When I was young (in the 1970's through early 1980's), my dad's business would come to a standstill if we got a lot of snow/bad weather. I remember one year, we only had school for 3 days in January the weather was so bad.
Anyway, when the weather would look bad, I remember dad would call mom from work and say, "Get the bags packed. Let's go to Florida for a couple of weeks." And we would! I thought this was normal - for families to just take off like this. The room rate MUST have been cheap, because my dad was pretty tight with money.
So, we would call up the Contemporary and get reservations for a week or so, then head down to Ft. Myers for the rest of the stay. We had one of those big, long baby-blue Lincolns. (I think mom must have kept that thing for 20 years.) Me and my sister would lay in the back seat (no seat belt use back then) and mom and dad would drive all night. We'd usually wake up in Jacksonville.
Mom would call home to check the weather, and we'd go home when it looked like the weather was clearing.
I remember the first time we went to WDW and you could get an ALL DAY PASS!!! No tickets!!! It was a big pass you wore around your neck like a necklace. I'm guessing that was in the early 80's, but I don't know for sure. Wish we'd have kept those early tickets...
Those were the good old days! We have to plan carefully, as I only get two weeks vacation a year. (But we usually spend both those weeks at WDW.)
