Our first full trip to the Disney World parks and were doing it with an Infant

[Teknik_DC2]

Hello everyone. Now that this trip is no longer a dream and is quickly becoming a reality I thought I would start this pre trip report to share with you the excitement for our upcoming Disney World/Universal Orlando vacation.

First I thought I would introduce ourselves:

My name is Jeff and i'm 28 years old. My wife is Kiera and she is 24 years old. We have been married now for just over 4 years and have loved every minute of it. Ever since we first got married we have loved taking vacations. Although cruises are our vacation preference we have always tired to make the most of our trips by adding days to our cruises by visiting ether Disney or Universal parks prior to them. Being from Utah we have also made a trip to Disneyland and the other Southern California parks during our marriage.

In September 2011 we added a new addition to our family when Daniel was born. Yes Kiera was pregnant with him when we went to Epcot earlier that year. Daniel right now is 5 months old but will turn 7 months on the vacation. He loves his Duffy bear that we got him at Epcot. This will be a trip of firsts for him but we are excited to take him on our first Disney trip.

We will be in Orlando from April 19th-28th and we will be spending 5 days at the Disney Parks and 3 days at the Universal Parks.

I plan to share with you the details of our upcoming vacations over the coming weeks. Doing this trip with an Infant will be a whole new experiance for us so I'm sure I will be asking many questions regarding tackling the parks with an infant without any help (although my parents that live in Charleston S.C. may join us for the Universal portion of the trip).

Thanks everyone I look forward to sharing our adventures with you.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

As I said above since my Wife and I first married we have since loved traveling on Cruises and visiting Theme Parks. We've wanted to do a full Disney World vacation for a while and are happy that we are finally doing so. In addition to vacationing though I also love writting in depth trip reports to keep a record of the fun and adventures we have had in our travels. To give you all an idea of what to expect when I write the report for this coming trip I figured I would share my past vacations with you as well (or you can click the links in my signature).

Our first vacation together was of course our Honeymoon which took place in February 2008 and took place aboard the Carnival Pide where we sailed the Mexican Riveara.

On the trip we visited the ports of Puerta Vallerta

Mazatlane

And Cabo San Lucas

We also spent a day in Hollywood

Click Here to Read Trip Report

Our next vacation was 9 months later when we ventured to Southern California to the Theme Parks there. I had never been to Disney's California Adventure and with the parks makeover quickly coming I wanted to see the park in as much of its original condition as I could. And with money from the Economy Stimulus we made this trip a reality in December 2008.

We visted on this trip Disneyland

Disney's California Adventure

Universal Studios Hollywood

And Knott's Berry Farm

Click Here to Read Trip Report

Having bought a house and recieveing the First time Home buyers Tax Credit we had the urge to cruise again. This time The Eastern Caribbean aboard the Carnival Glory in October 2009. Since we would be flying in to Orlando we figured we might as well add a few extra days to the trip and visit some parks as well.

So we went to Universal Studios Florida

And Islands of Adventure

Before boarding the Carnival Glory

And visited the ports of Nassau

St Thomas

And St. Maarten

Click Here to Read Trip Report

Our next trip was just a quick trip to Las Vegas for a few days over the Memorial Day weekend in May 2010.

Click Here to Read Trip Report

In October 2010 we would once again find ourselves Cruising out of Florida. This time out of Tampa aboard the Carnival Legend to the Western Caribbean. We would be doing this vacation to celebrate our friends 5th wedding Anniversary and once again we added a few days to go to the Univesal Orlando resort.

Our Primary reasoning was the newly opened Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Plus the rest of Islands of Adventure

And Universal Studios Florida too

Then boarded the Carnival Legend

And visted the ports of the Grand Cayman

And Ocho Rios Jamaica

Click Here to Read Trip Report


Our most recent trip in April 2011 took us back the orlando to start our biggest vacation yet with another Western Caribbean Cruise aboard the Carnival Dream and our final one with just my wife and I as we found out 3 months prior to this vacation that my wife Kiera was pregnant with our first child.

