Tag: zerotohero

What You Should Know…

Em

Before we start, I think it’s important to point something out. I have never been the best bargain hunter – if my mum ever asked me to pick my favourite outfit in Miss Selfridge when I was young, I would invariably pick the most expensive one without knowing I had. It’s not deliberate, it’s just me.

Also, despite generally being quite possibly one of the most disorganised people around, I have a need to be organised on trips like this, with regard to food and fast passes and things, because I know that once those things are sorted we can fill the rest of the time however we want. Then I can stick them all on a timetable and the fun begins!

Hence the need for all the planning – we are not actually going for almost a year, but dining reservations are available to be made 180 days in advance of your trip, and that is 170 days from now, so that is less than half way!

What I’m saying, in a very nonsensical way!, is that our way of doing Disney is very possibly not your way of doing Disney. That’s totally okay! You may want to spend way less or even much more than us! I will endeavour to put the different options where available and I will be very happy to share any and all tips that come my way with regard to saving money.

But here are our basics and these will always happen: we will always stay in a Disney resort, because for us the benefits of staying in one far outweigh not staying in one. And we will always get the Disney Dining Plan too.

A Little Introduction

Em
Me and the family at the Adventurers Outpost
Animal Kingdom, WDW. 2018

My name is Emma. I am a 40 year old wife and mother of two daughters (at the time of writing they are 10 and 12 years old) and I. LOVE. DISNEY. I probably am not as mad about it as some, but definitely more than others.

I mean, I have always loved the Disney animated films, ever since I was 10 and The Little Mermaid was released and I used to get up every morning before school to watch it on VHS, but I never expected to get SO caught up in the Disney magic!

When the girls were younger we decided to take them to Disneyland Paris for a little trip as part of our summer holiday and my husband, Stephen, and I firmly believed that they would have fun and we would be annoyed by the end of our five days there, by all the repetitive music and constant smiling and characters in your face all the time, but we LOVED IT. So much so that we got home and booked to go again the next year.

Fast forward a few years to 2018. My mum had just passed away after a quick and pretty brutal fight with cancer. It took her swiftly after less than a year and we all needed some magic to keep us going, so I called my lovely Travel Counsellor and booked us a fortnight in Walt Disney World and we were there in just over two weeks!

We had the most amazing time, but because of the short time frame, we really had no idea what to expect, or anything about what we were doing! We were WELL out of the Fast Pass+ and dining reservation booking windows, so we didn’t have a hope in hell of getting any of those! It was brilliant, but I know with some planning, we could really get everything we want in, without having to queue for ages and without having to spend long days in the park too.

Which brings us here. To this blog. I really need to plan for our next trip which is booked for July 2020. I’m blogging because I’m hoping if I keep a proper note it will 1) give me inspiration and I’ll be able to refer back to it and 2) people will chime in, tell me if I’m on the right track and where I could do better/cheaper/quicker!

Wish me luck! Here goes nothing!