Summer Disney Series, Part 6: Eating at Disney World

A bit late, but here it is: the LAST installment of my summer Disney series. Once you're there, you're going to have to eat, right?

This (like pretty much everything Disney) can be an overwhelming topic. I spent much time thinking about how to organize this post (maybe THAT'S why it's a week late!) and have finally settled on the following three part format:

Part 1: a few general dining tips and thoughts
Part 2: personal favorite sit down and quick service restaurants
Part 3: some thoughts on being gluten free at Disney

Part 1: General Dining Thoughts

1. To dining plan or not to dining plan: I've already discussed my deep and abiding love for free dining. If you can get the dining plan for free, do that. If you have to pay for it? Is is worth it? Simply put, I don't know. I've never paid for it. I'd do a lot of math first, looking at menus and thinking about what I was likely to order, before deciding. You can find all the menus with prices at All Ears. And think about whether you'd like to eat off property some or bring in some of your own food. One nice thing about the dining plan is that all your food is paid for in advance. You don't have to spend a lot of time fretting over how expensive the food is while you're on vacation, because you'll have finished fretting about it before you even leave home! On the flip side, having all your food paid for already can kind of cramp your style if you like a less planned out vacation. If the food's paid for, you have to make sure you go eat it...no last minute changes of plans.

2. Make reservations: you can make reservations for table service restaurants SIX MONTHS in advance. This is probably not how you're used to eating out. Now, at most restaurants, most times of year, if you're flexible about days and times, you'll still be able to get in if you don't plan that far in advance (even if you only plan a few days in advance). For the very popular restaurants, though (some character meals, especially) you really do need to make your reservations way ahead of time. Go ahead and book them all when you can; you can always change them around and cancel them later.

Part 2: A Few Favorites

My favorite quick service places in each park:
Animal Kingdom:
Restaurantosaurus: the food here is nothing special, but it's huge and air conditioned, and the decor is cool. There's even a real Winnebago outfitted with booths.

Hollywood Studios:
ABC Commissary: for some reason, we always wind up here even though I'm not a particularly big fan. I think it's because there's not anywhere in HS that I'm a big fan of. And the air conditioning.

Magic Kingdom:
Columbia Harbor House: we all love it here. There's always lots of seating upstairs, the food is good, it's centrally located, the decor hasn't been updated in decades, and they have the gluten free chicken fingers that  my kids adore.

Epcot:
Sunshine Seasons: I know you're supposed to go try exotic food in World Showcase, but I like Sunshine Seasons.

Some favorite table service places:
1. Boma (Animal Kingdom Lodge): Boma is an African-inspired buffet, and it's Dave's favorite restaurant anywhere, not just at Disney World. I like it, too. And you can look at zebras and giraffes while you're waiting for your reservation.

2. 'Ohana (Polynesian): We've had mixed luck at 'Ohana, but when it is good it is very, very good, so we always go back. Lots of meat. Also coconut races and hula lessons for the kids.

3. Via Napoli: We can't eat real pizza any more, but the pizza here is yummy, if you can.

4. Crystal Palace: I'm not as big of a fan of Crystal Palace, but Dave and the kids really like it. Lunch more than breakfast. I find it less overwhelming than some of the character meals.

5. Jiko: expensive, but good. Also, the server here cut the kids' steak up for us! Not having to spend half of our meal cutting steak for children felt very luxurious.

Part 3: Gluten-free at Disney

There is no where in the world you'd rather be eating out gluten free than Disney World. They really do an amazing job. I wrote a very long trip report about our 2011 trip, entitled "Is there Gluten in Whiskey?" in which I discuss the whole thing extensively and write lots of reviews. But, yeah, basically, they make it really easy. You can note on your reservations that you're gluten-free, and the chef will come out to talk to you at most every table service restaurant. At quick service restaurants, a manager will talk to you. And then you will wait a long time for your food, very often. This is the big downside. But! You get BREAD with all your table service meals! And there's even a gluten free bakery, Babycakes, in Downtown Disney.

All done! To recap:

Part 1: When to Go
Part 2: Where to Stay
Part 3: Bringing Baby
Part 4: Big(gish) Families
Part 5: Save some Money

And, finally, our last day. AKA Magic Kingdom day #2.

It was Ari's birthday! He was 12, so he needed Milo to help out with some extra fingers.

One of my favorite Disney things to do is to ride the Peoplemover and take pictures of my kids on it. Lots of pictures. So many pictures.

We ate lunch at Columbia Harbor House, and I had to take a picture of this thing, because Abe has a thing just like it (only smaller) in his nursery:

This is just us waiting for the tram back to our car. But what I like about Gus when he gets a little sun is how clearly you can see that he only has freckles on one side of his face.

Ari selected Buffalo Wild Wings, near our rental house, for his birthday dinner. Shrug. Whatever the birthday boy wants, right?

We tried both nights we were there to see the nighttime parade at Magic Kingdom, and both times it was canceled because it looked like this. 

Summer Disney Series, Part 5: Save Some Money

Truth? A genuinely cheap Disney vacation is pretty near impossible to come by and getting harder by the day. I suppose you could camp at a state park somewhere near by, eat nothing but hot dogs cooked over your campfire, and then just go to Downtown Disney, let your kids play in the lego store, and tell them that IS Disney World. But that doesn't sound like much fun.

