We're Going to Disney World!!!! Part One: Planning the Magic

Some of you may have wondered why I've neglected my blog this year. I've actually had a very good reason. Read on to find out why...

It's Friday, November 19, 2010 at 9:00 p.m. I'm currently on a plane flying somewhere over Tennessee on my way home to Michigan. I'm tired, mentally exhausted, my feet hurt and so does my back, but I'm happy. Why?

To answer that question I'll have to back up a bit to Christmas 2009. It's Christmas day and my family is at my mom and dad's house opening presents with my brother, sister-in-law, and 6-year-old niece. Mom hands the three kids each a small present to open together, and she hands Janet and I a package too. Michael opens a Mickey Mouse figurine, Nicholas opens a Goofy figurine, and Victoria opens a Minnie Mouse figurine. I open a book entitled "The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World with Kids 2010" while Janet opens "Birnbaum Guides 2010 Walt Disney World".

"Know what those are for?" Dad asks.

"What?" ask the kids in unison.

"We're going to Disney World!!!" my parents exclaim together.

Yes, it was true, my parents were taking our 9-person clan to Disney World in the fall, the first visit for the kids and for Janet. When Grandma Wurges (my dad's mom) died 2 years ago she left my parents some money and they earmarked a portion so we could take this trip. 2010 seemed like a good year since the kids were tall enough to go on most of the rides and none of them were tied to a nap schedule anymore.

And so began 10 months of extreme planning. I never knew how much information was out there for planning a Disney trip. I also didn't know just how much planning was needed for this trip. After inhaling my guidebook I was rather overwhelmed at just how much we had to do in the 10 or 11 months until our trip: decide where to stay and when and for how many days, figure out if we should rent a car, determine what parks we wanted to visit and in what order, and decide where to eat. Plus, we had to plan around three different families with three different likes and tastes, which would make our planning a bit more difficult. Still, we were bound and determined to make everyone happy.

Accommodations

Being such a large party meant that the logistics of traveling from park to park would be more manageable if we didn't have to rent a car (excuse me, a van). If we stayed on-site we could use Disney transportation and not have to worry about lugging car seats around. Plus, being able to take a bus back to our hotel gave each family the leniency to split off from the group if needed.

Deciding to stay on-site was easy. The hard part was deciding where to stay. Disney is basically divided into three different categories: Value resorts, Moderate resorts, and Deluxe resorts. Since we had a budget to stretch over 9 people which included accommodations, airfare, and park admission, we needed to find a place to stay that would give us the best bang for our buck.

Initially we looked into staying at a resort with a family suite that could accommodate our whole party - something with a kitchen or kitchenette. Our choices were limited to Bay Lake Towers at the Contemporary Resort, the Treehouse Villas at Saratoga Springs, or the cabins at Fort Wilderness Resort.

While staying in one suite sounded good at the time, we soon nixed the idea. The Bay Lake Towers suite only had 2 bedrooms, which meant that one person would have to sleep on the couch bed in the living room and one family wouldn't have a designated area for their belongings. The Treehouse was appealing because it had 3 bedrooms and we could save money by eating in, but after doing some research the resort appeared to be spread out and we would have to walk a long way to the bus stop, which, when you've just walked the park all day long the last thing you want to do is have a long walk from the bus to your room. And the cabins just were too small for our needs.

We then started looking into the Value Resort hotels, which were reasonably priced and family oriented. Each hotel has a different theme with larger-than-life decor, which we thought the kids would love.

We had just settled on the All-Star resort when my mom received a deal in the mail for 40% off a 5 night stay in one of the moderate resort hotels, a significant savings that we couldn't pass up. (TIP: If you order Disney's free vacation planning DVD, Disney will then send you frequent deals). Back to the drawing board.

More research and one more family planning meeting later, it was decided that we would stay at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort, a relatively small moderate resort, which meant shorter walks to the bus stop. The resort had other amenities that were appealing to us as well: the pool area had a dragon water slide as well as a hot tub and a kiddie pool, there was a playground for the kids, an arcade, a gift shop, a bar for the adults, and a counter-service restaurant.

Whew! What a relief to finally decide where we were going to stay. Now we had to nail down when we were going to go.

When to Visit

Originally we had planned on visiting Disney during the week of Thanksgiving so we wouldn't have to pull the kids out of school for a whole week. However, that was before we learned that Thanksgiving week is one of the busiest weeks at Disney World.

The week after Thanksgiving is one of the slowest weeks, therefore you can get a cheaper rate, but we didn't want to play Russian roulette with Florida weather in December. I've been to Florida in December before when it snowed and I didn't want to do it again!!

Our initial window was the two weeks after Halloween, but we ended up settling on the week of November 14-19. This meant we would have to pull the kids out of school for the week and miss conferences but we figured that they're young and wouldn't miss much.

Itinerary

Now that we knew when we were going we had to formulate our itinerary. In order to do this we first had to figure out which parks we wanted to visit. We knew that the Magic Kingdom was a must-see on our list and gave ourselves two days in which to take it all in. Epcot had Test Track, Mission: Space, and the new Soarin' ride so that made our list. Hollywood Studios had Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, Rock and Roller Coaster, and the Tower of Terror so it too made the cut. We had to factor a pool day in there also.

Now came the hard part: when to visit each park. In order to schedule each day we had to take several factors into consideration: when were the extra magic hours (EMH)at each park (Disney gives guests who stay on-property a special perk: they open the parks one hour early or leave them open up to 3 hours after the official park closing on a given day), and when could we schedule our dinner reservations. Dinner reservations? Yes, dinner reservations. Since Disney World is so popular, and most guests eat at the park, the waiting times for each restaurant became ridiculous. So they invented the dining reservation system, where you can make your dining reservations for your sit-down meals up to 90 days in advance. In fact, it's recommended that you do so or risk waiting for two hours for dinner when you could be out enjoying the parks. Although it seemed odd to be thinking about where we wanted to be eating three months in advance, this was the most recommended piece of advice that I received.

This part of the trip planning was quite mind-boggling because all three families had to research and agree on five different restaurants. Luckily I discovered that several websites list the restaurants' menus and reviews of the restaurants (www.Allears.net is one of my favorites).

One of our days at the Magic Kingdom had to be scheduled around our meal at Cinderella's Royal Table at Cinderella's Castle, which is probably the most popular dining experience for young children. In addition to being allowed to eat in the castle, young princes and princesses get to meet Cinderella and a variety of other Disney princesses during the meal (depending on if you're there for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. In fact, if you don't call to make your reservation at 7:00 a.m. exactly 180 days from the date you want to eat there, you most likely won't get in. We were lucky since the week we were going was a "slow" week at Disney, and got a lunch reservation for 2:00 p.m. on our first Magic Kingdom day.

And so by June 2010, after 6 months full of research and planning, we had determined the nuts and bolts of our trip. I celebrated by taking the summer off from any further planning, a much needed break. However, as the end of summer approached I began to dig into the more detailed aspects of planning the trip, creating packing lists, creating a touring plan for each day, finding out what attractions will be closed when we're there, and researching just how to make the trip all the more magic for the kids. The clock was ticking, though. I knew that with the onset of school, then Nicholas's birthday and Halloween, the next few months would fly and we'd be on a plane to Disney in no time.

Stay tuned for Part 2, in which you will find out if all of the planning paid off, if Michael got to take part in his Star Wars dream show, if Victoria was transformed into a princess, if Jennifer drove Jon and Jeff crazy with all her schedules, and just what special souvenir Nicholas bought with Grandpa.