I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to kick start this blog back to life with a full post about our first ever Disney family vacation! I have had countless people email and facebook me asking how I booked it, what was the cost like, did I do the dining plan, etc.. tons of people! So I wanted to share this brutally honest post about our Disney experience and maybe help all of you who asked with yours!
*Disclaimer, if you do not care about how much our trip cost or why we booked Disney, skip down to the photos, also I took these photos as a mom, NOT a photographer so they are special but not in a photographic way, also I didn't take much, to be honest we really unplugged for this trip which included keeping the camera packed away.
First of all, I am no expert, everything I say here is based on my own personal experience and the research I did and all of the info I gathered by picking the brains of people who I know went to Disney. For months I researched this and made sure it was affordable for us, so here goes a start to finish low down of our Disney Vacation.
This started when we decided it was time for a family vacation. We understand our boys (2 & 4) are young but we wanted to do a family vacation not an adult vacation this year. For me, the boys are still too young for me to leave for a week so this was the only option. So we started brainstorming. Here was the wish list:
#1- Family Friendly
#2- Somewhere warm
#3- Had to get there by plane (out of state adventure)
#4- Had to be in the winter (So out west trips were out)
So we started asking friends, I asked facebook, I asked other families what vacations they have done, we looked online for hours. Bahamas? Mexico? California?
Then we factored in our kids. Everyone knows their own kids, what they like, what they tolerate. Our kids do not play well alone, they don't sit and play with toys quietly, they go stir crazy sitting in the house for a weekend. Also they are afraid of "big" water, like deep pools and lakes and oceans. So renting a cabin or house on the ocean was eliminated. We didn't want to sit in a house or expect our kids to play at the beach for 5 days. We knew after an hour they would be bored. (The apple doesn't fall far from the tree) So we understood it would probably have to be more fast-paced.
We basically kept filtering our needs until we both decided (against I think everyone but a few peoples will) we would try Disney. It's family friendly, it's warm, it's fast-paced, it would be perfect in the winter and we could take a plane.
Main concerns were price and the ages of the kids, are they too young? will they remember it? I went to 3 of 4 Disney Parks in the world! Yep 3 of 4, the 4th one (Tokyo) I will never visit and really have no want to visit. At age 12, I went to Disneyland in California with my grandma and Aunts, at age 15, I went to Disney world in Florida with my other grandparents and cousins, at age 22, I went to Disneyland Paris on a 2 week European vacation with friends. Honestly, I don't really remember any of them all that well even though I was plenty old enough and looking back I think I was too old for it. I remember in my teen years enjoying Universal Studios and Sea World much more than Disney. So I took that into consideration, I want them to be young. I want them to feel the magic and be full of wonder.
So I started researching, I googled "Disney Vacations". I started calculating the costs of staying off site of Disney, cheaper of course. Then I started adding in park ticket costs, food, transportation. I was looking at around $5000.00 for 5 day family vacation for 4. Then I tried the Disney Vacation website, typed in some dates, added park tickets, airfare, dining plan came up to pretty close to the same ( a little more) so I started to drive myself crazy (and Jason) over this trip and decided to let it sit for a week and walk away from it. Two weeks later I received an email from Disney (everyone who signed up for the free information DVD did) and it had winter specials 30% off resort costs or a free dining plan. So I took another look, plugged in new dates that worked for our work schedules and put in the code, I found the 30% off was the better deal because kids 2 and under are "Mickeys' Guest" and get in the parks for free and are on the meal plan for free.
After choosing dates (we tried several combination of dates and yes, this does make a huge difference, one week was cheaper than other weeks!), using the 30% off deal, I decided on a Value Resort to save more money, I figured this was our first try, who are we not to start at the Value resort? I chose the All Star Sports Resort, it had an all sports theme (perfect for boys), I also found it was the first on the bus pick up schedule and since we went with a value resort we could upgrade to a "preferred room" which only means its closer to the main resort, the buses, the food court, etc.. Then I added the flight, which on this particular day was cheaper than I had seen before around $1200.00 for all 4 of us, unfortunately Cooper (age 2) had to have his own ticket. The ending total with trip insurance ($150) was $3005.00 my eyes blinked...is this actually do-able? I discussed with Jason and we went for it. We put 50% down on a credit card and made cash payments on the other half (they gave us about 2 months to pay it off) you could make any amount of payment at anytime.