What makes Disney trips....justifiable for us is that we don't have to fly there. With six people, the cost of airfare alone to pretty much anywhere would already be a giant chunk of what we spend on a Disney trip. We also have always either gone during free dining or stayed in a cheap place off property. But even so, the price of a Disney trip has gone up so much for us over the years, between constant price increases (on Disney's part) and constantly new and/or aging children (on our part) that yearly trips are almost certainly a thing of the past. Which is fine. It's possible it's time to branch out a bit. I have a big imaginary road trip post planned for....sometime.

But! There are certainly ways to save some money on your Disney trip and make it cheaper than it would be if you just called up Disney and said something like, "please book the best vacation ever for me." Don't do that.

Here's my list of tips (by no means exhaustive! Please add any I've left out in the comments!), in rough order from big meta-tips that will save you significant money on your whole trip to little dinky tips that will save you a bit here and there.

1. Go during the off season: It's possible I would feel less strongly about this if I weren't so crowd averse, but if there's one single thing you can do to make your vacation better in every way possible, it's going during the off season. I talk about this more in the post on when to go, but, basically, any time kids are in school is when you want to go. If you don't have kids, or your kids aren't in school yet, or they're homeschooled, or you don't mind pulling them out for a week (and neither you nor your partner is a teacher. sigh)....go when kids are in school. Disney raises the prices not just on hotels but at many of the restaurants during busy times of year, so everything costs you more AND you get less for your money, because you spend more time fighting crowds and waiting in line (the parks are open longer hours, though, when it's busy). You're also much more likely to get a really good discount during the off season, which brings us to number 2.

2. Look for discounts: Disney very commonly offers pretty big discounts. Don't book without checking for them! Some of these are only available to annual pass holders or Florida residents or Disney Visa holders or people who know the magic handshake....but plenty of them are available to the general public, too. I always check Mousesavers.com first for discounts.

Hotel discounts are very common, and seem to range from 15-40ish% off, depending on which resort and what time of year.

My personal favorite discount, though, is my beloved free dining. Disney sells a few different dining plans that you can always pay to add onto a package (you can't get it if you're staying off property or booking your room and tickets separately), but at various times of year they offer a promotion where you get the dining plan for free when you book a full price room and ticket package. Free dining has been offered every single year in fall (always in September and then for varying lengths of time before or after) for....maybe 8 years now? And it's sometimes offered other non-peak times of year, too, depending largely on how many people Disney's getting to book trips without giant discounts.

People like to bicker over just how great of a discount free dining is, and the truth it that it totally depends on what your family/travel group looks like and how you like to travel. If you have, say, two people and you like to stay in deluxe resorts, you'll probably save more with a hotel discount. If you're not into the dining plan, preferring to eat off property or cook for yourself or just to keep things super flexible, it also might not be the best discount for you. But if you happen to have a few ginormous boys in your family who eat more than seems possible and you generally stay in the cheapest on-property resort you can fit in, free dining is an amazing deal. Paying for the regular dining plan would cost our family something like $260/night. We're not going to find a bigger discount than that.

3. Save on tickets, if you can: Tickets are the hardest thing to save money on. Disney rarely discounts them, and it's one thing that doesn't get cheaper in the off season. If you book a package, the ticket price will be rolled into that, and you'll pay what Disney charges you. If you're booking the components of your trip separately, however, there are a few ways to save. You can buy from an authorized ticket seller and save a few bucks over Disney prices. I've used Undercover Tourist without incident (if you sign up for Mousesavers newsletter, they'll send you a link to get slightly lower prices on Undercover Tourist, too).

Another potential money saver is individual enrollment in Disney's YES program.  This is a series of classes Disney offers for kids, elementary through high school aged. They're offered to school and other groups, but they sometimes open them up to individuals, too. You sign your kid up for a class and buy a package that includes up to eight days of admission with the class tuition. The classes sound really cool, and I hear good things about them. This used to be a really huge discount, but I think it's a lot less substantial now. Still, definitely worth looking into.

Another thing to remember about tickets is that Disney wants you to stay there, spending money on food, hotel rooms, and souvenirs as long as possible. As such, the longer you stay, the lower the ticket price per day is. The difference between a six day ticket and a seven day ticket is just a few dollars. One thing this means is that, just like Disney wants, it's much more expensive to hop over to Universal or Sea World for a couple of days than to spend those couple of days at Disney.

4. Stay off property: I talk more about this here, but if you're looking to do the cheapest trip possible, staying off property will need to be a part of it. Especially if you...

5. Stay somewhere with a kitchen: We cooked quite a few of our meals at our rental house this trip. This was partially to save money, but also because eating out over and over again with a 4 month old is not a whole lot of fun. But, yeah, you can save a ton of money this way. Eat breakfast, go the parks for awhile, bring lunch or buy lunch, then home for a break and dinner, back out for nighttime stuff.

6. Bring your own snacks: You ARE allowed to bring your own food in at Disney, unlike at most theme parks. You can haul in a whole lunch spread if you want, or just bring in snacks to stave off the temptation of Mickey Bars (I mean, you should buy Mickey Bars at least once, of course).

