We’ve dreamed of taking this trip for several years (ever since our kids were born, lol). However, we chose to wait until our two girls reached an age that they would remember it, yet young enough to appreciated the magic. And yes, I know it can be magical for all ages, young and old, but as young kids, how much more magical than to go to a place where all of the REAL princesses live?
This was our first Disney trip. If you know me, you know that I plan things out way in advance. I did my homework. I read post after post about things people did wrong on their Disney trip. Read about the kids that needed naps at noon and the many, many meltdowns. Read about needing a vacation after getting home from vacation. Read about making the trip too short. Read about making it too long. Over planning. Under planning. So many mistakes, lol. Well, I had one chance to make it a perfect vacation for our kids, and perfect it was. We’ve had the opportunity to travel to a lot of great locations and I can honestly say that this was one of the best trips we have taken.
Go Big or Go Home
So, what made this trip so good? Well, for starters, we decided to GO FOR 8 DAYS. Yes, that’s right – 8!!! Please note, I only recommend this for first time Disney travelers. I debated on this for a very long time, as the majority of online forums say to go between 3-4 days. There were a few factors that ultimately made up my mind. First, was cost. You may think this would adversely affect my decision to go for this long, however, the ticket prices drastically drop with each day added AFTER 4 days. For example, days 1-4 offer very little discount with each additional day. It’s roughly $100 per person per day. 4 days x $101 = $404 ($1,616 for family of 4). 5 days is only $83 per day ($415pp). 6 is $70 ($420pp). 7 is $61 ($427pp) and 8 is $56 ($448pp, or $1,792 for 4). So, for my family, we only paid roughly $200 to go twice as many days. 
Secondly, with this many days, we figured we could leave the park whenever we got tired/overwhelmed and knew we’d have another day available to come back. Although we rarely left the parks early, this did give us plenty of time each day to enjoy the park at our leisure without feeling rushed to cover a lot of ground. One other note about multi-day tickets, is that you don’t have to set in stone which days you will be at which park. Everyone has their own opinion on which park they like best, and as first time visitors, you’ll have no idea what will end up being your favorite (just look online – everyone will give a different opinion/perspective). Although we did book fastpasses early (more on this later), we were pretty flexible to change our schedule. We booked the first four days with a different park each day, that way we could tailor the last four days to the parks we enjoyed the most.
A Stroll(er) in the Park
What else made the trip so great? This STROLLER! No joke – this thing was a lifesaver and comfortably fit both of our kids (and me, lol). 
Man, I wish we had this when the girls were younger (our kids’ stroller as toddlers was junk). We bought this specifically for this trip, because of all the reviews about exhausted kids and parents. You can seriously control this stroller with 2 fingers. It really is a well built stroller and handles very nicely. Comes highly recommended by me (ask me for details if interested). The girls would jump in and out throughout the day and really made it nice for them to be able to rest their weary feet. Not only did it serve as a kid transporter, but it also carried a ton of snacks, which leads me to the third thing we did right. CARRY IN YOUR FOOD/DRINKS!!!
Don’t Nitpick the Picnic
So, a great thing about Disney is that they allow you to bring in outside food and drinks. For the budget friendly family (the Proctor family for sure) this is such a money saving tip. Each day we packed in a large bag full of snacks; you know, Pringle’s, beef jerky, Doritos – all the good stuff. We also packed in a cooler full of water, mt dew, and kool-aid, plus our lunch sandwiches for the day. All of this was able to be stored nicely underneath the stroller. Not only did this help save $$, it also helped us keep our sanity. I could only imagine how many times those kids would have been complaining about being hungry or thirsty without it being conveniently stored beneath them. None of this would have been possible, though, without the stroller. Not sure what our plan is when we go back in a few years. Maybe we’ll strike it rich by then and fork out for the meal plan. Not likely, lol. Probably push the kids in a stroller when they’re 10/11, just so I can bring in my own food — HA!
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Next thing we did right was to GIVE THE KIDS A SPENDING ALLOWANCE each day. We’ve taken many vacations and had several meltdowns that ruined a good time just because I wouldn’t let them buy a $3 toy or something else that I thought was worthless (again, I’m very budget minded). One thing I’ve learned in life — let the girls shop. Just put it in the budget and I promise that you won’t regret it. I always ask the girls after each trip what they liked the most, and going into the gift shops have always made the top of the list. So, we prepared for this better than we ever had before. We gave the girls each twenty $1 bills per day for a shopping allowance and we made it their choice on how long it lasted. Many times, by ultimately giving them the choice, we could coach them out of some of their decisions without a single meltdown. The kids still ask us every time we go on a small trip, if they can have “dollars” like we did at Disney, lol. “NOPE”.
