Planning a vacation

I'm trying to plan my time off for the rest of the year. 

It occurred to me recently that I really do have somewhat of a talent for my job in that I love to plan ahead.  I still hate math and spreadsheets and sitting under fluorescent lights for 8+ hours a day, but there are aspects that come somewhat naturally to me.  I like planning ahead and being organized.  I like it when I can help the agents in the call center with their scheduling problems and conflicts.  I like helping other departments with forecasting their call volume and scheduling their agents. I am getting much better at training the supervisors and team leads on using the workforce management computer programs, and leading meetings with a bunch of people around a conference room table, and it's possible that one day I won't dread having to stand in front of the new hire classes and talk about workforce expectations and answer questions.

Anyway, I want to go visit Mom two more times between now and Christmas, and I want to take a little vacation with my sweetie to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary the first week of October.  We just went on a vacation to Cleveland to celebrate Greg's 40th birthday in April at the Cinema Wasteland convention, which means two things: One, he's super grateful because, even though I had a great time, he feels like it was his vacation and I think he kinda feels like he owes me one now.  Two, we spent a lot of money (relative to not going on vacation, anyway) and I think we both kinda feel like we shouldn't spend much again so soon.

There are new cheap flights between the Orlando area and Roanoke, which means we could go back to my "home" (it will always seem like home, but since I haven't lived there since 1988 I'll go ahead and add grammatically incorrect quote marks).  I feel guilty that I'm reluctant.  I should go back now while my 100-year old aunt is still around, I should go visit all those relatives I haven't seen in decades, I should go while my Mom is still around for me to tell about where I go and who I see.

That thought really stabs at me.  She would love to hear about me visiting "home", just LOVE it.  I could bring back pictures and stories of people who haven't been so good at staying in touch. Not to mention visiting my father's grave. And this would be a lovely time of year to visit southwestern Virginia, the Appalachian mountains. Not too cold but a little nippy, possibly leaves turning brilliant red and yellow.


It just doesn't seem fun, though, it seems like an obligation, which makes me feel guilty.  I wish I wanted to do this, I feel like I ought to do it, and honestly I feel like I ought to want to do it.

It's also an expensive option.  Even with the cheaper flights it's still a car rental plus gas plus hotel for 3 or 4 nights plus meals. I may be able to get good discount hotel rates through my company, but still.

Or... we could go to Universal and go to the new Wizarding World expansion.  Oh man, it looks SO fun.  We could stay onsite for two nights in the brand new super cute lower-priced Cabana Bay resort and get a Florida Resident discount; staying onsite would get us into the parks an hour before they open to the non-staying-onsite general public.  We could do the new Hogwarts Express train ride between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, and the Gringott's ride.  It would be less expensive than going to Virginia, even factoring in meals and buying a reasonable amount (!) of Harry Potter crap.

Or we could just say home and spend a bit of money and time on fixing up our house, which has an ever-increasing list of things that need to be repaired or replaced or just fancied up.  That idea has a lot of appeal and would, in many ways, seem to be the most mature and adult option.  Plus a nice staycation would be relaxing.

What would I regret later?  How badly would it hurt me if my mother passed away before I went back to Virginia?  How guilty would I feel if I chose a children's book and an amusement park over an opportunity to delight my mother?

The thought of going back "home" after my mother isn't here to tell about it is just heartbreaking.  There is no one, no one, who shares my memories from my childhood.  I grew up without siblings in the house, and my father is gone, my aunt who lived next door is gone.  I have a few cousins who remember their own slice of childhood that sometimes overlapped with my own, but no one who knows it all like my own sweet Mom.  The neighbors next door who had an outhouse and raised bees, the way the snow drifted in the hilly backyard, the taste of the Silver Queen corn that Dad grew in the garden, the constant breeze from living in between two mountains. 

It's also worth considering that the Wizarding World is going to be crowded; the first week of October is not peak and kids are not out of school, but the new expansion will pack in tourists anyway.  If we waited to go in January we'd have nice (?) cool weather and the smallest crowds of the whole year.

I am sure of one thing, if I hesitate too long to book a Universal trip for October, it'll be too late.  All the media coverage of the Wizarding World will ensure sold-out onsite hotels very quickly.

I suppose I'm lucky, really.  Trying to make a decision between nothing but nice vacation options is a pretty good thing.