7. Don't buy water! Any place that sells fountain drinks will give you FREE cups of ice water. There is no reason at all to pay theme park prices for bottled water. You can also bring in bottles of water bought cheaply elsewhere, of course.

Next week: last week! I will talk about food, with special attention to gluten-free-ed-ness and Disney.

If you missed the first few installments, here they are:
When to go
Where to stay 
Bringing your baby
Big Families

On to day 5 of our recent trip. I don't seem to have too many pictures of this day. Ah well.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of Ari in his fedora.

We decided at the last minute to go on the "Behind the Seeds" tour of Living With the Land at Epcot.

It was really fun....well priced, I thought, and one of the few tours kids of all ages can go on.

I guess Abe must have been asleep, or I would have made him be

in the picture, too.

Abe's first time in a pool! He was completely indifferent.

Linking with:

The Inspiration Gallery
Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap-Up Party
Monday Funday
Give Me the Goods Monday

Summer Disney Series, Part 4: Disney World and the Big(gish) Family

I know that four kids is nothing compared to what some people have, but, for Disney purposes, anything other than your standard two adults and two kids means you have to do a little extra planning. Mostly when it comes to picking a hotel room. So I'll focus primarily on that and then toss in a few extra thoughts about travel with more than two kids at the end.

On paper, you have plenty of options for places to stay at Disney with five people, and things don't really start to get limited until you hit six. In actual practice, though, most of the options that become unavailable to you once you have that pesky fifth person are all the cheapest hotel rooms on property. So while you still have lots of choices, they're largely pretty expensive choices. A standard room in a value resort or in any moderate other than Port Orleans Riverside sleeps up to four people. A standard room in most of the deluxes, on the other hand, sleeps five. I've seen some heated threads on the Disboards where people like to talk about the gazillions of choices you still have for your family of five....but this presumes that you also have gazillions of dollars.

There ARE some good, non-gazillion-dollar-costing, places to stay with your family of 5 or 6 or more, but finding them isn't necessarily as simple as getting on Disney's website and plugging in how many people you have. It pays to get a little more creative.

A note: Disney doesn't count kids under 3 as people, so you if you have a kid under 3, you get an extra person in your room.

Okay, so! I'm going to try to break this down as simply as I can, but it's a kind of big, sprawly topic (and I'm sure I'll leave something out, so feel free to jump in in the comments with any options I'm not thinking of!). Let's start off with a category for, specifically, parties of exactly five (or five plus a baby under 3 in a crib). You have a fair number of options that go away once you hit six people.

If you have exactly five people....

1. Port Orleans Riverside

This is a moderate resort (i.e. the middle category, price-wise), and there is one section of the resort that offers rooms with two queen beds plus an extra pull down bed suitable for a younger kid to sleep in. I believe they recommend them for kids under 10. This is likely going to be your cheapest on-property option for 5 people. I haven't stayed here. We almost did once, but wound up having to cancel that trip. The downside here is that you have five people in one not so big hotel room.

2. Any deluxe resort except Animal Kingdom and Wilderness Lodge

All of these rooms have two queens plus a daybed. They're also all really pricey. And you're still putting a lot of people in one hotel room, albeit a bigger one than Port Orleans.  But you're in a deluxe resort, which means nicer theming and, generally speaking, better location and/or transportation options.

If you have five or more people....
(listed in order, roughly, from cheapest to most expensive)

1. Off property (up to....lots of people): the cheapest way to go. Your options here are virtually endless. You can get a 2 room suite that sleeps 5 or 6. You can get a 6 bedroom house with a private pool that sleeps 14. The advantages here are price and space. The disadvantage is that you're not on property. More on pros and cons here.

2. Two rooms at a value resort (up to 8 people): we've stayed in two rooms at Pop Century three times now, and it's worked really well for us. You need to request connecting (not adjoining) rooms. We've always gotten connecting rooms (with a door in between) no problem, and we've always been told that they will guarantee that we get them because kids outnumber adults in our party. However, I've heard horror stories of people going at very busy times of year and not being given the connecting rooms they were promised. So, if it will ruin your vacation to be stuck in totally separate rooms, proceed at your own risk. The advantages here are price--this is probably the cheapest way to go for on property accommodations for six or more and that you have a fair amount of space and two full bathrooms. If you have two adults and 4 or fewer kids, you can request a king bed in one of the rooms (and 2 doubles in the other), but the king rooms are rare and hard to come by; we've had mixed luck trying to get one. Keep in mind that these are small rooms; there's no space for a rollaway and not much floor space, so if you have kids who can't or won't share a double bed well, you want to figure out the configuration ahead of time.

3. A family suite at All Star Music or at Art of Animation (up to 6 people): All the family suites are, I believe, exactly the same square footage as two rooms at Pop or another Value resort. In fact, the family suites at All Star Music ARE two value rooms that have been converted into a family suite. But you pay a little more for a suite at All Start Music than for two value rooms, and you pay quite a bit more for Art of Animation. The advantages are that you're really and truly guaranteed rooms that connect to each other, and that you have a kitchenette with a microwave and fridge. At Art of Animation, you're also staying at the newest resort on property. I hear it's pretty fabulous.

4. Cabin at Fort Wilderness (up to 6 people): These cabins have two rooms....a bedroom with a full size bed and a bunk beds, and then a living area with a full kitchen and a murphy bed. A step up in price from the family suites, but you get a full kitchen.

