Four More Weeks!!!

In just over four more weeks, I'll be heading back to Florida. My oldest son (age 8) is a huge Star Wars fan and so I'm surprising him by taking him to Hollywood Studios for one day of the Star Wars Weekend festivities. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he find out about it. It has been really really hard NOT to tell him but I really want my husband to be there with us as we drive up to Hollywood Studios and he sees the Stormtroopers atop the entrance. How cool will THAT be?

This will be my first solo drive to Florida, but I'm only making the trip from southern North Carolina and it's estimated to be about a 9-hour drive. Since I have made the 8-hour drive to North Carolina from Maryland a few times, it shouldn't be too bad. The hardest part of this will be explaining to my younger two kids (age 5 and 3) where I am going, why Nicolas gets to go and they don't and why I'll be gone for about four days. Obviously they will eventually find out that Nicolas got to go to Disney without them, but the plan right now is to only visit Hollywood Studios and EPCOT and those aren't really favorite parks of theirs anyway. Can I handle visiting Disney and NOT seeing the Magic Kingdom? I think so.

Anyway, we have a room reserved at Pop Century for 3 nights. We'll arrive around dinnertime the first night (Wednesday), and I'm considering heading over to the Boardwalk that first night with Nicolas to walk around and have dinner. The next morning (Thursday) we'll get up early and hit EPCOT for most of the day. We'll leave the park around dinnertime where we will then head out to the airport to pick up my husband, who flies in around 5pm that night. Hopefully we'll be able to get back to Disney and then maybe even spend a few more hours in EPCOT that evening. Friday morning we will get up early and be at Hollywood Studios before the park opening. The plan is to spend all day at Hollywood Studios taking in all of the Star Wars events and fun as well as some other stuff. Since it will be Friday the 13th as well, a ride (or two) on the Tower of Terror is a MUST! Nicolas still can't do Rock N'Roller Coaster, which is a shame, but the new Toy Story Mania will be open and I think we'll enjoy that one too. I have a dinner reservation at the Prime Time Cafe there which I think Nicolas will also enjoy.

Saturday morning we'll basically wake up, check-out and head back to North Carolina together. I'm hoping to arrive with plenty of time to take my dad out for an early Father's Day dinner. The next day we'll be heading back to Maryland so we'll have two days in a row of long drives but I think we'll be okay.

Once we return, I'll have only another two weeks before I'll start making calls to DVC to plan out our January of 2009 trip back with the whole family to Walt Disney World. It looks like once again we'll be driving there since flight prices have just continued to go up but I'm okay with that. After all, we'll be flying down there in October for the big 10-year anniversary trip already. So I'll be in Disney 3 times over the course of about 9 months! I think I'll be okay with taking a 2-year break after that.