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Finding Joy When The Family Vacation Goes Wrong

March 14, 2017 by Larisha Campbell 1 Comment

How do you go about finding joy when the family vacation goes wrong? Let’s discuss!

In the blogging world, the elusive Disney Social Media Moms trip is on everyone’s radar. It’s a blogging conference about Disney where you can bring your whole family. No one really knows how anyone is invited on this family vacation or what the criteria is, there’s no application to apply, and it’s invite-only. We were first invited in 2015, but couldn’t financially swing it. Invited again in 2016, but at the time of the event, I would have been 36+ weeks pregnant with our second, and thus our doctor said no travel. Fast forward to last November, and we received our third invite.  We could make this happen. Andrew and I talked it over and ended up registering. You would have thought I was a little kid again. I was soooooo excited.

I was excited for a family vacation.  Our first as a family of four.  I was excited to go back to Disney. I hadn’t been to Disney since I was 8 and Andrew was around the same age. I was excited about the girls’ first Disney trip. I was excited about meeting other bloggers. I was just plain, stinkin’ excited.  I planned daily for the next three months. Everything from making Mickey ears, to planning our outfits, writing out all the rides we wanted to do and the places we were going to eat.  I don’t think I left any stone unturned.

The day came! 

I went into the day saying that nothing would railroad our trip, we were going to have a magical time.  It’s Disney, after all!!

As soon as we hit the airport, the issues started.

  • Both our bags were over the limit, we had no where to move anything around, so we just had to pay the overage fee.
  • The airline, put me in the same seat as someone else. Thankful for a not full flight, we got it all sorted so we could all sit together.
  • Serenity and I both experienced sharp eye and head pain on the decent into Florida. It was horrible and I hope neither of us ever experience that again.

“Okay”, I said, “Whatever! We’re still going to Disney! WE MADE IT!” We were just a short ride away from checking-in and heading over to the parks.

Fast forward, we got to the park, met up with some local Jersey native, now Florida resident friends, and made it through our first two activities (Meeting Talking Mickey & Tinkerbell!).  All was going well and the annoyances of the morning were a thing of the past. Serenity fell asleep while we were walking down Main Street to get to Tomorrowland. We ended up waking her up to get on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. Walking from the stroller parking over to the ride, she threw up everywhere.  All over herself. WE DIDN’T HAVE EXTRA CLOTHES WITH US. HUGE. MAJOR. #FAIL.  Even though she had been drinking water, we got her some more, found the closest store with her size clothes and bought her a shirt, and sought out somewhere to eat. In the mean time, she fell asleep again. We decided to just relax and let her sleep while we ate. Before we were finished she woke up and asked for ice cream. We were across the street from Plaza Ice Cream Parlor, so Andrew said he would walk her over there while I grabbed the baby and our stuff. I met up with them as a cast member was cleaning up her vomit again. At this point we decided to head back to the hotel. I missed my first official business part of the trip and the girls slept through the rest of the evening activities.

After a night’s rest, all seemed right the next day. We enjoyed all our activities. We had a great day at the park. Serenity and I rode Splash Mountain and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train together. We had a great day. The third day started off amazing too.  We boarded buses to take us to Port Canaveral for the second portion of our trip. I was so excited about this part because the hustle and bustle of the parks was so overwhelming, that I was looking forward to the confinement of the Disney Wonder cruise ship and having everything within a short walking distance. The whole first part of the day went great.  Then, disaster.

  • Sitting down to dinner the first night, the baby threw up everywhere.
  • Woke up in the middle of the night to Serenity throwing up.
  • Both girls threw up the entire first night.  We got about 30 minutes of sleep that night.
  • The baby threw up at dinner every night.
  • Andrew was sea sick the whole time.  He couldn’t join us for most of the dinners.
  • I was sea sick the whole time, though not as bad.

And more.

I say all that so you can see how our trip went wrong. But after all, we were still on a Disney Trip. So how did we find joy when everything was seemingly against us from having fun and making a memorable trip?

