Preparing For Our Kissimmee, Florida Trip

This past spring, we received a letter in the mail from my husband's time share. We could get a week in Kissimmee, FL for an amazing price. That's all I needed to know! I was making plans in the blink of an eye! A friend of mine is a Disney Travel Planner so I went through her to get the tickets. I wish it would've been possible to have done the whole thing through her and stayed on Disney property. One day maybe.

The last time we were in Florida was in January of 2004. My youngest was only 9 months old. It had been my desire for years to take my boys back before they got "too old," but it just wasn't meant to be. It's been 13 1/2 yrs since we last visited Mickey Mouse. I was incredibly excited to go back. I began ordering books from the library so I could plan our days. Everyone seemed to have loved the time we had down there the last time. Figured I could duplicate it again. That was 3 families and this time it was just one. I'd also added visiting Universal Studios to the first couple days of our adventure.

Before we went anywhere, I knew there were two purchases I HAD to make! One was that we'd all have Magic Bands. The Disney Store online didn't have a super huge selection to pick from, BUT if you go to one of the main, big stores right when you get to one of the lands, they have all kinds to choose from. You can get basic ones that are just colored or you can check out a variety of Star Wars ones at Hollywood Studios.

It was so hard to decide what to get everyone. I got my hubby a Star Wars themed one, my daughter got an Olaf one, my oldest son got a Skywalker one, my youngest son got a Jack Skellington one, and mine was simply Magic Kingdom.

The other purchase I made was getting all of us personalized shirts to wear to Magic Kingdom. I started surfing Pinterest to come up with ideas. There were quite a few that really appealed to me. I had to decide between stitched or printed shirts. I know two people who could do both, but what I was looking for was out of their scope. I finally went to Etsy and found someone to make the exact shirts I wanted.

The t-shirts that "fit" each of my family members were: Fred got Han Solo so naturally I got Princess Leia, my oldest daughter had Olaf, my oldest son got Luke Skywalker, and my youngest got Jack Skellington. The designs were in the shape of a Mickey head and underneath it said Disney 2017. What was cool was, the day we were wearing them at Magic Kingdom, I actually had someone stop me to ask me where they could buy them.

Another thing I planned before we left was eating meals at a couple locations in Disney World. We'd had breakfast at The Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom all those years ago and it was "reasonable." My secret was, get the latest breakfast time possible so that it would cross over to the lunch hour so that maybe we could by pass too many meals at the parks. The last time to get a breakfast is 10:45am (as of our trip) and costs about $15-35/person. The Crystal Palace features characters from the classic Winnie-the-Pooh.

For Animal Kingdom I planned for us to eat at Tusker House. We hadn't eaten there before. The prices are basically the same as The Crystal Palace, but breakfast ends at 10:55am. This is a character experience as well with Donald Duck and friends. Again, these were the prices and times as of our travel. These aren't cheap meals so keep that in mind. It's a fun experience, but can end up being rather spendy.

We decided to drive to Florida since the Prius would get good gas mileage. We flew my girls in on different days because of their schedules. Our plan was to hit one area of Universal Studios Sunday, the next area on Monday, Hollywood Studios on Tuesday, Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, Animal Kingdom on Thursday, and Epcot on Friday with the option of park hopping. Also, basic parking is $20 and you can go from park to park on a single day and not have to pay more than once.

Finally we got to our time share, checked in, and then I had to go pick my oldest daughter up from the airport. Thankfully it wasn't to far away. It seems like nothing is too far away in Kissimmee, FL! One thing to keep in mind if you're driving is all of the tolls on the freeways! Sakes alive, keep your dollar bills and quarters handy! We got a good night's sleep and were ready to hit Universal Studios the next afternoon.