The Day That Almost Wasn't

Our twelve day stay at the Walt Disney World Resort in July was our longest stay to date.  And, just like our other trips, to stay organized, I had made a card for each day listing park hours for the park we planned to visit, dining reservations along with confirmation numbers, and any other pertinent information.  The husband and I both had a set of those cards, as did the boy.  (Think cards that are a bit bigger than business cards but smaller than an index card.)

Each morning we headed off on whatever adventure was planned for that day.  When we got to the last three days, things got a bit fuzzy in terms of my memory. I knew our very last day was a Magic Kingdom day as we had reservations for Be Our Guest.  I also knew that one day was going to be spent at Blizzard Beach and another at Disney’s Hollywood Studios—as we had reservations for the Fantasmic Dining Package at Mama Melrose. 

We turned in and woke up the next day thinking about, preparing for, and planning our day at Blizzard Beach.  Our swimsuits were laid out, sunscreen and towels packed.  When I went to get into my purse to get $$ for mini donuts, I happened to check the cards—as the bright yellow cards were in my wallet.  That’s when I discovered that I had mixed up the days.  We were really supposed to be at Hollywood Studios that day NOT Blizzard Beach, as that was on the agenda for the following day. 

We quickly scrambled.  Different clothes were put on, the bag repacked for a day of park touring.  We had also planned to eat breakfast at our resort before going to the water park.  Now, we needed to eat breakfast in our room due to time.

Amazingly and gratefully, we still made it to the park prior to park opening.  Actually, we were some of the first in line.  The guys even went to get character photos taken at the entrance while I kept our place in line.

I just kept thinking about what would have happened if I had not have checked the cards.  The husband said we would have still made it to our dinner and Fantasmic.  He is so positive sometimes!  Though, we would have had to use a “day” of our park ticket to get into the park later in the day and would have only had one day left—for our Magic Kingdom day—leaving us with a day of our vacation without a park ticket.  Yes, we still could have found plenty to do, we just would not have gotten the best value out of our park tickets.

Needless to say, we had a great day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios—our second visit during our vacation.  We rode Toy Story Mania 3 times, two times even before 9:00 am as the park opened around 8:40ish.  (Another reason to be in line before park opening!) 

I learned that while my family likes to be prepared, they are also very flexible.  All of our Disney experiences made it easy for us to switch gears and change the plan for our day. 

I also learned that having our resort room organized so that everyone could easily find what they needed was very helpful.  Sometimes, only one person knows where everything is located, such as sunscreen or breakfast items.  Having items easily accessible by everyone in the traveling party evenly distributed the preparation work of getting up, getting dressed, getting food, and getting to the parks.

Our family was so busy making new Disney memories that my memory failed 8-9 days into our vacation.  Glad I had a back-up system!