In a supporting role, we have my younger brother. He was a cheerleader in college and taught cheerle

I m working on a few longer cheap travel airlines articles at the moment which has resulted in a bit of a lull here at Le Blog.  To pass the time, I figured I would copy and paste a trip report from our last Walt Disney World trip last spring.  This was originally posted in a Disney cheap travel airlines World forum, so it was written with that audience in mind.
The title of this trip report comes from the Unofficial Guide s chapter regarding traveling to Walt Disney World with kids. We ve been to WDW with kids before, but on this trip we had a 4-year-old and an infant. Over the course of a week, we all experienced plenty of ecstacy and agony.
Ordinarily, I wouldn t have been fool-hearty enough to attempt such a trip. We went in 2008 when my wife was pregnant with our youngest. The idea behind that trip was that it would be a farewell to Orlando until the kids were old enough to really enjoy it.
Well, that was MY idea anyway.  My wife was really just indulging me for the sake of a vacation any vacation.  I find if we don t go anywhere in between Walt Disney World trips, eventually she ll break down and say it s okay to go back.  Love you, hun!
But then a unique opportunity arose.  Long story short, my brother was judging a cheerleading competition at WDW and could hook us up with some free park tickets.  Score!  Any thought of waiting for the kids to be older went right out the window.
Obviously, there s me. I m the Disney cheap travel airlines fan in the family. More specifically, I m the Disney parks nut. I had been to the Magick Kingdom as a kid and Epcot as a teen. But I didn t get crazy about Disney until I went as an adult. My wife was a big fan of Mickey Mouse. But she d never been to WDW. So when I planned our honeymoon, I figured we had to go to WDW. To be honest, I wasn t really looking forward to it. A few years later,  my wife barely tolerates my Disney obessession .
Then there s my wife, Mindy.  I ve pretty much told her story as relates to WDW. Honestly, she would prefer a more relaxing vacation than Disney World. Her idea of a vacation would be somewhere she can watch TV and swim. Yes, she can do both of those things at WDW. But I m constantly dragging her out to the theme parks.
Joey, our oldest daughter is 4 (going on 5). She s a girly girl and can sometimes be shy. Other times, she loves the spotlight. This was her third trip to WDW and she has some memories of previous trips. Also, I prepared her for the trip by showing her lots of videos and pictures. Before we left, she was appointed as the boss of what we would and wouldn t ride.
Funny story I apparently left out of the original TR.  While watching the free Disney planning DVD, I asked Joey to identify anything that she wanted to do on the trip.  She rather passively checked off items on a list.  Dumbo?  Check.  Cinderella?  Check. cheap travel airlines Then she jumped up off the couch, ran to the TV and began pointing furiously.
Anyone who has been to Walt Disney World knows that every other attraction cheap travel airlines empties out into a gift shop.  And if you ve read my Kings Island trip reports, you know about Joey s deep devotion to spending daddy s money in gift shops.  There was never any doubt in my mind that this would be an expensive trip.  But that more or less confirmed that I d better stash aside a little extra for souvenirs.
Since the trip, I have had a little test to determine when Joey is ready to go back.  Whenever she asks when we are going to go, I ask her what she wants to do there.  If the answer is swim , get snack from the vending machines or go to the gift shops , she s not ready.  The answer I m looking for is some form of ride rides .  But to date, I have not gotten that answer.  The day she tells me that she s ready to ride some rides, I ll drop everything and book another trip.
Kara is the baby of the family. At the time we decided to take the trip, she was just a happy little infant. She just sat and smiled at us. She was slow to start crawling, cheap travel airlines but once she did, she took off. At 10 months, she started walking. Now at 11 months, there s no stopping cheap travel airlines her. She wants to explore everything all the time!
In a supporting role, we have my younger brother. He was a cheerleader in college and taught cheerleading for many years after that. Now, he has moved into a more professional career. But he still judges cheerleading competitions from time to time. One of the reasons cheap travel airlines he does this is that he gets free trips to WDW.
Arrival day was agony pure and simple. I won t get too deeply into the details here as they are too painful to relive. Also, I think I ve blocked cheap travel airlines them from my memory. Things started off promisingly enough with a cab ride to the airport. cheap travel airlines Joey had been looking forward to riding in a taxi for a very long time. And she finally got her wish.
