Disney planning

Phew! The worst part of the Disney planning nightmare is now over! Lodging and dining plans have been paid for and now we're on the hunt for good prices on tickets. It's been a long haul from me saying to Kenny, "I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if we could go to Disney over Spring Break to watch Kenny march there?" to "That's all I need. Have a magical night." from Mario of Disney's Magical Gatherings last night. (The high school marching band was invited to march at Disney over Spring Break.)

Kenny spent many an email conversation with someone named Pam of Kingdom Konsultants and my wonderful sister, Lori, sent lots of emails with info and questions to try to get this show on the road. Kenny finally realized he didn't really have any oomph left after school, church and softball to devote to getting things decided for our Disney trip and put the whole kettle of fish in my lap.

First thing I did was get in touch with Lori with an "oh crud...we need to start from square one because I wasn't paying attention...help!!" email. After a couple days of gentle reminders from the long-suffering Lori, I finally got my procrastinating keister going and Lori called and we started going over all the good/bad/ugly aspects of this. We got pretty far in my quest for Disney Planning knowledge when she had to sign off and do some actual work (bless her heart). In the meantime I played around with several scenarios online trying to figure out pricing and all. She called me back that afternoon and already the "cheap" rooms at the value hotel we'd been looking at were gone! She volunteered to call the Magical Gathering phone number to see what was up and to find out how to keep our group together (ain't she the best?). What we found out was that, yes indeedy, there were only two rooms left during the time we wanted to go at the value hotel! My awesome sissy put on her Director's hat and quickly booked rooms for herself and froze those two rooms for Mom (who will take 2 of the girls in her room) and me AND was able to use her passholder's whatever-it's-called to get a decent price and dining plans. We'll buy the tickets later.

But hark! That couldn't be the end of the story could it? Of course not! The rooms were only froze until 10 p.m. and I couldn't get in touch with mom OR Kenny. By the time Kenny came home at 8 p.m. I was a babbling idiot and I think he told me to just book the rooms to get me to shut up about it! I called mom with my fingers crossed and when she answered (hurray!), she got front row seats to Act 2 of the Babbling Idiot Show.

All's well that ends well. I called Disney and suffered through their automated answering system (okay, confession time, I hung up on them twice out of frustration, but 3rd time's a charm!) and finally spoke to Mario who took my credit card numbers and confirmed we had lodging and food and all was well.

Just typing this is making me breathe heavy again!