As a middle class family of five that took few extended vacations

together, we were very excited for our first trip to Disney World. In

fact, this was the first week-long vacation in which we had to take a

plane.  The year was 1994, we were living in Vermont, and were very

excited to see the warm weather in the middle of a blistering-cold

Vermont winter. The three of us kids were at the prime age, each four

years apart, to enjoy in our own way what Disney World had to offer.

Sarah was 6, I was 10, and Heather was 14. We stayed at Disney's

Village Resort.  It was a nice two-story villa with two upstairs

bedrooms and a cool foldout bed in the living room that I slept on.  My

parents shared one upstairs room, and Heather and Sarah shared the bed

in the other room.

Right from the beginning, we were in for trouble.  A snow storm was

scheduled to come the night before our plane left, so we drove an hour

and stayed in a hotel near the airport to make sure we would make it to

our flight the next day. On the car ride up to the hotel, my younger

sister, Sarah, vomited all over herself and the car.  Sarah, the

hardcore trooper that she is, shook it off and didn't get sick the rest

of the night.  My parents decided we would be fine, and we boarded the

plane.  We were a little delayed due to the snowstorm from the previous

night so we knew we would have to hurry to make our connecting flight

in Washington D.C.. We arrived at Dulles and ran to the connecting

flight only to see our plane backing out from the jet way. After a

failed attempt at trying to get them to come back, we waited for a

later flight that could take all five of us.  We spent about five hours

in the Dulles Airport, wasting our first vacation day in one of the

most boring places for children of our ages. Instead of arriving during

the day, we arrived at the resort late at night, exhausted and worn. We

were looking forward to a good night's sleep before the big day ahead,

but it just wasn't going to be that easy for us.

Mom woke up in the middle of the night as Heather came in my parents'

bedroom. "Sarah threw up on me."  My parents called the maids to

provide us with fresh bed linens, mom and dad changed the sheets and

Sarah and Heather were cleaned up and changed. Heather and Sarah curled

back up in bed, and pretty soon after, Sarah peed in the bed.  Another

cleaning/changing session followed. Heather had now been hit twice.

Sarah was then moved to the pull out bed downstairs, and I went up to

sleep with Heather.  A few hours later, Heather went to Mom again.

"Mom, Sean threw up on me."  The maids were called again to bring a

change of sheets, we were cleaned, re-dressed, and put back to bed.

By the next morning, Sarah was refreshed, feeling better and was ready

to explore Disney World.  I, who now had the stomach bug, didn't feel

well enough to go out, and stayed in the villa for the day. My Mom

stayed with me and tried to keep a positive attitude as I asked her

"Mom, why would God make me sick on vacation?"  By the afternoon, I

felt well enough to walk around the parks. From then on, we all felt a

little queasy, and did a kind of lite-tour of Disney, parusing Typhoon

Lagoon, Epcot, MGM, etc. . .

One night we went to "The Living Seas," a seafood restaurant with a giant aquarium

on the wall (in retrospect, not the best idea after we had all been

feeling sick).  By the time the food came, Heather was laying on my

Mom's shoulder saying she didn't feel well and didn't want to eat her

food. The rest of us finished our dinners and we all got on the bus to

go back to the Villas.  On the ride home, Heather was feeling even more

sick, so my Dad told the bus driver that Heather was going to throw

up.  Instead of stopping the bus, the driver directed her to the back

of the bus and told us she could throw up back there.  As Heather

projectile-vomited against the back door of the Disney bus, the other

passengers started screaming and moving their kids up to the front.  I

guess that was enough to make the driver stop, and he took out a bag of

mysterious powder to help cover up the rancid smell of the vomit.  As a

14-year-old girl, I'd have to say Heather was pretty mortified.  After

changing the marquee to "maintenance," the bus driver took us back to

the Villas.

Despite dealing with an overbooked flight on the way home, the rest of the trip went relatively

smoothly, or about as well as it could have been considering the

stomachs of our queasy family.  We never took another trip to Disney,

and I just hope that my kids don't ever ask to take a family vacation

there in the future.