Orlando, Florida - Walt Disney World and Universal Studios | Advice + Tips

Orlando, Florida - Walt Disney World and Universal Studios

We finally did it! In May this year (2024) we went as a family of four from the UK to Orlando, Florida, for a 2 week holiday of a lifetime* to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios.

The very beginning of this trip goes back a LONG way but I want to share it ALL with you right from the ‘wish upon a star-t’ to the fireworks finish. However, you’re going to need to fasten your lap belts, keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle and settle in, because this is no short ride! I will put headings where I can in case you wish to skip to certain parts. But I’ll spare no detail as so many of you have asked me every question imagineered. (You are my people).

If you just want the highlights - do just that. Skip on over to my social media where you can see our whole trip in story video form on my Instagram highlights. But if you’re here for all the juicy details then let’s get going.

If you want to download my FMM ORLANDO PLANNER

for £5 to guide you through your own trip

then click HERE!

DECIDING TO GO

When I was a child my mum got a job as a travel agent. Despite us typically being a family that only ever went abroad by crossing the English channel on a ferry to stay in a tent somewhere in France, in 1990 the four of us got to go to the USA on a trip to Disney World thanks to my mum’s job. I was aged 7 and my brother was 5. I don’t remember a lot and my brother remembers nothing, but we knew we had all had a good time because when my mum was offered the chance to return two years later, she jumped at the chance and we were jet-setting once again. I do remember a lot about the second trip, aged 9, and I can vividly recall shopping on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom and the smell of the dining room where I met Cinderella. I remember the taste of the red liquorice we got in our Chef Mickey mugs after we met the main mouse and I remember it all being SO MAGICAL.

I loved it. The music, the sunshine, the water parks and rides and the feeling of joy that seemed to be everywhere. Everyone called me ‘honey’ and my brother ‘buddy’ and we knew it was very special that we had got to experience it as children. My mum shed happy tears the first time we ever walked into the Magic Kingdom because as a child growing up in the East End of London, she had never thought it possible. It wasn’t just any holiday.

Fast forward a decade to when my brother and I were 18 and 16, my parents said they would take us on one final big family holiday before we were out on our own! They let us choose the destination and we chose Florida, once again returning to Disney World, before setting off down the coast to the Florida Keys and then back up to Miami. It was a truly fantastic and memorable holiday for all four of us.

With such positive and memorable experiences taking place during the formative years of my life, I had always hoped that one day, I would take my own children to Walt Disney World in Florida so they too could experience the fun and magic that I had as a child. Plus I really wanted to see what was the same and what had changed for myself after 20 years. My husband however, had never been. He has no childhood memories of Mickey and Minnie, and no special connection to Florida. In fact he often travels to the USA for work and lived out there for a few years so it isn’t somewhere he would choose to visit. It took a bit of convincing to help him understand why I wanted to spend such a huge amount of money on a holiday to what he felt was effectively just some fancy theme parks.

And he’s right, because until you have been that’s all it seems like it is. LOADS of money on something JUST for kids. And it is LOADS of money! We knew we would have to save, so I had started squirrelling away Disney funds. When my beloved Nanny’s flat finally sold, some of the money was passed on to me so I told my husband that it would be our starting pot for Florida. But we knew it needed to be more and so we kept adding to it over a couple of years.

We also knew we wanted to time it right. My parents said my brother, at age 5, felt just a little too young to fully enjoy it when they first went and that the second trip with us, aged 7 and 9 had been easier and more fun for everyone. So that was my aim. To wait until the kids were around those ages to be able to cope with the hot days walking, the long flight and for them to remember it, should it be the ‘once in a lifetime’ type trip we intended. We also knew that when my children were in years 3 and 5 at school, there are no formal assessments and so if we were to take them out of school for a few days (which we’ve never done before) then it wouldn’t impact their education.

