Why should I choose DisneyWorld?

I started this blog on the suggestion of family and friends because my family loves all things Disney! We find ourselves constantly helping to plan Disneyworld vacations for family and friends and we love it!

Disney family vacation tip#1 make sure it is the right trip for everyone in your family!

My first Disney family vacation tip is very simple, make sure it is somewhere everyone truly wants to go. In our many trips (over 35) we have seen all sorts of exciting and unruly things. I cannot count the number of times we have heard "your father/mother and I have paid too much money for this trip for you to be complaining and whining". When you are at "the happiest place on earth" the last thing you want to see is a parent dragging a screaming child while the parent yells at him. It kind of puts a damper on the happy thing! Most people go to Disney because of the amazing way Disney lures you in with its brilliant marketing strategy or because everyone else is doing it so I need to also. In many cases I believe parents wants to give their children a fantasy trip and what is more magical than Disneyworld? If you are going for any other reason than to spend quality time with your family and to escape the reality of life you need to think real hard if this is the trip for you!

Disney family vacation tip #2 is to find unbiased information about as much as you can involving every aspect of Disneyworld!

My second piece of advice is to check out the message boards and blogs (there are many good ones out there) and try to get real feedback from people with real life experiences. Simply watching TV, searching online, and reading books is not good enough to determine if Disney is the place you want to spend your hard earned money for a family vacation. Most of those places are designed for one thing and that is to sell you on the trip to make money. It has been much more useful for me to join a couple of message boards and read posts of many people's opinions and then use that to make decisions about Disneyworld. Don't get me wrong even the message boards are wrong sometimes and the more we go to Disney the more we realize that Disney doesn't really change all that much from year to year. What changes are people's expectations and perceptions about how things should be? Be informed and remember no amount of information is too much information as long as you can distinguish what applies to your family.

Disney family vacation tip #3 is choose dining and accomodations that are at or slightly above your current lifestyle level.

For instance if you have extravagent taste then a fast food place may not work for you however that doesn't make it "nasty" it is just not your choice. Some people enjoy a good greasy burger and fries and may feel out of place at an upscale eatery. If you are going to go to Disney then know what to expect and prepare for that in advance. If you need to arrange your trip around more service dominated lodging and dining so as to not be overly dissappointed then please do that. You do not want to be a neat freak and stay at a dump because you will be miserable and your trip will be ruined. You want to sleep and eat at least at the level of comfort you are accustomed too or the trip is doomed. Now for me and my family a Disney family vacation is just that a vacation so we usually go above our comfort level to really feel "away" from it all. Be cautious though and do not fall into the trap of going to above your norm because it is hard to come back to reality when the trip is done!

Disney family vacation tip #4 is also very simple, expect to not see everything in one trip!

Disneyworld is much larger than people can really comprehend until you get there. With four theme parks, two water parks, a downtown disney shopping district, and many resorts unless you are staying for three weeks forget about doing it all. It is not going to happen! The sooner you realize and accept this the less stressful your trip is going to be for everyone! The last thing you want during a vacation is stress on the family that kills the fun. All of a sudden the Disneyworld family vacation is filled with rushing, rudeness, and crankiness from every family member. That doesn't sound like fun to me how about you?

Now that we have our mind wrapped around what we are looking for and expecting in a Disney family vacation the real planning process can begin! My next blog is going to adress the major questions involved in PLANNING A DISNEYWORD FAMILY VACATION!!!!!!!