So that's it, that is how the trip came about and was booked and what we paid for it. Here's how it went..
Tuesday we leave home and head towards Milwaukee (the cheapest flights were out of Milwaukee compared to Chicago) we stayed at Best Western Plus Airport and could leave our car there for the week for cheap. (Room + Car parking for a week =$115) They shuttled up to the airport at 4:30am for our 6am flight. When we arrived I went to the online check in kiosk and typed in our confirmation number and he said it couldn't find it so I went to the counter and asked an agent. She had a flat personality to begin with and had no reaction when she told me our flight was cancelled, "Atlanta Airport is closed". I said, "I wasn't notified of this" she said I booked through Disney so they should have notified me, I called Disney they were closed for another hour so I reapproached the desk and asked her what Delta's plan was for us. She said the best they could do would be to fly us to La Guardia Airport and put us on "stand by" which means if someone doesn't show up you can ride but that is unlikely. She said we could be on stand by for the 12:30 flight to Orlando, the 1:30 flight, 2:30, 3:30, ect but we weren't guaranteed until the 7:30 pm flight and that was if we could get out of LaGuardia due to the storm. That did not sound like an alternative plan for us with 2 small children. I asked what else we could do, she shrugged her shoulders and coldly said again you could wait until tomorrow and see is Atlanta is open. I walked back to my family and explained, Jason rolled his eyes and said "now what"? Teag (4) said are we going on the plane now?!? I was crushed. I know this happens, I know its the weathers fault, and I know we are not the only ones with cancelled flights, as a matter for fact we heard on the news that over 2,000 flights were cancelled so we were not alone. But I have always been if there is a will there is a way type person. I approached the counter of the airline next to Delta, Southwest. I asked a very friendly man named Jeremiah, if there was anything he could do for us. He kindly left his station where he was working, walked me to the end and started typing, well, I can get you a flight out of chicago at 1:50 pm today but you would have to get to Chicago and pay for the new tickets....$2000. (not happening) Or (as he kept typing) looks like we have a flight going to Baltimore that will bypass Raleigh (due to weather) and be a nonstop flight to Orlando leaving Milwaukee at 11:50 am that day (it's currently 7am), (less than $2000 but more than I care to repeat) and then he said "sweetie- if you want to get to Orlando today this is your only shot". So I told him to hold on while I asked my husband, I ran back and talked it over with Jason, it was basically cough up the money or cancel the whole trip. Obviously we would try everything before cancelling because we didn't want to let our kids down but even more so, would we get all our money back? probably some but because Delta offered an alternative it would doubtful to get it all back. So we decided to spend the money which was outrageous I know but we had our tax return money (which was going to other things) so I ran back, couldn't find Jeremiah but found 2 nice girls (moms I could tell) and explained what happened, what Jeremiah told me and that we were going for it. She said "oh honey, I have kids I get it but that flight was already booked, nothing is left", then she said " LaGuardia is where stand by's go to die, its dirty and terrible, don't take your kids there". I almost lost it. I walked back with tears streaming down my face, I had to tell them it was over. Then I heard yelling behind me "hey! Heeeey!" I turned around, it was her, "hey sorry but I just talked to Jeremiah and he said he held those tickets for you"....What?!?! OMG! (Just want to add a HUGE shout out to these Southwest Airline folks, without their extra effort we would have 2 little boys with broken hearts and $3005 left hanging in the balance) it was pure luck I swear, I ran back to the desk booked the new flight and told the family, we were relieved but feeling guilty for the extra money spend. It was bittersweet. We had about 4 more hours to waste so we found our terminal and sat down to let this all sink in. I got a hold of Disney explained basically they blaimed Delta and Delta blamed Disney for not notifying me of the cancellation. I was conferenced in with our travel insurance agent and Disney and they emailed me the necessary forms to get started on a claim, she said we would get refunded for the cancelled flight, plus any money we paid during our trip interference, and some of the new airfare we bought to get there. Hallelujah!