We also went to Disneyland Paris BEFORE attempting Florida, in October 2022 - I wrote about it HERE - to test the waters with the kids. Were they into the characters? Did they like Disney parks? Were they tall enough for the rides and would they enjoy them? We trialled it all in Paris first, for much cheaper, and I am really glad we did. It was the perfect introduction for us all and whetted our appetites for more. They LOVED the rides. They really enjoyed meeting Stitch. We all had fun. Project Florida was a go-go!

I had some money, my family’s buy in, what year to go and now all I needed to do was to start making a plan.

PLANNING

For some people, the thought of planning out a holiday like this is probably their worst nightmare. But don’t worry, there are brilliant agents out there that can help you do it ALL! I’ve listed and linked some in my FMM ORLANDO PLANNER. I expect you can be a lot more relaxed about it that I was. However for me, the planning is a big part of the joy and excitement building.

Let’s go back to Summer 2022. I started by speaking to my friend Myriam (@mothercould) who lives in Florida, reading a few blogs and watching Emma’s vlogs on You Tube (she’s also on Instagram @brummymummyof2). I was trying to figure out when would be a good time to go. In the end I settled on May for a few reasons:

The weather looked hot (30-35 degrees celsius) but not too boiling (35-40+) like over the summer holidays.
Easter was insanely expensive (£3K difference for the same holiday)
Myriam and her family could meet us if we went in May
It was between my kids’ birthdays
The predictor calendars said it wasn’t as busy in the parks as at other times of year
It was the garden and flower festival at Epcot
We had inset days around the May break and so the children would miss very minimal school at the end of a term.

May 2024 worked out perfectly. Florence would have just turned 8 and Ewan would be about to turn 10. I zoned in on two weeks - Saturday 18th May - Saturday 1st June. Dates sorted.

Next I started looking at accommodation and immediately became very overwhelmed. There are just SO MANY options. I took a step back and looked to see what people on social media that I already knew and trusted recommended - mainly Myriam and Emma. This is how I found Adam Hattan and his 2022-2024 guide book. Adam is a Disney pro. He’s worked there and goes several times a year. His book was exactly what I needed. It broke down the accommodation with tips and advice for each and meant I could figure it all out and narrow down what I needed and where I was most likely to find it.

I asked myself a few questions to get to our final choices:

What part of the accommodation is a priority for our family?
Where do we want to be - within the world of Walt Disney and/or Universal, somewhere in the middle of the two?
Villa or hotel?
Transport - car hire or not?
Budget?

My answers:

For us, it’s a priority to have bed each and some sort of space or door between the beds. My kids need their own space to sleep in, otherwise they fight and wake each other up. Plus my husband and I wanted a place we could relax in and feel separate from the kids just enough to decompress after full on days in each other’s company. You can easily book bedrooms anywhere that have two large queen size beds in them (plus you can have ones with a small bed that pulls down from the wall) but the thought of us all in one room for two weeks and the kids sharing a bed, or fighting over the wall bed, filled me with doom. PLUS, it was still coming out priced at around £9k for two weeks in these rooms. If I’m paying that much I want my children to have their own sodding bed each - not much to ask is it?! I know for some families they say the room is just somewhere to sleep so it doesn’t matter and I totally get that, you are exhausted most days. But still, I wanted it to be right for us.
I wanted the full on experience of the two biggest theme park resorts, plus I wanted the resort benefits. See next point.
Villa v hotel pros and cons:

Villa pros

You get a lot more space for your money
They often have their own private pool
You can do a food shop and save money on snacks and meals out
It’s quieter, you can decompress from the sensory overloads of the parks
It’s a good base to explore other parts of Florida

Hotel pros

Rooms can often be themed in a fun way
You get early theme park entry and some hotels do extra park hours
You get free transport around the resorts
You can head back into the parks later in the evening - you don’t need to do full days
The packages often come with park tickets included
Pool lifeguards
Fresh towels and housekeeping
Access to food courts / hotel restaurants

Villa cons

You need to hire a car and drive yourself around or get taxis
You need to pay for tickets and parking at theme parks
You don’t get early entry to theme parks
You need to be extra vigilant around your own pool
Any villa issues you’ll need to resolve / contact company directly

Hotel cons

The noise and general annoyance of other guests
No escape from the theme park bubble - sensory overload
More expensive

It just depends on what your priorities are and what suits your family best. I have stayed in a Disney hotel, a hotel located in Disney Springs but independently run, and villas. They have all been great depending on what we needed as a family at the time.

