Dead Robot The space between gay and straight, stupid and smart.

Anatomy of a Vacation

Or... Refusing to Give The Fat Man Any More Attention

Okay so in the last week I've written nothing. I'm no going to force anything or apologize so you'll just get this:

That's right. We're headed back next week to enter the bubble. We've been scrambling here at Dead Robot Heavy Industries to get ourselves prepared.

Last week the final cheque from Da's estate came in and with it sitting in my hands I made a vow that I would not spend it on rent or food or any other items that we may use ordinarily - ESPECIALLY with a strike looming. Even more so, in fact. I truly don't want any of Rob Fucking Ford's machinations to affect or effect me. He'll not get this money. No, a semi-evil corporation in Florida will.

So off to the internet! I spent days scouring for the best/cheapest time to travel and finally found that the last two weeks in January are extremely cheap for rooms/flights. After Feb 7th, prices jump up into that somewhat uncomfortable area. Finding a deal on WestJet Vacations (no this isn't a paid post... I wish it was though! Hi WestJet Vacations SEO bot! Hi!) I had very little time to convince SharkBoy that we wanted ...no... NEEDED to go back to Walt Disney World before this deal disappeared into the ether.

I knew that getting him into Vacation Mode would be difficult, simply because he was in Stress Mode due to Rob Fucking Ford. I had to move delicately. I start by small short emails to his work - three lines of text, like a carefully crafted Haiku:

Pop Century: Jan 24 to 31
Room, flight and park tickets: $1705
Car Rental: $80

Understandably he responds with strike news. But he asks about prices for Gay Days in May. The price I find for that weekend are painful. He tells me not to torture myself and stop looking.

I don't give up easily and I keep it up. A few days later, while watching TV, I hand over my iPad with the booking on WestJet Vacations (Hi! How you like me now, WJV??) in it's final stages. $1705 all in. Taxes too. He growls. Later, I hear the printer going in the office and he comes into the bedroom and tosses freshly printed booking inquiry sheets. The price at the bottom is $2350.

"See? You're wrong. Expensive."

"Oh bitch, it's on," I think and take him step by step into my plan:

• We leave on the night of the 24th, so we're only spending 4 vacation days and a weekend. Magic!
• Since we only have 6 full days in the park we can skimp and only do base tickets. As you know, we're pretty hard core. We know which park is open early/late and know exactly which one to hit for each day, with one extra day for repeats and the last day back at Magic Kingdom (a tradition).
• Ditto on the food plan - they'd charge us for our "flying days", one of which gets to WDW at 11pm, so PASS, thank you very much.
• Rental8 dot com has some pretty cheap cars if you don't mind slightly less polished service or cars.

I show him my iPad again after all this. I can see in his eyes I almost have him. I hit him with the a fore mentioned reasoning of "This money will not go towards the strike!" And the walls start to crumble. I say that we are exactly right in between our last vacation and our upcoming December vacation (give or take a month) so the timing is utterly right. He sits and starts looking into Extra Magic Hours (resort guests get in early or stay later at the parks) and certain dining reservations. I know we're truly going when he maps out what day equals what park (Updated from the comments...):

• Wednesday: Animal Kingdom
• Thursday: Hollywood Studios
• Friday: EPCOT
• Saturday: Magic Kingdom
• Sunday: Hollywood Studios (This may get replaced with a day by the pool and Magic Kingdom late. It's on the fly)
• Monday: Magic Kingdom for our hats

Before he changes his mind I pull down our change boxes and show him that we have already enough coin to be rolled for the cost of the rental car.

In the end, we booked it and are rarin' to go. "Pull up 2, 5 and 7!" as they say at Test Track!

Admittedly I am feeling a twang of guilt for not saving the money, but I never wanted it in the first place - I'd rather not have it sitting around making me feel bad for not spending/saving it. I think this is right and I'm excited.

And so is SharkBoy - I just got this email:

Me: on our duplicate park days, I'm only bringing my small camera - compact and ready for action, not my Big Betty.

SharkBoy: Well, you be NoCameraBetty if you want, I'm not going to miss an opportunity, I'll carry my big betté and you'll be all blee blee blee bloo bloo bloo blee blee blee and I'll be all click click click ooooo aaaaaaa click click click ooooo aaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaa click ooooo click aaaaaaa