I’m about to do something I would have never believed I would ever do barring, God forbid, some sort of family medical emergency.
I’m canceling a trip to Disney World.
My girlfriend and I were all booked at the Yacht Club for the first week of March, taking advantage of the buy 4, get 3 deal. We had some dining reservations all made (Flying Fish Café, Brown Derby, Yak & Yeti) and had the Around the World Segway tour booked.
So, you ask, what does a March trip have to do with this thread on LoW? It is not like I would have been seeing, or not seeing and missing as the case may be, these holiday decorations.
And yet, TDO’s decision to deem the LoW obsolete (yeah, right) is what caused my decision. I had booked the trip and made a couple payments on it in the couple of weeks before the LoW news broke. I was in that excited period of rereading guidebooks, researching things, planning our days and looking at the picture of the day threads. It was to be our first time at an EPCOT area resort and I was looking forward to being able to relax at the pool and when we got hungry, just walking over to World Showcase for some food and drinks.
But then Disney’s lousy decision to cut back on holiday decorations at EPCOT really bummed me out. And it just became…that proverbial final straw. My excitement dissipated. I wondered what more they might cut back at the Flower & Garden Festival while we would be there. That Disney magic…went poof. No longer was I eager to get there.
Then came the holiday expenses and started to mount. And there are still many things we need to buy for the apartment we moved into back in August. Wow, we have to have that package all paid off 45 days before arrival? Mid-January? And still raise enough spending cash to cover our expenses while there? Now, we could have covered all this. I would not have booked it if we couldn’t. But it would have taken cuts elsewhere and done some work to manage it. If I were still excited for the trip, no problem. But now…I’m just not feeling that magic. Disney decided to say “Bah Humbug.” Am I really willing to make those sacrifices and spend all that money to go somewhere I’ve been to a dozen times or more over the past 20 years?
I finally dared raising the issue with my girlfriend over the weekend, knowing what her answer would be once I opened that door. She enjoys Disney and has gone a couple of times with me in the past three years. But I am the fanatic here. She would rather go somewhere new, but was willing to go Disney World again if that made me happy. Upon hearing my suggestion that maybe we rethink our trip and possibly go somewhere both new and cheaper, she hesitated just a bit then completely went for it. We spent a day and a half doing some research as to what location would work for that week of vacation (we both already had that time approved off). Then we decided.
Vegas, Baby! Vegas!
Neither of us has ever been and her favorite cousin lives there. We’ll see the sites, I’ll play some poker, and we’ll make a few day trips such as to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. It will be fun and a whole lot cheaper than staying at the Yacht Club.
So maybe TDO needs to start realizing a decision like saving a few bucks by not putting up some well-loved holiday decorations can have lasting impacts. My trip wasn’t even scheduled for the holidays, and yet this foolish decision and the disrespect of their “obsolete” excuse cost them about $5,000 of my money. And very possibly more of my money in the future.
. 