This trip started with a day at Epcot

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Then sailed on the Carnival Dream

To Cozumel

Belize

Isle Roatan

and Costa Maya

Then to my parents house in Charleston S.C.

Click Here to Read Trip Report

And that brings us up to speed for this upcoming trip. Next time I post it will be the story of how this trip came to be.

 

[Imagineer5]

I'm in!! We will be bringing our then-8-month old in October! Can't wait to hear how your planning goes and also how he likes Universal as we are toying with doing a day there since I just love wwohp.

Any plans to take Daniel on a cruise? I'd love to take a cruise but am trying to decide when a good age would be when we and she can actually enjoy it. I'm thinking around age 3 on a Disney cruise...

Cute little one btw!

 

[Teknik_DC2]

I'm in!! We will be bringing our then-8-month old in October! Can't wait to hear how your planning goes and also how he likes Universal as we are toying with doing a day there since I just love wwohp.

Any plans to take Daniel on a cruise? I'd love to take a cruise but am trying to decide when a good age would be when we and she can actually enjoy it. I'm thinking around age 3 on a Disney cruise...

Cute little one btw!

Thank you. If all goes to plan we should have my parents from South Carolina at the Universal parks with us. If not the Wizarding World is just too amazing to pass up (especially Butterbeer) so we will just baby swap on pretty much ever ride lol.

As for cruising with Danny its something that we do plan to do eventually but right now I just can't justify the cost. Although he's only 5 months old if we were to go on a cruise we would still have to pay the full cost as if he was an adult. Something that we can't justify doing lol. We have discussed going on a cruise again in 2013 for our 5th anniversary but we will just have to wait and see if we take him or not. Believe me we are dying to go on another cruise. I just can't get myself to pay full fare for somebody that won't have a clue of whats going on and wouldn't be able to do anything.

If you can't tell i'm super budget minded when it comes to vacations. We don't slack on quality (made that mistake on our first trip to Orlando) but we look for discounts whenever possible. I'm hoping to do this upcoming trip for under $2,500 when its all said and done.

Thanks for following though. I will be following your PTR as well.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

So how did this trip come about?

Well it goes back to our previous vacation after we arrived at my parents house in Charleston. We got to talking about the drive from Port Canaveral and figured they would only be around a 5 hour drive from Orlando. We talked about how great it would potentially be to do a big family vacation that next spring where we could all meet up and go to the Orlando Theme Parks.

The Original plan was to go a year from then. The last week of April or the first week of May. A plan that would change many times.

That summer we found out that my sister was pregnant with a due date of May 4th. That ruled out April and May as we really wanted her and her young kids to come. So the date was changed to the first week of February.

That date then got changed when Kiera wouldn't be able to get off work that soon after returning from maternity leave. So the date was pushed back again until the last week of February after Presidents day.

Turned out one of my little brothers had a hockey tournament that weekend so once again the date was pushed back to the first week of March.

This date was set for the majority of the past year. However it too would eventually be cancelled as once again another Hockey tournament came up for my brothers. Knowing that any date later then that would likely not include my sister and her family going we figured we might as well just cancel the trip all together and try again later in the year.

To replace the trip we decided we would instead try to go to Disneyland in California with some of Kieras extended family. We planned on going again the last week of February. Then at the last minute Kieras aunt and uncle decided to cancel to go later in the fall instead.

So here we were. What should we do. Still go to Disneyland on our own or cancel that trip idea as well. As we talked it over we figured if we were gonna attempt Disney Parks on our own with an Infant then we would rather go to Florida. So there it was. We were once again back to planning a trip to Orlando.

The new date we considered was the 2nd to last week of April. That was changed to our current dates of April 19th-28th as looking over all the crowd calenders we found that the crowds would be much better if we delayed it a week. Once that was decided flights, hotel, and rental car were booked so theres no turning back now.

We are still hoping that my parents will be able to meet us for part of the trip. They obviously can't pull my brothers out of school for a whole week so they are instead hoping to come meet us over the first weekend we will be there and go to the 2 Universal Parks with us (where we would need the most help with the baby). Unfortunatly we are still playing the waiting game to see if they can come or not.

