Disneyworld: Part 1

It's the happiest place on earth... the place of a million dreams.. and after 18 years of dreaming, 5 years of wondering, 1 year of heavy duty planning (and careful budgeting) my year of a million dreams finally arrived: I finally got my entire family to Disneyworld.

Rewind 18 years. I had just graduated from High School (sheesh, has it been that long?) I was weeks away from starting my 2-year long church mission, and as a graduation present, as kind of a last hurrah of being a kid, my folks gave me (and the rest of our little family) a trip to Disneyworld. And so for a week in August, 1990 we had a ball in the Florida heat, riding rides and making family memories. Sure part of those included rigging a bucket of water on top of my hotel room bathroom, thus drenching the maid as she went in to clean, a little secret that kept my sister and I laughing all day and my folks giving us dirty, questioning looks. But wether the memories were of our childish pranks, or quality time in the parks, or even elevator jumping in Philidelphia (a story for another blog), we had a great time.

Late on the last night of the trip, we were leaving the Magic Kingdom. And for those that have been there, you know that you don't just walk out of the park and jump in your car. You must either take a monorail or boat to get back to the parking lot. To just enjoy the moment and try to make it last forever, we took the boat to enjoy the night air. As my dad and I watched the dark lake float by, our vacation leaving us behind he said something that I took very seriously. He said "I want you to make me a promise. Once you have a family and you decide to bring them here for the first time, promise that you bring us along so we can experience this magic with you again." "No problem, Dad... you'll always be invited." And I had every intention of keeping that promise and filed it away into my memory banks, to make sure it would happen.

Now, fast forward back to last summer. I began to feel old. I suddenly realized that I only had 4 - 5 summers left before my daughter graduated from high school and started her own life. This whole Disneyworld promise I had made way back when hadn't happened yet and unless I made it a major priority, it very well may NOT happen. And that just couldn't be. I had dreamed too long for it to slip by. So right then, I vowed to make this top priority for the next year. During the summer of 2008, I was taking my family to Disneyworld.

I began to plan in secret, saving up from odds and ends, and just before Christmas I made the financial commitment and presented the park tickets to each of my kids and wife on Christmas morning. Meanwhile, my Mom and Dad and my sister and her family began to make plans to join us on our quest. Suddenly, the end of June couldn't have come fast enough. And yet look what happened, I blinked and it arrived.

And so, last weekend, from all over the county, the family began to descend on Orlando. My family flew in from Portland, my folks flew from Denver and my sister, her husband and 4 kids drove from San Antonio Texas. And then, FINALLY, we were all there, driving under the big "Welcome to Disneyworld" sign, all cheering away, despite the insanely hot temperatures and extreme humidity. It's Disneyworld.. Who cares!!!

So here is our Disney trip report, for the vacation I thought may never happen:

Day 1: Monday: Magic Kingdom

This was the tired day. The day to deal with huge crowds while getting used to Florida heat, a new time zone, cousins that hadn't seen each other in 4 years, and 2 previous days of traveling. But even with all those conditions, we had a ball. We explored Fantasyland with Pooh and Dumbo, my favorite Haunted Mansion and much more. We also established the plan of attack for the week. We'd go to the parks from their opening until about 2 in the afternoon, then return to our rental house (about 5 minutes from the parks) for our big meal of the day and to either rest or relax in our pool, then return to the parks until the evening fireworks show was over. This makes it so we don't have to pay for park food and gives the kids a nice mental break mid day, so there are no melt downs later in the day.

When we returned for our evening in the park we managed to get on quite a few rides, but, I was without a wife. Poor Dawn's back never quite recovered from the long plane ride and she could barely move on Monday, thus causing her to have to stay back at the house. Poor girl. No Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Carribbean, Autopia, Stitch, TTA or others for her. She was ticked. Not a good time to have a sore back!!

Day 2: Tuesday was Disney's Hollywood Studios, a park that my sons loved due to more thrill rides (and Little Calvin's first major roller coaster: Rockin' Roller Coaster.. he and I in the front two seats as we rocketed away at 60 miles and hour) Also a first for Little Cal.. Fighting the Dark Lord of the Sith. Yup, he got to participate in what is called the "Jedi Training Academy", a show where kids are selected to train with a Jedi Master. Just as they finish their first lesson, Darth Vader himself shows up and each kid gets to fight him. It's a very well done show and so much fun watching your offspring take on movie villians. Just a great bit of Disney magic!!

Other highlights: "The Lights, Motors, Action Extreme Stunt Show", what they can do with stunt cars is just amazing, convincing my Dad to do the Hollywood Tower of Terror, riding "Toy Story Midway Mania," the resort's newest ride, and an amazing showing of Fantasmic.. great day.

And so for the sake of my eyes and yours, I will end today's blog with a link to our vacation gallery:

But stay tuned for stories from EPCOT Center, Animal Kingdom, Star Wars Weekends with the "Guarmorean Guard incident" (You'll see photos in the gallery, but come back for the story..), the pirate gun incident.. Star Wars weekends, and even the "stranded.. in a gift shop" tale. All coming soon.. to Calvin's Chimerical Cosmos.