...and another 10 years went by!

Skip another 10 years and now we're in 2008.

I'm now married to an amazing guy called Blythe and have 2 kids and live in Bermuda! My girls are 4 1/2 and 2 1/2 and we decided to take them to Disney.

We had no summer plans that year and friends of ours were talking about a Disney vacation and although I thought kids were too young to go they convinced us that it would be a great trip.

For the last 10 years I hadn't thought about Disney much. We had visited Orlando for a conference in 2002 but only made it to Islands of Adventure and Downtown Disney. I have to say we had an amazing time at Islands of Adventure. Just my husband and I and an empty park! We did every single ride and were finished before the park closed. I guess it's a busy park these days but back then it was great, we felt like the park belonged to us :). 

April 2008
So off we went to book the trip. I went to the Disney site and was immediately overwhelmed by the choices and their method of vacation booking. I had to type in the dates, ages of children and it gave me 3 choices and a few others kept popping up on the side but I found it a bit confusing. When I chose "suites" as an option the prices were ridiculous - around $7000 for the 6 nights. Then I started looking and found their villas, and great they were in our price range! 
Since I had no knowledge of location, etc the good options to me were either Saratoga Springs or Old Key West. Having a washer/drier in the room was a huge plus when you're going in summer with 2 little kids. 
Again, since I had little knowledge at the time I didn't even look for specials. We paid full price but I'm sure we could have gotten the room for much less. Now I only book specials! 

We booked everything online and had to pay for the vacation in full 45 days before our trip. A few days after making final payment I got a package from Disney through Fedex with luggage tags, information, some vouchers, etc. 

This is what makes Disney so great. If you stay on site you don't need to rent a car and you don't even need to pick up your luggage at the airport. They give you these yellow tags that you put on your bags and they "magically" appear in your room a few hours after you check in. 

A few weeks prior to our trip I searched ride videos on youtube so I could prepare my kids for the trip. My kids did not watch many movies and did not know many of the characters and stories. Also I didn't want them to be scared of the rides so it was nice that they had an idea of where we were going and what we were going to do! Needless to say they were both extremely excited and talked about it every day till we got there!