Its been an up and down roller coaster with these plans with date and even location changes. But i'm sure it will be worth it in the end. Now we play the waiting game.

Coming up next will be the trip details.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Here are our flight details for the coming vacation. We have always enjoyed flying Southwest. It made it our only choice as well as last year we got a Southwest Rapid Rewards credit card so my portion of the flight was free. Although the cost of Kieras ticket was the most we've paid since our vacation in 2009 it was at least a relief that we only had to pay for 1/2 the airfare.

We will be leaving Utah on April 19th at 2:20pm.

Our flight does stop in Denver, Colorado however we do not have to get off the plane. It will be a continuing flight on to Orlando.

Finally our flight will arrive in Orlando at 9:55pm.

I personally would have liked and earlier flight so that we would have more time in Orlando. However with an Infant and many early days ahead of us to get to the Parks we figured we would take our time and take a later flight. Plus it was cheaper.

Unfortunatly at some point our vacation has to end and we will have to go home. So when we fly home on April 28th we will be leaving Orlando at 2:15pm.

This time we do have a 2 hour layover in Chicago though.

From there we will continue on back to Utah and land at 8:25pm.

We are so excited for this vacation to get here. We are also really interested to see how Danny does on the flight. I guess it will be interesting to see how we do as well as we have never traveled with children on a long flight before.

Next up our Rental car details.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

We decided to book our Rental car thru Budget. After searching for weeks comparing different discount codes and also costco discounts (which we usually use) I eventually found the code for the best deal right here on the Disboards.

We decided on a Compact car as that would work best for our little family. The car would be a Ford Focus or a vehicle similar in size

With the discount we were able to get the car for only $240 for 10 days. I'd say that was a pretty good deal as everyone else I looked had the rental priced over $300 even with discounts.

Next up to share is where we will be staying.

 

[oboedm]

Signing on! Your family is super cute! I am from AZ... your wife's clothing style seems familiar and you are from Utah... does that mean you are you LDS? I am! If not, please don't be offended!

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Signing on! Your family is super cute! I am from AZ... your wife's clothing style seems familiar and you are from Utah... does that mean you are you LDS? I am! If not, please don't be offended!

Haha no need to worry. Yes we are LDS. Funny about what you say with the clothes and the "Mormon Look". On both our cruise on the Dream and when we went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter we had people stop and ask us if we were LDS because they could tell by how we were dressed. Its kinda funny that theres a look haha. Anyways thanks for joining my planning log and whats soon to come our actual vacation.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

How about our Hotel info today. We are going to be staying off site at the Baymont Inn and Suites in Celebration. We booked the hotel thru hotwire.com and got a killer deal of only $34 a night for the room. I've never had a problem booking thru Hotwire and have never been dissapointed in the hotel we got. Its now a rule when we go to florida to never book anything less then a Hotwire 3 star.

I also know we won't be dissapointed as we stayed in this hotel prior to our cruise last year. We loved its close proximity to the Disney Resort and also its free breakfast (although it wasn't the best) saves us an added cost on the trip. We also love that each room has a free fridge and microwave as well. We will be staying here all 10 days of the trip.

Photos I took last year:

And a couple more Generic photos:

Next up is our Ticket info and park intinarary.

 

[oboedm]

The hotel looks nice! We might be staying off site next year because it is so much cheaper than staying on site, but I want to make sure that we get a place that has good reviews. Glad you liked staying her last year.... Lookslike the rooms have a lot of storage as well, which is nice!

 

[francis6306]

Sounds like you will have a great time! We are planning a trip for June and our youngest will be a little over 13 months old.

That is CRAZY that you'd have to pay so much for your LO on a cruise! That just doesn't make any sense!!! Thank goodness Disney is smart and doesn't make you pay until they are 3! We'd like to go on a cruise, but it will have to wait if I have to pay for both of these kids!

