So why are we actually going to Walt Disney World?
Growing up, I just never “got” the whole “going to WDW” (or, locally, Disneyland) “for vacation” mindset, especially those folks who made it a tradition, a regular famly destination. It struck me, at the time, as wildly commercial, grossly over-expensive, and, as a family tradition, boring and corny as hell. My family took long road trips to scenic places, rented cabins in the woods, hiked, stuff like that. That was a vacation.
Then in 2001, I got a late invitation to be one of my company’s participants at the Gartner Group confernece down at WDW (it’s held at the Dolphin & Swan hotels, which are on the Disney property but are not actually Disney resorts). I got the opportunity because, well, the meeting was in early October, and … well … 9/11 and all that, and one of the folks decided that traveling by air to WDW just wasn’t the cool thing to do.
And if I was going to WDW for most of a week, why not bring the family, including our 1½-year-old?
In 2002, Margie’s company sent her there in December for a big Health Care Quality conference. Well, now, that starts to make it a tradition.
And in December 2004, the same conference for Margie, so, again, it makes for a family vacation.
And, yeah, it’s commercial and over-expensive and corny and even sometimes boring. But the WDW resort life is also kind of nice, there’s good food, there’s family fun, Katherine has a blast, there’s the opportunities for the occasional date night, and, well, what the heck? We know the place, we can discover new things and optimize on old things, and it’s become … a tradition.
And tradition is, after all, kind of neat.