Memorable Moments Make Life Meaningful — Here’s How to Remember More of Them
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It was the big day: February 17, 2020.
My kids had been asking for what seemed like ages when we were going to go back to Disney, but the cost seemed prohibitive now that we had to pay for two children.
So I spent all of 2019 saving enough money and credit card points to get annual passes and have enough points leftover for hotel stays. It was hard work and there were times when I thought I wouldn’t pull it off, but somehow I did.
I was taking my family back to Disney.
We decided that we would first activate our passes with a week long vacation. The idea was to get maximum value out of our passes by having one long vacation in February 2020, one long vacation in early 2021, and some three-day weekends sprinkled in between (the virus has impacted these plans).
February 17 was the first day of a week long vacation. I woke up at 6:30 to pack the car. Fortunately, our youngest — who was three months old at the time — slept the whole car ride and my older kids (six and four years) watched Monsters Inc for the first time.
Unfortunately, the next few hours were pretty stressful. There was way more traffic than I expected at the park, and navigating to the Magic Kingdom required all my focus and attention. My kids at this point were still happy (“Look dad, I saw Thor on the side of that bus!”), but were starting to get impatient.
Their impatience grew as we got to the ticket line. This was the only day we were going to need to stand in the ticket line — but it also happened to be Presidents Day. This meant that the usually long lines were even longer.
After the excruciating wait at the ticket line, we faced another agonizing wait at the monorail before we could finally enter the park.
I live in Gainesville, Florida — about an hour and a half from Disney. We had left at 7 am and didn’t get into the park until close to noon.
Fortunately, everyone kept a (relatively) good attitude and maintained faith that we could still turn it all around and have a great day — and we did.
We went on It’s a Small World and while in line my son said he hoped we would get…
