How to Take Your Family to Disney World in Orlando, Florida and Not Kill Yourself: Part Two

Jooj at the airport.

It was pointed out to me, many years ago, that my one true talent is shopping. This is not entirely false. But I also have a few more talents, one of which is planning trips to Walt Disney World. What follows, lucky reader, is a primer of sorts. Part one is here.

Have you given thought to who you are taking? Good. Because now we are going to get down to the travel details.

How and When You Will Get to Walt Disney World.

For me, this is the part that involves the most planning, research, and prayers. Because La Yen does not like to spend money on things that are not the best (except for Baja Chalupas).

How are you getting to Orlando?
We live, as can be assumed from the blog title, in El Paso, Texas. We have one airport, which is not a hub for anything. NOTHING. Our next closest airports are between five and six hours away. This translates to, generally, exorbitant airfare. If you are lucky enough to live near a major airport, you can most likely fly the family for a reasonable price. Start looking ahead of time. I highly recommend signing up for Ding from Southwest, because they generally post deals to Orlando every month (you will be flying into Orlando, abbreviation MCO). If you have not flown lately, be prepared to get really, really cheesed off. You now have to pay to check each bag (generally $25 PER bag, EACH WAY), and most airlines now charge you $6 for those free peanuts. Seriously. They will still give you a beverage, though. Southwest is the one airline that still lets you check 2 bags for free and ponies up the pretzels and peanuts. Say what you will about Southwest, if you have bags to check for a family of four you will save at least $400 by booking with them. All airlines will let you "gate check" your strollers, though, so don't worry about having to pay for them. Bring your own stroller. Seriously. More on that later.

If, like us, you can't afford/it makes you physically ill to pay the same amount getting to Walt Disney World as you will spend staying/eating/attending Walt Disney World, driving is always an option if you have the time. You will save a boat load of money. We drove that summer that gas prices were so ridiculous that it made us cry, and we still saved money over flying from Freaking No Hub El Paso Airport. An added bonus was that we were able to take a babysitter with us for, essentially, free. From El Paso, we drove through all of Texas, Louisiana, Some Other Places, and Florida. It was not a bad drive for us, and we were able to stop and stretch and eat whenever we wanted. We stayed in hotels at night, and then drove during the day. Here is the thing, though--our family is really, really good at road trips. W drives and listens to podcasts, I have an adapter for my laptop and I play games the entire time (I also read novels), Jooj watches movies and plays games, and we are not as concerned with "making good time" as we are with not killing each other. We always start with a prayer to "bless us on the road, help us to be aware of others, and help others to be aware of us, and please help us to be friends at the end of this." Seriously.

Your goal is to still love one another at the end of the trek.

Should you choose to drive, here are some of my best tricks:

• Get a GPS. It is worth the money. Or get the application for your phone. In the interest of full disclosure, we do not have one. But if we had driven this last trip, we would have bought one. I want the one with John Cleese narrating my directions, W wants the Hot Lady Voice. We are still working out the details.
  
• In addition, print out all of your directions and put them in a bright orange folder. You cannot lose a bright orange folder. Also print out a copy of your hotel info and your insurance cards and put them in there. Seriously. You cannot lose a bright orange folder.
• Plan to drive for ten hours a day MAX. You will end up driving for fourteen, what with traffic and food and bathroom breaks. but when you book your hotels at the end of the night, only book them about ten hours away.
• BOOK YOUR HOTELS AHEAD OF TIME. I will always remember the "month of Midwestern Conventions" during which W and I found no vacancies from Iowa to Ohio. No lie. We slept in a McDonald's parking lot. It was gross.
• Buy new toys/movies/DS games that the kids have never seen. Dole them out on the trip.
• Stop for snacks. Everyone is happier if they can choose their own snack, rather than mom handing out trail mix or whatever.
  
• Let them eat whatever they want at the restaurants. This is not the time to fight over whether you want to pay for them to have a peanut butter sandwich. Pick your battles, starting the minute you get in the car.
• Speaking of restaurants, if you have kids, stop as often as possible at ones with a play land. Preferably the Chick Fil A, because it is the cleanest one around and you will like when they say "My Pleasure!" to your every request.
  
• Make the babysitter earn her keep in the backseat. There is no reason for you to be climbing back there. She can change DVDs, beat the children, hand out napkins, etc.
• You may think you are driving forever, but you will get to Walt Disney World and see cars with license plates from Alaska. Then you will realize that you are Not That Crazy and your drive won't seem so bad.

Sometimes just giving the kid the camera to take pictures of her foot will buy you three hours of peace.

If you don't want to drive or fly, I suppose you could take the train or the bus or something, but I don't do that because it is for Poor People and Europeans. So you are on your own with that.

Equally as important as HOW you are getting there, is WHEN you are getting there. This is important, so listen to me.

Do Not Go In The Summer Time. Especially June.

It is miserably hot, ridiculously humid, and filled to the brim with people from all over the world. I speak from experience because we went in June once. It was Not Awesome. We went because W was back for his R&R and only available for those two weeks. It was so hot that our babysitter ended up with gigantic blisters on her toes from sweating in her flip-flops. We had to buy her sneakers. And in June it gushes rain every day, with major lightening storms, so you have to get out of the pool and you must bring ponchos. Seriously.

The best time to go to Walt Disney World is in February or March--BEFORE Spring Break, September AFTER Labor Day, October but not the week of Halloween, or (and this is the ultimate awesome week) The High Holy Week After Thanksgiving. If you have a flexible work schedule, pull the kids out of school and go during these times.*

In addition, under no circumstances should you go during the Winter Holidays. In the first place, you will have to book your rooms A Year In Advance. Does that tell you anything? Because it should.

Your homework is to pull out the calendar and clear out the week after Thanksgiving, and start looking for deals on airlines or start getting the car maintained. Don't worry about packages and rates for the actual Orlando stay--we will discuss that next in the segment I like to call
Seriously, Are We Ever Getting Away From That Freaking Mouse?





*Disclaimer: I am a huge fan of pulling the kids out of school to go on vacation. They are not learning anything other than what to do on the Standardized Test they will have to take that measures nothing other than how well they have been told what will be on the test. Let the teacher know at least two weeks early, and do all the homework on the trip. Then bring the teacher back a present. Seriously.