Disneyland Vacation Form Hell: Learn From Our Mistakes

After the kids were grown, the wife and I decided to take a vacation to Disneyland. It's Disneyland for crying out loud! What could possibly go wrong? Here are a few suggestions to help you avoid the pitfalls we encountered.

1.When going far from home on vacation, make sure any relatives you intend to visit are people you actually like. The wife had a cousin that her mother insisted we stop by to see. Against our better judgment, we went out of our way to spend our first evening in L.A. are the cousins house. It wasn't the best time either one of us ever had.

2. If you don't have credit cards, make sure you pack a suitcase full of cash. We thought we could manage with our check book. Big mistake!

3. Take your own car, don't borrow from anyone else. We borrowed my mother-in-laws Chrysler, and regretted it when the timing chain broke. We had gone from Anaheim to Monterey Park to visit the wife's elderly aunt. That's where the chain broke and stranded us.

4. Beware of the L.A. busses and their drivers. We got the car towed to a gas station and decided to take the bus back to our motel. Some of the drivers had heard of Disneyland, but it wasn't on their route and they didn't know how to direct us.

5. Be very careful of the L.A. taxi's. When we finally managed to get one to pick us up, he wasn't in a very good mood. You'd be surprised how fast you can go on the freeways in L.A. or how long it takes to stop when the traffic isn't moving up ahead! The cab floors are pretty nasty, too, and not very soft.

6. Don't forget your camera. When we got back to our motel, all but kissing the ground in delight at surviving the ride, we walked across the street to Disneyland. The camera was safe and sound back in the room, of course. It's not surprising how many celebrities we saw, it is surprising how many of our friends thought we were kidding...

7. Check to see if the garage you choose for any repairs can actually do them. When it was time to go home, we discovered that the gas station- garage hadn't repaired the car as they said they would. They wanted two thousand dollars to replace the timing chain! And said it would take a week. So we rented a U-Haul truck to tow it home. They didn't accept checks from out of town so we had to go to a check-cashing place. It wouldn't have been a problem if they hadn't demanded 25% of the check!

8. When preparing to tow a vehicle, make sure the guy connecting it to your bumper knows what he's doing. The car slipped off the front wheel dolly twice before we got home.

9. Remember when I warned you about borrowing a car for the vacation? The second time we had to call my mother-in-law about losing her car, she gave it to us. Our mechanic, by the way, replaced the timing chain in a couple of hours and charged less than $200. Needless to say, she then wanted the car back...

In conclusion, vacations can be wonderful adventures. We seem to get the adventure part more often than the wonderful. A sense of humor can keep you from going ballistic when things go wrong. But a little planning can minimize the disasters, too.