The Makings of our Disneyland Trip

I just have to explain how this trip came to be.

Scott works for a great company. They are generous and kind. Scott works extremely hard and spends a lot of time away from us, but his company rewards him generously. Three years ago they sent Scott and me to Hawaii for a week. This year Scott has brought in a lot of new accounts, so this past summer his boss came to him. He thanked Scott for all of his new accounts, and said as a thank-you, he wanted to send Scott and me on a cruise. He told Scott to go home and tell me to plan it.

I was so excited! I've never been on a cruise. We started looking into them and pricing them. The more we talked about it, the more I wished it could be a family vacation instead. So Scott went to his boss and asked if he cared what kind of vacation we took. He gave us a budget and told us to spend it any way we liked.

And so we picked the week of Christmas to spend a week in Disneyland. Scott's boss paid for the condo for the week, our tickets into Disneyland, and 4 airplane tickets (we bought the other three with skymiles). Scott's mom gave each of the kids cash for Christmas to take to Disneyland to buy souvenirs, so we didn't have to spend any money on souvenirs. And I actually paid attention to one of the many credit card offers I receive daily in the mail--for a Disney Visa card. It was free to get (no fees) and it came with a $200 gift card to use at Disneyland. So we had $200 that we spent on food in the park. We were going to rent a van to get from the airport to our condo, but it was going to be $900 for the week (and it would have just sat in the garage all week). So we opted instead for a private shuttle service (a big black suburban) that drove us from the airport to our condo and then back again for $120 each way. And then we rented a car one day while we were there to go to the beach (which was $90 for the day). We took advantage of free home delivery from the local grocery store, and went back to the condo to cook most of our meals.

So, we pulled off an 8 day trip to Disneyland for a family of 7 for a grand total of $750 out of our pocket. Pretty amazing, right? I am so grateful for the generosity of Scott's boss. We never would have been able to do this trip without it.

(I just have to admit that when the kids had grouchy moments on the trip, I didn't hesitate to remind them that I gave up a cruise to take them on this trip, and that snapped them out of it pretty fast. I have them convinced I'm the best mom in the world for taking them on this trip.)