Park Parent Perspective #1: Our Next Trip to Disney World!

We are officially three weeks out from our next family trip to Disney World! That means we are in the final stretch of planning, packing, and last minute shirt/supply ordering… and since this is our first trip as a family of four, there is a little extra stress to make sure we have everything ready for both a toddler and an infant!

We’ll be staying 5 nights at Beach Club for the first time, checking off another DVC resort as we make our way to each one on property at least once. We loved staying at Boardwalk during our last trip, so we’re looking forward to another beach-themed resort with easy access to Epcot + the Skyliner and a short walk over to the Boardwalk area as well. We’ll have to plan another trip back to experience Stormalong Bay & Shipwreck Pool (closed for refurbishment), but we’re excited for the rest of the perks of staying at Beach Club. As of now, we’re planning to take advantage of the short walk to Epcot as often as we can in the evenings to get dinner at the Flower & Garden booths and fit in 1-2 rides to end our days.

This will also be our first time visiting during the Flower & Garden Festival, and based on what I’ve seen/heard from others I’m very excited for the experience! We’ve been during Food & Wine multiple times, and I’m eager to compare the two and see what makes this festival different. Plus, it’s another special event that I’ll have to get a pin for to add to my collection! 

The theme for this trip is maximizing the magic for our 2.5 year old daughter. She’s in the perfect phase to soak in all of the fun and joy of Disney World, so our plans are focused on making memories with her. She was just starting to open up to high fives and hugs with the characters on our last trip, so we’re planning to do some meet and greets and we have a character breakfast booked at Topolino’s. We’ve been watching YouTube videos (here’s one of our favorite channels for this) of other toddlers doing meet and greets to let her see them approach characters, give them hugs, etc. to help prep her for the experience. We did a similar preparation for her first cruise to give her a little bit of familiarity with the ship and the activities on board, and that worked really well! 

I’m admittedly feeling slightly crazy for planning a trip to Disney World with a three month old, but here we are! We have gone back and forth about it a lot, but in the end we decided we could make it work. We’ve taken the time to get her out in public and comfortable in her stroller, and she has a very mellow personality so far which helped push us towards being more confident in our plans. In most scenarios, we probably would have waited until she was older to book this trip. But since we are Disney Vacation Club members, our oldest is under 3, and we have an annual pass that is good through August of this year, there is very minimal expense for this trip outside of food & merch. I’ll report back in four weeks to see how crazy we were to plan this trip!

Next week, I’ll share our packing list along with some of the shirts (not just from Favorite Day Co) that I’m packing! Plus, we’ll be one week out from our booking window for lightning lanes… so our park days + strategy will be ready!