Going to Disney World with the kids was definitely something that was going to be inevitable, given its place as far as mythical wife and I are concerned. A wedding in central Florida where the wife was to be one of the bridesmaids accelerated the trip, and no matter how ready or not we were, the time had arrived to take the girls down to Orlando for a lengthy trip that was chock full of memories, lessons, trials and tribulations, as far as I was concerned.
I’ll cut right to the chase and say that the trip was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. There were definitely some positive stories and memories to come from it, but if I’m being perfectly honest, there were noticeably way more aggravations and me getting stressed out or dejected by circumstances surrounding fussy children, or things pertaining to the children.
I’m very deliberate in describing the whole trip as a trip, and not a vacation, because a vacation implies that there was some relaxation involved, and there most definitely was not for me on this trip, and frankly I’m inclined to wonder when it is that I’ll ever have the opportunity to gain a measure of relaxation in my life, but stop myself because I fear that the answer will seem too depressing to consider.
From start to finish, traveling with two under two is a massive undertaking, from just about every single aspect of the trip. Going to Florida for eight days required two full-size pieces of luggage, maxed out to 50 lbs. apiece, a travel crib for #2, and just about every single carry-on and personal item we could get away with bringing. Plus, the dual stroller we have, which literally has as one of their selling bullet points as “Disney compliant” is an extremely nice stroller, but is one that is bulkier and bigger than most other strollers, and weighs 35 lbs. in itself.
All in all, we probably had close to 175 lbs. of cargo, which all needed to fit into my car which was a challenge because my car of less than two years is already too small now that I’ve got two kids, and driving to the airport in the rain, and navigating into ATL Airport’s horrendously designed parking garage adds a lot of aggravation to an already stressful process.
Next was security checkpoint, to which I am TSA PreCheck, but my wife is not, and according to TSA, the old benefit of if I purchase all tickets, then all tickets get the benefit, but that’s out the door, and with my wife not having it, it meant all of us were going through pleeb line, since we had a stroller, and like 13 bags to screen.
Originally, we left the house nearly four hours prior to our flight, in order to absolutely make sure we had enough time for all incidentals like traffic, bag checking, TSA and arriving to the gate. But by the time we got to our gate, all zones had boarded, and the gate agent was literally calling us out by name.
Back to the stroller though, the good news is that strollers don’t count against carry-ons or personal items, and are effectively free. The bad news is that my particular stroller is tremendously bulky, and only fits into a storage bag by removing the front wheels. So in spite of the number of rehearsal times I broke it down, having less than five minutes to do it wasn’t ideal, but we still made it.
As for the flight itself, this gave me a tremendous concern, because this was the kids’ first-ever airplane ride, and having to worry about two kids, I was afraid that we were going to be those parents who have the exploding babies on the flight, and having to endure that for an ordinarily short 75 minute flight, but still 75 minutes of it.
Fortunately, both kids were pretty good on the flight down, with #2 sleeping the entire way, strapped to mythical wife. #1 was in my lap, and despite her wriggling around like a wet noodle, she still wasn’t loud or kicky, and was mostly acceptable on the way down.
So now in Orlando, we have to retrieve our 175 lbs. of luggage, and it’s off to the Magical Express buses that are supposedly going away in 2022, which is a massive blow to my general preferences. But we finally get on our complimentary bus, and it’s a 35 minute bus ride down to our resort, where we’re wrangling babies the whole time here too.
Finally, we check into our home for the next week, and we can actually stop and catch our breath for a little bit. We set up shop for the kids and my in-laws, and it’s at this point where both kids eventually melt down for the day. Frankly, as much as wailing babies are as pleasant as they sound, I’m very grateful that they saved it for private, than doing it out in public.
So over the span of the week, we made multiple trips to various Disney parks, in order to bring the experience of the magic of Disney to the girls. Lessons learned in these trips is that Disney transport requires you to fold down strollers, no matter how much of a pain in the ass as it is, and that there’s a double-edge sword effect in that getting on a bus at an early stop requires sitting through 50 other stops, or getting on late, runs the risk of not having anywhere to board two kids and a massive stroller.
Kids that are under the age of two are basically ticking time bombs from the moment you leave your hotel rooms, and the days are spent managing all the events on an ordinary calendar day’s schedule, like snacks, naps and meals, except you’re outside in sweltering Florida heat, and my kids don’t seem very capable of napping out in public, once leading to a very uncomfortable evening at Epcot where both kids were melting down as they were past their typical bed times, regardless of the fact that they had late naps to kind of try and offset.
To cut to the chase, the general schedules and routines of ordinary days make navigating days at Disney extremely difficult, and needing a lot of assistance from on-site resources like baby care centers and having to buy a lot of expensive food, drinks and toys to placate kids when they get extra fussy. A lot of time is burned simply traveling to the parks from the resorts, so it’s almost like we’re getting maybe an hour of quality time before the resolve wears out and the kids begin getting upset, and then we have to go back to the resort.
So a trip is a more accurate of a description of the travels down to Florida, because the same issues, frustrations and problems that exist at home, just followed us down, except I had to deal with them in unfamiliar territory, minus a lot of the resources available at home, and I don’t want to step outside to cool my head because it’s 100 fucking degrees in Florida. The resort we stayed at was like a bazillion dollars, and just about all meals were Disney priced, so I can consider this a very, very, very expensive trip with a lot of invaluable lessons learned.
God bless, I love my kids, but I couldn’t help but think about future trips needing to be sans kids, if I wanted any measure of relaxation to call a vacation, because much like my ordinary every day life, every single day revolves around the children, as it should be, but if we’re trying to take a vacation, then I need to get some separation.
Let’s not even get into the fact that the entire time down there, the crowds were absolutely bonkers, with people all around acting like coronavirus weren’t a thing, or never existed. Mask mandates or not, my anxiety in crowds were perpetually spiked, and I pondered on getting everyone COVID tests upon returning.
Depending on whom you talk to, I feel like most people seem to agree that taking kids to Disney World should be something reserved for when they’re a little bit older than my own kids. Some wait until they’re around 3-ish, my sister waited for her kids to be like seven and three, and one of my friends is waiting until his oldest are ten. After going through what I went to, I most definitely would recommend waiting, if anyone were to ask my opinion.
Full disclosure, this post probably didn’t come out as eloquently or even as biting as it might have played out in my head, but this was retroactively written. I still look back and think fondly of some of the positive moments of this trip, but I can’t forget just how many aggravations and times I got stressed out and burned out either. And with my credit card statement due soon, my wallet most definitely is going to be remembering the stress very soon too.
