We recently got back from our first trip to Disney World and I can't even begin to express how much fun we had together.  This was also our first trip as a family.  We usually go with either my family or my husband's family, which is always fun, but there is just something special about spending time together, just the four of us.  Here are a few things I learned from this trip that others might find useful.

I would highly recommend using a Disney planner.  We used one of my sweet sorority sisters, Brooke Cartwright.  Her website is www.bookwithbrooke.com if you are interested in planning a trip.  Since we had never been before, she was able to make the whole process so easy.  We gave her a budget and she sent us resorts to choose from and scheduled everything for us.  We decided to do a dining plan (I will discuss more details later) so she scheduled all our sit down meals as well.  She had lots of good tips and just made the whole planning process relaxing.

Since we had never been before, we planned to stay a whole week.  That gave us 5 days at the parks so we were able to go to all of them and one park twice.  We chose to go to Magic Kingdom twice because we thought it had the most to offer.  Over the next few days I will share my thoughts on each park, what we loved, what we could have done without, and how we planned our days.  The next time we go I don't think we will need as much time at the parks because we learned what the kids enjoyed and what we wouldn't need to do again.  I wish we had taken a day in the middle to just relax around our resort and enjoy the pool area and other things it had to offer, and maybe slept in a little.  :)

For us, the dining plan was great.  We each got a sit down meal, a quick service meal and a snack each day. We took a few snacks with us to have for breakfast and a couple of days we used a few of our dining plan snacks to get quick breakfast items, like a muffin or cinnamon roll, from our resort.  I was surprised at how much you get with each meal, an entree, drink and dessert, which we often took back to the resort with us and had later.  The first couple of days we only used 3 of our quick service meals during lunch because we didn't think our kids would eat everything.  Each kids meal comes with an entree and two sides, we usually chose apple slices and a cookie or yogurt.  They were fine sharing the first meal but because we did so much walking they were hungry and ate more than I expected the next time.  Our kids are old enough to not have to take naps, they are 7 and 4, so we stayed at the parks all day and did a lot of walking.  At the end of the week we still had 6 meals left so we used them to get breakfast at our hotel, that we shared, and lunch before heading to the airport.  It took some planning but it was great to not worry about money.  We used all our meals and got a few snacks to have on the plane on the way home.  Be aware that tips are not included in your meals. We spent about an extra $100 on tips for the week.

I planned our Fast Passes a month before we left.  My planner, Brooke, sent me a list of the fast passes for each park with detailed info that showed the most popular ones, height restrictions, etc.  I printed maps from Disney to try to plan our day and get passes close to each other.  Since we went in December, the crowds were not as big so we would go to use our pass and there would only be a 10 min wait so we would switch for another ride.  I found this whole thing very stressful.  I am sure the passes are really useful during the busy months but I will definitely schedule things different next time.  The popular rides would get busier throughout the day but there would no longer be passes available so I feel like they were a big waste for us.  I will discuss the passes more as I talk about the parks and the experiences.

Another thing I would highly recommend is the Memory Maker or PhotoPass.  You can save a little if you do it before you arrive, $169 vs $199.  There are photographers all over the parks, ride and at every character meeting and most of them took from 6-12 pictures.  You also get the ride photos linked to your account.  We got some priceless photos from the rides.  At the end of our trip we had around 450 pictures from our 5 days.  It was so nice to not have to find someone to take our picture and hand them our phone.  VERY IMPORTANT: You have access to your photos for 30 days after you leave so make sure you download them when you get home so you don't lose them all.

Make sure you download the app, My Disney Experience.  All your photos will be linked to it as well as your Fast Passes, meals and park information.  You can look at wait times for the rides too.  It was great to have an interactive map.  It uses your GPS to show you where you are in the park so you can easily get where you are headed.  It was much nicer than carrying around a paper map, although both my kids had to have paper maps.  :)

We stayed at the Port Orleans - Riverside and it was beautiful.  A big perk of staying at a Disney Resort is that when you buy things at the park they can send them to your hotel so you don't have to keep up with them the rest of the day.  We did this with everything we bought, except the last day.  They hold it for you at the gift shop of your resort and you can pick it up the next day.  The kids weren't a huge fan of it because they wanted to play but we were so busy at the parks and were there pretty much from open to close so they didn't miss them once we left the stores.

Hopefully some of that was useful.  In my next few posts I will talk about each day and park in detail.