Our Week in Florida

Every year we look forward to our family vacation. In my opinion family vacations should be mandatory. The memories that are made are remembered forever and it brings a family closer together. There has actually been research to prove that vacations are crucial for children and how they have a long lasting impact on their happiness. Traveling with children can be beneficial to their brain development, due to an enriched environment and new experiences. I couldn’t agree more with this, so, cue our vacation….

For the past two years we’ve gone to Treasure Island, Florida. It’s right near St. Pete Beach and Clearwater, just outside of Tampa. The area is perfect for families - the beaches are huge and never too crowded. This year we changed things up for the first part of the trip and took the kids to their first trip to Disney World. We stayed at Art of Animation and it was the cutest little resort with the cutest themes and pools. The kids were in heaven. It was definitely a lot of work for John and I but seeing the looks on their faces every time they saw a character made it worth it. We’re already considering our next trip back. I’ve added all of the photos that we took the entire week as well as some Disney pointers we thought of along the way. I’ve also linked (almost) everything we brought on the trip.

Pointers for visiting Disney World: We would space the days apart and do a park every other day. We first visited Magic Kingdom, and the second day we went to Hollywood Studios. When we got there we did a couple of our fast passes and then took some character photos. At that point the kids were ready to head back to the hotel and go swimming. It was hot and they were tired from the day before. For our next visit, we plan to space the days out and do a park, a day off and then our next park.

This visit we stayed at Art of Animation and it was great for the kids. They had Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Cars and Finding Nemo themes. The resort is large so in order to get from where we stayed in the Little Mermaid building we had to walk to the front, which took a good 15 minutes. Slight pain in the ass. If you stay on property I would try and request a room closer to the front where EVERYTHING is so you’re not constantly having to walk a mile to get anywhere.

Definitely rent a stroller if you have small ones.

We didn’t do a meal plan, and I think it worked out perfectly. We did one character dinner at Chef Mickey’s and it was adorable. The kids loved getting autographs from all of the characters. It’s pricey but definitely worth it. I highly recommend doing at least one character meal if you go.

We did however, invest in the Memory Maker and I’m so happy we did! All of the professional photos that we took at the parks and dinner were downloaded into the Disney app. They also have magic shots where they can add cool effects to the photos.

Next time we go we will definitely stay an extra day and space the parks out. All the kids wanted to do the second day was swim so we barely spent any time at the park.

Fast Passes are a necessity. Unless you want to waste your time waiting in line for an hour or two I’d say they’re mandatory.

Have you ever been to Disney, and what are some pointers that you would give regarding your stay? Let me know in the comments!