Tag: family

How we did Disney on a Budget

We have taken splurge trips to Disney World, budget trips, and everywhere in between. All have been equally as magical.

Here is how we planned a last minute, budget trip to WDW for our family of five.

Purchase Disney Gift Cards with Target Red Card for 5% off

We always know (or hope) we’ll be going back to Disney World or Disneyland at some point in the future.  One way that we save up for those future trips, is by buying Disney gift cards from Target in advance over time.  Did you know that when you use your Target RedCard, you save 5% on those gift cards? That adds up, especially if you spend $100’s,  $1,000 or more in gift cards. It’s not often you get a deal on gift cards so take advantage! There is another exception however. Usually in December, Target runs a one-day sale on all of their gift cards for 10% off! It is a smart and easy way to stock pile those Disney gift cards for your upcoming trip. What can you use all those gift cards for you ask? Pretty much anything at the Disney resorts. We use them to pay for our Disney resort accommodations, park tickets, food anywhere on Disney property, and souvenirs.

Be Flexible with Accommodations

Another way we saved big this trip is that we booked the cheapest Disney resort room we could find for our family of five. We always stay on property at Disney World, and probably always will. Disney makes it way too easy to justify renting a car and staying off property, and for how much we are back and forth at the parks, it just makes sense for our family.  For this budget trip, I found a room deal at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. The resort was going through some major renovations at the time, and is most likely why it was so cheap.  None the less, we knew that with the length of our stay being a little shorter than a week this time, that we weren’t really going to be spending any time at our resort because all our time was going to be spent at the parks. The deal we found for the popular, large moderate resort was around $130/night (plus taxes and fees).  Whaaaat? That is pretty much unheard of so we jumped at the chance.  That price fit in our budget perfectly for our 5-night stay.

Getting Ready for bed after a long day at the parks


The pool at our resort was huge and had awesome water slides

One of the biggest ways we save money during every Disney trip no matter what our budget it, is on food. Our best tip that we give friends heading to WDW for the first time, is to send a box of snacks, food, drinks, etc. to the resort about a week before your arrival.  We have even had necessities from Amazon like diapers and sunscreen delivered to the resort for us.  Once you arrive at your Disney resort, make sure to mention of it when checking in. This is not unusual for the resorts and they most likely have it safely stored in the back for you.  Another tip is to take a refillable filtered water bottle and refill it for free with ice water or drinking fountains while in the parks. We love eating at our favorite Disney restaurants, but for this trip, we decided to pick one favorite restaurant to have a special table dinner at one evening. Every other meal was eaten at a quick service restaurant (minus breakfast, which was our own oatmeal that we had packed and brought in our suitcase).

Sanaa Restaurant…Our favorite!
Our view from the table…watching all the animals outside the big window!
The naan bread platter is a must!
ZEBRA!!

Use Airline Points to Book Flights and be Flexible

Another way we were able to cut down on costs was with our flights. We used our Southwest rapid reward points to book all of our flights which saved us a ton, and we have done this on previous trips as well. If you don’t have a Southwest card or an airline card, just look periodically for flights, and in order to get the best prices be flexible with your travel dates.  We tend to find that the cheapest days of the week to purchase plane tickets are on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  We ended up going to Disney World at the beginning of January when everyone was going back to school because once again it was cheaper as it’s not a very popular time. The weather is cooler, holiday decorations are coming down, and the park crowds are thinning out. It was however the perfect time for us because we weren’t interested in going at the perfect time or when weather would be warmer.  Our main concern was to do this trip as inexpensively as possible and we definitely accomplished our mission. Till next time Mickey!!

There you have it, all our tips and tricks on making our Disney World budget dreams come true.  We hope we gave you some good tips and new ideas on how to plan a last-minute budget friendly vacation to Walt Disney World.  Do you have any secrets on how to save money that you would like to share? We’d love to hear them.

