10 Reasons Not to Bring Kids to Disney World (But I Will Next Time) - A Whirlwind January Solo Trip (Final Thoughts - 3/23)

[Ann-CA]

A quick Legoland Reflection





We just spent two days at Legoland celebrating my son’s 4th birthday. Won’t do a full report but thought I’d share a few thoughts before moving to finish up this WDW report.

We stayed at the Legoland Castle Hotel. We used points but this probably would’ve cost close to a moderate hotel at WDW ($300-$400). The rooms are pretty neat with bunk beds for the kids and lots of theming.

Here’s a quick Pros/Cons list compared to Disney. Note that we went midweek during off-season. Spring break starts next week.

Legoland Pros:

• No lines. First day, we walked onto nearly everything. Second day, we only waited for one ride.
• Lots of playgrounds for the little ones.
• Smaller footprint so easier to navigate (though Dinoland wasn’t open yet so we had to cut through Miniland to reach some lands.
• Activities for kids like Lego building and the hotels have programming all evening long!
• $89 for 2 day tickets (Black Friday Sale)

Legoland Cons

• Tickets start for ages 2+ vs 3 at Disney. My daughter just turned 2 2 months ago and there weren’t very many rides she could really go on but we still needed a ticket for her.
• There were a few good employees (Model Citizens) but many seemed very not happy to be there.
• It’s definitely a kids park. At Disney, both adults and kids can enjoy together. Here, you’re an adult helping your kids enjoy.
• Theming is loud and nowhere like Disney.
• Only opened 10-5. Super short hours.

In any case, our son had a good time! We have a day at DL and DCA in 10 days also so that’ll help me see what my kids prefer. My husband says he’s done for theme parks for 2 years (guess we’ll see if he’s down for WDW next year) after this trip.

 

[Ann-CA]

Day 3 - Resort Hopping to POFQ and POR

You last saw me hopping on a Lyft with my heavy souvenir bag in tow. I had decided to take a short ride over from DS to Port Orleans French Quarter! It was only $6 with tip. This ended up being a great move! I totally would’ve been okay walking to the boats if I didn’t have this bag, but it was really weighing me down, literally!

I decided seeing a few more hotels would be fun.




The pool was under construction on the POFQ side. They did say they had shuttles over to POR.



I can see why people like this resort due to its small footprint! With some of these sprawling resorts that I see later, having a nice quaint area is ideal.

Also, POFQ has this!



My husband and I love Freestyle machines! I fill my cup, and this drink is slightly better than the ones I had before. Not sure what’s up with WDW and their sodas. Maybe I just was off that week. Legoland had a 2 day refillable mug program in the parks. It’s nearly the same price as the 14 days for resort mugs, but it’s larger. But the sodas at Legoland were really much better than my experience at WDW and they use Freestyle everywhere. Always fizzy even with a lot of ice!

After seeing the sign for shuttles to POR at the pool, I decide to see if I can catch one. I ask the staff there at the front. They were super nice! Probably best CMs I encountered all week, mainly because I didn’t have a ton of personal encounters.

They mentioned there was a regular shuttle but one offered to drive me over in a golf cart rather than wait. Felt like a little pixie dust moment. Except he couldn’t find the keys… and by that point, the regular shuttle had arrived… which was also a golf cart!



It was the CM, me, and another gentleman. I don’t remember exactly where he was from but I think it was CT. The CM was local. We were chatting about the weather. It was so nice these three days and on this day, I think we were in the upper 70s, lower 80s.

The man from CT had been staying there since last week. Over the weekend he said it dropped down to 30s and it felt even colder with the wind chill. He said it was miserable even for them from CT who was used to that type of weather! I had seen that weather and was prepping for it, but I’m super glad that isn’t what I experienced! Remember, I didn’t even need a jacket the evening before since it was so warm during AH at HS.

It was a short little ride but super pleasant!






I loved the theming here! Lots of trees and being alongside the water is like the perfect combo. I could tell thought that this resort was huge. I’m not sure if they have an internal bus as some of those buildings look super far from the front. But then again, while I walked a lot in parks, I never walked much at the resorts so maybe it’s as big as AS Sports was.



It’s 2:40 at this point so I’ve only spent about 40 minutes at these two resorts… but my bus pickup is at 4:35 and they ask us to get there 15 minutes early. I read somebody’s report that their bus came early so I wanted to be sure to be back at AS Sports by 4 at the very very latest. Ideally, I’d get there even earlier. I still had one more thing to buy and I wasn’t sure how long the luggage would take to get. I had plenty of time for my flight but didn’t want to end up needing to spend extra money on a Lyft if I missed my bus.

