Disney Tips…

Here is some random facts from our trip:

1. We used a travel agent.  She was amazing.  She made our reservations for the hotel and for all of our table service meals. The best thing was that she  made a list of each park and an itinerary of where to go, what to do, which ride to fast pass, and had a great list of insider tips! This was vital for us as we negotiated the parks with 10 people, 6 being little!

2. We went when they offered the free dining plan.  SO worth it.  Basically, if you stay in a DW resort, you get a table service meal (sit down), a counter service meal, and a snack per person, for each day.  This saved us loads of money, which we are all for.  We also got to ride the bus to and from the parks, got to use the extended hours, and once we were there, we really didn’t have many out of pocket expenses.  They are still offering the free dining plan through December!

3. We stayed at this resort.  Being a family of 5 limited our options, in our price range, but this worked well. It was a basic hotel room with a trundle bed. We were rarely in the room, so it was good.

4. We made the rookie mistake and tried to do EVERYTHING in each park…. which left for long days and late nights.   This made it hard to get up super early, but we did our best.  It also left us exhausted on top of already being exhausted from getting ready to go to DW! But, it was fun!

5. We got to Magic Kingdom before it opened one day and that was the BEST thing we did.  We zoomed through rides and shows for the first few hours.

6. Bradley was allergic to Disney….not even kidding.  He broke out in hives the first 2 days and itchy, welps the remaining days.  He tested for egg and wheat allergies as a baby, but has done fabulous the last year.  Not sure what he was reacting to, but he was in a Benadryl haze the entire time.

7. We rented a double stroller from here.  We did this for several reasons- they were cheaper, they were more comfortable, they delivered it to our hotel and with our kids still relatively young, we knew that a double would come in handy.  And, it did!

8. We took advantage of the Fast Pass option.  I honestly don’t know why in the world you would wait for 20 minutes to an hour for a ride when you can fast pass it, come back at your designated time and basically hop right on.  With small kids, this was a lifesaver.

9. We did some research.  We talked to a lot of people who had gone before us to DW and got a wealth of info. We also checked out these websites: allears.net; Disney World; a guide to DW and discussion boards.

10. We waited til the kids were tall enough to ride most rides and old enough to remember going.  We wanted them to be able to handle long days, waiting and not have multiple, complete and total meltdowns.  So we waited. And , I am so thankful. They had fun, they were excited, they caught the magic of DW and they will have lasting memories.  At least the girls will for sure!Disne