Doing Disney!

We decided to head to Disney World for our winter break this year. My nephews have never been and my Mom had only been to Magic Kingdom once back in the 80's, so we took the whole family! I knew if we wanted to make this work and not the break the bank, we needed to find some deals and come up with a plan. We have stayed on Disney property and used the Disney Dining plan in the past. And for a small family of 4, you can usually score some great deals or even free dining! But if you are traveling with 8 kids, you won't find on property Disney deals for as cheap as I was looking for. So I suggest VRBO.com if you are looking to really save some money. We rented a 4 bedroom house, 3 bathrooms, sleeps 10 and complete with a pool table, ping pong table, heated pool and hot tub and playsation with games for $850 for the week. 8 days/7 nights. You can't beat that! We were located 8 miles from Disney, but with traffic about a 20 minute drive. We got a great deal on 5 Day park hopper passes through my husbands employee benefit sight, so we went with the 5 day passes. We also bought groceries as soon as we arrived. We cooked breakfast everyday but 1, made lunches for the parks everyday and ate 3 dinners at home. Cha-ching. More money in your pocket... because let's be real, $3 for a bottle of water, $10 for a burger and fries, that adds up everyday! We prepared our lunches and breakfast the night before. Breakfast casserole worked well for making ahead as well as taco lasagna made in advance so all you need to do is pop in the oven for meals when you are tired and hungry! We purchased and took with us plenty of snacks and drinks for each day as well. Chips, cookies, crackers, goldfish, water bottles (which you can refill at the water fountains) , Gatorades, capri suns.. all went with us everyday. We used soft 31 brand coolers with a couple of frozen water bottles for lunches. Lunches were packed the night before in a brown bag with everyone's name it. This made things sooo much easier come lunch time at a busy park! We used a double stroller, which allowed us to keep our cooler and snacks with us all day, however lockers are available for rent for $7 or $10 a day and could hold all your items. However, if you have kids 6 and under I highly suggest a stroller to haul your stuff because at some point, your smaller kids are going to crash and you will have a spot to put them. Disney has strollers for rent or consignment sales usually have cheap strollers too! Or just borrow a friends to save the money. Along with the coolers, we had multiple soft light weight backpacks. The kids could carry their own snacks, drink and jackets. They also rolled up nicely to put in the stroller if they emptied their bag out. (similar to this  backpack here). So that's how are days looked. We made lunches the night before and planned dinner the next night- some nights we picked up fast food on the way home, one night we ate at magic kingdom in a quick serve restaurant), we had everything laid out and ready to go the next morning. We ate hearty breakfast's before we left each morning, ate our packed lunches and snacks at the parks. As for our schedule- we decided to do 3 days at park, take a day off and then do the last 2 at the parks. You must take a break if you have passes for more than 3 days, I'm so glad we did this! We all needed the break. On our day off we stayed at the house and cleaned (it was a disaster!), the kids played and swam all day and had a wonderful day at the house!

Now onto to the parks! We chose our park days based on what was suggested in books and online. This book: The Complete Walt Disney World 2016: The Definitive Disney Handbook  or The Passporter 2016 are both amazing in helping you plan! There are all sorts of great websites available too to help you plan when to go and what parks are busiest on what days. We purchased lanyards ahead of time (we have a stash of them we use for cruising), and wore our Disney passes around our necks. The kids also enjoyed pin trading! We had pins from years past we took as well as some we had ordered off Ebay. This will help your kids get started for cheap (pins in the park are not cheap!) You can trade pins with any cast member anywhere on Disney property. Here is a pic of the kids trading with a cast member:

While at the parks, we used the Disney World app! It allowed us to book all our fast passes for each park 30 days in advance as well as make dining reservations. This app was so awesome! We could see what the wait time was at every ride (which kept us from waiting in crazy long lines), see all our ride pictures as well as any other photo pass pictures, find parade times, see how close the next bathroom was and get quick access to the park map! This app made our park days sooo much easier! We usually got to the parks around 9:30 or 10. We had to pay parking every day ($20 a day), but we still saved money! We tried to make rope drop for at least one park- but that never happened, and it didn't matter, we had just as much fun! I booked our fast passes with a park map beside me. I booked them 30 days in advance (that's as early as you can if you stay off disney property). I tried to pay attention to where we might be in the park and at what time. We tried to hit up some of the big rides that we didn't score fast passes for first thing in the morning before the lines got too long and use our passes for the later afternoon when ride times are at the worst. This plan worked wonderfully! We didn't wait in line much at all using this plan and the app.

