It just begins with a conversation of interest and a jump to commit to the trip. Once you decide you are Disney bounding it, the fun has only just began. This will actually be my third trip to the wonderful land of the Mouse, but each time I have gone it has been a different trip each time so hopefully the information in my Disney trip blogs will be useful for all. Obviously, my prior trips will definitely color my opinions and thoughts of how we will do Disney.
Trip 1 (1998)
My first trip was one to compete for high school band. I did not plan anything, and our itineraries were pretty set by my band directors. I was super excited because I had wanted to go as far as I could remember, but it was not your typical family vacation since there were 100 plus teens going that didn't quite see it the same as me. However, I gained two important lessons from the trip. The first was if I can keep from driving to Orlando in any form or fashion I will because it sucks to drive. 18-20 hours straight on a bus with minimal stops will do that to you, and flying means spending less time traveling and more for the actual trip. The second is that groups can be fun, but it is hard to please everyone. Sometimes splitting up is a great idea. I actually had more fun when the group was a smaller 4-6 people group than the bigger ones we sometimes went in. It is also nicer if you have the same agendas or likes.
Trip 2 (2009)
My second trip was very different. Hubster and I spent I think 10 days in 2009 for our honeymoon. I actually started planning in end of February/beginning of March which was about 4ish months out from our early June trip. We had actually decided to go to Disney after our plans for Italy fell through due to me having knee surgery. This is when I learned that the biggest component of a successful trip is research. Through research, I was able to get us a fairly sweet deal on a room that allowed us to stay on property in the Epcot area. While it was not an official Disney resort, we still had access to some of the major Disney elements like transportation to the parks and extended hours, and it was not overly Disneyfied which was nice for Hubster since he isn't a Disney fanatic like me. We had a packed trip with lots of bucket items for me crossed off, but while we had a good time, there were definitely areas I could improved things. That would have come with more time to plan and research. We were lucky that we had the reminder of Hubster's stock program money to use as a base, and we didn't deal with budget at all. We also discovered that we really liked staying on property, and it is on the top of our list of wants in a trip. Hubster wasn't sold on trip before him, but Disney definitely won him over. For those wondering if it is worthy enough of a honeymoon, it is because there is a whole adult side to Disney to discover.
Trip 3 (in the works for 2017)
Now onto the most recent trip. The major change for this trip is the addition of Little Man. I got lucky to have essentially have gotten my perfect trip mate since he is a big Disney kiddo. This is probably because he has essentially been raised on mostly Disney as we only have Hulu and Netflix rather than regular cable, and some of the first TV we let him watch were old Disney cartoons. He has seen as many of the animated movies that we can get hold of plus Disney Junior has some good stuff that is regular in our house.
We knew that this trip would happen some day, but talk of it actually came into fruition in November of 2014. Hubster and I took our first sans child trip with another couple who have identical twins 8 days younger than Gray to a Renaissance festival in Houston, and we all enjoyed the trip so much we started talking about taking other trips together. Of course, Disney came up as an option when the boys were going to be 5 which was in 2017. The three boys have summer birthdays, so a birthday trip made since I am a teacher and are limited when I can go. Please our friends would be back in Texas from their last station through the Army.
Fast forward to last March! We made the official decision that we were real going, and the research fun began. I started a facebook group to keep track of our group planning. Starting to plan a Disney trip can be overwhelming because there is so much out there, but once you have found your resources, then stick with them. Pinterest is a great place to start. It ended up leading me to several other resources, and I also returned to my original sources from our honeymoon.
Next time, I talk about researching and our first steps.
No comments:
Post a Comment