As an avid Disney fan and planner, thoughts of taking my son on his first ever Disney World trip began while he was still in the womb. When he was born six weeks prematurely, dreaming of his first Disney trip is one of the things that helped me pass the NICU time. I began planning his first birthday party. It was a Mickey Mouse theme of course. I began thinking about how I would take him to my favorite place on earth to celebrate turning one. I even found a local Orlando based photographer and put a deposit down for her services to join us in the parks and envisioned his first birthday pictures with the castle as our back drop. My mind swirled with all the magic that we would create and how adorable those photos would be. Sadly, life had other plans. After spending fifteen days in the NICU we were finally able to take our sweet baby home. However, when he was just eight weeks old we had to be admitted to our local children’s hospital. We spent another six days in that hospital where our poor sweetie was subjected to a litany of tests including a spinal tap. Turns out he had contracted E. Coli (likely from the NICU) and developed pyelonephritis. Once he was released he had a PICC line and I was tasked with administering an IV injection of antibiotics every eight hours. IV injections were certainly not new for me, I have twenty-six years of veterinary assistant experience and have given many an IV injection in my day. However, the thought of giving one to my tiny newborn in a line that is running essentially to his heart, was nerve wracking to say the least! Anyway this long diatribe is to say life certainly had different plans for us and that first birthday trip to Walt Disney World unfortunately fell to the wayside. I was beyond crushed, but having a healthy happy baby was definitely a bigger priority than all those Pinterest boards I had created for his first Walt Disney World trip. We were able to manage a small trip to Disneyland, for his second birthday, which I will discuss in another blog. Spoiler alert, it was just as magical, but Disney World had to wait.
Fast forward to 2021 and our son’s first Walt Disney World vacation. In true me fashion, I started planning and creating vision boards about a year or so prior to the trip. Honestly, a big part of me felt like it was just like the first time since we were still smack in the middle of a global pandemic. However, after a full year of uncertainty, things were starting to look up and planning gave me a respite from everything else going on in our world. I started with the usual things, how long should we go for, where will we stay, what are our must do bucket list items, and then thought about the nitty gritty things like when can I make dining reservations and where do we want to go, what do we need to pack, what things will I need for the plane ride. A direct flight for us is about six hours and our son had only been on two hour flights previous to this. So we had to decided if we should we do a layover to give him a chance to stretch his legs or just settle in for the long haul. We always install his car seat on the plane and it’s a beast, so the thought of having to do that anymore than necessary was not appealing to my husband. Thankfully our son also felt direct would be best.
Since we hadn’t really traveled anywhere for a while and I missed out on taking him for his first birthday I wanted to really do this trip up big. I feel like he was the perfect age to really take it all in. He was four months shy of his sixth birthday when we went. Due to previous trips to Walt Disney World with me (I go hard) my husband’s only request was to have some down days. I felt this would be a needed aspect of the trip for our son as well. Becoming a mother and learning how to do Disney with children was definitely a learning curve for me. Things naturally need to be a little more low key and slow paced than an adults only trip. I settled on a fourteen day trip, two travel days, six Disney parks days, one Legoland day, two Universal parks days and some built in break days. Because I like to maximize my fun I had to control my urge to add in additional experiences but there were two opportunities I just couldn’t pass up. I had booked our dates for the end of October thru mid November with the hopes of being able to experience both Halloween and Christmas decor. The holidays at Walt Disney World are just so magical. Well, much to my delight Disney announced that they would be offering two new after hours experiences for the holidays, The Boo Bash and Disney Very Merriest After Hours. Despite my six day park hoppers I knew I had to add on these limited attendance parties. Opening day for Boo Bash tickets left people with constant busy tones, and if they were lucky enough to get through up to eight hour hold times, eight hours y’all! Online purchasing was not available for another week or so and dates were selling out fast. The demand was huge, everyone was looking for a little Disney magic to lift their spirits. I was unsuccessful at getting through that first day and starting to panic, but after several hours of trying was able to secure our tickets the next day. TIP: When you hire me as your travel agent, this is a service I provide for you! I will keep you informed of important release dates and upcoming events and I will be the one to wait on hold for hours on end to try and secure your tickets.
Now for the tips I learned from this trip. Sign up for TSA pre check if you haven’t already. I don’t know why I waited so long. TIP: some rewards/travel based cards will reimburse you for the cost! I used my Capital One Venture card to pay for both of our TSA fees but mine was fully reimbursed. We checked three bags but still had carry ons, a stroller and a car seat to navigate through the airport. With TSA pre check it really was a breeze. Much to my surprise our son did wonderful on the flight. I was still carrying around some trauma from his first flight when he was fifteen months old, which did not go well, so I was anxious about this much longer flight. TIP: I made sure that I brought a litany of snacks, things he could chew on if his ears got plugged, basic first aid kit with medicine, his water bottle, new coloring and activity books and colored pencils, we had dry erase wipe clean books, we had an iPad loaded with his favorite shows and movies, as well as headphones, we had his favorite stuffy and a nice cozy blanket. I felt prepared to conquer anything that may come our way. I may have over done it. The majority of his in air time was spent watching shows or playing non wifi dependent games, snacking was second runner up, but there were times when he got bored and did’t want to use his iPad so I was happy to have all the other activity options. I found a great lap desk on Amazon and we had several fun activity books from Usbourne Books. He also was able to sleep a bit thanks to his cozy blanket and familiar stuffy.
