Now that our trip is just 9 short days away, I'll pay much more attention to any tropical weather activity that may begin to form. While I hate to think about a hurricane interrupting our trip to Disney, it's the harsh reality of traveling there during hurricane season. This is one reason I booked a room-only reservation and added park tickets. That gives me 5 days before my trip to cancel in the event some emergency would arise. And even if I would have to cancel within those five days, I can always put the credit toward a future trip. I believe that trip insurance is necessary, but it's also a rip off.
I did purchase the trip insurance offered on my airline tickets for this trip. Airlines are much less flexible when it comes to canceling and rescheduling. They will charge $100 per ticket to make a change.
When Hurricane Charley hit Florida in August 2004 just days before our trip, the airline canceled our flight and said there were no flights out for days because of the backup of passengers. Turned out the airline terminal in Florida was damaged from the hurricane.
We got in our car and drove the 17 hours to Disney in order not to lose the trip (that was the no trip insurance trip!). The airline did refund our money from the canceled flight.
And because we had to drive at the last minute or lose the trip, that ended up being our most memorable trip.
The kids say they want to drive again sometime. This year it was cheaper to fly. But if the airlines keep tacking on additional charges, it may make it cheaper to drive next time.