Wednesday, January 02, 2008

WDW Trip Report - Introduction

If you're not a Disney-phile, you may not know that it has been tradition, at least since the Internet age, to publish a trip report after your latest visit. We used to read the Disney Usenet groups with some frequency but I'm going to assume that most folks are doing theirs on blogs now.

Before our first trip to Walt Disney World together in 1996, JennySlash and I had been there separately once apiece. I had gone down late in 1979 as part of the UNC Marching Band the day after we beat Michigan in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville. I don't remember much other than being severely hung over but enjoyed Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion regardless. J had been much more recently, earlier that year in fact, when her mother and her mom's friend went down and J took her aunt's place when Auntie backed out. They had a wonderful time and J was sure I would enjoy going and indeed I did. I enjoyed our trip of September 1996 so much that we made a total of 7 trips to Disney between 1996 and 2001. The Studios were still pretty new at that point and Animal Kingdom opened during that period, so there were four parks to choose from. We primarily stayed at EPCOT resorts (Beach Club, The Boardwalk and the Yacht Club), although we did stay at a non-Disney hotel near Downtown Disney on one trip and at the Fairview when I was down for a business conference that afforded us a couple of nights at EPCOT.

That we stopped going after 2001 had to do with money, competing interests, J's lack of desire to deal with the hassles of post-9/11 commercial flight and other factors. But this fall, with a little money available and having not had a long vacation all year, we decided it was time to return. Okay, I guess *I* decided it was time for us to return (my constant out-of-the-blue reminders that "I want to go to Disney!" being a good giveaway) but JennySlash was not hard to convince. As I was in the middle of changing jobs, we chose the week before Christmas as that has historically been a low-attendance week (the week OF Christmas is supposedly a crowded nightmare!) and certainly our experience the week before Thanksgiving in 2000 was of a very uncrowded time. That being settled, it was time to start planning!

Next: Time to Plan

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1 Comments:

At 10:59 AM, Blogger Lex Alexander said...

In 2005, we went the week after Thanksgiving. The decor was very Christmas-y, which was nice, and it wasn't crowded at all.

 

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