XOXO,

The Joneses ( Mike and Kristin)

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Our Perfect Stay at Howard Johnson Hotel and Waterpark near Disneyland

Here is a short highlight video of our stay at the Howard Johnson Hotel and Waterpark in Anaheim, California.  A few months ago, I surprised my daughter with a trip to Disneyland.  Our good neighbor hotel was just a few minute walk to the gates of the parks.  Stay tuned for a full review of our stay at Howard Johnson Hotel. Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to follow along with our travel adventures!

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Why January is the Perfect Time to Visit Walt Disney World

We just got back from our 3rd trip to Disney World (2nd for Landry) and I’m already dreaming of our next trip back. This time around our choice of travel time was based mainly on price. I scored a major deal on accommodations. Of course, because we based where we stayed on price alone, we had one option really. We ended up at the Caribbean Beach Resort which is part of Disney’s moderate resorts. We have never stayed at the Caribbean Beach, and were stoked to check it out. I can’t tell you much about the resort itself, for one because we were literally at the parks from sun up to sun down every single day of our 5 day trip so we were only in our rooms to sleep at night. Secondly, because the resort is currently undergoing major renovations, so not everything is open right now. This post isn’t about a review of Caribbean Beach Resort (stay tuned for a post on that to come). I’m going to get right down to business and lay out for you my 4 reasons why you should consider a trip to Walt Disney World in January.

4 Reasons to head to Disney in January:

  1. Low Season: If you want to save some cash on your Disney vacation or maybe you have a strict budget, low season is something to highly consider. Room rates at resorts are down to entice vacationers after the holidays and when kids are back in school. Here’s a tip for you, and something I always do (except for this trip because we actually bought a Room+Park Ticket package because the price was too good to pass up), book your room as early as possible. As long as you don’t buy a package you can stalk the Walt Disney World website or call up to a week before your arrival to see if there is a lower price on the room you booked or on one at another resort. You can modify your accommodations as many times as you want without a penalty up to as far as a week before your trip. This is one of the biggest ways we save money. I have in the past switched resorts multiple times to get a better deal leading up to even a week before our trip and have saved hundreds of dollars.

    2.  Low Crowds:   Of course with it being January and with kids back in school, Disney World is going feel somewhat like a ghost town. Well, if it’s your first visit, probably not, but to those who have visited during busy times (over the holidays, summer, spring break, etc.) like us, it’s going to feel like you have the parks all to yourself. Just keep in mind, that January is a month where Disney plans more ride closures and refurbishments because of this very reason, so if there are attractions that are not to miss on your list, you’ll want to check the Disney website to see if they will be up and running so you don’t have any disappointments when you arrive.

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* Disclaimer: The weekend we arrived was Disney marathon weekend. The parks were busier and the buses were unreliable for pick up times. In the mornings, the buses from our resort had to take a different route to the parks. After the weekend of marathon weekend things settled down and were less hectic. You can find the schedule for future Disney Marathons here.

 

  1. It’s still Christmas for the first week of January:     Walking into Magic Kingdom on January 6th, we were not expecting it to be Christmas. From the holiday music, to the decorations on Main Street, even the castle was draped in lights. It was the best-unexpected surprise. We got just a tiny little taste of what it would be like to visit during the holiday season, and it was magical.

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  1. 2018-01-06 20.56.12Mild Temps:      Of course, a visit to Disney World in January usually requires packing in layers, if you’re from a colder climate like we are, anything feels warmer than what we would be experiencing here at home. For the first couple of days on our trip we had coats on, mainly at night when the temps would drop after the sun goes down. It did warm up for us each day we were there and by our last day the kids were actually swimming. All resort pools are heated year round. You just never know what kind of weather you are going to get in January, but just pack accordingly and I promise you’ll be riding so many rides you won’t care what the weather is doing.2018-01-06 16.14.07 HDR

I have to be honest, we had never really considered a Disney trip in January before, but our schedule, budget and circumstances all aligned so we bit the bullet. We took our much-anticipated Disney trip in January and we didn’t regret it.

Did I convince you to visit Disney World in January? What is your favorite month of year to go?

