Oh, I hope it came off that way. Don’t want anyone to think I could be like that! (Even if I could, my wife would knock my block off!)
They don’t get a trip. The family gets a trip. We would do a trip regardless. The graduating child just gets to play a significant role in planning it is all.
My second son originally had grand visions, much of which got the kbosh!
Good to know. I will definitely look more into it.
I do believe you can find even better deals on Groupon.
If you’ve never been to Busch Gardens, I do recommend it. It has 3 “world class” coasters, several “lesser coasters” a number of other “thrill” rides (including one of the highest drop towers in the country), and a number of nicely done animal attractions. It’s also a very pretty park with nice detailing and theming (maybe not Disney, but way better than average).
I have NO idea what this image means, I’m afraid!
Whaaattt??? This is now on my bucket list! 
Just do some math ahead of time. The upcharge for the all-day dine may not ultimate be worth it, depending on how you would realistically use it. I think the deal at Busch Gardens is better than most amusement parks because they are trying to get people going to Disney/Universal to add on a trip there. At the same time, for the extra $30+ dollars of the all-day dine, you might end up spending more than you otherwise normally would.
They explicitly forbid the sharing of food, so you can’t have one of you get the plan, the then kind of spread out your eating across multiple people.
Still, it can be worth it for others.
Actually, I was totally kidding. I just like the idea of having the ability to literally eat all day. I love food. But I also know what I am capable of. 
Oh. Sorry. I should have realized it with the emoji!
The interesting part of the Busch Gardens dining plan is that one of the restaurant areas had multiple different cuisines. You could get your entree from the Chinese food section and your dessert or appetizer from the Italian or Mexican food section.
I’ve tried to let the previous image and now this one sink in to see if anything comes to me. But I got nothing. No clue. You couldn’t pay me a million bucks to have any idea what the images are meant to convey!!!
Sigh
How about Epcot Dive Quest? We’ve done that twice with our 3 teenagers at different times and they really loved it. It’s expensive but the video makes it personalized & special. People in your party who don’t want to dive can eat at the Coral Reef and wait for the divers to show up in the tank. Or everyone could have a special dinner there afterwards.
I mentioned it in my other thread here (Everything's changing (almost!) - #4 by padfoot86), but it is worth mentioning here: we now have a plan that involves the family going to Disney in May 2020. “The Void” played a major role, as did a compromise with my daughter’s subsequent trip that has resulted in complete familial happiness!
I know you have had a lot of good replies here already, but I might have some practical experience: I have six boys, all growing up, who have been accustomed to family vacations to WDW, until we actually got transferred to Orlando without us applying for a job here, and we have been to Branson many times.
We also have one of the six who hates amusement parks and has given us a ton of grief after we have gotten to our destination.
Several principles are at play here: 1. You are paying for the trips, so you get to decide. 2. I know 100,000s of teens where I used to live in Iowa who have never even gone outside of their county, let alone gone to any really nice vaction spot. 3. Methods to sweeten deals for teenagers, without their input, and good non-manipulative communication never works with teenage boys, and probably not girls, but I am not an expert on teenage girls.
They need to know you are still in charge, and that their input is valued at the same time, and they need to be invited as a member of the board, and be made to feel valued, but you are still president of the board and the ultimate decision maker. Sweetening the deal is manipulation, but deciding together on things that could be put in place that is seen as a “give and take” that makes a “win/win” for all does work.
If mom and dad give up their leadership to the teen, it is a huge loss for the whole family, and won’t be successful. If the teenager feels manipulated, it won’t be successful. You have to balance both, and clear understanding of the decisions and commitment to cooperate on the teen’s part has be 100%.
Otherwise, don’t do the trip.
So, here’s what we do:
We hold a family council, present the problem, give the kids a bit of perspective on the finances, the blessing it is to go on a family trip, and then we proceed with a working plan with input from the kids but the ultimate decision being made by the parents. And I would involve the whole family in this discussion, giving a lot of consideration to the graduate’s opinions.
Now, when we did that, the amusement park hater, being old enough to not be carried into the park, got to stay in the timeshare with the promise that he would be available to talk to us on his cellphone every hour, and we checked with him every hour. If he broke the rule, and didn’t answer the phone, and he did, we would come home, check on him in person, which we did, and if he wasn’t there where he said he would be, than it’s no-go on anything else he wanted to do for the rest of the vacation, and it was. The next vacation, it worked out because he knew we meant business, and he was able to convince us that he knew we meant business.
When we went to Silver Dollar City, he stayed in the timeshare. When we went to Disneyland in Anaheim, he stayed in the timeshare, well sort of. He went to the gym, and locked his key in the timeshare, and when we called, he answered, but he had to ask us to come and let him back in the room. It was a humiliating experience for him, and a life lesson for him, and we never had that happen again.
When we went to WDW, we, my husband and I, with the family’s input, decided that we would have two beach days at Cocoa Beach to make the bellyacher happy (a family decision). We would to go the Cocoa Beach Surf Shop, rent wet suits and surf boards, and this is something everyone, except Mom wanted to do, but he got to see me sacrifice for his dream activity, and he went to the parks and suffered through it, but did not make us suffer this time.
I’m posting a link here of the information on how to arrange a day of surfing:
Also, you could go to Jetty Park which is just north of Cocoa Beach.
Or New Smryna which is the surfing capital of Florida, and the shark capital of the world, and yes, we have seen sharks there.
Or, go on a Walt Disney World guided fishing tour which, in my opinion, is a ton more fun that going in the parks.
