Well, we finally did it – took our kids to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. We took them this year to celebrate their 6th and 8th birthdays. We had been told by several people that this would be the perfect ages to take them, and I believe everyone was correct! What a FUN time we had!! I learned a lot from our trip, and I am going to share some of those tips with you. :-)
We got a 4-day Disney package that included 5 nights at our resort, and 4 days to the parks. We did not get the park hopper pass, which in the end, we decided there was no way we could have even gone to more than one park in a day!
I am going to break down our trips into parts. By topic (ie: Resort Info, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, etc…) Enjoy the info and photos, and let me know if you have any questions! :)
RESORT INFO:
We flew Southwest, and we did not rent a car until after we left Disney. After we arrived in Orlando, and took the Disney Magical Express bus to our resort (the Caribbean Beach Resort). This is where we learned our first lesson! They tell you to leave your luggage at the airport and that it will “magically arrive” in your resort room within 3 hours of your arrival. This is supposed to save time and make your experience much easier. So, we left our luggage and boarded the bus. On our way to the resort, the bus broke down leaving us stranded on a busy intersection, waiting for another bus to pick all of us up. After about an hour of waiting, another bus arrived, and took us to our resort. About 4 hours later, our luggage had still not arrived. Finally, after talking to the front desk and bell service several times, our luggage finally arrived – soaking wet! The luggage not being in our room, and the fact that it was all wet, was a HUGE inconvenience and waste of time! We needed what was in those bags to start our fun! Lesson learned: GET YOUR OWN LUGGAGE from the airport and put it on the bus yourself (the bus has underneath storage that no one told us about!) Oh! And we finally got the resort to agree to pay for laundry service so that we did not have to stand in the laundromat washing clothes!
Our room (Mickey ear towels on bed)
more little towel creations left by housekeeping during our stay. They even let us take them home!
Disney soaps
After we got ourselves situated, we rode the internal resort bus to the main building where they had a large “food court”.
These buses shuttle you all around the resort area and to and from the parks.
Mickey waffles :)
TIP: GET A MEAL PLAN!!!! This is an absolute MUST!!! We got the Quick Service meal plan which included 2 full meals/person/day, plus 1 snack/person/day. I wasn’t sure the 2 meals/day would be enough, but at the end of our trip, we actually had 2 meals left that we were unable to use or get a refund for! And that was with FOUR of us eating. It was probably one of the best perks of our trip!! Without the meal plan, the meals would have cost us upwards of $50/meal!
When you arrive at your resort, they give you each a card. It acts as a credit card for any purchases at the resort or at any of the parks. It also acts as your meal card. Each time you get a meal or a snack, you just touch your card to a machine and it deducts your meals from your plan. Then they give you a receipt that shows how many meals/snacks you have left. It’s that simple! The adult meals include an entre (even large, pricey ones), a drink, and a dessert! Kids get a whole kids meal. Another great perk, is they give you each a Disney mug (cost $15.99 w/o the meal plan) which you keep and refill anytime you want for free at the resort. You can refill with soda, tea, hot chocolate, coffee…anything! Those were WONDERFUL to have, because we would keep our drinks that came with the meal (bottled water or milk or juice) for taking with us to the parks!!
The mugs (great souvenir)
MAGIC KINGDOM - Day#1
Plan your day the night before. We read about each ride and attraction the night before and circled the map accordingly. This made our day MUCH easier! Then GET THERE EARLY! Check the park times (each day’s time are different for open and close). If you get there a few minutes before the gates open, you will get to watch a “pre-show” with all the Disney characters right outside the gates. Pretty cool, but most importantly, you will get first dibs at the fast passes for the most popular rides!
TIP: GET FAST PASSES!! These are a MUST for ALL the parks! At magic kingdom, the must-have fast passes for us were: Space Mountain (a little intense for our 8 year old, but our 5 year old LOVED it), Splash Mountain (a must-ride) Peter Pan’s Flight, Buzz Lightyear (both great!) Those seemed to be the rides with the longest lines. Fast passes are free to everyone, so there is no reason why you can’t get them! It’s all about the timing really. If you see a line that says the wait is 60 min – go get a fast pass. The fast pass will give you a ticket to come back to that ride at a later time. Your wait time with the ticket is generally 10 min…instead of 60. It’s a LIFE SAVER. Don’t stand in a line longer than 30 min. It’s just silly when there are fast passes for just about everything. You just have to plan your day accordingly. You get the hang of the fast pass thing really quick. Just ask a worker to explain it to you.
