Hellllooooo friends and family!!!!

I AM so excited to finally be sitting here writing and recapping what I am literally calling our BEST TRIP EVER! A few weeks ago we went to Walt Disney World for a week and it was over the top amazing, unbelievable, magical- all of the things and I could literally talk about it all day, everyday. Seriously a pinch me type of trip.

I’ve gotten a tons of questions online about what we did, what parks we went too, the whole 9 yards- and I honestly want to answer everyone and give everyone all the details because I want everyone to experience this magical place in the way that we got too!

Instead of sending a novel to everyone, I’m going to break it down into multiple posts here in hopes of being as detailed as possible for anyone planning their own vacation to the happiest place on earth!

To start, I want to just list out our general itinerary for the trip and then will answer some frequently asked questions as I go. In follow-up posts, I will break down and go over details of each theme park we went to as well! So buckle up and hang in there with me! If there’s something I don’t answer that you have a question about, feel free to send me a message!

Let’s begin!

So this trip came about about 6ish months ago, we usually go on a big family vacation sometime in October (last year we did a 10 day road trip to Zion), and this year we were playing with the idea of flying somewhere. We’ve yet to take our oldest on an airplane and thought that despite my hesitancy, now was a good time to rip the band-aid off and just do it. Flying isn’t my favorite thing in the world ( I avoid it if I can), but throw two little ones in the mix, and well, yeah, I was feeling very hesitant about the whole situation. My husband is definitely the one that has no fear and very much has that just do it mentality. Bless that man. So we landed on wanting to fly somewhere for sure, and obviously my first instinct was obviously DISNEY WORLD HERE WE COME!

It was that easy to be honest. Obviously, if you know us (and hi if you’re new here!! I’ve met a few international people on IG who came across my profile because of Disney World 🙂 ) , we’re Disneyland annual passholders and frequent Disneyland pretty often, I knew we would make it to Disney World eventually and thinking about it, it just became obvious that now was the perfect time. Avery is in such a fun stage where everything is honestly so fun and so magical, she’s still very much into princesses (more than ever before) and right now is obsessed with the idea of living in a castle one day. I thought this was the perfect moment to capture with some Disney magic like never before. (Side note: my husband and I actually lived in Florida for a year almost 10 years ago, WOW, and we did visit Disney World back then, but man have things changed!)

Where We Stayed

We knew off the bat that we were going to stay on Disney property, it’s just very convenient because everything is connected and there is a means of transportation to get anywhere you want to go- boat, bus, tram, monorail, skyliner, etc. Traveling with two littles requiring car seats and a stroller, being further from all the action was just not even a thought. And honestly, part of the whole experience, for me at least, was being able to say on property at one of their famed resorts. I’m going to do a break down review of the hotel in a separate post, but we chose to stay at the Polynesian Village Resort.

Disney has a tier system when it comes to their hotels on property and each tier has a different price point and different key points- value, moderate, and deluxe. If you’re contemplating where to stay, I’d definitely do some research and see what resort fits what you’re looking for. For us, a deluxe resort was the only way to go, of course that means we shelled out more money but it was beyond worth it, review on hotel to come later! We were between two hotels, the Polynesian and the Animal Kingdom Lodge. What sold us on the Polynesian was the Moana styled theming that we just thought was so cool and different than anywhere we’d probably ever stay. Avery loves Moana and seeing the little hints of characters and theming was so fun for her- she calls the hotel “Moana’s house.” When we make it back, we’ll stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge!

Transportation

We did end up renting a car after learning that the Walt Disney World Resorts did not have their own shuttle bus from the airport to the different hotels. Our flight got in around 11 pm so we figured with the kids and all the luggage, renting our own car was the least stressful way to go. We rented a car with two car seats for the kids, packed up our stuff and went on our way!

Now, if you’re staying off property I would definitely recommend renting a car or being flexible with Uber or ride sharing. If you are staying on property, it’s pretty easy to get anywhere you want to go via their own internal transportation- buses, trams, monorail, etc. The only thing I would look up is Disney Springs and where it is in relation to where you’re staying. Disney Springs is a downtown area of restaurants and shopping, it stays open later than most places on Disney property so if you have a late park day and want to grab food or dessert afterward, Disney Springs is where you’ll likely be headed! Us having a car came in pretty handy because we found ourselves here almost every night for dinner or dessert! The hotels do have buses that will drive you from your hotel to Disney Springs, but still something to think about, with kids, the name of the game is convenience and efficiency, so doing things without having to watch a bus arrival schedule was ideal for us and sold us even further on wanting to rent our own car.

Length of Trip // Daily Itinerary

Saturday, October 25th- Thursday October 30th.

Our flight left Orange County, CA at 11:30 am on Saturday, 10/25 and we arrived at the airport in Orlando, FL at 10:35 pm local time (Florida is 3 hours ahead of California, so the time change is also something to think about when planning your trip).

Because we got in so late, it was around 1 am local time by the time we got to our hotel, I knew that our first “day” was not going to be a rush to the theme parks type of day and that’s probably my biggest tip for anyone going! I’d leave a gap day between when you arrive and when you hit the parks! Unless you’re doing a red eye or get in early and have an entire day to just relax before you brave the parks, which would really serve the same purpose.

So for our first day, we stayed at the hotel, enjoyed the pool and the resort itself and then went to Disney Springs for dinner and dessert. It was really nice to have a day where all we did was hang out at the hotel and not feel rushed to be anywhere. Because these are top tier resorts, there’s always plenty of action going on even if you opt not to go to a park at all.

We did three parks total, Walt Disney World has four theme parks and two water parks that are opened seasonally. The water parks were not open at the time of our trip and to be honest, water parks gross me out so I don’t think we would have even considered the water parks anyway.

