Opinion
Florida trip to Walt Disney World promises for luxurious spring break
March 9, 2012
While you are reading this I will most likely be standing in the humidity of Florida. That’s right. Florida.
For spring break this year, and only for the second time in my life, my family is taking a vacation. And not just any vacation; we are going to Walt Disney World. Which, if you didn’t know, is the happiest place on Earth.
My parents, sister, and I have been planning for this vacation for over half a year, and I can hardly believe the time has arrived. The process of planning a vacation for four people is quite strenuous and someone may have been snapped at a few times in moments of frustration.
One of our biggest hurdles to overcome was the issue of transportation. It is no mystery why plane tickets are so expensive mid-March, with most of America’s children out of school. Since the flights were so expensive, my parents were considering driving down to Florida, an idea my sister and I vehemently opposed.
We are tall people and the notion of sitting all folded up in a backseat for a whole day of driving is ludicrous. Since we were not the ones paying for this vacation, all we could do was cross our fingers that our parents found cheap enough flights. Luckily enough, they had a stroke of genius and consulted a travel agent.
Honestly, if anyone you know is planning a vacation, use a travel agent. My family uses AAA Roadside Assistance, so we used the travel agency under the same company, and it was the best decision made about this trip. The travel agent was able to actually call Disney World for us and scrounge up affordable tickets that were for flights at a reasonable time of the day.
It turns out that Disney World reserves sections of seats on each flight to Orlando, so even though everything else was either sold out, too expensive, or taking off at midnight, we were able to get a flight with a take-off time mid-morning. Another awesome perk we received from planning our vacation with a travel agent was a free meal plan. Disney World has a special offer that ends this Thursday; anyone who arrived in Disney World before or on Thursday receives a free meal plan. Our meal plan includes one sit-down meal, one quick-service meal, and one snack every day for each person in our party, and it was free.
The only requirement Disney had for us is that we had to fly down to Florida one day earlier than we were planning. Anyone could have received this deal, even without a travel agent, but my family knew nothing about it. So without our travel agent, we would have been shelling out big bucks for food.
Our travel agent also gave us an excellent viewing place for the Magic Kingdom fireworks, which are extremely popular. I can’t tell you where it is because it is super secret, but you don’t need to know where it is to understand that travel agents are truly the best resource out there for planning a vacation.
I hope you have a great spring break, even if you’re not going anywhere fun or exciting. At least we get a break from the monotony mid-semester brings and when we come back spring will be well on its way. Bon voyage!
Amanda White is a junior majoring in journalism. She appreciates good books, good style, and good conversation.