Pre-Trip We’re Off to Neverland… ahem, I Mean Disney World

Hi there! I’m back again to share my pre-trip report with you lovely folks. This year we’re super excited to be staying at the Sheraton Vistana Resort Villas in Lake Buena Vista. We decided to stay off property because we did last year and it was great and super affordable. I do enjoy staying in the Disney bubble, but when you see what we’ve got going on this trip, you’ll probably understand. 😉
Okay, down to business:
Who: Me, DH Scott, DD Cassidy 9 & DD Chelsea 6 (My stepson Dylan DS 24 and his girlfriend Morgan 23 will be joining us for a few days & my sister and her family will be joining us as well for a few days)
Where: See above 😊
When: August 13th through August 26th

Here is a link to last year‘s trip report if you’re interested….

Trip Report - DL & DW! ~ August 2022 ~~ Completed

Me and my family, dh Scott, dd Cassidy 8 and dd Chelsea 5 did Disneyland August 10th-13th and then went to Disney World from August 20th-27th. We are from NJ and flew out to LA to visit family, do some sightseeing and then we ended our trip with 3 nights at Disneyland Hotel with2 days in the...
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It was a good time.

Here are some internet photos of Vistana Villages

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We have not stayed here before and we are super excited about it!

Here is a possible layout of our room. We have a 2 bedroom Villa booked. Sleeps 8 and has a full kitchen. I really enjoy having my own space, especially for an 11 night vacation.
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DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Plans~ the short version:
Sunday, 8/13 leave New Jersey (yes we are driving- yes we said we wouldn’t drive again 😫)
Monday, 8/14 check into Vistana Villages
Tuesday, 8/15 Epcot
Wednesday, 8/16 AK
Thursday, 8/17 MK
Friday, 8/18 Epcot
Saturday, 8/19 HS
Sunday, 8/20 MK
Monday, 8/21 Scott & Cass go to Universal; Chelsea & I go to Epcot
Tuesday, 8/22 Rest Day
Wednesday, 8/23 MK
Thursday, 8/24 Epcot
Friday, 8/25 Leave 😔
Saturday, 8/26 arrive home

I’ve included a map of where Vistana Villages is in relation to Disney.
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DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Sunday, August 13th….
Let the fun begin.
We will be leaving around 8/9am to hit the road for sunny Florida. Unfortunately, we won’t make it to Florida today. We do have reservations at Fairfield Inn and Suites right off i95 in South Carolina. So, the earlier we leave, the earlier we get there and rest up. The plan is to get the bulk of our driving done on Sunday.
I had a free night reward through my Marriott card and so staying overnight isn’t costing us more moolah (Yay, more money to spend in Disney haha), and we get free breakfast there too. Win/win.

Side note: When we went to Disney last year, we drove and we planned to drive straight through the night on the way down. Well, we didn’t drive through the night. Around midnight I decided that I was too tired to do the overnight shift of driving and we decided to stay somewhere. Because it wasn’t planned ahead, we spent upwards of $200 for the night…. Checking in around 1am and then leaving at 7am. Poor planning on our part. I thought I had the stamina to drive the 1-7am shift, but I must be getting too old for those kinds of nighttime shenanigans. At the end of the day, it was the wise decision to stop, but not the most financially smart one. 😆

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^^^^^ me, if I would’ve driven 😆
 
DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Monday, August 14th…. CHECK IN!
The Muppets Dancing GIF


Wake up earlyish even though there’s no rush. Eat breakfast (free!) and head out.
We’ll have about 4-5 hours left of our ride to Disney.
I’m sure we’ll be super excited to finally get to our hotel. The plan is to spend this afternoon/evening getting settled in. Picking up our Walmart pickup will also be on the checklist today as well.
If all goes well, we’ll go check out the pool. It’ll be an early night for us though as we have Epcot the next morning! Yay!
 
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DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tuesday, August 15th~ Epcot

Epcot is our. Absolute. Favorite. My kids love Epcot because of Soarin’, GotG, Figment, Nemo, The Three Caballeros, Frozen Ever After, Remy and so much more! So much to do there and in a more relaxed pace than the other parks, imo.

