Disney Tips for Parents: Where to Visit

I've been going to Orlando, FL every few years since I was 9 years old. We've seen a lot in Orlando over the past 25 years and I feel that I have enough well-rounded insight to aid someone who's never been to Disney World on how to get the most out of their trip to the happiest place on earth!



Speaking of being 9 years old, that is really a great age for most children to really enjoy all that Orlando, FL has to offer. You're old enough to appreciate good food and good entertainment, but still young enough to squeal in genuine delight when spotting characters in the various theme parks. My sister was 6 years old, and that my friends is the PERFECT age. Too old for midday naps, but still a child in every way. So, my sister and I were 6 and 9, respectively, when we took our first jaunt to Orlando. Over the years I've made mental notes about things I would do differently with each trip, and as an adult, I feel like I've got hands-on experience on how to keep the family happy on a trip to Orlando; especially a family with at least one toddler on the trip; So let's get started!

Tip 1: Take the time of year into consideration Disney World is a truly magical place. But even Disney World gets OLD in 90 degree weather. Especially with the park completely filled to capacity and hour-long minimum wait times for each attraction.

Suggestion #1: If at all possible, avoid Disney World after Memorial Day and before Labor Day if you have children younger than 5 years old. Visit Universal Orlando or Sea World which are never as ridiculously crowded as Disney World on a summer day. If not possible (as is the case for most people, obviously) here are a few more suggestions.



Suggestion #2: Be at the Disney Main Gate 30 minutes before it opens. Try to be within the first couple hundred people to enter the park, if possible. This is very possible if you have small toddlers who wake up at 7am anyway! NOTE: Once you have entered the park, go all the way to the back of the park as far as you can get. Human studies show that most people do one of two things: they either stop at the first thing they see once they enter the gate, or they immediately run to their favorite attractions and jump on those. If you can get further into the park and work your way forward, believe it or not, you'll actually be better off than if you follow the crowd.

Suggestion #3: Go the Disney "Fast Pass" route. Disney offers what are called Fast Passes at all of their most popular attractions. And trust me, if your child is older than 3, they will be ALL about these particular rides/shows. So after heeding Suggestion #2, go ahead and get your Fast Pass for the ride your toddler seems the most excited about. The pass should display a time to come back that is one to two hours later than the current time. Spend that 45 min searching for characters in the park, grabbing a snack, or visiting a much less popular attraction to kill the time. If the kids are younger than 5, I promise they should be okay with this. Be sure to keep track of the time, so that you don't venture off too far from the area of your Fast Pass attraction. Also, be sure to confirm that the attraction you're visiting to kill the time won't spill over into your time to visit the Fast Pass attraction. Once your time listed on your Fast Pass arrives, keep in mind that you may still have a 30 min wait if it's noon or afterward. Once you leave the Fast Pass attraction, repeat this whole process for the rest of the day. (i.e. find another Fast Pass ride that the kids will love, get your passes, and do something else in the meantime) Suggestion #4 is pretty important so I will list it as another Tip.



Tip 2: Use one of Tami's Disney World calendar methods As you may know, Disney World Orlando has 4 theme parks. Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center, Disney Studios (formerly known as MGM Studios), and Animal Kingdom. There are two tricks of the trade frequent Disney travelers like myself use when determining which park to visit on which day.

Method 1: The FBT (Florida Bureau of Travel) method Most people in the US work Mon - Fri, and don't take vacations in the middle of the week. So Saturday is the incoming TRAVEL DAY for the bulk of people visiting Orlando. Trust me, there are still a TON of people already in FL visiting the parks on Saturday, but it doesn't come close to the sheer number that will be ready to visit the parks by Sunday! Also take into consideration the fact that most people visit the Disney parks each day in this order: 1)Magic Kingdom 2)Epcot 3)Disney Studios 4)Animal Kingdom.