5. DVC resorts: Disney Vacation Club is Disney's timeshare program, but they also rent out the rooms that aren't being used by members on a per night basis. There are studios, 1 bedrooms, 2 bedrooms, a few 3 bedroom "treehouse villas" at one resort, and grand villas. There are quite a few DVC resorts, and some of them have really great locations adjacent to deluxe resorts like the Contemporary or Animal Kingdom Lodge. Oddly, both the studios and 1 bedrooms have a maximum capacity of 4 (with some exceptions....I believe a lot of the newer DVC resorts can accomodate 5 people in some studios and/or 1 bedrooms), so you're looking at at least a 2 bedroom with your biggish family. Renting these rooms directly from Disney is crazy expensive (you can often get discounts. But they're expensive even with a substantial discount). But the other option, besides renting directly from Disney, is to arrange a rental with a private timeshare owner by renting points from them. Disney uses a points system to keep track of things, and if an owner isn't going to use all the points in a given year, s/he can rent them to someone privately and then make a reservation for the person who rents them. This is substantially cheaper than renting from Disney, but it is a little more complicated and comes with fewer protections for you as the buyer. I have friends who have gone this route and been very pleased. We've never done it, largely because it would mean no free dining (you have to book a full price package to get free dining). There are lots of places online that will help you arrange all this point transferring. I can't personally vouch for any, but here are a couple of popular ones:

David's Vacation Club Rentals
Mouseowners.com

6. Two rooms at a moderate or deluxe resort (up to 8 or 10): hey--if you can afford it.....actually, if you can afford this, I'd go with a 2 bedroom at a DVC instead. You get a full kitchen that way.

Okay! That's all I can think of! Well, you could also camp at Fort Wilderness. I know nothing of this. It sounds hot.

A few other things to think about:

1. We were surprised to learn on this trip that the parent swap passes (what they give you when one parent waits with your baby so that s/he can go back through and ride without waiting when you switch off) is only good for three people total. I.e. if you have more than two kids, they won't all be able to go again with the second parent. I'm not sure if this is new or if we'd just never noticed before since it didn't affect us. Now, in practice, they always let us bring our extra kid through. I don't know if we got lucky, or if it's unwritten policy to do so. I'm sure the policy is designed to keep people from bringing enormous groups including aunts, uncles, and random passers-by through with their parent swaps, not to punish little children for having too many siblings. But, anyway, something to be aware of.

2. Think about how to handle different age groups/different interests in advance. Are you going to split up some, having younger/too short kids go off with one parent? Or all stay together (which can make for a lot of waiting for shorter kids or a lot of kiddie rides for older kids)? Gus has a pair of light up drumsticks from the gift shop outside Rock n' Roller Coaster specifically because I felt guilty that he had to wait on his taller brothers so much one year. Often there's a younger kid appropriate ride or attraction near the bigger kid ride, but certainly not always.

This has taken me FOURTEEN YEARS or so to finish writing, and it will only be useful for approximately .002% of the population. Oh well!

If you missed the first few installments of this epic series, you can read about what time of year to go here, pros and cons of staying on property here, and tips for bringing along a baby here.

Next week I'll talk about what you can do to save a bit of money on your vacation.

And now a few highlights from day 4 of our recent trip, AKA the day we finally made it to the Magic Kingdom:

We took the boat instead of the monorail from the Transportation

and Ticket Center in the morning. Here is Gus on it.

It was crowded.

 New Fantasyland!

 You have to make your kids sit in the Dumbo for a picture. It's the law.

 Ari selected this Mickey fedora as his souvenir for the trip, because he's AWESOME.

And then I took a perfect picture of him wearing it with the "Gentlemen" sign in the background

because so am I.

It's everyone (except me) on the monorail.

Linking with: 

The Inspiration Gallery
The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap-up Party

Summer Disney Series, Part 3: Bringing Baby

(If you missed the first two parts of the big Disney series, you can read about when to go here and about staying on property vs. off here). Basically, I'm writing a series this summer with tips that folks planning their first (or first with kids) Disney trips might find useful.

Before I get into tips on making traveling with baby a little bit easier, there's the whole question of whether you should take your baby at all. People have very strong feelings about this. Other people do. Me, not so much. Bring your baby; don't bring your baby--I don't care! But if you read discussions about this topic on various Disney message boards, you will feel very judged no matter what you ultimately decide. Your worth as a human being has a lot to do with whether you travel to Disney with an infant or not. It doesn't really, though, so you needn't worry overmuch. Either way, it will be okay.

Now. Your baby will probably like Disney World just fine. But s/he probably won't like it any better than a trip to the local zoo or, say, a bowl of applesauce. It is colorful and exciting and there's lots to look at and you're always moving. But it's also hard to get a good nap in, and it's often hot, and there aren't many good places to get down and stretch your legs. So your baby can probably take it or leave it.

You don't really take your baby to Disney World FOR your baby. So, then, why might you do it?

