Infant Travel Archives - Page 3 of 9

Jul 09 2016

Surveying Scotland: Preparing to travel with two children under four

As I mentioned in the introduction, a lot of decisions now revolve around my kids. I thought it might be useful for some young parents to see what other decisions the kids’ affected.

I’ve gotta say, preparing for travel with two children is pretty different than preparing for one. At least when they are this close in age (2.5 years). Here’s how we tackled each problem presented (note: this is being written three days into our trip so there is still plenty of time for things to go south). I’d love to hear feedback from other parents about how you handle these things.

And those of you who fall into this category:

Until you guys are playing zone defense instead of man-on-man, don't even speak to us. 😂😂😂
— Maulermark (@maulermark) July 4, 2016

I have no good comeback.

Transportation

I went through most of this in the introduction, but one or two more points here. One of the reasons I chose to mix it up so much is variety keeps my kids’ interested. I know most people in the UK would probably drive up to Scotland (10 hours). I considered it – it sounds like a beautiful drive.

travel with two children — Driving affords the ability to stop and take pictures

But with little knowledge about rest areas and the like, I didn’t want to risk driving that far. Plus, that gets boring. At the same time, the drive from Inverness to Edinburgh isn’t that far, but I thought my daughter might enjoy riding the train. And infants basically light up at every new experience so I know I’m covered there.

I also booked direct flights whenever possible: pretty much a no brainer at this point. Gone are the days I’ll take an extra leg to try a new business class product. Oh well.

Car seats

These freaking things. I realize this makes me weird, but nothing causes me more stress as a parent than deciding how to handle the car seat situation. Buy? Rent? Ship? AHHH! And we need two car seats to travel with two children!

Well, I’m exaggerating there because handling the car seat for H was a piece of cake. We brought his Chicco Keyfit 22 and caddy: car seat plus stroller, done. Those are both getting retired when we get home, but he can slum it for two more weeks.

M, on the other hand, needs her front facing car seat. Normally, we bring it in this huge bag and load it up with diapers (not a bad plan). However, with two kids, that’s less hands available, and we decided to leave the bag at home. Let’s ignore the fact that it’s been sewn back together three times, it just wasn’t going to be feasible.

So I decided to bite the bullet and rent the car seat for a week. Even typing this I am still annoyed: it costs more than buying a seat (about $80). I wanted to buy one and ship it, but that presented two problems.

1) The only place I could logistically ship it to before we need it was our hotel in London. That would necessitate us dragging it on our flight to Scotland with us.

2) H needs a front facing car seat, as alluded to above. Meaning I would want to keep the one we bought here. Meaning we’d have to get it home somehow. Forget it.

History has proven that, for my family, I made the right decision. We had some, um…developing situations at Paddington Station that an extra bag might have further complicated. So I spent a little extra for convenience. I am the one percent!

Of course, did I mention we used to stuff the car seat bag with diapers?

Suitcases

So we needed to find space for 75 diapers. Yes, yes, could have ordered them online and had them sent to various places we were staying, I know, I know. That is the smart thing to do (I am Amazon Prime UK for another 3 weeks), but I’m not a smart guy. I’m a glutton for punishment.

Instead, we loaded our diapers into this baby:

That’s right: a carry on sized rollerboard with a backpack ZIPPED ON. It’s made by Ful, which I pronounce “fool” because that’s how I look dragging that thing through the terminal. But who cares, it works. I have no shame.

In addition to that we brought a large suitcase. Scotland is cold and rainy so we just couldn’t get away with two carry on sized suitcases. I’d love to hear from parents who can take two week trips with 2+ young kids and carry on only: teach me! For us, it’s checked bags or bust now. At least they are free. 😛

Strollers

Jess and I love to walk, especially in Europe, and the reality is at 3.5 years old M can’t keep up. So we had to bring her a stroller – we brought our Uppa Baby G-lite which is D-liteful. The shoulder strap is super convenient and came in VERY handy in London.

As mentioned above, H can ride in his caddy/carseat combination, but he prefers not to. So the real decision was whether to bring a second umbrella stroller or not. Answer: enjoy being uncomfortable buddy! Maybe you can use the big stroller when M feels like walking!

Worst case scenario, I’ll buy one on Amazon UK and ditch it in Scotland.

Length of stays and location choices

In the past, Jess and I would be happy spending one night in a city if it seemed interesting enough. After we had M, we reduced the minimum length of stay to about two nights, now with two that is more like three nights (though it’s not a hard and fast rule).