 

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Our Top 5 Places to Eat at Disney World

Disclaimer: We have yet to try all the places that Disney World has to offer. That being said, we’ve tried a number of them and based on two family trips to Disney World, these were our overall favorites. These places include table service restaurants and counter service restaurants. Our favorites are not based on just price or food alone, but the overall experience as a whole.

On our first trip to Disney, we tried to make it a very budget friendly trip. We rarely ate at any table service restaurants or character meals. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that we made in the morning for lunch, and just tried to keep things as cheap as possible. For our second time around we were determined to try as many new restaurants as possible. We had so much fun trying all the different food options, and even after all of new tries, I still have not tried a dole whip! Here is our list of favorite places to eat at Disney World.

 

  1. Yak and Yeti (counter service): For a quick lunch while at Animal Kingdom we headed over to Yak and Yeti counter service for some Asian cuisine. Along with the Asian flare offered, they also serve hamburgers and hot dogs. Our favorite items of the menu were the egg rolls and the chicken fried rice of all things, in which our kids happily devoured.

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That’s a baby sleeping on dad

  1. ‘Ohana (The Polynesian Resort): For a change of pace we took the monorail over to the Polynesian on our last night in Disney World, to eat at their family style restaurant, ‘Ohana. Before dinner they have the kids come up and participate in a couple of games. One of them is coconut races using little brooms. My kids had so much fun doing this and it was great for them to burn some extra energy before dinner while we waited for our food to come out. We really ate ourselves silly at ‘Ohana as it is an all-you-can eat style dinner consisting of pineapple-coconut bread, meat skewers, stir-fried vegetables and their famous bread pudding for dessert. I will go back to Ohana for the bread pudding alone it is that good! There is something for everyone here and I promise nobody is going to leave hungry.

Coconut races and bread pudding!

  1. Cinderella Castle (Lunch): This one is a pretty obvious one. They could have served us cold mush for lunch and we would have loved it (just kidding). The whole experience at the castle is in our opinion worth the hefty price tag at least once. Here’s why… Before heading upstairs to the main dining area, guests get to have a meet and greet with Cinderella first and get their picture taken with her. You also get a framed photo of you with Cinderella, which is included in the overall dining price. They do a couple of special things for the kids once in the dining all, and the whole place is surrounded by beautiful stain glass windows. The food is good, but we were there for the princesses. Even our 7 year old boy at the time loved it.

  1. Biergarten (Epcot): Adults go to Biergarten for the gigantic steins of beer that you get. Kids go for the all you can eat dessert buffet and the dancing. While you are feasting on the all you can eat buffet, the live German band plays upbeat music while guests can dance along to the beat. I have to admit that when we booked our dining reservation at Biergarten is was for the experience but we quickly discovered that the food was exceptionally good. There were a lot of different options and I didn’t eat one thing that I didn’t really enjoy. We all agreed as a family that Biergarten was one of our favorites and a must do again.

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  1. Sanaa (Animal Kingdom Lodge): Ahhhh, Sanaa…When I think of Sanaa, I get all dreamy eyed and it’s probably because it was a meal experience unlike anything we have every had before. Once again, I booked this dinner based more on experience but had heard the food was amazing. We just weren’t sure what to expect once we got there.  We were greeted with a taken care of by the friendliest of staff.  We asked for a table by the window so our kids were able to get up and stand near the window where every so often the curious animals and birds would come over to say hello. We got to watch zebras, giraffes, gazelles and ostriches play outside while we munched on the most delicious naan bread platter consisting of 9 different dipping sauces.   My kids gobbled up the bread and their dinner and the plates were huge.  If you don’t have very adventurous eaters in your group, please don’t let the initial menu scare you away from not eating at Sanaa.  The whole atmosphere was so authentic and memorable as was the food. Sanaa is a must do again every time because we love it so much. It’s our new Disney dining tradition.

Naan bread platter, meeting animal friends and enjoying dinner

We can’t wait to go back to Disney World and have been planning our next trip for quite a while. In the meantime, I’d love to hear where your favorite places to eat at Disney are!  Did I persuade you to try one our our favorites?  I’d love to hear what you thought of it.