So with this knowledge, if you are arriving to Orlando sometime Saturday late afternoon, early evening like most people, you don't want to waste money on visiting a park with only a few hours to play. Once you wake up bright and early Sunday morning, eat a very light breakfast (you don't want to set yourself up for feeling extremely tired before noon even hits, so I suggest sticking with continental breakfast), and get to that Main Gate. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT visit Magic Kingdom on Sunday. EVERYONE does this, so dare to be different. Epcot is a great park to visit, in my opinion. Lots of cool rides that the little ones can ride. Most popular is Spaceship Earth. It's the landmark of Epcot, and the kiddies will most likely want to ride it, just because it looks so cool from the outside! But again, it's the first ride you hit, so you may consider implementing my previous suggestion from Tip 1 which involves making your way deep into the park and working your way back to the front. This may work differently at Epcot, however, because it's twice the size of Magic Kingdom, not to mention that Epcot is made up of two distinct parks in itself so the "go further into the park" rule can be implemented separately in either one of them. On Monday, visit Disney Studios. Tuesday, Animal Kingdom. This would put you back at Magic Kingdom by Wednesday.

Method 2: The Extra Magic Hour method When you choose to stay at a Disney resort, you receive an EMH (extra magic hour) before the Theme Park opens and after it closes to the general public. Only one of the 4 parks has an EMH each day. So if
Monday happens to be Magic Kingdom's day to have EMH, none of the other parks will have it on that same day. Here's the trick: avoid the park that has the EMH on that day, because it will be extremely crowded due to being visited by almost all of the guests staying on the Disney resort. So if Magic Kingdom has the EMH, skip Magic Kingdom that day. Any of the others will be less crowded. Here's some more information about the EMH.



Method 3: Pad your trip to Disney with other fun things Traveling with toddlers to Disney World for the first time is going to wear you out. Especially if you have a small toddler. The frequent trips to the potty, the need for a nap (lest they become a public embarrassment to you), the heat, etc..., all of these things make for very grumpy parents during the summer at Disney World. My suggestion to you is to leave at least 1 day between each visit to the Disney parks to do something other than Disney. Please trust me, you will love me forever if you try this! Every other day, my family takes a "rest day". This involves either laying around the suite watching tv, hitting the pool, staying in the area doing some shopping at the Mall at Millenia, or just visiting another theme park all together. You could even drive 45 - 50 minutes south east and hit Cocoa Beach for a relaxing time there! Even those with the patience of Job will need a break from the over stimulation and excitement of Disney. Also, don't even think about utilizing the Disney Park Hopper if you've got toddlers. Total waste, because you'll most likely never get around to more than one park in one day; the kids (and you) will be restless by mid afternoon and need a nap so that just won't leave enough time to get your money's worth unless you plan on keeping them out really late.

I really hope that the tips come in handy. Please email me or leave comments with any feedback!

Disney Tips for Parents: The Drive Down

I've got several previous posts from over the past few years about the trips I've taken to Orlando, FL. They are labeled "Orlando" or "Disney" if you want to back search for them. I've been itching to write a post specifically for parents taking toddlers to Orlando. A friend of mine will be traveling to Orlando soon with her family, and it reminded me that I never posted my tips here in this blog! Without the proper planning, insight, advice, etc..., this type of trip can sometimes vary from extremely frustrating to an all out nightmare. I've broken these tips into 3 parts, with one to be published each day over the next 3 days: Travel (the drive down), where to stay: the pros and cons to prepare for, and where to visit: which places are more family friendly. This post, as the title suggests, is on the subject of "the drive down". If you're driving to Orlando from metro-Atlanta, the total time on the road is approx. 6 hours, not counting lunch or other rest breaks, of course. My family of 4 has done this trip 3 times since the kids were 3 and 2 years old, and by now we have it down to a science.

