Sorry I’m a day late on this post, I got really busy last
night, but I’ll do two posts today to make up for it. In this post I’m going to
recap Zach and my first trip to Disney World together. During our third year of
college in Atlanta, we thought it would be fun to spend a long weekend visiting
Disney in Orlando. I had already been to Disney twice while in college, but
Zach hadn’t been since he was younger, and I really wanted to show him how fun
of a place it can be for adults. We planned out the trip and one of us (I’m not
sure who) suggested that we sleep in our car while there to save money on a hotel.
Well we were college students and not super excited about spending $100-$200
per night on hotel, so we decided to do it.
Before driving all the way to Orlando, we decided to
practice sleeping in the car to see if it was going to be feasible. So the
weekend before our trip we got all of our sleeping bags and pillows together
and went out to the car. We were doing this in a Honda Accord, and the best way
we could manage was with me in the back seat and Zach in the passenger seat
with the seat tilted back onto my legs. I’m actually surprised that we ended up
moving forward with our plan after that night, because I remember it as one of
the worst nights sleeps I’ve ever had. The first problem was that we were in a
parking lot shared by 5 fraternity and sorority houses on a Friday night. It
was so loud that in the middle of the night Zach drove the car to a parking
deck on the other side of campus. This place wasn’t much better because all
night long we heard the thundering sounds of cars driving in and out of the
deck above us. Despite this unsuccessful foray into car sleeping, we decided to
move forward with the Disney trip.
The next weekend we drove down to Florida on Friday and hung
around Downtown Disney until it was time to sleep. We decided that we were
going to park our car in a Wal-Mart parking lot overnight. We chose Wal-Mart
because they had easily accessible bathrooms and were open 24 hours, so it
wouldn’t be weird to have a car parked there all night. We went in to the
Wal-Mart bathroom to brush our teeth and wash our faces, then settled in for
the night. We blocked out all of the windows with sheets and pillowcases for
privacy and cracked a window so we wouldn’t suffocate. Despite being scared
that someone was going to bother us in the night, we slept okay. It was a
little funny because in the morning the car was super fogged up – it was like
the scene in Titanic when Jack and Rose get it on in that car in the cargo. Luckily,
neither of us had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, since that
would have been extremely inconvenient. In the morning, we went into Wal-Mart
to freshen up for the day and get changed, then went to Disney!
I don’t remember much about the Disney part of the trip (my most vivid memories are about car sleeping) but I do remember that we met a couple at dinner on the last day and when they asked us where we were staying we were too embarrassed to say, so Zach lied and said we had just driven down for the day. I think driving 8 hours each way for a day trip is weirder than sleeping in a Wal-Mart parking lot, but whatever. Well this couple told us that they were camping at the Disney campground for only $40/night. I didn’t even know Disney had a campground! And they said they got access to great shower facilities, all of the Disney transportation system, and the Disney Dining Plan (this was back when the dining plan was only $30/day). This conversation was disheartening because we found out for just $80, we could have slept in our car on Disney property for two nights and had access to real showers instead of stinky Wal-Mart sinks. Also by staying on property we wouldn’t have had to pay for parking, which was $20/day, and we could have gotten a meal plan which would have saved us about $20/day. So it turns out sleeping in our car to save money could have been completely avoided. Oh well…
The trip was still amazing. Zach and I stayed there two nights and went to every park. Luckily the weather was perfect (it was November) and we didn't sweat much, otherwise not having showers would have been a big issue. We loved it so much that we ended up going back there for our Honeymoon. Here a few pictures from the trip. Unfortunately no pictures of car sleeping.
Waiting for the park to open
Epcot is by far my favorite
Foreshadowing! Zach and I ended up buying these and wearing them around two years later when we came back for our honeymoon.
Zach's not very excited. He probably didn't appreciate me pressuring him to try it on since we weren't engaged yet.
Our first time on Segways! I didn't like it much, but afterwards Zach said he was seriously considering buying one - I hope that was a joke.
The castle looked gorgeous all lit up.
Still smiling, even though we were a little sore and smelly.
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