If you want to ask yourself these same questions see my ORLANDO PLANNER to help you figure out what is best for your family.

BOOKING THE HOTELS

My key search criteria was:

Hotels in the resorts (Walt Disney World and Universal)
Within budget (to see my budget download my ORLANDO PLANNER)
With a bed each for each kid (and not one of the wall flip down beds)

Walt Disney World has 4 theme parks and 2 water parks plus Disney Springs (shopping and eating district), and is set across 43 square miles. It is basically the same size as Manchester. Within Disney World there are 21 hotels and they come in three levels - deluxe, moderate and value - and each has multiple room types. It feels baffling!

I think I probably looked at nearly all of them on the Disney website! I searched everything including suites starting at about £29K (ouch) and if it was possible to get two adjoining budget rooms (not that I found). I checked out the cheapest options in the deluxe resorts and the most expensive suites in the value hotels and everything in between. If I found a room that looked like a potential option for us I typed the name of the resort, room type and ‘room tour’ into You Tube and immediately got a video which showed me exactly what I wanted to see. All the details and the pros and cons, so I could decide whether to short list the hotel and room or not. You can also easily search hotel tours to see the full resort.

You can also do something called renting DVC points. DVC is the Disney Vacation Club and members of this club can rent their points to you to use on certain accommodation. I didn’t look too much into this but I have a friend who is a regular visitor to WDW and rents them every time to keep costs down. You can find out more about this HERE.

Once I decided on the hotels and rooms I liked I set about looking online and calling travel agents to find the best deal. I wrote down every single offer to compare them all, as some deals included extra perks or tickets that others didn’t. To get a template for how I did this plus links to the agents and websites I used click HERE.

Here’s an example of what I wrote for the Disney website:

Art of Animation + tix + dining = £9325.60
Port Orleans Riverside + tix + dining = £7,195.60
Fort Wilderness + tix + dining = £8,685.60
Animal Kingdom villa + tix + dining = £13,515.60
Old Key West 2 bed villa + tix + dining = £13,865.60

To give you a ball park idea of what I was looking at!

DISNEY HOTEL

This was the one I spent the more time researching because I decided we would spend 10 days in WDW and 4 days in Universal Studios.

After all my searching I found the ideal rooms for us at a price within our budget. For Disney, it was a family suite in the Art of Animation resort. It was exactly what I wanted, a spacious room with three double beds, a little kitchen/lounge area, two bathrooms, located by the skyliner transport with 3 swimming pools. Perfect! See a room tour HERE and a hotel tour HERE. I chose to pay a little more to stay in the Nemo themed rooms as these are closest to the main pool, restaurant and skyliner. However I think if I were to go again I would maybe choose the Cars themed area as it really isn’t much further and we preferred the outdoor theming and how quiet it was in that part. The pool was lovely over there too - with it’s little cosy cone shaded areas. But I think there isn’t much in it so choose whatever your kids would prefer.

We were really pleased with our room. It was on the third floor, looking out across the lake with the skyliner flying peacefully past. The room felt spacious for all our stuff plus we had a master bedroom with an en-suite which meant me and my husband felt like we had our own space. The kids took over the ‘lounge’ and ‘dining’ areas with their stuff, plus they had another bathroom. Two bathrooms proved so helpful, especially when everyone is trying to shower after a trip to the pool. There were two TV’s so the kids could watch cartoons to chill out, while we watched adult TV (I mean like, the weather channel, not something dodgy you filthy lot!) in our room. There was a fridge, microwave, sink and a coffee machine so we could do cereal for the kids and hot drinks for us in the morning (I took my own Yorkshire tea bags with me of course!).

