Magical Disney

I have just returned from an amazing 2 weeks in Disneyland Florida. I now feel exhausted and in need of another holiday !!

I stayed at Disney’s Pop Century hotel with my husband and 2 children who were the perfect age for Disney at 10 & 7. The hotel is in the value range which meant the rooms were basic but adequate considering we were very rarely there. Included in my package was 1 free breakfast per person for each day of our holiday but although it was for breakfast it could be used for any meal from any quick service restaurant in the theme parks or any Disney hotel.

The first few days we had breakfast which was not good !! The restaurant in our hotel reminded me of a school canteen so after a few days we just bought toast and bagels then used our meal for lunch in the theme parks which saved us a fortune as this would have cost us much more than breakfast in the hotel.

Included in our package were 3 free fast passes every day. We should have pre booked these and even though a colleague had warned me about this we didn’t. I couldn’t get my head around planning every single day and booking rides that I knew nothing about. We were able to book our passes when we were there but the most popular rides and attractions were already booked.

We did get lucky though and another guest in our hotel gave us some passes for Magic Kingdom which enabled us to skip some very lengthy queues there.

We visited all of the Disney Park’s apart from Blizzard Beach which was closed.

My favourite was definitely Magic Kingdom. This is everything you imagine Disney to be.

Both of my daughters were speechless when they saw Cinderella’s castle lit up in the evening for the most amazing illuminations and firework display I have ever seen. Tinkerbell even zip wired down from the castle at the end. It was a truly magical day and we actually went back 2 more times.

The second time we already had a reservation for the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. This is where they get to be transformed into their favourite princess for the day.

A fairy godmother takes them to their dressing room where their princess dress, tiara and wand are waiting for them. Once they are dressed they have their hair, nails and make-up applied with some magic dust for luck. They are then taken for a photo session and we got to choose 1 x large and 2 x small photo’s each and the rest were scanned onto our magic bands for us to download when we got home. They absolutely loved this and said it was their favourite day of the holiday. It is very expensive but was worth every penny. There are 2 venues to book either in Magic Kingdom or Downtown Disney. I would definitely book in Magic Kingdom because they got to stay as a princess all day and the staff all curtsy and bow to them all day. Even the characters in the parade picked them out and waved and blew kissed to them. They felt really special and will remember it forever.

We also purchased tickets for Universal and had a few days at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. This was my husband’s favourite as the rides are bigger . They also have lots of smaller rides and lots of 3D/4D shows which were fantastic. There are a lot of simulator rides suitable for most age groups. The Harry Potter world is amazing and the effects and attention to deal are out of this world. I am not a big Harry Potter fan but you don’t need to be to enjoy this. One thing I did find good at Universal was they had a child swap on most rides which was useful to us a few times because my youngest daughter is scared of the rides. It meant she could queue with us and when we got to the front could decide whether to go or not. If she didn’t want to one of us waited with her and then swapped over when it finished so we didn’t have to queue twice. Emily liked this because she sometimes got to go straight back on again.

The only negative I would say about Disney was that I found the dining situation in Downtown Disney to be very frustrating. There are some places that didn’t require reservations (not many ) but even the places we had reserved meant long queues on arrival. You had to wait in a huge queue to check-in then they gave you a ticket and sent you to join another long queue.

Having said that the restaurants were very good and a lot of them were themed so it was great for the kids.

I am now planning my next holiday which will be a lot more relaxing than this.