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A December to Remember- part 1 Christmas Eve

Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year.  Everything about it.  This year was no different.  This Christmas was a little bittersweet for us, but without going into details we still had a great Christmas.  I know our oldest’s days of believing in Santa are numbered especially when there are kids at school who don’t believe, and make every point they can to prove their case.  I can’t begin to describe are aggravating that is to me.  He fully believes and and wants to believe and the fact that most his friends still do has him holding on to that hope.  That Santa. Is. Real.  Like, for real.  And I’m sorry, but how can he not believe, when Santa brought him a Nintendo 3DS for Christmas.  He knows for a fact that is parents would never buy it (wink).

Our little girl is still about all things Disney princesses.  Everything about Christmas is magical to her.  She loves singing along to every Christmas song on the radio and she’s got a pretty good bravada if I do say so myself.  Her FROZEN dolls and tea set from Santa were a huge hit this year.

An then there’s the youngest…This kid is hilarious.  He’s picked up how to unwrap gifts from his older siblings and he’s a quick learner.  Every time he’d unwrap something he’d go “Whoa..whoa..” and then he’d move on to the next gift.  He received a roller coaster.  I’ll never forget that smile or the “WEEEEEEE” and he would ride it down the track.  He loved his Disney World toy and a race track from Neema.

Christmas Eve they each always open one gift.  It’s really just to hold them off till the morning, but I’ve made it a tradition to get them each new Christmas jammies and a book to read on Christmas Eve.

 

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It’s bittersweet that the oldest can now read the Christmas Eve stories to the little ones.  I can’t believe this was our 9th Christmas with him.  I remember his first like it was yesterday.

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What do you mean I can’t have one??

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See you in the morning…Merry Christmas Eve:)

 

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Preschool with my Girl {12.13.14}

She’s been begging all semester to come to preschool with her.  I finally did, and the memories came flooding back of when I would go spend a day with big brother at preschool a few years back.  Any day is a great day to go to preschool with my girl, but man, I really picked a fun one by accident this time. DSC09830 First up, the pledge of allegiance of course.  For a 4 year old, I’m in awe that she knows the whole thing after only weeks of starting school. DSC09831 With eyes of wonder, her teacher read them the story of The Little Gingerbread Man.  It was felt character magic for their little eyes.  I wonder if she thinks the Gingerbread man is real, as I did when I was her age. DSC09834 DSC09833 It was a class effort to put together all the ingredients to make our gingerbread man cookies.  They held their hands behind their backs and were so patient waiting for their individual turns to stir the cookie batter. DSC09836DSC09841 DSC09844 It was then cookie cutting time.  Complete with candy eyes and buttons.  And then into the oven they went. DSC09855 DSC09856 DSC09857 DSC09860 DSC09862 While we waiting for our Gingerbread men to finish baking, the kids had some center time.  It was so fun to see what Sam gravitated towards.  Of course she chose the little dress up spagetti people, which doesn’t surprise me one bit.  And then it was off to do some art, followed by playing in the class kitchen. DSC09871 DSC09878 DSC09879 DSC09883 DSC09889 DSC09893 DSC09895 DSC09896 DSC09903 DSC09904 DSC09907 The kids were so excited to finally get too eat their gingerbread cookies that they worked so hard on.  They were delicious! DSC09908 DSC09910 DSC09912 Spending this morning with my girl has been all sorts of fun.  Can’t wait to go back.

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Living in the Moment More

I often think about the future and say to myself, “Someday..when the kids are older…”  It’s usually followed by something to the effect of, “I won’t be cleaning up messes on the floor (whether it be toys, milk, pee, etc.).

Someday, I won’t have to buy diapers or wipes anymore.

We won’t need carseats.

I won’t be breaking up an argument and trying to figure out who hurt who.

I won’t be applying sunscreen on them, or making sure they have their floaties on to swim.

I won’t be asking them what color they were on at school today and walking through the school doors, and embracing them with a “Hi! I missed you!”

I won’t be biting my tongue to not lose my patience with the little one who has no concept of time.

