ashleypmo
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2007
- Messages
- 632
Hello fellow homeschooler!
First of all, a WDW homeschooling tip!
We will be going next year also, so for this year's social studies/geography/science curriculum we are studying Epcot with a great book written by a homeschooling mom. Go to vacationeducationbooks.com and check out the Epcot book. It has material for unit studies on every country in the world showcase and on each attraction/area in Futureworld. We are loving ours! Even if you already have this year's curriculum planned, I'd get it anyway, because it will really, exponentially increase your families enjoyement of the World Showcase, which is an amazing place. I've been to Epcot 3 times, and I can't believe how much I've missed.
Also, checkout allears.net too. she has photos of every single ride & attraction in WDW, plus tons of photos of each and every Disney resort. And if you explore the site under "dining" she has great tips for eating cheaply inside the parks (for example: any counter service restaurant that serves burgers will sell you an extra bun for less than a dollar. Order a double burger (a lot cheaper than ordering 2 burgers), with an extra bun, and put the extra meat patty on the extra bun. Most burger restaurants have toppings bars where you can add all your fixings to both burgers. There's lots of great tips!
We are also a family of 6, and will be taking my mom along with us, so 7 in all travelling. Airfare from DFW is going to eat our proverbial lunch, but will still be much less than the therapy required to recover from driving from Dallas to Orlando with The Enforcer, Soundtrack Boy, The Narrator, and The Grabber.
We are staying on-property, two rooms at the All Star Movies, which will run about $100 bucks each per night w/ AAA discount. The only way to get 6 people into a single Disney room is (A), lie (I don't recommend it
); or (B) if one of your party is a child under 3, you can stay in the Port Orleans Riverside, Alligator Bayou section, which has moderately priced rooms that sleep 5 +one under 3. The cabins at Ft. Wilderness Resort can sleep 6, but they are the same price as getting 2 value rooms, but without the benefit of 2 bathrooms.
Do you camp? Disney's campsites (both tent and RV) are among the best anywhere and are very reasonably priced, plus lots of recreation and Disney Vibe. I would love to do this, but couldn't do it to my dear Mom.
The timeshare thing sounds great, though. I like the idea that one poster suggested about switching to an on-site Disney resort for the last two nights. There is just something magical about staying on-property, even if it is just at a value. My kids loved the 4-story tall Perdy and Pongo that sat outside our building.
DEFINITELY buy the Unofficial Guide, as several have suggested. I have been to WDW 5 times, and had never read the UG before planning for this trip. I am a uber-planner when it comes to WDW, and never have I felt more prepared than this time around, using the Unofficial Guide and the allears.net site (and, of course, the DISboards!!!!)
I heartily recommend the first week of December. It's value season (which of course, only matters if you opt to stay on site), and the first week of December is just about the lowest attendance of the year, but you still get all the amazing Christmas decorations & entertainment. Again, allears has photos of every resort & every theme park at Christmas.
Otherwise, the Unofficial Guide gives you the rundown on how much each season costs, AND what kind of crowd levels to expect. As a bonus, if you buy the book, you have access to their website which will predict the crowd level (on a scale of 1-10) for every single day of the year! So you can look, for instance, and the week of May 3-10 and see what the crowd level will most likely be each day.
Souvenir strategies: we are giving each child Disney Dollars (which can be purchased from any Disney Store and are used w/in the parks like cash) for birthdays & holidays, and have suggested that family do the same. This will be each child's souvenir money, saved up in advance over the course of the year. Also, the Unoffical Guide gives the rundown on each and every souvenir shop in all the theme parks & resorts, as well as Downtown Disney, so I have gone through with the kids to select which stores they want to shop in. For instance, DS8 is into pirates and mythology, so he wants to shop in the Pirates of the Carribean store (naturally), and he wants a Troll statue from Norway in Epcot. If he has money left over, he may decide to buy a custom-made lightsaber at Downtown Disney. I know it sounds like it takes the spontaneity out of it, but spending hours in shop after shop while 4 kids decide what the absolute perfect souvenir is neither time- nor cost-effective, and somebody always finds something "more perfect" after they've already spent all their money. And this way, Mommy already knows where to find the darling little Chinese take-out purses and batik sarongs!
Oh, my, but I'm the queen of TMI! One final piece of advice: no matter where you stay or what kind of budgetary contortions you have to put your family through, as long as you go into it with a good attitude, you will have an amazing time! I've stayed off-property and on, and while I prefer on, our off-property trip was still a blast! I've always enforced a strict budget, and still had magic coming out our Mouse-ears. We've gone when it's hot, we've gone during spring break (tip: DON"T go during the month of April. period.) when lines are long and tempers short. In a single, 4-day trip, we endured a torrential downpour, 100+ temperatures with 99.99% humidity, one day where the high temperature never broke 45 degrees (I kid you not!)--and came home with more wonderful memories than you can imagine. That same trip had to be cut short, because one night I got the news that my father had unexpectedly passed away. We couldn't leave right away--it would have broken our 3-year old's heart. I spent the entire next day crying. Crying on the monorail. Crying in the Haunted Mansion. I had saved the Pirates for last, and couldn't even do it, because it was Dad's favorite ride. But as bittersweet as that trip turned out to be, some of my absolute favorite childhood memories with my Dad were from DisneyWorld, and that last day turned out to be a day of bittersweet tribute to those memories. It was still, all things considered, a fantastic trip.
So congrats, and happy planning!
