We're going to Disney World!

In 2011 we spent a week near Orlando with my parents, my sister, and her family. When I say "we" I mean Nadia, Ian, and myself. Because Paul wasn't with us, we didn't go to Disney because Paul wanted to be with the kids when they experienced the Magic Kingdom for the first time. I took the kids to Sea World one day, but most of the time we hung out at the resort, which had many water slides and such. Since Nadia has been SO obsessed with every Disney princess and Ian still enjoys them as well (at some point I'm sure he'll decide that boys aren't "supposed" to like princesses), I thought we should make our first trip to Disney World this year. The kids are too young (in my opinion) for MGM or Epcot, but I think they'd love to spend a day at the Magic Kingdom as well as return to Sea World.

Paul and I traveled to China in 2006, and the frequent flyer miles we accumulated on that lengthy flight were going to expire in November. Usually for domestic flights we prefer to use Southwest since they don't charge for luggage, but our last trip (to Grand Cayman) just pushed us over the edge so that we had enough for a short round-trip flight. We couldn't fly from Baltimore (our preference) to Orlando. We didn't have enough miles for that, but I found that we had just enough miles for a round trip flight from Dulles to Jacksonville. So yesterday I used our miles to purchase two round trip tickets. I just had to pay $10 total for taxes. Then I used credit card points to purchase two more round trip tickets. We'll have to pay for luggage as these flights are on United, but not including baggage fees we're just paying $10 for the five of us to fly to Florida! My parents can take us to and from the airport so we won't have to pay for parking at the airport either. Since we're flying in and out of Jacksonville, we extended our trip for two extra nights. I have a friend in Jacksonville, and we each have an aunt who lives near Jacksonville. My aunt (Tina) has never met any of my kids so I'm hoping she will get to meet them in May! I'm thinking we'll spend some time at the beach and maybe go to the zoo. I also booked our rental car through the credit card. In addition to using some points, I paid $84.41 to rent a vehicle for 9 days. I'm also planning to use credit card points to get our tickets to Sea World. So the trip won't be expensive at all. The biggest splurge will be the tickets to Magic Kingdom.

Today I'm going to book a resort in Orlando through my time share, and we're hoping to stay in people's homes for the two nights in Jacksonville. Paul's parents will be joining us. Picking the resort was the hardest decision thus far. We considered returning to the same one we stayed at in 2011, then I was leaning toward a different one in Kissimmee, and then I ended up picking one in Orlando that has a pool area featuring a pirate ship with waterslides and water cannons. I'm excited! Four months from today we will Lord willing be in Florida! Our whole trip will be about 12 days long because we're also going to spend a couple of days in Maryland with my parents after Paul's graduation and before we fly to Florida.