Tip 1: Have a portable DVD player in the vehicle

If you haven't invested in one already, be sure to borrow one from someone if at all possible. Be sure to toss 3 - 5 of the kid(s) favorite movies somewhere in the vehicle. Suggestion: Don't fire up the first movie until you've been on the road for about 30 - 45 minutes or so; this may help stretch out the amount of time you get before you have to make your first stop. As an example, this is how my kids operate: by the time they appear restless (around 45 minutes) BAM! We just pop in their favorite movie, pass the popcorn and drinks back to them, and they are set for the next 90 minutes! By the time the movie ends, you will already have driven for more than 2 hours (over a third of the entire drive) with only one movie down! After the movie goes off, go ahead and stop for a potty/snack/stretch their legs break. By the time you get back in the vehicle and pop in the second movie, they will probably be asleep within 20 minutes, and sleep for about 1 1/2 hours at the very least. When they wake up it will probably be time for a lunch break anyway, and you will already be over 4 hours (2/3 of the total way) into your drive! Suggestion: have headphones to use with the DVD player; otherwise, your FM signal will most likely be compromised by kids movies the whole way down.



Tip 2: Be sure to load up the mp3 player with all of your favorites My hubby and I have done so many road trips over the 14 years we've been together (dating and marriage) that we've also got this down to a science as well. 6 hours is a very short trip to us, and unless my hubby is extremely exhausted, he does all of the driving. We usually spend the first 30 - 40 minutes talking and getting caught up with everything we haven't had a chance to talk about. After we're done with that, the hubby always turns the volume up on the iPod. This really helps the time go by SO fast. I always have my own iPod with all of my road-trip favorites as well...I actually have a "Road Trip" play list on my iPod at this point! I also rip my favorite DVD's onto my computer and upload them to my iPod ahead of time as well. That REALLY helps the time go by fast for the passenger! Suggestion: Also, don't forget your Sudoku/Crossword books, novels, magazines, whatever you love reading to pass the time, if that doesn't make you car sick.

Tip 3: Chart out where you plan to stop beforehand, if at all possible
You will probably only need to stop a maximum of 3 times during the entire trip, hopefully. And there's nothing worse to me than ending up waiting too long for a potty/food break and having no choice but to stop in Bohunk, South Georgia. (especially if you're black, you might want to be planning ahead to avoid this) Here are some suggestions: the cities of Tifton and Moultrie are within 2 to 2 1/2 hours away from Atlanta. Lots of fast food options here: the Moultrie exit even has a nice CiCi's Pizza that we always try to stop at. Valdosta is 3 hours away and is the halfway mark. And Lake City, FL is 4 hours away from metro Atlanta. We love the Steak and Shake in Lake City and there is a mall there also where I usually stop and get my mani/pedi (if I can't make time before leaving metro Atlanta) while Chris walks around with the kids for about 30 - 45 minutes or so. The mall is kind of ghetto in my opinion, but what started out as an accident 5 years ago has turned into a tradition. :-D



Tip 4: Take lots of $1 bills and quarters Once you leave Lake City, FL, you will only have about another hour and 15 minutes or so before you start hitting the infamous Florida Turnpike tollbooths. And depending on what part of Orlando you're staying in, you can hit up to as many as 6 of those things! I would suggest having about $15 in singles on hand just for the 2.5 billion tolls you will have to pass through.

Please come by tomorrow for the post on "Where to Visit" which will probably be my favorite to blog about!!! :-)

Reaching out and grabbing life

In addition to this wonderful blog, I also have a private one. I opened it about 8 months ago because I started feeling that I no longer had any place to share my most personal, intimate thoughts anymore. Everyone in every aspect of my life pretty much has access to this current blog, so if I needed to get something off of my chest about a co-worker, or a member of my church, I needed a place to go where I could share with the 10 or 11 people that I trust most on this earth, and have zero worries.