Ellen's Birthday ~ 3/17

I really didn't want to get up too terribly early on my birthday, but I knew that Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios would be crowded with spring breakers, so to be kind of in-betweeny we ended up getting to the park at around 10am.  (This time I listened carefully to make sure Greg locked the car.)

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, bright yellow sun and blue cloudless sky, with a high in the mid-80s.  We walked straight to IOA to pick up my passes at the Guest Services counter.

The nice Guest Services lady also gave me an "It's My Birthday" pin to wear, which netted me several Happy Birthdays from employees and random strangers, one employee in WWoHP singing Happy Birthday to me, and an unauthorized discount on one purchase (I won't specify, just in case it really was as unauthorized as he (or she!) said it was).

Having done advance research on crowd levels at WWoHP (the Orlando Informer site was particularly helpful) I knew that it would be at or near capacity and that we would probably be getting a return ticket.  My hope was that we'd get a return ticket for around lunch time, so we could have fish and chips at the Three Broomsticks.  We had to go there first and hope for the best, though, because once all the tickets were handed out, that was it for WWoHP for the day.

Sure enough, WWoHP was already closed off, but we got a return ticket for 12:40.  Sweet!

We wandered around IOA, taking pics and riding rides (I love the Spiderman ride).

At one point, a woman in the crowd randomly turned to Greg and asked if we wanted two Meal Deal tickets, she said they had two extra that they couldn't use.  Greg said sure, thanks!! and we went off to find out what the heck a Meal Deal ticket was.  A lady at a customer service dining kiosk took our two tickets and gave us both Meal Deal wristbands and a map showing the three restaurants where we could eat free.  Not surprisingly, Three Broomsticks was not included in the plan.  Still, pretty sweet!

At 12:30 we headed back to WWoHP.  Even with the restrictions, it was tremendously crowded inside. 

Even the stores had long lines to get inside. Hungry and getting hot, we went straight to the Three Broomsticks, only to discover there was an hour and a half wait.  Forget it, we decided to just go eat free somewhere else.  

My two big priorities were to get a frozen Butterbeer in the cute souvenir mug I'd regretted not getting last fall, and to do the walk-through tour of Hogwarts.  We made our way through the crowd to Hogwarts and explained we just wanted to do the tour and not the ride, but somehow once inside we ended up getting in the wrong queue and suddenly we were trapped in the middle of a tightly crowded area.  We managed to get out and thought we were back on track but then once again ended up squeezed in with a group inside a small confined room, and Greg's claustrophobia kicked in.  Looking for an exit, he went out through a small metal gate outside, and whew! we were out of the crushing crowd.

But then I looked up, and realized we were not just out of Hogwarts, we had come out in a whole different part of the park.  We were no longer in the Wizarding World at all, we were not even anywhere near the entrance.  We had had to give up our ticket to the WWoHP when we went in, so we had nothing, and no way to get back in.

I panicked a little.  Should we go back and try to get another ticket for later in the day?  What if they had already given out all the tickets, and we were too late?   We wandered away, trying to decide what to do.  I'm only slightly embarrassed to admit that I got a wee bit teary.

Greg, seeing my eyes well up, went into Save Ellen's Birthday mode and grabbed my hand.  Leading me back to the place where we'd exited, he pried open the metal gate and in we went.  He walked straight up to an employee standing nearby and explained how we'd gotten lost and then accidentally ended up going out the wrong exit, and she led us back into the main area and put us in the correct queue.  The next thing I know we are in the deserted "tour only" line, standing in the Portrait Gallery.  Whew!

After a leisurely walk through Hogwarts, we bypassed the extremely long lines of people standing in the hot sun to buy Butterbeer and ducked into the Hog's Head pub.  We waited for a few minutes behind a half-dozen people, but clearly it is not general knowlege that you can buy Butterbeer there.  We had a nice wait in the cool pub, looking through at the attached Three Broomsticks restaurant (glad we didn't wait for it, it looked uncomfortably crowded), then bought my frozen Butterbeer with the adorable souvenir mug.

