All in Vacations
My mom and I just returned from our annual trip to Disney World to celebrate my birthday. This was the last of my birthday celebrations for the year, so it was a great one to end on! I already wrote all about the planning that was involved, so now I want to fill you in on how the trip actually went! Below is day two - Saturday, January 27th!
My mom and I just returned from our annual trip to Disney World to celebrate my birthday. This was the last of my birthday celebrations for the year, so it was a great one to end on! I already wrote all about the planning that was involved, so now I want to fill you in on how the trip actually went! Below is day one - Friday, January 26th!
It is that time of year again when mom and I go on our annual girls' trip. We bought a Disney World Annual Pass last year, so it only made sense to do Disney again. All of the cold weather at home almost makes me wish we did a cruise, but it really didn't make much sense. Plus, I am not sure I can be away from Melody quite that long yet. Below is all of the planning that went into this year's trip!
As you have probably read, we went to Disney World back in December. I wanted to do one last post that included all of the things I wrote about in regards to this particular trip. Check them out below.
Packing for Disney can be quite a challenge. The challenge becomes even more difficult when a baby/toddler is involved. I had to make quite a few lists in addition to my usual travel checklist. I wanted to share some of the packing tips/tricks/advice I have. I am certain my advice isn't perfect, but I know every little bit helps!
In preparation for Disney, I made both Melody and Lydia happys. I give Lydia hers at our Disney Party, but I gave Melody hers the day before we left for Disney. It was actually the last thing we did for our Disney countdown.
For our trip to Disney in December, I made all of us different shirts to wear on certain days of our trip. For one day, we each one wanted to do different family shirts. In addition, we made the girls shirts to wear on another day. Check them out below.
In preparation for our Disney trip last December, we had another Disney party. As you may recall, we did a Disney party in the past for a trip we went on with Emily and Justin to Disney. We wanted to do something fun to get everyone excited about our upcoming trip. Since it was near the holidays, our focus wasn't entirely on the trip. So I wanted one day where we spent a little time thinking about Disney!
On our trip to Disney in December, we decided to stay at the Yacht Club. We originally booked the Beach Club, and we even considered The Boardwalk at one point. We eventually changed our reservation so that we could stay at the Yacht Club. Our reasoning was for the discount. I did some research and found that with an Annual Passholder discount, it would be a larger discount at Yacht Club vs Beach Club. Our main goal was to simply stay connected to Epcot, so we were entirely ok with this change. Luckily, it did pay off in the end, and we were able to score a great discount!
For our trip to Disney in December, I made Emily and Justin a countdown. We had a Disney Party to get hyped up for our trip, and I gave them this as sort of a "favor". I wanted something semi simple but still super cute.
Today was the VERY end of our Disney trip. This won't be too lengthy of a post simply because the majority of our day was spent driving! But I did want to finish up our trip report!
Today was a sad day. It was our very last day at Disney! While we were excited about some of the things we had planned, we were also sad that our trip was literally almost over. It was also a misty day. It wasn't raining enough for a poncho, but it was sprinkling enough to frustrate you!
Today was an early morning. We had a breakfast reservation at Be Our Guest at 8:20 am. I wanted to be there fairly early so that we would be able to get in closer to 8 and take a few pictures with a fairly empty park. Our only other reservation for the day was for Emily and Justin at Hollywood and Vine for dinner. We also had Fastpasses scheduled in Magic Kingdom after breakfast.
Today was meant to be our "break" day. We did have lunch reservations at Biergarten at Epcot along with a couple of Fastpasses. None of our Fastpasses were "required", but since we had a park ticket that day, we opted to book some Fatpasses just in case. The night before, Brad and I decided to try and make it to Epcot at park opening and do a few things before lunch. Then we could spend the afternoon and evening around the resort or at Downtown Disney.
Tuesday was scheduled to be our busiest day yet. We planned to visit three parks - Epcot, Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom. We had breakfast reservations at Garden Grill at 8:05, an hour before park opening. Then we had Fastpasses to the Na'Vi River Journey between 7 and 8 pm. The park closes at 8. So it was going to be a very, very long day! Long, hot, busy days tend to lead to breakdowns. Check out ours below!
Our second day of our trip to Disney was actually our first full day in Orlando. Since we traveled so much the day before, we decided to take the morning easy. We made lunch reservations at the Garden Grill for noon. So that was our only true deadline. Our plans otherwise were to spend the day at Epcot. We had a few Fastpasses for that afternoon and dinner planned at Chefs de France.
Since we opted to drive to Disney with an 18 month old, we decided to leave our house as early as possible. We wanted Melody to sleep as much of the drive as we possibly could. We opted to leave at 2 am. On a "normal" drive, it takes 10-11 hours. Plus there is an hour time difference. We usually only stop once for food and, at most, once for gas. I knew that was not going to be the case with this drive however.
This isn't a brand new post in that I posted about how I made a stroller tag for Melody's first Disney trip. Instead, this is just me showing you the Disney stroller tag I made for our December Disney trip.
This is by far the easiest countdown that I have ever made for a trip. Of course this countdown was made for our December Disney trip. Simply design something in Word or any other document editor that you prefer. I simply drew a Mickey head, added a bow, and this was where the days would be listed. Then I added wording to better explain what the countdown was for. I printed the countdown on regular printer paper. Then I cut it to the frame size that I was using. I literally just found a frame around our house that wasn't being used. I framed the print out and each day, I changed the number using a dry erase marker. Easy-peasy!
Before having Melody, we traveled all the time. Whether it was a visit to simply see family or small trips to the beach or even large trips to New York, traveling is a part of us. After having Melody, traveling did slow down, but we still traveled quite a bit. In the last six months we have tried to make an effort to slow down on traveling. But traveling cannot be avoided. So I decided to try and make it easier.
