One Secret to a Working Mom's Success: Keep Standing

Me, standing in Barbados Those of us who live our lives out loud on the internet subject ourselves to scrutiny. Some comment, "Nobody's life is perfect. These posts must be fake," Those making those comments might even be close to us because they "know our business" and they whisper and gossip and say, "she's so fake".  To those who may read my blog and make such comments, (the trolls) know that I hear you, see you, and completely disagree. 

You can Park for Free at Disney World, But it will Cost you! #DisneySide

Cute Kid at Disney World, Magic Kingdom



As mentioned in my previous post, our time share visit resulted in free Disney World passes. SCORE!!!

Since Orlando, and Disney in particular, is the most expensive place on earth I appreciated the free passes.  Thank you Hilton Grand Vacations!

With that introduction you might be anticipating a tale about a wonderful visit to Disney World. However, as you know, this is Chaton's World. And in my World, things do not always turn out the way that you might anticipate. 

Here's Chaton's World, Disney style...



The day that we were scheduled to visit Disney World I was committed to saving a few bucks. Our cameras died on the plane. We believe that it was the leaking bottle in my purse that flooded the batteries and ruined the digital cameras, but we're not sure.  Oh yeah, we are the type of family who brought two cameras on vacation and neither worked. Are you surprised?!

Did we have other electronics? Sure. We had two Blackberries and a cell phone between us. We also had an iPad. However, I am a little old school. I wanted a camera around my neck that could Zoom in and out and that would capture my baby's smile as we visited Disney. (At the beach we were fortunate to befriend wonderful family from Minnesota who gladly took our photos and allowed us to use their camera.  I LOVE how moms always seem to help other moms! I'll post those photos soon.)

On pure emotion, I decided to buy a camera from a SONY store.  That was likely one of the worse decisions that I have ever made because I got hosed.  I went into the store completely uniformed and I was at the mercy of the salesman. I was simply in search of a camera. It never occurred to me that the price of the camera at a store was negotiable or that they might take advantage of me.  Yes, I am an attorney in real life, but when I was in search of the camera I was merely a desperate mom. And they smelled it!

I likely paid $50 more than I should have for the camera that I bought. Even though the store said SONY it was not a company store. Rather, it was an "authorized seller".  I think that may actually stand for "shady"... 

For some reason, I decided to look on the Internet after I had purchased the camera. Since the receipt clearly stated that it was non returnable and no exchanges were permitted I was out of luck. However, I was mad enough about it that I decided that we would spend no other unnecessary money.

That is why I was determined that we would not pay for parking at Disney.  Even though we may not have paid in dollars for parking we paid dearly.

We wound up on a Disney bus taking the "scenic tour". By the time we arrived at the closest resort to walk to the park the toddler was irritable and confused about the bus ride. She's only 19 months, but she seemed to know that that the bus ride was not the same as Disney World!

Andre was annoyed. He wanted to know how much money we had saved. Quite frankly, I had no idea. I was operating under the belief that "free" is always better. I told him that parking at Magic Kingdom costs $45.00.  I have no idea whether that's true. However, that made him calm down. And I thought that it really didn't matter at that point.

Just so you know, you can actually get free parking at Disney, but it will cost you.  I learned that in my case the true price of free parking = Peace and Piety.

Stay tuned for more information about our Disney trip AND a free Mother's Day Giveaway!






Comments

Reba said…
Sounds like quite an experience. :) Last time we went we stayed in a condo about 10 minutes from Disney. We found that doing that and paying for parking was much cheaper than other options (especially for a family of 6)...