We opted to rent a car and get a condo so we could have amble room and the freedom to explore Orlando and easily get in and out of the parks, Built in break days were key. We had enough room to each have our own space for quiet down time and to do our own thing. TIP: We had packed some Legos and other small toys in addition to all the activity and coloring books and it provided our son with some normalcy and much needed recharge time from all the park hustle and bustle. Park days are long so it was nice to have a home base to come back to, a place to store food or leftover Disney treats for late night snacks and nice relaxing breakfasts. TIP: I packed lavender Epsom salts and enjoyed a nice hot relaxing bath almost every night after the parks, it really helped recharge my tired muscles. I also packed my Sharper Image deep tissue massager and have zero regrets. I suffer from plantar fasciitis and prior to traveling was having a flare up so I made sure that we each had multiple shoe options so that we could rotate. I started my days in my Chaco sandals, but also brought along in my park bag some worn in Skechers and socks and would change when my feet started getting tired.
In terms of in park lessons the most important thing I learned is that your child doesn’t realize or care how much this vacation cost. When they are tired and over simulated it is what it is. Sometimes all they want to do is play on a playground, or nap in the stroller through the entire fireworks show. Yup, our son slept through the entire Enchantment fireworks. This was a hard lesson for me. Like I said I dreamed of and planned this vacation for five years and there were so many experiences I wanted him to have, but I had to let that go and learn to just go with the flow a bit more. TIP: Even though you are in the Most Magical Place on Earth, there will be melt downs. It’s a lot of walking, stimulation, meal times may be different than back home etc. don’t let that ruin your trip! Be prepared to pivot and change plans if necessary. Speaking of meals, I had only booked us a couple of sit down restaurant experiences before we left since we hadn’t even done indoor dining back home yet so I wanted to feel things out first. Once we were there I felt very comfortable with the safety protocols in place and looked to add more. TIP: Although advanced dining reservations are encouraged and often necessary for popular restaurants, same day or day before reservations often open up, so just keep checking. When your favorite restaurant is booked, don’t be afraid to try something new. We had never experienced Garden Grill in EPCOT and our son had the best time and really enjoyed the food. The character experience there is amazing. Sit down dining was a good opportunity for us to take a break from the park hustle and bustle and who doesn’t love delicious Disney food. The day of our Kona Cafe reservation we decided to head out of Magic Kingdom early, our son really wanted to ride the monorail. I fully support this. Once there we just hung out on the white sand beach of The Polynesian Village Resort while we waited for our dinner reservation. TIP: The resorts are amazing and a great place to rest. Currently you are not able to resort hop like in days past, but if you have a reservation for dining, it’s a great way to be able to still be able to explore the different resorts. Our son had the best time just frolicking around in the sand.
So a not so funny story, in his eagerness to get to Galaxy’s Edge my husband left his phone in the car. Since the walk from the car to the front gate is so long he opted not to go back. Well, within five minutes of entering Hollywood Studios we had a miscommunication and ended up separated for two and a half hours. Let that sink in. In his excitement to get to Galaxy’s Edge he didn’t realize I had told him and our son to go park the stroller and meet me back at the entrance of Star Tours. After a few minutes of waiting at the front of the ride I wondered what could possibly take so long to park a stroller, I started looking around. They were no where to be found and said stroller was not in stroller parking. The first rule of getting lost is you stay where you are right? Well, I did thinking maybe they got in the line queue without me thinking I had already gone in, so I watched the exit of the line and waited … and waited … and waited. No sign of them.
By this point I was getting quite hot both physically and emotionally. I was getting pretty thirsty so made my way to a kiosk for a bottle of water. My purse and water bottle were in the stroller. Thanks to my Apple Watch and Apple Pay my thirst was quenched. I went back to my post, after awhile of still no sign of them, I ventured down to Galaxy’s Edge but there was no feasible way I would be able to make them out of the crowds. I walked back to the front of the park and spoke with guest services to see if there was anyway to track them via there magic bands or see if they scanned in for a ride. Sadly, there was not. Finally after two and a half hours I get a phone call form an unknown number, my husband, after waiting in line and riding Millennium Falcon asked to use someone’s phone to call me. He said they kept looking for me, thinking I was coming to join them in line. When we finally reconnected lets just say I was feeling less than magical. We were able to move on and have a good day from there, but the biggest lesson I learned on this trip was to make sure everyone in the traveling party has their phone on them before exiting the vehicle or leaving your resort room. Better yet have a discussion and make a plan ahead of time with your group such as if we get separated for any reason meet at ABC Commissary or other agreed upon spot after five minutes.
A couple more important TIPS: Take photos to help you easily locate your car. After a long park day all you want is to get home and theme park parking lots are huge. Before leaving the car make sure everyone has the essentials, magic bands / park tickets, water bottle, wallet, sunglasses, PHONES etc.
I have many other TIPS: I can’t wait to share with you, but I realize I am wordy and this was much longer than anticipated, so I will save those for another day. I hope this post gave you some useful information, or at least a good chuckle. So to recap: be prepared for melt downs, be prepared to pivot, take time for a break, bring comfortable shoes and ALWAYS make sure everyone has their phones. If you enjoyed my ramblings, please subscribe. or share it with your friends on social media. Better yet, I would love to help you plan your next Magical Vacation to Walt Disney World.
