Disney World, Here We Come!

 

What an incredible holiday.

A few months back JP said, "I suppose we should just go to Disney World. I don't think I'm going to enjoy it, but I know that you and Jodi will at least have fun." 

Well, now that we're back from our trip... I can quote my husband about his thoughts on it, "I loved it, Disney was Amazing!" (yes, he actually said that I could add that exclamation mark at the end of the quote!)

I'm sure that (or I like to think that) one of the main reasons that JP enjoyed it so much is because I was pretty darn organised and had every day planned (allowing for some flexibility). I knew beforehand which rides we could go on with a 2 year old and which areas of each park to start at and avoid the rush hour crowds without rushing around like crazy people, where to go first and which rides had the fastpass option. If you are planning a trip to Disney World and have a 2 year old, let me know and I'll send you my spreadsheet (yes! I made a spreadsheet AND it was colour coded!). We decided beforehand which of the four parks we would go to each day. We also picked a day to go to Seaworld and thought we'd sneak in two half days at water parks. 

We flew into Tampa on the 16th of May, then drove to Orlando to settle into our hotel. We decided to stay at a hotel off the Disney grounds as it was quite a lot cheaper and the place we stayed at was spacious and had a full kitchen. We did grocery shopping the day we got there and then each day we took a packed lunch, snacks, juice and water with us to the parks. I read a few blogs about people trying not to spend too much money on their Disney trips, there were some great tips! One brilliant idea was going to Walmart to buy Disney gear and not spend 3 times the amount at the Disney parks. I bought a different Disney T-shirt for Jodi to wear each day, pins, postcards, fridge magnets, keychains, picture frames etc. all at a fraction of the price. I also got a pair of Minnie Mouse ears for US$6, they cost about US$17 at Disney!

When we first pulled in to the parking area on day one we were freaking out and thought that we were going to take hours to get into the park... firstly, there was a sea of cars (a snapshot of one of the Disney parks parking areas on the left shows a small part of what I'm talking about) and secondly, we saw a HUMUNGOUS queue of people and couldn't even see the entrance to the park! We thought it was one long queue of people stringing from us to the park entrance! After we were superbly guided into our parking spot and climbed out the car we realised that the queue we had seen had already been whisked off in a  little car-train transporter thingy to the entrance of the park.

We walked about 30 meters to the end of our parking row to the queue collection spot and within 2 minutes the next little transport thingy was there and before we knew it we were at the entrance to the park and there were no queues! 

Our tickets were cute little credit card like ones with different Disney characters on them (JP had a Mickey Mouse one and mine was Goofy...go figure!), they are tough and durable and hard to lose / tear / wet / bend etc. Jodi didn't need a ticket because kids two and under get in for Free!

At their new "turnstile" system,  we held our tickets up to the Mickey Mouse ears and when the ears turned green we

had to put our finger on the print reader and before we knew it, we were in, getting our backpack and cooler checked by security (which we had filled to the brim with food, snacks and drinks for the day) and about to begin our fun filled day! A thousand times quicker, easier and more painless than we thought it would be when we first drove in to the parking area! This place has perfected the word 'Organised'.

 Let the Welman Disney adventure begin!!!