Thrailkills See Disney World

http://www.dropshots.com/tkillfamily

Several have asked about our favorites or my tips - I thought I would share a few! As a preface - we traveled with our 6 year old daughter and our 4 year old son; it was our first trip to Disney with the kids (and we planned as though we would not be returning for atleast two more years, possibly longer). My main goal was to do things that the kids would not want to do during a trip when they were older!

* Theme Parks – Our favorite theme park was the Magic Kingdom. Our kids could ride everything (with the exception of Xander and Space Mtn – he was ¼ inch too small!). Fantasyland was a favorite (think tea cups, peter pan, pooh, dumbo), but they loved frontierland (thunder mtn railroad, splash mtn). We did 2 ½ days of the MK.

Our second favorite was Hollywood Studios. We loved the new Toy Story Mania ride – very cool! Both kids could ride everything but the Aerosmith ride (you had to be 48 inches – ours are both 44/45). The shows were neat – we enjoyed Jedi Training school and the Ariel one the most. We met a lot of boy characters there (Incredibles, Cars characters, Monsters Inc, Toy Story). We did almost 2 days (from opening until about 3 or 4 both days). The kids turned out to be quite brave – the Tower of Terror was a fave!

Our third would probably be Epcot. I wouldn’t do the world showcase with the kids again. We did the passports and fun activities from country to country – but we could color at home! The kids liked the Innovations front (future world). They were tall enough to ride all the rides (loved the Mission: Space). We liked the Talking with Crush show after the Nemo ride. We spent one day in Epcot – we were exhausted from all the walking!

For us, the Animal Kingdom was our least favorite. It seems to be the hottest park temperature wise! Also, we have been to the zoo a lot and the kids just really didn’t get into the animals. They liked the Tree of Life (and the tough to be a bug show). Xander thought the Kilimajari safari ride was cool – but was not interested in all the animals. They liked the boneyard playground – but I was thinking we could slide at home.

We did not park hop. I don’t think we ever will. One park a day was plenty for us. I found that we knew we had the whole day – from opening to close to see everything. Our hotel/resort had a lot of cool activities for the kids and they would have enjoyed hanging out there (swimming, arcade, playgrounds). On the day we did the animal kingdom (and bagged it before lunch as two tired children whining about when we were going to do something other than walk around and look at animals), we napped and then spent the evening at Downtown Disney. Tommy and I took turns watching the kids play at the Lego store – and the other could get coffee and shop around.

* Character Meals – Our favorite character meal was the Happily Ever After Dinner at the Grand Floridian. Cinderella and Prince Charming arrive for their “happily ever after.” Lady Tremaine (the stepmother), and Anastasia and Drizella arrive as well. All characters come to your table – spend time with you, sign autographs and let you take their picture with your child. The food was great – carving station with prime rib, mashed potatoes, salad, etc. The kids could choose from kid fare (spaghetti – noodles and sauce separate thank you Disney) or the adult entrees.

We enjoyed breakfast with Cinderella at the castle (thank you Mommy for calling in 180 days in advance and waiting on hold all morning). However, you meet Cinderella in the lobby for an expensive photo op (included with your meal price) and never see her again. Disney does not promise which other characters will dine with you (we got Belle, Aurora, Jasmine and Snow White – and were quite surprised).

Those two are centered around having the Cinderella experience – if your little princess doesn’t care which princesses she mets – the breakfast at the Akershus Royal Banquet at Epcot was nice. The food was okay (scrambled eggs, bacon/sausage, hasbrown casserole served family style) – my kids mostly ate off the appetizer buffet (biscuits, fruit). Again Disney does not promise which princesses (we got Jasmine, Belle (only for the photo op at the intro – in her yellow gown!), Snow White, and Mulan, Aurora)

We had two meals with the fab 5 – Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Goofy. Chef Mickey’s breakfast at the Contemporary resort and Donald’s Safari Breakfast at the animal kingdom. Both meals were good – and the kids enjoyed the characters (and we never stood in the one hour lines to meet Mickey!).

We also did dinner with Pooh at the Crystal Palace. Tommy and I thought the food was so-so, and the characters moved around the room very slowly – we waited long after dinner was over to meet the rest of the team.

We mostly dined with characters – my kids aren’t great eaters (in terms of quantity) and the character meals tended to be buffets.

If you are mostly dining with characters to have the Disney experience (and are staying on site) I would recommend the dining plan. Otherwise, if you are like me, the prices on the bill will give you heart failure! You can see all menus and prices at allears.net. Disney does not include tips in the dining plan – one helpful thing we did was calculate meal totals and tips – and put tips in envelopes before leaving home.

