Opinions

A Disney Frame of Mind
By Wendi P. - April 28, 2001

The reservations have been made. Tickets have been bought. Transporation has been arranged. Priority Seating has been done. You have packed and repacked a dozen times. Now, in the final days before your trip, you start to worry if you are forgetting anything - any tiny detail that might have been overlooked. You check, and check again. Do we have the airline tickets? Where is the list with the reservation numbers? Did I pack the toothpaste? Where is the camera?

Relax .... chances are you have everything you need. Other than the tickets (airline and admission) everything else can be bought. So ok; the mind relaxes a bit, but you are still on edge. What do you do? How can you get into that Disney frame of mind?

One way is start watching the Disney Channel or watch some favorite Disney movies. A trip to the Disney Store helps a bit; unfortunately our local Disney store is looking a bit like an upscale children's clothing store lately, but I hope this changes soon. Looking at our vacation photos, scrapbooks and souvenirs helps, too.

My family likes to watch old vacation videos. We love to laugh at ourselves having fun, and rediscover things we want to do again. We joke about my husband, who knows all the fish in Living Seas by name because he spends so much time there, My now 19 year old son is the brunt of good natured teasing when we watch him waving the crowds in MGM like he is a superstar. And we wonder how my older boy is still alive after all the stunts he pulls at the water parks. It is truly this magical Disney time before the trip that allows us to become a family united in Disney again.

By the time the car comes to pick us up to go to the airport, we are already in a Disney Frame of Mind.