So, this blog post is a little long in coming. All last week, as we traveled all over the Disney resort, I kept thinking about all the helpful blog posts that I would write. After all, I no longer had a trip to prepare for, obsess over, create itinerairies for, etc. However, I kind of forgot how ridiculously busy this life of a mom/substitute teacher can be. And I only subbed once this week! Between MOPs, PTO and PTA drama, 3rd grade Family Fun Night, a bedroom filled with bees, Daisy preparation, Bible Study for the women's meeting, and just our normal two nights of dance and one night of soccer-this is the soonest that I could get to it.
But enough about that. This is a fun blog! A blog about truly my favorite place on earth after Rix Mills-Disney World! (I am well aware that there are people who will judge me for that statement. There are people who love Disney and people who hate it and people in the middle-I'm sorry, but I'm on the love, love, love, if I were rich I would go every year side.)
I have always loved Disney World. I first went when I was 3. My memories consist of Cinderella castle, getting a Donald Duck hat (not Mouse Ears like everyone else because that is how my parents roll), and falling through an inner tube and my dad having to gallantly jump into the pool to rescue me. That's about it.
I went again when I was 5 and kind of remember the same hazy memories. To be completely honest, I remember a lot more about the pool at our hotel on that trip.
The point is, I don't have a lot of memories from my early Disney trips. And my parents wisely remembered that, and we all decided several years ago, that if they were paying, we would go when the oldest two girls were about 8. I was 9 on my first Disney trip that I really remember, and then I went again at 11, 13, 15, and 18.
The girls were definately the best ages to be at the parks. They are 8 and 5. Betsy was old enough (and tall enough) to ride everything she wanted to, which was great for me, because no one else in my entire family will ride rollercoasters. Felicity was still scared enough of big rides to be perfectly fine with the fact that she was too short to ride a lot of them. And Nick, who is a wuss when it comes to heights of any kind, was content to stay with her while Betsy and I had tons of fun.
Also, they are still young enough that Disney is magical. Because it just is. Yes, they both get that they are people in costumes. But it doesn't matter to them, any more than it mattered to Nick, who was elated on our 2nd day there to meet Eeyore in person!
So anyway, all of that is to say, if you are feeling guilty because you haven't been to Disney and your kids are getting older, don't fret about it. It is a wonderful vacation no matter how old you are.
Now, this particular blog post is about planning a Disney vacation. I'm going to do a whole series of them, from the best places to eat, to the best intineraries to follow, to how to pick the best hotel. Why? Because I want to. And if someone, even one person, gets something out of it-cool.
So, planning a Disney vacation can be overwhelming if you are a Type A, schedule everything kind of gal. Which I happen to be. It helped immensely that I had been there before and knew my way around 3 of the parks. This became glaringly obvious when we got to Animal Kingdom, which I had never been to, and I had to shift around a lot of my plans and we had to do a lot of running.
My first suggestion, as always, is to arm yourself with a book. The two that I found most helpful were:
1) Birnbaum Guides 2013 Walt Disney World-this is the official guidebook. The layout of this book is great. It has big maps, details about every ride and attraction grouped together by "land," and it's just pretty. That said, it is the "official" book for a reason. It doesn't say anything negative about anything Disney ever. Which is why you also need...
2) The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2013 by Bob Sehlinger and Len Testa-this book is the bomb. It anticipates every question an anal retentive planner could have, like, how long does every single attraction last? How exactly does one trade pins? Is it worth my time to try to squeeze in miniture golf/Disney Quest/a campfire sing along with Chip and Dale? It also has lots of maps, which Nick and I needed and relyed on, because our hotel (being a "value" hotel) was on the outskirts of nearly everything and we tended to get lost. I cannot say enough good things about this book.
