We’ve Been To Disney!

Whew!!! My family is almost home from Disney World, and goodness, gracious, I'm worn out! I really can't thank my friends Shannon, Misty & Susan enough for ALL their help running PPP while I was gone ~ this is the most I've stayed off the computer in the last four years, and it felt so good to be unplugged for the most part for the last few days.

Since we knew it would be harder to make a trip to Disney once we moved to Ohio, we wanted to sneak in a trip before our kids got any older. On Tuesday school was cancelled because of snow and ice possibly coming to Alabama, so we snuck out a day early and surprised our kids with a trip South! My oldest wasn't all that happy about it (he really wanted to see snow, and we did miss that a bit!), but by the time the week was over I think he was okay with it. 😉

Here's a peek at what we did while we were there . . .

Spent our first afternoon in Animal Kingdom

Then headed to the Magic Kingdom Thursday morning (I love that place!)

And of course rode It's A Small World

My kids loved riding all the rides, but I think running around Tom Sawyer Island is still one of their favorites

On Friday we visited Epcot – my husband loves seeing how they grow things in the Living with the Land exhibit

And our kids loved seeing all things Mickey & Minnie

Ate lunch in Germany – so good!

And my girls loved checking out all the Kidcot stations where they got a stamp from each country. (That idea is brilliant ~ makes getting through the countries in Epcot so much more fun with little ones!)

We spent (a lot!) of time on the buses

And my Caroline (who turns 11 in just six days) asked to have her hair done at the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique at Downtown Disney as a birthday gift. (Folks, that place was a zoo ~ yikes! But she did look pretty cute.) 😉

Before heading out this morning we enjoyed breakfast at O'Hanas (probably our favorite meal) and are on our way home now.

Whenever I mention Disney I always get lots of questions about how to do the trip on a penny pinched budget, and I wish I knew some great secret tips. Really though, the best thing I can tell you is to have a vacation budget in place, and then wait for a decent offer from Disney.  We had money in our vacation budget available, so when my friend Susan mentioned that she'd gotten an offer in the mail for free dining about a month ago, we were able to hop on the discount!

Eating food at Disney is so just crazy expensive, and since we're such penny pinchers when it comes to food I don't think we could enjoy our trip if we had to shell out $75 for our family of five at every meal. My husband and I just tallied up what we paid for besides our room, park admission, and dining plan (which was free), and including the extra tips for sit down meals as well as a gift for each child we spent less than $150. For us, the dining plan (when it's free!) is so worth it. Our kids even had enough extra snack credits to bring treats home from the park!