The kids’ beds were a fold out sofa and one that folded down as part of the dining table. Both of them were double sized, comfortable and they had space to stretch out or have a grown up in with them for comfort if needed. The rooms were quiet - we weren’t disturbed once. The ‘mousekeeping’ came daily and kept everything nice. When we tipped them a few days in they left a cute set up on the kids’ beds with their toys. I recommend tipping a few dollars every couple of days.

The rest of the hotel was great - brilliantly Disney themed all over. The Landscape of Flavours food court was a bit bonkers, it’s a canteen style where you go up to get what you want from different sections and then pay at the end. Food options were fast food (burgers, pizzas, fries), a couple of pasta and noodle options, and a few specials. Breakfast was standard fare with eggs, bacon, fruit and Mickey waffles etc. It was all perfectly fine for a holiday but obviously not the healthiest. I did try a salad and sandwich from the fridge section and both were good. You can find healthier options if you search them out but mostly we ate the pizza and constantly refilled our refillable resort mugs. There were activities for the kids in the day and evening, plus a little gift shop on site with loads of bits and bobs including stuff you might need like nappies or suncream. All in all it was fab, I would most certainly recommend it for any family with young children and we would happily return.

I booked this room through AttractionTickets.com in the end as I worked out they were the best deal. I got a package that included:

10 days in the Nemo family suite,
park tickets for 14 days,
memory maker (park photos),
$72 dollars a day dining credits ($720 total)
$250 Disney merchandise gift card

TOTAL: £7,158

(We booked flights and Universal separately.)

TOP TIP: if you also get a package with dining credits or gift card credits make sure you check your booking before you go and download any cards or note down the codes for them. I had an issue with our dining credits and had to call the company to get them sorted whilst we were in Florida which wasn’t ideal. The dining credits equated to about 3.5 days of food for us.

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS RESORT HOTEL

The hotel we chose for our 4 night stay at Universal Resort was Universal’s Endless Summer - Dockside. I followed the same process and spoke to travel agents who had stayed there and recommended it for kids. It was between this and Cabana Bay Beach Resort (both had family suites) and we chose this as it was slightly cheaper. It was a similar room set up to Art of Animation. It had a separate bedroom for us grown ups, however it only had one bathroom. It did have two proper beds for the kids though and a separate dining and kitchen area. We were happy with the room. However the only downside I would say for Dockside is that it was very noisy at night. We could hear other guests and I was woken up frequently. I’ve since seen reviews that say others have experienced similar. You can ask to move rooms to quieter areas as it is a very large hotel, but I think we would perhaps try Cabana Bay if we were to go again on that basis.

The pool area was great (fab cocktails in the bar!) and the food options at this hotel were much better than Art of Animation. There was a pasta bar and different specials each night. Plus a massive salad and fruit counter. There is also a Starbucks at the hotel reception. We all ate healthier here and preferred the options.

I booked this through attractionstickets.com as well. It was a package for the hotel stay plus park tickets for 3 days. It was £2043.

I managed to get both hotels plus park tickets with my budget so I was delighted. This felt like the biggest part of planning the holiday and once I had booked these I felt more relaxed about it all and excited for what was to come!

SECRET EXTRA HOTEL BOOKING

Yes I booked a night at ANOTHER hotel and here’s the reason why. In all my reading around the topic of WDW holidays I discovered a tip on a few different blogs saying that some people booked a night in a deluxe hotel in Universal because those hotels give out express passes (queue jumps) to the theme parks as part of the hotel room package. It said that if you booked one night at one of the hotels you would get those passes for two days in the parks, each day either side of the night you booked. This obviously was a great cost saving if you intended to buy express passes anyway, which we absolutely did.

I wasn’t sure if this was accurate or not so I looked into it further. I looked up the deluxe hotels and their costs, then checked if they do in fact offer the express passes as part of it, then I checked what the cost of those passes would be on their own. It seemed to be true! Then I spoke to a friend who stayed in one of those deluxe hotels the previous year and said she had heard of people doing this from the receptionist. So this confirmed it for me.