Here are a few other things I learned:
- TAKE A BACKPACK – TRUST ME…you’ll need it.
- Take or buy ($8/person) a rain poncho for if it rains…don’t even think about it – just buy it. It’s better than being soaked – trust me. The Disney ones were pretty nice – with hoods.
- Put sunscreen on before you even leave your resort in the morning and take it with you to reapply during the day! None of us has a single burn spot the whole time we were in Disney!
- Drink lots of water – I know this sounds obvious, but I was dehydrated the whole trip. Make sure you take those extra water bottles with you!
- Skip the face paint!!!! It’s $15 (waste of money) AND one of our kids had an allergic reaction that lasted the duration of the trip:
:( You could still see the design for days after the paint. Bad idea!
- To trade or not to trade? (pins that is) It’s really up to you. I heard about this whole pin trading thing from another family who went and enjoyed it. Basically what you do is you start off with some pins of your own that your child wears on a lanyard (which you can purchase all over Disney), and when you see a worker wearing pins, you ask “may I please look at your pins?” and if you see one you’d like, you trade one of yours for one of theirs. Cute idea, but they ended up being more of a nuisance than a fun thing for us. The pin backs were constantly falling off and it frustrated the kids, so we ended up just putting them away. I will say, if you do want to trade pins, get your pins off ebay before you go (I did). Pins at the parks are super expensive ($8+ for ONE pin!) You can also buy lanyards there too, but again…I got my kids before we went for $1/each. It’s up to you. Your kids will never know they are missing anything if you just skip this part!! But…here are my kid’s pins:
MUST HAVES – Autograph books and large pens! Again, you can buy autograph books at the parks, but I made ours at home out of $2 scrap paper books. I used a Disney font that I printed out and glued on the fronts with their names on them. Then I laminated them.
As for the pens…I forgot our pens so we did buy 2 Disney pens, which ended up being great because some of the characters need larger pens to sign with…they are $5/pen. And if they stop working, just go into any gift shop and exchange it for a new one. Here were some of our autograph pics:
Snow White was the BEST by far! The characters with masks don’t talk…but Snow White was AWESOME…played her character the BEST. Same with the fairies (Tinkerbell and the others). Worth the wait in line! Snow White stood and talked to Zoe for quite a long time, even braided her hair while they talked!! Then, she asked if she could meet her brother, and when Jaxon came over with his book, she kissed the picture he had drawn of her in his book and left her little red lip prints. He was in love. :)
After our first full day at Magic Kingdom, the kids were wiped out! We stayed up ‘til about midnight the first night.
We decided to go back to the Magic Kingdom on our 4th park day. We were all in agreement – there was just so much to see and do. Here are a few more pictures of our time there:
Zoe got “pixie dusted”! There is a place there called the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique where girls get their hair and makeup done to look like princesses. Zoe heard about it and had been talking about going for weeks. When we got there, we were told reservations are needed at least 6 months in advance!! She was SO bummed out. Well, when we came back to the Magic Kingdom on our 4th day, I found out there was a little store right next door that would sprinkle “pixie dust” in her hair for FREE!! Pshh! Who needs bibbidi bobbidi when you’ve got mom to do your hair and FREE pixie dust. She was completely happy :)
Jaxon got a pirate hat/wig, a sword, a knife, and rubber handcuffs in “Adventureland”. He thought he was really somethin’! :)
Zoe got a pretty cool personalized umbrella the last day we were there. There was a lady that painted on them right there on the street. Zoe got to pick what she painted. Zoe she got her name and two pretty pictures. It’s even waterproof. Turned out pretty neat:
HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS – Day# 2
The day we went to this park was May 4th. They were having a Star Wars event called “May the 4th be with you.” Jaxon LOVES Star Wars, so he enjoyed everything there that had to do with that. The kids built their own light sabers. That was pretty cool, but we let them choose 2-sided ones, which ended up being WAY to large for them…but it’s whatever…
Zoe’s – top / Jaxon’s – bottom (this picture shows them closed!)
