My Disneyworld report is going to be very in depth- I've had a lot of questions about our trip- mainly logistics with a family of our size, but also about finances, what is worth it, etc.
FYI: When I speak of Disneyworld as a whole I mean all four parks in FL.
I guess I'll start in the beginning. We started planning this trip after Christmas in December 2009! We talked to my parents and for our Christmas gifts in 2010 they agreed to help pay for our trip to Disney! I've been to Disneyworld several times- a couple when I was a little girl and then once at the age of 12 or so. Josh had never been. Neither one of us consider ourselves 'theme park people' but I REALLY wanted to take the kids to Disneyworld. Josh on the other hand, didn't care to. He finally gave in, but told me it would only ever be one trip so I better choose wisely when we would go.
We booked our house a full year in advance (so Jan. 2010) and I started researching.
www.disboards.com was an awesome messageboard resource for my planning
My favorite Disney planning book was The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World -Worth EVERY penny. The author also has a website- Touringplans.com that was also worth its weight in gold. I liked knowing when each park was going to be the least crowded by their calculations.
Josh also downloaded a couple Disneyworld apps on the iPhone that essentially told us wait times, had GPS locations, etc.
Packing with 5 kids is a breeze once you get a system down. The house we were renting had a washer/dryer so I didn't have to pack too much, but FL weather in January is varied so we needed a variety of types of clothing (you'll see that in more posts!) I did end up buying a few cute disney themed shirts for the kids (Josh would've died if I bought any for him or I- although I REALLY wanted one!)
This is all the kid's clothes waiting on my dresser to be packed up!
Also, since we were staying in a home and didn't plan on eating every meal at the parks, needed to do wash, etc. I had packed a basket of household needs and a basket of food (didn't get a picture of that!) (YES, those are disposable diapers- we used them for the trip)
Driving vs. flying: We knew immediately it made sense for us to drive. It's only a 10 hour drive, we have 7 people in our family, I wanted the freedom to go to the grocery store, we planned on visiting with Josh's grandmother while in FL and we were staying off-site (meaning not at a Disney Resort) PLUS, Big Blue (the van) has so much space for our family. We packed everything we needed with plenty of room to spare.
Off-site renting vs. Disney Resort: As soon as I started looking into it, I started making spreadsheets. I included prices for parking if we stayed off-site, sizes of rooms, amenities, etc. It was significantly cheaper for our family to stay off-site in a 4 bedroom, 4 bath house with a private heated pool than to stay in a hotel room that would hold all of us (at least a disney moderate level resort) or 2 hotel rooms connected (at a disney value resort). I know that you lose some of the 'Disney Magic' by not staying there, but it was definitely the best choice for our family. More on the house in the next post.....
Tickets: I purchased from a site that touringplans.com suggests and saved $50 or so. Next time I'll buy from disney- I'll explain more about that when I get to day 1.
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