After going to Disney with Hope in 2017 (she was 5) and then again with Hope and Autumn in 2019 (ages 7 and 1 1/2), we knew that we wanted to take Autumn back to Disney when she was a little older and would actually remember some of it. We also had the Disney Cruise in 2022 with cousins and friends, so she did get a little exposure to Bippity Boppity Boutique and the characters on the ship. Autumn has also never been into Disney cartoons, she would rather watch Kids YouTube, so the princesses and characters didn’t have as much meaning/excitement for her.
We started planning the trip in the summer of 2024, knowing that we would need lots of advance planning for meals, passes, activities, etc. We also decided early on that since we are so comfortable with road trips, the 6 of us (our four plus my mom and Kristen’s mom) would rather drive down and use the money saved on extra things at Disney. We also knew that we would use the same travel agent that we had used on multiple other Disney trips, Suzanne Sevier. With the amount of parks, packages, and activities…I don’t know how anyone could organize a Disney trip on their own! After some initial emails and coordinating schedules, we landed on a September trip since we really enjoyed the Haunted Mickey’s Party/Parade and trick or treating in the park. The adults also enjoyed the December trip in 2019 because of all the festive holiday decorations, but the kids definitely wanted Halloween activities. Once we had our dates and knew that we wanted to stay for about 6 days, we started looking at places. There were a couple cheaper hotels with All-Star but since this would likely be our last trip to Disney World, we decided to splurge on the Polynesian! The location is perfect with it being on the monorail and making access easier to Magic Kingdom. We also found out that you can watch the Magic Kingdon fireworks show right from the lawn at Polynesian. Lastly, we decided on the simpler meal plan that didn’t include the sit-down/character dinners but instead gave us quick meals and snacks (this worked out great for our group and we only ended paying extra for a couple of meals while we were there).
There were a few other extras that we knew we wanted to book ahead of time. One was a hair/makeup appointment for Autumn, initially we were going to do Bippity Boppity Boutique at Magic Kingdom; however, the Disney Springs location was closed so Magic Kingdom booked even faster than usual. The times available also didn’t line-up with our park days or meals that we would have wanted Autumn to be dressed up for, plus Autumn had already had one experience with them on the Cruise. Kristen ended up finding an alternate solution with Bounding Beauty where they come to your hotel room and give a more personalized experience. More in this later but it worked out great and we were all very happy with them. The second excursion we wanted to book was buying tickets to see a cirque de soleil show at Disney Springs. The Art of Animation was fantastic and we had a great time watching the story and acrobatics. Lastly, I wanted to surprise Hope with a scuba diving excursion inside the EPCOT aquarium. This also turned out fantastic and we both had a great diving experience.
With everything booked and the car packed, we started our trip early on a Saturday morning with plans to stay one night somewhere along the way and then check in on Sunday. We also knew that we could go to the waterparks for free on our check-in day so we wanted to drive as much as possible on Saturday to get there early on Sunday. Overall we had an easy but long first day of driving and made it from Baltimore area all the way down to Flagler Beach, FL. That put us about 2 hours from Disney which would be an easy morning drive on Sunday. It also meant that mom and I had time to find a local coffee spot on Sunday morning😊! Sip and Surf had great coffee and muffins, gave us just the energy boost we needed for the drive through Orlando and to Typhoon Lagoon! We arrived around lunchtime, played in the waterpark for the afternoon and got lunch at the park. Once we finally got tired of waterslides and wave pools we made it over to the Polynesian for a smooth and quick check-in. After the drive and waterpark we got settled into our rooms pretty quick and called it an early night. For those that have been to Disney before know that it’s exhausting, so take the early nights when you can get them!