Walt Disney World - Family Vacation

We had already planned to go to Disney World for summer vacation before we found out that William was being moved up to the national team at his club.   Our original plan was two weeks later, so we just moved up the trip to tack on to the end of the volleyball tournament.  Luckily it worked for us and for Ryan and Tarek, who were already planning to join us.   I think the guys were a little suspect of our Disney love but once they started sharing my itinerary around with friends, they were assured it was a good one!

We stayed at a 2-bedroom villa at Beach Club Villas which was easy walking distance to EPCOT and Hollywood Studios (via the EPCOT Skyliner).  But day one was Magic Kingdom and themed t-shirts.  The best I could find were ready made Mickey at the beach, which felt appropriate for our Beach Club theme.   No one complained but I got everyone his favorite color!

I am very proud of how I mastered the Genie + and Individual Lightning Lanes plus Virtual Queues all of the days to beat the heat and crowds.   The many stops for snacks also helped.    

Our Magic Kingdom evening ended with a late dinner (after returning to our room to freshen up ) at our favorite, California Grill.   They're still serving a prix fixe menu for the 50th anniversary.  I'm sure next time it will be prix fixe for some other celebration.  But this is by far our favorite restaurant - a must do each trip - so as long as they keep our favorite appetizers and entrees on the menu, we'll be there!

Fireworks from the terrace of the restaurant.  Pro tip:  the back walkway is better than the front one.

Day two was Animal Kingdom, but I don't have any photos of it because I stayed back to rest.   I had a horrible encounter with housekeeping who kept trying to come in even though I said we didn't need it and I was in the room.   After twice disturbing my nap with knocking / walking in and then a third time with a phone call, I gave up resting and let the manager walk thru for their "room check."  

After a quick evening swim, we headed over to EPCOT for snacking around the World for dinner and fireworks.

Our last day was a Hollywood Studios where we were able to catch most of the highlights around some rain showers, and finished with lunch at the Hollywood Brown Derby.  I do love a Cobb salad!  Yes, most of the pictures are food and drink!  No, I'm not sure why we don't have any others!  Ha!  

Our grand finale dinner was Morimoto at Disney Springs after a trip through the Lego store and World of Disney.   It was a pretty crazy menu for me who loves sushi....so long as it's tuna!   John and I shared a chef's choice sashimi and it was a little....exotic!   We should have known better but thought we'd try!

It was a fun way to share our favorite place with some favorite people!  We hope they enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed sharing it with them!

Orlando - AAU Nationals

We knew in March when tickets were being booked at he couldn't travel with the team.  Of course, 13 and 14 year old boys combined with a 20-year-old coach meant no one who needed to know that he wasn't supposed to be meeting the team at 3:30 a.m. at the airport knew about it....the lead coach and the finance team knew, since we didn't buy a ticket through them....Oh well!  They got on their 5 a.m. flight and we didn't see the text messages until after waking up!   I did my part reminding him (several time) to tell his classmate on the team that he was flying separately.     Our flight flew out at 3:30 pm and he arrived as the boys were getting ready for bed.   The club rents houses for each team and one set of parents volunteers to be the house mom/dad.   Our boys in 14 Alpha really lucked out because the house dad is a chef!  They ate so beautifully all week!  

While we were in Florida, Rosie had Lucy over for a slumber party!  The girls get along nicely and although Rosie prefers to come to our house to run in the yard versus having Lucy come over to steal her crate, bed and toys, it worked out just fine!  Both girls got souvenir Mickey Kong toys.

In Orlando, the boys played at the Orange County Convention Center over the course of four days.  I believe in total they played 11 matches.   It was crazy to see hundreds of courts set up all in one spot, but we had a glimpse of it at the Windy City tournament at McCormick Place.    The boys had an amazing time, even though they didn't win any matches.   Their team was 13 and newly turned 14 year olds all at their first nationals.   We joked that some of the boys across the net looked like they could drive the team bus!   It was extreme enough that John and I pulled up the AAU age rules and the rule is that to play 14s, you have to be younger than 16 years old if you have not completed a grade beyond 8th.   So a boy that turned 16 that summer was ok, so long as he hadn't started high school.  The difference between 13 and 16 year old boys is huge!   We're talking just starting versus already through puberty!  This ended up being more of an obsession for the parents than the boys, so all was fun for them.

This banner made me laugh so much!  And it's so, so true.   William may end up playing libero next year.   The lib is definitely the short and scrappy kid versus the tallest one blocking at middle!

After tournament play was over, we picked up William at his team house, and John dropped us off at Animal Kingdom for a few rides while he finished getting packed up.   We were beat from the heat and had done what we wanted to do in about 2 1/2 hours, so John picked us up for shopping and lunch at Disney Springs.  

He was passed out before we got back to our next Disney hotel!   We had a lot of fun doing our separate things, but we sure did miss him!  But we didn't want to wake him since he needed to rest up to be Disney host for his uncles!

Walt Disney World - Couples Trip

William's club volleyball team played in the AAU Junior Nationals Boys Volleyball tournament in Orlando July 1-4.   Since William had freshman technology class the week they left, he couldn't fly out with the team, and he went on a later flight with us, but then stayed with his team at a rental house.  We arrived late Thursday evening and after dropping him off with the house-parents at the the team house, John and I continued on to the new to us hotel, Gran Destino Tower at Disney's Coronado Springs.   It's typically the convention center hotel, and that was just fine by us.  The restaurant (Toledo's) and lounge (Daliah's) were amazing, and we also had a great view (albeit no balcony) of multiple parks.  It was a fun time to be at Disney by ourselves and not feel guilty doing our own thing, since we knew William was having his own great time!

This olive appetizer was a must do each time we went upstairs, and this cauliflower entrée was the best meat-free dish I have had in recent history, and probably my favorite meal the entire week.  So much flavor!

We enjoyed a full day of parks before the volleyball tournament started and then partial days depending on whether William was playing in the morning or evening wave. 

On July 3rd, we were at Magic Kingdom for their holiday fireworks.  A tip I had learned for New Year's Eve was that Magic Kingdom does identical holiday shows two nights (July 3/4 and December 30/31) while EPCOT only does the actual holiday (July 4 and December 31).   NYE was by far more spectacular (and less oppressively humid and hot) but it was fun to be there to say we've crossed off the major holidays!

We also got our first ride on TRON this trip!  Exhilarating (but short) ride after a boring queue!

On July 4th at EPCOT we also scored a reservation at Space 220, which was new to us.  My ginger-orange cocktail was delicious.   The food was pretty good, too.  I ordered a stir fry that wasn't too heavy.

Fireworks were very neat.  Also not as amazing as New Year's but a nice "topper" to the traditional evening show.

Our last day at the hotel before collecting William from the team house was this view.   This is the standard view and was very impressive to me!