Part Two of my Disney World recap from our 12/10 trip and some travel tips. Click here for part one.
M – Money. You’ll spend a lot of it. We did a few things to curbs costs a bit, but no trip to Disney will ever be considered cheap.
Little things we did to save some money:
- Stayed off property at a condo with a kitchen. We ate breakfast at the condo and ate a couple of dinners there too.
- Carried our own water bottles to avoid buying water at the parks
- Brought some snacks into the park(granola bars, raisins, apples) for my bottomless pit children.
- Purchased Disney souvenirs at the Disney Outlet and other stores at home. I got good deals on Disney shirts for the kids, as well as some little trinkets for the plane ride.
- Told the kids they could buy one thing on the last day and that it had to be under $15. That alleviated a lot of the ‘I want that toy’ requests during the 4 days. I will say the Disney toys are priced much lower than I expected. They are pretty much priced what you’d pay for them at Target, which was a nice surprise.
- Brought our own rain gear (which I’ll get to later).
N – Nemo and Friends.
Epcot has a section called The Sea with Nemo and Friends. The Nemo Aquarium ride was a little childish (which means my kids enjoyed, but I’d skip if traveling sans kids), but we LOVED the Turtle Talk with Crush show that was after the ride. The surfer-dude turtle from Finding Nemo (think Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High) is on the screen and interacts with the audience. It was really funny for both the kids and the adults. My little guy is still walking around saying ‘du-uuu-uuu-de.’
O- Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights
Love these guys!
We almost skipped Hollywood Studios in favor of two full days at Magic Kingdom. After talking to some friends (thanks Jennifer!) and hearing how much their kids liked Hollywood Studios, we shuffled the itinerary and allotted a day for Hollywood Studios. I am SO glad we did. I think this was probably our best day. All the parks are great in their own way, but if I was forced to choose a favorite day from our trip, I think it would be the day in Hollywood Studios.
We loved Star Tours (based on Star Wars), Toy Story Mania, the Lights, Motors, Action stunt show and, as I mentioned in the first recap, the chance to meet the characters from The Incredibles. The day was capped off with a stroll through the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights on one of the main streets in the back of the park. When I say stroll, I mean more of a stand-still, as it was packed. Still, it was amazing. I had seen all the lights strung during the day (you can’t miss them) and thought it might be a bit tacky. Somehow, when night came, the millions (and millions) of lights look amazing. They are sychronized to the Christmas music and it is mesmerizing to stand amongst the lights (and crowds) and watch them dance to the music. They also have ‘snow’ falling, which thrilled my little girl. She chased snowflakes as I stood and gazed at the lights. Not to overuse the word, but it was truly magical.
P- People EVERYWHERE. It made for some entertaining people watching, but I got quite tired of hearing rude people make angry sighs, of people not following the flow of traffic in the walkways and of people who talked on cell phones during shows and performances.
Q - (Evil) Queen on Snow White’s Scary Adventure. My kids really liked this ride, even though the evil queen shows up in every scene. We actually rode it twice.
R-Rain Gear.
Yes they were cold and wet, but not too cold and wet to want a final Mouse ice cream pop.
I sincerely hoped that by going to the effort to buy rain gear in Texas and bring it with us to Florida, I would ensure that it did not rain. We made it to the last of our fourth day with no rain, but boy did we get rained on that last night. We had bought extra tickets to attend Mickey’s Very Special Christmas party (more on that below) and I wanted to get at least some of our money’s worth, so I suited the kids and adults up in panchos, passed out umbrellas and we headed to the parks. The Disney stores in the park sell opaque panchos (you can see some behind the kids in the above picture), so I LOVED having my kids in bright yellow. It made it very easy to spot them and I realized how easy it would be to lose your kids in the sea of opaque panchos after a big parade or show. I also highly recommend bringing umbrellas. Panchos keep your clothes dry, but it’s quite nice to keep the rain off your person all together with an umbrella.
If you don’t buy ponchos before hitting Disney World, you can buy adult and kid sized ponchos in the many, many Disney souvenir shops in Orlando. My mother-in-law stopped in one the first night and picked up a couple.
S- Strollers
tell me the truth, does this stroller make my butt look big?
