Free Trip

My mind was changed when I received a phone call that I had won an essay writing contest. The prize was a multi-night trip to Orlando including airline tickets, rental car, and a suite at an all suites hotel. At the time I had two toddlers. Our family vacations up to that point had all consisted of trips to the beach. These trips were nice, but not like the trips we had before the kids came along. We could spend limited amounts of time on the beach since the kids were so small and we could no longer take a nap on the beach, read, lie out in the sun, or really play in the ocean like before. Instead we would play at the edge of the water while constantly watching the kids, dig in the sand, and taking naps in the room.

Both my husband and I were apprehensive about flying with two toddlers, but we made the reservations anyway. I am so glad that we did. We thought that while we were in Orlando that maybe we should do something low key like Sea World. We also decided to spend a day at Disney's Magic Kingdom. We planned on spending the rest of the trip at the hotel pool. Our plan was to stick to a low key schedule to keep us and our toddlers happy.

Flying with Toddlers

The plane trip was pretty easy. Both kids were excited and thankfully quiet on the plane. Our two year old son fell asleep while the plane was on the runway. Our three year old daughter just played contentedly with her sticker book. We felt relieved and realized that this was much easier than the many hour car trips to the beach.

Sea World

Sea World was not so enjoyable for us. Our three year old was not so impressed by the shows. We had to take her out of the whale show after just a few minutes. While the audience was amazed by an enormous whale performing tricks, she was trying to figure out how to get out of there. We tried attraction after attraction at Sea World and nothing made her happy. We were close to leaving the park when we discovered a ball pit and sand play area. So, we spent five hours playing there. The kids had a good time, but we were pretty bored.

Magic Kingdom

Disney's Magic Kingdom was such a different experience for us. I was amazed by the number of rides that we were able to go on as a family. My husband and I actually had as much fun as the kids did. This was the first time that I realized that there was a place that we could go and really enjoy together as a family. Prior to this, we would go places and do things that we would know that the kids would enjoy and we would simply focus on the enjoyment we received from watching our kids have fun. This was totally different. We were really feeling like kids ourselves. I found out that my three year old daughter was a bit of a daredevil. I found out that my son was not so fond of the dark. Once we learned their ride style, we were able to ride the majority of the rides in each section of the park. We got some amazing pictures and have some wonderful memories. It has led to many more visits to Disney World. I can honestly say that I do not think my kids remember that first trip to Disney. I am not sure if they even remember their sixth or seventh trip, but my husband and I do. It has been twelve years since that first trip, my husband and I still talk about memories we have of our kids there. I hope you take the Disney plunge with your kids sooner than later. It really was worth it.

Atmosphere

Disney can theme a resort like no one else. The Wilderness Lodge is no exception. From the moment you arrive at the hotel, you’ll notice that you no longer feel like you are in Florida. Instead, you feel like you have arrived at a grand lodge located in a National Park. From the woodsy feel of the grounds to the Lincoln Log style building. Every detail was put into place to make you feel as if you have been transported to the wilderness. Inside the resort is a large open lobby filled with comfortable seating areas, totem poles, rocking chairs in front of one of the biggest fireplaces that I have ever seen, and a bubbling creek with it’s own wooden bridge. One of the best features is the western themed music piped inside and outside of the building. The building surrounds a pool with a waterslide and a rock area with a creek. A geyser feature erupts every hour. There is a great beach area and a long dock so you can enjoy the lake area. There are plenty of ducks, rabbits, and birds of all kinds to be seen in the grassy areas. The wildlife seems to love it just as much as the guests do.

Location

Disney’s Wilderness Lodge has an unbeatable location. It is located a short boat ride away from Magic Kingdom. From the dock, there is boat transportation to go across the lake to the Contemporary Hotel where you can eat at Chef Mickey’s or catch a monorail to the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, Magic Kingdom, or the Transportation Center. Fort Wilderness Campground can be reached via a walkway or by boat. My family and I have taken the boat on many occassions to enjoy the campground’s free movie with Chip and Dale at night. The kids really enjoy roasting marshmallows by the firepits there. Fort Wilderness also boasts a great dinner show named Hoop De-Doo Revue. Bus transportation is available a short walk from the lobby. Busses will take you to Epcot, Downtown Disney, the water parks, Animal Kingdom, or Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Amenities

The rooms at the Wilderness lodge continue with the western theme. Our families favorite rooms are the ones with the bunkbeds. In these rooms, there is one queen bed and a set of bunk beds. The hotel has three restaurants. A quick short order restaurant named Roaring Forks, a fun interactive restaurant named Whispering Canyon that serves outstanding breakfast skillets and BBQ skillets for dinners, and a high end classy restaurant named Artist Point. A full service bar is located just off the lobby and by the pool. The pool area has plenty of seating, towels, a waterslide, and a good sized hot tub.

