Leaving the Husbands and the Budgets @ Home - A Three Generations Trip to the World

[wed100105]

Welcome to my PTR! I’m so excited to share this experience with you. I’ve learned so much from reading other Disboard members’ reports that I want to give the opportunity to other vacationers as well.

The cast:

My Mom—Mom desperately needs this vacation. My grandma, her mother, passed away this February from stage IV lung cancer that the doctors found six months prior. Grandma had small cell lung cancer that is incredibly rare in non-smokers. It was a shock to us all and chemo and radiation couldn’t combat the aggressive cancer. My mom is an amazing woman with a highly stressful career. We live 1 mile from each other and get to see each other in short bursts of time due to her job, so this trip will be a great time to reconnect. (We’re also a lot alike so it may be interesting….)

(This is my mom, me, my daughter, and my grandma on the afternoon of my daughter's baptism. )

Myself- I am a 27 (turning 28 on our trip) year-old middle school teacher who loves to plan and enjoy vacations. I haven’t had the luxury of taking a big trip anywhere since our daughter was born two years ago. Needless to say, I’ve been itching to get out and explore!


My Daughter- Maddy is a lovable two-year-old who kind of started this whole go to Disney adventure. Around 22 months, we watched Cars together as a family. She (and we) fell in love with it. (Country bumpkins that we are….We praised ourselves that our daughter’s favorite movie is the most redneck Disney movie.) Her love for Lightning really made me think that even though she is young, she’d enjoy a trip to the World.

 

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The justification….

After Grandma passed away, I knew I needed something to focus on and consume my time. (I have lost both of my grandmas within 18 months and have not handled it well emotionally.) What better to plan than a vacation?! My husband is in the military and unable to join us on this trip. Cue call to mom to beg her to go along. (Small side story-my family are all farmers and my dad rarely could take long vacations with us either so my grandma always went along. This is kind of a little tribute to her as well.)

Mom thought one week was just too short for all the activities we had planned and encouraged me to see if I could get two weeks at our resort, Wyndham Bonnet Creek. (DH and I are gold vip owners and Bonnet Creek is our home resort so it wasn’t a problem.)


I have an awesome picture I took on the day we bought (and then rescinded and bought resale) our timeshare ownership. Sadly, lightning struck my computer and I lost all of our honeymoon pictures but about ten. I've searched the files for a while and can't find the one I'm looking for so this generic picture will just have to do.

Immediately I started searching for flights. I was able to get a decent, but not the best deal on Airtran from a local airport (about ~1 hour drive from home) that offers free parking. Without the baggage fees added on, our flights came to $600.04. We’ll see how much baggage we cart down to Florida come July….I can promise you it won’t be pretty!

Now that flights and the condo were set, I started pursuing a car (and discount codes). I was able to use the Costco membership deal and purchase an Entertainment book ($13 after ebates deal) to secure a full-size car from Alamo for $267 for the 13 day trip. I didn’t think that was too terrible considering it offered the extra driver for free.

The best part of this trip was the awesome ticket deals that Seaworld and Disney are offering. DH is full-time Air National Guard. Seaworld has a program that salutes military personnel and will allow us to visit once a year for free. We’ve taken advantage of this deal twice in the past and thoroughly love visiting the park. (It’s DH’s favorite park. He absolutely loves the free beer.) Disney offered $99 four-day tickets for military personnel or their families for a portion of this year, too. Our total cost for tickets will be $298. Maddy is only two and receives free admittance. I have to say that these generous programs really do make trips like this possible for our family to really go and enjoy the Orlando area.

You’re probably wondering why we have only 5 days of tickets when we’re visiting for 13 days. I was kind of wondering the same thing myself. Did you remember that I was planning on a week? My mom says that she’s an almost fifty-year-old and cannot possibly go-go-go all week. She just wants to relax in the lazy river. (We treated my mom, dad, and brother to a week at Bonnet Creek three Christmas’ ago.) I wasn’t turning down a few extra days in Orlando so 13 days it is. 

What started out as a budget vacation to Disney has now become a (still relatively reasonable) trip for two weeks! I love to plan so this was like icing on the cake for me-8 full days to plan! I have affectionately titled this trip the “Leaving the Husbands and Budgets at Home” trip.

Here are the husbands: (My dad and my DH accidentally wearing the same shirt and hat on the same day.)

 

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The plans:

At first I had five out of the thirteen days planned as park days (4 Disney, 1 Seaworld). Then I found Disboards. After much debate over whether we should buy two sets of tickets for each of us and have eight days in the parks, we decided to stick to the original plan and have four days at Disney and 1 day at Sea World. I’m still a little torn over this decision and am still debating whether it’s the right move or not. On one hand, you have the additional cost of Disney tickets for four days and parking for four days. On the other hand, you have the breathing room to slow down and enjoy shorter days in the park. Hmmm….will splurging or saving win this battle? We’ll just have to wait and see!

 

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I'm feeling pretty pathetic that I have no readers.......


The presents:

I mentioned earlier that my mom used to take us on summer vacation trips and my grandma would fill in for my dad when he couldn’t’ get away from the farm. One special thing my mom always did was provide presents during the transportation part of the trip. My brother, who is four years younger than me, and I would constantly fight and this was a very neat bribery tool for my mother. She would say things like, once we get to the first stop, you can open a present or when the clock says 4:00 you can open the second present. Throughout the years we really got into these presents so much that they were really one of the most fun portions of the trip and defiantly something that I look forward to still to this day!

(Short side story-please bear with me…) Last June we went to St. Louis for an extended weekend with the four generations of us (Grandma, Mom, Me, and Maddy). It was a wonderful trip and my mom continued the present tradition for Maddy.  I tear up just thinking about the great times we had on that trip.)

I knew I wanted to do little gifts for Mom on this trip. The problem with buying little gifts for Mom is that my mother has everything. EVERYTHING. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G with a capital E! it’s nearly impossible to surprise her with anything. Problem number two is that my dad spilled the beans that Mom had presents for Maddy. Mom and I are a lot alike (so much it’s scary and often annoying for both of us) and finding presents that she hadn’t already bought was a challenge!

My mom typically buys stuff, where I prefer to purchase experiences. It’s kind of funny how we are so similar in most things, but in this we differ.