Close-to-Perfect Trip to Disney World

This past week Dave had a business conference in Orlando, Florida and so the girls and I decided to tag along and turn it into our first trip to Disney World.  We are now home and in the aftermath, I can certainly say that our Disney experience was close-to-perfect!

1-No crowds and easy touring of all the parks.  When it comes to Disney parks there is always the possibility that you will spend more time standing in line than anything else and leave feeling like you just wasted a lot of money.  To be as efficient and prepared as possible I studied up on touring Disney World with the an excellent guide book, full of good advice.  Fortunately, for us the crowds were so small during our trip that we probably would have been okay if we just winged it.



Every night at the resort, the kids could roast marshmallows
over a camp fire and watch a movie on the beach



We spent one day at each park and basically were able to ride all the attractions and see most of the shows by 3:00pm.  In fact, we were often able to do most of the rides twice, some with no waiting times at all.  By mid-afternoon we were pretty hot and tired so we would come back to our resort and spend the rest of the day and evening swimming, playing in the sand, and enjoying other resort activities.


2-Lots of sunshine and summer-like weather.  I figured that the weather would be better in Orlando than in Chicago, but little did I know.  When we left Chicago the temperature was about 67 degrees, while we were gone there were violent windstorms and tornadoes; we came home to 47 degrees--brrr! 

On the flipside, Orlando was literally the opposite.  The forecast called for 80s during the day and 60s at night, what we actually got were record temperatures of 90+ degrees.  In the evening it stayed in the high 70s, low 80s--perfect for evening swims.  It was so sunny and warm, I definitely "get" the whole Sunshine State thing.

3-Disney's.  Yacht.  Club.  Resort.  For our first trip to Disney World, we were spoiled not only to stay on site but to be at a deluxe resort.  Dave's company held their conference at the Yacht Club, so we got to enjoy the perks of being guests, which included hands-down the best pool of all Disney properties.  We went swimming every day and spent hours and hours pool side.  The Yacht club has a big sand-bottom pool, a lazy river, and waterslides.  Paige loved playing in the sand, Ashley loved the waterslide, and I loved soaking my tired feet in the hot tub---we were all happy girls! 

After a long, but fun day at a park I often found myself sitting by the pool at 9pm watching the girls play, telling myself, "who cares about bedtime?  Let's just have fun while we can.  We will be back to reality soon enough." 


View of the Boardwalk from the Yacht Club

 The only thing I would have changed about the trip was the amount of time we had to spend with Dave.  He was actually part of two conferences (attending one and teaching at another) so he was very busy and had little free time.  In fact, we had one late night dinner together and on another day we had 5 hours with Dave at Magic Kingdom and that was about it for family time.  I felt a little guilty having so much fun while he was working, but we sure do appreciate all he does and sacrifices to provide for our family and are very grateful for him!