In my opinion, and this is just me, if I had to decide between Branson, which I have been to many times, having lived a day’s drive from there for 15 years, and WDW, I would replace the Branson trip with WDW.
Now that I live here, I have the opportunity to go to WDW weekly if I want, and I have the money to go to Branson for a family vacation, but I still book my yearly family vacation in Orlando. We book one week at a timeshare here, and divide our time between WDW and the beach. We haven’t been back to Branson in three years, and don’t plan to go and we have family an hour away from Branson. For us Florida is just that much fun.
Hope that helps. Just remember, Mom and Dad are in charge, and it’s a blessing for the kids to go, and they will thank you for it when they are older. All of mine do now that they are adults, even the bellyacher. It was hard to see that they would all be grateful some day, but said amusement park hater just thanked me for the vacations a few weeks ago, and he doesn’t have any recollection of the angst he put us through. All of those trips, in hindsight were worth it and appreciated by the kids, but we didn’t give up our reigns to them.
Another bit of advice because this is at the root of the problem: I have learned never to set a precedent with your kids, mix it up all of the time, and when they say, “but you did such and such for so and so”. I say, “So.”
If you get in the business of setting precedence, you will end up doing it for your grandkids. My mom makes quilts for the all of the grandkids when they are born and get baptized. Now that she is older, she can’t keep up as well, and it’s now a stressful precedence.
I have seen sooooooo many families over the years at the parks where the parents are serving, serving, and serving the kids, and not being parents. I don’t know you, and I don’t know how you parent, but these parents are afraid to disappoint their kids, and really everyone just seems unhappy at the happiest place on earth because the parents are human and the kids will push and push and the parents can’t humanly meet all of the demands. I see quite a few miserable people at the parks and this is what is happening.
Your post sounds like you are trying to be a friend and not a parent to your kids, but like I said, I don’t know you, and I can only go by how I read your post. If that is what is overpowering you, let me tell you now that I have four adult children, I have learned that they will survive with you staying in charge, and will thank you for the family time once they become the providers of their families because they will understand the sacrifice you made in the planning and making it happen. If you are struggling to be strong, and be the parent, instead of the friend, be strong. They need you to be and they will thank you for it in the future.
If this is not you, and you are a strong parent, then just take the links and see if they will help you think of great activities to do here at this wonderful place to mix things up a bit. I think if you can fit in a couple of beach days, your graduate will have a great time.
Oh, that’s good news! Sorry for my long post, and I’m glad you worked it out!!!
I appreciate your desire to help…but this isn’t us. Well. Not exactly. See, I’ve taught parenting classes, and actually did ghost-writing for a parenting book that is published, and one of my brothers (I have 5 of them) was a vice president at Focus on Family and then was the head of another organization about building strong families.
But I do see parenting in stages. Young years, it is about protecting, then teaching. As they approach tween/teen years, you transition into more the role of coaching with the goal of them really being capable of living an “adult life” by age 15 (if it were necessary/allowed). Then, as they enter the college years, the relationship should transition out of coach, to friend. We have that now, for example, with our oldest, who is married and out of college. We can honestly say that he and his wife are our friends. We just love to spend time together. My second son, still in college, we are on the trailing edge of the coaching and seeing that relationship transform into friendship.
Our third son is currently 16, so we are in the middle of the coaching years for sure still. But family trips are something we do. (And for us, we can’t call it a trip unless it involves some kind of amusement park!) So, allowing them to participate in the planning of their “graduation trip” is kind of reward for a job well done. (We homeschool each of them, so we see all of the good and bad they go through on a daily basis!)
In a way, planning of the trips is a lot like how we parent in general. When they are young, it is really just what we want, and what we want for them. They have no input. As they get older, we think about how the trips may impact them…what they will remember. It is still us planning, but with their personalities guiding some of our decision making. As they read the tween/teen years, we start to ask for input from everyone. We throw out ideas, and see what thoughts they have. Ultimately still our decision, but their opinion matters to us.
We effectively have three children at home still. (The first is married, as I said, and the second LIVES at home…but really his life is at school and work and such, and he’s an adult so we’re just there when he wants/asks for advice…which happens quite a lot actually!) We are realizing that it will only be a couple more years before these family vacations will be just me, my wife, and our youngest son (who is currently 8). What was great was when we were talking about our DS16’s trip, he (without us mentioning it) brought up that it was important to him that (when we were still doing the King’s Island, Cedar Point trip) that at least some of the time, EVERYONE was there (including my oldest son and his wife, and our second son).
We have a motto we’ve ingrained in our children from the time they were very young. “Friends for life.” We have taught them that, no matter how good any relationship is with anyone else, the truth is, their brothers and sister will be their friends for life. Even after we (their dad and mom) pass away, they will have each other. It has stuck. They really are all friends. The like to be with each other as much, or moreso, than with others. (Not that they don’t have friends as well!)
Thank you for the polite and kind way you expressed appreciation for my desire to help. If we were sitting at the kitchen table, I would have been able to ask you more realtime questions, but as I read the replies from others, some came to the same conclusions that I did, and maybe my reply was shaped by theirs.
We homeschool too so I understand everything you said about spending a lot of time together. I read all of Dr. James Dobson’s parenting books as well, and lived 30 minutes from the Focus on the Family compound when we were living in Colorado. So, now I know where you are coming from. Sounds like we have a similar background.
Have a nice trip!
No problem. It is the nature of forums!