Picture This
Next thing that we did right was to BUY THE MEMORY MAKER PHOTOPASS. Now, I had to really talk myself into this one, as we already own an awesome camera. Why would we add another $200 expense to the trip ($169 advanced purchase; $199 instant purchase)? Well, let me tell you, “best thing ever”. We now have almost 1,000 pictures of our Disney trip and the best thing about it? I’m in every family picture. I know, I could have asked someone to take these pictures with my camera, or use a selfie stick, but how inconvenient would that be? This was
so simple and hassle free. You basically just walk up to someone holding a camera (positioned everywhere) and ask for a picture. These are highly trained professionals who operate a camera every day. EVERY picture was crisp and high quality and photographers were strategically positioned in the best places for photo ops. They also were very friendly, I might add. You can also have them do magic shots where they, for example, digitally put tinker bell in your hand, or put Olaf dancing beside you. Best thing about it, the photographer scans your magic band and the photos instantly upload to the Disney app on your phone. This leads me to the next thing we did right (or that Disney did right).
Download the “My Disney Experience” App
Can’t say it enough. This app is a lifesaver. Not only is there the benefit of having your photos uploaded right away (with the photopass mentioned above), but it also has an interactive map and GPS of 
your exact location. You can even click on a certain attraction and it will give turn by turn directions to that attraction. If you’ve never been to Disney, let me tell you, you NEED a map.
The place is bigger than it looks and you can easily get turned around.
The app also lists the wait time on all attractions, which is a nice feature to help better manage your time.
Lastly, the app is the place to go to manage your Fastpasses, which moves me to the next subject.
Life in the Fast Lane
USE THOSE FASTPASSES. Do not bypass taking advantage of this feature — it’s free for heaven’s sake. Fastpasses allow you to skip the standard line and enter a quicker line, but you have to reserve the time slot. Yo
u get three reservations per day, however, once you use those three up, you can reserve unlimited afterwards. You must use all three before it will allow anymore, and then, you can only reserve one fastpass time slot at a time. My recommendation is to reserve three fastpasses in the morning (for high demand attractions) and then use your additional fastpasses later in the day. The reservation period opens 60 days in advance, only if staying at a Disney resort. For all others, a 30 day reservation period applies. These time slots fill up fast, so I recommend reserving them asap. One tip: people are constantly changing their fastpass reservations. You can change them around anytime and as many times as you want. If you can’t find a time slot you are looking for, keep refreshing the page over and over. Chances are, something will open up. This also applies to just minutes before the opening time-slot you are wanting to reserve. We snagged several last minute reservations (on very high demand attractions) by refreshing the page several times until it opened up.
Last, but not least, the TIME OF YEAR we chose was excellent… kind of (I’ll explain in a minute). There are several crowd calendars online that show you each week of the year and how busy you can expect it to be. I like this one here provided by yourfirstvisit.net. There is nothing worse, in my opinion, than standing hours in line for a 5 minute ride (I have no patience). We chose to go the first week of September, which is the lowest crowd of the year. School was in session during this time, however, we’re lucky to have wiz kids, and this did not set them back in any way. In my opinion (probably a blog post in its own), there is much more to learn in life than you can learn in school alone. Ok, now for the “kind of” comment above. September is hurricane season and guess what happened? That’s right. Hurricane Irma just happened to shut Disney down the week we had scheduled. Amazing timing, right? That didn’t stop me, though. Luckily, we were not staying at a Disney resort, otherwise, we’d had to cancel all of our plans. I’m pretty easy going and my work is flexible, so we just moved all our reservations out a week. Everything worked out and I don’t feel like we missed a beat. All in all, I would choose this time of year again. Weather was absolutely perfect, just be prepared for the unpredictable during this time of year.
Ok, now that I’m finished up with everything we did right to make this one of the best vacations ever, time to spend a little time talking about our favorites in each park. I can honestly say that this was the first vacation that I came home from and had absolutely no regrets — not one. And, I didn’t feel like we needed a vacation from our vacation. Hopefully, you find the tips above helpful and they work as well for you as they did for us. Leave me a comment of your best tip and/or something above that you found useful.
Day 1 and Day 4 – Let me hear you ROAR
The first and fourth day, we spent at Animal Kingdom. This is a very large park, in fact, the largest theme park in the world. It also contains the least amount of rides of all the Disney parks. We were able to cover this whole park in two days and was a little bored by the end of the second day. Now, don’t forget, we were at the
park with the lowest crowd of the year and we also spent long days in the park. That being said, there is no way to fully cover this park in one day, unless you only hit the main attractions and ignore everything else. We have no regrets spending two days here for our first visit, but no way could we spend two days next time we go.
One of the things the girls really enjoyed at Animal Kingdom was the Wilderness Explorers. This is a fun activity for younger kids, where they can adventure on nature-themed challenges and become an official Wilderness Explorer. I would only recommend this if you have multiple days in the park and have younger kids. I could see this being a little boring for most kids 10+. You will need to pick up a handbook from headquarters, which is located on the bridge between Oasis and Discovery Island. You can also pick them up at one of the troop leader locations, which are located a few places in the park. Just ask for directions, if your not sure where to start and someone can lead you in the right direction.