We also look to travel a bit more off the beaten path, places like the Isle of Skye where the natural beauty is the attraction in and of itself. That prevents us from feeling pressure to go see everything: instead we can take things slow and enjoy one or two attractions a day.

Food

There is a famous story in my family that goes something like this: my negligent parents once took us on a day long drive through the Outer Banks during the offseason where every eating establishment was closed. We survived only on the strength of four Polly-o string cheeses.

While that story has grown in legend over the years, it approximates the truth. So my goal as a parent is to avoid those kinds of situations (we were close yesterday though).

Hence we packed a lot of cheap snacks that we could use at any time even though they took up a lot of space. Cheerios, puffs, and teething biscuits for the baby. Instant oatmeal, goldfish, kind bars, and trail mix for the preschooler (mixed results on the last two).

Final Thoughts

Planning for two kids is pretty different than planning for one. In some senses you have to be more prepared; in other senses you just care less. The nice thing with the second kid is you know what worked for the first so you have a baseline to start with, but it won’t necessarily work for the second. Would love to hear how people with young kids handle travel in the comments!

Jul 07 2016

Surveying Scotland: Introduction

Two kids creates more than twice the work. That holds true for regular life and travel. Nonetheless, we took it upon ourselves to travel to the United Kingdom to celebrate our son’s first birthday. Just kidding, it’s just when we were free.

As always, we paid for the majority of our flight with points. We even booked our first transatlantic flights in coach for the first time in five years. Slumming it! Just kidding, I’m just practicing what I’ve been preaching in my family travel hacking guide.

Read below for details of what we booked and the thought process behind it all.

Flights for Four

I wrote about booking our flights to the UK awhile back. Man, can’t believe I booked this trip back in August 2015. Either way, Delta availability still remains great. We elected to book in Delta One (aka business class) for the extra space. We figured since it was a redeye it’d be good for the kids to have “beds” overnight. I had to pay about $560 for the infant ticket: on international flights you pay 10% of the base fare even on award tickets. So overall call it 187.5K miles + $600 in taxes and fees for the four of us.

I'm convinced screen time is half the reason she flies — I’m convinced screen time is half the reason she flies

On the way back, the decision was between buying three business class tickets on United or four coach seats. Like I said, we haven’t flown coach across the Atlantic in years (though we did fly it to Aruba). That being said, we would fly our kids to California in coach and Europe only takes an hour longer.

Here’s how the pricing broke down:

Business Class (3 seats plus lap infant): 172.5K miles + $819 taxes and fees + ~600 for infant fare

Coach (4 seats): 120K miles + $384 taxes and fees

So basically, flying coach would save us 52.5K miles and a thousand dollars.

This ended up being a much easier decision than expected. You can do a lot of things with $1000… Plus 52.5K Ultimate Rewards points is like another $500. Anyway, we decided to fly in the back on the way home: it’s a day flight anyway. Gonna be interesting!

Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We'll see how the return goes — Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We’ll see how the return goes

We also used some Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards points to book a quick hop from London to Inverness, not much worth writing about there. Miss you Wells Fargo!

Lodging

While we use miles and points to save money, at this point we have committed to traveling to where we want to go – not necessarily where we can get everything for “free” (note: not free). Thus we decided on Scotland knowing full well that the Scottish Highlands are mostly devoid of chain hotels that we could use points redemptions on.

I’ve written about the importance of having a separate room, especially for my one year old. We can do without but then lose access to the bathroom. Only two of our stops have chains we can even redeem at: London and Edinburgh. I decided to book a room with a confirmed Diamond Suite Upgrade in London at the Hyatt Regency The Churchill. I figured we’d really need that second room to recover from jetlag.

Our first and last hotel room on this trip - not complaining — Our first and last hotel room on this trip – not complaining

We booked everything else through airbnb, Trip Advisor, or directly from websites. For the rest of our trip we will not be staying in chain hotels. Though in this case we’re only giving up staying at a Club Carlson or Hilton in Edinburgh – but I really wanted to avoid getting stuck with a small room. Maybe when H is older. If only this kid would sleep in bed with us!

Ground Transportation

Our one final cost was ground transportation. We bought round trip tickets on the Heathrow Express and then took a taxi to our hotel. We’re planning on doing the same in reverse but will eat the sunk cost and take a cab if we are running low on time for our departure (still recovering from jet lag).

