Lindsay Woods: Here's how my family holiday will have gone
By the time you are reading this we will have been and gone, writes
The great ‘PassportGate’ of 2018. Yep, you guessed it. We were smack bang in the middle of it. At the mercy of a backlogged system due to first, the inclement weather (you may remember it as ‘The Snow’), then as a result of Brexit rounded off with a dash of, ‘We can’t guarantee it’ chased with a barely concealed maniacal laugh. They were right… they couldn’t. We didn’t get them.
Fast forward a few months, and combined with an accommodating travel agent, we were finally bound for the House of Mouse.
By the time you are reading this, or using it to line the floor of your budgie’s cage, we will have been and gone. Leaving behind, a trail of destruction, a considerably depleted buffet breakfast and a contemplative Darth Vader mulling over his life decisions.
Due to my uncanny ability to foresee the future or alternatively, the knowledge of how we conduct ourselves as a family; I can categorically testify that several, or all, of the following scenarios will most definitely have occurred…
Each child will have to be frisked prior to leaving the house for contraband. Because, even though we are taking our offspring to ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ they refuse to reduce the level of their pack rat tendencies.
The one bag they have been permitted to take, will undoubtedly be pushed to bulging point due to the menagerie of LOL dolls and their million, teeny, tiny accessories who jostle for space with the diminutive replica lads from the Battle of Waterloo.
My husband, on arrival to the airport, will moan repeatedly about the price of parking the car. Even though we are in the car. At the airport. Therefore, the only choice is to the park it.
He will continue this diatribe all the way to check-in. Where he will realise that he has left his own bag, the ‘Snack Bag’, in the car and has to retrieve it. At this juncture, the other passengers are weighing up their options of using the other queue to check-in.
The general public have already gotten the measure of us and will avoid eye contact/sitting near us/breathing within 20 metres or our personage/running away with increased speed in the opposite direction etc. You get the gist.
On the plane, my husband will answer the air steward’s enquiry of ‘Would you like anything from the trolley?’ with, ‘No, we’re fine, thanks’. All the while patting the ‘Snack Bag’ in such a manner as to make us all uncomfortable.
On arrival, there will be a tense moment as we realise that ‘Show Baby’ is missing her miniscule feathered tiara. My husband will triumphantly, yet suspiciously, locate it within the bowels of the ‘Snack Bag’.
At the hotel, they will be forced to open another desk. To accommodate everyone else we are holding up in the queue behind us.
We will be the first at the entrance to the park each morning. Primarily because, my husband needs extra time and also, ‘first shot’ at the buffet each morning to replenish the supplies in his bag.
One of us will shed tears at any stage during the day. Or all of us.
The characters’ costumes are outwardly smiling when they see us. Inside, they are not. The princesses cannot hide the terror in their eyes. To compensate, they amp up the wattage of the rictus grins.
We will only make it to day two before we are all sick of the ‘Snack Bag’. We want to spend exorbitant amounts on mouse-shaped confectionary and glow-in-the-dark drinks with half price refills.
My husband refuses to relinquish the bag. He does so on day three.
When the sheen from the squashed Aldi granola bar has dissipated. No-one wants to go on the same ride at the same time. This is not a surprising revelation as we exhibit similar patterns at the cinema.
One just wants to stay on the teacups. For the duration of our stay. The one who is scared of flying only wants to go on rollercoasters. One is always hungry.
I will just want wine.
Whilst still in the park, my email will be bombarded with several requests for booking another stay. Sure… I’ll just have to sell an organ first and then I’ll get back to you.
At several intervals, I will question how we ever manage to make it out of the door fully dressed/upright/function. On the shuttle bus back to the airport, no-one sits next to us.
As we take our seats on the flight home, with one child looking like she could audition for The Disney Channel with the amount of merch she is sporting and the other one declaring his hunger: we all look at the ‘Snack Bag’ and each other and declare, that it was, ‘The BEST holiday EVER!’
@thegirlinthepaper
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