I need to get back to DS, and then take a bus back to my hotel. I’m realizing I’m cutting the time pretty close. So I head to the boats to take a ferry back to Disney Springs.



Do I make it? Stay tuned to find out what’s next…

 

[Ann-CA]

Day 3: Back to AS Sports

I hopped on the Sassagoula River Cruise (just found that name out online) that takes people from their resorts to DS.



This ride ends up being both simultaneously relaxing and stressful.

It’s super relaxing in that the views of the resorts along the river are beautiful. It really highlighted the beauty of POR, and I was intrigued by the others like SS or OKR. You can see the treehouses which also look fun to stay at. While I had done all my theme park hopes satisfactorily over the two previous days, I did wish I had more chances to explore resorts.

I was also stressed because I realized I was cutting it close on time, especially not knowing how long a bus would take at DS. As we were on a boat, there was a moment when the skipper asked if anybody needed to stop at POFQ. A little kid said “me!” which clearly wasn’t true since his parents didn’t say to stop. I wasn’t sure if the skipper had seen it was a kid and it was a joke as we started to approach POFQ and slow down. The loadings aren’t speedy so I was getting anxious. Fortunately, he only slowed to let another boat through and continued on his merry way.




We finally approach Disney Springs!



At this point, I need to make my way to the bus stop, which is still pretty far.

As I walk towards DS, I’m surprised by another security stop, since I didn’t have one in the morning. Ugh! Setback! And if you recall, beyond day 1, I’ve been triggering additional screening every single time. This time, I try the hack of pulling out what I thought was the culprit, my glasses case, and putting it in front of me.

I still set off the alarm and get pulled for additional screening (I think it was my battery pack also).

Ok, I’ll be honest here, I was pretty annoyed and impatient at this point. I know it wasn’t the security guard’s fault for doing his job. I let the guard know I was running late for my bus. He goes through my backpack.

I’m thinking he’s going to need to then go through my huge Gideon’s bag also, which would take a while. Instead, it gets knocked over. I’m not sure by him or by me (I think it was him) but it ends up on the floor. I’m sure he saw my mortified (and still annoyed) face, and asks if there’s anything fragile… I tell him it doesn’t matter, I have a bus to catch and he lets me go.

I did end up checking the bag and the Summer House cookies did end up breaking, but everything else wasn’t that fragile. Here’s the bag - rips not caused by the fall, but it’s falling apart!



I walk up towards the bus stop, passing by Uniqlo and realizing I had wanted to stop there to look at their shirts. At this point, I’d given enough room so the requisite 20 minutes for a bus to arrive so I could get back the the resort by 4. If I stopped now, I’d miss the window and that felt unwise after all my rushing.

So I went out to my stop, and waited, and waited, and waited. I watched as every single other resort seemed to show up. I watched a few buses arrive and then load passengers and sit for 10 minutes. This was all making me nervous!

Finally, our bus arrived, after 17 minutes of waiting which felt like a lifetime. I wish the DS buses had time indicators, even if they weren’t totally accurate. I would’ve been able to quickly stop at Uniqlo.




One interesting thing about this ride is they loaded a stroller like a wheelchair. It was a stroller tagged with the wheelchair tag. But they strapped it in. I know disabilities are hard to tell and you can’t tell a disability by the cover, but I was curious what accommodations the baby and toddler needed to warrant it since I had read on the board it’s sometimes quite hard to get these accommodations.

We end up back at AS Sports right around 4, which was my hoped time. So it worked out! I first went and purchased the Pixar soccer ball. I really liked these balls and they were as far as I can tell, only sold here due to sports theme. I would’ve gotten the Mickey ball but it was too big. I did find out they offer to deflate the balls for travel, so maybe I should’ve gotten that one instead, since my kids have played with the ball not once.



I went to baggage services and I got my bag very very quickly. This was what I was nervous about - that perhaps it’d take a while to locate bags, but that was not an issue at all.

I actually had some spare time now, so I went back into the lobby and rearranged my bag. I got rid of the Gideon’s bag and switched things around and put the heavy cookies into my rolling case and put lighter stuff into the shopping bags.