Our favorite rides at Animal Kingdom were Expedition Everest and Kilimanjaro Safaris. We rode both of them multiple times. Seeing the hippos and rhinos on the safari were our favorites, but all of the animals were pretty awesome, including the giraffes and elephants. If you have time for multiple rides, pick different times of the day for a different experience each time. I thought the night safari would be cool, but ended up being my least favorite out of the 3 rides. Nothing is lit up, so we saw the least amount of animals.
Our favorite show was Finding Nemo, which we all thought was absolutely amazing. It’s crazy how much detail went into this musical and how they were able to make dancing fish so incredibly interesting. The most interesting was how they were able to animate the spotted eagle ray (the teacher in Nemo), by riding around on a large tricycle. BUT, would you expect anything less out of Disney?
Our favorite area of the park (by way of architecture) was the newly built world of Pandora from the Avatar movie. Although there isn’t a whole heck of a lot in this place, it was very beautiful and is pretty cool all lit up at night. We all enjoyed the Na’vi River ride and I rode the Flight of Passage by myself. Although the Flight of Passage ride had some pretty amazing graphics, I ended up giving it a 👎 because it gave me motion sickness. It seemed like the ride lasted forever. I remember at one point landing on a branch and thanking God it was over, and then the dang bird took off again. 😀 I generally don’t get motion sickness, so would definitely give it another shot. I probably just had a bad experience.
Day 2, 5, and 8 – Bring on the Magic
So, we decided to do 3 days of Magic Kingdom, which could be expected, as this is the most popular park among Disney travelers. Where Animal Kingdom is the largest park in the world, Magic Kingdom is the busiest. It is also the smallest in size among the four Disney World Parks.
There are a lot of great things about this park. Contrary to my belief, one of our favorites was meeting all the princesses and characters. Prior to going, I just couldn’t see how I would be willing to wait in line for all these characters; just doesn’t fit my character of having absolutely NO patience, lol. That all changed once we got there. One thing that made this a possibility for me was just knowing that we had plenty of time. Believe it or not, I was pretty chill this whole trip. Right out of the gate, the girls bought an autograph book and started meeting those princesses and getting those autographs. I was happy to tag right along with them. They were in heaven — and so was I.
Another favorite of ours was the parade. Man, can this place put on a good show. The characters, the floats, the dancers – everything was excellent. There’s even a fire-breathing dragon!!! It’s amazing how great the sound is as well (something I don’t normally catch onto). The music 🎶 was crisp as the float passed by and then quickly disappeared, transitioning perfectly into the next oncoming song/float. This is a parade you won’t want to miss. Get there about 30 minutes early to get a good spot along the street.
Lastly, the “Happily Ever After” firework and laser display at Cinderella’s castle was phenomenal. There are over 25 Disney scenes/characters choreographed onto the castle throughout the 18 minute show. All the while, the castle is back lit in a fantastic display of fireworks. This was definitely at the top of our favorites list. Interesting fact: despite how Cinderella’s Castle looks, the shell is actually made of fiberglass instead of stone.
The rides were all pretty fun, for the most part, and we didn’t have to wait in line much for any rides, except Space Mountain, which was shut down for a good portion of the day. We had fast passes for the ride and still waited over an hour. I can’t really think of any ride that stuck out as a favorite here. They were all fun to experience as a first timer, but we could probably get our fill of Magic Kingdom in one long day on a second trip. There’s nothing not to love about this place, but I definitely think it’s geared toward the smaller kids, which is a great thing. It was nice that my kids, at ages 5 and 6, could ride pretty much every ride with no issues. Not too many theme parks can offer that.
Day 3 and 7 – Get Your Passports Ready`
I went into this place thinking it would most likely be our least favorite Disney Park. Man, was I wrong. I can’t say enough good things about Epcot. Maybe it was because I went in with little expectations, I don’t know, but we all agree that this ranks very close to #1 for us.
My personal favorite was the Soarin’ ride and I believe the rest of the family would rate this ride very high as well. We rode it each day we visited the park. With the wrap around screen, I thought it was very realistic and felt like you were really soaring across the world. Getting a good look at Great Wall of China was pretty amazing and probably my favorite scene. I still can’t believe how good the effects were on this ride. Hands down the best ride in all of Disney.
Another favorite was Turtle Talk with Crush (the little turtle from Finding Nemo). All the kids gather on the floor in the theater in front of the parents and Crush talks to them from the ocean via a hydrophone, which lets him communicate from the ocean to land “dudes”. It’s interactive, so you can ask questions, tell a joke, whatever, and Crush will respond. He introduces the crowd to a few of his friends and it’s just a fun, interactive, 15 minute presentation that has a few laughing points. The whole family enjoyed it and we even watched it again on our second day, although, it wasn’t nearly as good the second pass, as could be expected.
