I am glad you started this thread as I could use some ranting therapy right now.
We are a pretty fortunate Disney family. Thanks to living less than a 3 hour drive away and low priced Florida resident seasonal AP's we are able to make around 10 trips to WDW per year. Most are of the one to two day variety with a four day trip mixed in usually in October and December.
Sadly it looks like 2011 is shaping up to be a pretty lean year.
It started out great. In late January we spent a couple of nights in an MK view tower room at the Contemporary followed by a three night inaugural cruise on the Disney Dream. It was a really fun trip but due to me being there in a professional capacity I really did not get to unwind like I normally do. No worries though because my wife and I would be at Coronado, sans kids, in just 2 short weeks.
Or so I thought.
I was really looking forward to this trip in February. My wife and I were going to do three days without setting foot in one of the 4 parks. We were planning on eating at several of the places we never go with the kids like, Jiko, Artist Point, etc and hitting DQ and Jellyrolls. This was gong to be three days of eating and relaxing in my favorite place in the world, with my favorite person in the world. This was something I sorely needed after loosing my mom suddenly in December. After dealing with her being in ICU for 9 days, trying to communicate with siblings that were scattered all over the country, two of which I had never even really met, and taking on the responsibility of doing her service myself I was would as tight as I have ever been in my life. I needed some Disney decompression.
My wifes employer on the other hand had other plans. She got scheduled for mandatory training on that Saturday. If she did not attend she was out of a job. Again I thought "No worries. We will be here for a day in April for a day and for SWW in May."
Or so I thought. (are you noticing the trend here?:lol
We did our taxes a couple of weeks ago and we were expecting about a $1400 return like the year before. At worst we figured we would break even. It came back with us owing over $4,000. To add insult to injury my mother's house was still locked up in probate. I of course still have to make the payments on it, keep the yard cut and pay the utility bills.
When that happened Disney along with everything else that was not free was off the table until the house is out of probate and sold. Right now we literally have no idea when that will be. I can only hope that it happens before they find me in the park with the pigeons throwing bird seed at myself.