Disney Round TWO! Action!

[Mommy2cooper]

It's been a while since I really posted on the forums. I posted a while back when we took our first ever trip to Disney. Then I sort of went into stalking mode (sorry!!). I guess envious of beautiful trips haha. Originally, we were planning on going to Washington this year and doing Disney next year. Everything seemed ok with that plan. My sister who is just a kid (almost 17) has been wanting to go for years and she's going to be a senior in high school this next year and insisted her senior trip is going to be Disney World. However, my mother really just can't take her. She had a heart attack in November and has been hospitalized 3 times since November. So being the second mom, I decided i'd take her along with us. I was talking to hubby about the trips and we began the planning stage and he's like Heather, when is Easter 2017. After looking it up i'm like oh shoot April 16. During the week of the school's spring break. That'd be a no go! I wont ever go back to Disney at Easter, ever again! It was really fun, but really hard on all of us. So we reversed the trips. Easter is in March this year, we'll be going to Disney April 2-7th. The kids have an idea we're going but not when we're going. I'm planning a huge surprise...Touring plans Kenny's site, and a few others all say crowds will be fairly lowish except our first two days they'd be moderate. I think it'll be nice. The biggest fear I have is that it'll turn out like last time. Sun poison and HEAVY crowds. I'm excited though because while I've been to Magic Kingdom, I've not experienced anything. Last visit we stayed in the park two hours only because it was so heavily crowded.

Here's the basics so far...

Resort: I struggled with this. We stayed value last time and I was satisfied, but I just was dying to try something else. So we chose moderate and CBR. I chose this because after all of ya'll gave me input and research suggested the rooms were good sized and the cast members are super friendly here I thought with two kids this would be a perfect fit.

Dining: We've chosen several places. We'll be eating breakfast at Ohana, and 1900 Park Fare. Then dinner will be done at 1900 Park Fare, Crystal Palace, and Chef Mickeys. We'll fill in on the whim other places for lunches and breakfasts between the parks and resort. We thought about doing pizza one night at the resort. I just don't know if it's good pizza.

Fast passes: I've given lots of thought to the fast passes. I definitely want to make the most of the trip. Since my husband has disabilities and therefore we have the disability card, which is not good for meet and greets, I thought about using those fast passes on the available meet and greets. This was suggested from our cast member who booked our reservations. I think that it might work out pretty good. The 9 and 17 year old have decided they want to try to get every character picture and autograph that they possibly can....we'll see how that goes.

 

[Tuvalu]

I certainly don't want to burst your bubble but want you to be prepared...the first week of April is a popular spring break week (not for locals but for a lot of Georgia) and crowds (while not nearly as heavy as Easter week) won't be "fairly lowish". I speak from years of experience of traveling that week and WDW attendance over the past two years has steadily increased, even during former "slow" times.

Plan for the parks to be busy and then be pleasantly surprised if they aren't. I too hope that week only has moderate-level crowds, because my family will be there with you!

 

[Mommy2cooper]

Right, I was really surprised that there were so many available rooms when I called. I was able to chose from a lot of options. I was also able to get EVERY dining reservation that I wanted. I also booked late. I was getting reservations done about a week or so ago now. I guess that is where my hope comes from. I'll just be happy if it isn't like Easter was ugh...I was just so miserable. I'm native american and honestly before that trip i'd never even had sunburn. It made me cranky and made my hands and feet swell and it was painful to walk, so that combo with crowded areas was a doomed disaster. Someone told me later I should have had Epsom salt down there. I never even thought of it, but I wish I had, maybe it'd have turned out different....anyway, I thank you so very much for your input. It's very valued. I've only been once my whole life, so this is definitely all brand new to me! Other people's experiences really help me to figure things out.

Today I've been working on making baskets for the kids for when I tell them we are going. Fingers crossed they like them. I'm just having problems finding items to put in it that's "age" appropriate. Anyone have suggestions on items for a 9 yo boy and 16 yo girl?