The most magical place on Earth! But also the most stressful trip to plan. If you’ve been following along, you know Rob and I took the kids to Disney World for the first time and had a blast! We loved every moment of the parks, fireworks, rides, food and of course the gift shops 😉 However, my favorite part was seeing RG and Briella light up! I’m sure you know this by now but we literally spent months prepping and planning for this trip! Disney is serious, Disney is EXPENSIVE, so the pressure was on to get it right. And dare I say…. it was pretty perfect! There are somethings I would 100% do different, and plan to the next time we go to Disney World. Hopefully those of you planning a trip to Disney can learn from some of my mistakes and take these tips into consideration.
1. Make sure the roof of your stroller is down once you park it to get on a ride. It’s almost a guarantee that it will rain at least once during your vacation and if it doesn’t rain its going to be scorching HOT! (depending on when you go….Dec & Jan trips should be fine lol) We went OCt. 11-15 and it felt like the dead of summer! Once you wait in line 30-40 minutes, then actually get on the ride and get back to your stroller the seat could be soaking wet or burning hot for your little ones (both happened to us).- Know your resort bus times. I swear it never failed that every single day we were rushing to catch the bus to one of the parks. Try to plan the night before (at least) on when you plan to leave for the parks. They can be up to 20 minutes apart and the last thing you want to do is have super hype and excited kids sitting (in our case running) around the bus area for 20 minutes lol
- Map out where you want to go first, second, etc. at each park. We made this mistake of just showing up at the parks and walking around until we found something we wanted to ride. Look at the park maps a week or so before your trip and plan out which rides/ attractions are most important and which ones might be very crowded (hit those first & try to get there early) BONUS: map out a few grab and go spots for lunch options.
- Epcot. Let’s talk about Miss Epcot. The Epcot fireworks are epic however, they do not start until 9:45 which if you have littles ones…. you get it. We made the mistake of going to animal kingdom during the day, headed to Epcot around 4 for dinner and walking around until 8:00 so that we could find a good view of the fireworks (Japan has the best views!) and then waiting until 9:45 for a 15-20 min firework show. The kids loved it, it was totally worth it but for the love of God we were exhausted. Try not to overbook yourself the day you go to Epcot because you’re going to be out soo late. Instead sleep in a little, go to the pool, rest a little in the morning and do Epcot later in the day maybe for a late lunch?
- Room service is every other day. Because of Covid, room service isn’t daily and they only make the bed, take out the trash and clean the bathroom. I would plan this schedule around your park schedule and try to have the room service come when you go to Epcot. That way when you come back to the resort at 11:30pm….yes, 11:30pm! Your room is clean so you’ll feel more comfortable.
- 1 Park per day. This ties along with tip #4. The day we did Animal Kingdom & Epcot was the hardest day. When the kids are that little you don’t really need park hopper because they just can’t hang yet! the perfect scenario is: DAY 1 travel to Disney early, go to the pool at your hotel and dinner at Disney springs later that evening, DAY 2 Magic Kingdom all day, dinner reservations at the park, fireworks at night (8pm), DAY 3 Animal Kingdom all day, dinner reservations at your hotel, DAY 4 sleep in, chill, pool then lunch in Epcot, dinner there too and fireworks at 9:45, DAY 5 Hollywood Studios all day come back early and order take out, go to bed early, DAY 6 travel home.
- Bring your own water and snacks. I was told you weren’t allowed to bring outside food and water but we accidentally did on day 3 and the security didn’t even question it! This would have save so much time and money. We brought our own water bottles but poured bottled water into them to keep the water cold. You have to stay hydrated! It’s sooo HOT and the last thing you want to do is be slowed down because you’re dehydrated.
- Eat your Veggies! This ties into that last tip but if you indulge too much on the Disney pizza, ice cream, fries and just junk you aren’t going to be able to keep up. You will not fully enjoy the trip if you’re bloated and backed up. So eat at least one healthy meal a day. Your body will thank you (we walked 10,000-16,000 steps per day in the scorching heat…. you need food that will fuel you)
- Opt for fast passes instead of memory maker and park hopper. This is probably number 1 for us. We paid extra for both and it wasn’t worth it! It’s so much better to get fast passes because Disney is CROWDED! Everyone is making up for lost times and the families are OUTSIDE lol you literally need the fast passes. The popular rides have wait times of 100-120 minutes. Like I said Disney is Serious! Plus we didn’t even use magic maker because again there are so many people that the photographers that used to hunt you down as soon as you enter the park have long lines of at least 20 people.
- Pigtails and easy hairstyles. If you can create the mini ears with your little ones hair, just do that instead of fooling around with the ears/ hats. Briella wanted nothing to do with those ears and y’all know I tried. Instead, do pony puffs and get Disney themed pigtail bows to put in each one. Okay now let’s talk about wigs/ weaves. This is not the time for long straight hair, or long perfectly curled hair… It’s Florida so it’s either 100 degrees, humid or raining. No curl is going to last and it will frizz up. Try a short bob or braids for Disney.
- Try to get on as many slow water rides as you can! RG and Briella loved these! They were hypnotized by them all. A few favs were: Peter Pan, It’s a Small World, Mexico in Epcot (I forget the name), and Pandora
- Disney Shows! They also loved the live action shows and 3D attractions (Briella refused the glasses but she could still see what was going on)
- Park Themed outfits are EVERYTHING! There’s no such thing as too much at Disney. You can get the brightest shirt with the ears or dress up as characters, anything goes. Have fun with this! I recommend looking up what rides are at the park and dress up as that particular theme (Hollywood studios= Star Wars, so you all could wear those specific character shirts instead of just having mickey shirts)
- Get a popcorn bucket and keep it throughout your entire trip. We did this day 1 and it really helped with fussy babies.
- Handle toddler tantrums with distractions. Disney is the home of distractions. Whenever Briella would cry or just a little fussy we would distract her with snacks lol no shame because it worked every time. We completely skipped naps and if they slept in the stroller, they slept, if they didn’t, they didn’t. We did not make a big deal about this. Normally they would fall asleep on the bus ride back to the resort and sleep a good 11 hours straight through the night.
- If you’re staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, you do not need a savannah view. We got to enjoy this maybe twice but we weren’t at the resort much so it didn’t make a difference. Save your money and put that towards the fast passes!
- You only need 2 plane activities plus a tablet. I bought so many toys for the plane ride that the kids never even touched (100% wrapping those up for Christmas gifts lol) they only liked the magic marker coloring books, wiki stix and RG’s iPad!
- Random Tip: Do not have your cleaning ladies back home clean while you’re on vacation. Someone told me it was the best to come home to a clean house after a week at Disney but for us, it was nice when we first walked through the door but as soon as we started unpacking our stuff got EVERYWHERE so it didn’t stay clean very long. Instead have them come 3-4 days after your return. That way you’re all unpacked and then the home gets a refresh and you can get back to normal.
*BONUS: Here are some places we enjoyed eating- City Works (Disney Springs), Tokyo Dinning (Epcot), PizzeRizzo (Hollywood Studios) Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe (Magic Kingdom… I got the greek salad with chicken) and for drinks- Thirsty River Bar (Animal Kingdom)
I hope these tips help all of you planning a Disney Trip in the future! Please let me know if you have any questions about our trip/Disney or anything else 🙂 Below are some products and must-haves we loved during our trip! Also, If you want to check out even more stuff I purchased for Disney check out my haul here.
