I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but it’s time for my family to head Home!
Like so many here, this trip comes after a long, long wait and many cancellations and re-bookings. Although I was fortunate to have a whirlwind 5 day visit in April, my poor family has been waiting over 2 years to get back into the World! And finally the day is here!
This is a bit of a Revenge Travel trip. Again, like so many here and everywhere, we found ourselves with a lot of pent up vacation energy as well as vacation dollars and DVC points to spend. So this trip has evolved from our usual 6night/7day visit to a 9night/10day extravaganza with some upgrades and add-ons as we give Covid the old “TAKE THAT!” I actually prefer a much more vulgar double gesture, but in the interest of family-friendliness we’ll leave it at that. Anyone who knows me knows, anyway.
We’ll be spending the entirety of our trip at a 2BR at OKW resort, our home DVC resort. Traveling with me is DH51, DD17, and DS13; these guys were supposed to celebrate their 50th, 16th, and 13th birthdays at WDW so we’ll make up for that this time - shhhhh! We have most of our time allocated to WDW parks and resorts but the three of them will take some time outside the bubble to visit UOR; I’ll take that opportunity to have some solo time at AK and other adventures. We have some extras planned that they know about, and some surprises planned that they don’t. And of course, many of you have been following my Super Secret Project, the unveiling of which will occur late in the day on Wednesday! I can’t hardly wait!
This Trip Report will be semi-live. I will definitely live-post here and there, but I plan to be doing most of it in the style of a Top Ten Vacation Moments daily wrap-up. Notice I said “I plan” because I do anticipate the pull to report live to be strong, and I think I’ll give in at times. But the truth of it is, my family needs some good solid Family Time. Like a lot of people, Covid has really stressed us in a lot of ways. We have been extremely fortunate that none of us, nor any of our family or friends, fell ill to the virus and I don’t at all take that lightly. But the stressors that came with living through a global pandemic have built in lots of other ways and we will use this time to Remember Who We Are as a family. Someone said on a podcast that I listen to recently that Disney (whether WDW or DLR or any of the other parks and resorts around the world) is healing, and that’s what this family needs right now.
So I will give myself over to them, to us, for the biggest part of our days. But fear not – there will be plenty for you to see and hear in this thread and I hope you’ll all follow along and participate in the fun! At the end of each day I’ll share our Top Ten Vacation Moments from that day, which will be a mix of my own thoughts and those of my family members. It will be interesting to see what stands out to them! And who knows? Maybe I’ll even let you Choose My Adventure from time to time That was super fun last time - just please don’t send me to Creature Comforts for breakfast, m’kay?
We are flying down tonight in a last minute (Tuesday? Wednesday?) decision since the weather forecast predicted that our DD17’s recital was able to go off yesterday. We have a nonstop flight leaving MHT at 545p, and we anticipate arriving MCO at about 9pm. We will be staying over at the Hyatt in the airport, a first for us, and after a good night’s sleep will pick up our rental around 10am and head directly to MK!
Stay tuned, kiddies! It’s gonna be a good one