Disney Vacation 2008

For Christmas this year, my mom's parents took the entire family (aunt, uncles, cousins) to Disney World for a week, there were 14 people in all on this trip. I must say, it was an awesome gift. I had never made this trip before so I was quite excited, and a little skeptical.

A large part of me was dreading this trip as I do not handle extended periods of time with other people very well. I live alone and have for the better part of 5 years now. I am not a very social person so I am not used to being around a lot of people for more than a couple hours at a time. I am also the kind of person who desperately needs my alone time. Somehow, I did manage to do quite well. I flew down to Orlando/Sanford on the 26th (everyone else was driving) and left on the 30th. Unfortunately, I do not get paid vacations or holidays so I had to return early in order to work and make up as much of the time I had already missed. (Which by the way sucked! I even worked on Christmas Day to make up some of the hours.)


Anyway, here is the rundown of my part of the trip.

Friday: We didn't do much that night since most everyone was tired from traveling. My flight down was quite amazing. I flew Allegiant Air (which I highly recommend). I paid $200 round trip for my flight, which was an amazing price flying out of the Tri.

On the flight to Orlando, they hold a raffle. You can enter anywhere from $5-$20 and receive anywhere from 10 tickets to 70. After all the money is collected, numbers are drawn for various tourist-like prizes. At the end, one last ticket is drawn and the winner receives all the money collected. (there are approx. 185 seats on the plane so the cash could be quite substantial). Well, I am not the gambling kind so I was going to opt out of this event, especially since I only carried $50 with me to last the entire 3 days I was there. Well, after much consideration, I decided that $5 wasn't much money and I could do without one meal if needed, heck, I could win the money. I entered my $5 and got tickets ###60-69 (I can't remember the first 3 #'s). It was a long shot but it could happen.

Well, they started drawing numbers and giving away prizes. It came to the last prize before the $$ and my numbers still hadn't been drawn. The ticket was drawn and again no prize for me. Finally, it was time for the big drawing...the cash drawing. The stewardess allowed a little one sitting at the front of the plane to draw the winning ticket. They spend some time dragging out announcing the winner. They state that the prize is more than $100, more than $120, more than $140...it's $160. This entire time I am saying to myself ###6 something. Well, they read the numbers FINALLY and it was ###61. I won $160 on my flight! How awesome is that!?! I was so excited I didn't quit smiling for the remainder of the night. I came home with all the money I had taken and more. What a great feeling.



Saturday: We all ventured to Animal Kingdom. Brett, Emily, Courtney and I (is that correct?) managed to get away from the rest of the group and we had a blast. Around 5 we decided to venture over to the Magic Kingdom at which point we met up with the others. We decided to call it a night and went back to the condos where we played a very entertaining game of Phase 10.

Sunday: Kevin and Mom decided to join Brett, Emily, Courtney and myself at Magic Kingdom. We had a great time. Kevin found his alternative personality (a velocaraptur) and kept us entertained most of the day. I don't think I have laughed that much in a really long time. I truly LOVED hanging out with my amazing siblings and my wonderful cousin Courtney.

Monday: The six of us plus Courtney's brothers Tradd and Brandon, went to Hollywood Studios/MGM. We didn't have much time here as we had a lunch scheduled at Epcot later in the day. We did manage to ride Tower of Terror though. I was a nervous wreck. I will ride just about anything but I am not a fan of free falling. The ride was a blast though.

For lunch, we ventured to Epcot to meet up with everyone else. We had reservations at a German restaurant and the food was fantastic! I have never eaten German food before but I am a major fan now.

After lunch, we enjoyed a candlelight procession in an amphitheater in the American section. Noone really knew what to expect but it turned out great. There was a 50 piece orchestra, 386 choir members (80 Disney cast members, 6 professional singers, and 300 guest singers from various churches and schools) and 2 narrators, who happened to be Angela Bassett and Courtney B. Vance on this particular evening. Chrsitmas songs were sung and the Christmas story was told.

Afterward, we rushed back to Hollywood Studios to see Fantasmic. We waited in line for a ridiculous amount of time as the show was running behind schedule. People were packed in to a small area and most were becoming quite annoyed. I know we were. Finally we started moving and it seriously seemed like a herd of cattle. People were trying to push others along, one almost pushing Courtney down. It was absurd. The show was amazing though. A laser, water and fire spectacular. It was indeed Fantasmic...haha.

(Ursula is being shown in the water that is shooting up...quite cool)

Tuesday: Nothing exciting really happened. I flew home in the afternoon and did nothing in the morning. No raffle was played on the flight home unfortunately. Part of me was sad to leave. I had such a great time and miss so much hanging out with my siblings. But another part of me was desperately needing my space and schedule back. Plus, I missed my puppy. It was a wonderful vacation that I will not soon forget.

Thank you so much Papa and Grandma!