I think about the future a lot, and sometimes I wish I didn’t because for every second that I think about the future, whether it be excitement, or worry, it takes away from a second that I had to truly live in the very present with my kids.  Before I was pregnant, I would wonder what it’s like to be pregnant.  Will I get pregnant?  Does it hurt to be pregnant? Labor?  What kind of mom will I be?

Once I got pregnant, I wondered, How is this going to work? What is it going to be like when it’s not just the two of us (husband and I) anymore?  What if something goes wrong?  Who will my baby look like?

I guess, in life, for me at least, the questions in my head about the future never stop.  But I had an epiphany tonight as I stared around at the large Duplo blocks strewn all over the room, the water colors on the table, and the other various toys that have been moved one hundred times during the course of a day, but never seemed to make it back to its original place.  Someday, my thoughts about the future will be replaced with statements about their childhood and remembering what once was.  Someday when my kids are grown and gone, I’ll think to myself, “I remember when the kids were little…”

Someday, I’ll forget what it’s like to have 3 carseats in the backseat and do head counts 100x a day.

Someday I’ll treasure little handprints all over everything (although I secretly do now).

Someday I won’t remember how much diapers cost when we bought them.

I’ll miss combing through my daughters perfect curls.

I’ll miss the love notes my oldest boy and I write back and forth to each other.

Someday I’ll watch strangers interact with their children in the store, and my mind will go to a place when I was in there shoes, taking kids to the store and all the adventures that entails.

Writing this is painful because it’s something I don’t want to think about.  As hard as it is right now, it’s as easy as it’s ever going to be.  Having pure, raw moments with my kids is what I strive for every second of every day.  I’m not always good at it, and more times than not I’m horrible at it.  I might feel like a failure 70% of the time, but when I look at their sweet faces I know I’ve had to have done something right.  But I’ve made a promise to myself to start living in the moment more with my kids, family and those I care about in my life.

My Promise to myself for me and for them:

When my littles ask me if I want to color with them when I’m frantically making dinner, I will say ‘yes’ and not ‘in a little bit’.  Even if it’s for 2 minutes I can color and interact with them.

When they tell me to “Come here” to look at a lego creation and I think I’m busy, I will go and see it.

When they ask if they can help me bake and I’m in a hurry, I will say yes more often.

When my kids ask me to play dress up, read a Pokemon book, paint, whatever it it, even if I’m not in the mood, I will say yes.  

Those are the moments when they engage with me.  When they know that I am interested in what they are doing and know that I want to be a part of it.  Where they know that they are important to me.  For every time I say ‘no’ to having a potential moment with them is another moment passed that would have been special.  It’s one more regret that I will have for not participating, being present and bonding with these quickly growing loves of mine.

This is my promise.  For they will only be little for a short time, but they will be mine and ours forever, and one day when they’re grown and gone, I want to be able to say, I was present in their little childhoods.  I want the regrets of motherhood to be few and far between.  I don’t want to look back and know that I should have been there more.  It might make the transition of them growing up a little less bitter and a lot more sweet.

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Where there’s food, there’s a Toby

I love capturing every day moments with the kids, and I’m trying to do so more often. These pics I took last week of Landry eating blueberry pancakes and Toby-the dog, waiting for crumbs to drop on the floor pretty sum up every mealtime at our house. Where there’s food there’s a Toby…most of the time she doesn’t wait for the food to fall before her self control caves in and she’s up on the tray licking it clean.

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Disney Day 3- Animal Kingdom

Our 3rd day at Disney was a little slower paced than the previous couple  days.  We let the kids wake up slowly in the morning and took our time heading out the door to Animal Kingdom.  We love the music that comes on in the bus when you pull into the gates at Animal Kingdom.  It makes us feel like we’re on a safari in Africa.  For some reason, it always feels like we’re walking on top of people at that park.  The walkways are narrow and both times we’ve gone we’ve gotten there later in the morning hours so the crowd has picked up a bit.  Plus, we always have our double stroller so it’s a little wider than most.  Since nobody would go on Expedition Everest with me, I went by myself, and I’m glad I did.  It was so fun.  Tanner would have liked it I think.  Next time for sure I’ll get the kids on it.  We then headed over to DinoLand for awhile.