We rented a car for a week in the Scottish Highlands. No tricks or gimmicks just looked for the cheapest price I could find and called it a day. Too much running in the background to worry further.

We’re planning on taking a train from Inverness to Edinburgh, though that is subject to change as well. Everything depends on the kids!

Final Thoughts

When we traveled with one kid, I’d say she only affected about 60-70% of our decision making. Maybe even less (40%?) once we had gotten used to traveling with her. With two under four, about 95% of our decision making has revolved around them. That’s just life for us now. So we’re flying coach, not worrying about saving every last penny, and thus far, having a great time. Will update with thoughts as we go along!

Jun 21 2016

Surviving a night in a hotel with two kids under 4

Since our daughter was born, it’s been our goal to continue traveling regularly with our kids. Maybe not as often or as far, but still enough to make it “regular”.

One thing we did with M is take trial runs: short flights, nearby hotel stays, etc., just to see how she’d hold up. We’re continuing the tradition with H, especially since we need to adapt to accounting for two.

Hotel room two kids — Happy to be in “Powrt-lan”

We are gearing up to go to Scotland in a few weeks and one of my concerns is staying in small European hotel rooms as the four of us. To prep we took a trip to Portland, Maine beta testing.

I thought I’d share our experiences a bit; even though all kids and siblings are different, I always find it useful to hear how people handle various situations so hopefully this can give parents of young kids food for thought.

Where to put the pack and play?

Traveling to hotels with M was easy. She was (and is) always happy to sleep in bed with us, so whenever we traveled we’d get a crib but she’d just end in bed with us anyway.

H is totally different. Once he hit like six or seven months he was not really into co-sleeping anymore. While we managed it for one night in Aruba, lying in bed with him these days usually results in his climbing all over us and never wanting to sleep. The best is when he tries to see if he can fit his entire hand in my mouth when I am snoring.

For a kid like that, upgrading to a suite (even without a free upgrade) can sometimes be the right choice for the separate room. But we are beta testing so I didn’t push for anything at the Hyatt Place here (though they actually have some pretty nice suites). So we ended up in a regular (US) sized room and a pack and play that we needed to put in an ideal location for H to sleep.

Hotel with two kids — I’ll just drink this while you figure out where to put me

So, what to do? If you’re just dealing with one kid, you can leave the crib in the main room and go hang out in the bathroom after the kid goes to bed but that pretty much sucks. If we were in that situation we’d probably just go to bed at 8, but that’s not an option with a second kid.

If the bathroom is big enough, though, you can put the pack and play in the bathroom! Which is exactly what we did. I welcome your judgment. Anyway, this lost us a bathroom but gave us the ability to split up our kids.

Handling bedtime

We decided to put the kids down in shifts. After bathtime I took M downstairs to go look at the pool while Jess put H down in the bathroom crib.

This led to the embarrassing situation of walking around the lobby with my daughter in her pajamas while people were on their way out to hit Portland’s happening bar scene. We checked out the pool and I taught her how to use the treadmill but still couldn’t avoid sitting in the lobby reading tourist brochures in our PJs for awhile. I died.

treadmill

Anyway, after what felt like an eternity (but in actuality was 10 minutes) we finally got the all clear to come back up. H freaked out for about five minutes like he does at home but we decided better five minutes of loud crying at 830 than loud crying every two hours throughout the night. (We know our child, and that is exactly how it went down. Five minutes of screaming and then peace and the rest of the night).

So we were all set…until we weren’t. M rarely needs to use the bathroom after bathtime. But Murphy’s law dictates that about fifteen minutes after she got in bed she had to use the bathroom.

I decided the lesser of two evils was to take her down to the lobby to go to the bathroom. If we woke H up it was probably going to set up for a long night. More lobby pajama embarrassment but everyone was soundly asleep by 930. Great success!

An early morning

As every parent knows, a change in environment means changes in schedule for the kids. In a worst case scenario that means they wake up multiple times through the night.

Luckily, we didn’t have to deal with that, though M did wake up at 230 because she almost fell off the bed. But no crying, so no problem. I could have prevented this, of course, but M kicked me to the couch to make room for her doll to sleep. Happy Father’s day, dad!

Anyway, H woke up at 5 (Murphy’s law), an hour earlier than usual. Being in such close proximity meant M was up by 505 and asking to eat breakfast. Obviously that was a non starter.

