We began this Grand and Miraculous journey back in 2014 with a trip to Disney Land Paris. There were 4 of us then. Me (Beth), husband Andy and the kids J, who was 13 at the time and Gabriel who was a tiny 7 years old. This first ignited the idea that we may become Disney fans in the future. Gabriel was heavily into playing Minecraft at this age and was a follower of DanTDM (he was the Diamond Minecart in those days). We would watch videos of him and his pugs, him wandering around his house and showing off the contents of his fridge (it was usually chocolate).
In 2015 DanTDM posted videos of his first trip to Disney World in Florida. Gabriel and I watched this after school one day before Andy returned home from work. We were enthralled! The amazing rides, beautiful weather, all the friendly faces. The pure magic of the parks and resorts! By the time Andy did get home, the decision was kind of already made. We were going to Disney, we just had to get Andy on the Magical Express ride too!
This was much easier than we had imagined and in May 2016 we were on the first of many “holidays of a lifetime” to Caribbean Beach Resort. I say first holiday because this was followed by Port Orleans French Quarter in October 2017 and All-Star Music in July 2018. Bit of a break then until just before the lockdown in February 2020. We stayed at French Quarter again and took my mother on this trip. Sadly, the lockdown went on longer than anyone expected and we didn’t get back to our happy place for two years! April 2022, we stopped at Pop Century Resort for the first time. This was a game changer for us, it was lower in cost than our previous favourite, French Quarter but had the SkyLiner system to get us to my favourite park, Epcot in speedy quick time. We returned again in August of the same year and July in 2024.
2024 was a bit of a special trip. I was celebrating a special birthday (we don’t do the number) so we tacked on a few days doing Club Level at Beach Club. This was amazing, but we will never do it again (heard that one before 😊)
Onto the future. There are 3 of us now. J wasn’t feeling the same Disney love. Andy and I are now middle aged, Gabriel is pushing 18 and we have moved from the Midlands to the South West of England. We are also now DVC owners. Our home resort is the Riviera. We had already booked back at Pop for the Autumn and have added a few days at the Riviera to spend some DVC points. It will be our first stay there and we are very much looking forward to it.