Let me try and finish the introductions and plans.
I left off after Crystal and Ella's first trip. The next trip came in November 2017. I had always had a dream of taking my kids and my grandkids on one big trip to Disney. I injured my ankle, quite severely, on some unkempt property. When I found out how severe I contacted a lawyer, It has been 12 years and I still have issues with the ankle as it has no stability but the settlement was enough for me to fulfill my dreams. (Don't feel bad for the property owner - she knew for over 10 years before I fell that her cement was in horrible shape and did nothing.) SO with settlement in hand I called my kids and my daughter by choice. She has been Jen's BFF since they were 6 or 7 years old and she is a huge part of our family. There were 2 requests by all - NO HEAT and don't over plan. That trip wound up being 21 people in all, I didn't pay for the friends that tagged along, I did pay for my family. Only my son refused the offer, secretly I was happy as he is not fun to travel with and my DIL can be overbearing.
Planning the trip kept me sane because my husband had 2 strokes as did my one son in law. The trip did at least give me an idea what I was in for in June because Crystal was a moody teenager back then.
And a couple pictures of them
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And some of the group I traveled with. My oldest grandson went with my other daughter quite a bit as they have always been very close
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I don't drink often but by the second day I needed this. Never Plan meals for 21 people at the same time. That is the rest of my group in the background.
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And the reason we are celebrating - Ellas Graduation
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Crystal's Graduation the previous year - that's my husband in the background'
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That trip was really fun, but the kids did miss a week of school. Ella still managed the straight A's but when it came to planning this trip she was adamant, she could not miss any school. They did have all their schoolwork done ahead of time.
Over the few years waiting for this trip life happened ALOT. My husband was forced to retire because of the two strokes he had. For some reason they frown on sheriff's needing a cane and having limited vision. We adjusted to our new life. Jennifer's family had more to deal with. Crystal was being bullied in school, and it started that year we went to Disney. Thankfully with our love and support she is more confident but she has her moments still. She also suffers from a hormonal disorder which makes her heavy and losing weight a bit difficult. Add to that she has extremely high arches in her feet so walking distances becomes very painful - this will come in to play on the trip. My son in law had several more strokes over the next couple of years. They left him unable to drive and his job in jeopardy. He was a warehouse supervisor for a local meat company. They make great lunch meats. Thankfully he is so good at what he does they set him up with everything he needed to work from home. Then their dog got cancer. He was only about 4 at the time and they decided to give him a fighting chance. I'm not sure I would have spent that money, but Link survived. Sadly, the cure killed him and right before we were leaving on this trip, he died from kidney failure. The chemo was very rough on his body, but they did get 3 more years with him. I think we all needed Disney and a break from real life.
My daughter and granddaughter had stayed on property for their trips but at All Star Movies and Sports. I started staying at Pop Century my last couple trips. After some convincing we settled on Pop Century and a preferred room. You read that right - 4 females sharing ONE room. I shared a bed, the real bed, with Crystal and Jen & Ella shared the bed that pulls down.
The time frame was next. I knew when school ended and I knew when school started in the fall. I gave two options - late June and we get the end of the Flower & Garden Festival or late August and we get the beginning of the Food & Wine Festival and possibly Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. June is Hot and August is the armpit of Hades. They chose June. We settled on June 21-June 28. I called and booked the trip and tweaked it once or twice as offers came out.
Airfare was the next to deal with. I like the earliest flight down and latest flight home. They were all OK with that. I looked at airlines. JetBlue goes to Boston before Orlando from Philly. That is out. Southwest goes to Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale or Tennessee, which seems a little unnecessary. Spirit and Frontier actually cost more once you added everything up, so we settled on American. I surprised them with First Class seats on the way home. Going down was a little tougher in choosing seating arrangements. Normally I pay for preferred seating but the cost for the three of us was just way too much money. We decided on 3 and 1 seating and I took an aisle seat by myself. I was at least able to stretch my knee that way.
Rooms booked, airfare booked how do we get to the airport? We live 5 minutes from I-95 and 20 minutes from the airport so it's not a long trip. My mom gets up early, 4 AM, on purpose. She would drive us down. How to get home? My other daughter was going on vacation at the same time, she said drive. My mom said she could get us but we were getting in around 10 PM. I said no, if worse comes to worse I'll get Jim's nephew the Uber driver. Thankfully my son said he could do it. My daughter is NEVER on time for anything. Seriously she was 2 weeks late being born and has never found a way to be on time ever since. We tell her a time at least 30 minutes before we need to be anywhere. It drives me nuts but my mom gets angry. We settled that problem with them spending the night at my house. My couches recline and the AC is better in the living room so that was settled. Nothing is ever that easy as you will find out when I get to Day 1.
All the essentials taken care of we now had another issue to deal with - FOOD. Ella wanted fried pickles. I went on AllEars to look at menus. Only a couple places had fried pickles. On my 60 day mark I was online trying to book ADR's and the site refused to let me do that. I called and got what I wanted. We were doing Hoop-de-Doo Revue, and I am so glad I picked that one. Crystal Palace for breakfast one morning so Jen could see her Pooh. The fried pickles were at Sci Fi Dinner Theater so that was our last meal in the park. We took Tasty-Kakes, a local favorite, and I baked cookies. That covered breakfast most of the time as we are not big breakfast eaters. Lunch was usually something we could share m. Dinners were at the park or the resort depending on the day and our moods.
We had one BIG problem with meals. For the last couple of years I was having issues when I ate certain foods, but they weren't the same foods. I was at my great-grandsons birthday party which had a mixture of foods. I got some salad that I thought was a pasta salad, it was a seafood salad. I pushed it aside but suddenly I was one giant hive, literally. I bruised my arm I was scratching so much some of the dressing from the salad mingled with the other foods. I saw one of my doctors a couple days later and he overheard me telling the nurse about what had happened. Right away he was in the room asking for more details. I told him the last couple of years I had some weird things like that happen when I had a lobster dip one arm got itchy. He asked about anything else and I told him that on my anniversary I had bacon wrapped shrimp and scallops, I love them, but that night I spent the night in the bathroom praying for death. I just thought they might have been bad, it turns out that was also a symptom of a very severe seafood/shellfish allergy. I found a new primary right away, my old one had died and I didn't look for one during covid. She agreed with the diagnosis and ordered Epi pens immediately. The problem is that I can't eat fried foods anywhere until I make sure there is no cross contamination, and I am diligent with my questioning. Many restaurants cook everything in the same fryers/oil - french fries, chicken, wings, shrimp, etc. I know Disney is good with allergies usually, but this was going to play huge in our dining plans and at times my relationship with my daughter on the trip. I am still adjusting to the allergy a year later.
All the details in place we looked forward to our much-needed vacation and I looked forward to spending some time with my girls. The granddaughters are getting older and will be out and on their own before I know it, so I wanted to make some more lasting memories to carry them through life long after I am gone.
Coming up Day 1 - (Hint it won't explain the title)
