Davis Family Travels: A Davis Disney Family Vacation

Every vacation comes with its own set of challenges. I have dealt with it many times over many years in this blog. The easiest thing to do is not to go. One primary hurdle is, and has always been, financial challenges. We go on vacation together, not because it makes financial sense or is an emotional imperative. It is an experience that we share and that we will reference in our minds, in our hearts, and in our conversations for years to come. We remember them - the good and the bad. The memories and experiences make us more - more of a family because we shared something more and - at the end of the day it will grow us. Whether it be Disney, Zion, Myrtle Beach, or Costa Rica - these experiences and our joint faith in God, whom we all serve, will help us to make it through life together. After each adventure we have been able to say of one another, "I love you more than I ever did before."

One of the most difficult parts of this trip is saying good-bye to our boy Mac for a couple of weeks. He is going to be with great friends of ours who love him to the moon and back and who will be a great big part of his future. We will pick him up in a couple of weeks but we love him big and will will miss him still.

There are always preparations and logistics unique to each of these trips. For the first time in our long line of three basset hounds we brought the dog along. He rode 12 hours like a champ and, so far, Fenway is a little unsteady and unsure why is allowed on this little soiree. He seems to be waiting for some other shoe to drop but we will see how he takes the rest of the trip.

This year we will not travel together for the first time. A new Airline began to service New Bern to Orlando about 2 years ago. If you work the system you can get to Orlando and back very inexpensively. However, we could not begin to get all of our stuff to Orlando on the plane paying per bag as you have to do on this airline. So Megan and Olivia flew while I drove along with Addison and Emily Grace. This is a picture of Megan and Olivia leaving for home (the rest of us were well into Florida by then).

This is the house where we will be staying and it looks pretty much like all of the thousands of other houses that you can rent in the Disney vicinity. We always enjoy getting to pretend like we are rich because we have our own pool.

The car that you see in the driveway is a different story. It is a 2026 Chrysler Town and Country. We have rented cars for trips before but this time the lean budget caused Megan to research deeply for the best deal. She discovered that we could save over $1000 by renting a car to come here; another car to drive locally while here; and yet rent another car to drive home. This turned out to be quite cumbersome with each rental having its own hoops to jump through but most certainly worth the money. My wife should have become a travel agent - she is awesome.

The first night we rested and got settled into our place. The next day, Tuesday, was a rest day but we decided to spend a little time at Disney Springs. First we encountered the famous icon that signaled that, beyond any doubt, our vacation has begun.

We visited a number of stores and stopped at the Disney customer service center to have Addison's magic band aligned with our account. After a while we went back to the vacation house for rest. We returned to Disney Springs but by then the afternoon storms had set in for the night so we decided to catch a bus and then a monorail to resort hop.