Oh my. We came back exhausted, but our Disney trip was SOMUCH FUN!!!!
We spent a lot of money and wore ourselves completely out each day, but in the process we had such a blast together and made SO MANY memories!
I am ready to go back NOW!
We are talking about planning another trip in two yearswhen the Davis Man will be THREE, Wade will be FIVE, and Haylee will be TEN! And, of course, Chris and I will just be PLAIN O-L-D!
We spent three days at Magic Kingdom and then one day each at the other three parks. The lines weren’t bad at all most of the week minus our last two days {Saturday and Sunday}, so I think this time of the year is a great time to go. Even as a former teacher, I would unequivocally recommend and urge you to pull the kiddos out of school and go when the ENORMOUS throngs of people are NOT there!
I could not imagine going in primetimeand waiting in those long lines. It took us several minutes sometimes just WALKING into the ride since there was SUCH a HUGE space set aside for people to WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!
About the weather…
We were so excited on our FIRST DAY that after ALL these days and months of anticipation, the BIG moment… our first time at Disney was FINALLY here!
All of our excitement was dashed, however, as the first raindrops began to fallthe moment we paid our parking fee and moved past the gate.
Really????
Our hopes were blown to smithereens as we parked, and the sky seemed to dump out upon us. We did thankfully have our ponchos I had picked up at the Dollar Store ready to go so we all got out and huddled at the back of the vanunder the open hatch and tried to assemble our Disney supplies for the day.
We were dying to get in and get started with the fun, but I’m telling you… it was POURING! We decided to crawl back in the van with our wet ponchos on and try to wait it out before attempting that first LONG trek into the magical land of mickey.
Um, yeah. There just ain’t nothing like weeks of Disney anticipation built up to…. sitting in the van in the Magic Kingdom parking lot watching it rain.
After pulling up the weather Doppler on our phone and seeing this wetness might be hanging around for a while, we waited for a momentary lull in the deluge to make a mad dash with all our family and gear in tow.
It rained much of the morning which made our first experience kind of a bummer, but a nice trade off was that the rest of the day was pretty nice and not hot at all! {Our Dollar Store ponchos were LESS THAN STELLAR though, if you know what I mean. Disney sells them for only$11 EACH, what?! But we found some Mickey ones at the nearby Walmart later for only $4! They were SO MUCH better!}
{Isn’t that dollar tree poncho so LOVELY???}
Our sneakers were all as SOAKED as were we, so although my original plan was to squeeze every little bit of our moolah out of each day with NO leaving the park for breaks, we ended up opting to go back to our place to change into dry clothes and SHOES! We rested a bit, got a quick ice cream snack from the freezer and headed back!
Taking a daily break…
Coming back after a couple of hours break was phenomenal. It was amazing. It was revolutionary. I’m telling you. It made such a difference in our energy levels and temperament. Wowsa.
Four out of our Six days we opted to come back for a break before gearing up for an evening of fun!
It was hard leaving the park for a break though, knowing how much you have already invested in THAT DAY. For a penny pincher like me, I want to get the most bang for my buck that I can! We spent about a thousand on tickets for the four of us for six days, so that meant our cost per day was around $160. So with $160 invested I REALLY did want to stay ALL DAY with no break, since it’s minimum TWO HOURS gone by the time you leave and get back.
BUT… after doing it that first day, we both realized the value of taking a break that can’t be expressed monetarily. The value being all of us in a MUCH better frame of mindto actually enjoy what we were spending that $160 on!
Plus taking a break allowed us to eat our late lunch MUCH CHEAPER out of the parkwhich was a huge money saver.
Knowing how exhausting going break-less is, I give MAJOR kudos to my fellow Disney enthusiasts who power on ALL DAY with no breaks! You are my hero and the ultimate Disney Bomb! :)
Those crazy characters…
Magic Kingdom was my favorite park. It really is a magical place! :) Especially when you’re seeing it through the eyes of your kiddos. I so LOVED seeing their faces light up over and over and over again. They loved the rides AND the characters so much! Though I really don’t see HOW ON EARTH anyone in the primetime season gets to all the rides ANDgets their autograph book filled up.
We had a hard time picking and choosing between themand having to ultimately decide which was the bigger priority. And we weren’t even dealing with the summer time crowds.
Some of those character lines were LONG. Like Crazy Long! The longest lines we waited in were silly character lines not rides! And you were lucky when you got one that was indoors in the air conditioning! The best ones were also the ones that were set up as ONE line that got you several characters in a row so you were waiting ONE TIME for three or four characters. We lucked out a few times getting to a line when it was super short, so we got in and out pretty quickly with several signatures, but there were also MANY other times we were standing {sometimes in the SCORCHING sun and heat} waiting forever for that TWO SECONDS with the character.
It was hard too because Chris TOTALLY did not see the point of the whole thing. I think to him the value of that TWO SECONDS was COMPLETELY NOT worth the payout of thirty minutes or more waiting in linewhile we COULD be out doing something much more profitable from his point of view. :)
Our last few days were much busier, but we figured out a good system where I could wait with the kids in the character line, and he could go grab our next fast passes. It WAS hard though juggling all the logistics of our TWO SECONDS solo, though.
Getting Wade to move and be where he was supposed to be was a full time job in and of itself, not to mention making sure his autograph book was ready to go and having the photo pass card ready to give the Disney photographer. Oh yeah… and getting out the camera and making sure to get some good FREE picsof our own too!
It was pretty priceless though seeing them study the characters in amazement, and I’ve got to admit I was pretty excited MYSELFgetting my picture made with Woody and Buzz!!
We had a FABULOUS time, and can’t wait to go back!!!
I’ll be sharing more of my Disney details and tips next week so stay tuned!!
Chris doesn’t remember standing in line to see the characters, and neither do I. So anybody know when all that drama started? And who came up with the Autograph book idea, cuz they have to be making a killing off that, right?!
You can also check out…
{Tomorrow is a HUGE day for me and my blog! It is my 700th post, and I have some BIG NEWS so make sure to come back and check it out!!!! Whoohoo!!!}
oh, the suspense!!!
the long awaited disney post…! how fun!
can't wait till we can take our kiddoes, like u said so fun to see them happy!
loved the pics!
Yay!! Sounds like you had a wonderful time! Can't wait to hear more. What days did you go to MK? We were there on Labor Day and the lines were not bad either. The longest we waited was for Dumbo and Buzz at 15-20 mins each. We only waited for 10 mins for the Princesses- loved how they set that up. We were going to do a couple other characters but like you said, the lines for them were longer than the rides! Anyway, loved all your pictures! Glad you had good time!
Thanks guys! Leslie, we were at MK Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Yes, the Princess line was set up awesome and that is one we snagged early and there was hardly ANY line at all!
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