Riordan Family - January 2006

Quick family stats: My husband, myself, my 7 year old daughter and my 6 year old son!

Friday - Jan 20, 2006 - We depart from Lorton, VA on the Auto Train.

Oh my gosh - the day is finally here! We're leaving for WDW - and the kids still do not know! They leave for school at 8:30am and are none the wiser. In the interim - my husband takes the cat to the vets, I take the kids' beta fish to the neighbors and we load the car! I'm shaking I'm so excited. We check the house one last time and head over to school to pick the kids up early (they think that they have dr appts).

At 11:45am they are picked up and loaded into the car. Nobody says anything at first. Then my daughter says, "hey - where are we going? I see suitcases in the back." Now my son chimes in - "yea - there are suitcases - are we going on a vacation????" No, I say. We're just dropping stuff off at Good Will. A series of sighs and groans - I just giggle. Now we have a 45-60minute trip to the Lorton, VA Auto Train Station. We get there - and the kids are jumping out of their car seats! "We knew it - we knew it! We're going somewhere! Mommy - are we going on the big train???" I couldn't hold it in - Yes - we are taking a train ride - and we'll get to eat on the train and sleep on the train - bursts of joy and Yes! and just kids' excitement errupt from the backseat! They are just so excited. {they believe that the whole trip/vacation is the train ride}

Aside from the train leaving late - not until 5:30pm - and we arrived at 1pm - we had quite some time to kill until we could board. Luckily it was a nice sunny day - and they could play on the playground outside. I tried to run them around so that they would be tired on the train.

We finally got to board at 5pm - and off we were by 5:30pm. We got settled into our Family Bedroom (amazing how little space you need to fit four beds!) We set up our games, books, crafts, and DVD player - we were all set for this ride. My husband and I went to the Lounge car to get a couple of snacks and some glasses of wine (they were having a wine tasting from some of the local VA vineyards on board - a nice, unexpected but pleasant surprise for the adults!) We got called to dinner at 6:30pm - and the kids loved it. We actually had a decent dinner - all four of us had steak, baked potatoes, carrots, salad, rolls and cheesecake. A great dinner. After dinner the kids grabbed drinks and snacks from the Lounge Car on the way back to our car to settle in for a fun-filled night. The Upstairs Lounge was showing "Must Love Dogs" which I really wanted to see, but since it was a family vacation I just put it on my list to rent at Blockbuster when we get back home. We watched a few Disney Movies - played some games - read some books - and settled in to sleep. The kids slept really well - as did my dh. I slept just ok - I was just so excited - thinking about the next morning - and waking up in FL!

Final note - a huge THUMBS UP to taking the Auto Train to Florida. I would highly recommend it. We had a blast and will certainly do it again! (*****plus you have unlimited room - or at least what empty space you have in your car to take back souveniors - you'll understand why this is important to us in my last day update).

Page: 1, 2, 3, 4