Ah – to stroller or not to stroller? You can see by the picture that we chose to stroller. Mostly. I knew that we were going to push the kids to stay at the parks all day (no nap breaks), so we opted to go with a stroller in hopes of conserving the kid’s energy. It worked well in Epcot and Animal Kingdom, as those are physically huge parks. In Magic Kingdom we ended up ditching the stroller at the front part of some of the different sections for a few hours, as it was easier to navigate the smaller parts on foot. In Hollywood studio we went stroller-less nearly all day.
We used the Disney park strollers, but I’ve heard really good things about renting from Orlando Stroller Rentals. For about the same price you get actual double jogging strollers that have much more storage and look much more comfortable. The Disney strollers offer hardly any storage, which would have been nice with the jackets and rain gear.
T – Tom Sawyer Island (aka letting the kids run wild)
Oops, did I accidentally step on my brother’s head? It’s his fault, his head was where my food was going.
One of our favorite parts of Magic Kingdom was Tom Sawyer’s Island. It’s been there forever and my kids have no idea who Tom Sawyer is, but they loved it. It’s actually quite pretty and relaxing with all the trees, shade and green. The kids can run around, climb and just be kids. There was a really cool underground tunnel/cave portion that the kids thought was a little spooky, but asked to do it again after we finished. I look forward to them seeing the island in a few years after they’ve read Tom Sawyer and pick up on all the references on the island.
U – Unofficial Guide to Disney World. I highly recommend this book. It has what seems like 20000 pages, but it is wonderfully informative and helpful. As I mentioned in the first post, we used the Lines App that is run by Touring Plans.com, which is the website of the book The Unofficial Guide to Disney World. They have some great touring plans that can save you a lot of time waiting in lines.
V – Mickey’s Very Special Christmas Party. Disney offers an extra-ticket-required Christmas Party every few nights in December and part of November. One of the nights fell on our last night at Disney and I opted to buy tickets for the party in lieu of a final character dinner. Had it not rained and been cold and wet, it probably would have been a really fun final night. Unfortunately for us, the weather and temperature made it rather anti-climactic. We waited an hour for the parade, as the lines started forming that early and I wanted the kids to be able to see it. An hour in the cold rain = not fun. Trying to hold your spot while people show up 20 minutes before the parade and edge in = not fun. Me and my cold self with a big stroller (the stroller was wonderful for having a place for the kids to sit in the rain) did not budge for the late arrivers. The parade was impressive, but maybe not worth the cold, wet wait. The castle light show was amazing, probably my favorite thing of the night. My daughter doesn’t do fireworks, so we spent the firework show in the very empty gift shop on main street. I’m sure it was impressive. I had hoped to stay late that night and see some more characters, but my kids were tired, wet and cold and we left after the final light show.
W- Walking. You do a lot of it, especially at Epcot and Animal Kingdom. Wear good shoes. Especially if you’ll be carrying around an extra 40 lbs of snuggly stocking cap wearing cuteness.
Also, W= Wine. You can buy some in the outdoor theater while you’re waiting for Fantasmic to start in Hollywood Studios and it is wonderful for taking the edge of a day of standing in line and dodging strollers.
The kids shared some popcorn, the husband had a beer and I had a nice cold Chardonnay. Well done Disney.
X- eXtra Magic Hours. We didn’t stay on property, so we couldn’t take advantage of the Extra Magic Hours, which is when Disney opens one park early each day for Disney Resort guests. We therefore followed the advice of the Unofficial Guide and avoided the park that had Extra Magic Hours that day.
Y – Yeti
See that ‘mountain’ in the background? It’s Disney’s version of Everest and it houses the insanely exciting Expedition Everest roller coaster. The husband and I rode it twice while my in-laws watched the kids. You go backwards in the dark for a bit while being chased by a yeti, aka the Abominable Snow Man.
Z – Zurg.
As in Emperor Zurg. As in Toy Story and Buzz Lightyear’s Foe. In the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin at Magic Kingdom you shoot the Z’s for points. It’s crazy fun.
Top Five Rides:
- Toy Story Mania (Hollywood Studios)
- Soaring (Epcot)
- Star Tours (Hollywood Studios)
- Expedition Everest (Animal Kingdom)
- Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Shoot Out (Magic Kingdom)
Top Five Shows
- Turtle Talk with Crush (Epcot)
- Fantasmic (Hollywood Studios)
- Beauty and Beast (Hollywood Studios)
- Lights Motors Action (Hollywood Studios)
- Wishes/Castle Lighting (Magic Kingdom)
(that would be Cinderella’s castle at Walt Disney World)
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