I’m a stay at home mother of a beautiful one year old princess. My family and I travel to Disney quite a bit. We joke that our daughter has had three internal visits and 4 external visits! Yes, I visited the most magical place on earth during each trimester, as well as almost every phase of infancy. No, we did not bring her as a newborn. Her first visit was at 6 months, and each visit we learned different tricks about traveling with a baby and the next trip was slightly easier. We typically skip the warmer months, so we aren’t planning a return to Orlando until October, when she will be 18 months and hopefully walking by then.
Obviously, we are annual pass holders. Plus, we live in the Atlanta area, so traveling to Florida isn’t too much of a road trip for us. It’s about 6-8 hours, depending on diaper changes, rest stops, and traffic. Atlanta traffic can be nightmarish, so we try to time our travel so we aren’t leaving or coming home in the middle of rush hour.
I would say my expertise lies in Walt Disney World planning. That is the destination we have traveled to the most. We have been to Disneyland, for a short trip back in 2011 at the beginning of December, before Carsland was open. Many areas of California Adventure were blocked off and re-routed due to the construction, so we need to get back there and see everything we couldn’t see last time. And with the arrival of our daughter, we have not been on a Disney cruise. We could easily do one now, but I would prefer to wait until she is three years old and potty trained so that we can take advantage of the kids’ clubs on board. They offer nursery care for children under 3, but it comes at an additional cost. So, if potty training a girl is as easy as I hear, we can hopefully celebrate her third birthday on a Disney cruise! Then she could also go to the Bibbidi Bobbed Boutique!
Most of our trips to Disney World have centered around a running event. Many people don’t realize that Disney hosts some very large running events throughout the year. I’m happy to say that we have participated in every one (at Disney World) at least once. In fact, I have a reminder on my calendar tomorrow to register for the 2016 Princess Half Marathon. Registration doesn’t actually open for another 2 weeks, but it’s a great perk of being an annual pass holder. Perhaps I should inform you that I am not a runner by any means. Then why do I participate in these events? Because they are AWESOME! I don’t do the long distance runs, because I have never properly trained for one, but I enjoy 5K and 10K races. That’s about as far as I’m willing to “run.” 🙂 My husband, on the other hand, takes his running very seriously. He would like to one day do the full marathon in January, but until then, he will run all the half marathon races. We even signed our daughter up for the Diaper Dash. Yes, they have races for people of all ages. It is Disney, after all! No one should be left out! And yes, she also gets a finisher medal. Well, not exactly. I guess she gets a participation medal because she couldn’t crawl during any her dashes, but she still got a medal, anyway.
The point of that last paragraph was to let you know that I also have expertise in runDisney events. Not really to tell you all about them. Or my lack of running expertise. That’s another post altogether. 😉
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