Trip Report The Many Adventures of the Figaro Family in Florida

We are back! It's going to take me a little bit of time to organize the photos and my thoughts but I thought I'd at least get this trip report started. For anyone who wants to get to know us, you can read my pre-trip report "Everybody's Got a Laughing Place (and I can't wait to get to mine!)"
Quick re-rundown of the family: Me (Jo), my husband James, daughter Maddie (13), son Xander (10).
This was the longest vacation our family of four has ever taken together. Ten nights total in three different hotel rooms. It was a lot of togetherness but I think we all handled it pretty well, aside from various late night awakenings from loud snoring(James and Xander) and my daughter Maddie's sleep talking. I'm sure she does this at home too, but we don't hear her in her room. Every night on every vacation we've been on she'll sit up suddenly and start angrily lecturing about something while wildly gesturing. She never remembers it the next day and I'm left curious what she was dreaming about. No one complained about anything I did, so I assume I slept like an angel that does not snore or talk in her sleep;).
I'll begin with the very end of the trip while it is still fresh in my mind then go back to the beginning when I get the photos organized.
The trip ended last night with a bit of good news then bad news. Good news was our flight got us home to Portland a full hour early!!!! It was a combo of being able to take off 15 minutes ahead of schedule and winds of some kind that shaved of the other 45 minutes. We were supposed to get home at 7:30pm pacific time but got in closer to 6:30. We were really excited because that meant we had a chance at picking up our three pets from boarding before the place closed at 9pm. We had thought we'd have to wait until this morning.
The first inkling of bad news came when we got our car from the long term lot and tried to pay the parking fee. James swiped his credit card but it got rejected. He tried again, rejected again. We try mine (same account), it gets rejected. "That's not good..." we say to each other. He pays with the bank card and we race home so we can drop of the luggage and James and Maddie can go to pick up the pets. I say "don't you think we should call the credit card company?" he says "I don't wan't to waste time with that, let's just get the pets home". They get to the boarding place and James tries to pay, the credit card gets rejected again. So there he is in the pet hotel calling the credit card company to find out what's going on. Apparently multiple fraudulent charges started showing up on our account while we were in the air and our cards got shut down. We use Disney Chase Visa and I do have to applaud them for catching this so quickly. James was able to get them to let our charge for the pet boarding go through before they fully shut down the account and we were able to identify all the charges that we did not make and don't have to worry about them. It didn't make for a nice relaxing homecoming at all! I have a bad feeling that it happened at the airport just before we boarded the plane. I went to one of those airport stands that sell snacks and picked up a few things for us to eat on the plane. I swiped the card instead of using the chip without thinking and even had a moment of unease about it at the time. I think it was an ideal place for someone to install one of those card skimmers:grumpy:.
This was truly the most drama filled moment of the entire trip. thought there were a few smaller ones that felt big at the time! I'll start at the beginning on my next post.
...stay tuned for part one: An extremely early morning drive to the airport.
 

Figaro Family

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We are catching a crazy early flight tomorrow morning so I'm going to take this moment to finish off the report properly. No we aren't going to a Disney themed location. It's basically a two weeks early Thanksgiving visit to my Aunt and Uncle and some other relatives on my dad's side of the family in North Dakota. The kids have a long weekend off from school and the flight prices are insanely expensive for Thanksgiving and Christmas so this was our best option! I told Xander this morning that we would be flying on an airplane tomorrow which he was very excited about but then I had to convince him that we were not going to Disneyland or World no matter how much he insisted:joyfull:. It was a little difficult to make North Dakota sound like a fun alternate destination but I think I sort of succeeded.

Our flight home from WDW was uneventful and I began this report with the crazy conclusion of having our credit card info stolen and having to figure that all out while trying to get our dog and cats sprung from the pet hotel. (I'm very nervous we're going to be repeating this at the end of the weekend). So all that is left to say is this trip was just about as perfect as any trip can be. Of course we had bumps along the way but that only makes the story better to tell! This trip gave me something to look forward to when I very much needed something to look forward to. The vacation itself was exactly what I needed, and writing about it has been a highlight of the fall for me. I'm so happy to have had this as a hobby for the last couple months rather than what I was doing a year ago which was slogging through the overwhelming mess of what to do with my dad's estate.

I'm a little sad that my trip report has come to an end, but am proud of myself for sticking with it and finishing it out. I got two months of extra enjoyment out of the vacation and now it's all documented in a way that no other trip I've taken has been! Our next family Disney adventure should be sometime next Christmas so hopefully a year from now I'll be gearing up with a pre trip report:happy:.

Thank you to everyone who followed along!
 

Figaro Family

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thank you again everyone! So glad you liked my report:). We are in Fargo now and Xander is demanding roller coasters and teacup ride. It's going to be an interesting weekend:rolleyes:.
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Thank you so much for sharing your trip with us! I followed along closely, just didn't comment, because it seemed like our trips mirrored each others a lot. (Other than the weather of course!!) Have fun in North Dakota!
 

DisneyDreamer08

Well-Known Member
Thank you again everyone! So glad you liked my report:). We are in Fargo now and Xander is demanding roller coasters and teacup ride. It's going to be an interesting weekend:rolleyes:.

Just finished reading- thanks for taking the time to write it all, I really enjoyed reading it. I love reading trip reports that involve kids. I like making comparisons to our trips and its also nice to think, oh we could be doing that in a few years. I can't believe what park warriors you guys are. So many days of rope drop to fireworks. Our girls are still in the 'bed by 7' phase :)
I really enjoyed the first part at Universal. I'd love to see the Harry Potter stuff someday. There's just so much to do at Disney, it seems impossible to think about adding more parks into a weeks vacation.

I also want to thank you for your kindness and consideration to others on your vacation. Thinking of other families waiting in line, or going out of your way to be kind and thankful to cast members. I love seeing these things. Such an important trait to pass down to our kids.

Thanks again for sharing, I hope Xander enjoyed North Dakota despite there being no teacups :)
 

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