Planning for Disney: Finding a Place to Stay

  If planning for the trip is half, or more, of the fun as I shared in this post then Disney travel is where it's at! There are so many details that can be anticipated and placed on an itinerary. It's a travel planning junkie's dream trip. Well, it's my dream trip anyways, that's why we're taking it. When my travel days were clearly numbered, my husband had me put together a bucket list and at the top of it was taking my family to Disney World. I've wanted to do that ever since my kids were little, and I want to do it now while I can still enjoy it! 

 Starting off, I knew we wanted to travel in 2025, so I started looking at crowd calendars to determine the best week to go when there wouldn't be a ton of people there. Weather is also an issue for me so I didn't want to go in the hottest part of the year. The sweet spot seemed to be May, so I started looking at dates that included two weekends and the best week on the calendar. 

 When I returned from my first trip to Disney World that my husband and I took to celebrate our 25th anniversary, I wrote this post detailing how I would do things differently if I got to go back. Interestingly, the very next day after I wrote the post I found out I had the brain tumor that inspired this trip. As much as I would have liked to follow all of the recommendations I made back then, some of them are just not attainable. For example, I said I would like to stay for 14-16 days and do each park on two different days. That might work for myself and my Mom, who is retired, but the rest of our group have jobs, and they can't get away for that long. Some of them are even struggling to get the just over a week that I scheduled it for. I am planning to alternate park and rest days and we got six-day park tickets so the kids can go back on rest days and do some of the things I can't, like roller coasters. 

 When deciding whether to stay on or off property, the lessons we learned from our first trip came into play a lot. Because of my limited energy, I just can't waste any with getting to and from a park. I need to be close with as little commuting as possible. This helps both with my beginning and end of day as well as opening up the possibility of going back to take a nap in the afternoon. I'll be honest, it will be like pulling teeth to get me to do this on our trip because I have a terrible case of FOMO. I want to do all the things and see all the reactions and have all the fun. My body and brain just may not cooperate. So that's why we're staying on property. 

When choosing which of the 30 hotels, it came down to a combination of price and theme. We wanted to stay in a value resort because we'll be going with ten people and that adds up, but we really wanted to feel like we were in Disney. We previously stayed at the Pop Century and I had made a quick pit stop at the All-Star Music resort on a planning trip, and while they were really cute, they just didn't feel like you were surrounded with Disney. When we toured the Art of Animation resort while we were on our last trip though, it definitely had the Disney vibes! So that's where we're headed! I didn't take my previous advice about getting a room with a kitchen as, again, that's expensive. The price difference between the two rooms just for my husband and I was $3,700. You can eat a lot of hotel breakfasts for that! 

 Another bonus of the Art of Animation resort is it is on the Skyliner route. We very much enjoyed riding the Skyliner during our stay at Pop Century, just across the water. It was a fun, relaxing trip that was easy to do with the wheelchair and faster than the bus when heading to Epcot or Hollywood Studios. The Skyliner just bobs along its route giving you a fun view of the resort area. You do have to transfer at the Carribean resort, but it's pretty quick and easy.

Here's the Thing: Most people don't spend a lot of time at their resort so where they stay doesn't matter as much. We are planning on alternating busy and restful days, so it matters a little more. In addition, it's nice having multiple transportation options between the Skyliner and busses. No, it's not cheap staying on property, but in our case I think it's worth it!