Is it just me, or does this time of year make you think of Disney World? You’d be hard pressed to find a time of year that doesn’t make me think of Disney – but the holiday season, spending time with family, reminiscing about past vacations, planning the year to come – for my family, the topic of ‘the world’ definitely comes up more than once. And if I’m being honest, it has been the focus of a couple of conversations between my husband and I over the past few days.
We haven’t been to Disney World since October of 2021, with an even longer break before that. If I’m being honest, probably my longest break ever – COVID…..am I right??!! But we were able to get to the Happiest Place on Earth with our finally complete family of 5 for the Halloween/Christmas turnover in 2021. And while it was AHHHHHHMAZING!!!! I have been ready to go back for, well, MONTHS.
So you know – the start of a brand-new year, the possibilities are endless. Not in a silly new year’s resolution sort of way but more in a Disney planning sort of way – way more serious – haha. There are literally 12 perfectly acceptable months in which a vacation could be planned!! How could one possibly choose? Thus those conversations between me and the hubs. So in typical type A fashion – we lay out all our option.
As we are trying to narrow down the timing for this year’s visit we start with the obvious. Those times of the year during which we’ve visited before – spring break, summer, early November – natural breaks in the school system. As a teacher, I relied on those breaks for family vacations. The only problem with these scenarios – so did everyone else. Aside from the crowds, spring break really is great. Sometime between March and April (depending on the Easter holiday) the Orlando weather is warm, not terribly hot or too humid yet, but definitely water park warm, and the ‘World’ is stunning with its nature made decorations of brightly colored flowers. In fact, it is during this time that Epcot presents the International Flower & Garden Festival, where you can find countless of your favorite characters created out of topiaries and flowers. The Magic Kingdom has a special mini parade on Easter Sunday just prior to the regularly scheduled day time parade featuring belles in Easter dresses and bonnets that make girls of all ages envious (except for the obvious excessive amount of fabric in not so cool weather aspect). Yeah, we’ve definitely done our fair share of spring break visits. And sure, the parks are at peak occupancy nearly every day of the two-week period, but who goes to Disney World and doesn’t expect to wait in lines. We’ve learned you just need to anticipate the increased wait times and difficult stroller maneuverability and who knows, maybe you end up being surprised. I can say that they’ve never been so bad that we wouldn’t go during that time again.
We’ve also gone during summer vacation; however, this was pre-kiddos. We got married on the Fourth of July and spent our honeymoon in Disney soaking up the sun and as much fun as we could in eight days or so. This trip was great, still one of my favorites (but aren’t they all lol), however it was definitely hot with a capital H. The parks are typically filled with Floridians taking day trips and out of state visitors taking advantage of the break from school, however, probably because of the heat, these months aren’t typically peak attendance. In fact, Disney usually puts out special, packages to entice families to visit during this time and increase park attendance. Now I’m not saying we wouldn’t ever go this route – at this point it is not my first choice. As young adults we could handle the heat, kept up our fluid intake 😉 and distracted ourselves waiting in long lines in the heat – but now as a momma, the thought of seeing all three of my little guys sweat faces and hearing their whiny voices complain of the heat and wait times does not sound like my idea of an ideal Disney vacation.
Now one of my true favorite times is the fall. Every other year, the school districts where we live create a mini fall break thanks to election festivities. The first week in November students have no school on Tuesday, Thursday, and typically Friday leaving students (and teachers) with only two days to miss and a week’s worth of vacation in return. We like to time it just right so that we arrive during the last few days of October – see the Magic Kingdom in its best fall attire (Mickey pumpkins and scare crows, characters in costume, even attending the Not So Scary Halloween Party – a must at least once in my opinion) then see it literally transform overnight into even more magical Christmas décor for the remainder of our trip (extravagantly decorated Christmas trees everywhere you look, again characters in their most festive costumes, and the Very Merry Christmas Party – another must experience). Disney also tends to put out that free dining option again in the fall so if you time your arrival carefully you may end up with a ‘sweet deal’. For us, at this point, this might be our favorite time to visit – that said – this is not an election year.
So, here’s what we’ve kind of decided in recent years. And teachers…please don’t be offended…but I’ve been staying home with the kids and don’t need to time my vacations around natural breaks. And as far as our kiddos go – we can probably handle missed content at least through fifth or sixth grade or so? Haha. So we’ve chosen to avoid these peak times (with tickets priced to match) and branch out when planning our visits.
When we visited in 2017 we timed our stay with our oldest son’s birthday – May 31st (full disclosure, we may have convinced our middle (or youngest at the time) that we were celebrating his birthday too – shhh don’t tell). It was great! The weather, while definitely able to be categorized as hot more than one of the days, was not terrible and not too unmanageable for our little guys – we managed with frozen lemonades purchased and ‘sick pops’ (Mickey shaped ice cream pops). The crowds were average (I truly believe there is no time during the year in which there aren’t average crowds) and the wait times were definitely tolerable. The Flower & Garden Festival was still underway so we were able to take advantage of the beautiful flowers in each of the parks and my kids celebrated their birthdays in ways that you’d never even consider. They wore their ‘It’s My Birthday’ pins proudly and cast members and characters all over wished them happy birthday. Meals became opportunities for surprise as wait staff brought out special birthday desserts and signed cards at character dining. It was so fun to watch as they were treated like Disney royalty!
So gosh, that’s March, April, May, July, October, and November. While it’d certainly be magical, I’m not sure that I’m ready to change our Christmas routine with such little people. September would be a great time, just after the start of school – again sorry teachers. T’s birthday is the 8th and mine is the 14th so maybe sometime around there. We’ve never seen the World in September, but I’ve done my research and it seems to be excellent. Only those true rule breakers taking kids out so close to the start of school, so crowds… well let’s just say I’ll believe it when I see it. And the weather beginning to turn from summer sweat to less humidity and mid 80s. You can even hit an early Not So Scary Halloween Party. Seems ideal, although really, again, when is it not?!?
So yeah, seems like I am always planning a Disney vacation, and replanning and replanning. Why not let me help you plan yours too?
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” Walt Disney
Disney Wife - Happy Life! 