  1. Make it a Memorable Trip!
    • YOU have the power to change whether you make memories. You know what’s funny? If you ask Serenity, she’ll tell you she threw up but can’t wait to go back. She doesn’t care. Don’t let it ruin your joy if it’s not even bothering them. Be as resilient as your children are in the moment.
    • Take a Break and Reset
      • Going back to the hotel or stateroom and rest for a bit.  I know it’s hard, you spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars for this trip. But as Daniel Tiger says, “Rest is Best. Rest is best”. If you aren’t allowing yourself, or your kids in our case, to rest, the entire trip could go even worse. Stop. Break. Reset. Try again. Make fun.
  2.  Relish hard on the things you are able to do.
    • Sure we missed out on some things we would have liked to do, but the things we did get to do where so memorable. Meeting Talking Mickey, riding Splash Mountain, going down the water slide on the cruise, enjoying a Broadway caliber show, riding bikes on Castaway Cay.Watching the girls eyes light up as they met Anna and Elsa or Rapunzel, seeing the Frozen show, playing at the kid’s club.  These are the memories that I will hold on too from our trip. We truly did make so many memories.
  3. Savor the Moment.
    • Everything was going wrong.  We could have held onto that and stayed in the room miserable or we could get up and try again.  We kept choosing to try again. And that’s what allowed us to be able to create the amazing memories that our girls keep talking about now.
  4. Be willing to change plans.
    • We were scheduled to have sit down dinners every night and even one breakfast during the cruise. It didn’t happen because the baby kept getting sick when we would sit down at the table. Instead we went to the cafeteria and ordered room service. We still ate, we still had good food, it was just a bit different than the original plans.
  5. Be grateful.
    • Yeah, I didn’t want to do it either. But you are on a trip, some people can’t do that. You are with your family, some people don’t have that. We did about 1/50th of the things I had planned (literally), but I’m so grateful for the few things we did get to do.
  6. Give yourself (and your family) Grace.
    • Again, I know you’re thinking, I just spent so much money. You didn’t expect all this to happen and it’s sure not ideal, but it’s happening. Just give yourself grace and realize that there will be another trip, there will be more memories.

The main tip is and always will be, find the little joys, live in the present moment that you are in at the time. Don’t look back at what bad things did happen.  They are there, if you are willing to look for them. So if you’re having a rough family vacation, just look for the joy. I promise you can find it.

How do you go about finding joy when the family vacation goes wrong?  Leave a comment and let us know your tip!

 

 

Filed Under: Home, Travel, Travel Tips Tagged With: being positive, disney, travel, trip, vacation

The Sweetest Family Vacation

June 9, 2016 by Larisha Campbell 33 Comments

sweetest family vacation hersheypark

As parents for almost 4 years now, Andrew and I have had moments where we question if we are really doing this parenting thing right. We’ve been hard on ourselves more often than not. Yet, as we see our girls growing into beautiful, thriving, older children, we know we are doing it right by them. After having our second daughter, we have definitely relaxed and tried not to stress about so much being “perfect”. With Skibbles, we both helicoptered over her making sure that she didn’t have screen time, didn’t eat anything that wasn’t healthy, and so much more. What ended up happening though is that we were both constantly stressed about messing something up. Then…. second child, and life kicks in and you realize that most things are just not that serious. The other thing we realized was that chocolate could cure almost every meltdown.  And it didn’t even have to be a lot, a small Hershey’s Kiss solves most of life’s problems for a toddler.

We were recently invited to Hersheypark on behalf of Pepsi and after our weekend getaway I’m convinced that chocolate can solve all of life’s issues for everyone.  A summit in Hershey, PA, with all the world leaders, would solve every world problem, I’m absolutely sure of it. Our whole family was so happy the entire time and we didn’t have one huge meltdown from Skibbles. I’m pretty sure the town of Hershey wafts chocolate in the air.  The residents there have to be the happiest people in the world.

As soon as we hit the town, I got instantly happy. The light poles were shaped like Hershey Kisses, so many places named cocoa this or that, how could we not be happy!? I wanted to make the most of our weekend trip, so I had our full itinerary planned once we got there.

  • Saturday
    • Chocolate World and go on FREE Chocolate Factory Tour
    • Hersheypark to do some rides and visit ZooAmerica (Free admission when purchasing Hersheypark tickets)
    • Check into Hershey Lodge (resort)
    • Have dinner
  • Sunday
    • Breakfast
    • Head to Hersheypark
      • *Download the Hersheypark App before heading there
    • Visit the Boardwalk (water park into Hersheypark)
    • Check out Pepsi Oasis
    • Hershey Waterworks (inside Hershey Lodge)
    • Dinner
  • Monday
    • Check out of Hershey Lodge
    • Visit Hershey Gardens (free admission when staying at Hershey Lodge)
    • Visit The Hershey Museum (free admission when staying at Hershey Lodge)

Watch our 3 videos over the course of our stay. (Scroll down to read more)

