Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work…

…though we treasured the free times allotted to her in between. Nevertheless, the trip reached its conclusion. Before we leave Orlando behind, let’s take a look back at a selection of outtakes that didn’t make the cut in our previous thirty chapters for various reasons. I’ve arguably posted too many pics as it is, in this epic-length vacation slideshow carousel that didn’t quite hold its audience captive. The average internet user has likely been to Disney theme parks multiple times in their lives and may chuckle at the expense of us starstruck bumpkins who’ve gone on and on about this. Congrats on your affluent first-world upbringing that we didn’t quite have. To us the Disney World trip was like a one-in-a-billion lottery win minus the devastating tax burden. And I’d wager our ending credit card balances were smaller than yours.

Anyway: last call for Disney World photos! And an epilogue.

…and so it went, as otherwise previously chronicled.

Friday morning after the Character Breakfast, we finished packing, took one last look around the Grand Floridian grounds, boarded our charter bus, and tried not to be depressed on our ride to the airport.

Orlando International Airport was what it was. We grabbed unremarkable lunch at McDonald’s, our traditional go-to at the end of every long trip. One of the two admission booths to our TSA checkpoint had a system malfunction, leaving two long lines to merge into a single, frustrating bottleneck. Our plane departed a bit behind schedule, though not enough to raise our tempers. Disney euphoria lingered in our veins.

We wound up sitting in the back row, which we now know is not our favorite plane row. Anne recalls a bit more turbulence on our way north, though I may have been so preoccupied with several minutes of Vasalva-maneuvering to retain my poor, precious hearing that I ignored any other discomforts. We landed a couple hours later in Indianapolis just in time for rush hour traffic, not to mention much colder springtime temperatures that reminded us why we’d brought jackets at all.

The evening was spent unpacking, sorting, and just kinda gazing upon our souvenirs. Some of them are still sitting on our computer desk, waiting for us to tuck them somewhere out of sight. Part of me likes having them on casual display seventeen months later amid other, less meaningful clutter.

We agree we’d love to do this again someday before we’re too old to walk for more than ten minutes at a time. It isn’t impossible for Anne to become a repeat winner, according to her employers’ rules for their annual corporate getaway. In fact, the more times an employee wins, the more perks they receive — extra days’ stays, plus-ones’ travel expenses paid for, upgraded flights, etc. An encore on their dime would be amazing, provided the Wednesday night ordeal doesn’t happen again, but we’ve made peace with the probability that this may have been her one and only win ever. Just the one time was mind-blowing enough; we’ve had plenty of “WE’RE NOT WORTHY!” moments before, during, and after in appreciation.

In the meantime, we’ve been hedging our bets with some pre-planning for what could be a Disney World follow-up on our own dime someday. Step one is already in progress: saving up all the Marriott points. Since our return home March 10, 2023, every single hotel we’ve used for all our subsequent trips to date — our last two summer vacations, every comic-con outside Indiana, every birthday overnighter — has been at a Marriott for exactly this hypothetical purpose. In hindsight I regret having wasting some points utterly needlessly on a disappointing and somewhat scary stop in 2022, but we’ve been compensating for that rash choice ever since.

Fortunately Orlando has a few Marriotts within reasonable distance of the parks, whether by shuttle or by our own devices. The Grand Floridian incontestably provided the greatest accommodations of our entire lives, but it’s priced phenomenally beyond our middle-class means. We have a long, long list of sights we haven’t explored yet — the Magic Kingdom’s other rides, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs, maybe a checkup on what Universal’s changed or updated since our last adventure there seventeen years ago, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But our primary objective is to not go massively into credit card debt for Disney’s sake if we can help it. We’re not really close to retirement yet, but that’s baggage we don’t want to carry into our quote-unquote “golden years” (no pun intended).

On the other hand, if Anne’s present or future bosses decide she’s as awesome as I think she is, and choose to reward her again someday, we’re more than ready to accept that honorable privilege. There’s something magical about the unexpected granting of a wish that means a lot more than self-destructively forcing it to happen.

One more final thought, if I may:

I’m still not a fully accredited member of the unsecret society of sixty million Disney Bloggers™, so you won’t see any Disney World tips-and-tricks listicles from me…but if I could give you a single sincere recommendation: much of this trip — from planning to execution to issues in media res — were aided, solved, and/or simplified tremendously by the “My Disney Mobile Experience” app. I don’t do affiliated links, I refuse paid promotional consideration (well, okay, no one ever offers me free junk, because I reserve the right to trash their product anyway if it sucks), and I earn absolutely nothing from anything I plug here on MCC, so it’s with appreciative enthusiasm that I tell you the app had literally everything I needed to survive and enjoy my time, whether on my own or at Anne’s side. As further proof that no one asked me to say this, notice the complete lack of links in this paragraph. As of today I’ve yet to uninstall it from my phone because it’s another fun memento.

Well…that and my one last anecdote, which will mean more if you’ve read along with this entire miniseries, which you may recall began with Anne’s light misadventure at Indy’s TSA checkpoint. Three days later at Orlando’s airport, we arrived a couple hours early per the style of the times. We went through the usual motions to which all frequent flyers are accustomed, which is not us. A few dozen or so passengers were ahead of us in the TSA line, which moved reasonably quickly. After I sailed through my inspection without incident and reacquired my pocket contents and my shoes, I watched from afar as Anne was once again asked to step aside toward The Bad Booth, where a more thorough inspection of her carry-on bag would be conducted.

One escalated X-ray and rummage session later, the very polite agent located the object that had concerned their monitors: a coin purse containing every smashed penny we’d collected on our trip.

I can’t believe these all fit into a single coin purse, but somehow she managed it. The agents were surely relieved to confirm Anne was not in fact trying to smuggle a fragmentation grenade on board. Unlike last time, this time they gave the offending object back to her and sent us on our way. I may have cackled for a while afterward, a rather mean and unfair response on my part considering I bought at least half of these for her at EPCOT while she was working.

So yeah, maybe we won’t be flying to Disney World next time.

The End. Thanks for reading! Lord willing, we’ll see you for our next road-trip miniseries in the very near future, guaranteed 100% TSA-checkpoint-free.

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[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on Twitter, Threads or Bluesky. Thanks for reading!]