Planning our first trip to DisneyWorld

Welcome all!

I have been to Disneyland three times, and since Disney World is currently having a 30% off hotels during summer, we decided to book a trip to Disney World in Orlando! It's quite a long ways for us, and unfortunately both our flights there and home have layovers, but it saved us heaps of money on a trip that would normally have cost twice as much.

Ever since our Honeymoon in Disneyland last June, going back has been on our minds. But neither of us have been to Disney World, and everyone says it's worth going at least once to experience it. I know it is quite a lot bigger and will be a daunting task, so we gave ourselves an extra day if there is a particular park we find we need to visit twice. We will also be visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, as I am one of the biggest Harry Potter fans there is. (Not going to lie, I am looking forward to this the most.)

We are hopeful that the seven dwarves mine cart ride will be open the time we get there so we can give a full report on the experience and the finally completed new Fantasyland. (So exciting!) We will also be trying to focus a major part of our day in Animal Kingdom on the Dinoland U.S.A (my husband LOVES dinosaurs.)

We weighed the options between going to Disneyland and going to Disneyworld and going to Disneyworld was almost the same cost, except it also includes food! That meant that even though we will have painful flights and long days, it will be very worth it. In my opinion, the option for 30% off a hotel in Disney World is worth even more than the free dining they tend to offer once a year during particular low seasons.

As people native to Alberta, I'm sure going to Florida in the middle of summer is going to be very hard on us, so i'm going to be sure that we each have a water bottle, and stay hydrated. We have a mini- backback that we took to Disneyland that we might use again, though my husband said he wouldn't mind carrying a larger backpack this time around (more room for our autograph book and his pins!)

We are going to be staying at Disney World's Carribean Beach resort, which i found to be reasonably priced and more central of a hotel to all the parks compared to the other moderate resorts. At the time of booking, I found that there was not significant enough of a price difference between the value (ie; All Star Music, All Star Movies, etc.) and the moderate resorts for me to take the lower price option. Plus, going to a moderate versus value hotel fills me with the hope that there will be a few less children hanging around. That and from what I can assume about transporting to each park is that having a closer hotel will be much nicer.

That said, I'm still working out the logistics for planning to get to Universal Orlando, but as soon as that is booked I will be doing a post on all the different options, the one we decided to go with, and why.