I also saw the kiosk that allowed you to take pics with characters! Do this as the downloads are free! I didn’t know until later (on Mammoth Club video about this resort) that you could choose multiple characters. I wish I had done that!



I head to the cafeteria to see what’s available and whether I wanted to grab a cupcake home for my kids but decide against it.

I head outside at 4:20 to wait for the Mears bus. They send a tracker via message and it showed the bus really far away. I don’t think it was super accurate as the bus came at 4:30 (indeed early for our 4:35 pickup). There were two other parties. The driver asked us which airlines and terminals and loaded up our bags accordingly.



And I say goodbye to my home of the past two nights and to WDW.

 

[Ann-CA]

Day 3: MCO and Flying Home

Last post of this trip report (I do plan to write some post-trip reflections), but I’m dragging my feet. Partially, it’s been really busy, partially, writing about the airport isn’t that exciting. But I’m taking the kids to DL and DCA tomorrow so I should finish this last report post!

Last post, I was on Mears Connect bus to MCO. They gave me a pick up time of 4:35 for a 7:55 flight. So a little under 3.5 hours. I had originally considered doing a rideshare on this end since I had no bags to check and didn’t think I needed that much extra time, but since I ended up with a rideshare on my front end, I decided to save the money and book this for my return. I had read horror stories about security, so decided to play it safe.

It took us 50 minutes from AS Sports to Terminal B. We didn’t have any additional WDW stops, but we did stop at Terminal C. (I’m guessing there were a few international departures on our bus).

That meant we arrived about 2.5 hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I had consolidated everything into my carry on bag, one backpack, and a Disney shopping bag. Sometimes airlines are tricky about the extra personal item so I tried to make sure my backpack could fit into the Disney bag if necessary.




The airport wasn’t too busy. I didn’t notice it until now, but they have a wait time indicator for security. It shows 15-19 minutes. I had TSA pre-check so I think I was through in less than 5.



Only reason I didn’t mind going early was that I had lounge access. My husband and I have had travel credit cards for some time now… we used to have the chase sapphire reserve but their annual fees kept going up and we were traveling less with kids. We switched over recently to the VentureX. Better overall value but their travel partners aren’t quite as good as Chase, which I learned planning this trip.

In any case, we still had Priority Pass. I’ve found US lounges to be practically non-existent though there are still some good international lounges. So it was nice to see that MCO had an accessible lounge!



Nothing spectacular. They had free food and free drinks. For food, they had a small self-serve bar with soup and salad and then you order other food using a QR code.




I got my one and only alcoholic drink on this trip - a rose. Mommy’s gotta treat herself at some point. I didn’t finish. But I did get myself a Diet Coke from their machines, and indeed, it was so much better than the ones from WDW.



Everything was very mediocre, but hey, it was free and it helped kill time. If you have Priority Pass and time to kill, I think it’s worth stopping by, but nothing to go out of your way for.

I headed out maybe fifteen minutes before boarding into a crowded terminal.



I settled into my window seat. One observation having flown out on United and back on Delta was that the Delta entertainment system was hands down far better than United.



I watched a few movies heading home, including the movie “Something Borrowed.” I enjoyed it enough to borrow the sequel book from the library!

We landed on time at LAX at 10:45. I’m unclear about what happened time-wise beyond this point, but it shows I end up on the shuttle to Economy Lot at 11:45 and I think I was in bed at 12:45am!

While this was a more low-key day, I still ended up with 14,877 steps for a total of 6.5 miles! I visited Disney Springs and had a chance to visit 3 additional resorts! A great last day and overall, amazing trip!

I’ll share more thoughts and overall stats in a final wrap-up post (that may or may not come with a DLR day trip report thrown in there).

If you’ve followed along until now, thanks for coming with me on this recap journey!

 

[Ann-CA]

Final Summary and Thoughts

I really had a fantastic trip. Despite only being in the parks for 2 days, I really feel like I got a full experience of the parks!

Upon return, I was reflecting that this trip wasn’t necessarily about time away from my kids, but rather being able to fully enjoy a hobby of mine to the fullest! If my kids could keep up, I would’ve happily brought them along. The biggest gift actually was not thinking about work for 3 full days! Because of the nature of my work as a pastor, I probably hadn’t done that for years.

I loved experiencing all the experiences in WDW that aren’t here in DLR. And I did all of them with a combo of Genie+, ILL, and hopping in lines right at closing.

I didn’t quite get to 10 reasons not to bring kids, but having gone to DL last weekend, I can think of a few more having brought both my kids for a day.