Now then, you also want to check out some websites. First, of course, you have to use Disney's own website because they make you. Once you have made your reservations, you have to use their website to make your dining reservations, use Fastpass+, and to customize your MagicBands. I have basically nothing good to say about Disney's website. It is pretty to look at, but fairly useless. We had a terrible time getting all of our reservations to show up, to link our reservations to my mom and dad, and my sister's family, and just basically anytime at all that we had to use it. Which was all the time. The website is the only thing that I think was truly terrible about my planning experience. I have told them so on several questionaires, and we have had to call multiple times to straighten things out, so perhaps they will see the error of their ways. In the meantime, just know that everything else about your trip will seem easy compared to using that website.
However, there are some very good and useful websites. Easywdw.com is easily my favorite. It is snidely funny in it's observations, but this man must go to Disney World every day of his life. He has a crowd calendar (that I ignored, but that is another post), updates about merchandise, updates about new restaurants, ride referbishments, etc. I highly recommend it.
DisneyTouristBlog.com is another good blog that is in a similar vein. Lots of tips, lots of pictures, lots of how to best maximize line times (this took up huge amounts of my planning time).
Okay, so then, I made my Disney Intinerary Binder! It sends shivers down my spine. I took a three ring binder, found some super cute Mickey stickers at Hobby Lobby to dress it up, and filled it with our itinerary for each day, a list of the restaurants on the Disney Dining Plan, a schedule of events for the the halloween party, a schedule of times for shows at each park, a list of food available at the Food and Wine Festival, and where all you can get different pennies pressed with different characters (for my family this is a big part of every vacation.)
It was a necessary part of every day. Fastpass alone will be a whole other blog post, but with this new Fastpass+ system, you have to know what time you made your fastpass for. Normal people own iPhones and can use the app. I, however, can not afford such luxuries. So the binder was a needed and necessary part of every day.
Now, the other very fun part of planning was creating a countdown calendar for Betsy and Felicity. I found a cute one on Pinterest that was easy to make. You just use contruction paper to make a Mickey Mouse (black paper with ears, red with chalk buttons, yellow and then white). On the white paper I wrote a Disney activity to do. I'm not the craftiest person, so a lot of them were Disney coloring sheets and word finds that I googled online. We did make Tigger sticks (marshmellows covered in orange icing with black icing stripes-the girls like making them better than eating them). And we had Mickey Mouse pancakes the night before we left (Nick just winged it and they looked really cute). These are all on my facebook page (a smart person would figure out how to put pictures on here, but they are there, so hey).
Counting down was the most fun thing. The two very best were the strips that said "Get a Disney Gift!" For the first gift, I bought them a Birnbaum's Guide to Disney for Kids. It is a shorter version of the adult book, with places to write your favorites rides and what you want to do. They loved this, and it helped them to know what all would await us when we got there.
The second gift was a landyard of pins for trading. If you are at all interested in pin trading, this is the way to do it. (I got this idea from a pin that led me to a blog, but my Disney Pinterest board hasn't been working, so I don't know where.) First, do not buy any starter set of pins from Disney! They are like $30 for 4 pins on a lanyard. Way overpriced. Go to ebay, and they sell lots of 25, 50, 100-whatever you want. I bought 50 pins for $22.50-so each girl got 25 pins. It does not in the least matter what kind of pins end up coming to your door. Disney cast members will trade you good pins for junky ones-trust me. Then Nick found very nice Mickey Mouse lanyards, with a change purse attached, for $7 a piece on Amazon. They were perfect. The girls were excited with this gift, because it was a gift and Mickey and all, but none of us, including me, knew that they would make for one of the best memories of our vacation.
And I'll go into all of that in another blog. This one has gotten a touch out of hand. But I want to say, this vacation was the best vacation I've ever had. Perfect weather, few lines, a nice hotel-we could not have asked for more. My parents have gifted me with so many things in my life. But the best gifts, that I hope they know how grateful I am for, are the gifts that they give me to give my children. And that is exactly how they do it. My parents allow me always to be the one giving, they are content to stand to the side and watch, and that makes them extraordinary. This gift, of watching my kids and my husband experience such a magical trip, was one I will treasure for all of my life.
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