We’ll eat breakfast. I’ll pack lunch and snacks. We always fill up our cups with water for free around the park. I like eating lunch at Sunshine Seasons. I plan going to Soarin’ and Living with the Land around lunchtime so we can eat while we’re in there. We use this backpack cooler:
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We rent a double stroller from Disney for the kids and so when they’re walking we put the cooler on the stroller and when they’re in the stroller we hang it on the back using the “mommy hook” (large carabiner hook).
Speaking of stroller rental. My daughters are big kids (6&9) and they will usually walk, but I like having the stroller for when Chelsea is tired and needs a break. They are too big for a regular stroller, so we prefer the sturdy Disney ones. The double strollers are $31 a day, however, I did a little digging and found that if you tell them you’ll be using a stroller multiple days of your visit and you pay in advance, it’s $27 a day. We’re there 9 days, so $243 for the trip. It’s worth it for us to be able to have it for the kids.
Also worth noting on this first park day of ours is that parking for 9 days is $25x9= $225….. between stroller and parking I’m already broke…. Hahaha~ that’s why budgeting and planning is super important when doing Disney.

Okay back to our Epcot day…
We will stay here all day and night. My kids LOVE Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. We rode it last year and we were pleasantly surprised by how amazing it was. We have ADRs at Tutto Italia in Italy for 4:15. If anyone Has any recommendation, I’d love to hear them.
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We know the Food & Wine Festival will be going on, but we like doing new restaurants too. Can’t wait for this one.

*******Dylan and Morgan will be flying down this day! We’ll meet them at the hotel at the end of our day.
Up next Animal Kingdom!
 
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DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Colincoach said:
Looking forward to following this, we will be staying at Sheraton Vistana next August for 1 week after being onsite at Port Orleans FQ for the first week.
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That sounds awesome! I will do a Trip Report when we get back and add the link to this thread! 😊
Have you stayed at POFQ before?
 
DiSnEyF@n

DiSnEyF@n

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Alright, now that Dylan and Morgan are all settled in, we are ready to get a good night sleep for our adventures in Animal Kingdom.

Scott and I typically (?… more like most often) enjoy adult beverages on the balcony after the small children have gone to sleep. This is a VERY important part of the trip. If this doesn’t take place, then it’s not a true vacation for us grownups… I will call this evening drinking a “ritual” of sorts. We have a couple drinks, put our feet up, reflect on the day, talk about the next day and then eventually go to bed. If you do not have small children, then you may not understand this ritual that MUST take place AFTER the children are sleeping and MUST only include adults. 😆 🍻😁
Relaxed Julia Stiles GIF by Ovation TV


Anywho…

Wednesday, August 16th~ Animal Kingdom
Without receiving too much backlash for this, AK is our least favorite park 😬. It is our opinion. With that said, out of our 9 days in the parks, this is the only AK day we will be doing. I like AK, but feel that one day is sufficient enough to do all the fun things it has to offer. We will eat a quick breakfast on the go and I’ll pack lunch and snacks again.

Some fun facts about us:
1. Chelsea rode Expedition Everest 2 years ago when she was 4… two times in a row. She’s pretty tall for her age (100th percentile). She said twice was enough when we asked if she wanted to do it again lol.
2. We have never even been in Avatarland, let alone on the rides there, so it will be our intention to get onto those rides this year.
3. Chelsea (again age 4) was not at all amused by the safari ride and we rode it in the am when all the animals were out. She’s hard to please haha.
4. Last, I got soaked on the water rapids ride 2 years ago (age 36) hahahahaha

Okay, enough facts…
We will do all the Animal Kingdom must dos and then we have ADRs at Yak & Yeti at 3:30. We ate there last time and it was really nice and we really enjoyed the atmosphere too. This will be an early dinner and then we will scoot on out of the park and go back to the hotel to rest (or swim?) for the next day.

Some pics from 2 years ago in AK:
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Up next, MK!
 
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