9) You don’t have to navigate rider switching and/or oscillating emotions about rides.


I finally got to take my son on Radiator Springs Racers. He also went on Soarin’ but with my friend. While he seemed to enjoy them to a certain extent, he also said they were “scary” and despite trying to rider switch, he ended up changing his mind at the last minute and didn’t ride a second time. Didn’t have to deal with this with just me.

10) Walking with kiddos through the park is SOOO much more difficult.

The kids kept changing their mind about wanting to stay in the stroller. We often had to carry them to keep them moving! At one point, my son insisted on getting into IaSW line at 30 min, which I thought was really long. I asked him if he wanted to wait a little later, and he said no! Guess what happened, I had to carry him the whole line and he fell asleep! So I had a 35 lb weight to carry through the 30 min line. Fortunately he woke up by the time we got to the boat. I still walked 25K that day and think I was carrying a kid for 5K of those.




But honestly, it’s still magical with the kids. And while I’m glad I did WDW without them, I do hope to bring them to enjoy next time. Because you can’t get moments like this without them:





She was so excited to see Daisy, we went in line twice!


We got to wear our matching sweaters!

I mentioned we might do a trip next year with my Disney employee friend. But that’s still up in the air. CM discounts for rooms aren’t up yet, and I still need to consider budget. I was able to do my personal trip I think for somewhere between $1000-$1200 all-in. But even with no need for park tickets and discounted hotel, I think it’ll cost a few thousand for a slightly longer stay and I’m not sure we can swing that right now.

But I’m sure our next trip, my kiddos will go. The best part is that I’ve done everything this round (minus FEA) and won’t have any FOMO and can just help them enjoy! My next trip, I do hope to have more time to explore more resorts.

Total stats:
2 days in parks
4 parks total
5 resorts visited (AS Sports, AoA, WL, POFQ, POR)
1 visit to Disney Springs
39 rides ridden
5 attractions/shows
1 restaurant
1 lounge
2 Boat rides
1 skyliner ride
1 golf cart ride
countless buses
78047 total steps
33.37 miles walked

Favorite Park: Animal Kingdom
Favorite Food: Short Rib at Festival of the Arts
Favorite Ride: Flight of Passage
Favorite Coaster: Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (edges out Expedition Everest due to soundtrack)
Favorite resort visited: Wilderness Lodge followed closely by Port Orleans, Riverside
Favorite special item: After Hours! I would’ve been fine skipping HS, but the experience of AH was amazing! Highly recommend for short trips in lieu of a park day.
Best souvenir for my kids: Candyland and the videos I took of FotLK!

Thanks for following along if you’ve made it thus far! Thus concludes this TR!

 

[jrmint427]

But honestly, it’s still magical with the kids. And while I’m glad I did WDW without them, I do hope to bring them to enjoy next time. Because you can’t get moments like this without them:

I enjoyed your trip report, thank you for sharing! I agree, it sounds like a really nice trip to yourself but it’s also super magical to take the kids and see them explore the parks. It’s nice to have a balance of both!

 

[awrites]

A very belated hello!

I had a trip with my husband and kid shortly after your time there, and oof, yes, the hopping in/out of the stroller was terrible! (She actually once undid the buckle and hopped out while the stroller was in motion because she thought I was getting a bit too far ahead of her and DH. Slightly skinned knees but okay aside from that. But still!)

I’m glad you had a chance to put work behind you for a few days and have some fun! Seems like an awesome trip.

 

[xrosario]

I was very curious about January weather since I'm going next month and it does seem like it is so hard to pack for (even to leave for the parks in the morning!). My trip will be the reverse--doing Disney with a kid (I've only ever been with adults) and I know I'll have to be a lot more patient. Thanks for sharing your trip!

 

[erinch]

This just popped up and binge read it! Lots of fun!
I grew up in Redlands, and DL was a once a year day on your bday.
We are now WDW regulars, and my kids are 37 and 29.
We love to go with my 29 year old daughter and her hubby.
I also am a minister—Presbyterian—now serving as a presbytery executive.
We had our General Assembly last June in Salt Lake City, and my hubby, who grew up in Glendora said why don’t you go to DLR and get it out of your system?
So I had my first solo park experience at DLR. I loved the freedom.
It was also so disorienting, because I had not been to DL since California Adventure was built, and everything in Disneyland seemed slightly off-kilter. But it was still great to have only me to take care of!