Once we got on our flight, it went much smoother from there, and once we got into Disney's hands at the airport being picked up by the "Magical Express" you could feel the magic. Honestly, Disney has this down to a science, no stone is left unturned. Once we arrived at our resort we had spend a whole day of our vacation in airports, in the air or on a bus. It was the pits for sure but we arrived none the less. Once inside the guest services girl knew of our troubles and she was more than accommodating, she added more "fast passes" for us and made some awesome dining reservations, had a bellhop take our luggage right to our room (we never seen it since Milwaukee). We grabbed some food in the food court and settled in to bed finally.
The next day we got up early to make up some lost time, we are early risers anyway, we checked out our resort (finally pictures!).


Off to Magic Kingdom! Here's Teag's reaction when we walked in and he saw "Mickey's Castle"


Here's a list of rides we (all 4) went on at the Magic Kingdom:
- The Walt Disney World Railroad
- Town Square Theatre
- Swiss Family Tree House
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Liberty Square River Boat
- Peter Pan's Flight
- It's a small world
- Astro orbiter
- Prince Charming Regal Carousel
- Enchanted Tales with Belle
- Mad Tea Party
- Under the Sea Adventure
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- Monster's Inc Laugh Floor (Hilarious! Highly recommended we did it 3 x!)
- Stitches Great Escape
Rides we missed or kids weren't age appropriate are:
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin (same as dumbo)
- Jungle Cruise (totally missed it but would have liked it)
- Splash Mountain (closed)
- Tom Sawyer Island (opted for the river boat instead)
- Big Thunder Mountain (kids not old enough)
- Haunted Mansion (Jason was afraid)
- Mickey's PhilharMagic (Missed it, shucks)
- Space Mountain (way to young)
- People Mover ( just looked kinda boring)
Cooper was chosen as the salt shaker at Enchanted Tales with Belle
Teag's favorite rides, Pirates of the Caribbean and Buzz Lightyear Space command
The pirates of the Caribbean ride I actually remember although they have updated it with Captain Jack Sparrow now, the guy who played Captain Jack at the Pirates League "how to be a pirate" was awesome! He looked and sounded exactly like Johnny Depp!
Happy Little Pirates
Phew, Day 3 was at Animal Kingdom, I have never been here so I was excited! We did the fastpass for Finding Nemo the musical and The kilamanjaro Safari, we used a dining meal for The Tusker House because I heard it was awesome and it was!






Overall, it was absolutley magical. After typing this of course I want to go back, Teag asked me today, "can't we just go back? we can live in Florida, I am sick of living here". I think I think that after every vacation but no matter where you live, you have to make a living so then its not a vacation anymore is it?
I have NO regrets with this trip, the cost, our kids ages, where we stayed, what we ate, what we seen and did was all more than I could have expected. I highly recommend staying on Disney and saving yourself the hassle of transportation, parking, gas and directions. I also recommend the dining plan, I'm sure if you worked it out to pay and brought a lot of your own food you could save money but you can't save convenience for sure. We used the magic bands, swiped them and we ate. Done and Done and the food was good, sometimes exceptional. The Value Resorts are fine, for sleeping and showering and playing in the pool they are great, if you don't have small kids you may consider a fancier place. Magic Bands rock, no paperwork, no cards to keep nothing, we walked around freely to go where we wanted and eat where we wanted and buy what we wanted with them. I still have mine on hoping It will get me in somewhere for free ;)
What I learned: be responsible for checking your own airline status, buy trip insurance, double check everything, watch the weather where you will be flying through also. The Photo pass memory maker is not worth it, I didn't buy it but do not recommend it, I got a few photos taken and swiped my magic band and could see them later to buy and they were NOT quality photos, dark, off center, cut off the castle, blah, don't do it. Bring your own camera the staff photographer will take photos with your camera for no charge.
I want to put together a photobook of the trip and mail in my insurance claim now and cross my fingers we get a good reimbursement. If not, it was still worth it but it sounds promising. I also want to add that the Delta flight home went fine, so I am not totally dissing Delta, and we did get reimbursed for the cancelled flight.
Hopefully I answered a lot of questions for people who were asking and read through the blog, for those of you who didn't read I hope you enjoyed the photos.
We hope to come back again anywhere between 3-5 years and bring Jason's mom and maybe his brothers and sisters. When the boys are still young. After that, I imagine we will start ocean resort vacations, cruises or out west camping trips. Either way we hope to continue family adventures hopefully once a year.