Here's to Walt

So I've mentioned before that one of my goals for the GCW Tour was to drag my youngest nieces and nephews out into the world. I get a travel companion, and they get a chance to see places that probably wouldn't be available to them otherwise. Hence, the trip to Spain and Morocco that the niece and I took last summer.

Unfortunately, the fact that I'm not really likely to be here beyond this summer has put some additional pressure on my travel planning. In short, what I had originally thought to be individual trips, are going to need to be turned into some combined activities if I'm going to get through them all. I've got three nephews left, but I sure as hell don't have three summers left.

So it's this year or likely never. And so here we go...

The two eldest nephews were the easiest. They're fifteen and seventeen, get along pretty well, have some reasonably resonant interests, and so they should be okay traveling together. Of course, one plays french horn (so something like that) in the symphony, and the other is part of the drum line, and August is band camp month, so travel with them had to take place between June 17 when they get out of school and August 1 when camp starts up. Additionally, one's got celiac, which requires a complete avoidance of any foods (or drinks) containing gluten, which requires a) knowing the word for gluten in whatever the local language is, and b) having a reasonable expectation that if you ask for food without gluten in the local language they'll both know what you're asking for and be able to accommodate.

It will perhaps come as little surprise, then, that we landed on Great Britain. Since the English word for gluten is "gluten," and England, Scotland, and especially Ireland, have pretty good reputations for doing the gluten-free thing, it seemed a good choice. Plus, I've seen nothing of Great Britain except London, so this checks off some of my desired destinations (and let's me search Ireland for an "Irish pub"); one of the nephews is a history buff, so we ought to be able to find a few things of interest to him; and the other's a rock and roll buff, so, again, points of interest should be pretty available.

It's a win-win-win.

Now we just have to definitize some plans and start making hotel reservations during the highest of high seasons for travel, before everything (left) fills up. With luck, the boys are researching now, so when I head to their house on Saturday we can start the booking process. (Feel free to leave any suggestions for what to see in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland in the comments.)

So that leaves the eight-year-old. The challenge with the eight-year-old is that the Venn diagrams of an eight-year-old's interests and a forty-eight-year-old's interests look something like Harry Potter, a minion, or the Tootsie Pop owl:

That is to say, two big barely touching circles. Hence, I was having a really tough time figuring out what we could do that would be both fun for me and for the eight-year-old.

Enter Walt Disney.*

Did you know that the Walt Disney Company owns four cruise ships? What's more, from time to time one of those cruise ships will go to some really interesting places. In fact, on June 17 one of their boats will be sailing from England to Scotland to Iceland to Norway to Denmark. And unlike nearly every other part of the travel industry, cruise tickets actually get cheaper the closer you get to departure. This June's cruise was about half the cost of the same cruise next year. So for not a huge amount of money, the eight-year-old gets to spend thirteen days on a gigantic boat designed with an eight-year-old in mind, and I get to add Iceland, Norway and Denmark to the list of countries I've seen. Seemed like another win-win to me (even if it does mean I'll be trapped on a boat with a much higher ratio of children to adults than I'm used to). 

Oh, yeah, we're also taking the niece along so that if the Lonsurf lays me flat -- or, more likely, I decide I need to spend an hour in the bar -- there will be someone else to ensure he doesn't fall overboard and has a good time. It seemed a prudent choice. 

In any case, here's to Walt's ability to create Venn diagrams with overlap.


* Well, the corporation he left behind.