"Saddle up your horses..."

The final preparations were finished.  People had chosen which EPCOT restaurant they wanted to eat at.  I had taught a class on the best way to see all of Walt Disney World.  Rooms were assigned.  The U-Haul was packed.  At 6 AM on June 19th we departed Springfield Friends Meeting for sunny Florida.  The trip down was fairly uneventful.  We travelled by caravan, with three 15 passenger vans and one Suburban.  Mark Rumley drove the Suburban and had memories of a vehicle filled with "gassy girls."  The Holly Spring Friends van had a flat tire, but we changed it and kept going.  It didn't seem like a big deal at the time...but it would come back to haunt us on the trip home.

We arrived at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort and were greeted by Frank, our representative from the Walt Disney Travel Company.  He helped check us in and find our way to our rooms.  The resort has over 2200 rooms and is broken up into "islands."  Each "island" has its' own pool and and own unique identity.  We were staying at Aruba.  As everyone was getting settled in, Frank gave me some very disturbing news.  From the very beginning of my trip planning I had wanted to do something amazing on the first night (Saturday).  We had been able to book the group for the Hoop-de-doo Musical Revue, and I could not imagine a better start to the week.  Now Frank was telling me that dates had been mixed up, and that we actually were not going to Hoop-de-doo until Monday night.  I was devastated at first...but fortunately, Frank was not through talking.  To make up for the mistake, he had booked us into the Luau at Disney's Polynesian Resort for that night, an all-you-can-eat dinner show.  And it would be on them!  That was $35 per person, covered by the travel company.  This week was off to a flying start!  We went to the Luau and loved it, eating all kinds of Polynesian dishes and drinking frozen drinks while watching hula dancers (see picture at top) and fire dancers do their things.  It was an awesome first night.  And it was free! 

Our theme for the week was The Great Adventure, based on a 1992 song by Steven Curtis Chapman.  The song begins with the line "Saddle up your horses, we've got a trail to blaze through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace..."  We were going to blaze our trail through WDW and try to shine our light for all to see.  The great adventure had begun, and on Sunday morning we were going to church at Disney...which turned out to be an interesting thing in itself, especially for David Mercadante and Will Rees...

Because of Jesus,