180 days

**If you aren't a "Disney person" you might not want to read this. You will simply roll your eyes and not get why this is such a big deal to me.**

In 180 days we will be at Disneyworld. You want to know why I know that? Because Disney opens their reservation for food 180 days in advance, and as such, I've had November 30 circled on my calendar for a couple of months now. Every year I take great pleasure in planning our week (and meals!) for our trip--it makes the anticipation for our trip even greater! This year I was ready early, had my spreadsheet of where we were going and eating up and just looked at it daily, dreaming of the fun to come. I tried to sneak in early and called a day ahead--no dice. Then I called on Tuesday, at 6:55 am (yes, I've read about those "crazy" people who start calling at 7 am to get reservations. What can I say? If you don't do it too, all the good reservations will be gone!). I got through my entire itinerary and she went to process the reservations (a couple of which required a credit card to hold the spot) and nothing happened. She tried again, and a third time. I, meanwhile, was watching the minutes tick by and imagining all of the precious tables slipping away from me (most specifically, breakfast with Cinderella and the princesses--evidently the hottest ticket around.). She said, "well, the good news is that if I can't book it for you no one else can book it either. Our system [the entire Disney reservation system] is being turned off and revamped from 5pm-1 pm [Wednesday] so call back in the morning, but it might not be up until 1 tomorrow."

You know how it is when you have a huge final, or a plane to catch and you wake up every hour in a panic thinking you overslept? That was me. For two nights, because, of course, I called yesterday afternoon, {no luck} then again this morning, at 6:55 {no luck}. I started calling around 11:45 today to see if the phone system was up {it wasn't}. Finally, at 12:57 I got through. I was ecstatic thinking I had really accomplished it beating yesterday and today's reservation people in (no wait time on the phone). We completed all of my reservation numbers--then nothing. Yep, system still messed up. She {in typical Disney fashion, very kindly} suggested that I call back tomorrow morning. I said I was doing no such thing because what if the system came up in 1 hour, or 2 hours (etc) then everything would be booked by tomorrow morning.

{Should side bar here and say it's been a really rough week discipline wise--Ryan decided it would be fun to repeat this past summer and try not obeying again...I'm pretty tired and so am not running at full capacity. Anyway.}

She and I went back and forth for a while as I insisted upon speaking to someone else. She finally gave in, though forewarning me no one would be able to do more than her {challenge accepted, thank you}. I spoke with a "guest services manager" (is that who the difficult people get?) I explained my situation (and the fact that, at that point, I had already spent over 3 hours on the phone this week) and said that I knew that concierge level were able to put in their reservations early and, while I get that they are paying extra for that service, it was frustrating to me since people coming later than me were getting to book before me. She put me on a hold for a while. When she finally came back she said that she had good news and bad news. The good news was that somehow my breakfast with Cinderella (hardest reservation to get because you get into the park an hour early!) had somehow booked (she had no explanation why. I say God did that for me!). The bad news was that the system was still locked down and she couldn't force it to take the other 2 reservations needing a credit card hold. But, as she had looked through my records and saw how many times I had tried to book and appreciated the way I had kindly approached her (I guess she gets yelled at a lot?) she decided to do me a special favor and took my cell phone number and promised to call me as soon as the system went live again to confirm all of my reservations. This is huge! I feel so relieved.

Now, if Ryan would star obeying...