Pre-Trip 8 days, 7 Nights with only 2 park days. March 2024.

Hey, I'm Matt! It's been awhile since I've posted but I'm excited about our upcoming trip. We are headed to Disney World for the first week of March and we'll be there for 8 days. I'll be going with my wife, 2 kids (almost 3yr & 11mos), my mom, my sister and her boyfriend. We are staying at a 2BR Villa at Boulder Ridge at the Wilderness Lodge. My wife's aunt & uncle will also be down there and hang with us most days.

Last trip was in Sept '22 and our first kid was 17mos. We learned that it was too stressful to go to the parks and said to ourselves that we wouldn't go to Epcot or Hollywood Studios on the next trip. Now we have 2 kids, we thought this was even a better idea. We go to Disney almost year so we don't feel like we are missing out on going to the parks. Here are some of the things we'll be doing:

Stuff with Kids

• We have table service restaurants booked almost everyday. It's good to sit down and relax with the kids, especially in the parks.
  • Whispering Canyon Cafe
  • Cape May Cafe Breakfast
    • After that we are taking Skyliner to Art of Animation to see all the big Disney characters statues. Walking around the Boardwalk will be fun as well.
  • Sanaa Lunch
    • We plan on walking around to see the different animals. My mom really wants to see AKL as well.
  • Skipper Canteen
  • Boathouse Lunch
  • Story Book Dining
• Lots of pool time. My daughter enjoyed the splash pad more than the parks last time.
• Disney Springs shopping
• Going to AK and spending as much time as we can there.
• Same with MK.

To note, we are also renting a car which will make it much easier to get around.

Adult Stuff

We will keep the kids on a schedule and won't have them out late at all. My daughter didn't have any meltdowns on our last trip because of that so we are doing it again. My mom will be watching them most nights so my wife and I can go do things.

• Boat Crawl: Crockett's Tavern at FW, Steakhouse 71 Lounge at Contemporary, Territory lounge at WL
• San Angel Inn (just my sister and her boyfriend)
• Narcoosee's (just my wife and I)
• Bar Hopping at Disney Springs with some friends of ours down there.

Have you ever taken a long trip with minimal park days? I'm personally really excited for this trip. As I've gotten older (currently 35), eating at restaurants and visiting resorts have been more fun for me. I'm interested to hear from you!

 

[k8einwdw]

Since you’re staying at Boulder Ridge, I’d recommend taking some time to go over to Fort Wilderness to check out Tri Circle D Ranch! The horse barn is within easy walking distance of the boat launch. I don’t recall whether they’ve resumed boat service between Wilderness Lodge and Ft. Wilderness (@Tuvalu do you know?) but if they haven’t, they do have a bus that goes between the two resorts.

 

[zeebs758]

Since you’re staying at Boulder Ridge, I’d recommend taking some time to go over to Fort Wilderness to check out Tri Circle D Ranch! The horse barn is within easy walking distance of the boat launch. I don’t recall whether they’ve resumed boat service between Wilderness Lodge and Ft. Wilderness (@Tuvalu do you know?) but if they haven’t, they do have a bus that goes between the two resorts.

Great suggestion! We did this on our last trip. We stayed at BR for one night before we transferred to GF. My daughter loved it over at Tri-Circle Ranch especially seeing the horses. We currently don't have this planned but we left a lot of room open for spontaneity in case we wanted to go.

The boat launch between Ft Wilderness, WL and Contemporary have reopened but it doesn't start until 3pm. That's one of the reasons why we didn't plan for this trip.