Disney, Revisited

Fireworks at Cinderella's Castle.  The Castle is decked out in Christmas lights that changed colors from white to blue to purple to pink to peach.  It was simply magical.

I thought I told y'all about our upcoming vacation, but from some recent comments, it sounds like I forgot.  So here's the scoop: this spring, we are flying back to Orlando for the EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival at Disney World.  Walker and I have visited Orlando pretty much every year since we got together, but we've never gone during the F&G Fest.  Gardening is one of my hobbies, so I'm super excited.  Initially, Bro and my nephews were going to join us so we rented a big vacation house in a time share community, but Bro wasn't able to get time off work, so we're going to have some extra room.  Our house looks amazing:  game room, home theatre, private pool with a spill over spa, lanai.....And the community has a putting green, a water park style swimming pool, an exercise room, a movie theatre, and a club house with pool tables and video games.  They have volley ball and tennis courts.  There's even a ginormous chess set.  There are playgrounds, too, which we won't be needing, but good to note for next time.  I wish we could take Diva, but she wants to go to camp at Sea World, which she can't do until she's 12, and that's a pricey experience, so we have to save up.  If she goes now, she has to give up camp.  We discussed it and she really, really wants to go to camp.  So she decided to wait.

Mickey at the Street Party.  Notice there is nobody on the sidewalk behind him.  That is really, really unusual.

 Anyway, I found the house online through All Star Vacation Homes and I hope it really is as nice as it looks.  You never know, when you look at this stuff, how long ago the photos were taken or if they've been retouched.  The company has good reviews and the house we chose does, too, so I think we'll be fine.  Orlando has so many rentals to choose from, I think the owners have to keep things up or they'll never get their places rented.

We came out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and found Goofy, hanging out by himself.  Walker stepped up and had a photo taken.  The first week in February is a great time to visit Disney if you hate crowds.

One of the reasons we decided to go for a vacation house, in addition to having more space, was that we all had enough frequent flier miles for free plane tickets.  We usually go the budget route and stay at the Best Western, but figured with seven of us going and no airfare to pay for we could upgrade.  Well, when we started this whole process we each needed 30,000 airline miles for a ticket.  My mom was a couple hundred miles short, but she has one of those rewards credit cards so she did her Christmas shopping and earned enough miles to qualify.  Only, the miles get posted to your account just once a month, and while we were waiting for her miles to post the airlines decided to raise the price to 40,000 miles. We waited, hoping the price would come back down after the holidays.  It didn't.  It is now 50 - 60,000 miles, per person, depending on what time of day you want to fly.  That's just nuts.  We don't have that many miles and even if we did, I wouldn't pay that. We had already rented the house and paid a non-refundable deposit.  What to do?  Well, I figured out if we flew mid-week, we could get there for 32,500 miles.  The folks at All Star Vacations were kind enough to change our reservation.  I booked the tickets this week, and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief.  With trip insurance, we paid $36 each for our airline tickets.  Can't beat that!

Me, at Magic Kingdom last February

Along with the Flower and Garden Festival, we're going to Magic Kingdom, of course, and for the first time we're also going to Animal Kingdom at Disney World and to Universal Studios.  My mom is coming with us, and another family member is meeting us there.  We decided to have breakfast with Mickey Mouse and his friends, which requires a reservation made well in advance.  I made the first set of reservations back in October.  When we had to change the dates, I called to change the breakfast reservation, too, and had just two choices:  7:25 or 10:30.  I chose the later one, as getting up at the crack of dawn to make the 7:25 reservation just didn't appeal to me, especially in light of the fact that we plan to go to the Magic Kingdom that day, and we always stay for the fireworks.  That would have been a really, really long day.

My mom and her sissy, having breakfast with Minnie.  Aren't they pretty?  I hope I inherited their genes.

So that's my vacation news, LOL.  Wish I could take y'all with me.  How fun would that be?  Sitting under a bright umbrella, sipping frozen Coke and watching the parade go by.....Right this minute, it's 20* with a wicked wind blowing snow all over the place.  Tomorrow is supposed to warm up, but unfortunately, it's going to be just warm enough for freezing rain.  A week in the Florida sun will be very, very welcome.  It can't get here soon enough.

Walker and Friends on the rose walk ~