TuckandStuiesMom
<font color=darkorchid>Age. Fac ut gaudeam<br><fon
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2005
- Messages
- 2,578
Can it be done? Well I certainly hope so. To make a long story short, I switched from a high-paying (but intrinsically unrewarding) private sector job to a much lower paid (but tons more fun) government job in 2006. Best professional decision I ever made
but we have definitely had to make some lifestyle adjustments. This trip represents one such attempt at this kind of compromise.
Cast of The-Names-Changed-to-Protect-the-Guilty Family Characters:
Me 54 YO gray-haired Grandma (funny thing about your 50s sometimes you feel like youre really in your 80s and other times you feel like you are still in your 20s until you see yourself reflected in a store window and you find yourself momentarily wondering, "Who IS that old lady???")
Next to Youngest Son 18 YO Graduating from High School this year (very exciting time in this young mans life hes made a lot of important decisions about scholarships, college, and beyond this year. In many ways, this trip is about celebrating his high school success and decompressing from the stress hes been under for the last 12 months.)
Youngest Son 17 YO Still one more year at home before he flies to coop to college and young adulthood.
Oldest Son and his unruly and utterly wonderful bunch He is 34. His Dear Wife is 29 and holding. They have four children 8 YO Son, 5 YO Daughter, 3 YO Son, and 1 YO Daughter.
Possibly my Only Daughter 26 YO Drummer and her BFF also 26 YO and a Singer/Guitarist. (Its gotta be great to be young! We are less than 3 weeks away from the trip and they are still deciding if they can make it work or not.)
Our plan: We are going for the last week of March. We plan to do some things together, as a group; and probably more apart. First law of The-Names-Changed-to-Protect-the-Guilty Intrafamilial Dynamics: The coefficient of Snarkitude is directly proportional to the number of family members attempting to share any single experience. We are, after all, hoping to have fun not experience a seven-day Festivus double serving of the Airing of the Grievances.
My son and his family are staying off-site nice mini-suite (separate sleeping areas for parents and kids/ microwave/ mini-fridge), which should work well with their vast horde of small (but highly opinionated) people. They are planning to have breakfasts in their room, light lunches and snacks in the parks, and most dinners on I Drive.
The boys and I are staying onsite at the Fort Wilderness Campground. Yes we will be there during the Easter Holiday Period (First glitch in on-the-cheap strategy --no AAA room discounts and higher dining costs). We are paying about $103/night for a preferred space (Yes again we probably could have stayed at a Value for about the same amount of money but we like camping and we LOVE the peaceful quiet atmosphere at the Fort.) and our 14X10tent cost $130 on Ebay. Total cost of onsite lodging = $851. The three of us have Southwest Rapid Reward Tickets ($0). This saved us about $1,000 Woo-hoo! THANK YOU, Southwest!)
We are bringing some non-perishable food with us on the plane, and having perishables delivered by Wegoshop. We used them in the past and I was very impressed with their prices and service. We are not going to be nutso-militant about trying to save money by fixing all of our meals but we do enjoy grilling and making various concoctions in the crock-pot. Right now, the only ADRs we have are for Breakfast with Cindy on Easter Sunday for the girly-girls amongst us and a 9:00 dinner on the following Wednesday at Ohana for everybody. If I can keep the total cost outlay for food under $600 for the three of us, Ill be a happy camper (literally).
Hmm What else???
We are going to do Magical Express so other than tips for the drivers no ground transportation costs.
Weve already bought the tickets I had an old No Expiration park-hopper and I bought the boys each a 7-day base ticket so the associated costs incurred were about $500. If the boys want to upgrade to park-hoppers, well do it when we check in.
We are not big-time park commandos. Even though I suspect its explicitly outlined in the DIS handbook on page 325 in paragraph 4.21b that we plan out our days in 15 minute increments, that is just not who we are I am in the process of printing out Unofficial Guide Touring plans for everybody (the Parents with Small Kids version for my Son and Daughter-in-law and Adult Highlights for the boys and me). A particularly nice feature of the touring plans is the authors have included the height requirements for each attraction.