We found that we used our snack credits (think big pretzel with cheese dip or frozen carbonated beverages!) – but had trouble using up our quick service meals. We often ate snacks in transit as a meal. I did most of our table service meals at breakfast – probably not the best use of money, but it allowed me total freedom with the rest of our day. We could nap or not, retire early or not – we weren’t tied to reservations.

We found most of the quick service meals to be similar (kids – chicken nuggets, chicken on cesear salad, pbj sandwich and cheese pizza). Most places had 1 kids choice – at most 3. I will say that Disney is onto the healthy eating kick – the kids meals came with 2 of the following choices: grapes, applesauce, carrot sticks (you could get fries but it was considered a substitution). Adult wise they were similar – a few more variations – but a lot of fries!

I kept all our Disney receipts/etc. in a coupon organizer – in one section I put our tickets, another our tip envelopes, another a list of how much spending money I had allotted (we charged our purchases and I subtracted them from our food/souvenir totals to keep track).

* All the guidebooks say to nap – even with older kids. Mikaela hasn’t napped in years and took long naps the two days that we did choose to nap. I found it hard to leave the parks mid day. It is an ordeal with two kids (and two strollers) to get out of the park, on a bus, back to the hotel, settle two children, four people nap in one room, and then get everyone up and back out to the park. For us, we did it on days that we knew we would be out late (Halloween party ended at midnight!).

Next time, I will do either the early up and out – we found it best to be at the park at least a ½ hour before they open (which involved leaving our hotel room an hour before they open) and call it a day late afternoon. Or, do a morning at the hotel, nap, and then head to the park late afternoon. For our age kids, it is too much to do full days back to back!

I would also plan one down day for every 3 park days next time. After 3 days, I could tell we were getting tired. We could have used a nothing day!

We did take strollers for both and I was grateful. With one stroller, they would have argued and whined over who got to ride. The crowds were still somewhat large at certain times and I was grateful to know where our children were. They also had easy seats for parades, and we could travel faster without having to accommodate for short legs! I also liked having separate strollers so we could “divide and conquer” – sending Tommy with one to get fastpasses and me taking another to get food. We did decide that next time we would like to have radios (we don’t carry cell phones) – so we could touch base. There is ample stroller parking everywhere and at times we could leave our strollers and come back for them later.

*Fastpass – I think fastpasses were the key to having a good time for us. We did not wait in lines more than 20 minutes. We mapped out what we would ride every day and what order we could get fast passes in. We got a fast pass immediately upon entering the park for the most popular ride (Animal Kingdom – Everest, Hollywood Studios – Toy Story Mania, MK – Space Mountain, and Epcot – Soarin). Then, we added fastpasses to our stash as soon as we could. We saved all our fastpasses until lunch time or late afternoon (the two busiest times at the park) – then we walked around getting on rides with little to no wait! Perhaps if your children are more patient than mine, you will have better luck waiting. We found that 20 minutes was our max time of waiting in line with two children – no amount of snacks, games, songs was going to make it get better after their time limit was up.

• Backpack – we carted a great backpack everywhere – filled with our camera, autograph books (for those spontaneous character moments), empty water bottles for the kids, snacks for everyone, sunscreen/bandaids, our master coupon organizer system. I never had to buy something just because someone was hungry/thirsty. We used granola bars/peanut butter crackers/fruit and the kids empty water bottles (plenty of water fountains everywhere) to keep them appeased until the meals we chose.

I read every guidebook our Borders and library had – and asked everyone I knew who had been for advice. Definitely my most researched vacation ever.

I found the research is helpful because the parks are so big – they are overwhelming as to where to start, what to do, etc. I let the kids watch the free planning video and look through the Disney Guidebook for Kids and pick their favorites before going. I put those at the top of our list with the thought that if all we did was 1 – 4 – then that was enough!

Favorite souvenirs
Hats from the hat store in the magic kingdom – the kids designed them themselves – put their own patches on them, and we had their names embroidered on them – very neat keepsakes
Mikaela – charm necklace – we bought it and one charm at our first stop – throughout our vacation we let her pick a new charm at each park – cute souvenir and kept her from asking “what can I get?”
Xander – Jedi training robe with Mickey ears and his own light saber…..yeah…..
At Epcot, we got Mikaela a fan in Japan with her name written on in in Japanese and Xander a Viking Helmet in Norway (great for our dress up box)