*Because you want to go Disney World, and you happen to have a baby.
*Because you want to take your older kids to Disney World, and you also have a baby.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. If you think your Disney trip is going to be a once in a lifetime sort of experience, you'll probably want to save it until your kid is older and will get more out of it and make precious lifelong memories and all that. Of course, the problem with that is that it's hard to say whether it's going to be a once in a lifetime thing until you've done it. You might decide once is plenty, or you might want to go back over and over. If you have a choice in these things, I'd actually recommend a pre-kid Disney trip to check it out and see which kind of person you are. But sometimes we fail to plan ahead, we humans. In short, I pretty much think the presence or absence of a baby in your life should have little impact in your decision to Disney or not to Disney. (and babies are free until they're 3, so there's little to no financial downside to bringing one).

Okay! So you've decided to bring your baby to Disney World. Yay! Now--WHEN? I've traveled with 2 different babies at three different ages (I'm classifying "baby" as under 2 for the purposes of this discussion). We took Gus when he was 9 months old and again when he was 1 year, 9 months, and we took Abe when he was 4 1/2 months old. I'm sure personality plays a role in this, but 9 months was by far the easiest of these ages. Nine month olds are old enough to enjoy and be actively interested in their surroundings, but they're generally not walking yet and are more content to be confined to a carrier or stroller than an older kid. My 4 month old was fine, but he really didn't much care that he was surrounded by magical excitement, and he had a hard time getting to sleep with so much going on. My close to 2 year old was all over the place, and we spent a lot of time trying to keep him from running off in every direction. I think older but still pre-walking baby is kind of the sweet spot. I wouldn't let the fact that I had a young toddler stop me from going, but if I had a choice, I'd plan my trip for either pre-walking or post 2 years old, when they start to get  little bit of sense to go with their mobility. At this point, we're thinking we'll try to get a trip in at some point between when Abe is 2 (or at least very nearly 2) and 3, but we're happy to skip the year he's 1.

What going to Disney World with a one 

year old looks like

Of course, if you DON'T take your one year old,

you don't get this picture. Goofy is SO BIG.

Now--tips! And just kind of random thoughts, I guess.

1. Be flexible. Be very, very flexible. And take your time: Our first Disney trip with a baby was also our first Disney trip, period, so for a long time I didn't know anything different. But this time around I had a couple of strollerless trips under my belt, and it was a bit of a shock to realize just how different a trip with a baby is. Babies slow you down. A lot. You have to park the stroller, you have to do parent swaps if you want to ride everything, babies need to eat and sleep and have their diapers changed. You won't do nearly as much with a baby as you would without one. Accept it and be okay with it, and this is no problem.

2. Strollers: You can either bring your own or rent one from Disney. I am, historically, a big fan of the Disney strollers and not worrying about hauling my own around. But this last time we brought our own for a few reasons: we were staying off property and driving everywhere, so we didn't need to worry about folding up a stroller on the buses and all that. Also, Abe wasn't really big enough for the Disney strollers yet. They don't have any padding, and the seats aren't adjustable, so they don't really work for babies who aren't sitting up well on their own. Another reason to bring your own stroller is that it costs a gazillion dollars these days to rent Disney strollers. Single strollers are $15/day, and double strollers are $31/day (MUCH more expensive than we started going....I know we paid well under $20 for double strollers then). So you can easily BUY a stroller for the cost of renting one for a week. Another option is renting a stroller from a private company in Orlando. I've never done this, but I hear good things. Perhaps an option to consider if you fly in instead of driving, so you don't have to haul the stroller on a plane.

One thing that I had forgotten about over the course of our stroller-less years is just how often you have to get your baby into and out of the stroller. Actually, I think it was less of an issue with Gus, because he was stroller averse and wanted to be in the baby carrier the whole time. But Abe was fairly content in the stroller much of the time and napped well in it....except that we constantly had to get him out of it to take him onto a ride or into a building. In general, your stroller has to stay outside when you go inside. There are cast members hanging out outside the buildings to stop you from bringing your stroller in. This is true even in many of the big pavilions at Epcot with multiple rides and shows inside (you can bring a stroller in Innoventions, though, and I highly recommend you do...air conditioning!). So a baby carrier as a stroller backup is essential. Gus rode everywhere in the Ergo when he was 9 months, but we hadn't started using it much with Abe yet when we went, so I wound up using the Maya Wrap a lot, which was not as happy for my back.

9 month old baby (with 3 year old brother) in

Disney stroller

Four month old baby in his own stroller

9 month old baby in Ergo

3. Taking breaks: all the guidebooks tell you that, particularly if you have small children, you must take an afternoon break. On our first trip, with a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and a 9 month old, I dutifully attempted to follow this advice for the first couple of days. We'd go to the parks early, get out right after lunch, and go back to hotel for our relaxing afternoon naps. Then we'd spend an hour trying to force the older, not used to napping, kids to nap before giving up ("but the books say that even if you don't nap at home,  you'll be so tired that you'll do it here!"). Meanwhile baby Gus had been napping in the Ergo whenever he felt like it all morning and was perfectly well rested. Then, just as the books instructed, we'd attempt to stay out late, taking advantage of the relative cool while our napless, out past their bedtime older children melted down over and over and made us all (except the dozing baby) miserable.

On this trip? We totally rocked the afternoon break. We went back to the rental house where the older kids swam or watched TV while the baby took long naps in the quiet bedroom. Then we stayed out late with perfectly happy older kids and a baby who could snooze in the stroller.

