Disney Tips

I have been a blog slacker since returning from Florida. We are completely exhausted and have not been out of sweat clothes in days!! I haven’t curled my hair since Sunday!! The kids have been lazy and Ryan has been running a temp since early Tuesday morning. Poor guys, guess it’s a good thing it waited until we got home!

So now that we have done Disney and have had time to reflect here are my tips…

* Staying away from Disney was good for us. We had to pay parking each time for the parks ($14) but it was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of Disney world. The resorts at Disney are nice but very pricey for a typical hotel room and we had so much more at our resort. The pros to staying in Disney is the monorail transportation to and from parks but it was worth it for us to be able to get away from it.

* Buy a book about Disney!! A wonderful co-worker of mine gave me the pass porter book on Disney World. It was like my bible while in Orlando. I took it everywhere we went!

* Two to three days in Disney is plenty for small kids. We were exhausted after only doing 2 parks and a return trip to Magic Kingdom. Upgrading to hopper tickets is not worth the money if you have small kids. I don’t know how we would have EVER made it to more than one park in one day. Even though we could have done another park after only spending 7 hours at Animal kingdom, we were ready to quit for the day. If you want to upgrade, the water park option would be a good one. We could have done the last day at a water park or if you have bigger kids Disney quest looks great. Next time we will get this option.

* invest in a small soft cooler. You can take in your own drinks and it was well worth it!! The drinks can be expensive and if you go in the summer, water is a must!

* We rented a stroller for 3 days, the cost was 81.00. This is steep but it was worth it not to have to lug a stroller onto the trams and monorail with all the millions of people! People that had strollers were a pain to sit next to as well. We rented a double because even Lance needed a ride every now and then and it gave us some extra cargo room when he was walking.

* Next time we go, we are only going to do 1-2 days in Disney, Magic Kingdom and a water park, and visit sea world. Sea world tickets are not included in Disney tickets so that is a whole other cost.

* Animal Kingdom was great but would have made a greater impression if we had done it first. Nothing really lives up to Magic Kingdom so anything after than isn’t too impressive to kids. At least not to mine. Magic Kingdom has the most rides, the rest of the parks have a lot of attractions but not rides. From what I read about Epcot, it is for older kids. There are a few things for small kids but not enough for a whole day.

* Be prepared to spend money on food. We were able to eat breakfast most mornings in the condo and we packed sandwiches the days we hung around the pool. Trying to save money by packing food for the parks was too hard and really not worth it. After all you are on vacation!

* Driving to Disney was a good experience. Driving overnight was the best and we wish we could have done it on the way back too but it just didn’t work out. It cost us $600 in driving expenses versus $1200 in airfare and then we would have had to rent a car. We will drive again for sure.

* Buy your Disney tickets through discount websites or at ticket offices in Orlando, there are tons. You do save money rather than buying a the gate.

* Character Dining is expensive but it is really worth it not to have to wait in long lines at the parks to meet the characters. I would do it again! There are several character dining restaurants and they require reservations. You can make reservations up to 180 days in advance. They fill up quick but we lucked out and got a breakfast time only about a month before our trip. Lunch and dinner times were non existent and are sometimes more pricey than breakfast.

* Fast Pass is a must. Figure out what attractions have fast passes and get those early. You can only get one every 2 hours so prioritize what you want to ride and when. It saves so much time standing in long lines when it is hot.

Finally, be PLANNED. Know what you want to do and what you want to see and go accordingly. There is too much to see and do to fly by the seat of your pants!!