A Working Mom’s Guide to a One-and-Done Awesome Trip to Disney: My Non-Expert Disney World Orlando Tips

While the thoughts are fresh, here are my Disney thoughts. Three quick points before we dig in:

• I’m no Disney expert and don’t pretend to be. I’ve been only one time as an adult and didn’t get fully immersed in how it all works. I’m just sharing what worked well for us because I, candidly, dreaded the trip and we ended up having a wonderful time!
• There are likely a ton of typos (plus, I have no idea what’s going on with the bullet points in parts) in this article. Because this isn’t really my business lane, I’m trying to spend as little time on this while providing all the value I feel I have to give. To that end, I’m not polishing it up like I normally would!  
• HUGE thank you to the people who helped me. I didn’t come up with all of the ideas or information in this article alone. I friend of mine from college (we’ll call her “College Friend”) gave me incredible tips, and Anna Dearmon Kornick helped me out a ton on the packing list side of things.

Okay, here’s what I got – take it or leave it.

Some basic facts about what we did

• We went in late February. Weather was a mixed bag that worked out great: high-60/70 drizzle day one and the two days of sun and 75-80F degrees. I heard February and October are great times to go for weather and crowds, but who knows if that’s right. I picked a week where my 7yo didn’t have school on Thursday and Friday so that we could go on a random week but only miss three days of school.
• We stayed at the Polynesian in deluxe studio rooms – these have one regular queen, one Murphy bed queen, and then one twin (or smaller) Murphy bed. My husband and I slept on the regular bed, the almost-7yo on the Murphy queen, and the 3yo on the tiny bed. The room had little kitchenettes with dorm-style fridge/freezer, microwaves, toasters, and coffee makers. I found this YouTube tour of it helpful to understand the layout and what we had to work with in the kitchenette before we went.
  • Note: If I were doing it again, I’d consider club level. I have no idea how much more it is, so maybe I wouldn’t end up doing it. I booked our Disney hotel and then later went on a trip with college friends to New Orleans. We stayed at the Four Seasons (four to a room) at club level and… WOW. It cost about $100/person extra, but there was free (good) food, wine, coffee, etc. all the time. I imagine it’s similar at club level at Disney. It’d definitely look into it if I were re-booking again. Food is EXPENSIVE at Disney, so even if it’s $100+ a person more, you may end up breaking even and having a more relaxed experience by going for club.
• Basic schedule:
  • Monday: Flew in; dinner at Chef Mickey’s (character meal with Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto; buffet-style; I had low expectations re food and was pleasantly surprised – I was also starving, so take it or leave it)
• • Tuesday: Magic Kingdom
    • Highlights: Goofy Barnstormer (good entry level rollercoaster), Tiana’s Bayou (formerly, Splash Mountain), Space Mountain, (not for me, but for my almost-7yo:) Tron, It’s a Small World,
    Wednesday: Hollywood Studios
    • Highlights: Minnie & Mickey Runaway Train, Slinky rollercoaster (as a non roller coaster person, this one was great), Toy Story Mania
  • Thursday: Epcot
    • Highlights: Walking around – the place is pretty cool, Moana water experience (not a ride – great for kids, and adults liked it too), Guardians of the Galaxy (very cool; that said, after a brunch and a run through the heat for me to go back to the stroller to get my glasses (I was wearing sunglasses), it was a little too much on my stomach)
  • • Note: the Frozen ride kept breaking, but we did get to do it; the Ratatouille ride also kept breaking, and we didn’t get to do it (but that was okay) – just good to realize that Epcot has less rides, and they seem to break down a fair amount.
    • Doing it again, I might consider a hopper ticket to do Epcot in the morning and then Magic Kingdom later. Hard to know – the transfers between parks can be time consuming. I think the adults enjoyed Epcot more.
  • Friday: Flew home ~11am, which means we left the hotel around 8:15am. It was great – got us home around 2pm, which let us unpack, start on laundry, etc. and feel pretty settled in. Grateful for all of my calendared reminders like turning up the thermostat and ordering Instacart for our return – seee my full travel checklist here.
• Stroller rental from ScooterBug rental – City Mini Double: we traveled with our travel stroller but wanted a heftier stroller in the park. This was a really smart move – super glad we did it.
• I Instacarted food to the hotel (it arrived before us and just waited for us at the bellhop with our rented stroller – it was awesome. I did things like string cheese, apples, bananas, toast, jelly, nicer coffee, etc. I’d add bottled water next time for my kids – the tap water was doable for me, but we have some picky people in this house. I rarely buy plastic water bottles, but it would’ve helped here.

Okay, the tips…

Character Meals were a Great Way to Knock Out Characters

College Friend shared that they did a few character meals, and they’re a great way to knock out the characters your kids care about the most. This was great advice because you don’t see a ton of characters walking around the park (some in pavilions where you can line up for a long time to get photos/autographs, but that’s kind of it).