All of this to say? Refer to tip #1. Afternoon breaks are great....except when they're not. Maybe your normally non-napping children will sleep like stones all afternoon and wake up ready to shut down the Magic Kingdom with the late parade and fireworks. Maybe not. Maybe your baby will be so overstimulated s/he won't be able to sleep at all until you get him or her back to the hotel. Maybe she'll sleep anywhere and everywhere.  Be ready either way, and be prepared to alter plans based on how your kids react.

4. Rides: If you've never been to Disney with a baby, you might be surprised by how much there is for them to do there. Babies can go on any ride without a height restriction which means there are far more rides they CAN go on than ones they can't go on. In Magic Kingdom, for example, the only rides you CAN'T take your baby on are Goofy's Barnstormer, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Stitch's Great Escape (you don't want to go on that anyway), and Tomorrowland Speedway (no babies under 12 months). That leaves, by my quick count, 18 rides babies of all ages can go on, plus all the shows and other attractions.

For the rides you can't take baby on, you can get a parent swap (just go up the cast member at the entrance, produce your baby or toddler for their inspection, and ask for one), so that one person can go on while the other person waits with the baby, then the other parent (plus up to 2 other people) can take their turn without waiting in the main line. This is a time suck, but you don't care because you're following tip #1.

5. Feeding Babies: I have nursed babies all over Disney World, and I have never had a bit of trouble. Each park has a baby care station where they have things like private nursing rooms, diapers and formula available, and all that, but I've never seen the inside of one. I can't really imagine that anyone hauls their hungry baby across the park to get to a particular location, but, if you've forgotten some essential baby paraphernalia, or you happen to be near one and want to duck inside for some quiet, I'm sure they're lovely.

It's generally pretty easy to find a bench to plop down on to feed your baby, but there are also some nice spots in each park where you can enjoy a leisurely show or something and feed your baby at the same time. There are long shows in each park that are perfect, and some of the longer lasting rides, like the Peoplemover in Magic Kingdom and Spaceship Earth in Epcot, are great, too.

Mostly, though, it all comes back to tip #1. Stay flexible; have a great time!

Next week: Big(gish) family specific advice

And now, the more self-indulgent portion of the post: Day 3 of our trip: Hollywood Studios:

 Tower of Terror--scary!!!

 We have a thing for pictures of all of us in 3D glasses on every trip. Toy Story Mania

 Abe with Betty White (because same birthday! As I love to

point out weekly). I think this picture would have been less

weird if Dave had just stood up and owned up to being in the 

picture.

 It was Star Wars Weekends while we were there. We didn't, like, wait

in line for pictures with anyone, as that would have taken too long, 

but I did take this while Abe and I were waiting for everyone else

to finish Star Tours.

What? Huh? When did we have time to go to NYC in the middle 

of our Disney trip?! We're amazing.

Summer Disney Series, Part 2: Where to Stay? Off Property vs. On

If you missed the first entry in this series on what time of year is best for your trip, check it out here.

Not so very long ago, in this very blog, I said that I strongly preferred staying on property at Disney World because it's more magical.

I'm ready to say now, after our second try staying off property, that I can really see some non-magical but still important upsides to staying off property, particularly with a baby and/or a bigger family. I'm no longer willing to make a blanket recommendation that everyone should stay on property if they can swing it financially. We had a really good off property experience this time around, and I'll be mightily conflicted next time we go about which route to take.

How about some pros and cons?

Pros of staying on property:
1. Disney transportation: this is potentially a very big deal if you fly in. We drive, so it's not as big of a deal for us. We don't need to rent a car either way, and we tend to drive more often than use the buses even when we're on property. If you're lucky enough to be staying in a monorail resort or in one of the walking distance to Epcot resorts, this is an even bigger deal. Also, even if you drive while you're staying on property, you don't have to pay for parking anywhere. And the cost of parking every day for a week is nothing to sneeze at ($14/day, I believe).

2. Proximity: not actually as clear cut as you might expect. Some of the places off property are pretty much as close to the parks as some of the farther out on property resorts. You can easily find somewhere less than a 10 minute drive from Disney property. Again, if you're able to stay in a deluxe resort very close to Magic Kingdom or Epcot, things are different.

3. Extra magic hours: if you're staying on property, you can stay late or arrive early to certain parks on certain days.

4. MAGIC! You're just more immersed in the whole experience if you're staying on property. You forget the outside world exists. Everyone is incredibly friendly and helpful. It's impossible to buy gum (true story: they don't sell gum on Disney property). This can be a great thing, if you love magic, or a bad thing, if you're a black-hearted, cynical human being. Just kidding. Not everyone wants magic 24/7, and that's okay.

5. Free dining (and other discounts): this is the one that usually reels me in. If you go during the off season, when great discounts are being offered to on property guests, on property prices can start to compete pretty well with off property. You can always save money by staying somewhere off property with a full kitchen and making most of your own food, but if you plan to eat out most of the time either way, free dining can really close the on vs. off property price gap. For a few years it seemed like it was all free dining all the time more or less, but now it looks like it's headed back to just being offered for short periods in the fall.

