Bradley Family Vacation: Disney World 2022

The Ride to Disney World

If there’s one thing my husband is going to do, it’s going to create family memories. We’ve been planning this trip to Disney World since 2019. We had no idea that a global pandemic was on the horizon and would cause us to postpone our trip. Fast forward three years and here we are. Still in a pandemic but, closer to endemic and most businesses are open so Disney World here we come! Now, you already know Brian isn’t about to fly on a plane so instead of a one-and-a-half-hour flight to Orlando, we opted for a 13-hour drive. I know that sounds brutal, especially with a two-year-old and a four-year-old in tow but it wasn’t that bad.

Let me set the scene for you. The time was approximately 5:30am. It was dark outside, and the temperature was in the low 30’s. The rental car was packed and parked at the bottom of the steep hill that is our driveway. It had snowed the previous night and the condition of our driveway was not safe for carrying sleeping children. We packed the boys in the back of the Jeep and slowly trekked down to the car crammed with pads of papers, markers, and toys for the long trip ahead of us. We’d planned to be on the road by 6am and would have been if we hadn’t spent about 20 minutes looking for my phone. Of course, it was in the diaper bag, but we had to be sure before we left. And we were off! My in-laws had about a 30-minute head start. They too were driving down in their transit van. While Lincoln fell asleep cuddling a box of Cheez-Its, Parker, surprisingly, stayed awake the entire ride down. He questioned everything from, “why is it dark outside?” to “are we there yet?” I packed a kid-friendly map for him to track our travels along with MagnaTiles so he could build. We had nothing but time on our hands

North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. We made our way south down the East coast; stopping a few times for bathroom breaks and to run the dogs with my in-laws. We made it to Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort around 7:00pm and to be honest, I began to get a bit nostalgic. I was a competitive cheerleader in college, and we always stayed at Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort. I wouldn’t say I miss those days but they are nice to look back on. I made many memories there and I was excited to make different kinds of memories there with my own family. From the time we pulled up the boys’ eyes were shining bright with excitement as we passed Toy Story characters that were as tall as the buildings. As lame as it may sound, it’s such a good feeling to see my kids full of joy. We booked it to our room because it was hella cold outside. I mean COLD! The boys were so excited to be out of the car and in a new environment that they were jumping from bed to bed. Yes, it was nerve-racking but that wasn’t a battle I was willing to fight at that hour. Especially after that long of a drive. My sister came by that night to surprise the boys. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d already told them Aunt Kell would be meeting us at Disney World. I showered and I may or may not have fallen asleep before the boys. We had a long day and I needed all the rest I could get.