We ended up dealing with this in a not so great fashion, as parents are wont to do. We just let H crawl around on the floor and play, alternating between the floor and the bed. Cleanliness standards decrease exponentially after the second kid! Plus, you can’t reason with infants and we weren’t going to let him scream and cry even for five minutes that early in the morning (though he definitely would have fallen back asleep if we had done that.)

M, on the other hand, we told to go back to bed. She refused, but we also refused to let her play. STANDOFF! Our compromise was that she sit in the chair, quietly, which she managed to do for half an hour. I honestly have no idea why she preferred that to lying down; kids are weird. Eventually she went to lay down on the couch – I got my spot on the bed back! She didn’t sleep but at least she didn’t expend too much energy. This didn’t get us any extra sleep but we got to lie in bed casually keeping tabs on H which is better than nothing.

By 7 AM H was finally exhausted – he fell asleep on me which almost never happens anymore (sad!). M finally got to go get her breakfast, so while H slept they ate breakfast in the lobby and then made their way to Standard Baking Company, one of our favorites.

The aftermath

Since our kids got up that early I was pretty worried they would be overtired all day, especially M. H woke up and Jess and M were back in the room by 8.

After some playtime in the room we went for a walk and I grabbed some breakfast. After we got into our car to kick off our official plans for the day, both kids were passed out within two minutes. Crisis averted!

Planning for Scotland

At this point in our lives, staying in a hotel can be a tough proposition for us. For that reason we are mostly looking at apartments and such for our trip, points be damned.

If we do end up in a small European hotel room my guess is the “cot” (that’s what they call them over there!) probably won’t even fit in the bathroom. So we’re going to have to play it by ear…

Final Thoughts

Some of you may think our experience sleeping in the hotel was horrible, some might think it was nothing. I wasn’t too worried about it and I actually thought things went better than expected; I’m fairly certain Aruba was tougher.

Either way, I highly recommend dry runs: practice makes perfect. I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re ready for Scotland, but I will say we had a ton of fun in Portland so any headaches were totally worth it!

Apr 07 2016

Hyatt Regency Aruba Report Spa and Casino Impressions

Now that I’m a family man, we’ve been gravitating towards the Caribbean more and more. Shorter flights, nice beaches, and less hassle overall. Last year we visited Turks and Caicos, so we wanted to try a new island this year.

We settled on Aruba partially because of our magically attained Hyatt Diamond status. I really wanted to see what a diamond suite upgrade could get us at the Hyatt Regency Aruba. We also spent two nights in a standard room using award nights from the Hyatt Card. Here are my impressions of the hotel.

Hyatt Regency Aruba — Ready to check in!

Standard Room

While it was a bit tight for the four of us, we really enjoyed the standard room. Our view was whatever but what was really helpful was the ability to push the two beds together. While we did have a crib, it ended up just being easier having the four of us in bed. Two beds together gave us a LOT of space.

Other than that the room was pretty standard. The bathtub was great and perfect for bathing the kids. What stood out the most was when I asked them to clear out the minibar they sent up a separate mini fridge instead! Definitely one of the best amenities I’ve ever received at a hotel. I have to think that is because we were diamond but I don’t know that for sure.

One piece of evidence that it wasn’t because we were diamond was that a very helpful hotel worker named Jose (who was great throughout the entire trip) suggested we get one when he saw us entering our room. He didn’t know we already had one so maybe it’s just something they do there.

Bottom line – the standard room is nice enough that I would definitely go back. Yes, it’s a little small for four, but there still is enough space to make it work. The family suite, though, is even better.

Family Suite

While the standard room was adequate, the family suite was amazing. Our last four nights were booked on points and cash which made us eligible to use a diamond suite upgrade. The extra space made a huge difference since we could use the living room after the kids went to bed (instead of going to sleep at 9 PM with them!). There was plenty of space for the crib and in the family suite it was much easier to get our son to sleep in there because we weren’t five feet away.

There is a queen sized bed and also a sofa bed, so the room would definitely be comfortable even if you had bigger kids. There is a nice hallway where you can leave all your shoes and beach stuff, and we even had a nice view of the pool (albeit through a tiny window).

I’d say the biggest drawback of the family suite for a family with young kids is there was no bathtub. Showering kids can be tough and sometimes a little dangerous, but we made do. All in all we definitely preferred the suite, as you would expect!

