PTO Today

So we're doin' Disney World over spring break (10 days total - March 29 - April 9). MI to FL = 20 hours 1 way with kids 7 and 9 towing our new pop-up trailer. . .

We plan to do "stuff" every other day. Our first stop is totally FL on the ocean - Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and NASA's Space Center. Then it's a day at Epcot followed by the grand Magic Kingdom!

We'll be camping, mostly on Disney property at Fort Wilderness. Might I say that "Disney on a Dime" and "Unofficial Guide to Disney World" are fantastic reads!

If you are nuts for Disney, or simply know the ins and outs to make this vacation a great success, I'd love to hear from you.

To all 200,000 of you who will be doing Disney as well - Safe Travels, Tammy

We are planning to do Disney in July. Any tips from your Spring Break trip??
I think we are staying at All Star Music Hotel.

I can not sing the praises of this website enough...www.tourguidemike.com I have used it for our trips in July, September, and this past January. His tips and suggestions literally save you hours standing in line and we were able to make some amazing memories thanks to him.

I just wish it was less than 295 days until we go again!

If you have specific questions, please email me at justcindy2@hotmail.com and I'll try and help.

We've done Disney in July twice now and the biggest tip I can give you is take a break in the afternoon because it gets HOT. We would head to the park on the shuttle so we got there right as they opened in the morning. We had a plan as to what we wanted to see and ride and the best way to get to it all. We used Fast Passes whenever we could. We would go until lunch, then while we were eating we would plan what we could get done by 1:00 or 2:00. Then we would head back to the hotel and either swim in the pool at the resort, or head to a water park. We'd come back to our room about 5:00, dress, eat supper somewhere and go back to the parks for a couple of hours.

We found that a little planning can make a huge difference in how much you can get done and helps to not waste time going to places that your kids will have no interest in. We let them look through the little brochures and pick what they wanted to do.

We went to Disney World last year. It was a lot of fun. There are so many websites and travel books that it seems there's [b]too much[/b] information. So it's smart to ask for referrals.

The website I would recommend is MouseSavers.com. Lots of great info, wonderful tips, details on ALL the parks.

As far as lodging, my first choice would be to rent a house or condo so you have a good base of operations, a place to relax, can fix simple meals, etc. Or a mid-range hotel, maybe with a kitchenette or fridge/microwave. The parks are pretty tiring - going out for every meal on top of that can get old. Sometimes you just want an easy snack or a bowl of cereal!

My husband wanted to do the whole Disney experience, so we stayed on a Disney property. The the hotel was gorgeous, the shuttles were nice, but it was expensive.

We got a "4 day park hopper plus" ticket which allowed us to come and go at the major Disney parks. (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom)

The "plus" was a bonus allowing us to pick an additional site (water park, etc.) for a single visit. We wouldn't have known to shop around for the "plus" version without mousesavers.com.

We did take a collapsable soft-side cooler with us (the kind with wheels). That way we could keep some snacks on ice in the hotel room.

[ 03-31-2006, 09:00 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]

We've stayed on the resort both times and you're right JHB it's wonderful but pricey. We did love having the ability to fix breakfast and snacks in the our own little kitchen. I even baked brownies and made muffins and scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast and one night we just went to the resort store and picked up a frozen pizza and a salad. The prices at the stores on the resort are shocking but we had been warned by friends so we packed ziploc bags of cereal and the muffin and brownie mixes along with some snacks.

The shuttles are great too because they drop you right at the entrance.

We used hopper passes too. A definite recommendation. The first year we went, the waterparks were included in the hopper. That changed last year.

Okay, all this talk has made me want to go back!!!

__________________
Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

We didn't have a kitchenette as it wasn't that style of hotel. But I did bring the cooler, so we stopped at a grocery store on the way in from the airport and picked up some snacks, box of cereal, plastic ware, ect. So all I bought from the Disney Resort was milk.

From both an expense and and energy perspective, it was nice to have a quick breakfast or snack in the room.

[ 03-31-2006, 08:57 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]

We did disney 2 summers ago. My husband and I, 4 kids and my mother. We drove down from VA but left in the middle of the night so the kids could sleep. Once they were up, I had a "goodie box" that I had been putting things in for months. They knew about it, even decorated it before-hand. Every hour, they got a surprise out of the box. Some were travel games, some where little things from the Disney Store. One was a hand-held disney fan to take to the parks. This made traveling alot more child friendly!
We rented a house in a resort community. It was in Davenport, just south of disney. It only took us 10 minutes to get to all of the parks. We never had traffic problems, even in late June.There are plenty of lanes going in and out so traffic moved quickly. We had a 4 bedroom house, with 2 kids to a room, my mother to a room with a private bath, and hubby and I to the master suite! We also had our own private pool!! This was cheaper than any hotel we could get for 7 people! We paid $900 for 8 nights.
We got 4 day park hopper tickets from our local disney store. You save 20%, which is the same as ordering online from disney and cheaper than mousesavers. Plus you can use cash instead of charging it. I'm not big on charging a vacation.
Anyway, it was GREAT!! If you ask the kids what their favorite part of the trip was, they say the house and pool! They loved disney but coming home and swimming by themselves while we were cooking or just a quick dip before bed was wonderful.
If anyone wants info on renting houses, send me an email. I searched millions! We rent houses everywhere we go. Haven't stayed in a hotel in 5 years and don't miss them at all!!

