Magical Beginnings

In August of 1991 Marilyn and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary by taking the same cruise we had taken for our honeymoon, going to the Bahamas aboard the Oceanic, The Red Boat of Premier Cruise Lines.  My Dad and Mom (pictured above; that's Dad on the left of me, and Mom on the left of a clearly demon-possessed Marilyn, along with the rest of our dinner table crew.  The other guy we only remember as "Fish" because we thought he looked like Abe Vigoda!) also joined us, and because they did, we were able to afford an upgraded cabin.  The package also included three days at Walt Disney World (WDW) following the cruise, and because of our upgrade we got to stay at Disney's Yacht Club Resort, a very expensive (and at the time, fairly new) hotel right by EPCOT.  Staying there for those few days opened our eyes to WDW in a whole new way, and changed the way we thought about the place completely.  But I am getting ahead of myself...

I have not always been infatuated with WDW.  My love affair with the House of Mouse was a gradual thing, not love at first sight.  The Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, and until 1978 I had never been to Florida, much less to Orlando.  Then during Spring Break of our freshman year in college, my best friend Steve Semmler and I headed down to Jacksonville to visit our adopted family, the Perrys.  Our friend (and little Sis- that's what we called her) Sabrina and her family had moved the summer before and we couldn't wait to see them.  We spent most of the week there, including a day trip to see Mickey.  I remember very little about that day except for a cast member at the Jungle Cruise hitting on Sabrina and Steve and I not liking that at all.  As for WDW...it was OK.

My second visit was in August of 1986 as part of our honeymoon.  Marilyn and I really enjoyed our time there, and when I needed a big trip to jump start the youth ministry at Springfield Friends Meeting, it was a no-brainer.  We took a group in the summer of '87; we took another group in the summer of '90.  By the time of the cruise in 1991, we were already starting to plan another group trip in 1993.  But our experience staying on Disney property in '91 changed everything for us.  We went back in the spring of '92 with my Mom and Dad and all purchased annual passes.  After that we went as often as we could, including spending Christmas there.  We were hooked.  And the more we were there, the more we learned about all of the amazing restaurants and other things you might not discover if you didn't stay on property.  I knew what had to happen.  The Floridays 1993 Magic Tour was going to be a totally different trip than the previous two, because we were going to stay in a Disney hotel on Disney property.  This much I knew.  Now I just had to figure out how...

Because of Jesus,