Cons to staying on property:
1. Price: this is the big one. Really, if you have unlimited funds, get yourself a room (or two! if you have kids) at the Polynesian or the Beach Club or somewhere and have a great time. But most people don't have unlimited funds, and Disney hotels cost more. Lots more. The cheapest hotel room you can get on property is at one of the value resorts. The lowest those rates get are $85/night + tax. You might be able to get 15% off on top of that, assuming you aren't doing another discount like free dining. That's for a nice, clean, but tiny hotel room with 2 double beds, maximum 4 people (plus a baby in a crib; you can't put a rollaway in there). For the same price, you can get a nice 2 bedroom condo with a full kitchen 5 minutes from Disney property. Or for half that you can get a decent, no frills hotel room close by.

2. Space: I talked about that a bit up there, but, yeah....if you want room to spread out, you can get it (affordably) off property.

Personally, I am normally a stay on property and suck up all the magic kind of person. But being able to leave the parks when it got crowded and hot, come back to our big ol' rental house and let the big kids swim while the baby took a nap....that was really nice. As was being able to eat a lot of meals at the house, because eating out twice a day with a 4 month old is not exactly relaxing.

We were also able to save money on boarding the dogs by finding a place where they could come with us (except for Fiesta; she stayed with my mom. But my mom only keeps small dogs, which leaves out Lucy and Gable).

We were really pleased with the house we rented, so I'll give them a shout out. We stayed at Luxury Stay Rentals 4 bedroom house in Indian Creek (they also have a 5 bedroom in the same neighborhood). The house was nice and well maintained, rates were reasonable, their local property manager was friendly and helpful, and it was pet friendly (the property manager also does petsitting, so they can come and walk your dog during the day for an additional fee).

As for what we'll do next time? After I wrestle with the internal conflict? Yeah, I don't know. When Abe is older and we're back to being able to do all day in the parks without a break, using the room mostly just to crash at night, I might well be back on property. Especially if we go during free dining. I am a sucker for all the magic, after all. But it will be a tough choice.

And now....Day Two! Our Animal Kingdom day and also Milo's 10th birthday! We were there for both Ari and Milo's birthdays.

First up we stopped by Guest Services for a birthday button. They're FREE

and they don't even check that it's really your birthday. But it was. Milo's birthday.

He wanted to ride Expedition Everest as many times as possible for his

birthday. I think we made it to four. I told them to look scared so I could

take this hilarious picture.

No one can accuse Animal Kingdom of not being themed enough. This is from the Everest queue.

Safari--the lion was out!

Flights of Wonder: baby's first bird show

Finding hidden Mickeys at Conservation Station

Also petting a goat.

Everest!

I promise that Ari was there even though he's not in any of these pictures. We closed out the night at Boma, Dave's favorite restaurant in the whole world and Milo's choice for his birthday dinnner.

Linking with:
Monday Funday
Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap-Up

Summer Disney Series Part 1: When to Go?

What I really want to do with my life--what I want to do for a living--is I want to be at Disney World. I'm good at it.

Not really. I am misquoting Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything there.

It turns out that being at Disney World is an even less realistic career goal than kickboxing.

But I do love Disney World. And we've been an embarrassing (cough*six*cough) times in the past several years, and, what with my weakness for obsessive research and all that, planning Disney trips (and, yes, being at Disney World) is one of the things I'm best at. This is a little sad. Because some people are best at coming up with new cancer treatments or feeding the world's hungry or writing the Great American Novel. Not me! We all have to work with what we're given.

So I thought I'd spend some time this summer babbling about Disney World. Stuff that might be helpful if you're planning a first (or first in a long time) trip, particularly one with kids. I'm thinking every Monday for the next six weeks, with these topics:

1. When to go? As in, time of year
2. Where to stay? Off property vs. on
3. Disney with a baby
4. Big(gish) families and Disney
5. Saving money
6. Food: dining plan, favorite restaurants, plus bonus gluten free fun

It just so happens that the trip we just took was 6 days, so, instead of a separate trip recap, I'll do a quick one day by day with each of these posts.

Okay! So! When should you go to Disney World?

This is kind of a sad question for me, because, even though we homeschool, we are tied down to the school schedule thanks to Dave, the teacher. Thanks a lot, Dave! At his old county, he had a very special fall break, around the third week of September, so we always went then. This year we decided our best option was to take off as soon as we could when Dave finished school for the year, right after Memorial Day.

So this is what I have personal experience with: September and late May/early June.

Now, the two big things to consider when you're deciding when to go are crowds and weather. And, of course, when you CAN go, if you are tied down to a school schedule like we are. There's also cost, but that's pretty much directly tied to crowds (i.e. prices are lower when it's not crowded).

Touring Plans maintains a day by day crowd calendar, giving each day (and then breaking it down to each park for each day) a crowd level of 1-10, going out for the next year. You need a subscription ($11.95/year to see the whole crowd calendar (and to access other features like the touring plans and the lines app with wait times). We've used Touring Plans for a few trips now, and it's a great resource.

Easy WDW is a free site with a good guide to best and worst times to go.

Basically, as you'd expect, any time school is out, it's crowded. So summer, spring break, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and President's week.

So, if you can, you want to avoid those times. According to both Touring Plans and Easy WDW, September is pretty much the least crowded time you can go (I did a quick search of days rated as "1" for crowd level for the next year on Touring Plans. There are 31; 14 of them are in September). No one wants to pull kids out of school right after they start back in the fall AND it's still super hot and humid in Florida in September.

