Can you really have a difficult time at the greatest place on earth? In my opinion, absolutely not, but there are some tiny adjustments that we know now that would add just a little more Pixie dust for our next trip to Disney World.
We went to Disney as a family of 8. My in-laws gifted us with a trip to one of the most magical places in the world. (no, really) My husband and his parents had been to Disney before and it was the first time myself and our four kids had been there. (Pretty sure I was more excited than the kids were. I’m one of the biggest Beauty and the Beast fans, so I needed to find Belle.) There ages at the time were 2, 5, 7, and 8. We stayed at the Art of Animation and would (will) definitely stay there again.
- When you have littles, take a break.
We were so excited to see EVERYTHING, we didn’t want to take a break. We had our Fastpasses scheduled, we had our map and between four different kiddos (and let’s face it the adults as well), we all had something special we just had to see. We were at each park at open and we didn’t return to our hotel until late every single night. Our next trip we will be breaking part way through the day to rest and relax around the pool or in our rooms and return each evening. No one ever really was grumpy, just very exhausted. We needed a vacation from our vacation. - Jedi training is something you must arrive at rope drop for.
Honestly, we had no idea what Jedi training was, but our boys saw them doing the training when we were at Hollywood Studios and mentioned a few times that when we go back they wanted to do it. I started doing research and it is an activity included in your park admission, but you must go early and straight to the Jedi training sign-up area with your children as soon as you get into the park and sign-up for a time slot. - Mornings can get a little hectic trying to get to the parks…and eat.
We were on the dining plan and we plan on doing that again in the future, but I plan on shipping breakfast items to our resort so that we can eat and go (though we will still hit the food court for Mickey shaped waffles occasionally). Honestly, for the size of our resort our food court just isn’t big enough to accommodate the number of people coming through in the morning. - If you buy Memory Maker do not also lug your giant camera case with you.
I’m a photographer and though we purchased the Memory Maker I was a little worried we would miss special moments that a park photographer may not be around to capture. Wrong. They are everywhere. Everywhere. We had so many great photos from our trip that it isn’t worth lugging around a big camera. (That’s worth the price of the Memory Maker alone.) A side note: If you own an iPhone, the lens on an iPhone is just as good as a standard DSLR camera. You can take amazing photos with just your phone. …and with that said… - Make sure to bring a battery pack (or charger) for your phones.
We used our phones for everything: our reservations, fast passes, photos, videos etc. (and a phone is super important if you get disconnected from your group). You do not want to end up at the nightly fireworks show at Magic Kingdom and find your phone is dead. Of course, we had a little that had to potty and I missed Tinker Bell flying to the castle. Bummer. That was my mother-in-law’s favorite thing to see. - Epcot is not a ½ day park
We loved Epcot and we spent most of the day there doing most of the front of the park and got through a couple of the countries that evening. (Japan is where my husband wanted to get something he had remembered eating before-and this was a great place to catch the nightly show). We had a reservation at the Hoop-Dee-Do Revue musical, so we left the park and came back for fireworks. We also rode the boat back to get to Epcot and that was a great experience! - Take advantage of having your purchases sent to your room
Our kids had Disney Gift cards, and cash from the grandparents and us to spend while at the parks. Once they spent it, it was gone (not really, grandad can’t say no.) We carried our purchases with us all over the parks, granted we had a stroller that had some storage space, but when it was time to load up our stroller each night and put it on the bus this became somewhat of a hassle. The kids wanted to keep all of their items (I think they thought if it was sent to the resort they’d never see it again). All the gift shops in the parks will have your purchases sent to your resort for you. There are a couple of restrictions, one of them being you must not be checking out the following day. Next time we go, we are totally taking advantage of this. Sorry kid. - Go ahead and get in the mindset “you’ll never hit it all.” Because you won’t and that can be a hard pill to swallow.
There was so much we were able to experience and fall in love with and there was so much that we just didn’t get to hit. (However, we will try to hit more/different next time) We loved every magical part of our trip, but coming to the end we just had to accept that we were not getting everything done. It doesn’t matter if you plan a week, 2 weeks or a month, it just isn’t going to happen.
That list was exhausting and difficult to come up with. We truly enjoyed planning, getting there, our resort and the parks. Here are our top 4 things that we loved and made our trip easier or more enjoyable.
- Character meals are a must for our family.
We made the kids autograph books and took these with us in the parks and restaurants. It was so much fun to be able to sit and eat while Winnie the Pooh strolled by at Crystal Palace, or Mickey Mouse and all his friends came to visit us at our table at Chef Mickey’s. Our daughter loved meeting and getting signatures from the Princesses at Cinderella’s Royal table when we ate there. My husband was thrilled when he met Chip and Dale at Animal Kingdom. Just a lot of fun! - The Magic Express from the airport to the resort was so easy.
Being able to drop our luggage off when we boarded our plane and not having to worry about it again until we got to our resort was a great perk…and let’s face it, how many times do you get to ride a bus with Mickey’s face plastered on the side of it? The wait lines for the buses were not bad at all. The bus was comfortable to ride on and we got to watch videos about Walt Disney and the parks which just added anticipation and excitement. - Packing kids outfits in Ziploc baggies made mornings much easier.
Months before we left for the parks we began buying Disney themed shirts and outfits, often finding them on sale. We have four kids-that’s four different suitcases, 4 sets of little hands digging through each of those suitcases looking for those Disney themed outfits. That could have been a nightmare. We packed each outfit including socks, underwear and hairpieces into a Ziploc bag. The kids were able to easily get their outfits out on their own and for the most part get dressed without much of an issue or help. We made one of the adult suitcases the one where dirty clothes were to be tossed each day. Simple. - Dole Whip ice cream is reason enough to go to Disney World…so says my mother in law.
My mother in law spoke often about getting that Dole Whip ice cream and was so excited to get it when we finally arrived at the parks! It was one of her biggest highlights of going and she would recommend that to anyone…just wish I had a photo to go with this one!
(Thanks Whitney!)