For Day 2, which was our first park day, we did EPCOT, for Day 3 of the trip, we went to Magic Kingdom, and for Day 4 of the trip, we did Animal Kingdom- breakdown of each separate park coming next, so hang with me!

We did not visit Hollywood Studios, a few of you asked me why we did not choose to go and here’s why- I am insane and did a lot, and I mean A LOT of research into every park. We’re a family of four, traveling with a one year old and a four year old, for us the bottom line was experiencing the trip as a family, which meant the priority was getting on rides and seeing shows together. I went through all the rides at each theme park and looked at height limits, if my daughter couldn’t go on at least 80% of the rides in the park, we weren’t going. For Hollywood Studios specifically, majority of the rides do have a height restriction that my daughter did not meet. So for that reason, I just didn’t think it was worth the trip to visit that park- also, not to rub it in to any of you who have not been to California Adventures, but a lot of the rides at Hollywood Studios are the duplicates of ours, so for that reason as well, I wasn’t bummed to be skipping it. Another thing to think about if you’re traveling with littles, keep in mind that certain things do have height restrictions that may prevent kids and therefore at least one adult, from riding.

For the other three parks, I found that majority of rides were compatible for the four of us to ride and then a handful in each park we did a rider swap and my husband took my daughter and then I went on after or vice versa. There were also about 1 or 2 where my daughter was not tall enough so we either skipped it altogether or we did a rider swap there where one of us stayed behind with the kids while the other went on the ride. But we actually only did that once for one ride in Animal Kingdom, other than that- we were always at least taking my daughter on the ride.

If you look online, Disney World has all their rides listed and you can see if they have height restrictions and exactly what those restrictions are. It’s super helpful if you’re a type A planner like I am!

Another cool little thing to think about- if you stay on property, depending on your hotel, you may be eligible for an extra power hour, where you can get in to the theme park an hour before the park is open to the public. Staying at the Polynesian gave us that extra perk so we ended up getting into the parks for that extra hour before the park was technically open.

After our 4th and last day at the parks, we got back to our hotel around 8pm to do laundry and watch the firework show from the beach of the resort. Always check in with the front desk to ask what’s going on at your hotel during your stay! This is how we found out that there was a 9 pm viewing on the beach of our hotel where they played the audio from the fireworks show at Magic Kingdom for resort guests to enjoy while watching the fireworks, it was AMAZING!

Our 5th day was a bonus day, our flight out of Orlando wasn’t until 6 pm, so we spent another day at the hotel, getting brunch and hanging at the pool until it was time for us to drive to the airport.

We landed back in Orange County, CA at 11 pm (local time) on Thursday, October 30th.

Rentals

In addition to renting a car, we also rented a double stroller through ScooterBug! They’re the only vendor that is allowed to drop off/pick up strollers directly to your hotel within Disney World. This was HUGE and made things so easy for us! Try to do this in advance though because you never know about inventory. I called ScooterBug about 2 weeks prior to our trip to book the stroller and have it reserved. When you call, they’ll ask where you’re staying and what time you’d like it dropped off and then when you’d like them to pick it up.

The company will come directly to your hotel and drop the stroller off with a name tag to the valet in the front and/or in the lobby. I had ours delivered at 8 am on Sunday (our first day there) and then I dropped it back off with the front desk at 3 pm on Thursday before we left. It was so easy and it was so nice not having to travel with a stroller!

Biggest Tips

+know your park hours : definitely look up your park dates and know when the parks open and close. Animal Kingdom usually closes around 6pm, for us, that meant dinner was at Disney Springs rather than in the park. Check the hours so you know what your day is going to look like! Also check if you get any early entry hotel perks 🙂

+ if you have kiddos, rent the stroller : it was so nice not traveling through the airport with a big stroller or car seat. We strapped my son on our chest with the baby carrier and that was it. We knew we were renting a car with a car seat and then knew we’d have the stroller once we arrived. ALSO! If you have a bigger kid, really consider the stroller! To be honest, my daughter (almost 5 years old), has not sat in a stroller since she was probably 2.5 years old. But I knew with the length of days and the size of these parks (they’re enormous), that she would need somewhere to sit and rest while we were on the move. Even if your kid has not sat in a stroller in YEARS, they might want to while you’re here!

+ travel with empty water canteens : I packed each of us one in our checked luggage and they were very handy when it came to park days! There are refillable water stations everywhere. This is even easier to do if you don’t have to fly to the destination.

+ pack umbrellas and ponchos : I’ll do a round up post of all the things we bought specifically for this trip but I would say buy some plastic ponchos to have on hand just in case- it rains in Florida, and it rains HARD. Now it might only last 10 minutes, but for that 10 minutes, the rain here doesn’t mess around! More on our little rainstorm in the EPCOT post, but the ponchos came in handy! That year we spent living in Florida gave us some experience LOL.

+ once you know where you’re staying, check online for the easiest route to get to certain parks- or ask someone at the front desk of your hotel lobby. More on this in each park day post, but for example- from our hotel to EPCOT, the fastest route was to walk to the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC) (a 10 min walk) and catch the EPCOT monorail there to go directly to EPCOT, this is what we did however, the other route would have been to take the monorail that actually went through out hotel (a 2 min walk to the second floor) and then take it to EPCOT, this route, however required multiple stops at various other hotels and theme parks prior to circling back and reaching EPCOT. So we opted for the 10 min walk to the TTC and then direct transit to EPCOT. For Animal Kingdom from our resort, the only way to get there was via bus and then to Magic Kingdom the options were monorail or boat, and we took the boat! Everything is reachable, you just have to find out the best way for you!

Alright, let me know if I’ve missed anything, but coming up next in the queue is my EPCOT diary and compelte itinerary!