Wife Mother Runner vacation Archives

How I Feel About The Disney Closures

March 13, 2020

Disney will be closed. All of the parks and the cruise line will not be open for business for a period of time. When they will reopen is still an unknown. Wait, what? Let that sink in for a minute. I’m sharing how I personally felt when I started hearing the news about the multiple Disney closures.

The Phases Of The Disney Closures

Asia

When the outbreak of COVID-19 started in Asia, the parks in Hong Kong Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland had to close. In all honesty, I think we all expected that. Because those parks are on the other side of the world, it was out of touch for me. It didn’t really affect me.

Hong Kong Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland closed during the last week of January due to the outbreak of the virus. It is still unknown when they will reopen again.

As of Thursday morning, we all weren’t sure what was going to happen here in the United States. Throughout the day, more and more news updates were coming across my phone about school closings in my state. As the alerts were increasing, we knew there was a chance our schools were going to close for at least two weeks.

What did this mean for us? It meant that the kids would most likely either have online schooling for 4 hours a day; or, they were going to have packets of work to do without a school check-in and they will need to make up the time somehow. Our family has a vacation booked in the near future. We don’t know yet if we will be going on that vacation.

California

Disneyland announced in the late afternoon that they were closing until the end of March. That’s when I thought, “ok, it’s serious”. I knew it was serious all along; but people were still talking about business as usual in every other area except school. I kept thinking, will we still be able to take our trip? Will Walt Disney World close? Is it worse in CA than it is in FL? Do we even want to fly or be in Disney during a time like this.

Florida

Then a few hours later Walt Disney World and the Cruise Lines were halting operations until the end of March. In my opinion, that was big. I also felt it was important. People needed to see the seriousness of the matter. I think we were in the “if you give an inch, they will take a mile” mentality. Places were closing; but people can still go out, travel, drive, shop, go to the movies, and more.

Paris

Disneyland Paris is following the same schedule as Walt Disney World and they will be closing effective, Sunday, March 15 through the end of March.

How can you control a pandemic if people are still going on vacation to places with large congregations of people from areas all over. Sure, closing schools will help reduce the spread of the virus; but if you take the kids out of school and then take them somewhere else, it defeats the purpose.

The Emotional Impact of Disney Closures

When I heard Disneyland was going to close, I held my breath. I assumed that the number of cases being discovered in the West Coast were higher than those on the East Coast so they were starting there first.

When it was announced that Walt Disney World was closing, and that the cruise line was halting operations, I got the sense like Disney would set the precedence for other large businesses in their industry to follow suit.

I Have To Be A Grown Up

We also got official word that our schools were going to be closed but we didn’t know when or how they would make up the time. This meant we have to make some grown up decisions about our vacation around the kids’ school schedule. They are older now and we can’t just take them out for our selfish wants to spend time with them. So we are going to have to find an alternative time to go on our trip.

There was also talk about post-vacation quarantines. So if we were to take the kids out of school for a trip, they may need to be quarantined for an additional 14 days. It’s a no-brainer.

We had a family meeting with the kids over dinner and talked about it all. We told them that with everything going on and so many unknowns, that our vacation will most likely be impacted and we will have to reschedule it. But we will do whatever we can to make the time we are spending together at home a positive experience, and we will have time for vacation as a family as well. We will work it out.

I was very impressed at how the kids handled the news. I expected more emotion or disappointment from them. My daughter was a little emotional about not being able to go to school for two weeks, and my son seemed a little relieved. I think he was needing a break from the heavy workload of homework. He even said on Wednesday that he was looking forward to Spring Break, and I got excited when I heard him say that because I knew we had a surprise for them.

What About….

The runDisney Star Wars Half Marathon Races

It’s still unknown what the status of the race weekend is. You can join my Facebook group for current updates on this race status.

Annual Passes and Tickets

Disney is adding the number of days closed to the expiration date of your existing annual pass.
If you have unexpired multi-day theme park tickets with unused days, or dates during the closures, they will be automatically extended to December 15, 2020.
After Hours and Early Morning Magic tickets are being refunded automatically. See the graphic below for more info.

