As for the ages of the kids, this seemed like a great time to visit Disney. Their ages were 2, 5, 8,

Since it may be another week or more before we get iPhoto working again and can load all our Disney World pictures, I'll take some time to share a bit about how this trip came about and what we did to prepare and pack! Maybe I can add some photos avis rent a car cleveland ohio at some point.
avis rent a car cleveland ohio I went to Disney World twice as a child around middle school age. Once was a fun trip with my family, and the other was a trip for a national dance competition with my family and also my dance team. It was a magical experience both times, and I always hoped to go back one day. As a teen, young adult, and now a mother, I've enjoyed the Disney movies of the past 20 years like Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story, and Finding Nemo. It's fun that these are all major attractions and shows in Disney World today! I found myself singing along to many of the songs, and reminiscing about fun high school summers watching Lion King with my friends!
In the summer of 2010, while pregnant with Thomas (#4), we were able to take a family vacation to San Diego, California avis rent a car cleveland ohio where my brother's family avis rent a car cleveland ohio lives. We took a side trip overnight to Anaheim for a day at Disneyland. We had a lovely day there, and although the kids were still small (2, 5, and 7) and not quite ready for the thrill avis rent a car cleveland ohio rides, we all loved Disneyland and started to think about one day visiting the big Disney World in Florida.
Free Dining avis rent a car cleveland ohio Deal! A couple years back, I heard that some homeschooling friends were able to take a special family vacation avis rent a car cleveland ohio to Disney avis rent a car cleveland ohio World in the off-season and got a great deal that included a Free Dining package. This sounded absolutely dreamy to me. For the most part, I dislike cooking (and cleaning), avis rent a car cleveland ohio so getting to go to a nice hotel, an amazing theme park, and choosing whatever avis rent a car cleveland ohio food we wanted sounded like the best vacation ever!
Last year, I started researching avis rent a car cleveland ohio the possibility of taking this kind of vacation to see if it might fit in the budget. But at the time we were already planning a big beach week with Steven's family and were also looking at the possibility of buying a house here in our new city. It just wasn't going to work out in 2012, so I kept my sights set on 2013!
In February and March of this year, I started avis rent a car cleveland ohio reading the Disney message boards and checking into the Free Dining package. Many predicted it would be offered for September and later months of 2013. September would be perfect for us because as homeschoolers we aren't tied to a school schedule and can travel at more low-crowd times. My friends who had taken the trip before recommended a Disney Travel Agent, who ended up doing all of the booking for our hotel, park tickets, and meal reservations. avis rent a car cleveland ohio She let me know when the Free Dining Deal for September would be going "live" avis rent a car cleveland ohio (in early May), and was able to secure avis rent a car cleveland ohio our trip reservations that first day. Disney Agents are payed through avis rent a car cleveland ohio Disney, so they are pretty much free for us to use them. It was nice to have the advice of an experienced agent and to know that she was securing all our reservations. I also appreciated times when she told me it would be cheaper to do something through avis rent a car cleveland ohio our resort than using her services. I'd definitely recommend using a Disney Agent on a trip to Disney World.
Choosing our Resort and Park tickets. The resort choice ended up being a no-brainer for us. We knew we wanted to stay at a Disney resort to get the package deal and the free dining. Our youngest child was 2yrs old (nearly 3!), and so on this trip he didn't "count" for either park tickets or a room. This allowed us to stay in one 5-person room that had a small Murphy bed that came out from the wall. The only resort that offered this was the one we chose, the Port Orleans Riverside, a Moderate Resort. The next (more expensive) option would be getting 2 rooms at a Value resort. But we would have paid several hundred more, and for the free dining plan, at a Value Resort we would have only gotten the "Quick Service dining" which doesn't include any table service meals. There may have been Deluxe Resorts that accommodated 5 people, and I know there are some places like the Wilderness Lodge that offer suites with small kitchenettes, but the hotel we chose was by far the most economical for our family.
Steven initially avis rent a car cleveland ohio only wanted to spend 3 days at the Disney avis rent a car cleveland ohio Parks. He's more of a nature lover than a theme-park fan, but somehow I got him to agree to a 4th day. I figured avis rent a car cleveland ohio since at that point we were planning on 4 days of driving, we had to at least stay at Disney for 4 days! After deciding to fly to Florida, we opted to stay an extra night because of the late flight and then take Sunday off from visiting avis rent a car cleveland ohio the parks and just go to church, swim at the hotel, and visit Downtown Disney. But in the end, we opted to add that 5th day of park tickets so that we could go to Hollywood Studios on Sunday avis rent a car cleveland ohio evening. I wanted Tommy to see the Disney Jr. characters and there were a few other rides and the Fantasmic show that sounded like a lot of fun.
