While not everyone considers Disney World a nice or relaxing vacation destination, we enjoy coming to Disney World and throw away our grown-up hats for a few days.

Since we only had 3 days, we chose Epcot, Hollywood Studio and Animal Kingdom to spend our time. The timing was right – it’s early December, schools are in sessions and folks are too busy planning for the holidays, so the crowds were much more manageable. Things were still crowded, and many rides had 20-30 minute wait times but we were able to enjoy most of the rides with the new Genie+ online planning tool.

There is so much to do at Disney World and no matter how many times you visited before, there’s always something new to experience. Claudia’s favorite attractions were “Aerosmith Rockin Rollercoaster” & “Kilimanjari Safari Adventure”; mine were “Avatar Flight of Passage” & “Mission Space”. We had a blast at Disney World. We loved every moment, and always laughed at each other afterwards when we screamed at all the thrill rides. Each night we came back to our hotel completely exhausted.

Though visiting Disney was exciting but it wasn’t our high point of the weekend. At the hotel, we first noticed many people in the lobby with wheelchairs. Next morning at breakfast, we found out these guys are with the “Miami Heat Wheels” basketball team, in town for a 3-day  tournament. First day they suffered 3 losses but won 2 games the next day. Next morning we sat with them for breakfast and discovered most of them are wounded veterans and never gave up their passions for basketball and hopes for life. If that doesn’t inspire anyone I don’t know what will. We gave them high fives and wish them good luck and left with the most humbling feelings of our lives.