First of all, a WDW homeschooling tip!
We will be going next year also, so for this year's social studies/geography/science curriculum we are studying Epcot with a great book written by a homeschooling mom. Go to vacationeducationbooks.com and check out the Epcot book. It has material for unit studies on every country in the world showcase and on each attraction/area in Futureworld. We are loving ours! Even if you already have this year's curriculum planned, I'd get it anyway, because it will really, exponentially increase your families enjoyement of the World Showcase, which is an amazing place. I've been to Epcot 3 times, and I can't believe how much I've missed.Also, checkout allears.net too. she has photos of every single ride & attraction in WDW, plus tons of photos of each and every Disney resort. And if you explore the site under "dining" she has great tips for eating cheaply inside the parks (for example: any counter service restaurant that serves burgers will sell you an extra bun for less than a dollar. Order a double burger (a lot cheaper than ordering 2 burgers), with an extra bun, and put the extra meat patty on the extra bun. Most burger restaurants have toppings bars where you can add all your fixings to both burgers. There's lots of great tips!
We are also a family of 6, and will be taking my mom along with us, so 7 in all travelling. Airfare from DFW is going to eat our proverbial lunch, but will still be much less than the therapy required to recover from driving from Dallas to Orlando with The Enforcer, Soundtrack Boy, The Narrator, and The Grabber.
We are staying on-property, two rooms at the All Star Movies, which will run about $100 bucks each per night w/ AAA discount. The only way to get 6 people into a single Disney room is (A), lie (I don't recommend it
); or (B) if one of your party is a child under 3, you can stay in the Port Orleans Riverside, Alligator Bayou section, which has moderately priced rooms that sleep 5 +one under 3. The cabins at Ft. Wilderness Resort can sleep 6, but they are the same price as getting 2 value rooms, but without the benefit of 2 bathrooms. Do you camp? Disney's campsites (both tent and RV) are among the best anywhere and are very reasonably priced, plus lots of recreation and Disney Vibe. I would love to do this, but couldn't do it to my dear Mom.
The timeshare thing sounds great, though. I like the idea that one poster suggested about switching to an on-site Disney resort for the last two nights. There is just something magical about staying on-property, even if it is just at a value. My kids loved the 4-story tall Perdy and Pongo that sat outside our building.
DEFINITELY buy the Unofficial Guide, as several have suggested. I have been to WDW 5 times, and had never read the UG before planning for this trip. I am a uber-planner when it comes to WDW, and never have I felt more prepared than this time around, using the Unofficial Guide and the allears.net site (and, of course, the DISboards!!!!)
I heartily recommend the first week of December. It's value season (which of course, only matters if you opt to stay on site), and the first week of December is just about the lowest attendance of the year, but you still get all the amazing Christmas decorations & entertainment. Again, allears has photos of every resort & every theme park at Christmas.
Otherwise, the Unofficial Guide gives you the rundown on how much each season costs, AND what kind of crowd levels to expect. As a bonus, if you buy the book, you have access to their website which will predict the crowd level (on a scale of 1-10) for every single day of the year! So you can look, for instance, and the week of May 3-10 and see what the crowd level will most likely be each day.
Souvenir strategies: we are giving each child Disney Dollars (which can be purchased from any Disney Store and are used w/in the parks like cash) for birthdays & holidays, and have suggested that family do the same. This will be each child's souvenir money, saved up in advance over the course of the year. Also, the Unoffical Guide gives the rundown on each and every souvenir shop in all the theme parks & resorts, as well as Downtown Disney, so I have gone through with the kids to select which stores they want to shop in. For instance, DS8 is into pirates and mythology, so he wants to shop in the Pirates of the Carribean store (naturally), and he wants a Troll statue from Norway in Epcot. If he has money left over, he may decide to buy a custom-made lightsaber at Downtown Disney. I know it sounds like it takes the spontaneity out of it, but spending hours in shop after shop while 4 kids decide what the absolute perfect souvenir is neither time- nor cost-effective, and somebody always finds something "more perfect" after they've already spent all their money. And this way, Mommy already knows where to find the darling little Chinese take-out purses and batik sarongs!
Oh, my, but I'm the queen of TMI! One final piece of advice: no matter where you stay or what kind of budgetary contortions you have to put your family through, as long as you go into it with a good attitude, you will have an amazing time! I've stayed off-property and on, and while I prefer on, our off-property trip was still a blast! I've always enforced a strict budget, and still had magic coming out our Mouse-ears. We've gone when it's hot, we've gone during spring break (tip: DON"T go during the month of April. period.) when lines are long and tempers short. In a single, 4-day trip, we endured a torrential downpour, 100+ temperatures with 99.99% humidity, one day where the high temperature never broke 45 degrees (I kid you not!)--and came home with more wonderful memories than you can imagine. That same trip had to be cut short, because one night I got the news that my father had unexpectedly passed away. We couldn't leave right away--it would have broken our 3-year old's heart. I spent the entire next day crying. Crying on the monorail. Crying in the Haunted Mansion. I had saved the Pirates for last, and couldn't even do it, because it was Dad's favorite ride. But as bittersweet as that trip turned out to be, some of my absolute favorite childhood memories with my Dad were from DisneyWorld, and that last day turned out to be a day of bittersweet tribute to those memories. It was still, all things considered, a fantastic trip.
So congrats, and happy planning!
For me, since it has been two years, I couldn't remember what the food cost was, this site is great. 
