Years ago I had dreams of taking my kids all over the world the USA (budgetary constraints and all), and then in 2004 when my 4 children (at the time) were old enough to make a Walt Disney World Vacation feasible, I took the plunge. I remember it vividly, My ex-husband and his wife were also going with her son. We stayed at the Caribbean for 9 days and they stayed at the Beach Club for 6 days.
We shared responsibilities with the children, did Cinderella’s Castle together, partook in pin trading together and even ran a contest on who could take the “grossest” picture while we were there. It was memorable, it was amazing, it was absolutely Magical… And that was is the problem…..
Like my first experience, I imagine many of you too got bit by the “Magic” bug on that first trip. You left the parks wishing you were all ready planning to be back. Once home your friends got sick of hearing how WONDERFUL and MAGICAL your WDW vacation was. You started telling everyone who would listen all the tips and tricks to doing the parks….You know the symptoms….
When it came time to do another family vacation, without hesitation, I immediately started planning for another trip to Walt Disney World. Oh I know there are many wonderful vacation spots in the US, that probably would have been cheaper, but after that first trip it seemed like such a, well lame idea to take my kids anywhere but the most magical place on Earth.
I said I wanted to take them to the Grand Canyon, Washington DC and the Badlands. But when it came down to it, after that first visit to WDW, vacation time meant time to go to Disney. Now there were a couple of times when going to Disney didn’t mean Walt Disney World, but rather we headed to Disneyland. Being that I grew up 10 minutes from Disneyland and my parents still live there, and are members of Club 33, it only made sense to include a couple of Disneyland vacations in the mix.
So, since you started taking Family vacations to Disney, have you also taken vacations to other locations? Or like me, did Disney kill the family vacation and birth the Disney life?
Yep. Disney Cruises are all that I want to do!
It’s mostly Disney for us, too, but I don’t think it’s anything to feel guilty about. The Disney “window” is only open for so long. Once the kids grow older, Disney won’t be as attractive as it once was, and then there will be more than enough time (and money) for all the other places we want to see. Do the math, and you’ll find that we won’t be going to Disney forever. We should enjoy the magic while we can.
Last year my 21 year old daughter and I did a WDW trip. She actually told me she was burned out with WDW (oh, the horrors I felt at this statement) I said this will be a Disney adult trip. We slept in, lazed around the pool, enjoyed great meals, shows, the rides we wanted and relaxed. We took ferry rides just because and visited a club for drinks. Epcot had new meaning to her and I couldn’t resist; she had a surprise character wake up call. It was wonderful. She even said she would like to do WDW as her honeymoon. The magic never goes away no matter what age.
I too have been hooked and only go to WDW since our first trip in 2002
I can relate, though I have a different path to the same destination. I grew up 3 hours from WDW and we always did one trip a year for a weekend there. As I got older, I never wanted to go anywhere else, especially in Florida. I mean, I JUST visited Sea World for the first time last month (and that was a school field trip) and I have never stepped foot in Universal or any other Orlando Theme Park…and I have been to Disney maybe 150 times…it just never gets old.
I WOULD say that you need to get to those other places…do that trip out west to the Badlands, Mt Rushmore, Glacier, Yellowstone….if it helps, it will help you have perspective when you ride Thunder and Splash Mt and visit all of Frontierland!! lol
Yesssssss! We only go to other vacation spots during other times of the year, but everyone knows never to plan anything else during our Disney time slot over the past 30+ years! LOL