Vacations Booked

The resorts and Disney Springs are still open.
You can modify or cancel a reservation up to your original check in date for a refund.
All cancellation fees up through June 30, 2020 will be waived.

What Can We Do During The Disney Closures

When Lou Mongello went live from Disney’s Beach Club on Thursday night, I started a watch party. A lot of people joined. We all wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know what the vibe was like. Were people panicking? Was there still music playing in the parks, and people were strolling along Main Street with their family and having their “normal” vacation? What’s it really like?

Lou went live from The Beach Club in the Breezeway with a few of his friends and his wife. They were walking out of Epcot for the day and he just felt at the moment that he needed to go live. So they sat down and hit the Live button. Lou began sharing why he was going live at that moment and he was feeling emotional. That made me emotional.

There was some shock and awe when the Disney closures were happening. I felt like someone was taking away my favorite toy. Even if I am not there now, I have friends who go there often. I live vicariously through them as I watch and share their live broadcasts. If you know me, you know how much my family and I love Disney. But if it is closed, we can’t go, and our countdown changes, and everything feels out of whack!

It was the human component that was sinking in for me. People were sick and dying. It was because an illness is being spread, and Disney is a place where MANY people congregate. It’s just too risky for everyone. The cast members, the visitors, those traveling to and from there. So I don’t think it was a bad decision to close. It just comes with lots of different emotions. Especially for the groupies like us.

If our favorite place, the place we call home, the place that brings us joy and pleasure has to close, then things must be pretty bad. They aren’t just closing for the day either. They will be closed until the end of March, and anything after that is yet to be determined. Whoa.

As Lou was chatting with us online and with the folks sitting with him in the room, we all felt the need to be together online. We all have this common bond with our love of Disney, but we are also people who care about other people. As US citizens, we needed to be responsible in helping prevent this disruptive virus from crippling the world even worse than it already was.

What Can We Do Now?

Share the good news. Find the silver lining. I already saw some good news coming out of Disney. Disneyland Resort is donating excess food during the temporary closure.

Host your own online events!

I will be going live with my family every day to share what we are doing during our time at home. I also have some creative ideas to bring us all together virtually. I’ll be sharing more on that soon! If you have a shared interest with others, get online, talk about it! Sometimes just saying things out loud to other people helps make you feel better.

How do you feel about Disney closing? Share your comments below!

Disney Released Tiered Pricing Structure Or “Seasonal Pricing”

February 28, 2016

I am a Disney lover, you should know that about me by now. But I am not a lover of the higher prices it is now costing us to take a trip to my favorite place. Unfortunately my husband is more angry about the pricing increases that have been going on at Disney World than I am. Enough so that he is mentioning skipping our annual trip and considering going every two years instead. We are still in discussions about this. Mind you, we got married in Disney, we are DVC members and have taken our children since they have been born. When it gets to this point, it must be serious. The bottom line is, it’s becoming too expensive.

Effective Sunday, February 28 at 6 a.m., Disney will have special pricing for value season, regular season, and peak season. As I watched the announcement on the news, the reason that was mentioned was to help control the crowds during the usual peak seasons, to better spread out visitation throughout the year. Last Christmas the Magic Kingdom reached its capacity by 10:00 a.m. and had to close the park to additional guests.

It is important to note that this pricing is for one day passes only. It does not affect annual passes and multi-day tickets. However, multi-day pass prices will rise starting today. Four-day tickets are increasing from $305 to $325. Ten-day tickets are increasing from $365 to $400. When does the price increase stop? Are we at the point now where we will push back and not attend? I’m kind of there. I hate to say it. But we are finding alternatives to purchasing our tickets. Instead of purchasing an annual pass for all four of us; we are considering a multi-day pass and now we won’t go to the parks every single day on our vacation. We are going to plan in some resort/pool days and do other activities such as mini golf, a water park. or perhaps Disney Springs (a movie or the balloon ride).

I always try to find the silver lining and find the best, most affordable way to make our Disney trips possible and I will still do the same to try to get the most bang for my buck. We will shop at Target or Wal-Mart when we arrive to get our groceries to use in our room so we can eat breakfast and pack lunches to bring to the park. We also save a lot of money on water, drinks and alcohol by purchasing it off property and having it in our room to bring to the pool and parks.

