Our week at Disney World

We took our three girls to Disney World at the end of September. One benefit of homeschooling is we get to take our kids on vacations during non peak times. We did drive so did not have to worry about weather delays. We got lucky and did not have any hurricanes hit Florida while we were there. We did have some rain but nothing too major and thankfully we had a rain cover for our stroller and ponchos.

Giraffe on Kilimanjaro Safari

For this trip, we stayed on property at Caribbean Beach Resort. We had the Disney Dining Plan and 4 day park hopper tickets. We also had tickets to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. We purchased multi lightning lane passes for each park and the individual lightning lane passes for all the rides that had those. You can read all about our resort stay, the character dining we did and the Halloween party in some of my other blog posts. This post is going to go over the good, the bad, and offer some tips for families.

Building a droid at Droid Depot

Our first park day was a Monday. I had looked over crowd calendars before I made our dining reservations and chose which park on which day based on that. For Monday, we headed to Animal Kingdom. We did not rope drop as I let my kids sleep in since we had the Halloween party the night before but we did get there a little before 9am. I was able to get a lightning lane for Kilimanjaro Safari for 8:25 to 9:25 so we headed right there once we arrived. I highly recommend riding that in the morning as the animals were active. After that ride, we headed to Rafiki’s Planet Watch as I have a child that wants to be a vet and they do most procedures in the morning. They have a petting zoo over there as well which is fun for the littles. You have to take a train ride to this area but it is fun. Our next lightning lanes were over in Pandora, so we headed that way so the bigger kids could ride Flight of Passage and then we all rode Navi River Journey. Don’t forget to get photos taken as the photos for the photo pass photographers in Pandora are beautiful. We explored Discover Island and then Gorilla Falls and headed to lunch at Tusker House. A sit down lunch is great as it got us out of the heat and let us relax for a bit. After lunch we headed to Asia to ride Everest and Kali River Rapids. We explored the Maharajah Jungle Trek then watched Finding Nemo before heading back to our resort. We ere going to ride Dinosaur but the ride went down. It was fine as I had a husband and children who wanted to swim in the pool.

Aquarium at Epcot

Tuesday was our Hollywood Studios day. We made to that park about 10 minutes before it opened to everyone so we were able to walk on to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad. We also got to meet Mary Poppins and Pinchoccio right in front of that ride. We had a lightning lane for Tower of Terror and then snagged one for Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster. We were able to ride every ride but Star Tours in this park. We saw the Little Mermaid show, Frozen Sing along and Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After. We once again scheduled our sit down meal for lunch and we ate at Hollywood & Vine. We also met the live action Ariel in the Walt Disney Presents building. My middle child built a droid at the Droid Depot and we were able to walk right in without a reservation and then we had the mat outside to use the droid on all to ourselves. If you don’t want to spend the money for the backpack, I recommend bringing an extra backpack to carry the droid. The box is a bit uncomfortable to carry. We also scheduled our time in Bantu towards the end of the day so we did not have to carry it around long. I will say Hollywood Studios was not that busy so it was a nice day to enjoy the park.

Beast’s castle

Wednesday was our rest day and I highly recommend scheduling one in so you can explore your resort, get some extra sleep and just relax. I did use this rest day to also explore the Riviera and do the DVC pitch. We got a $100 gift card to use so it wasn’t bad and it was an easy way to check out a deluxe resort. We were able to register a day guest so my sister and nephew were able to come visit us and enjoy the pools at CBR. Even the resort was not that busy and my kids had blast swimming and going down the water slides.

Te Fiti in Journey of Water Epcot

Thursday was our Epcot day. Our first lightning lane was Frozen Ever After and since the skyliner drops you off at the International Gateway, it was not too bad of a walk and since we got in before the parked opened to everyone, the World Showcase was empty. We did put all of our lightning lanes at the front of the park after that ride though so we could explore the World Showcase and eat our way around the world by lunch time. The only ride we didn’t get to ride that we wanted to was Remy but we will save that for our next trip. I recommend getting the passports for the kids as they enjoyed having the cast members right on each page and collect the postcards. Most of the Kidcot stations are in gift shops so just be aware of that. Epcot was the most crowded park for us due to the Food & Wine Festival but the food that we did try was delicious. And thanks to the dining plan, we used most of our snack credits that day. I will also say the only time I experienced a line at the skyliner was when we were leaving Epcot and the park hadn’t closed yet.

China Pavilion Epcot

Friday was our Magic Kingdom day. We had lightning lanes for everyone’s favorite ride but we did not get to ride as much as we wanted. It was a party day as well so the park was fine in the morning and early afternoon but it got packed fast as soon as it hit 4pm, which I expected. We did skip rides that we rode during the Halloween party. My youngest loves Belle so I made sure we did Enchanted Tales with Belle. If your kids are very shy, keep them with you so they do not get picked to be a part of the story but don’t worry, every kid in the audience got a picture with Belle and a bookmark. If you are there during a party, do not go into any stores on Main Street when they start letting people in for the party as they are packed. We did do our sit down lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table. We were leaving that night so we did have to leave a bit earlier than 6pm due to having to return our stroller by 6pm at our resort.

Tree of Life Epcot

For our stroller rental, we used Kingdom Stroller which was super easy. They dropped the stroller off at our resort, we did have to present though. They showed us how to fold the stroller. We got a free cooler bag and rain cover to use which is super helpful in Florida. If flying, you can pick it up and drop it off the airport. I highly recommend purchasing lightning lanes as the longest we waited for a ride was 25 minutes and that was Toy Story Mania. Look at crowd calendars as park days were not super crowded so the crowd calendars were pretty accurate for us. My biggest tip I can give is take your time and don’t try to squeeze everything in as you will end up disappointed and grouchy. I wanted to rope drop and close out the parks but my kids and husband couldn’t do that. We did not use the park hopper but my kids were rested and happy. We all enjoyed our trip and want to go back very soon. If you need any help planning and booking a trip to Disney World, reach out as I would love to help. #neverlandingtravelbysara #disneyworld