We opted against the "Park Hopper" tickets, because one park a day seems like quite enough for a family with small children. Plus, with a package deal you have to get all park-hoppers or no park-hoppers, and the price was a few hundred more for the park-hoppers. I think that was a good decision. After taking our trip, I think 6 park days would be ideal. We could have used an extra day at Epcot, but Hollywood and Animal Kingdom can definitely be seen in a day. I think a perfect trip would be about 9 or 10 days in all, with the 6 park days and some free days for enjoying the resort, going to Downtown Disney, and maybe even visiting avis rent a car cleveland ohio another local attraction. I've heard that there are $8 tickets for homeschoolers at Legoland!
Pregnant moms and small kids at Disney World. avis rent a car cleveland ohio Both of our Disney trips were planned months in advance, before we were expecting. Now we've been saying it should be a tradition...whenever I have to undergo another pregnancy, avis rent a car cleveland ohio I win a trip to Disney! avis rent a car cleveland ohio I followed most of the advice for rides, which included no roller coasters or rough thrill rides (like race cars that crash or virtual rides with lots of bumps and drops). avis rent a car cleveland ohio Although I loved roller avis rent a car cleveland ohio coasters as a child and young adult, I haven't felt a huge void by missing out on these, and of course I always have some child with me who can't or doesn't want to ride the scary rides!
I made sure to drink a lot of water on the trip. I was worried about all the walking since I haven't exercised since June, but being off of my hormone supplement and in the 2nd trimester, and of course being at the "happiest place on earth" must have given me a new spark, because I was always the first one awake and hardly napped at all on the trip! I did sit down a lot and we took breaks throughout the day, as I will discuss below in planning our days.
As for the ages of the kids, this seemed like a great time to visit Disney. Their ages were 2, 5, 8, and 10. The oldest 3 were old enough to enjoy the thrill rides and young enough to really experience the "Disney Magic!" avis rent a car cleveland ohio Of course Thomas won't remember the trip, but he was old enough to go on a lot of the rides, watch the shows, and he wasn't even afraid avis rent a car cleveland ohio of the fireworks! The fact that he was just able to squeeze avis rent a car cleveland ohio in as a 2yr old before his birthday made the trip much more economical than it would have been a few weeks later. We would have had to get a bigger room (or even two rooms) and buy park tickets avis rent a car cleveland ohio for him, which would have added at least $500 to our trip!
Flights and restaurants. The summer was spent researching restaurants avis rent a car cleveland ohio and making reservations for our table service meals. We also ended up finding a good deal on flights from Southwest Airlines, and we booked those in late July. Although we had to drive nearly 4 hours to the airport for the discounted flights, we were able to eliminate the 4 days of driving from South Texas to Florida and back. It still took almost a whole day of travel each time with driving to the airport, waiting, then a 2.5hr flight, and then waiting for luggage and the Disney Express Bus service, and then the reverse avis rent a car cleveland ohio on the way home. It would have been nice to fly from our own city. But we were definitely grateful avis rent a car cleveland ohio that we didn't spend 40 hours in the car that week!
I'll share some reviews of these when I share the pictures of each day at the parks. But overall, we're not sure if we'd go the Free Dining route for a future trip. The sit-down meals ate up a lot of time, and we weren't overly impressed with any of the food. Our kids don't eat very much, so we usually had way more food and desserts than we could eat. The quick service meals worked better because they could share meals and we didn't have a lot of food leftover. Plus they were quick! There are discounted avis rent a car cleveland ohio room offers if you don't choose the free dining option, and I think that might be a better avis rent a car cleveland ohio choice for us in the future. The experiences were fun for our first big Disney avis rent a car cleveland ohio trip, though!
Magic Bands and Rides. About a week before our trip, we received an offer to be a part of the trial of Disney's new Magic Bands, which are bracelets worn by Disney guests that contain all the information, tickets, avis rent a car cleveland ohio reservations, and even FastPasses for rides. avis rent a car cleveland ohio So we could make reservations for Disney rides and attractions on the internet from home, from the hotel, the bus, or while at the park. They scanned our bracelets to get into the parks, to keep track of our meal and snack credits, to use our FastPasses, and you could also choose to attach a credit card for easy shopping with just a touch of the bracelet to their scanning device and typing in a 4-digit pin code (my frugal husband did NOT choose that option!). It was fun to choose the color bracelets beforehand avis rent a car cleveland ohio and have the names printed inside the bracelets. We all felt very cool wearing these new Magic Bands!
The week or two before our trip I spent researching rides and schedule plans for our days at Disney. I used some different websites and blogs, as well as a borrowed Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World book. I reserved some o