Hello everybody......thanks for reading!
This is the pre-trip report of our family's ever-changing trip to Disney World. We've been through a lot in the last few months, but even though our plans have changed many times, we're still going.
Here is the original plan:
Dates: 10/3-10/12 (the week our sitter is always gone at her timeshare, and Teacher's Convention at the stepkids' school)
Cast of Characters: Myself (the Chief Disney Trip Planner in our family)
, DH (willingly gets dragged along)
, my 12-year-old stepdaughter (my partner in planning crime)
and our 3-year old son
. We gave all our kids a choice of vacations this year, and my 7-year old son (from my 1st marriage) and my 14-year old stepson chose a six flags trip over Memorial Day. My 7-year old stepdaughter is very shy and chose to stay home for both trips. Yes, that is a total of 5 kids.
The original plan was a land and sea trip. We had 2 nights booked at CBR, then we started our land-and-sea package with 4 nights at Poly and 3 nights in a balcony room on the Disney Wonder. In January, I booked our flights as soon as AirTran released the schedule. We left on a Friday afternoon, and returned on a Sunday night after the cruise.
Well, I started thinking about buying into DVC.
Enter the first schedule change:
After lots of thinking, I decided to buy into DVC.
I ended up buying a 150 point SSR contract through The Timeshare Store. Unfortunately, I needed the money I would have spent on the glorious land-and-sea package to put towards the DVC contract. I guess it's really not a bad thing. I changed our first 2 nights to All-Star Movies, cancelled the land-and-sea package, and booked 4 nights in a 1-BR at SSR and a Category 12 GTY cabin for the cruise. We have tickets from last year's trip that we can use (bumped everyone up to Non-Expiring, since we got the Hopping and Water Park options for free with our package).
Enter second schedule change:
AirTran cancelled our flights.
I booked nice and early so I had the times I wanted. DSD had a half-day of school on our departure day, so I booked an afternoon flight. We needed an evening flight because of the cruise. AirTran cut their afternoon flight out, leaving only a morning departure. That meant having to pull DSD out of school that morning. Pretty minor, but we were already taking her out for the short 3-day week the following week. They also eliminated the evening flight, leaving only a late morning flight. It would have cut it too close on departure day coming from Port Canaveral. With the soft economy, I decided to pull the plug on the cruise. It was just too much to spend on 3-days.
At this point, we had reservations on flights that didn't exist, and 2 days at AsMovies, then 4 days at SSR, departing Thursday. The trip planning was going really badly. It was only a hint of things to come in our lives.....
This is the pre-trip report of our family's ever-changing trip to Disney World. We've been through a lot in the last few months, but even though our plans have changed many times, we're still going.
Here is the original plan:
Dates: 10/3-10/12 (the week our sitter is always gone at her timeshare, and Teacher's Convention at the stepkids' school)
Cast of Characters: Myself (the Chief Disney Trip Planner in our family)
, DH (willingly gets dragged along) , my 12-year-old stepdaughter (my partner in planning crime) and our 3-year old son . We gave all our kids a choice of vacations this year, and my 7-year old son (from my 1st marriage) and my 14-year old stepson chose a six flags trip over Memorial Day. My 7-year old stepdaughter is very shy and chose to stay home for both trips. Yes, that is a total of 5 kids. The original plan was a land and sea trip. We had 2 nights booked at CBR, then we started our land-and-sea package with 4 nights at Poly and 3 nights in a balcony room on the Disney Wonder. In January, I booked our flights as soon as AirTran released the schedule. We left on a Friday afternoon, and returned on a Sunday night after the cruise.
Well, I started thinking about buying into DVC.
Enter the first schedule change:
After lots of thinking, I decided to buy into DVC.
I ended up buying a 150 point SSR contract through The Timeshare Store. Unfortunately, I needed the money I would have spent on the glorious land-and-sea package to put towards the DVC contract. I guess it's really not a bad thing. I changed our first 2 nights to All-Star Movies, cancelled the land-and-sea package, and booked 4 nights in a 1-BR at SSR and a Category 12 GTY cabin for the cruise. We have tickets from last year's trip that we can use (bumped everyone up to Non-Expiring, since we got the Hopping and Water Park options for free with our package).Enter second schedule change:
AirTran cancelled our flights.
I booked nice and early so I had the times I wanted. DSD had a half-day of school on our departure day, so I booked an afternoon flight. We needed an evening flight because of the cruise. AirTran cut their afternoon flight out, leaving only a morning departure. That meant having to pull DSD out of school that morning. Pretty minor, but we were already taking her out for the short 3-day week the following week. They also eliminated the evening flight, leaving only a late morning flight. It would have cut it too close on departure day coming from Port Canaveral. With the soft economy, I decided to pull the plug on the cruise. It was just too much to spend on 3-days.
At this point, we had reservations on flights that didn't exist, and 2 days at AsMovies, then 4 days at SSR, departing Thursday. The trip planning was going really badly. It was only a hint of things to come in our lives.....
I think there was a plan to hop to Epcot.
To make a long story short, he flipped out and tried to strangle me. After a long struggle, I was able to escape and run out of the house, where a neighbor heard me and called "911". He drove off, and the police quickly found him and arrested him for Battery and his second drunk driving.