Another show we really enjoyed while at Epcot, was the Pixar Short Film Festival. Although this ranks very poorly out of all the attractions, we quite enjoyed it. There are three short 4D films. Get a Horse was our favorite film, which uses the classic Disney characters and was just a good show, in my opinion. It’s obviously not for everyone, based on how poorly it ranks, but my family liked it. If you have time available, I’d definitely dodge the heat and give it a shot. Worst that can happen is that you take a 10 minute 💤. Leave me a comment if you think this show is worth seeing. I’d be interested to hear other’s take on it.
The Seas with Nemo and Friends is another great place to visit. I was actually shocked that there was an aquarium here, let alone, a very large one. They really have a nice display here and I’d plan some time here, if you have it available. I’m not one to typically spend a lot of money going to aquariums, so this was nice to spend 30min – 1hr and not feel like I had wasted my time/money. I felt like it was as good as all the big city aquariums, without the hefty price tag attached. I’m all about weighing value for the money, and of course, this was just a free perk for being in the park.
Last, but not least, the girls really enjoyed the passports. The Epcot World Showcase Passport Kit costs around $12 each and you can find them at most stores inside Epcot. I think we bought ours in Mexico, which is the first country you come to if starting on left side of park. You can also purchase prior to your visit by using the Shop Disney Park app. So basically, this is a great way to get the kids involved and promotes you to take a deeper dive into each country and explore parts that you would have otherwise missed. There are Kidcot Fun Stations positioned in various spots in each of the 11 countries. The cast members are in character for the country that they represent and they sign and stamp your passport. They also write something special in their own language and usually draw a little picture of something representing their country. There are also small activities for the young ones to participate in, mostly coloring and such. We used it mostly to explore the countries and sign the passports. We did allow the girls to color at one of the stops, but didn’t allow it at every stop (they can color at home).
Two of our favorite characters were also at Epcot – Joy and Sadness – from Inside Out movie. We’ve watched this movie a hundred times with the girls, and they were a lot of fun to visit with. I had to mention it, since at this time, these were probably our favorite characters and one of the newest Disney movies out. There was a lot of Joy when we entered and much Sadness as we left. They definitely had a direct influence on us. 🙂
We rode most of the rides here at Epcot over our two day visit and they were all good, even if they didn’t make our top list above. We did spend two full days here and we still did not see everything that is offered. One of the biggest things we missed was the firework/laser show, “Illuminations”. At the end of the second day, we were done about an 1.5 hrs before it started, so decided to go ahead and save it for another trip.
Day 4 – Hollywood Studios
Hollywood Studios is a one day park in my opinion. That being said, they are currently expanding the park and will be adding Star Wars and Toy Story lands. The Star Wars land will be 14 acres, the largest land in Disney, so this may change my outlook. Fast and crazy fact about me that you most likely don’t know: I have not watched a single Star Wars movie. Can you believe that???
Our favorite show for the day had to be the Frozen Sing-along Celebration, which was a little over 30 minutes long. I didn’t have high expectations for this show, but was pleasantly surprised to find it to be our favorite for the day. The story/skit was comical and led nicely into each of the great songs our kids loved in this movie. During each song the words were displayed on screen, even though I’m sure the whole audience knew the words verbatim from watching this movie 1,000 times. Near the end, Elsa finally appears (with much applause) and leads the last song, Let it Go. Steam shot up from the background and snow filled the air in the audience. It was magical and I’m sure sent shivers up everyone’s backs (seeing the joy on your kids’ faces will do that, even to us Dads).
Our two favorite rides were The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (Amanda chickened out) and Toy Story Mania. I will have to drop a few stars off the rating of Tower of Terror, though, as the place was dark and dingy, the staff was not polite, and the elevator never took me to my room. 🙂
Like I mentioned above, this park is a one day park for me, and we actually got a little bored in the evening as we tried killing time until Fantasmic show started. All in all, was a good day and glad we got to spend it here. I’m sure the additions of Star Wars and Toy Story will really round out a full day here and possibly make it a two day park for all the Star Wars fans out there.
In conclusion of our Disney Trip, I have to say that this was likely the best vacation we have ever taken; yes, even trumping our trip to Australia diving the Great Barrier Reef (a blog post for another day). I just feel like the value for the money on the whole trip was 100% spot on. We chose to skimp in some areas (packing our own food, staying at off-site resort) and splurge on others (photopass, budget for souvenirs, adding a couple more days at parks) and was the perfect combo to make us feel like we got what we paid for (something we don’t often get). We had absolutely no regrets and I hope that my story can help you along the way in planning your perfect Disney vacation.
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