The Happiest Place on Earth?
© Lain Ehmann
Take our recent trip to Walt Disney World (http://disney.go.com/disneyworld/intro.h... in Orlando, Florida - I had it all set. In my mind, that is. When we tried turn those plans into a reality, we were foiled at every step.
It started with the reservations process. I figured that two months ahead of time would be far enough in advance to book our reservations (http://wdw.reservations.disney.go.com/We... on-property at one of Disney's moderate-range hotels. Not so. Even though I was phoning in January, the ENTIRE park was sold out for our first, second and third-choice weeks in March and April.
We had already decided that Disney was where we wanted to be, and Benjamin had already started talking about seeing Mickey and the gang, so we didn't want to cancel our trip. Instead we decided we'd stay off-property, but very close by, at a Holiday Inn (http://www.basshotels.com/holiday-inn?_f... that offered free shuttle service and "KidSuites," little rooms within Mom and Dad's hotel room, all with a different theme. And at Holiday Inn, kids eat free! What more could we want?
Our next mistake was listening to the advice to buy our tickets for the parks ahead of time at the Disney Store. We had heard (and now I can't remember where) that we could save 10 percent and avoid waiting in lines by purchasing passes ahead of time. So we schlepped over to the local Disney Store and found that the types of passes were somewhat limited outside of Orlando. Not wanting to pass up on the savings, we went ahead and purchased our flex passes and went home to pack.
The day before our big departure, Benjamin came down with the flu. The sneezing, coughing, 104-degree temperature flu. We were up all night with him, trying to comfort him. He seemed much improved in the morning - and our tickets were non-refundable - so we decided to leave anyway. In retrospect, I would have canceled the whole thing. But at the time, we made a choice and went with it. Bad decision.
We spent the first morning of our vacation at the acute-care center in Lake Buena Vista. We were the first ones there, and we still had to wait half an hour for a doctor to see Benjamin. Though his fever had gone down, we were concerned about his coughing, and wanted to make sure it wasn't anything more serious than a cold. The doctor checked him out, said he had the beginnings of an ear infection, and prescribed an antibiotic. She said there was really nothing to do about the cough, but his lungs were clear, so we could continue with our vacation plans, making sure he drank plenty of liquids - and resting when Benjamin was tired. Total cost for the exam: $80. Total cost for the medicine (not covered by our insurance): $95.
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