Regency Club Lounge

The club lounge at the Hyatt Regency Aruba isn’t fancy, but it makes up for that with incredibly friendly and accommodating staff. Breakfast in the lounge was a decent spread, there were cold cuts, bread, bagels, and the like along with two hot items (usually oatmeal and something else).

The evening cocktail hour featured a decent salad and veggie spread along with another two hot items. Just due to scheduling and overall exhaustion we actually skipped dinner two nights – the food at the lounge was enough to sustain us so that saved us quite a bit of money.

Unlike other Hyatt lounges I’ve been to, the lounge never seemed overly crowded even at breakfast. The staff was amazing. They were always attentive and helpful and probably the highlight of the hotel (not just in the lounge). Also, for parents, the lounge has milk boxes (organic!) for kids, just ask the staff. Those same milk boxes go for like $4 in the hotel store so it’s a big deal!

Pool and Beach

The Hyatt Regency Aruba has three different pools though they are connected in various areas. It’s great having a variety so things never feel old. Though nothing is zoned off, there are parts of the pool that feel more adult oriented (like the swim up bar) and kid oriented (like the super shallow “baby pool”).

There is also a pretty awesome looking water slide that I’d say is great for all ages (if you’re tall enough).

The beach in Aruba isn’t as picturesque as Turks and Caicos but it’s still pretty great. Beach chairs are free but if you want a palapa (kind of permanent hut/umbrella thingies) you need to get there early or use the convenient online sign up system. Basically at 4 PM every day the system opens up and you can reserve palapas or pool umbrellas for the next day.

We never had a problem logging in at 4 PM and finding one, though we also found if we made our way to the beach at like 8 AM there would be some good choices for palapas (not all palapas are on the online system as some are reserved for walk ups). My wife observed that there were much longer lines for beach palapas in the morning at other resorts – maybe they don’t have an online system?

Anyway we had a beach in the morning/pool in the afternoon schedule that worked quite well most days.

Food

Like any beach or island hotel, food was overpriced but decent. Since there are so many resorts in a row we mainly wandered around looking for meals though we took lunch at the pool restaurant and at our beach palapa a few times. Don’t expect anything amazing, healthy, or inexpensive and you will be fine. Neither the cost nor the quality was at a level that made us NOT want to eat at the hotel, if that makes sense. It’s just food.

Casino

Alas, I did not find a way to make it inside, but it looked clean and fun from the outside. I decided if I went in it was a black hole that I might never escape, so self control prevailed.

Final Thoughts

We really loved this hotel and thought it seemed the nicest of all the hotels on Aruba’s main drag. The most mediocre part was the food, which was passable, but the pool, beach, and room were good. The staff was definitely top notch and this hotel would be at the top of our list if we ever were to return to Aruba!

Mar 14 2016

Daring to Disney: Things I wished I knew before I went to Disney

For someone who hadn’t been to Disney in a long time, the trip seemed daunting. So much has changed since I was a kid and of course I wasn’t planning the trips then. People fill literal books with all the things there are to know about Disney. Over the course of our week in Disney, I picked up some things that I thought might have been useful to know or better understand before I went. What better way to end this mega trip report than to share what you need to know before visiting Disney World? This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s my list. I’d love to hear what others wished they had known before they went to Disney, so drop some tips in the comments if you have them!

1) If you’re not using magic bands, your ticket cards are linked to your name

When I received my ticket cards in the mail, they looked like this.

So you’ll understand that I thought any card could be used for any person in my party. You assign tickets to people on My Disney Experience, but since there was no clear indication on the letter whose card was whose, I figured as long as I sorted out who got the 7 day and 6 day passes it wouldn’t matter.

Turns out it does matter. We found out towards the end of our trip that I had been using my wife’s ticket and vice versa the whole week. This caused us some hassle that isn’t worth going into, but this is something I wish I had known beforehand. I couldn’t find anything online about how to find whose ticket is whose but I think you can call Disney and give them the card numbers and they can tell you. Obviously if you have magic bands this won’t be a problem. That leads me to the second thing I had no idea about before I got to Disney.

2) Your ticket is matched with your fingerprint at park entrances

I did quite a bit of research before we went, so I’d say this is the one and only obvious thing that really caught me by surprise. Tickets are matched to people’s fingerprints! When you enter, you tap your ticket or magic band against an RFID reader and then you put your index finger in a fingerprint reader. This is double checked every time you enter the park so you can’t borrow your mom’s ticket to park hop one day or anything like that (not that I tried :P).

