For two kids that love animals, Disney’s Animal Kingdom did not disappoint. I was confident in my choice to start Miss O and Mr. A’s first trip to Disney World here, but I wasn’t fully prepared for how much enthusiasm, energy and stamina these two had! We knew they’d have fun, but watching them discover everything made it extra magical for us and we learned more about these two explorers than I would have thought!
For our recent surprise trip to Walt Disney World, we chose our hotel with the kids in mind. Miss O saw some images on the promotional videos we watched at home while testing the idea of Disney, so we knew it was a good option. By the time we got on the Magical Express, she still had no real idea what we’d be doing or anything about where we were staying. At that point she and my nephew, Mr. A, were still absorbing the reality of being in Florida and going to Disney World. Their faces as we arrived on the Art of Animation property were priceless and I knew this trip was going to blow their minds.
At first, I felt a little silly referring to a 76-passenger motor coach as anything remotely “magical.” I knew it eliminated one part of the thing I hate most about travel – waiting at baggage claim. Honestly, there’s nothing worse than standing around for what feels like an eternity, whilst watching every bag that is not yours go by and realizing you still aren’t on vacation. Now imagine you’re standing there with an extremely excited 6-year-old and an already impatient 40ish-year-old.
We just came back from a week of honestly the most MAGICAL time I’ve had in ages. I’ve spent a year planning our daughter’s first trip to Disney World and I can’t articulate how much all that hard work paid off to make one of the best memories I will ever have.
All the time spent researching, waking up early to get dining reservations and agonizing over FastPass+ selections was so worth it when we saw Miss O’s reaction to our surprise trip reveal.
“You haven’t told them yet?!” is usually followed by, “how did you make it all year without them knowing?” or “oh my goodness, they’re going to lose their minds!” I can assure you, the struggle to not tell Miss O about our big family trip to Disney World was really, really, real.
Because I’m a planner by nature and profession, I look to my trusty packing template for everything from a week long, international conference to a weekend at my mother’s condo 45-minutes away. My colleagues think I’m crazy, but they’re not laughing when I can do a two-day conference trip with just my backpack and still look professional. Once I figured out some fun Disney shirts for our upcoming trip to Disney World, I knew it was time to break out my packing template and get to work.
“Are you gonna do those matching shirts?” Hands down this is the most common question I was asked anytime I got into a conversation about planning our family trip to Walt Disney World. Part of me wanted to embrace the stereotype and be that family. The other part, knew my family wouldn’t be into it, but I still debated doing it ironically. Clearly there was something to this that I needed to explore.
I was not raised with a love of outdoor activity and the only time I’ll run is if I’m being chased. I certainly wasn’t planning on running through any of the four Disney World parks on our visit, but I’ve also seen the security lines in the Orlando airport, so I wasn’t ruling out having to run through the terminal to make our flight home. It’s bad enough traveling alone as an adult, but once you get a tired kid in tow, all bets are off. I also wasn’t sure just how tired the aforementioned child would be by the end of a 5-day Disney experience. That got me wondering if we were all going to make it through this trip at all.
One of the nicer things about traveling for work is getting a break from whatever is going on at the office for a bit. Fortunately for me, that meant I could focus on my next big deadline for our upcoming Disney World trip: FastPass+ reservations. Unfortunately, that meant praying to the WiFi gods for a strong connection in a hotel right before I needed to leave to actually attend the conference. Priorities really get you sometimes, don’t they?
Over here in the Jackpot, we love Halloween. Like, drive around looking at neighbors’ decorations, dress up for work, family costume wearing, LOVE Halloween. The second I found out about Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World, I knew Miss O needed to go. We had just entered the “what time of year should we go?” phase of our trip planning and I laser focused on fall so we could go to the party, too. Then I looked up the ticket price and almost died.
Suburban Jackpot 