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!).
Here's my honest opinion on the All Stars Sports Value Resort; it worked for us, the room was super small (2 queen beds, a TV, a small table, a sink vanity and bathroom) no room to run and play or anything, very narrow. It did have a mini fridge but by time we had a double stroller in there, a pack and play (provided by the resort) and our luggage we looked like an episode of hoarders. But it was ok still, we spent very little time in our room, we slept and showered there and watched a little TV at night. Other than that, I thought the actual resort overall was fine, it was clean, it had a nice food court, 2 pools, it was big and spacious and was satisfactory for us. The kids LOVED the (cheesey) theming, It was larger than life and had a huge football field which Teag loved and they played and played on it. There were a lot of kids (their age) there also which is was great, Teag met several "buddies" as he calls it both on the field and in the pool. The food court had a large selection of foods and they also had a big arcade that was the size of our local Chuckee Cheese. For our family and the kids ages I actually thought it was the best case scenario, in the future we may try a moderate resort with more amenities but I do not rule out the value resorts. I think the staff was really great also. They had movies under the stars ever night by the pool, lifeguards, anything we needed. The bus service to the parks was amazing, I will say though, I think over the course of our trip it did seem the value resorts had less buses and more people so it did get cramped and once we had to wait for a second bus, it appeared the more expensive resorts had more buses as we seen them come through more often. Also I think the Value resorts are farther distance-wise to the Magic Kingdom than some of the other resorts. I think thats probably the only real inconveniences we noticed while staying at the Value resort. However, I cannot speak for the other value resorts I never seen any of them.
When you stay on Disney you get to use the disney transportation system, buses that pick up and take you wherever, you choose a line and wait for that bus, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, etc.. After you get dropped off you simply find the correct terminal where your bus will pick you up, buses pick up from wherever you are about every 20 mins. Off to Magic Kingdom! Here's Teag's reaction when we walked in and he saw "Mickey's Castle"
That's us! Were here!
I really enjoyed the performances, didn't really remember those...
We had a "Fastpass" to meet Mickey...
This Mickey spoke too!
So two things made this trip easier for us, #1 I believe February is a slow season or so it seemed and # 2 was the FastPass, so here's what it is, it's like a guaranteed butt in line, you have a separate line and everything and you pick 3 FastPasses a day, so you should research this and pick your 3 favorite things and/or the ones that get the longest lines. These can be managed on your phone on the My Disney Experience app or at a FP+ Kiosk at the park. I used this App the entire time, it was like a little itinerary that you could change as your day went, change fast passes, change dinner reservations, etc.. It was awesome, even awesomer (yep rad word) was that Jason could see the same from his phone so he knew what was next, and also I added our friends who would be in Florida so they knew what we were up to. They need to make that a life app! Loved it! By saying I used this I want to clarify that never once did we feel like we needed to be somewhere or that our trip was too planned out, we had lots of relaxation time and spread out the fastpasses and reservations.
Cooper was a little afraid of meeting Mickey but he couldn't live without the Mickey doll he picked out, check out this reaction/event...
I didn't take many photos of rides really because the truth is, we all 4 rode all rides together. For those of you worried about your childrens age, don't. The only ride Cooper didn't go on was Buzz lightyear because he was alseep and The Barnstormer & The Tomorrowland Speedway because there was a height requirement. He missed only 3 rides!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
Teag really liked the pirate stuff, a LOT.
Cooper LOVED the street dance parade!
Best idea ever...Renting a double stroller $60 for the week, it was a City Mini GT Double Stroller, and it rocked. I am TOTALLY selling my sit and stand Baby Trend stroller now. This stroller was so convenient. It fit Teag like a glove at age 4 and almost 47 lbs! He got in and out as he wished, the seat went flat so when Cooper wanted a nap Viola! He napped. Easy peasy. So we rented it from Orlando Stroller Rental they delivered it to our hotel and we just left it at the desk when we left, no double stroller to shuffle through the airport!
The night at Disney is pretty great...
So, a lot of people asked about other costs, here goes... We stuck to our dining plan, 1 counter service meal and 1 sit down meal per day, drinks included and 1 snack. So we didn't spend money on that other than the gratuity at the sit down meals. We stayed clear of most stores, the boys weren't interested in anything luckily but the pirate store. They each got a pirate cap $9.95 each, a pirate sword $6.95 each Cooper picked out a plush Mickey $14.95 and Teag chose a Buzz Lightyear gun $16.95, and I grabbed each of them a mug $5.95 each. I got myself a wooden photo frame $17.95 and a magnet $6.95, in addition we had to purchase a blanket because it was warm all day but very chilly at night, if we wanted to stick around for the electrical parade, Celebrate the Magic show and Wishes Spectacular (all at night) we had to get a blanket for the boys, this was outrageous but one of the last left and thankfully reusable and not ugly, it was $54. 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!
I heard many reviews about Animal Kingdom, in my opinion its a half day park. There just wan't a ton to see but I will give it some major props, The Tusker House was the best food we had on the trip, the Nemo musical was legit, it was a full awesome music put together really well and we all loved it, and the safari ride was great, it was like being on a real safari and seeing animals in their natural environment. We also took a train around the park, we checked out Dinoland USA too, we gave the whole park a chance but in the end I felt it was over by 1pm.
Cooper led the conga line!
I accidentally stumbled on reviews on Downtown Disney (which I never heard of) the reviews I found were all bad, they said its difficult to get to, it's boring, there is nothing unique there, it doesn't feel like Disney, etc.. but we went anyway and really liked it. We actually went twice. I thought it had a ton of fun things to do, great atmosphere, live music everywhere at all times of the day, artists, creatives, outdoor dining, incredible shopping, bars, legoland, Bowling, a bunch of great restaurants, House of Blues, Wolfgang Puck, and home to Cirque De Soleil La Nouba which we went to see. We had a lot of fun here, listen to good music, had a glass of wine, ate some great food, watch an incredible show, the kids loved it too. I think the reviews give this a bad name. It had a lot to offer and reminded me of other vacations like to Key West or Bahamas nightlife, great for adults but also good for kids!
Teag built a racecar and raced it at the Lego Derby and came in almost first ;)
Raglan Road, one of our new fav spots, real Irish food & music (by REAL Irishman!) The Raglan Rebels played great music, a lot of Zac Brown, Jimmy Buffet, some original stuff, some foot-stomping Irish songs and they asked the crowd for requests too, We hollered and said "play Mumford and Songs- I will wait for our son Cooper" and they did and the boys danced and danced.
real guy.
So we went with a 3 day pass only, we knew going into this we had small children and had limitations so we kept it minimal and simple as possible. We could have gone to Epcot or Hollywood Studios with our passes but decided after review to stick to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom this time. So we had 2 days at Magic kingdom. The second day we met our friends, The Brookmans from Tomah, we knew we would be there the same week so we were happy to meet up and the kids had fun.
And that is about all the photos I would like to share of our first ever Family Disney Vacation. (I didn't even edit out that ugly crane)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.
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