Welcome everyone
Thanks for hangin' with me
First a little more background info on the cast:
Me- 40 year old 17 year vet of teaching and coaching.. just recently became a certified fitness trainer. My plan going into this trip was to eat "clean" and exercise every morning... we'll see how that worked out
I love to vacation with my family.. I am a very busy guy with teaching, training, and coaching.. so I really look forward to going on vacation to "get away from it all".
DW- She has worked in the medical field for a very long time (she is an Ultrasonographer), and she grew up going to Disney. She is the love of my life, and my rock..
DS 12- Loves Harry Potter.. he was very excited to see the progress of Harry Potter world, and he made me promise to take him back soon so we can all go there. He is a very sweet kid, that does well in school. He is also an expert rock band player, and recent X-box owner.
DS 7- God help us all.. he is like looking at myself as a child.. he has my personality.. happy go lucky.. loves to laugh and play. He also is a very good student, and a great kid. He is growing so fast.. they both are.. I want to enjoy them as much as possible while I can.
Ok.. now let's move on to the planning story..
Before we got into DVC, we traveled once every two years to WDW and UF for about a week or so.. we would do the beginning of the trip at Disney, and the end of the trip at UF. This worked out for us well enough.. but then we bought into DVC.. Now we go at least twice a year to Disney.. and it had been about 3 years since we visited Universal Florida. We are also annual Mardi Gras vacationers.. and recent Summer vacationers.
Last year Alisa looked at the calendar.. and saw that Mardi Gras was at the same time as President's week. The last time this happed Disney WAS PACKED
It was as crowded as we have ever seen it.. so we decided to skip WDW for Mardi Gras this year.. and I suggested the return trip to Universal Florida. I told her we would stay onsight so that Zach could take advantage of the express pass.. he loves to "cut the line"!!!
So we decided last year that this is what we would do. Luckily we visited Disney THREE TIMES
last year.. so the wait wasn't so bad.
Departure day finally came Saturday Feb 13th, the plan was we would pack up the Friday before, finalize all packing that morning and pull out around 2 pm that afternoon. So we loaded up the Nissan Quest (aka Mommy's Big Boody Van), and off we went:
We drove for the first 5 hours.. and decided to stop at Mommy's favorite place to eat on the road..
Can any of you relate??
We stopped at a little town off the interstate called Chipley.. and we crashed for the night.
Up next- Arrival at RPR, our room, and club level..