Trip Report #
This trip was full of firsts! We went with friends instead of family. We went with my husband’s best man from our wedding, his wife, and their daughter.
On top of this, we stayed at a resort we haven’t stayed at before: Animal Kingdom Lodge. We also booked a coveted Value One-Bedroom, so we were back to staying in a one-bedroom for the first time in a year. But herein lied another first: when we stayed in the one-bedroom at the Grand Floridian, we felt oddly disconnected from the rest of our family, but here we actually liked it. I’d do this again in a heartbeat. Granted, we stayed in two separate one-bedrooms: at the end of the night, my husband’s best friend and his family went back to their room, and we returned to ours. Space was had.
Because we were going with new people, I relied heavily on my spreadsheets for this trip. In a previous post, I detailed spreadsheets I made, listing everything you could do in each park by neighborhood: attractions, places to eat, shows, experiences, etc.
I’ve mentioned that I often refer to these spreadsheets in the planning phase for our trips: I talk to whoever we’re going with to get a sense of their priorities, I look over the spreadsheets, and I find what I think will meet their expectations for the trip.
I use this to create the “pillars” of the trip: the 3-5 experiences that must happen. It’s usually a character dining experience or a show. For instance, if someone we’re going with is really into The Lion King, I’ll make sure to make seeing The Festival of the Lion King one of our pillars. I’ll familiarize myself with the times to ensure it happens.
For this trip, because it was the first trip to Disney for our friends and, frankly, their first real trip to a theme park, I relied extremely heavily on these spreadsheets. I talked with our friends about their daughter’s favorite IPs to ensure she saw what interests her. I talked with them about their daughter’s comfort level with rides. I talked with them about what types of foods they like to eat.
The results were interesting. Rides were a go: she was more willing to try rides than even our daughter. Tiana’s was a must, I was told. The wife of the pair believed her daughter would love Pirates. Those are two rides our daughter outright refuses to ride or rides very reluctantly to appease Mitch. We were off to a promising start. I could see my pillars forming.
Food could be challenging: The entire family was picky about what they ate. Seafood, a food staunchly avoided by the bulk of my family, was a staple. Columbia Harbor House, it is, then!
But shows… shows and experiences were the true roll of the dice. Ultimately, I had to actually include more pillars than I typically do. I actually ended up adding more structure than I typically would. In theory, this was fine; in practice, it looked very different, and I misfired more often than I succeeded. At the end of the day, I really only ended up knowing this: I had to learn to be adaptable.
The Finding Nemo show, which I thought would be a hit, drove their daughter to tears. We very tenuously made it through the Frozen show, a show that even makes me cry every time I watch it. But Chef Mickey’s—what my husband and I affectionately call a needle to the eye and overstimulation station—was an instant hit.
Still, it was a fantastic trip. We loved Animal Kingdom Lodge. This is where we really reaffirmed the sentiment that every single resort truly does have its own vibe. We had seen hints of it, of course, in our time visiting the Contemporary in the past, and that one night we stayed at the Poly, but to feel a vibe so drastically different from the Grand Floridian was jarring—in a good way. I would go back to Animal Kingdom Lodge, but I won’t deny that the Grand Flo will always be my home.
Food #
A tenuous topic on this trip. Our family actually got the dining plan and loved every second of it. I cannot recommend the dining plan enough; it has a way of sort of releasing you from the financial binds of ordering cheaper items off the menu. At every meal, we truly got what we wanted—often the most expensive thing on the menu—and a drink, and we were very happy. Also, don’t get me wrong, I love Joffrey’s, and it will always be quintessential Disney to me, but getting a super large Starbucks Cold Brew as my snack was an excellent way to find that “it’s the afternoon and I need to rally” feeling. I’ll do this literally every time we have the dining plan moving forward. Alternatively, my husband’s best friend’s family, despite our urging, chose to abstain from getting the dining plan. Their week of food was significantly less fun than ours, and I won’t deny that I felt a bit guilty about that.
Highlights #
Zebra Domes! I’d go back to Animal Kingdom Lodge again for literally just those. So many of the vloggers we watch have mentioned these time and time again. I don’t know what I expected, but they vastly exceeded my expectations. I also loved sitting out on the balcony of our room and having a drink with my husband after the kids went to bed. It was a beautiful sight to see, even if we didn’t have a savannah view, and it made for some lovely evenings featuring amazing sunsets. The balcony was also exceptionally large because we had a one-bedroom. Mitch hesitates to like one-bedrooms, but I love them.
Lessons Learned #
We’ve done the full circuit: grandparents, friends, etc. We’ve been the tour guides. It’s time to take a Disney family trip that’s actually just our family.