They also built their own little droids:
Zoe named hers “Z3PO” ha!
Jaxon got a star wars mickey and goofy (also pictured is the “baby Rapunzel” Zoe picked the day before)
Jaxon was passed out :)
Overall, this park was ok, but not the kid’s favorite. Kory (the movie buff in our family) enjoyed it the most. The two rides the kids LOVED was the Toy Story ride and the Star Wars ride. Again – FAST PASSES and an absolute MUST for the Toy Story ride. We messed up and ended up waiting about 2 hours in line for this ride! NO GOOD. Again, don’t wait in ANY line, longer than 30 min if fast passes are available!!
There is a “honey I shrunk the kids” play area. While it looks cool, it is nearly impossible to keep track of your kids!! We let them play for a short time but then left because there were just too many kids running around!
Here’s a couple more pics from Hollywood Studios:
EPCOT – Day #3
First thing you gotta do when you get to Epcot is head straight to the ride “Soarin’”!! This is a MUST RIDE!! We got to Epcot when the gates opened, and walked straight to the ride. We only had to wait about 10 min. Then, after the ride, we went and got fast passes to ride it again! It was THAT cool.
Once you head over to the “World Showcase” area, be sure that you stop at the first gift shop you see and ask for a “passport kit” They look like this and they are $8 I believe and totally worth getting:
The kit comes with "Epcot Passports”, tons of stickers for each country and a world traveler pin. Every time you enter a new “country”, you look for one of these tables:
Someone from that country will stamp their passport and write a little message to the child in their language. Here is what Zoe’s looked like after Japan:
Her name is on the far right!
Then later, your child can fill up the rest of the page with the stickers from the kit. Definitely keeps their interest as you move along around Epcot! They can also get one of these things and color it (my picture shows the back) and have the person stamp on them too and draw their countries flag (this is FREE to do, if you don’t want to buy the passport kit)
But be careful with the wood, as I got a huge splinter in my hand from holding them for my kids. Eek!
My favorite thing to do at Epcot is HENNA! Here is what mine looked like when it was first done:
so pretty!
And here it was the 2nd day (tattoo-like) it last about a week.
There aren’t a lot of fast rides at Epcot, but our kids enjoyed them ALL. As far as the World Showcase goes – what we did was we picked a few countries that we knew we wanted to try food from (Mexico, China….) and got ONE menu item and shared it between the 4 of us. That way, we didn’t fill up in one country and were able to continue on our food sampling travels :)
We were at Epcot during the Flower and Garden Festival which was really pretty to see:
Here are some more random Epcot pics:
DOWNTOWN DISNEY – Last night in Disney
We went. We saw. We weren’t impressed.
Granted we got there a little late in the evening (8:30ish) by then it was pretty much geared to adults. We had heard about this Disney Quest place (indoor theme park) but when we got there, they were closed. We also found out it was pretty expensive – like $50/person – so we were kind glad it was closed. But, there was some live music and Zoe had a great time dancing outside. The DJ even threw out hula hoops and so she was lovin’ that! Then we went and shared an appetizer at “T-Rex” themed restaurant – exactly like Rainforest Cafe…then we headed back to our resort for the last night.
BEACH – Last 2 days in Florida
I called Enterprise and they sent someone to pick us up at our resort (no extra charge) and took us to get a rental. We drove to Cocoa Beach which was under an hour away! We stayed at the International Palms Resort RIGHT ON THE BEACH. I believe it was 38 steps to the sand from the sidewalk by our room. :) The resort itself wasn’t anything spectacular, but who needs a great room when the whole point of being there is for the beach? They did have a great outdoor heated pool though! It was a great time…just as expected!
The last day, we rented a bike for an hour and rode around the neighborhood. What a workout that was, but a fun memory:
We had a really great time together!! It was definitely a vacation that we would do again and will always remember! :)
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