The Fun of a Disney Vacation

Our family loves Disney World. My husband grew up going regularly with his family. I went a few times as a kid, and my mom and I made annual trips to California for a few years after I turned 18 that always included an open-to-close 30,000-step Disneyland day. My husband and I honeymooned at Disney World and went back for our first anniversary. My eight-year-old has been six times already. (She’d claim seven because we went to Disneyland while I was pregnant with her.) My two-year-old is actually on track to outpace her, with three trips already. (Hey, they’re free under three.)

Of course, Disney is expensive. It’s often crowded. Nine months out of the year, it’s really, really hot. So why do we keep going back?

Disney Is Always the Same

There’s something magical about going back to the same place year after year. Many families have their preferred beach or mountain town. We have Disney. (And we think we may have settled on our preferred hotel too, after trying just about all of them!) Cinderella’s castle is always gracing the end of Main Street USA. The jokes on Jungle Cruise are always bad. There’s always room for one more happy haunt at the Haunted Mansion.

On this trip, we enjoyed a lot of old favorites. The toddler, who found almost everything “scawy,” loved Toy Story Mania and took a good nap during the American Adventure. We rode Pirates of the Caribbean and the Mexico boat ride. We saw giraffes and rhinoceroses on the safari. As soon as we entered EPCOT, we met the iconic Daisy Duck. My husband and middle kid waited in Peter Pan’s signature long line. We booked a last-minute dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern to indulge in some Ooey Gooey Cake.

These are experiences we’ve enjoyed year after year and love getting to share with our children. We sat at the same table (or close to it) at Liberty Tree where our oldest daughter ate her first French fry seven years ago. Returning to the same places brings back great memories of past fun.

Disney Is Always Changing

While we love getting to have these experiences over and over, we also know and appreciate that Disney is always trying new things. Guardians of the Galaxy is a tremendous improvement over Ellen’s Energy Adventure. (If you’re missing your favorite attraction for a nap, my toddler recommends the American Adventure instead.) Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is much more fun and up-to-date than the previous Splash Mountain theming. I hadn’t bothered to go over to Tom Sawyer Island since I was a kid (and I wasn’t that impressed then), so I’m looking forward to the new Cars-themed attractions that will take its place.

Of course, some changes are harder to embrace. This was our first trip since the closure of Muppets Courtyard at Hollywood Studios. We missed the salute to all nations but mostly America in Muppet*Vision 3D, the cannoli flight at Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italino, and the snack lunch at PizzeRizzo. Given my dislike of heights, I’m not sure the Monsters Inc.–themed vault coaster that’s taking its place is going to make it up to me. But I bet my oldest kid will love it.

There’s Always Something New to Try

I’ve given up on being a completionist about Disney attractions, in part because I know that some of them won’t be fun for me. But another reason is that there is always more to do. Even though our family has visited Disney a lot over the past few years, we had several new-to-us experiences that were a lot of fun.

For example, because the toddler was scared of almost everything except the characters, we prioritized character meet-and-greets more than in the past. My middle kid was also very excited about collecting autographs. We met Anna and Elsa in Norway and found that the queue takes you through their adorable, air-conditioned house. After we met them, we grabbed a snack in Norway, which we’ve never done before. They weren’t life-changing, but it was fun to try something new.

We also tried some new sit-down restaurants. Yak and Yeti at Animal Kingdom was a surprise hit with the whole family. My husband and I enjoyed the cocktails, I had a fabulous burger, and the toddler devoured the teriyaki chicken. We all enjoyed our calamari appetizer (we didn’t tell the kids what it was), and the air conditioning was on point. We would definitely go back!

Another new-to-us restaurant was Trattoria al Forno on the BoardWalk promenade. This was a last-minute addition to our itinerary when one kid just didn’t have it in her to go back to the park and we’d already exhausted the nearby quick-service options. We were able to join the walk-up list from the Disney app and just walk down to the restaurant once we got a text that our table was ready!

The downside of this was that the toddler did NOT want to abruptly leave Bluey when it was time to go and decided to enter peak toddler mode. The staff was SO kind and gracious, bringing him crayons, talking about favorite Bluey characters, and generally turning a blind eye to his antics. He made the dining experience difficult, but the food was great.

We’ll likely give Trattoria al Forna another try because the BoardWalk just might be our last new Disney hotel experience! There are a few we haven’t tried yet, including Animal Kingdom Lodge and the Riviera, but we really enjoyed BoardWalk. It was a short boat ride away from EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, had great theming, and just felt like a good fit for our family. We loved being able to open our doors and watch the EPCOT fireworks! This might be our spot from now on.

The Kids Are Always Changing

As we embrace park changes and find places that we can come back to year after year, we also have to acknowledge that our kids are always changing too. They are growing into new experiences and out of old ones. This year, we decided to book another (exorbitant but delicious) lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table because we knew that in a few short years, dining with the princesses might not seem very exciting to our girls. This year, though, they loved it. (The toddler was quite taken with Cinderella, too.)

By the time the girls have outgrown princess dining, the toddler will be big enough to ride a whole slew of new attractions. Hopefully, he won’t ride them with his hands covering his eyes like he did on pretty much everything this trip! He’ll get braver, just like my middle kid, who gave Slinky Dog Dash a try this year. She wasn’t sure she liked it, but she’s glad she tried. She also LOVED the water slide at the hotel pool. Last year, she couldn’t swim in water above her head.

The big kids enjoyed the pool while the toddler napped. By our next trip, he might not need a nap. That will open up new possibilities for family time, whether it’s an afternoon movie in the air conditioning or a chance for mom to lounge by the pool (or visit the Grand Floridian spa, another Disney experience I’ve yet to have!). Someday, they’ll be big enough to hang out on their own while mom and dad sneak out to the lounge for a date night. Eventually, they’ll be old enough to join us—and we hope we’ll have built enough family memories at Disney that they’ll want to. They’re free under three; maybe by twenty-three they’ll pay their own way!

See You Real Soon

All in all, we had a great trip. We arrived around lunch time on a Monday and left after lunch on Saturday. That felt like the right length of time to get to do almost everything we wanted (Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster was sadly closed every time my husband and oldest kid tried to ride). By Saturday, we were tired and ready to be back home. You will get a lot of steps at Disney (I logged over 17k one day), and I don’t find it sustainable to go at that pace for too long, especially with young kids. We left eager to return but not feeling like we’d missed too much.

We don’t have a trip scheduled—yet. But we did learn a few things from scheduling last minute this year. We were able to get reservations at most of the restaurants we wanted. And we tried joining the walk-up list for a few places for the first time, which worked well for some but wasn’t available when we wanted to dine for others. Sadly, the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique was booked solid. We’ve never done that before—and we realized that the girls might outgrow wanting to try this soon.

We also learned that some of the fun of the trip is looking forward to it. I think our girls would have had even more fun planning if they’d known about it sooner. (As it was, they made an entire “Disney tracker” notebook of things they wanted to do. Then they gave themselves points at the end for everything they did. They are my kids, after all.) I tried to keep our countdown updated but probably needed an easier tool than a letterboard. This adorable Disney countdown calendar would be a better option! The toddler was just confused and would say we were going to Disney “in summah”. He wasn’t wrong.

So Disney, we hope to see you real soon. Maybe next summah.

Do you have a go-to vacation spot? Are you a Disney adult? Let me know in the comments! I love hearing from you! Bonus points if you can name the characters in the first picture.

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