Who: me(40), DH46, DD10, DD8, DD6
When: October 4-18
Where: Club Wyndham Bonnet Creek
2nd family trip. For the first trip report go here.
5 day park tickets
Lots of swimming time
Why WDW is worth it for us, even with a pandemic and reduced experience:
We are Americans who live in Russia. When countries started to close their borders in March we decided to leave due to DD6’s mild asthma and our soon-to-expire visas. We did not want to come to America. We made the decision to leave, packed two bags, and left in 36 hours, afraid we wouldn’t be able to leave if we waited. We went to Istanbul, hoping to get our new visas there. Instead, the Russian consulate closed the day after we arrived and we sat through 7 weeks of strict lockdown: our children were not allowed to leave the apartment.
By early May we were done. We waited through a few Russian holidays and when no announcements were made regarding borders opening then we investigated coming to the States. We found a place to stay and my dad and stepmom are letting us borrow one of their cars. We are still waiting on the borders to open so we can go home.
We were invited to speak at a conference outside of Orlando. We had a timeshare week expiring by the end of November, and there was a week available at WBC the same week of the conference. Since we’d be driving 9-10 hours anyways, why not do something fun? We booked the timeshare and waited to see how things would play out (would borders open?) When it became clear we’d actually be here for the trip DH decided we should stay a second week so we could actually relax and use the resort amenities and not just run from park to park. So we booked the second week, bought tickets, and set our stimulus check amount as the budget. We have very much needed this to look forward to, since for 6 months we have been waiting to be told we are allowed to go home.
Day 1: Travel Day
5:30 am wake up call, packed lunches, finished up the packing, and were in the van and on the road at 8:23, only 23 minutes late. We should arrive in Orlando around 6 pm if all goes well. We’ve got 5 movies from Disney+ downloaded on the iPads, so this trip should be much more bearable for the girls than our last one.
FWIW, this is a budget trip for us since it was unplanned. We have a few fun things planned but are planning on maximizing the fun without breaking the bank. I’ll share numbers at the end of the trip if anyone is interested.
Here’s to a safe trip and finishing The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes while DH drives all day.