I posted about this last week on my private blog. I was laid-off on Tuesday, April 28, 2009. I've just now arrived at the point where I'm comfortable talking about it in a public forum. There are family members that I've talked to several times since the layoff that I still haven't told yet. I'm not hiding it, there's just a bunch of emotions, and possibly stages, that one goes through when something like this happens. I believe that the order of the stages mostly depends on our individual personalities. Here are the ones I encountered, in their respective order:

1) Shock I was like a zombie that Tuesday. Once I got home with my hubby, I knew that everything was going to be okay, but I just didn't know what to do or think. I wasn't hungry (which is a CLEAR sign that I was going through something abnormal) and I didn't want to talk to anyone. My phone began ringing off of the hook by 2:30pm that day. Apparently that's when the meetings ended where the news was broken. People that I didn't really talk to that much were calling my house; I just asked my hubby to take messages. One of my best friends who was also a co-worker came and picked me up that evening and took me to a meeting at Turner. I was a part of the Turner Women Today circle mentoring group, and our mentor had already paid for us to attend a big event being held there. So I went, and acted as if nothing had happened. There were people around me crying for me, and I was comforting them!! Yep, definitely shock.

2) Bitterness Over the next few days, Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with the news of the layoff. I started making the connection that the people who were talking about it still had jobs. (And probably weren't pregnant and the only source of income for their households). I still didn't want to talk about it in a public forum, so I refrained from responding or commenting about the matter at all. I was angry with Suchita Vladlamani on Good Day Atlanta because she has a job and I don't. I went back up to CNN a few times to get some things and felt betrayed by the people that still had jobs. From the SVP's to the crew at Chick Fil A, I was just bitter toward them. I even felt slight envy toward my husband who now has 3 friggin' degrees and has the people from his new job that he starts in August already calling him and talking about how excited they are for him to start later this summer. Woop De Doo for everyone else except for Tami...that's how I was feeling later that week.



3) Embarrassment By that weekend, I started feeling as though it was my fault I was laid-off. If the whole group had been let go, that would be one thing, but we were cherry picked. I felt expendable. My GREATEST fear in life is rejection, and here it was staring me in the face. So cold and uncaring. Goodbye, Tami, we just don't need you. I have a lot of self confidence, and there are people in my life who I feel look up to me for different reasons and who depend on me. I didn't even want to face them anymore. I just wanted to hide somewhere and pretend I never knew any of these people. After all, at least they still have jobs.

4) Reality By the following week, I was starting to get some of my swagger back. Some. I still felt pretty yucky about how things went down, and came to a lot of unfortunate realizations. The gravity of what happened really hit me, and I knew that it was time to take from this situation what I was supposed to:

I had spent the entire 3 weeks before my layoff complaining about how miserable and tired I was. I was SO exhausted and had been feeling so sore. I was only at weeks 22 - 25 of my pregnancy, and I was barely able to get around comfortably. It was taking me almost 15 minutes to get from my car to my desk...that normally only takes about 5 or 6 minutes. I was barely able to stay awake at my desk anymore. Mondays were the worst!!! I always woke up completely wiped out on Mondays as if I had been binge drinking and someone had been kicking me in the stomach the entire weekend. Miserable. I really loved working for the lady who was my direct manager (and who I have been staying in touch with very well) but that's about as far as it went. Everyone else around me was making me miserable, save for a few people around me that I am especially close to.

I was also spending a lot of time in other departments trying to get on with other groups. Amazingly, this is still in the works now, and is actually much easier now that I don't have to balance a current workload with the new stuff I was being trained on. If this pans out the way it appears to be, what an amazing story this will be to tell in the near future!



90% of my closest friends have told me that they feel that this was a MAJOR blessing in disguise. The people closest to me knew how much I was struggling and how I needed a break, even more so than I was willing to admit. Being able to sit on my screen-porch at 9am on a Monday morning and eat my breakfast is quite nice, I must admit. And then sit in my recliner and eat my lunch while watching my favorite soap opera. And then go take a nap before picking up the kids hours later. I'm REALLY loving this, to be honest. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts, because I still miss work. I hope I have some good things to report over the next few months. I'm still very excited about what the future holds, and have been reminded to hold on tight to God's unchanging hand. Even though circumstances in the world change, He does not, and always has our best interest at the heart of who He is. I'm so honored to be His, and look forward to what's to come!!

BTW, one of the best parts about this is that I no longer have to pretend that I like/enjoy/tolerate CNN News anymore. Thank God!!! :-) :-)