Here is a breakdown of the new rates:

Magic Kingdom one day ticket (no park hopper)

Value Season – the current rate of $105
Regular Season – $110
Peak Season – $125

Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios

Value Season – the current rate of $97
Regular Season – $102
Peak Season – $114

The dates for each of these seasons can be found on Disney’s website. Here is a breakdown below:

Photo by Attractionsmagazine.com

Has this new pricing structure affected your decision on planning your next vacation to Disney? Will you change dates to a different time of year to avoid the higher price?

Our Vacation To New Hampshire

August 23, 2015

This past week was our last vacation of the summer. It was also the last full week of the kids’ summer vacation. Like we had done last year, we went up to New Hampshire and stayed at Newfound Lake. It was a beautiful week for this vacation. The weather was very hot; which makes for perfect vacationing on a lake of course!

We arrived on Saturday afternoon by 5 p.m. unloaded the car, and made a journey over to Wal-Mart to get the groceries we would need for the week. Last year I thought I was going to have a meltdown in that store. So I warned the kids to help me get through the dirty deed and to be on their best behavior so I don’t have a wig out. Mission accomplished! We were out of there relatively quickly and got back to the house and made an awesome taco dinner!

Since it was too late to go swimming, we chilled out at the house for the night watching Teen Beach 2! It was so fun watching that with my parents and they recognized the resemblance to the earlier days of Annette Funicello.

After a good night’s sleep I lazily took my time getting moving in the morning and eventually hit the road for a run around 10:30. Bad move. It was really hot out and the sun was very strong. But I successfully got in a 3 mile run. The kids and my husband and my mother were at the beach so after my shower I joined them. A great day of fun at the beach and then we wrapped up the night with a great dinner at home with burgers on the grill, followed by some American Ninja Warrior on demand to wrap up the night.

On Monday we designed our #summeroffun2015 T-shirts for the whole family. It was quite a production but the overall results were great! After designing our shirts, we had lunch and went to the beach again on a very hot and humid day with temps close to 90 degrees. The kids were in the water almost the entire day. Even Poppa got in the water!

We went out to dinner at a Seafood and BBQ joint in Plymouth and then when we got home we had poppa and Kevin drop us off at the top of or street and we walked from there to the beach to get out steps in. The night was beautiful and we could hear the kids at Camp Berea singing. We stood on the dock and looked out at the beautiful view in the evening and then walked back to the house to watch American Ninja Warrior again (see a theme here?).

Tuesday was yet again another very very hot day and we were in no rush to get moving so we decided we’d like to spend the afternoon at the Sculptured Rocks in Bristol. That was so much fun! Mimi made her way down the river with her new knee; yet last year she was barely able to walk through the woods on the walking trails! Poppa keep guard on us from the path in the woods and protected our phones when we were getting into areas that were too deep or slippery. God forbid we have anything happen to our phones; but we were using then to take pictures of our adventure. The water was ice-cold but the temps outside were so hot that it felt wonderful, even when you slipped into a deeper section than you were anticipating.

Everyone was disappointed to leave so I made the suggestion that we all go get ice cream! No arguments there! We went to Shackette’s and enjoyed some ice cream cones to cool off with and then made our way back to the house to ride bikes and play at the beach yard.

We made pizzas on the grill for dinner that night and then watched America’s Got Talent. We were excited to be watching it live so that we could vote for who we liked.

Wednesday was already upon us and it was still warm again so we decided to take a journey across the lake to a bakery that had a gift shop. After that we went back to the house and had lunch and went to the beach for the afternoon. Some storms started to roll in and I decided that I wanted to get a run in before dinner so I checked the radar, changed quickly and took my chances to get in a short run. The air was starting to move when I first was out there; but then the sun came back out and it was a sauna again. I got in a 3 mile run; took a quick shower and helped make dinner.

