The Dedly Blog

Vacation Tales: Disney, Flying With Kids, and so on

vacation: n. the act of going away from work, school, etc. for a period of leisure.

Stay-at-home parents don't go on vacation with their kids. They take trips with their kids. Taking care of one's kids in a different location doesn't constitute a vacation, just an exotic work locale. Sure, your spouse is there to help, but you're not completely free of responsibility, unless you have a babysitter handy. If you travel to see your kids' long distance grandparents, they're always happy to give you a few hours of true vacation time.

That's what we did last week. We went down to Florida to see my parents and get away for a week. Oh and to give my parents a chance to see their grandkids. I won't bore you with the details as what we did isn't any different than what thousands of families do every year, though now that oil has hit $70/barrel today, I can't see as many of them doing it this summer.

When I was single, I couldn't understand how people could take really young kids, including babies, on airplanes. The length of time spent in crowded conditions with little to do, not to mention the air pressure equalizations, just seemed too much to put kids, and the rest of the passengers on the plane, through. But with driving times an unacceptable alternative, what choice do they have.

I'm happy to say that my kids were extremely well behaved. While my four year old son was bored from time to time, for the most part he was a good boy. And my five month old daughter just sucked on a bottle or her thumb to equalize her little ears. While my wife and I consider ourselves very lucky, another couple wasn't so lucky. Their two year old daughter couldn't equalize and screamed in pain during our descent.

One day, we took our son to Disney as a birthday present. We left our daughter with my parents. I have to say that Disney has amusement park waiting line management mastered. The mazes that they put us tourist cattle through to maintain order and minimize chaos and obstructive clutter must mean that they've actually studied crowd control over these many decades. While waiting on lines of 45 minutes to an hour sucked ass, I didn't see any unruly behavior on the part of anyone there.

I have to say that the money we spent for tickets at Disney weren't worth it due to the lines. With all of the parents there with their Spring Break kids, the place was packed. At $63 for adults and $43 for kids (if I recall correctly), the day worked out to be $10/ride for my wife and $7/ride for my son. And most rides were only 2-3 minutes. There were even long lines for the FastPass^®. If you're unfamiliar with that procedure, that's where you go to a ride and get a pass to come back 2 hours later to wait in a faster moving line. Of course, if alot of people choose that option then you'll still have to wait. Your best bet for Disney World is to pick a day when no one else is there (duh) or be willing to stay late at night after everyone else's kids have melted down and been carted back to the hotel. The multi-day passes are more of a ripoff, unless you intended to spend your entire vacation with the Mouse and his menagerie of theme parks.

One last nugget for Real Estate enthusiasts: Although condo construction continues unabated in the Orlando area, the housing market has slowed way down in the Melbourne area. Prices are holding steady for now.

posted by DED at 1:32 PM

 jnubel said...

Did someone say Disney? Wendy and I are taking the girls there in May. This is the maiden voyage to Disney so we planned for an extended stay. 5 days should be ample time to see all the Mouse has to offer (and then some!). I figure it'll only take 2-3 days before the money runs out so we'll see how the last few days go. Fortunately we will have Wendy's mom, brother and sister-in-law along so I'm hopeful that I can get on a few actual adult-type rides. But I'll have to see if there is any time remaining for that kind of stuff after my Princess Breakfast is over...

PS Any chance the Rangers can win a game for a change. Tonight would be an excellent time!

4/18/2006 1:32 PM

 DED said...

Well, you've got the other "kingdoms" to check out, not to mention the golf course so you might be ok. I hope that it's been a good year for you on Wall Street because the Mouse is gonna make you pay.

The Rangers... sigh well... I guess that they had to start sucking at some point, right? Anyway, that's a blog topic for another day.

4/18/2006 9:13 PM