When we arrived at the airport, we were immediately hit with a baggage handling fee. $20 per bag for three checked bags for a total of $60. This came as a surprise to me as an infrequent traveler. In 2008 (our last flight) there had been no such charge.
cheap travel airlines I knew Delta had changed their policy, but I didn t worry too much because I had bought the tickets prior to the policy change and we had been grandfathered in. It turns out, the new charges were for carry-on cheap travel airlines bags. With no other options, I grumbled as I paid $60 for my bags to go on vacation with me. My wife fumed.
The bag fees were a minor hiccup compared to the flight itself. As I mentioned before, Kara had recently discovered walking. Ever since, she has been exploring her surroundings like crazy. So for her, sitting on our laps for two hours was not in the cards. When we wouldn t let her play on the floor of the plane, she launched into a screaming fit that lasted for most of the flight.
If you ve ever been on a flight with a crying baby, you know it s torture. But trust me, it s far worse when the screaming baby is yours. Thankfully, all the guests around us were very gracious. If they were bothered, no one let on. And several started playing games of peek-a-boo or smiling and waving. This would usually stop the fits for a brief time.
When drinks came around, we got Kara some water. She likes drinking from bottles of water, but it tends to make a mess. In this case, the mess was on me. This was followed by a biscotti cookie. The cookie plus the water formed a kind of cinnamon-scented cement which bonded to my shirt for the rest of the night.
We arrived at the Orlando airport exhausted. But we were excited to leave the negative behind cheap travel airlines us and start enjoying our vacation. Thanks to Magical Express, we didn t have to worry about carting around luggage in addition to two tiny tikes. However, we did have our double stroller and some carry-ons.
At one point during the trip through the airport, Kara pulled off one of her shoes. I scooped it up and put it in a carry-on bag. Later on, a couple stopped us and asked if we were missing a shoe. I assured them that we had the shoe in our bag. Until I looked and saw that the bag had a rip in it. We hadn t even made it out of the airport and we were down 1 shoe.
The shoe was a hand-me-down, so we decided to move on without it. Kara has a habit of tossing her shoes, so I never really understood the point of buying them anyway. She never wears them for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
When we got to Port Orleans, all the girls were tired. But I was still full of excitement. The resort was even more beautiful than it looked in pictures. It was sunny and cool. I was sure the tide would change once we got checked into our room.
The castmember at check-in was really taken with Kara. I had done on-line check-in, but it actually took a good ten minutes to complete the process because he kept stopping cheap travel airlines to play games with her. As a proud dad, I can t say as I minded. He gave her a sticker which she promptly ate (well, sucked on anyway).
We headed back to the room which was in building 28 in the Alligator Bayou section of the resort. It was a little challenging to find. The signs in Port Orleans aren t always as helpful as they could be. More than once during the trip, I took the scenic route to the room by accident. Usually, I didn t mind. But this time, we were all pretty tired.
When we got to the room, our bags weren t there. cheap travel airlines For me, this was not a big deal. I knew they were travelling separately from us. But apparently Mindy didn t understand this when she packed. She had been counting on changing before we went out. So she wanted to stay in the room and wait on the bags to arrive. I didn t object as the idea of changing out of my cookie shirt was appealing.
After an hour or so, my wife reluctantly gave up on waiting for the bags. We had a lot to do and we were all getting hungry. Of course, I was still wearing a shirt covered cheap travel airlines in crushed up cookie cement. But with no idea how long we could be waiting, cheap travel airlines it seemed like a good idea to go get dinner.
The plan was to go to Downtown Disney. We were on the Disney Dining Plan and planned to use our first counter service credits at Wolfgang Puck Express.  After that, we would shop for an autograph book as I had promised Joey. Mindy and the girls would then head home and I would go to another resort to pick up our free tickets.
What we had not counted on was that Downtown Disney was packed. It was St Patrick s Day and even the counter service restaurants were standing room only. The line at Puck s was around the block. And my wife was now blaming me.
Mindy and the girls get especially grumpy when they are hungry. So I decided to try Earl of Sandwich thinking that the line would be shorter. I m not sure if it was shorter or not, but it seemed to be moving faster. All the while, Joey was getting whinier, Kara was getting more fidgety and my wife was fuming.
I was trying to grab a table before we even got our food. But with two little cheap travel airlines kids in a double stroller, we had limited cheap travel airlines mobility. As soon as a table became available, someone else pushed through the crowd and grabbed it. No one took mercy on us.
After we got the food, I found an empty table outsid