WALT DISNEY WORLD

My husband and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary last year. 45 years is a very long time and I thought it would be fun to throw an anniversary party…rent a ballroom, with a band, have it catered with wait staff attending our guests, carrying silver trays adorned with glasses of champagne!

Then in my head, I started to think about whom we would invite! The most important people, the people I thought “this wouldn’t be any fun if they weren’t here” were our children, their spouses and our grandchildren! Nineteen people, whom our lives literally revolve around.

When that thought came to my realization, the next thought followed immediately….we have to go to Disney World! It was that simple and thus began the 2 1/2 year planning process which started in December of 2021.

We are fortunate to have a friend of our daughter’s, who is a Travel Agent with Magic Mouse Travel. She helped us plan our Disney trip in 2018, which went seamlessly, so I naturally reached out to her with our exciting news! She told me the rates for 2024 would come out in June of 2023 and that when that happened, she would get in touch with me.

Until then, our first order of business would be to decide when will we go.

We always took our Disney vacation when our children were growing up, the first week of May. The weather is warm but not too hot, with no rain. The crowds were down, as it is after spring break but before summer. School is essentially done, as the month of May is all about field trips.

Easy decision, we are going the first week of May!

Next up, where will we stay. Disney World was a favorite vacation spot when our children were growing up and we have stayed at several of the Disney resorts. It came down to The Polynesian or Grand Floridian! They are both extraordinary in their own way, with The Grand Floridian being our final choice! This meant that we would have front door access to the monorail, which is truly the penultimate convenience!

Fast forward to June 2023, which brought the rates for 2024 and our trip was on the Disney calendar.

We now have one year to begin our count down! When I was growing up, the day after we returned from a vacation my father would bring home travel brochures to start planning our next trip. It was so much fun having something to think about and look forward to.

We are now in early 2024 and it was just announced that The Disney Dining Plan, which was on hold during COVID, was back!

Thank you so much as we LOVED the dining plan!

As a family, we had several Disney pow wows to make sure we covered all the details. We made our list of “must haves and what to do’s” with which parks we would go to each day as number one! Our vacation was Tuesday thru Tuesday. Our meal plan included one quick service, one snack and one sit down meal for each day of our stay.

There was a method to our design. Magic Kingdom was everybody’s favorite, so we wanted to start and end there. We went in May, which meant summer hours had not yet began and we wanted to maximize our time in each park. Staying on Disney property we also had early entry and extended stay on certain days. We wanted to have a sit down meal with each child and their family, two character meals for all nineteen of us and one evening relaxing around our pool.

All of these points factored into our schedule being as follows…arrive Tuesday, lounge around pool having a quick service meal for dinner; Wednesday/Magic Kingdom, each family chooses their own restaurant for dinner; Thursday/EPCOT, my husband and I dined with our oldest son and his family at Japan; Friday/Hollywood Studios, we ate a late lunch with our daughter and family at Woodys Lunchbox; Saturday/Animal Kingdom, early dinner with youngest son and family at Yak and Yeti, lounging around pool afterwards, as the park closed at 6pm; Sunday/Free Day with each family choosing their own restaurant; Monday/Magic Kingdom with all nineteen of us eating a late lunch together at Crystal Place for a character meal; Tuesday we would eat our last sit down meal together at Polynesian for a character breakfast, before everyone departs for home.

The thought of making dining reservations for an entire week, for nineteen people still makes me break out in a cold sweat. Something that I didn’t realize until the last minute, was that our Magic Mouse Travel Agent would make all of these reservations for us! It was as easy as picking out when/where we wanted to eat and she did the rest….for nineteen people! AMAZING!!!!!

We were very organized and our youngest son even created a spreadsheet to keep everything in order!

We are Disney people to the core. In 2018 our daughter was able to coordinate fast passes for our entire trip, of 17 people, before we even left and my husband made a brochure with our daily itineraries printed out. We knew which rides we were on at what time, where we were eating, everything!

Fast forward to 2024 and fast passes are now a thing of the past. Genie+ and lightning lanes were the current vernacular!

The daunting task of figuring out how to get Genie+ AND which lightning lanes people wanted, at 7am the morning of and doing all of this on our phone seemed mind boggling to say the least! Lucky for me, this job was above my pay grade.

Watching youtube videos on tips and tricks, were daily occurrences and we sailed thru like pros with a plan of attack for each day!

Our last pow wow finalized the details and we are good to go!

Everyone was on their own getting to Disney World and would be arriving at different times on Tuesday. For our family there is truly nothing more special than driving thru the gates being welcomed by Mickey Mouse and gang!

Disney Worlds Grand Floridian!

View from our balcony!

Everyone settled in and went to bed early! Morning routines were all the same…alarm clocks went off at 6am(or earlier), purchase Genie+/lightning lanes and arrive at our designated park in time for rope drop!

Staying at a Disney property, gave us early access to the chosen park of the day, with The Magic Kingdom being our day one. We had decided which rides we would all go on together and when the rope dropped, we literally ran to our first ride.

Big Thunder Mountain!

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!

Tron!

Carousal of Progress!

The meal plan gave us quick service meals, snacks and one sit down each day and subsequently, we never went hungry!

Day two was EPCOT.

Selecting a pearl in Japan!

Spaceship Earth!

Soarin!

Day Three Hollywood Studios!

Millenium Falcon!

Slinky Dog Dash!

Tower of Terror!

Woodies Lunchbox!

Day four Animal Kingdom!

Safari!

Mt Everest!

Pandora Flight of the Passage!

Yak and Yeti, pineapple upside-down cake!

Saturday evening was set aside to hangout at the pool of The Grand Floridian! It was probably one of my favorite times as everyone was relaxed and enjoyed just being together!

Lounging in our beach cabanas!

Day five, a free day!

The children gave us a Walt Disney World gift card, which we used at The Grand Floridian Spa for a couples massage. We started our day in EPCOT…

Breakfast in Norway!

Lunch in America!

Couples massage!

Dinner at Narcosis!

Hollywood was another choice!

Day six was our favorite park again, the Magic Kingdom! This day was full of highs and lows. Highs because it is all of our most loved park and lows because it is our last day! Being true Disney enthusiasts, we hit it hard!

We had a character lunch at Crystal Palace!

Our son-in-law was smiling in EVERY picture!

Tron was a favorite of everyone!

This picture was a recreated one which the five of us have taken in the same place, on two of our past trips. We LOVE Disney World!!!

More snacks! They even have Starbucks!

Disney World truly is our happy place!

Heading for our character breakfast at The Polynesian!

This trip was more wonderful than we could ever have imagined! Saying goodbye is never easy and this time was especially difficult. Having all of our children with their precious families, at our most favorite vacation spot, was truly such a gift!