All of our trips except this past one have been in September. Our first couple of trips we felt like we had the parks to ourselves half the time. This was 2006-2007. I have pictures of my kids in front of the castle with pretty much no one else in the picture:

You have to work a lot harder these days to get this shot. There's really not a truly uncrowded time of year to go anymore. 

On the plus side, another thing to note is that Disney is set up to handle crowds so well that you can avoid long lines with a bit of planning almost any time of year. The parks can feel fairly crowded but you're still walking right on to Tower of Terror. We've gone to Six Flags on an ordinary summer weekday and only managed to get a few rides in because everything loads so inefficiently that there's nothing you can ride without waiting forever. 

So. September has a lot going for it: it's cheap (the rates for hotels are the cheapest all year, and, for the  past several years, Disney has offered the dining plan for free every September, which is a really amazing discount for a lot of families. More on that when I talk dining) and it's one of your best bets for low crowds. It's not unusual to walk on to all the rides except for the big headliners all day in September. This makes it very easy to do the big rides first thing or use Fastpasses for them and then be able to relax and enjoy an unplanned rest of your day. Or let your kids ride the Teacups 5 times in a row if they want to. That kind of thing. The big disadvantage (aside from the fact that you may not be able to go then if you have kids in school) is the weather. In our experience, Orlando Septembers are remarkably consistent: it's between 88 and 92 or so every single day, and it rains (briefly) more afternoons than not. We find the heat unpleasant but manageable....it's often cloudy, so that helps, and you're going in and out of buildings all day as opposed to just standing outside baking. But we're from Georgia. YMMV. 

Other relatively uncrowded times of year are later in the fall (excluding Thanksgiving week), early December, post holiday break January into February (excluding President's Week), and then again after all the spring breaking is over up until schools start to get out in mid-late May. 

If we ever get a non-school-constricted trip, I'd love to try early December (low crowds + Christmas decorations!) or late January/early February. Generally speaking, you'll get pleasant weather in winter, but I also have friends who've gone during a cold snap and been miserable. At least you know what you're getting in September. Unless you get a hurricane. Which can happen. 

But then suppose you DO have to plan around school? The option we went with, and the one I'd do again, is to go at either the very beginning of your summer break or the very end. In our part of the country, schools get out in late May and start back up again in August. In the northeast, they go well into June, but don't go back until after Labor Day. So if you hit the very beginning of your summer break (if you're in one of the finished in May parts of the country) or the very end (if you're in one of the post Labor Day returning parts), you won't be competing for space with as much of the rest of the world. 

Our late May/early June week this year was mostly 5s and 6s on the Touring Plans crowd calendar. Our September trips have all been mostly 1s through 3s. We could definitely feel a difference, but it was doable. We very rarely waited longer than 10 minutes for rides, although it took more planning to avoid long waits than it would have in September. But the very next week, the crowd levels shot up to 8s, and they're supposed to stay in that 8-10 range until mid August. I wouldn't want to see a 9 or 10. It would make me cranky. Of course, the downside is, again, going to be the weather. Our May/June was pretty comparable to September....actually a few degrees cooler, but I think it's been an unusually cool spring. 

I have so much to say. I don't really know how to shut up, because Disney is a bit of an overwhelming topic, really. But, there. Shutting up. And moving on to part 2 of my ridiculously long post: trip recapping! More pictures, fewer words. In fact, no words! Except the captions.

We didn't have park hoppers this year, so it was one park per day for us. First up was Epcot. It's possible that Epcot's my favorite park. It's sort of hard to say. I love them all so very much. 

Abe about to go on his very first ride...ever! The Seas with Nemo and Friends. We were the first

ones on all day (because Dave went to get Soarin' fastpasses and then met us over there instead of us riding Soarin' first like the masses). The guy out front had to tell someone into is little walkie talkie thing: "first guests are coming in!" We felt pretty important.

THEN we road Soarin'

First Mickey bars of the trip!

World's cutest baby in world's cutest sun hat. But no Mickey bars for him. Next time!

There's a fun game in Innoventions involving this cute pig. It's supposed to teach you about investing and stuff, but I'm just in it for the cute pig.

Mid day break to swim and nap back at the house.

Back to the park for evening fun.

And of course, many posed pictures. Look how happy they always are to stop and pose for pictures for their mother!

Abe learns a lot about plants on Living with the Land.

You can sample Coke products from around the world at Club Cool. Like Beverly from Italy. It's fun to trick your kids into trying it. 

How about another picture, kids?!

Doing the Phineas and Ferb interactive....thing in World Showcase.

Norway gift shop. We're not even a tiny bit Norwegian, but he's totally pulling it off, don't you think?

We didn't buy these. Too bad.

Ending Day 1 with Illuminations. Abe's first fireworks!

Phew! Part 1: complete! Anyone have any Disney tips to share? Any topics you'd like me to cover that's not on the list (I will talk FOREVER about Disney World!) What's your favorite Lloyd Dobler quotation?

Linking with:
Give Me the Goods Monday
Inspiration Exchange
The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
Tatertots and Jello Weekend Wrap Up Party
Monday Funday