The Wilderness Lodge is the lowest priced resort in Disney’s Deluxe category. The atmosphere , amenities, and location all add to the relaxing atmosphere. I hope you give the Wilderness Lodge a try on your next Disney trip.

My youngest daughter, Rachel (3), decided after being bombarded with commercial after commercial of Disney World joy, that she needed to go to Disney World this year. So, began her quest.

“Daddy, can we go to Disney World?”

“No.”

“But, Daddy, they have princesses there.”

“No.”

“But, Daddy, they have a Winnie the Pooh ride.”

“No.”

“But, Daddy, I would LOVE it!”

“You really want to go?”

“Yes. Daddy, PLEASE?”

Then finally:

“Okay, we'll go.”

So, we start planning our trip. I looked on several different travel websites…. Scouted out what I thought were good deals. I looked on the Disney World official website to check out what they could offer. I couldn't find any discounts at all on their official website. In fact, it seemed extremely expensive to even stay at the Disney World resort at all, even if you got a deal through a travel consolidator. I'm resigned to stay offsite, until…

I am in my husband's office one day talking to his boss, who happens to be my sister in law. We get to talking about the trips we'll be taking as summer nears.

“We're taking the plunge and going to Disney World this year.”

“Wow. Did you hear Paul and Wendy are going about the same time as you?”

“No. I didn't hear that.”

“Did you get on the free dining plan?”

“Free Dining??”

“Yes. They said they got on some deal that gives them free food for the whole family for the week.”

“REALLY?”

Really. Free food. No kidding. They found out about this deal because they have a Disney Rewards Visa and got a notification about it with one of their bills. Now, that I have been planning the trip for some time, I know that there are websites specifically built for the purpose of informing those clueless individuals trying to plan a Disney World vacation for less than the cost of two arms and a leg. Mousesavers.com offers pretty up to date information on current deals that may be offered during your stay and codes to enter when reserving your room to receive the discount. At the time I was planning our trip, I had never heard of such things.

Why Do They Offer Free Dining?

Disney started offering this deal in 2005 for one reason: to bring more people to Disney World during a time when the parks were practically empty; the beginning of school. No one wanted to take their vacation right when the kiddies were getting ready to start school, or had started already. So, in order to encourage people to come to parks designed for kids and families during a hard time for kids and families to come, they started to offer this deal. If you come to Disney World anytime between the last week in August until the 2nd-3rd week in September, you get the Disney Dining plan for free.

How Does It Work?

There are rules and stipulations that go with this deal, of course. In order to get the free dining:

1. You have to stay at a Disney-owned resort hotel
2. You have to buy your park tickets through Disney
3. You must arrive/depart within the specified time period for that year (it varies somewhat from year to year)
4. You must make your reservation early, but within their specific time limit!
5. You either need to call Disney reservations and specifically ask to be put on the “Free Dining” deal, or get a the special code to enter into the computer if making your reservation online. Codes can be found at mousesavers.com. Disney reservationists are not allowed to even tell you this exists until you ask for it!
6. Once you have made your hotel reservations that include the free dining, call and make Disney dining reservations quickly thereafter. There are a lot of people using Disney free dining during this time period and reservations for the better restaurants go quickly.

The announcement for the free dining deal usually comes out in April at some point. That means you cannot make a reservation with the free dining deal until then. They close reservations for free dining in June. There are only so many “free dining” experience reservations allowed per resort. Once they have reserved their allotment of free dining for that hotel, it is no longer offered to guests wishing to stay there. For example, if you wanted to stay at the Pop Century Resort (a “value” resort), they may only allow 50 rooms reservations to have free dining out of the 300 actual rooms available. If you call to reserve a room at this resort after all the free dining reservations have gone, they will tell you that free dining is not available at this hotel, and you will have to keep trying until you find one that still has reservations open.

What Does Free Dining Include?

As of 2008, free dining includes the following: one quick service meal, one full service meal, and one snack per day per person for each night of your stay. So, if you are staying for seven nights, you will get seven quick service meals, seven full service meals, and seven snacks for each person (over three yrs of age) in your party.

A quick service meal includes: entrée (or combo meal), dessert, and non-alcoholic beverage. Dessert is not available at breakfast. Juice is offered instead. Quick service meals are those counter service operations in Disney that we would consider “fast food”.

Full service meals offer: entrée or full buffet, dessert, and non-alcoholic beverage. Sit down restaurants, character buffets, and regular buffets are all considered full service meals. Some “special” dining experiences count as two meals. So, be careful when using your dining options.

