We Made An Honest Effort

Okay, now it's your turn to judge me. Why? Because with the world at our fingertips, we have chosen to return to Disneyworld. I know, I know.... just hear me out.

We really did make an honest effort to go elsewhere. In fact, we went so far as having reservations at a lodge in Port Renfrew, BC. And we had our days there pretty much planned - Botanical Beach, Juan De Fuca Trail, kayaking, the world's largest fir tree...it would be grand.

So what's the problem with that, you may ask?? The more we added up our activities, our hotel, our rental car, our meals....it got to be really expensive. I know some people are willing to pay off vacations after they are done, but for me, the best way to maximize my enjoyment is to have it totally paid before we even go. I started obsessing about whether or not I'd even be able to enjoy, or if I'd be there the whole time looking at how much each activity cost, and then choosing the cheapest. Maybe I am a tight wad. (That gene is definitely loud and clear in some of my relatives.) But, either way, I just don't like the idea of paying for vacation a month or two after it's long gone and over.

So within a day or two of deciding to go to Victoria, I accidentally stumbled across Disney's website and a couple vacation quotes were just randomly e-mailed to me. (It was all very strange, you know.) Anyway, the point is - it was a few hundred cheaper to go to Disney than to Victoria. (That Canadian dollar is right on par!!) Plus, since we are going in the off season again, we snagged the deal where we can eat free at any of the parks and resorts. That is hard to beat. And since we can rely on Disney transportation, we don't have to book a rental car...and the biggest plus? We just always have such a good time. I have nothing but wonderful memories from each of those vacations.

And honestly, because of that, I'm kind of scared to try something new. Pre-Disney we had nothing but suck vacations.

It began with our honeymoon. (Compliments of us being ignorant about off-season travel.) Everything was closed, which meant all the activities we had hoped to do were also off the table (sand dune hang gliding, bike rentals, kayaking, eating out). In fact, the only restaurants we ate at during that week were Hardee's and this place called Big Al's Diner (where we got mild food poisoning and consequently spent a lot of time hanging out in the bathroom). I think we saw a grand total of 2 other humans during our week long stay, which meant the little island was just dark and lonely, somewhat boring, and kind of sad and depressing. Indeed, I ate a gallon of mint chip ice cream all by myself that week - bought at the only grocery store that was open, who happened to be in the middle of remodeling, so they had about three aisle of stale crappy food in stock. =( I think if we had that happen to us now, we could make it fun and have a good time anyway, but being newlyweds, you just know that the expectation is that your honeymoon will be fun, and you aren't sure if you can just right out say to your new husband or wife "Hey, I can't wait until this week is over!". We freaking wrote our wedding thank you cards on our honeymoon, if that tells you anything about the suck level. Ha ha...now that I think about it, that is really funny. In such a sad little way.

Anyway, later over the first few years of our marriage, we didn't have much cash, so we tried some weekend get aways, and those also bombed for one reason or another. That pretty much summed up the first 4 years of our married life's vacations. So, as you can imagine, we were a little gun shy about vacations in general - you're out the money (which you don't have a lot of to begin with), and you didn't even really leave with good memories. When we decided splurge and go to Disney the first time, we actually enjoyed every day there. We laughed. We slept well. We ate well. We relaxed.

Back to present day - I was nervous in general about Victoria and trying something new anyway (though I do REALLY want to see Victoria), then once I saw the dollar signs just piling one on top of another, I had a momentary freak out where all of life became clear again. I had a vision of fluffy, white clouds, and suddenly, a big mouse in front of a castle appeared and spoke to me. It's all very fuzzy, but he gave me a message...something about the way to the happiest place on earth.