Bob and Di’s Excellent Adventure

Family of three outdoors

Bob, his mom and I just returned from a vacation to the happiest place on earth, Disney World. I might beg to differ – my happiest place on earth being the fur-covered sectional in front of the flat screen with my boyz all around – but you know, po-tae-toes – po-tah-toes.

Bob's mom sitting

Bob’s mom, Virginia, was unfortunately in a wheel chair due to a recent back injury. She was able to go on some rides, but we had to keep them pretty tame. What a lucky break for the world’s biggest ride weenie! I was spared the humiliation of watching Bob and his 84 year old mom hop on Space and/or Splash Mountain while I waited, holding the purses. (Almost as humiliating as asking a bunch of seven year olds to make way for me to come down the ladder at a water slide – not like that’s ever happened – cough, cough.) We rode It’s A Small World, saw the Country Bear Jamboree and enjoyed an amazing Lion King production. We saw a Finding Nemo play, watched movies about Canada and America and rode the much touted Soarin’. Soarin’ was beautiful, but that was about as much height and movement as I could handle. Did I mention that I am the world’s biggest ride weenie?

Also I met my favorite Disney character ever:

Woman next to a man dressed as a donkey

Eyore is the stuffed animal equivalent of George Clooney. I got all shy.

Goofy was a perfect gentleman. He escorted Virg back to her chair and kissed her hand.

Pluto and two family members

We saw Fantasmic which as far as I can tell was a production based on some acid flashback that Mickey had.

Mickey on fire

The weather, while forecasted to be all sorts of rainy and stormy, was beautiful. We spent a good deal of time enjoying the sun and the pool as well as the hoola-hoop and cannon ball contests, while we didn’t participate in either. Apparently the people at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort are ageist and only allowed children to compete. I would have protested but I was very busy sunning and we adults were clearly outnumbered.

Pool with lot of people inside

On another note, we decided to participate in Disney’s prepaid meal plan, which sounds like a good idea before you understand it. Well really, it sounds like a good idea before it confuses you so much that you begin to pay cash for things that are probably included on the meal plan because you are too embarrassed to ask the cashier to explain it to you again. This plan, which includes snacks, quick meals and dinners, is the least user friendly system ever.  Everything that isn’t a snack includes a dessert, but appetizers aren’t included at dinner. And dessert could be a brownie or a cup of soup. If it is categorized as a snack then it is considered a dessert in quick meal terms. Yeah, I know, right? So we ended up with a bunch of uneaten desserts in our mini fridge, lest we decline any offer of food we had already paid for. We also undoubtedly left a bunch of money in Mickey’s pocket for meals that we were too confused to consume.

As with any good vacation, when Saturday rolled around and it was time to head to the airport, Bob, Virginia and I were all looking forward to getting home. I had a suntan, Disney treats for our godkids and a sincere desire to return to a non-Disney meal plan and my very own happiest place on earth.