Disney World!

 

In the spirit of thinking ahead this summer, in our busy whirlwind I had a brief thought somewhere around June: hey, we should think about taking the boys to Disney World (fair warning, this is a super picture heavy post).

At that point, 2016 seemed like a good choice. I knew it took some planning, and I knew it wasn't cheap so I put it on the horizon. Then the whole baby business began and we determined it wasn't smart to plan around pregnancy or not pregnancy and that seizing the moment was probably a better way to enjoy this part of parenting.

So, when it crossed my mind, again in August, I thought, hmmm, well, why not this year? The cons: it was a tight window, not much room to plan, it would be expensive, it would mean doing a lot of prep in a little bit of time. The pros, we probably wouldn't be able to do a trip like this with just the two of them ever again. If baby, or babies showed up on the scene in the next year we'd be lugging along an infant. Infants + Disney= horror show (to me at least, although there were TONS of infants there). We also reasoned that this was a pretty perfect age to see their faces light up with the magic of Disney.

So, I inquired with a Disney travel agent. I learned that people were booking for NEXT year (2016) October, not this year. I was so behind the curve. Whatever though, I pushed and asked for this year. Turned out there were some good deals still, and with the help of pinterest, blogs (especially disneytouristblog.com) and touringplans.com, we were in planning mode.

We decided to go over MEA because apparently October is a great time to visit Disney- small lines, good weather (generally), cheap prices. How much better can it get? I got the unofficial guidebook to Disney, read it nearly cover to cover, made or choices for resorts and booked so quickly I wondered if we had made the right choice a few weeks later. But the countdown was on!

It took some serious planning- Disney is not a fly by your seat kind of vacation if you want to actually have fun while you are there. Fly by your seat while you are there means no one is happy, me thinks.

I planned for meals, for snacks, for weather, extra clothes, sunscreen, nap times, -- you think of it, we probably planned for it. I bought Disney clothes, hats, etc. before we left on the cheap so we didn't need to buy them there. It worked well because each day the boys had new Disney clothes that I paid about 5 dollars for, and at Disney ran about 25 dollars.

When the time came for our week in the Magical World we were prepared! We made a countdown and found ourselves on the early morning of October 13th taking off toward Orlando to reach the magical express.

The trip, really actually was pretty amazing. The boys LOVED it. The adults were exhausted. Mostly because we went to bed around 11 and got up at 6 a lot of the days. But, the boys were fine, because in the middle of the day we all came back and took naps. That's right. We slept while we were spending a stupid amount of money to be in a themepark. But it was the best decision we made. The kids were only moderately cranky at their worst on the trip and for the most part were happy and excited all the time. No melt downs, very few "Disney world is not fun" faces. We passed MANY other families that were existing in that space of melt-down city. Not the world's best parenting moments at Disney world, for some. I wanted to say TAKE A NAP. But of course, I didn't.

Our trip went like this:

Tuesday: arrival and Mickey's not so scary halloween party and the Magic Kingdom (the boys were cops and we were robbers if you can't tell!)

Wednesday: Epcot until mid afternoon, back to room, nap, swim, early to bed.

Thursday: MGM studios until mid afternoon, nap the back to Epcot for night show and dinner.

Friday: Animal kingdom until mid afternoon, nap and then to bed

Saturday: up early (like 5:30 or something?) for Magic Kingdom opening and then a full day at MK  until about 9.

Sunday: early flight back home.

The things we learned on this trip were:

- Use a disney agent if you are booking. They are amazing and have access to things others don't. They can get you a reservation at many coveted places. We had lunch at the super awesome Be Our Guest restaurant, which was very cool.

- Take NAPS. Everyday if you can. At least 3 hours of sleep.

- bring in food. We ate breakfast in the room each day (I had a grocery store deliver food for breakfast and there is a fridge, so we had milk, juice, etc.) and then packed snacks and PB and Js for mid-afternoon or early lunches. This saved us a TON of money, I'm sure. We mostly only ate dinner in the parks and had a few snacks here or there.

- bring in water bottles. You can ask for a cup of water with ice and transfer to a water bottle at any restaurant for free!

- Do the character meals! They were fantastic! (even though expensive, we did two).

 

- Take the magical express and use the buses. I loved not needing carseats and the buses were always at our stop within 5 mins at the hotel. At the parks we probably waited between 10 and 20 minutes for a bus, but it was fine since on the way home we weren't really in a hurry.

-Purchase Disney stuff outside of Disney. Disney shirts, hats, etc are WAY cheaper in MN than in Disney, so the boys got new shirts and stuff that I packed for them. They got to wear them when we got there and were satisfied with new stuff, without asking for more in the parks.

- Use the touring lines app. Holy cow, this thing is worth every penny. We followed their order and never waited more than 20 minutes in a line. It really really works!

- Use the fast pass system. It makes life so much better on those rides.

- We loved the memory maker package. I ended up with about 120 pics from Disney that they took that I got and I didn't stress about getting every single shot with my camera.

 

My favorite moments in Disney:

Being at the very front of the line for open at MK on Saturday. It was fantastic to literally be the first person through the line let into the park. The park is pretty magical empty!

Seeing Collin and Owen love the roller coaster rides! I could barely believe how much they enjoyed them, even the fastest one (Expedition Everest). They are thrill seekers on rides!  I was waiting for one to say "never again! that was scary" but all I heard was "more! lets go on it again!"

I loved that these two boys really didn't ask for anything. We must be doing something right if we had 5 days in disney and they weren't begging for stuff. On the last two days they each got to pick out two souvenirs- one from AK and one from MK. They browsed and found what they wanted and were content with it, which made me smile.

Sheer joy smiles. The authentic, ear to ear beaming smiles of happiness. I can remember a few times seeing it directly on Collin and Owen's faces and I'll never forget those moments.

Meeting the characters, after they warmed up to the idea of character meet and greets they really enjoyed being with so many different characters!

I think our favorite rides were the roller coasters (splash mountain, thunder mountain railroad, expedition everest and space mountain), kilamanjaro safaris at AK, test track in Epcot, Soarin' in Epcot, the star wars ride in MGM and the lion king and nemo shows at AK.

Rides I could never go on again and be fine with: the jungle boat ride in MK. Pretty boring, in my opinion. The monster's inc laugh floor. Not very funny, really. Belle's enchanted tales- although if I had a kiddo obsessed with Belle I can see why this would be fun, and the Disney Jr stage at MGM.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip. We all had a great time. Here's hoping their first memories of Disney last and they too remember their favorite parts for years to come.