Disney says they aren’t storing your fingerprint information, apparently they convert your fingerprint into a unique digital number that is linked to your ticket. Which…sure sounds like they are storing your fingerprint information, at least for the duration of your visit! (If they can convert from your print => number how hard can it be to go the opposite direction, even if they don’t have the tech for it yet they could probably work that up really quickly if they wanted to I’m guessing).

Also, if you have a “bad” fingerprint, like my wife, be prepared to have your ID checked from time to time. She was ultimately taught the tip to rub her fingerprint on her jeans before the check, which worked out most of the time.

3) You can upgrade your ticket as long as you have at least one day left on the ticket

This ID stuff really matters because you can upgrade your ticket at any time you’d like, applying the value of the old ticket to the cost of the new one. That means if you have a day left on a three day ticket you can upgrade that to a seven day ticket with park hopper or even an annual pass as long as you haven’t swiped in on your last day. This can be very useful when you come to big realizations such as “Hmm an annual pass is better value than my 7 day park hopper.“

Now I’m not sure how upgrading tickets will work if you bought a ticket under the old prices, but at the very least you can apply the cash value of your old ticket to any upgrades to new prices. Disney expert Haley said that traditionally Disney has honored old prices when upgrading old tickets but YMMV.

4) Baby Care Centers can be very useful

If you’re traveling with infants or toddlers, Disney’s dedicated Baby Care Centers can be a lifesaver. Whether you forgot supplies, need a place to change a diaper and nurse, or just need some peace and quiet, the Baby Care Centers are there for you. They are also conveniently located next to the First Aid Centers which I’ve also heard great things about. There is one Baby Care Center located in each park, so make sure you know where it is before you get there!

5) You can get a pin at Guest Relations for special occassions

If you’re celebrating anything: honeymoon, birthday, anniversary, first time visit, you name it, you can get a special pin at Guest Relations (the ticket booth). These pins cue cast members into the fact that you’re celebrating and they are generally nicer to you (and they’re already pretty nice). Plus, you get to take it home as a keepsake yada yada yada. Maybe not so special for a 30 year old, but you bet it’s something that a 3 year old would cherish.

6) If someone in your party has an annual pass you can skip the Memory Maker

I haven’t confirmed this, but I’m pretty sure this would work. If you have an annual pass you get free access to photopass photos linked to your account. The difference between that and Memory Maker (Disney’s ~$170 catch all photo service) is that Memory Maker allows you to add all your family and friends’ photos. As an aside, for a good debate on the merits of Memory Maker Leslie has a nice post.

Anyway, if someone in your party has an annual pass, just make sure you grab the Photopass tickets from each photographer you get tickets from. Then you can add those Photopass IDs to the annual passholder’s account and you should be able to download all those photos. I didn’t find anything against this in the terms and conditions or anywhere so it should work just fine.

7) Row #s in the parking lot are unique, regardless of lot name

This might only work for more number oriented people, but it saved me a ton of headaches once I figured it out. While each parking lot is divided up into sections (Scar, Hook, Aladdin, etc.), if you have trouble remembering the name of your section just remember the number of your row. All row numbers are unique and as long as you know that you can find your car.

This is probably one of those things that only applies to me, but once I figured that out I never had trouble figuring out my car. It also got Jess and I to stop arguing whether we were in Scar or Hook or wherever – the lot is so enormous I got easily confused. What can I say, I’m a simpleton. Regardless, Row # is all you need!

Bonus: Some rider switch tickets are good for longer than one day

If that’s the case (I didn’t get enough evidence but I feel like it is), you can store them up and have one magical day without your kids!

Final Thoughts

I learned a ton on the trip to Disney and had lots of fun. My daughter and I are ready to go back ASAP, just gotta wait for the right time to trick mom into going! 🙂 Hopefully this series is helpful for anyone trying to prep a trip. If not, I hope it at least made you want to go to WDW!

Other Posts in this Series

Flights, Hotel, and Car

Making Disney Dining Reservations

Saving Money on Disney Tickets

Using Touring Plans (the non-touring plan parts)

Optimizing a visit using Touring Plans’ touring plans

Saving money by staying off site

When a Disney annual pass makes sense

Touring Epcot attractions with a toddler

Touring Animal Kingdom with a toddler

One perfect day at the Magic Kingdom

Dining Reviews