Heading back home after an absolutely awesome trip!

So, I grew up going to Disneyland. Often. My grandparents, great aunt and uncle, all their children, and their grandchildren work at Disneyland. I was a pass holder for years and years, literally until I moved out of CA, and could navigate Disneyland with my eyes closed. I’ve always liked Disney, kept up with their new content and enjoyed the whole thing. But, I was never OBSESSED as some are. Didn’t wear merch, have ears, cry over fireworks…. I think maybe because it was just a very normal aspect of my childhood that it never became over the top for me.

A few years back, my mother in law mentioned that she wanted to do a big trip in 2024, to disneyworld. I’d only been once, in 2006 for a choir trip and saw about none of WDW because of the trip requirements etc. I literally had a pretzel and went on pirates of the Caribbean. So, I decided to go head first into planning because I’d heard that WDW was a whole new ballgame. So for the last year, I’ve watched endless Vlogs, TikTok’s, YouTube videos, Pinterest planning charts. I familiarized myself with all the acronyms. I made checklists. Endless checklists. Coordinated the park outfits. Got everyone’s list of their most wanted food, rides, experiences etc. I really took the reins on planning this trip. I kinda felt a little insane about how much I was focused on the ins and outs of making this trip possible and magical for our whole family. It was my mother and father in law, brother in law and his GF, myself, my husband and our 4 children ages 9,7,6,3. My in laws had not been since the late 70s, and my husband and BIL had gone on a sports trip in 2002 for one day in magic kingdom. So this was pretty new for all of us.

Let me just say that we had SUCH a phenomenal experience this week. It truly was a 1000000/10. I honestly have zero genuine complaints and the only thing that bummed me out was that we accidentally walked right past the ice cream/brioche thing in France 😩. I genuinely believe that my obsessive planning and preparedness truly prepped us for the week. I handled 99% of the time spent in the parks. We all stayed at Art of Animation in Cars Suites. We were really happy with this choice. My kids are huge cars fans and they loved the theming. We loved the accessibility to transportation and the large pools. We also had some truly surprisingly delicious food in the cafeteria area. We used Genie + for the trip.

We started in AK, rope dropped FOP and Navi river and used rider swap for FOP. Booked safari and saw so many beautiful animals. We had rhinos soooooo close! It was amazing. Had some really great food, loved the cheeseburger pods and grilled corn. Our favorite part was the Lion King show. That was amazing!

Then we went to MK day 2. Rope dropped and hit everything in Fantasyland, popped around a bit then took a mid-day break. Grandparents kept the kids for the PM so we adults came back in the evening for food and haunted mansion/pirates. So much fun. We left about 10 minutes before fireworks so we skipped that whole mass exodus.

Day 3 we did Epcot and this park surprised me sooooooooo much. I absolutely loved it. We had SO much good food. Like…. Amazing food. Our favorites were: the butter and sugar crepe (France), the chicken satay (china), maple popcorn (Canada), scallops with green beans and honey Cauliflower (these were both flower festival special booths). I was able to get in the 1pm VQ for guardians which we were sooooooo excited about. My 6 year old absolutely loved every second of that ride, I thought my husband was going to barf lol. I was throughly impressed with Ratatoullie, what a fun creative ride. I was definitely unimpressed with Frozen…. Such a short ride for what it’s worth. We rode mostly everything except Mission Space (? I think that’s the name, someone at our hotel said it would make you sick, very spinny). The highlight for my kids was literally running into Asha (from Wish). She was lovely and so kind with my children.

Day 4 we had an off day and did dinner at Ohana which was lovely. My kids love stitch so it was a total hit for them. I loved how much time they spent at the table. Nothing felt rushed. We went to Disney springs but didn’t stay too long. There were lines at most of the popular spots for treats. We basically walked around a bit then went to the Lego store.

Our last day was MK again. We didn’t rope drop, but came in around 10am and man, the Disney gods were on our side. We got on everything by stacking genie and short standby lines. We got in the 1pm VQ for Tron and snacked a bit before going back to the hotel for a pool break. We came back when our group was being called for Tron. That ended up being one of the best rides of the trip. Truly creative and amazing. We capped it off with fireworks and they were truly beautiful.

I truly can’t say enough good about our trip. It went so smoothly and I genuinely feel like my planning paid off. My only “complaints” were: the merch kinda sucked. It was the same everywhere in every store. Also, I know Disney prices are wild but there’s zeroooooooooo reason those spirit jerseys are almost $80. And, I know plastic waste blah blah but a full to the brim slurpee/slush for a kid with zero lid is so annoying. Lots of spills 😞. And last, Epcot needs some kind of shade situation. It was 93 the day we were there and that was really hard. There’s nowhere outdoor to hide. There’s got to be some kind of creative solution.

Things we did that we loved: silicone straws, stroller rental from kingdom strollers (great Homebase for stuff), afternoon pool breaks for MK, cooling towels (4 pack on Amazon), spare socks in a ziplock baggie for dry feet.

Overall, I totally get it now. I totally understand “Disney adults”, I absolutely get the hype. It truly is magical. I’m literally on the drive back home, pricing out a trip back. I’m thinking next Halloween/fall!!