dillons5@earthlink.net

You moms are great! Thanks so much for all of your advice and web links.

We had a GREAT time at Disney World. My husband had never been there. He was as blown away as the kids were! Since I'm DYING to talk about our adventure, I'll type a lot of "how we did it" for other first time Disney goers.

Our family stayed on Disney property at Fort Wilderness in our pop-up camper. There are no fire pits, so no one smelled like a "camper". It's a fantastic park except for the transportation. TO TRY: if you're going with a tent or pop-up, request loop 1500 and call the lodge directly to make sure you get it. 2000 is pretty far to walk from/to the activities area (which also has and best pool). I would also recommend driving your vehicle to and from the parks. Disney transportation is nice, but you lose an hour going one way because of the bus transfers. Driving takes a bit of figuring out, but your site includes FREE parking, it is much faster AND you can keep your lunch ice cold in your cooler.

As for the parks, we did Epcot on Tuesday, shopped for souveniers at Downtown Disney on Wednesday (no tickets required) and Magic Kingdom on Thursday (a grand ending to a perfect week!). I had two rules and a firm plan when we walked through the park door (using the "extra magic hour" of course). The rules were: no shopping and no waiting in line for more than 30 minutes - there's too many other cool things to do! That, of couse, meant that I had to put the kid's "must" rides at the top of our plan so that the lines would be short. We passed on the park hopper option because we had never been to Disney. There was no way that we could see one park in a day, so we stayed put (which kept us focused). We also passed on purchasing more days than we intened to use (saving them for another year) because we put a $750.00 fuel pump, with acessories, into our van on the way down to the Space Coast. We rode rides in the AM, and did shows/parades/fireworks in the PM. I did make everyone take a break around 2:30 and we came back about 5:00 when the heat broke and the crowds thinned. It was 38 degrees when we left MI, and we toured the parks in 86 degree heat (with lots of 50 SPF lotion!).

As for food, we ate light all week because of the heat. For instance, I precooked and froze seasoned taco meat at home, and then put it in my crockpot at camp. "Make your own taco night" was a hit!

The night before we did the parks, and again during our rest period, I packed a [b]backpack[/b] that has a cooler compartment on the bottom, dry storage on the top, and pouches on the ends for maps, tissues, hand sanitizer, comb (use before character pictures) etc. Purchased at Rite-Aid, the backpack worked great at Hershey Park a couple of years ago, and traveled comfortable around Disney on my back.

At 6:00 AM I made flavored coffee and walked out the door with the last of it in a disposable coffee cup. I packed the cooler full of ice cold water, a Coke for my husband, drink pouches and/or Sunny D sports bottles, along with our sunscreen and some combination of: Mini-raisin bagles (spread with PB&J), cut apples, quick-cut carrots, string cheese and summer sausage slices, portable go-gurt, pudding tubes. *HINT: If you're white as snow, use the cool sunscreen everytime you snack.

The top compartment had a variety of individually packaged snacks: Special K breakfast bars (to eat in line with the Sunny D), granola bars, tropical trail mix bags, princess/nemo fruit snacks, pringles, cheese or peanut butter crackers (very dry). We went through an AMAZING amount of water and food to fuel our hot and tired bodies. One book that I read said to expect to walk a MINIMUM of 5 miles at each park you visit. They're not kidding. . . I also packed baseball hats, sunglasses, cell phone, autograph books and all the rest in the top. When it got warm enough to shed our sweatshirts, we took out the hats, etc. and stuffed them into the top! A carribeaner held our hats to a strap during the wildest rides.

Disney was fun to plan, and GREAT to experience. I am now looking forward to scrapbooking my memories. Is it "cheating" if I print this post and paste it in as my journaling??? This is also new territory for me, so if you have any ideas for pages, or know of a site where I could take a look at someone else's work, let me know.

Wishing you all a great 2006 vacation - Tammy

Eastside - glad you had fun and thanks for sharing the tips.

Everyone - is it obvious to everyone else that Eastside must be a PTO pres? If not now, very soon!