Hershey Lodge and Waterworks

Hersheypark, ZooAmerica, and Chocolate World

Hershey Gardens

We arrived early in the day on Saturday and headed straight to Chocolate World.  Both of the girls absolutely loved the Chocolate Factory Tour, which is completely free.  We ended up doing it both Saturday and Sunday because Skibbles asked to do it again.  While at Chocolate World you can also upgrade to paying activities, like making your own chocolate bars.

chocolate world

Once we were done, we walked the short distance to the Hersheypark entrance.  I had downloaded the Hersheypark app, so we knew exactly where to go for the rides that Skibbles and the baby could go on based on their height. The app even tells you how long the wait time is for rides.  It was perfect for helping our family. We made our way to ZooAmerica first.  It was so hot, we stopped and grabbed a Pepsi souvenir cup that costs just $.99 to refill anytime all season long or free water refills. It was the best investment we made. I kid you not we refilled that bottle at least 30 times over two days.

zooamerica

ZooAmerica was so much fun, but Skibbles was begging for rides. Hersheypark has been by far our best family park experience thus far. Skibbles was able to ride a pretty big roller coaster and she was so thrilled we rode it three times in a row. I was also excited about how many things the baby could ride with us helping her. On Sunday, in addition to the rides, we fed ducks, and went to the Boardwalk, the waterpark area of Hersheypark.  Since the baby’s leg is broken, we decided not to do much there, but we did let Skibbles run around for a bit in the splashpad area. We were also excited to find the new PepsiMoji statues and check out Pepsi Oasis. The PepsiMoji statues are Pepsi’s way of bringing the emoji craze to real life. You can check out more or share your own with #SayItWithPepsi

pepsiatthepark

Inside the Pepsi Oasis is the new Pepsi Spire machine, an innovative digital beverage fountain that allows you to completely customize you favorite Pepsi beverages. Skibbles thought it was so fun that she could pick and choose flavors to make her drink taste better. She chose Pink Lemonade with Strawberry and Grape.  I’ll admit it was actually really good.  I tried Sierra Mist with Raspberry and YUM! So, so good. There’s other flavors like vanilla, lemon, cherry, and more also.  It’s all about having fun and getting inspired surprises.

The accommodations at Hershey Lodge were phenomenal.  There was so much to do and there’s no way we came close to doing even most of it. Kids get their own check-in and lanyard with chocolate, coloring page and crayons. We were given a list of all the kid’s activities to do at the resort like free craft time or up close with some animals brought over from ZooAmerica. It was also the opening weekend of Hershey Waterworks, the indoor water area at Hershey Lodge. When you stay at Hershey Lodge you are given complimentary passes to The Hershey Museum and Hershey Gardens, and there is also free mini golf on location.  There is also a free shuttle that runs every 30 minutes back and forth to Hersheypark. Best of all, if you show your resort key, you get into Hersheypark an hour early!

hershey gardens

The food.  Oh, the food. Hershey Dining was divine. Again, it’s something just about the abundance of chocolate that makes you enjoy everything more. Hershey Lodge has an abundance of restaurants on location.  While there, we chose to dine at The Bear’s Den and Hershey Grill for dinner and we went to Libbie Leibericher’s and Cocoa Beanery for breakfast.  There were also a ton of locations to eat around the immediate area as well. At Hersheypark we also had the most amazing Reese’s funnel cake and rainbow Dippin’ Dots that tasted like sherbet. I had never seen before but at Dippin’ Dots you could even make a float with your choice of Pepsi beverage.  I thought that was neat! At the end of every meal you get Hershey Kisses instead of mints too!  Naturally, Skibbles loved that.

hershey dining

Overall, we had an amazing experience and we can’t wait to go back.  There were so many things that we weren’t able to do just because time ran out. We highly recommend staying at a Hershey resort and experiencing the whole chocolate experience.

mug tradition

We even decided to start a family tradition where we will purchase a mug every time we go somewhere.  It was actually hard to choose just one, but this is the one we ended up going with! Do you have a tradition of something to purchase when you go somewhere? 

****GIVEAWAY****

Leave a comment below letting me know where you would head to first once you arrive in Hershey, PA. One lucky commenter will receive 4 passes to Hersheypark.  *Must be 18 years old to enter. Giveaway will run from 6/9 /16 to 6/16/16 at 11:59pm EST. No purchase necessary. Giveaway winner will be chosen by random.org based on the number of comments entered. 

Filed Under: Home, Kid Friendly Outings, Travel Tagged With: pa travel, vacation


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