Day 1: Travel and Unpack, Grocery Shopping
We drove straight down. It is only a 6 hour drive, but we had to stop 3 times because Hooper is still nursing and only goes 2 to 3 hours without eating. And Mema has to potty every 2 hours as well. But we still made good time. We stopped for lunch at a ChickfilA so the little kids could play on the playground. As soon as we got everything unloaded we headed to the grocery store. We made our list before we left so we were sure not to forget anything, The kids just played a the house and enjoyed the pool and game!

Day 2: Animal Kingdom
We started our day with a character breakfast. This was very costly, but totally worth it! We chose Ohana's with Lilo and Stitch at the Polynesian Resort. Not only is the food amazing, but so is the atmosphere! Character breakfasts are a great time to get autographs without waiting in the long lines!  I reserved this breakfast several months in advance! Mema had made us all the cutest Disney shirts to wear! She got the shirts very cheap at the sock shoppe and used her machine to cut out and iron on the transfers. 

The parade during breakfast!

We then made our way to Animal Kingdom. We chose this park since it was the weekend and we wanted to avoid the Magic Kingdom on weekends! It was pretty busy, but we still had a great time. We used our fast passes for Expedition Everest, The Lion King show and The Safari. This is the most spread out park there is, so we were all very tired at the end of the day! Animal Kingdom is very much like the zoo, with a few rides. The kids spent the most time at the Dinosaur Dig area. They loved the big box of rocks to find fossils in. Even Carter and Maggie had fun there!

We stood at the front for a long time watching the birds in the exhibit behind us.

Watching the huge bats!

The tiger!

Strolling through the Rice Fields.. 

The Boneyard

Manny filling up buckets

TJ is a chick magnet. They all just follow him around and beg to play! Ha!

Niece getting some Hooper laughs at the Boneyard!

Just me and my big kids rode Expedition Everest, it is one of our favorite rides!

Day 3 Magic Kingdom (Part 1):

We chose to spend 2 days at Magic Kingdom. It is impossible to do it all in 1 day. We ate our big breakfast and loaded up the lunches then headed to the park! Of course, before you actually get to that magical place you have to park at the transportation center. Then take a tram. Then either take a boat or the monorail to the park. It's a whole adventure on its own getting there. But we finally made it! We split the days up by section. We did Tomorrowland and most of Fantasy Land on day 1. We skipped fast passes for Space Mountain (my kids favorite) and just rode that first thing. Kennedy still says her favorite ride is the People Mover. She is too funny. We waited in line for over an hour to ride the toy story mania only to find out it was closed. If the line isn't moving- move on! We did however get a stack of fast passes for our inconvenience to use anytime that day! We found a bench to eat lunch on around 2 (we usually ate lunch late as possible to keep us full until dinner at 9 or after every night!) between Tomorrowland and Fantastyland. After our quick lunch break we headed to Fantasyland to use our fast passes. Based on wait times in previous trips, we chose Haunted Mansion, 7D Mine Train, and Peter Pans Flight (which proved to be good choices, the wait time for these rides were 60 or more mins all day). We spent the rest of the day here in Fantasylan, because this area truly is magical!

     
                                      The monorail was closed that morning, so we took the ferry!

Kennedy and her favorite ride, The People Mover

Tomorrowland Speedway!

Hooper and I watching everyone race!

Hooper looking terrified on Peter Pan's Flight! Hooper could ride almost everything in Fantasyland. As long as there was no height restriction, he was able to ride. And despite the picture, he smiled and enjoyed them all!

The Haunted Mansion

Hooper having lunch during it's a small world. I noticed there were not too many little babies at Disney. I don't think it would of been so easy for me if Hooper was bottle fed. Apparently there are not too many mom's crazy enough to bring a 3 month old to Disney! Ha!

Mickey's Philhar Magic 4D show

The carousal is a must.

By 7:00 that night, it had started to rain. It only rained for 30 mins or so and it rained while we ate dinner at a quickserve! So when we got back outside, the rain was gone and so were all the people! The kids rode the rides over and over with no wait time! Such a fun night!

Dumbo! And I promise Hooper had fun!

No wait for Ariel since the rain sent everyone home!

