Disney World!  The magical vacation that all parents want to give their child!  As parents, we all have these ideas of how perfect we want it to be and how “magical” it will be!  Some of us even have those magical memories of riding dumbo and seeing Mickey Mouse from when we were kids. I remember it vividly, even though I was only five.  In my memory, it was amazing, and it was magical! I remember a magical vacation, while my mom remembers how horribly crowded it was. She remembers the sweat pouring from our faces in 105 degree summer heat and how we left by noon!  Ha ha, I don’t remember any of that. So let me start by saying this…as a kid, it may have been magical for us, and I promise, it will be magical for your kids! However, as an adult trying to plan the perfect and affordable Disney Dream Vacation, it is not so magical!  At times, it can be downright stressful and overwhelming!   I do promise you this…it is WAY WORTH IT in the end!  I have so much great stuff to tell you about to help you plan a trip to Disney that there is no way I could do it in just one post so I have decided to do a 4 part series.  Today on part 1 of our Disney adventure I am going to give you 5 tips, and if you focus on these 5 things while planning, you will be destined to have a successful and happy trip.

1. What you think is really important is not important at all to your kids
2. Have a budget and stick to it
3. Keep it simple
4. Have realistic expectations
5. Have fun

Tip #1: What you think is really important is not important at all to your kids, I promise!

I struggle with this one big time. I stress too much about the little things and over the years my wonderful husband has tried to help me with this.  I always try too hard and try to make things too perfect. He on the other hand, is care free and just couldn’t care less.  This is our biggest challenge in our marriage by the way, lol. At times this drives me crazy about him and at other times I cherish this about him! I wish that I could let go, be more care free and just go with the flow!  I am envious of him that he can do that.  And my A type personality tends to get in the way. Here is the thing though, your kids couldn’t care less too!  They won’t care or remember where they stayed or how nice it was. They won’t know if they got to go to every single park and they won’t care if they only get to go to one. They won’t care if they ride only 4 rides or if they get to ride all of them. They won’t know that they missed the electrical parade or the fireworks.  They won’t know how extremely exhausted you are (8 months after back surgery), if you don’t tell them.  They won’t know any of these things because they are too young to realize them!  They simply don’t know what all there is to offer so they won’t know what they miss. All they will know and all they will remember is what they do get to do, even if it is only 1 park and 3 rides. That one park and 3 rides will be the best time of their life!

Tip #2: Have a budget and stick to it!

This is a big one.  If you are like I was and have never planned a Disney Vacation before, then you have no idea what you are in store for or what to expect.  It is a big undertaking! It is overwhelming! There are so many options!  And EVERYTHING costs an insane amount of money!  If you do not set a budget for yourself and stick to it then all of these things will get the best of you.  For us we decided what our budget was and then we decided what was really important to us and we went from there. This made it less overwhelming. Enlist the help of your friends that have been to Disney and have done it all! Ask questions! Look for deals!  For us, staying on Disney property was not important to us.  This can be HUGE when it comes to saving money! (I will get into this more later this week when I give you all my tips to save you money).  The most important thing is, if you have a budget, then you won’t over spend and be stressed out.  We had an envelope of money to spend on our vacation, and when that envelope was empty, our vacation would be over!

Tip #3: Keep it simple!

This magical vacation that we are talking about can be less magical if you are exhausted!  And believe me, Disney is exhausting!  It is not a peaceful vacation where your laying on the beach all week sipping margaritas!  It’s actually more like being on the Biggest Loser!  If you have too much planned then it will be more like you are competing in your first ever marathon, except without any training!  Maybe for me it was a tad harder because I did just have back surgery 8 months ago, but it is hard , emotionally and physically.  There is a lot of walking involved!  Theme parks will wear you out! My husband was joking around one morning…I have an idea for a new weight loss plan, its called, go to Disney World!  Walk a mile, chase a kid, stand in line an hour while struggling with said kid, walk another mile, carry a kid, stand in line another hour, walk another mile, walk a mile backwards to take kid to bathroom, stand in line for an hour, walk another 2 miles, lol, and so on and so on. This folks is the not so magical moments that we don’t think about when planning our trip to Disney! Combine this physical exhaustion with tired kiddos and lack of planning, or too much planning, and you will become emotionally and physically spent. Bottom line, it can be extremely exhausting! Be sure to pick what is really important to you, do those things, and have an off day in between to recoup and enjoy yourselves.

Tip #4: Have realistic expectations!

This is a funny one. I had sooooooo much planned!  My A type personality had it all written down from A to Z!  I had all our parks planned out day to day with all the activities we were going to do and all the rides we would ride, including, well, pretty much all of them! Lol. This didn’t happen.  It won’t happen for you either.  This is what we don’t think about when planning our trip…the theme parks get crowded, really crowded and this happens fast! Especially Magic Kingdom!  We were so exhausted the day we got to Magic Kingdom, day 6, that we missed what I had been looking forward to the most. The electrical parade and the fireworks! Yep, missed it. We were outta there!  I was extremely disappointed, however, my kiddos could of cared less because they had been in a fabulous parade earlier in the day and hadn’t a clue that there was suppose to be a nighttime one!  Here is being realistic…Pick 5 rides that are most important to you that you ride and plan on riding those 5 rides! Anything else is a bonus! Then pick one activity you really want to do and do it! But plan accordingly. I will give lots more info on how to do just this  when sharing my tips on how to have a fun vacation!

Tip #5: Have fun!

Among all of the things that your children remember about their “magical” vacation is how much fun they had!  This is the most important part. It isn’t about how fancy of a resort you stayed at or that you checked ever single thing off of your 10 page list. It is about time spent  with one another.  It is about the memories your children have. Wonderful memories of riding their very 1st ride, their very 1st roller coaster, seeing Mickey and Buzz in person right in front of their very own eyes! It is all about that little smile and that innocent little person who thinks that it is the greatest place they have ever been in their whole big world!  All the planning, all the stress, becomes completely WORTH IT in that one little smile.

Be looking for Part 2 of our Disney Adventure this week when I tell you all about our “not so magical beginning” and then later, in parts 3 and 4 of the series, I will be giving you all my dirty little secrets on how to save you time and money, and most of all, secrets on how to have the most fun!

Disney Part 2: The not so magical beginning

Disney Part 3:  How to plan an affordable vacation

Disney Part 4: Tips to have a fun and “magical’ trip

Here are a few fun pictures of how I told Mr. Andrew he was going to Disney World for his 6th Birthday!   His present was a suitcase of his very own full of some fun things along with a binder I made titled Andrews Birthday Adventure!  It was a big hit and he could read through the binder and see what our adventure was going to be each day.  It made it really fun!

His Birthday Adventure Book full of complete details on our day to day adventures! He was more excited about Legoland then Disney World! LOL.An autograph book along with info on how he was going to get to have dinner and breakfast with some of his very favorite characters! A bathing suit and towel for him and his sisterOne new toy because he simply loves planes! 🙂 Some fun activity books and new movies for the car ride!