Steak and chicken on the grill with fresh squash from our garden and corn on the cob. It was delicious and it was so nice to have these delicious meals at home each night with everyone. After dinner we had to watch the results show of America’s Got Talent! It was fun to vote live and see if our votes made a difference (in the end our contestant did not make it in, but we tried!)

On Thursday we were going to visit Kevin’s family on Lake Winnipesaukee so when I got up I headed out quick for a run, showered and we went over to their house to visit. It was wonderful. There was a strong breeze and the kids were so excited to play with Sofia and meet their new cousin Penny. Kevin was so attached to the baby. I had the chance to hold her and was able to get her to sleep and had the pleasure of snuggling with her while she napped for an hour! It was so relaxing to hold a 3 month old and she was such a little sweetie. These are special times. We don’t get to see Jen and Greg and their kids as often and Kevin and Adrienne were so sad when they had to leave. I had to bribe them with ice cream after dinner so they wouldn’t be so sad!

When we got back to the house the kids and I took a walk before dinner and my mom made spaghetti and meatballs. It was delicious and we were able to eat it outside without being chewed alive by the bugs. Adrienne put on a little fashion show for us with some new outfits Mimi bought her that day and then we went out for ice cream. On the way home I hijacked my dad’s truck and Kevin got to take his first ride in the front seat of a car and Adrienne sat in the jump seat in the back! They got a kick out of the “old-fashioned car” with crank windows and a stick shift. These are the memories.

After we got back I taught Kevin how to play War with cards. He got a kick out of the game and Adrienne was playing tick tack toe with poppa. We were having a fun time playing games and chilling out at the house. This is what vacation is all about.

During the night that night we lost power at 2 a.m. and the night was blacker than black. I was up the minute it happened and was worried that the kids were going to freak out. Then about 10 minutes later they were up. So I laid with them in bed but it was hard for us to fall back asleep with out the fans on and the dead silence. The power came back on around 5:00 a.m. and we all got a few more hours of sleep.

Friday was a rainy morning so we stayed at the house, played cards, fought a little about the cards, I did some work and then we made plans to take a walk to the beach. Just as we were about to go, the skies opened up again. So we waited and then went out, while the kids rode bikes. That night we made dinner reservations to go to the Homestead Restaurant in Bristol. It was so much fun. My favorite part was when my son was asking about funny family stories after we ate, so we were all sitting around reminiscing about many funny things that happened when I was a kid. The food was so delicious there, and the kids were so well-behaved, it was a great time.

When we got back, I told the kids we should grab some flashlights and head down to the beach for a walk. So the whole family gathered up and we went down to the lake and admired the still water, the bright stars in the sky and the peace and quiet that you see at the lake at night! The kids thought that was the greatest thing going for an adventure walk at 10:30 at night!

This vacation was all about making memories and the best part was when my son wanted to relive some memories. Tonight when we get home my parents will be coming over to make s’mores on our back deck so we can continue the stories of memories for the kids to enjoy.

They are growing up way too fast and as much as I usually cry when we leave New Hampshire I felt ok leaving this time. I was dreading them going back to school next week, I needed to do a 17 mile run Sunday and then I had to drive to Boston at 5 a.m. on Monday for a conference. But all in all, that’s life and I will be with friends at the conference, and the kids are looking forward to going back to school. So hearing them tell me that made it easier for me.

Now to plan our next little family outing so we can have something else to look forward to together!

Why I Love runDisney

May 19, 2014

Let me count the ways…. I love being on vacation for one. I love being in vacation with my family. I love that I can usually find a friend down here to bump in to or hook up with! I credit that to the runDisney races. I had the chance to reunite with Dave Dunkowski on Saturday night at Epcot. I forgot to get a picture so we will have to try again!

I also made plans with Becca Bastian, a friend of Gail’s, to go for a run on Sunday morning. I met both Dave and Becca in February at the Princess race weekend.

This morning while at breakfast I had my princess mesh bag and the person checking us in noticed it and we exchanged names and took a picture and hope to see each other again at wine and dine!

How awesome is social media and the rundisney races that people can meet, stay in touch and get in a run together when we live in completely different states! Dave is from New York, Becca is from Florida and Lizzy is from Ohio and moved to Florida.

Tag: vacation