OCD- The Disney Addition

So Chris and I are taking our little guy to Disney World for the first time. We leave in a few very short weeks and I am more pumped about this trip than if we would have gone to Aruba as we originally planned.

See we are a bit spoiled. My parents own a 5 star timeshare that we can use at about a million places worldwide for a small transfer fee.  We normally go to Aruba as a huge family in April, but my parents won a cruise last year so they aren’t going, my younger brother is getting married in October, two of my siblings are not beachy people and my youngest is currently unemployed. So with my big 3-0 looming, we decided we would go anyway, just the three of us and move it to January instead of April. Hey, they were going to lose that week that was already paid for if we didn’t use it.

That’s where the trouble started. We had to trade in a week of my parent’s timeshare and hope that someone would be willing to give up their week in Aruba in January so we could slide on in there. Please, WTF were we thinking expecting someone to give up their week in paradise in January? Especially since a huge majority of Americans coming to Aruba are from the frozen Northeast. So we expanded to the entire Caribbean within flight cost reasoning. Nothing. Zero. So we moved a little further north. Southern Florida. Not quite the 85 degrees we were aiming for, but it still better than the before mentioned frozen northeast. Nothing. At this point we were willing to go anywhere that had a temperature above 60.

I casually mention Disney World. Chris who is not a fan of crowds or small children that don’t share a house or DNA with him said, sure why the hell not? Can’t be any worse than being stuck here in February. This of course was after quite the side eye and after telling him about the week we are going, historically being the lowest attendance rating of the entire year. This same Chris, who is anti-Disney to the fullest extent, whom I have been trying to convince for almost 9 years to take Chase to Disney World, is finally admitting defeat. We are now locked, stocked and loaded for a non-stop trip from DC to hopefully a sunnier, warmer climate of Orlando Florida. 

Now entering, my obsessive compulsive desire to plan this trip. I booked our plane tickets and car rental within 10 minutes of each other, about 10 minutes after we got our hotel confirmation. I ordered maps pinpointing the activities we wanted to do in each park, wrote down everything in a notebook, obsessed over the website looking at the parks, checking the weather everyday (its February so you never know what it’s going to be like one day to the next) started a packing list, adjusting and readjusting our park/day itinerary, figuring out other things in the area to do, you know in case a 5 full days in amusement parks isn’t enough. 

To add even more non-stop craziness, the Sunday after we land, we are driving an hour and 15 minutes to visit family in southeastern, FL. Then depending on the weather, another 35 minutes to the beach.  We plan to watch the Super Bowl there and stay the night then drive back to Orlando to begin our Disney extravaganza the next morning.  We are also going to Seaworld one of those days too, THANKS MIL!! Cannot wait!

Last night after cruising Pintrest while cooking dinner, I happened upon a blog where this woman successfully packs 2 weeks’ worth of clothing (very cute stylish clothing) into her carry on. Thus, avoiding the ridiculous bag checking fees.  I have always found packing things to gain more space very gratifying. After some scouring I found out that we have a washer and dryer in our hotel unit, as well as basic toiletries. So now I am on a serious mission to get all of our stuff into our three rolling carryon suitcases and our personal items. That will save us $120 round trip! $120 might not be a lot of money to some people, but it’s still a nice chunk just to put your bag on a plane. Basically you are buying a cheap, cold, abusive ride for your Samsonite friend. My baggage prefers the comfy ride in the overhead compartment. That way we won’t have to wait at baggage claim and hopefully can get to the car rental place before everyone else bombards the place. Chris is still giving me the side eye every time I mention carry-ons only and says lets take at least one checked bag. Maybe, we will see.