Look out Disney World the Dauzat family is headed your way in 2017!
Well, 4 of us anyway! I’m so excited to let y’all know that Dustin and I are taking Elise and Luke to Disney World sometime next year. I bet many of y’all are ok…what’s the big deal? Well, let me tell you a little story.
When Dustin and I were dating he started to plan a trip to Disney just the two of us. Dustin went when he was little and doesn’t remember much. I honestly don’t remember why we didn’t end up going. Maybe it was plane tickets issues or me just putting off the decision making.
When we had Elise, Dustin was like “We are definitely going.” “Ok, sounds good,” I said. Then surprise we found out we were expecting, so another trip was pushed back. And 19 months after that.. surprise TWINS! So, the last 5 years we’ve been either pregnant or having kids. Now, I feel like this is the best opportunity to go! Elise will be 5 in July and Luke will be 3 in February. I really wanted to take the twins, but honestly, think it will be mass chaos if we bring them…like our daily life.
We’ve also never taken the kids anywhere. No vacations in the last 3 years here as it’s pretty complicated to logistically bring 4 kids under 4 somewhere. Elise has been asking to go to Disney ever since she saw the castle on the Disney channel this past summer. The other night when we were in the car she asked, “Mom, I want to go to the castle.”
“I know Elise, but the castle is really far away and mommy and daddy need to save money so we can fly there.”
“Oh really, I will give you all my money in my piggy bank to help!”
Ok…she got me there!!
So, as you can see this is very exciting for our family. We definitely want to surprise the kids right before we leave. I am thinking about going around October or November of next year. I’ve searched and read a couple of Pinterest articles, but other than that I have no idea where to start and need tips from YOU!
I know there are a lot of families out there that have been and we need help with the following:
- Should I plan this myself or get travel agent – What did you do?
- I’m leaning on staying at a Disney hotel – any tips or suggestions about which one or something that the kids will enjoy?
- Dining plan or no dining plan?
- How long should we go? I don’t want to have so much scheduled that we have grouchy kids all day. I also read that some parks are not as kid friendly as the others too.
- Any MUST do attractions while we are there? Elise absolutely adores all princesses! Luke too since Elise makes him watch all the movies 🙂
P.S. We plan to fly there as well!
I would really appreciate any tips or advice y’all may have. Like many parents, we cannot wait to see their faces light up when we get there. This trip has been a long time coming and we are so excited to be able to start planning a trip with the oldest two kids! I will be writing additional posts on this as we start planning!
You won’t really need a travel agent, the disney websites make it easy enough to set everything up, but tips from friends and learning how best to use fast passes will be helpful.
We stayed at “The Art of Animation” Hotel when we were there. It’s considered one of their value hotels, but kids will LOVE it! Our room was Little Mermaid themed, there were 2 pools, and buses to all Disney Parks. 🙂 They also have buses to and from the airport, so if you’re not doing anything else in Orlando besides Disney, you won’t even need to rent a car! Adorable and affordable.
We didn’t do the dining plan, but I did make reservations for all of my dinners and a couple lunches ahead of time. I think we decided to opt out of dining plan because when I did the math, we would just be over-eating to get the value out of it.
We were only at disney for 4 days. We went to Magic Kingdom 2 days (first and last), 1 day at Epcot, and 1 day at Animal Kingdom. We never made it to Hollywood Studios because I desperately wanted to go back to Magic Kingdom. LOTS to do there, you’ll probably want at least 2 days in that park. We were there with friends and their kids, and the kids all loved Magic Kingdom the most, and probably Animal Kingdom 2nd. Epcot was ok for them, they just had more fun at the other parks.
My favorite things we did at Disney:
1. Eating at “Be Our Guest”. It was awesome! you eat inside the Beauty and the Beast Castle!
2. Riding the Little Mermaid ride & Pirates of the Carribean.
3. Watching the big parade come down Main Street in Magic Kingdom.
4. Seeing the Lion King Show in Animal Kingdom.
5. Meeting Princesses!