We're Going To See The Mouse

Tomorrow we make our pilgrimage to the American mecca that is Walt Disney World. Keith and I are alternately excited and apprehensive about it.

We're excited for the girls because they've never been and we remember how much fun it was for Brother when we took him .

We're apprehensive for a few reasons:

1. We remember something else about our Disney trip with Brother , and that is, we walked the ever-loving soles of our feet off every day for seven days and came home dog-tired. Coming home dog-tired from a vacation just isn't right. We much prefer lying on a beach and listening to ocean waves to pounding hot pavement all day. And we're twelve years older now than on our first Disney trip. We're really just hoping we don't flag out before the kids.

2. The amount of pre-trip information you have to wade through and make decisions about is very intimidating. I'm not sure, but I think small countries have been taken over with less strategic planning than we have done for this vacation. I checked out the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World from the library, and the kicker for me, was the chapter on making meal reservations. I am not kidding when I say that FOUR PAGES of this book were used to give detailed instruction on the split-second speed-dialing and verbal shorthand needed to have any hope at all of scoring a reservation for a meal with Cinderella in her castle. You're supposed to interrupt the customer service rep when they've just answered the line and are in the middle of a friendly greeting, to blurt out your reservation request and date. You're even instructed not to waste time saying "please" and "thank you". All this so that precious nanoseconds are not lost. After all, reservations with Cinderella could fill up in the time it takes to say "Please".
Those four pages alone were almost enough to make me change my mind about going. And I don't even WANT a dinner with Cinderella. We're having breakfast with Mary Poppins, and reservations for that meal were easily made and did NOT necessitate being rude to anybody :)

3. It's so stinking expensive. And if you stay inside the resort, it's like you're locked into a money-sucking vortex. If you need something and you didn't bring it with you, they'll probably have it..... but oh baby, are you going to pay for it. That's why I have packed everything I can possibly think of that we will need while we're there. I'm even thinking of washing our clothes out in our hotel room bathtub because I don't want to pay to use the laundromat. Keith thinks I'm carrying it too far. We'll see what I feel like after pounding pavement all day.

4. Crazy people go there. People who use split-second speed dialing and rude dialogue to get reservations with Cinderella. People who spend $40 on a "makeover" for their daughters at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. They put on some sparkly makeup and put the girls' hair up in buns.
They spray some more sparkly stuff. And that's the $40 makeover. For $50 you get all that plus a manicure. See what I mean? Crayyy-zee.


On the whole, we're really looking forward to it though. I just have a feeling we're going to come home dog-tired and flat broke. Oh well, you can't say we're not doing our part for the economy :)