Your Disney dining credits are not available for use at ALL Disney dining establishments. But, the majority of them are. You will find an abundance of restaurants at each of the parks and the counter service and some full dining restaurants at each resort hotel that accept the Disney dining plan. For a list of restaurants that accept the Disney dining plan, you can visit allears.net in their dining section. There are also reviews of many of Disney World's restaurants which is invaluable when trying to make first time reservations!

Missed the free dining plan this year? Start looking around April 2009. I can't guarantee that they will offer it again. But, it is worth checking out. I could save thousands of dollars on your next Disney World vacation!

First, I loved the theme. The attention to detail while creating a southern atmosphere truly is spectacular. With the large white columned buildings and the river which runs through the middle of the resort, Disney left no detail to spare when designing this resort. Even the rooms had a certain old world charm with vintage style furniture and bathroom fixtures, but with all the modern amenities as well.

Secondly, the clientele of this resort suited us well. We don't have any kids of our own and when we go on vacation we don't particularly love being surrounded by tons of kids as well. And since this is probably the least kid friendly resort of all the budget and moderate resorts Disney has, it is great for couples. The setting is very romantic and there are very few kids running around making it a very peaceful and wonderful resort to go if you are looking for a little Disney romance!

Thirdly, we loved the fact that you could get on a boat and go to Downtown Disney. After a week of riding buses all around Disney, to be honest it can get a little old. And so it was really great to be able to jump on a boat right at our resort and get down to Downtown Disney to go to dinner or shopping without having to get on another bus. Plus, it is an absolutely pleasant ride of about 20 minutes to get there and one that I would definitely recommend taking if staying at this resort.

The only downside to this resort is that it is not terribly centrally located. It is located near the Magic Kingdom, but if you want to go to any of the other parks, especially the Animal Kingdom, it does take a considerable amount of time to get there on the Disney bus transportation system. After looking at a map, it does seem that other moderately priced resorts such as the Coronado Springs and Caribbean Beach resorts were more centrally located to all of the parks. But if you are going during the off season like we did, you will have little problem seeing everything you want to see as long as you stay long enough.

Overall, we loved our stay at Disney's Riverside Resort and would recommend it to any other Disney World travelers!

The moderate resorts, offer quick serve restaurants and in house dining, while the luxury resorts offer much more and with a step to elegance. No matter what resort you choose, you can expect the same treatment and service which can only be expected from Disney.

For the camper, Disney even has its own campground, where you can sit down and roast marshmallows and have a campfire sing along with your favorite Disney character.

Each resort has transportation to and from any of the attractions, so there is no need to worry about driving. Let Disney take care of it.

Downtown Disney offers the best in entertainment, shopping and dining out. It's a metropolis all in its self. There are night clubs, kid's entertainment, fine dining and you can even take in movie if the mood strikes you.

The attractions offer so much to see, it is wise to buy a Disney Hopper pass, which gives you in and out privileges to each of the attractions. The Hopper pass gives you the freedom to hop from attraction to attraction without any restrictions. See the Magic Kingdom in the morning and pop over to Epcot in the afternoon and maybe take in Animal Kingdom or MGM in the evening. Some folks like to take in a resort in the morning, and then relax at the pool in the afternoon then back to one of the attractions for the night time shows. Either way it's up to you. The Hopper pass gives you the freedom to choose.

Each attraction offers something for all. For the Thrill rides, to shows and just everyday Disney magic.

Despite the fact that Disney World was always a favorite destination for my family growing up, it became obvious to me that “the happiest place on earth” was, in fact, no place for children. I vowed never to bring my own kids until they were at least ten years old and well above the age of toddler-hood tantrums. But when my wife and I found ourselves visiting family in Orlando this summer we decided to brave the prospective melodrama and take our three-year-old, Allison to the Mouse House for a day of… fun? The decision was made easier by the fact that we had Disney-employed relatives who got us in for free. So even if Allison cried the entire time and we left after only an hour, at least we could still justify buying that 40-inch plasma screen with 1080i capabilities when we got home.

We hit a number of the Magic Kingdom's usual haunts-rides, parades, character greetings-but because we hadn't invested any money into the day, we felt no compulsion to hit all of them. If a line was longer than thirty minutes, we skipped it. If a ride looked at all scary, we avoided it. When the afternoon got hot, we spent a cool and refreshing hour circling the Magic Kingdom on the lineless Disney World Railroad. When Allison fell asleep during Pirates of the Caribbean, we didn't wake her. When it became obvious she was having more fun running through the S.S. Miss Daisy water playground, we didn't pressure her to finish up. And when she clung to our leg at the sight of Winnie the Pooh in the flesh, we didn't force her to pose for nightmare-inducing photos. Freed from that burden of “getting our money's worth” the three of us had a truly magical day indeed. The only tears that were shed happened when some kid on the Miss Daisy accidentally squirted water in Allison's eye.