We just stood inside the main gate for a while, looking around.  The Wizarding World still amazed me.  Not only is it so perfect in every detail, not only is it all about being an actual representation of Hogsmeade/Hogwarts (as opposed to being all about the characters, with costumed Harry Potters and Voldemorts walking around, which would be so cheesy and lame), not only is it just so realistic that it literally takes my breath away, but it is all a physical representation of a book.  I love books, and I love the fact that some people loved some books so much that they actually built them, physically.  Imagine such a thing.  It's beautiful.  :)

So we left.  We found one of the Meal Deal restaurants and had an extremely mediocre but free lunch. 

After lunch we walked to Universal Studios and spent a lovely afternoon wandering around and drinking lemonade.

Overall, I had a great birthday!  :)

WWoHP Part One: In Which We Park the Car and Walk for Miles

It's no secret that I LOVE the Harry Potter books (and the movies, too, but mostly the books).  The Wizarding World of Harry Potter officially opened mid-July, and I have been dying to go, and have been waiting impatiently since then.  Living in Orlando, it's relatively easy for me, since Universal Studios/IOA is only about a half-hour from my house.  A 1-day 1-park pass is $82 per adult, but as a benefit my company provides two free two tickets a year, and though my husband and I often go in the spring to see their Mardi Gras parades, obviously this year I have been waiting.
 
Here's how the Universal Resort area in Orlando is set up:  There are two theme parks, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure (where the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is located).  There are also several hotels onsite, and an entertainment complex called Citywalk, full of restaurants, shops, clubs and a giant movie theatre (that's where I go to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show).

I have a few Facebook friends who work at Universal, so I knew from their status updates that the crowds at WWoHP were just terrible.  For a good long while after opening, the staff at Islands of Adventure were having to control the number of people who could enter the WWoHP, there were lines of people waiting to even go in the area.  Given how bad they will let it get before restricting access, things must have been extremely crowded.  Plus, this year we had one of the hottest summers ever.  98 degrees + humidity + crushing crowds of sweaty tourists = WAIT.  
 
Greg and I always try to take at least a couple of vacation days to celebrate our anniversary on October 1, so that seemed like a good time.  Fall weather + tourist offseason + going on a weekday when kids are in school = WIN.  A month beforehand I put in my request at work to go on Wednesday, September 30, got it back approved, and then all I had to do was try to contain my excitement.  Which I didn't do successfully, and ended up gushing about it to Greg pretty much every single day.
 
After spending the morning agonizing over whether or not to believe the weather people who all promised a day full of flooding rain and wind due to Tropical Storm Nicole, we decided to go for it and arrived at the main parking gate at around 10:30am.  We drove through the gate and paid the parking lot attendant, then we spent the next few minutes bitterly cursing a $15 parking charge.  (It really does seem like a lot, doesn't it?  Geez. I feel bad for the people who have to pay a buttload to get in the park, and then pay the huge parking fee on top of it.)  I made the difficult decisions about what was absolutely vital to carry around with me (small camera, extra batteries, debit card, cell phone), left my big purse in the car, and we headed off excitedly.
 
After parking in the huge multi-level garage, visitors then walk to an escalator and up (or down) to the main level, then walk to the walkway (which is a moving sidewalk, like in a lot of airports) that's around 47 miles long, give or take a hundred miles.  Then, those people who can't read any of the several languages that the many signs are posted in or figure out what the word "walkway" means stand stubbornly in the way of those of us who do not wish to use the walkway as a standway.  Then the walkway/standway ends in a big covered circular area housing the first (or last, depending on your direction) opportunity to buy stuffed Spiderman dolls, Simpsons water bottles and Rock-n-rollercoaster t-shirts.  There are also wheelchair/stroller rentals, restrooms, and an M&M vending machine.  WTF?  This is the only place I have ever seen an M&M vending machine, and it always strikes me as odd.
 
Then the next walkway/standway, for another few hundred miles, then we are finally in Citywalk.  We walk past the movie theatre and the stage area for live bands and the restaurants and the shops, and then we are at the bridge that will lead to Islands of Adventure.
 
It is at this point that my husband stops walking suddenly, looks at me, and says, "I don't think I locked the car.  Do you remember hearing the car beep?"
 
I love my husband so much!  A lot of the time, anyway.  Did I mention that I left my big purse in the car?
 
After a brief but urgent conversation, we decided he was being weird and neurotic, and that he probably did lock the car.  Solemnly shouldering the burden of worrying about the car all day, we walk across the bridge.




Part Two:  In Which We Actually Get There

Part Three:  In Which I Go On A Bit Longer