Disney 2009 - Trip Report - Chapter 1

The Cast of Characters for our Disney Vacation 2009 trip!


Me/Myself/I – Planner extraordinaire and Mom. Yeah, list maker, type A planner, germ-o-phobe, worrier.


Dh – the loving husband who plans financially like I do the touring plan. Fellow Disney maniac.


Clone1 – 10 year old boy, thrill ride junkie, happily almost taller than mom. At the awkward stage of wanting to get “into” the characters but finding himself too mature (well in his eyes). All gangly legs, big feet, and full of enthusiasm for anything he sees as “grown up”


Clone2 – 6 year old boy, on the small side of the scales, barely 44.5 inches this trip. He’s full of life, constantly moving and just happy to be at Disney.


Princess Peanut – 2.5 year old girl, who is so far below the charts it’s not even funny. Weighing in at a whopping 23 pounds and 33 inches tall. Loves Mulan, Cinderella, and Mushu. She’s overcome quite a bit in her short life, and we have some stranger anxiety issues to deal with. We just are not sure how she will react to Disney, but we’re talking it up BIG!


Friends – Parents (slightly older than Dh and I) and their 14 year old son. Pretty much First Timers to Disney, and we planned out vacation for them to coincide with our touring idea of Disney. I think we exhausted and overwhelmed them. Luckily, they are secure enough in our friendship to tell us they would meet up with us later! ;)



Leaving Friday February 6, 2009 to drive down to the World, coming home planned on Saturday February 14, 2009.

We are staying at Bonnet Creek Resort which is located just inside Disney Property but considered "off-site", Friends are staying at Pop Century.

Pre-trip: We had planned to leave Friday Feb 6 around 3pm to save on vacation time for Dh. Unfortunately, or rather I should say fortunately, Dh had to pull MAJOR overtime the 2 weeks leading up to our vacation. This meant that we were able to leave anytime Friday, and we talked with our friends and chose a departure time of 10am, no later than 10am. The week of our vacation started, and Clone1 started coughing 5 days prior to leaving. Oh great, a cold going through our family is no fun with a child who has asthma. I did the sanitizing thing while Dh worked late late late hours. Thursday morning Clone2 started coughing. I debated calling the pediatrician, but as I knew stomach viruses and the flu were going around (tamiflu resistant flu at that), I chose the wait and see knowing at that point it was just a cold virus and nothing the doc could do about it. I sent Dh out Thursday night to stock up on adult cold meds for us, and get the “okayed by the allergist and pediatrician” cold meds for the asthmatic child.

Friday morning we packed the van in 40 degree weather, and were ready to leave to 9am. Clone1 and Clone2 were coughing quite a bit, and Princess Peanut was bouncing off the walls in her normal 2.5 year old glory. I told Dh that given the fact we would be stopping more often than Friends, perhaps we should get going now. They could catch up to us by lunch or shortly thereafter. He called Friends, and we were on our way!

A few coughing fits later, and only one stop for gas, we were at our lunch stop. Neither Clone ate very much, and Princess Peanut just wanted to run around. Friends had called and were only about 30 minutes behind us, so we chose to let the kids play outside for a few minutes and wait on them. Not to mention we had to buy an FM transmitter for the ipod as we’d left it. Luckily it was a little warmer than 40 degrees, and we were able to enjoy the sunshine with only a few coughing fits.

After Friends joined us, we got back on the road and made great time to Valdosta, GA our planned stopping point. Only, well, it was not even dinner time! A quick gas and go with a major coughing fit/asthma attack, we decided to press onward to Orlando. I started calling hotels to see what was available and heard that Disney Resorts were completely FULL for the night for Value and Moderate resorts! Yikes. That is not good news for our vacation. We scored 2 hotel rooms in Buena Vista for $40 each, and arrived around 9pm. Clone2 had just started wheezing, and I was able to find his rescue meds. I looked at Dh, he looked at me, and we shared a moment. A moment of parenting that said, “uhoh, will this be the trip Clone2 gets to visit the ER?”