Several of us are hoping to see all of the Park shows and are particularly interested in the new one, Nemo and Friends. As the week progresses, we may pop for tickets for La Nouba. We also hope to meet up with some of the DIS Friends weve made over the years and put faces to names.
I guess thats it for now itll be interesting to see if we can bring this whole trip in for under $2K. Wish us luck!
Cast of The-Names-Changed-to-Protect-the-Guilty Family Characters:
Me 54 YO gray-haired Grandma (funny thing about your 50s sometimes you feel like youre really in your 80s and other times you feel like you are still in your 20s until you see yourself reflected in a store window and you find yourself momentarily wondering, "Who IS that old lady???")
Next to Youngest Son 18 YO Graduating from High School this year (very exciting time in this young mans life hes made a lot of important decisions about scholarships, college, and beyond this year. In many ways, this trip is about celebrating his high school success and decompressing from the stress hes been under for the last 12 months.)
Youngest Son 17 YO Still one more year at home before he flies to coop to college and young adulthood.
Oldest Son and his unruly and utterly wonderful bunch He is 34. His Dear Wife is 29 and holding. They have four children 8 YO Son, 5 YO Daughter, 3 YO Son, and 1 YO Daughter.
Possibly my Only Daughter 26 YO Drummer and her BFF also 26 YO and a Singer/Guitarist. (Its gotta be great to be young! We are less than 3 weeks away from the trip and they are still deciding if they can make it work or not.)
Our plan: We are going for the last week of March. We plan to do some things together, as a group; and probably more apart. First law of The-Names-Changed-to-Protect-the-Guilty Intrafamilial Dynamics: The coefficient of Snarkitude is directly proportional to the number of family members attempting to share any single experience. We are, after all, hoping to have fun not experience a seven-day Festivus double serving of the Airing of the Grievances.
My son and his family are staying off-site nice mini-suite (separate sleeping areas for parents and kids/ microwave/ mini-fridge), which should work well with their vast horde of small (but highly opinionated) people. They are planning to have breakfasts in their room, light lunches and snacks in the parks, and most dinners on I Drive.
The boys and I are staying onsite at the Fort Wilderness Campground. Yes we will be there during the Easter Holiday Period (First glitch in on-the-cheap strategy --no AAA room discounts and higher dining costs). We are paying about $103/night for a preferred space (Yes again we probably could have stayed at a Value for about the same amount of money but we like camping and we LOVE the peaceful quiet atmosphere at the Fort.) and our 14X10tent cost $130 on Ebay. Total cost of onsite lodging = $851. The three of us have Southwest Rapid Reward Tickets ($0). This saved us about $1,000 Woo-hoo! THANK YOU, Southwest!)
We are bringing some non-perishable food with us on the plane, and having perishables delivered by Wegoshop. We used them in the past and I was very impressed with their prices and service. We are not going to be nutso-militant about trying to save money by fixing all of our meals but we do enjoy grilling and making various concoctions in the crock-pot. Right now, the only ADRs we have are for Breakfast with Cindy on Easter Sunday for the girly-girls amongst us and a 9:00 dinner on the following Wednesday at Ohana for everybody. If I can keep the total cost outlay for food under $600 for the three of us, Ill be a happy camper (literally).
Hmm What else???
We are going to do Magical Express so other than tips for the drivers no ground transportation costs.
Weve already bought the tickets I had an old No Expiration park-hopper and I bought the boys each a 7-day base ticket so the associated costs incurred were about $500. If the boys want to upgrade to park-hoppers, well do it when we check in.
We are not big-time park commandos. Even though I suspect its explicitly outlined in the DIS handbook on page 325 in paragraph 4.21b that we plan out our days in 15 minute increments, that is just not who we are I am in the process of printing out Unofficial Guide Touring plans for everybody (the Parents with Small Kids version for my Son and Daughter-in-law and Adult Highlights for the boys and me). A particularly nice feature of the touring plans is the authors have included the height requirements for each attraction.
Several of us are hoping to see all of the Park shows and are particularly interested in the new one, Nemo and Friends. As the week progresses, we may pop for tickets for La Nouba. We also hope to meet up with some of the DIS Friends weve made over the years and put faces to names.
I guess thats it for now itll be interesting to see if we can bring this whole trip in for under $2K. Wish us luck!
