We love to travel. It's a priority to Hubs and me, in planning our family budget, to take our kids on as many trips as possible. We're both pretty organized people, and we've streamlined the trip-planning process to work for our family. We can pinch our travel pennies until they bleed, and we've
finely tuned our strategies for managing trips with young children.
But we have met our match.
One week from tomorrow, we are leaving to take our children to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. And I have learned, as I've done my research, that you don't take a vacation to Disney World, you take a pilgrimage.
For example, we have had our dinner reservations for six months. SIX MONTHS. Almost as much time as it takes to grow a baby. But we were warned that this was the only way to be assured we could have dinner with Goofy and breakfast with Donald, so we did it.
And then there's planning what to tackle while we're there. Friends who know what they're talking about (thank you, Chilihead) assure me that if you show up with just a smile and a camera that you'll miss all the good stuff. You need a game plan. And maps. And water bottles. Kind of like Survivor, but with embroidered mouse ears.
So the game plan is formed by visiting sites like this, or this, or reading books like this, and one quickly realizes that so much has been written on the subject of Disney World that it would take a lifetime to read it all, and seven or eight vacations pilgrimages to see it all. And this is hard for control freaks like Hubs and me who are normally in utter control over every moment of our trips. But I'm deep breathing. Hakuna Matata, as they say in Disney-ese, right?
Because, really, it's Disney World. The most magical place in all the world, and I'm determined not to let my tendency toward hyper-planning turn me into Clark Griswold. When we stroll down Main Street USA on the first morning, as Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah plays over the loudspeakers, I imagine that the looks on my kids' faces will have turned me into a blubbering mess. Plan? What plan?