My kids are young and don’t watch a ton of movies (we do plenty of screentime – they’re just not interested in movies), so the draws were Minnie/Mickey and princesses.

So, at College Friend’s recommendation, we did:

• Chef Mickey’s for dinner at the Contemporary hotel (a great way to kick off the trip!), and
• Princess Brunch at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Epcot.

Both were great. Expensive, but helped our kids see the characters they cared about while the parents got to rest and eat.

Pool Pool Pool

College Friend also recommended planning on early-entry park time (~8/8:30am) (if you stay on site at a Disney hotel you get to enter the park 30 min early) to about 2pm – and then spending the afternoon at the hotel pools. We picked the Polynesian mainly for this reason (that said, the main kid play area was closed, but the plain-ol’-pool experience was awesome and less stressful for us parents, so it was fine!).

Every park day, we basically did park rides with some food as early as we could to 2pm, ate around 2pm, and then pooled from 3:30pm-ish until we forced the kids out of the pool around 5/5:30pm. Pool time was my 3yo’s favorite part of the time, so I’m so glad we planned on it.

Note: We did pack her floaties, which took up so much space. There were life jackets for kids at every pool, but I think she enjoyed having her own, which made our lives easier.

Security tips

You have to go through security getting on the monorail and going into parks. Some tips:

Things that trigger metal detector: Umbrellas & eye glasses cases

Tip: Keep them in the stroller. Remove all other bags from stroller & have people not staying with the stroller carry them through security. If the bags stay with the stroller, they all have the searched. And keeping the metal things with the stroller lets them be easily searched with stroller – and not slow down the bag people.

If you don’t want to learn Disney, hire a virtual guide

Going in, I pretty much knew we’re a one-and-done Disney family. If the kids beg for it in another 3-5 years, I might consider it, but candidly, I’m totally fine being done. The trip was super fun, but it’s so much money, and when I think about what else we could do with that money, well…

Given that:

• I wanted to soak it in and enjoy myself – I didn’t want to be stressed navigating everything, butcher it because I didn’t understand the complicated Disney ticketing system, or have whiny kids (and adults) frustrated by slow lines, etc.;
• I was okay pouring more money at solving this issue because it was a one-time thing.

College Friend had recently gotten back from doing Disney World and had worked with a virtual guide named Josef. She shared that they’d gone into the parks the afternoon they flew in without him and both adults almost cried because of how long the lines were and how lost they were at navigating it all. The next three days, they worked with Josef, and in her words, she said, “I’ll never do Disney without him. Someone has to be the Josef, and if you don’t want to be the Josef, you need the actual Josef.”

I’m so glad we worked with him. He told us where to be each morning. He directed us within the park to rides, helping us avoid all the very long lines that we saw (and walked by) at the park. He also got some inside scoop about Epcot’s Frozen ride being delayed during the early-entry hours, 20+ min before the app published that it was closed, moving us away from that ride and toward one that was working – helping us avoid a wait followed by disappointment. He matched our pace (with a recently-potty-trained 3yo needing the potty every few minutes, it seemed) and always made us feel relaxed and in charge.

He evenly gently pushed to have my almost-7yo go on a small rollercoaster (I thought there was no way she’d love it) – and she LOVED it. We now have a rollercoaster junkie on our hands (she even loved Tron!).

All in all, if we do Disney again (still unlikely but hey – never say never), Josef will be my first call.

Fireworks

If you stay somewhere where you can see the fireworks, they go off at 8pm for about 20 minutes. I ddin’t think we’d make it up to see them, but because we live in CT, we were still awake then (though the 3yo would pass out around then). My almost-7yo and I went each night, along with one of my parents the last two nights  – she loved them, and that was pretty special to me.

Magic bands, etc.

You can use Magic bands on your wrist to enter your room, rides, etc. That said, people mentioned they sometimes fall off, and I could see it. I got them for the kids, but they never used them (that was surprising – I thought they’d love them), so they stayed in my husband’s pocket the whole time and were just pulled out for rides. For the adults, we ended up just getting the cards (you can get them when you check in and use them the same way) – and lanyards. Maybe we’re old school, but it was nice and easy.

Play around with the app beforehand

The MyDisneyExperience app has SO much useful info. Get familiar with it beforehand – hotel reservations, park maps, etc.

A note on getting around between places & security

Getting around can take longer than you realize, so just factor that into your plans.

