Late last summer Marie mentioned how she would love to see Walt Disney World at Christmas time.  I quickly responded with, “I’m sure we will, someday.”  Then I realized that once she started at community college she wouldn’t be able to leave during the holiday season.  Or she’d be limited to the school breaks, which would mean terrible crowds.  So I started to do some research into what it would cost to visit WDW in the 2019 Christmas season.  The numbers looked doable, so I just set to pray about it.

In December 2019, I heard about Traveling Homeschoolers from a friend at church.

In February, the dates and prices were posted on the Traveling Homeschoolers website.  They were traveling in November and were affordable.  I had to wait for airfare costs.  I booked a campsite on Disney property (which we would never actually stay at) to allow for early access to Fast Passes (FPP).

In May, Southwest posted their fares and they were out of my budget.  I looked again a week later and they were now in my range!

Meanwhile, I churned 5 credit cards to earn money to cover many of the costs.

In August, I found a rental house that exceeded my expectations for the low budget I set.

Autoslash helped me to find a rental van in our range.

We told the girls in September.

Monday morning I drove John to work at 6:30 AM.  I came home and placed grocery orders for ALDI and Walmart in the 34747 zip code to be delivered to our rental house in the evening.

At 10:30 AM I picked up Nan and Kelly, and then we picked up John.  He had us to the airport by 11:10 AM.

They watched Toy Story 4 while I watched Endgame.

We navigated MCO easily.

We found our rental car, but had to really WORK to get all our luggage into the Dodge Caravan.

We headed to Kissimmee area for Chick-fil-A.

Then a quick stop at a junky Dollar Tree and off to our rental house on Santee Drive.

Our rental stroller was already there, and our groceries came right on time. 

We dug into making lunches for the next day.

Originally our goal was to make lunches each of the first five days in an effort to save money, and then we would buy lunches toward the end of vacation.  I wanted to make sure we could buy some of the special (and $) treats Disney makes.

We hit bed around 9:30 PM.  I shared with Johanna.  Nan and Katriel had a room.  Marie and Tab had a room.  And Kelly had her own room.