Monday, December 5, 2011

When will a vacation actually be a vacation again?

Travel is rough with two small children. Destinations are limited and getting there can be a nightmare. We have tried the airplane route. Hauling a baby and a toddler on a plane elicits all sorts of nasty looks before we even do anything wrong. I'd like to say those looks are unwarranted... but more often than not, both kids end up raising hell at the same time. Once, upon a descent, my baby was screaming and my toddler had so much pent up energy that she screamed too. We tried to hold her down and keep her in her seat she screamed even louder. (They don't have exceptions to the seatbelt rule for toddlers). ...And yes, toddler was kicking the seat in front of her and at one point even grabbed someone's hair. Once during a connection, our little girl flung her play purse around her head and knocked someone's hot chocolate into the air making a huge mess. I have countless horror airplane stories where we were the horror!

Now perhaps you are thinking: "those LAZY PARENTS" or even "those BAD PARENTS". I get where you are coming from. Heck, I used to think those things too when I was single and did a lot of business travel. Well, given the shoes I am wearing now, I can tell you that most parents do not intend to piss everyone off on the plane. On the contrary, we are mortified by our kids behavior! We are mortified that we were not able to get everything under control. No one is more frustrated than us! We spend the entire flight pulling out every trick we know to entertain our kids and keep them under control. We are decent parents and our kids are normally good kids! For young children, putting them in a small cramped space for a long period of time with very little to do is a recipe for disaster for just about anyone. Yes, every once and awhile you will find well behaved babies and toddlers on a plane. That is because those kids have been drugged! (think Children's Tylenol or Motrin)

Now that we own a big fat ugly minivan (which I LOVE), we have another travel option. We can go to lots of places via the good ole fashioned ROAD TRIP! Road trips are great because we are no longer pissing off a plane full of people. We can stop whenever we want to let the kids get their energy out and we can have some good family time. The cons of road trips are obvious. They take forever and with small children the stops are very frequent (I think we stopped 26 times on the way to Ohio). I do really enjoy road trips and for us they are way better than flying, but I really want something RESTFUL. Given that my normal day looks like this: http://softwaremommy.blogspot.com/2011/08/day-in-life-of-working-mom-with-2-young.html I really need a break!

For destinations, I love Disney. I loved it as a child and I loved taking my little girl to Disney (baby has yet to go). They know how to be kid friendly. Yes, I'd love to have a glass of wine in France or tour China, but that ain't gonna happen lugging young kids. Yes, people do it - good for them. I just can't imagine the effort involved.

So that brings me to my new project: How to get to Disney World from Texas? The solution: Have Disney Cruise come pick us up in Galveston and take us to Disney World (and take us back of course). We can easily make the drive to Galveston - 2.5 hours. Disney is good at taking care of bags. They would move the bags from place to place for us. A Disney Cruise I hear is amazing. I could drop my kids off at their kid's club (they even have a baby nursery) and get some much needed rest by their adult pool (and perhaps even sip on a margarita (I bet that margarita would taste sooooooo good)). Once I get my energy back, I can get my kids and go have fun! There is so much to do with kids on a Disney Cruise. When kids have stuff to do and are having fun, that makes being a parent FUN. The Cruise could stop at Disney's private island in the Bahamas. We could all pet sting rays and spend a fun day at the beach. Once docked in Florida, we would be bused to the Front Gate of the Magic Kingdom (or our hotel room). After a few days at Disney World, we can get some more rest aboard the cruise ship on the way back. Now THAT is a vacation!

Unfortunately, this dream vacation does not exist yet. This is why I started a Facebook petition to ask Disney to consider adding a trip like this to their land/sea options. If you would like to "like" the petition, it is located here . Please help me get enough "like"s to get Disney's attention! Hopefully Disney listens and implements a trip like this soon, because I really need a vacation!