After that we watched the Flights of Wonder Bird show…obviously I took this pic before any birds came out.

 

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The kids were getting hungry and antsy and the show got over just in time for us to find some lunch.We ate at Yak and Yeti, and thankful we have some adventurous eaters we found something for everyone…

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That’s Landry taking a nap in the Bjorn on Mike 🙂

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After lunch we wondered around a little bit more.

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Since we missed our Fast pass for the Safari (still haven’t been on that), we decided to go back to the resort for a little R&R.

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We didn’t have dinner plans so we decided to head to Epcot to walk around and snack..

Our first stop was Germany, and we grabbed a pretzel to share.  Mike and I had a grapefruit beer..oh my, delicious!

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We then moseyed on down to America and grabbed  a turkey leg for us all to share.  Who would have thought that 1 giant turkey leg would feed all 4 1/2 of us.  I think the kids liked the fact that they could run and around and eat at the same time.

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And that’s a wrap for day 3 at Disney World.  So far we’re 3 for 3 on days in the parks without a meltdown.  WINNING!

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Bringing a Baby to Disney

When we visited Disney World for the first time as a family, it was beyond overwhelming. I didn’t even know where to begin when starting to plan. Luckily for us, our first trip was piggy backed on my husbands’ work trip, so we didn’t have to figure out where to stay. Fast forward 3 years later, and we just got back from our 2nd Disney World trip. I will say, for me, part of the fun in going to Disney is the planning. I LOVE IT! This was a big trip for us, and if you’re following my Trip Recap posts you’ll see in all the photos how much we actually packed into our 1 week trip. I have quite a few friends who are in the middle of planning their first Disney vacations with their families so I though I’d offer some unsolicited advice from a mom who’s done it twice with little kids and both times having a 1 yr. old in tow. For a lot of parents who often wonder if they should take their babies along on a Disney trip, I will say, this one is a personal choice. While we wouldn’t have it any other way than to bring the baby, some folks may not so much. Yes, babies are on their own schedules, and if not planned accordingly can surmount to a magnificent meltdown. Yes, babies travel with lots of stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. If you’re on the fence about bringing the baby along, here are a few of my personal reasons of why you should consider it too…

 

  1. Babies are pretty much free for everything. Flight (if they’re sitting on your lap and don’t have their own seat), Food, entry to the parks, etc. Kids are free into the Disney Parks until the age of 3 so why not?
  2. Family photo in front of Cinderella’s Castle + Baby= Happy happy memories, and family photos with everyone IN them. We don’t get a family photo with all of us in it too often. I didn’t want to look back at all the photos and always feel like we were missing one of us. Once again, that was our choice. Some people feel leaving the baby at home gives them more flexibility and freedom with their day.
  3. Babies can go on almost every ride at Magic Kingdom. Yup, almost every one. This of course with the exception of Big Thunder Railroad, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Barnstormer, Stiches great escape, Tomorrowland Speedway, and the soon to be Dwarfs Mine Train. There are a couple dark rides such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion that may spook little ones, but both of our 1 year olds did fine on them. You as the parent know your baby well enough to make the judgment call about which rides may scare your little one. Oh, and I’m sorry, but who doesn’t love a good baby on the carrousel photo?
  4. First haircut at Magic Kingdom. Baby boys (and girls) can get their first haircut at the Harmony Barbershop on Main Street. What a sweet memory that would be.
  5. Kisses from the Princesses. If we didn’t bring our sweet little boy, how would he have ever gotten a kiss from Snow White??

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  1. 1st Mickey Ears! Every baby needs a set of Mickey ears, right?? Ok, ok. If you choose to leave your young one at home, you could always buy a pair and bring it back with you. It’s not like he/she will remember it anyway (wink).

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Like I said, bringing a baby to WDW can mean a little more packing, a little more planning, a little more patience. But it can also make for some unforgettable family time and very special moments that you will likely treasure forever.

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