I had an epiphany that day: the only way for toddlers and their parents to truly enjoy a visit to Disney World is to get in for free. Of course when I suggested this to a bedraggled-looking father of triplets on the monorail that night, he spilled his ten-dollar soda in my lap. It's no secret that a day at Disney World is not an inexpensive undertaking for the average non-Disney-employed family. With ticket prices running as high as seventy dollars per person, it's not until you start committing to a seven-day pass that the daily rates start getting somewhat reasonable. And as we stated earlier, when you have that much cash invested in something, the need to “get your money's worth” becomes all-consuming and can often lead to pushing your toddler far past his prudent threshold of whimsical fun.

As hard a pill as this is to swallow, the fact is nobody should bring their toddler through the gates of Disney World if they can't immediately ignore how much money they spent to get in. Whatever the number, you must forget the dollar sign in front of it and force yourself to focus only on the wide-eyed wonder in your child's eyes. Even more important though is to forget those dollar signs when wonder is replaced by some other less favorable emotion, namely:

Fear

Even if you waited in line for ninety minutes to ride the Flying Dumbos, force yourself not to tally up the dollars wasted when, at the last second, your toddler announces he's too scared to go on. Same thing with character greetings. It's always better, and probably cuter, to snap a picture of your scared-but-smiling youngster waving to Mickey from a safe distance than screaming bloody murder in the arms of a six-foot rat.

Stress

Between loud parades, spinning teacups, and yo-ho'ing pirates, over-stimulation is pretty much a given for a toddler at Disney World. When you sense that yours is nearing the point of fracture, take a little time for some less in-your-face entertainment. Don't get into the “we could be doing this at home for free” mentality if Junior wants to read books for a while in the gift shop. Several of the parks have movie theaters with no lines showing classic Disney cartoons. Sit in the air conditioning for an hour and relax as a family. A little time to decompress will give everyone the extra energy and good humor keep going.

Exhaustion

No two ways about it, your toddler will need a nap at some point during the day. If you're staying at one of the Disney resorts head back to the room during the hottest part of the day. If leaving the park and returning simply isn't feasible, go on “It's a Small World After All” right around naptime. Your little one will be asleep before the boat leaves Sweden. Use the downtime for some shopping, or simply take a rest in the shade yourself. If you're vacationing with other couples, trade off babysitting duties so you can all go on Space Mountain and a few other “grownup” rides.

I know this is easy advice to shell out from a guy who never paid a cent for his own day at Disney. But that doesn't negate its truth. The fact is, while Disney World (in my opinion) is best experienced by older children, it still can be, and often is, an enjoyable place for toddlers. Then again, so is the motel pool, which is free. The trick is kissing that hi-def plasma goodbye and approaching your day at Disney as though you actually had gotten in for free. Only then can you allow yourself to have easygoing fun without dragging your toddler past the point of tears. I know it's easier said than done, but believe me, if I can do it, you can do it… please don't throw your soda at me.

The place here is as crowded as you can get, on any day of the year. There is a ride in Epcot that I waited 2 hours to ride, and it was terrible.

At 3 P.M at the Magic Kingdom I had less than 1 square foot of foot space. So I have made a proposal. Disney World should make a limit to how many people can enter the park at one time.

It would make the park more enjoyable for everybody and especially the people who spend thousands to travel here and never get more than 5 hours of fun a day because of long line and crowded parks.

So please, if anybody reading this has ties to Disney World, please send them my article.

When planning a vacation to Disney start with a budget! Think to yourself what you want out of your vacation. Do you want to go to the parks allot? Want to recreate most of the time? What do you want to see? Want romance or family fun? Think about character meals or the high star restaurants. Use the website Disney offers mess around with the Hotels. The Hotel is a key part of creating the dream vacation you want.

Now, when your planning on where to stay think of what atmosphere you want, where you want to be located. If you want to be near Magic Kingdom think of the Grand Floridian, Contemporary, Poly, or Fort wilderness lodge or camp ground. If you want to be closer to EPCOT think about the Yacht and Beach, or Boardwalk hotel. If you really want to save money the All-stars are a great find. However you also have to travel by bus to everywhere you might want to go.

Next is tickets, How many days in the park do you want to spend? going 6 days get a 5 day ticket package, always leave a day out of your trip to relax for the children or to just go shopping at Downtown Disney. Now, I highly suguest getting the Dinning Package Disney offers. Yes, its more money however, if you don't use the package and pay as you go then you will definitely be losing even more money! Disney if an extremely expensive place to eat. So take advantage of the package.

Next thing to think about when planning a trip to Disney world is where you are going to eat. Disney offers so many different ranges of food from EPCOT's World Showcase to counter service and McDonald's. Disney can take care of all your travel plans without a hitch. Best of luck when planning your Disney trip. Think it through to achieve the best results and fun!