To get to Hollywood Studios, there is a bus, but it felt a little dicey in the morning if we wanted to get there on time given many others did too. We used Minnie Van for that morning, and then took the bus home when we were in less of a rush. Minnie Van is great because they have car seats, so we could have the 3yo in one. They are harder to get, so book it early (you can’t reserve it). And when I booked at 7:05am on the morning, it said it would come at 7:35am, which was a little later than we wanted to leave, so I hit book – and then it said to be ready in 9 min, which led to a bit of a dash. Our driver (who was wonderful and shared some much Disney knowledge with us) shared that the timing is a bit off and they’re only allowed to wait for 5 minutes, so just be aware of that.

Packing Tips

Random tips on things to bring (no link is an affiliate link or ad – just sharing in case helpful!):

• I ordered fun Disney shirts for the kids for each day off Amazon before we went to make things exciting but also keep things more affordable. For what it’s worth, I got this Minnie one, another Minnie one, and these Frozen two-packs for each kid. I also got this shirt for me and wore it all three days with yoga pants – it was not a fashion moment for me (not sure any day really is…).
• I also got these bubble wands for the girls – way cheaper than the ones in the park. Huge thank you to Anna for this one. They were a big hit!
• This freezer bag was the MVP in my book. Every day, I loaded it up with string cheese, Perfect bars, etc. (and had apples, bananas, other protein bars in the larger bag of food and water bottles. Not only did it help save money, the food/coffee lines are HUGE at Disney (Disney: if you’re reading this, add about 5x more food and coffee stands as the demand is definitely there). This allowed us to keep having fun and not stand in 30-60 min food lines.
  • Side note: You can order ahead on the mobile app. I didn’t realize that some order places have coffee – so, that’s an option you could try.
• Runner up for MVP: these HUGE stroller carabineers: I took four reusable grocery bags and divvied our stuff between them – and then hung them on the stroller using these. The under stroller area in a jogger is decent sized, but you have to go through security sometimes, collapse the stroller, etc., so it’s nice to keep things in bags. (I did see one person with a shoe organizer hanging from the stroller handle bar, which was brilliant, too.) My bags were:
  • “Serious” stuff – e.g., sunscreen (I instacarted that to hotel), meds for kids and adults (e.g., Tylenol, Motrin), motion sickness stuff, bandaids and Neosporin, Aquaphor, wetwipes, sweatshirts for girls (ours and sometimes theirs ended up in the stroller under area too sometimes)
• • “Fun” stuff – autograph books, bubble wands, etc., including “too much fun” stuff (i.e., extra clothes for the girls)
• • “Water” stuff – ponchos for rain and water rides, umbrella for our drizzling day, camping towel that quick dries that we never used but I was glad we had
• • “Food” bag – food, freezer bag of food, everyone’s water bottles
  • Those massive carabineers were awesome to attached all those bags to the stoller
• I got this fanny pack for me. I kept my phone, hand sanitizer, sunglasses, Kleenex, and chapstick in it throughout park days. Super handy.
• These antibacterial packs: Used them after every. Single. Ride. And bathroom experience. Etc.
• Ponchos: Great for Tiana’s Bayou (formerly, Splash Mountain) at Magic Kingdom. For better coverage, everyone should use an adult size – even a kid.
• Autograph books + markers
• Permanent marker: I’m paranoid, but I wrote my cell number on each girl’s arm in small text in case they got lost. Made me have a little more peace of mind. With four adults, it was never an issue, but you never know.
• Extra ziplock bags – I always find these useful on a trip (shoutout to my sister-in-law for this idea years ago)
• Non-Park things to bring:
  • Swimsuits, googles, and floaties if you want, pool shoes (flipflops, Natives)
  • Extra glasses to have just in case for those who wear them. With all of the switching between sunglasses, I almost lost mine at one point (left them in the stroller when it was collapsed) – and while that wasn’t fun, it was far less stressful knowing I had an extra pair in the hotel room (and an extra pair for my 3yo, who also wears glasses).
• Things we didn’t use but were glad I had: (to organize things, I use these reusable bags – smaller and bigger – great for home/toy use, too)
  • These kid ear plugs – my 7yo didn’t need them, but my 3yo hated the loud sounds – and these ear plugs. We tried. Next time, I’d maybe bring the big headphones? But not sure she’d like those anyway.
  • Motion sick bracelets for kids: didn’t need them, but was/am happy to have them.
  • Similarly, motion patches: didn’t use (though I should have after Guardians of the Galaxy right after brunch in high heat), but glad to have them
  • Reusable straws: Some people really don’t like Disney’s paper straws. It wasn’t an issue for us, and we never used these.

Unsurprisingly, the Calendar Came in Handy

In addition to the normal stuff to calendar, I also calendared a lot of evening and morning reminders to help me charge electronics (e.g., Magic bands for the kids), put the freezer bag in the freezer again to re-freeze, packup the stroller again, etc.

Hope that helps!

I, candidly, was dreading the trip, and we ended up having a wonderful time. Hope this helps you have a similar experience (but still go in with low expectations!). Have fun!