Day 4 Magic Kingdom (part 2):

We started our day with a breakfast casserole we made the night before, and packed up our big yummy sub sandwiches into our cooler. We headed back for the Magic Kingdom. We got there around 10 (still didn't even come close to a rope drop). The wait for Tinkerbell was only 10 mins, so some of the kids went to see her. We then hit up the candy store on main-street for some instant energy and headed over to Adventureland. We stopped by Swiss Family Robinson Tree house  and then we headed onto some of the bigger rides with a long wait. The earlier in the day, the less the wait. Fortunately, Kennedy passed out as soon as we got there, so she napped while the big kids rode a few things. Only a trip to Disney will have a wild 4 year old napping by 11 am! We used our fast passes at Aladins Carpet Rides, Pirates of the Caribbean and Big Thunder. We found a spot in Adventureland at one of the quick serve restaurants to eat our sack lunches. Whether this is frowned upon or not, I don't know- no cast members seemed to mind and we enjoyed the shady spot to eat. We made our way through Frontierland, and stopped to watched the original Country Bear Jamboree, which my nephews found hilarious.. (this was their first trip to Disney) We finished up the evening back in Fantasyland where the kids rode several rides with very little wait and then headed back to the house for dinner. As I looked through my pictures, I realized I only took a few pictures this day. I guess I was too tired to even take pictures!

First things first, Tinkerbell! When there is no wait for a character, you jump right on it!

Walking through Adventureland

Swiss family treehouse

My little buddy relaxing in the stroller.

My wild child passed out at 11 AM!

Selfies!

Day 5    REST/Disney Springs:
We needed an off day! But you can't really take a complete day off at Disney. There is too much to do and see! So we rested, the kids played swam and we took naps. We planned ahead to spend the evening in Disney Springs , formerly Downtown Disney. They are still doing construction here (they were doing it 2 years ago when we were there also). But it didn't effect us! We made dinner reservations at T-Rex Cafe. It was fabulous! We made our reservations at 5:00 and had such a fun time at dinner. The kids played in the bone dig playground and enjoyed seeing all the loud dino's and watching the meteor showers. For dessert, we had smoking lava cakes! So cool! Then we shopped and danced the rest of the night away! 

Our awesome dessert!

The Lego Store was a big hit!

Except for Hooper, he found the Lego store a bit boring ;)

Day 6 Hollywood Studios:

We ate our breakfast, packed our lunched up and headed for Hollywood Studios. We made our fast pass selections this day for Tower of Terror, Toy Story and Star Tours. We made sure to plan our day according to show times. Lights Motor Action and Indiana Jones are both a must, so we planned our day around those show times. We hit up Rocking Roller coaster first thing and waited less than 20 mins to ride, we even got Mema on this one and she loved it! (she was a trooper and had ridden space mountain too). We saw almost every show there and rode every ride! We had our picnic lunch in the Pixar area and the kids had a wonderful time playing hide and go seek with the toy soldiers! Dinner that night was taco lasagna we had already assembled in the fridge the night before, so all we had to do was pop it in the oven when we got home. 

Aerosmith and the Rockin Roller Coaster!

Niece took the little ones to see Donald while we rode the roller coasters.

Enthralled with Beauty and the Beast live on stage

Tower of Terror!

Watching Indiana Jones

Lunchtime play with the toy soldiers

Space Ranger Spin, our favorite ride at Hollywood Studios!

Day 7 Epcot:
Ok, last time I went to Epcot I was tired and we only had half a day there. It was our last day and we were exhausted when we went before. I was not excited about Epcot. I was actually dreading it. But, much to my surprise, we had the BEST TIME! For starters, the place was a ghost town! The wait time to do anything was less than 15 mins. We still used our fast passes, especially for test track where the wait was much longer, but we rode everything open! Unfortunately Soarin was under construction. We spent the morning in the front of Epcot and had a ball! Especially my Mom, who is a space fanatic! She had a blast on Mission Space! We had our picnic lunch around 2, and headed to the World Showcase for the remainder of the day. The kids did a Phineas and Phurb adventure in the United Kingdom and had a ball! My sister took them to do that, and me, Mema, Maggie and the sleeping babies (Hooper and Kennedy) went on to France. We had a wonderful time on a buffet of pastries! I really felt like I was in France! We made our way through Italy, Africa, and on around all the way to Mexico. We had planned to eat here for dinner, but the kids were tired and so was I so we opted to finish up leftovers at the house. On the way home, we stopped right out front of Hollywood Studios for a BEAUTIFUL, upclose view of their firework show! What a way to end the week.

Welcome to Epcot!

The Seas with Nemo and Friends

Not only was the ride cool, but there is a HUGE aquarium here too!

Spaceship Earth

Test Track! Our favorite thing at Epcot. This is the car TJ and Kennedy designed.

Trying to take a selfie in Japan.

We decided to let someone else take it.. Kennedy was asleep in the stroller.

My awesome sister and nephews in Japan

I just had to have a little sip of wine in Italy!

Posing with Ana and Elsa topiary in Norway

My sweet little Jada wearing her Maleficent jacket she bought. She just loves the villains!

Day 8 Time to go home:

We had an amazing trip. Disney still remains my family's favorite vacation spot. Although we were completely exhausted when we got home, it was well worth it!