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Tickets are all bought. We bought our Disney World tickets thru Undercovertourist as we found they had the best deals. We bought the regular 5 day Magic your way passes and will spend a full day in each park each day. We figured park hopping wasn't worth the cost in this instance as we don't plan to dine anywhere specific. The grand total came out to be $504.

As for our Universal Orlando passes we found the best deal at Costco. Here we picked up 3 day park to park passes for a grand total of $290.

And now one of things many people look forward to. Our Itinerary. Its still a work in progress so it likely will still be tweeked.

Day 1-(Thur April 19th) - Arrival and Travel Day.

Day 2-(Fri April 20th) - Islands of Adventure.

Day 3-(Sat April 21st) - Universal Studios Florida.

Day 4-(Sun April 22nd) - Both Universal Parks.

Day 5-(Mon April 23rd) - Epcot.

Day 6-(Tue April 24th) - Hollywood Studios OR Animal Kingdom.

Day 7-(Wed April 25th) - Magic Kingdom.

Day 8-(Thru April 26th) - Animal Kingdom OR Hollywood Studios.

Day 9-(Fri April 27th) - Undecided. Likely more Epcot.

Day 10-(Sat April 28th) - Departure/Travel Home.

As you can see the only real final decission to make is if on Tuesday and Thursday we will be in the Hollywood Studios or the Animal Kingdom.

Well thats that. Next up we will take a look at our savings as this is a budget trip.

 

[oboedm]

I love the plans! Not having ADRs is nice, because you can be flexible! =) Touring plans does not recommend AK on Tuesday or Thursday, but Tuesday seems to have the lower crowd levels and HS is a recommended park on Thursday. I would go AK on Tue and HS on Thurs.

 

[khertz]

Joining in from your post on the Theme Parks board! We took our DS when he had just made 1 years old, and had the best time with him. Hopefully you have as good of a time with your DS as we did, because it was a really magical trip! Seeing everything through your child's eyes is so different than doing it just the two of you. The characters will probably love him, and he should be young enough to not be too afraid of them, which makes for SUPER ADORABLE pictures!

And your DS is such a cutie! I look forward to the TR.

 

[Teknik_DC2]

Hi everybody. I don't know if anyone was following this Pre-Trip Report but I just wanted to share that I'm back from the trip now and have already started an in depth review of our trip. If you'd like to continue following me and our adventures tackling the Orlando parks with an Infant then follow the Link below. Thanks everyone.

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2918943

 

[Jfstorm]

Thank you. If all goes to plan we should have my parents from South Carolina at the Universal parks with us. If not the Wizarding World is just too amazing to pass up (especially Butterbeer) so we will just baby swap on pretty much ever ride lol.

As for cruising with Danny its something that we do plan to do eventually but right now I just can't justify the cost. Although he's only 5 months old if we were to go on a cruise we would still have to pay the full cost as if he was an adult. Something that we can't justify doing lol. We have discussed going on a cruise again in 2013 for our 5th anniversary but we will just have to wait and see if we take him or not. Believe me we are dying to go on another cruise. I just can't get myself to pay full fare for somebody that won't have a clue of whats going on and wouldn't be able to do anything.

If you can't tell i'm super budget minded when it comes to vacations. We don't slack on quality (made that mistake on our first trip to Orlando) but we look for discounts whenever possible. I'm hoping to do this upcoming trip for under $2,500 when its all said and done.



We are going for my son's first WDW trip (well, kinda, last year DW was Preggers!) this June and he will be almost 7 mo. so I'm so glad I found your report! Just had to jump in as I'm reading as I have become an avid cruiser as well the last few years and have been considering when to cruise with an infant/toddler as well. After talking with numerous people onboard the NCL Star while in Port @ Costa Maya (all from SC, my home state) I decided to check the line out. AAA doesnt partner with them so I wasnt aware of the line before. They DO NOT charge for under 3!!!!! I was impressed with what the cruisers said and what I've seen. Some reviews are not complementary; but thats the case for most lines.

well, back to your TR!