Dreadful Reality…returning home from Disney. It’s always a sad day for our family! Walt Disney World in Orlando is truly one of our favorite places to visit as a family, and has been for the past 5 years. We took our first trip when Cami was 10 months and Cooper was almost 4 and ever since, we have been hooked!
This was by far our most spontaneous trip. We had given the kids a trip to Stone Mountain, Georgia for Christmas this year, and were supposed to leave on Sunday, December 27th. The weather was not cooperating, so we pushed it a few days, and the weather was still not cooperating. The morning of December 30th, Jason jokingly said, “Let’s go to Disney”- once the seed is planted, it’s hard not to follow through. I hopped online to see if there was a cabin at Fort Wilderness available, and there was! WOO HOO!
Next was figuring out what to do with our new English Bulldog Puppy, Nola Claire. We called her vet and they said she was old enough to board, so we packed her up.
The kids had been spending a few days with beloved grandparents, Juju and Pappy, during their Christmas break, so they have no idea plans had changed, and they were not home to know.
We were able to pack up, get the dogs taken care of and schedule a pick up time for kids all before 12:30 that same day! EEK. So exciting to surprise the kids with such a BIG vacation!
We picked them up and hit the road. About 2 hours in I turned on my video camera and broke the news to them…there is NO SNOW at Stone Mountain. (They were so upset) Then the good news, we are going somewhere else! Cami guessed Disney and then for the next 5.5 hours we made dining reservations, fast passes, and plans.
Day 1: Magic Kingdom (December 31)
We had breakfast at O’hana at the Disney Polynesian Resort. This is hands down our favorite dining experience at Disney. The food is amazing, the atmosphere rocks and the parade with the characters is so fun!
We would not recommend going to a park on a major holiday, we will not ever do it again. We rode 2 rides. It was at level 8 max capacity by 10 am. We ended up leaving early, running to the grocery store for supplies and back to the cabin. The kids and I were asleep by 10 pm!
Day 2: Hollywood Studios (January 1)
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is Jason’s favorite park. We slept in a little bit and headed to the park around 11. The park was busy, but Jason’s said it wasn’t any busier than normal. When we got there, we had a fast pass for The Rockin’ Rollercoaster, but we ran by to sign Coop up for Jedi training. We have never done it before. More on that later. Rockin’ Rollercoaster is in the top 2 of roller coasters at Disney. It is so fun and fast! Both of our kids love it- and we do too! We opted for a swim instead of dinner. There are 2 pools at Fort Wilderness and one was just outside of our loop. The kids rode their scooters over. The pools are also heated and there was a hot tub. They played and I did a load of laundry. We cooked a frozen pizza in the convection oven at the cabin for dinner and hit the sack fairly early again.
Day 3: Animal Kingdom
We drove to Animal Kingdom since we had dinner reservations at 6:15 and wanted to make sure we made it back in time for the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue! We did less than we normally do at Animal Kingdom, but we rode Everest twice (OUR FAVORITE) and did a few other things.We went back to the cabin around 5 and we were able to pick up our golf cart- honestly, the highlight of the kids trip. We drove the golf cart back to the Settlement for Dinner. The Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue was a lot of fun. Jason has wanted to do this for a while. We got second tier seating (upstairs) and wouldn’t recommend that seating. It was sort of hard to see. The food and service was good. When you are seated, there is the best cornbread ever on the table and a bucket of salad. The dressing wasn’t impressive, but it was good. For dinner you are served: fried chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes, corn, baked beans and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The entertainment was funny and exciting. There were 6 performers and they danced and sang. Fun for adults and kids! After dinner we went over to settlement post store for the kids to shop and we played a game of checkers outside. After dinner we hopped back on the golf cart and went to bed!
Day 4: Magic Kingdom
I woke everyone up early on the rainy morning. Since our day looked dreary, I found a breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare at the The Grand Floridian- which was AMAZING. The hotel, decorations, shops, food, characters and service were great. We met Tigger, Pooh, Alice, and The Mad Hatter! The kids LOVED the Mad Hatter. The breakfast buffet was great, included Mickey waffles, bacon, smoked salmon, doughnuts, cereal with gummy bear toppings, omelet station, etc. After breakfast we rode the monorail back over to Magic Kingdom. The sun never came out and it rained lightly all day long. Thankful that Disney sells EVERYTHING you need. We picked up sweatshirts and ponchos for the kids. The crowds were low, and we rarely waited in lines for anything. The longest line was about 45 minutes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train roller coaster. When we got off, the line was half the length so we hopped right back in line and rode it again. It’s so fun!
Day 5: Heading Home and Planning our next Disney vacation 😉
We really love to camp. We stayed at a KOA in Key West last summer and that really had us hooked. We are pretty simple and need just enough space to sleep, keep clothes and we LOVE to go have fun, sight see, etc. We’ve decided that we are going to buy a Fifth Wheel so that we can go to Disney (or wherever) whenever we want. We can’t wait for our next trip!