead. Im not apologizing or anything, but you should be warned.)
I woke up as we crossed into Georgia. Oh, and what is this? What other delights do we have in store for us today? I know that feeling. I have a bladder infection.
Yes, I can tell, just like that. So I got on the phone with my doctors office. They have Saturday morning hours, but apparently Nurse Ratched wasnt happy about having to work that day and took it out on me. She didnt think the doctor would call in a prescription for me without seeing me, and where would he call it into anyway? I told her all about my trip binder, conveniently stocked with a list of Walmart pharmacies all along our driving route, so I could give her the number for one in Atlanta which we would be passing in about 90 minutes. She sighed, and said fine, she would call me back. She didnt call (I knew she wouldnt). After a while I called her, and she said yes, the doctor was going to call something in for me. And reminded me that he really shouldnt be doing this. She really didnt get it when I told her to have a magical day as we hung up!
We got into Atlanta, and stopped at Walmart. And the pharmacy was closed for lunch.
So we browsed through the store (like we havent spent enough of our lives inside a Walmart) and took a little potty break.
NOTE: It is so unfair that, because we have three girls, DH can make a pit stop in about 45 seconds, while I am in there for 25 minutes minimum. If you didnt think I was weird before, this should convince you: I travel with my own little bathroom cleaning kit paper towels, cleaner, rubber gloves, the whole bit. Before my little princess bums hit that seat, it has been scrubbed clean. One time we were at a gas station (EEWWW!) and I was doing my obsessive-compulsive cleaning thing, and another lady came in. I told her the other stalls were open, but she said no, she wanted to wait and use ours since she knew it would be clean.
At 1:00 on the nose, I was first in line at the pharmacy. The clerk was a doll. She told me the doctor called this prescription in himself, and told them to make sure to have it ready because we had a schedule to keep! Soon we were off like a prom dress, with me properly and happily medicated.
Of course at this point, the schedule was pretty well shot, and we limped into Valdosta around 7:00, which I consider a complete failure.
Oh, yeah, driving seems like a REALLY good idea now!
In the morning, we got up and hit the road. We began to notice how hot it was (a foreboding sign of things to come). Once we got on the highway, we realized the air conditioning wasnt working. So we drove the next two hours with the windows cracked until we finally stopped at this dumpy little gas station that advertised 24-hour repairs. As soon as we turned the van off and the on again, the air started working. We had done something to the system with the automatic start that caused the problem. Brilliant!
Fortunately, that was the end of the drama for the trip down, and we drove under that beautiful welcome sign just before lunch.
I was excited to have DB and DSIL traveling with us, but I was also being quite selfish about my ADRs.
They were laughing and talking at the same time, and all we could is smile. I looked around, and saw a few people, strangers in the lobby, tearing up just a little. One of our best Disney moments ever.
Can't wait for the next installment.
6 pages and you just drove under the welcome sign 
