I thought that since I'm bored and I've got Disney on the brain that I'd do something a little different and kind of give you all an overview on my prior Disney park background I guess. I always find it interesting to hear other people's personal connections to the parks and how many times they've visited, but I'm just a dork like that. As you can tell from the thread title it has been a LONG time since I've been back to the parks, but in actuality this will be my 7th trip to WDW which kind of blows my mind a bit.
My first trip was way back in 1987. At that time it was only my Mom, my Dad, me, and my brother Sammy (who isn't able to come with us on this trip). I was 3 and Sammy was almost 2. My parents had only been to Disney once pre-kids in I believe 1979. Even though there was only Magic Kingdom and Epcot back then and we visited Sea World, I don't think my parents were quite prepared for the stress of navigating Disney with two kids under the age of 4. I only remember bits and pieces from that first trip, but from stories my Mom has told me it was a handful and although we had a good time, my parents vowed they would not be back until we were at least old enough to walk by ourselves and not need strollers.
Along came my brother Matt in 1989 and my sister Stephanie in 1992, so another trip wasn't really on the horizon until 1997. Now that Stephanie was at least 4, my parents were considering giving Disney another try. Only this time Disney had doubled in size and there was also Universal Studios to see as well as Sea World. There were some really good stories from this trip which I'll share at another time, but basically my poor 4 year old sister was a real trooper. For only being 4 we dragged her through a pretty grueling schedule.
Our next trip came pretty unexpectedly. It was now 2000 and I was 16 years old. My brother Matt who was involved in Cub Scouts at the time was entered into a drawing for selling a certain number of boxes of popcorn. The grand prize was a three night stay for a family of four at a Disney resort and park hoppers. Well, believe it or not Matt's name was chosen. We couldn't pass up this opportunity so my Dad just added on some extra nights and the extra people so all 6 of us could go. We wound up staying at Dixie Landings (before it became Port Orleans Riverside) for 3 nights and then switching over to a Days Inn Suites in Kissimmee for the remainder of the trip. This was our first experience staying on site and we were spoiled from the get go. It was definitely a let down staying in Kissimmee for the second half of the trip.
My parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 2003 and had been wanting to take special family trip for the occasion. By that time we'd definitely been bitten by the Disney bug, so trip number 4 was booked. We stayed at All Star Music for 10 days. We did Disney, Universal, Sea World, and squeezed in Busch Gardens. Of course my parents got bride and groom Mickey and Minnie ears to wear in the parks. It was a really great trip!
I never dreamed that I would be back in the parks in as short 7-8 months later, but that's what happened. One of my best friends at the time and I decided we wanted to go away for Spring Break and it just so happened that her Grandma lived in Winter Park. So we flew down in April of 2004 to visit with her for a few days before heading over to Disney for 3 days at All Star Sports. This was a very strange experience for me being in Disney without my family, but it was a welcome change of pace. Usually on my family trips we are in such a rush to see everything that we seldom take the time to just relax and explore things we don't usually get a chance to experience. I didn't feel upset missing out some of the rides since I had just been there. It gave us the opportunity to explore some of the resorts and enjoy some really great meals. I also got to experience Pleasure Island which I was glad I had the opportunity to do. My one regret is on our MK day my friend got sick and stayed back at the resort most of the day. I went to MK, but instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to explore on my own, I wound up sitting on a bench in Adventureland for a good part of the day on the phone with my brother complaining how bored I was. Man, how I want to kick my 20 yr old self in hindsight!
Our last trip was in 2008 for my parent's 30th anniversary. Since the 25th was so good we decided to do it again 5 years later. It was a very different experience in that the youngest person in our party was my sister who was 16. We didn't feel the urgency to have to do it all, even though we hadn't been there in a few years. We knew what we wanted to see and what we didn't. We still rode a lot, but somehow we also had time to enjoy drinks in some of the countries in Epcot, go to Typhoon Lagoon, walk around Downtown Disney, and even do mini golf. We also had some great meals.
In the years after that there have been at least two other attempted Disney trips that we were all set to plan, until something or another happened to put off our dreams. Every year my Dad would bring up Disney and I'd get hopeful, but then reality would crash in and I'd realize that there was just no way we'd be able to do it. I'd say I was going to plan a trip for myself, but it just never materialized. Not to be all doom and gloom, but there a lot of rough things going on and our chances of going to Disney seemed slim to none.
Things have started to look up a bit and my Dad wanted to do a big trip this summer. His original plan was to go out to CA and do DL and then of course do all the touristy things out there like Hollywood. Although I would love to visit DL some day we convinced him that we'd rather come back to WDW which is closer and bigger and has so many new things since our last visit. He agreed and now here we are!
So anyway I'm sorry if I rambled on too much or bored anyone. If you'd like to hear some more in depth stories about my previous trips let me know. Maybe I'll do some retro mini trip reports.