I checked out the deluxe resorts and the one with the cheapest room I could find for the dates we wanted was Universal’s, Loews Royal Pacific Resort through booking.com which was $774 (which is around £665) for one night for 4 people in a Standard View Room and included a Universal Express Unlimited for each guest. So I went ahead and booked this. For comparison I asked what the Express Pass Unlimited would be for each of us when we arrived in Universal and it would have cost around $1500 total for both days. So in total I saved us £550 and a LOT of queuing time. Totally worth it. Plus we had a back up hotel room if we had wanted a night away from each other - as it turned out we didn’t need it. If you were staying in a villa though this is a great way to switch it up for a night, and means you don’t have to drive home after the first theme park day as you could just crash at the hotel and then get up and return to the park the next day before heading back to your villa that night.

In order to collect the Express pass, on the day of ‘check in’ we arrived at 7am at the Royal Pacific hotel by an Uber from our hotel. There was a small queue of other people in reception clearly doing the same thing. There was a cafe in the hotel, so my husband took the kids to get breakfast while I waited in line and ‘checked in’ and collected the fast passes. From that hotel we walked 5 minutes into the Universal park which opens around 8am. It was really straight forward and I am very grateful to the people who shared that tip on their blogs.

BUDGET

It’s so tricky to budget for a trip like this when there are multiple options for every element. It depends on length of trip, time of year you go, hotel, airport you fly from, etc. etc. I firstly split our budget up onto different elements including

Accommodation,
Park tickets,
Fast passes/lightening lanes/MIMO trips service,
Flights,
Food and drink,
Ubers,
Merch & gifts,
extras (including tips)

and then tried to stick to that which we roughly did. If you want to see my full breakdown and get access to your own BUDGETING PLANNER based on this then click HERE.

TOP TIP: Lots of a travel agents allow you to pay in instalments which helps with saving and budgeting. The earlier you book the better deals there are. It’s best to follow a few of the agents on social media early in your planning so you can start to compare the prices on the sort of holiday you want.

DISNEY DINING

Food and drink, like everything at Disney appeared confusing upon first look! Disney have something called Dining Plans. You can find out more about them here. At the time we went they were just returning after a period of time without them (pandemic) and according to all the blogs I read, the newer version of the Dining Plan isn’t as good as it’s previous incarnation.

There are two types of restaurant on Disney property:

Quick service - these are fast food style restaurants where you pick it up from a counter (cheaper)
Table service - these are proper restaurants where you sit down and wait staff come over (more pricey, sometimes with Disney characters)

There were two plan options when I looked. One included one meal at a Quick Service restaurant and one meal at a sit down restaurant per day plus snacks, and the other option was two quick service meals per day plus snacks. You get something called dining credits which can be used at certain places on certain menu items. The idea is it saves you money as a kind of ‘all inclusive’ paid-up-front, eating plan.

I looked into it further and even priced it up in my research. Ultimately what I found out was that in order for it to actually save you money you need to:

Really know which restaurants will give you the best food options for the dining credits i.e. ordering the most expensive dishes, or booking at the priciest restaurant means you get the best value
Definitely want to eat that much and that often during the day to use up all the credits
Be smart with the credits and make sure you use them on certain things to get value.

I watched a vlog about it and it said ‘you really need to enjoy your food and make the most of every meal for it to be worthwhile’ and knowing my kids, their picky eating and how I often don’t fancy a full meal when I’m in the heat, I decided it wasn’t the best value for money for us. Also you still need to pay for tips on top, plus you would have to top up with extra snacks and drinks so it isn’t truly the ‘all inclusive’ cost you might think. Another consideration for me was trying to work out what was good value, what the credits were, which restaurant was best etc. It just felt like more work!

TOP TIP: at certain times of year Disney do deals on packages for hotel and tickets WITH dining plan included. If the package for all three fit into my hotel and tickets budget I would definitely book this as it would save you a lot of money, so it’s worth looking out for.

Someone else on another blog said they budgeted around $300 a day for food for their family of four which seemed quite realistic to me, so this is what I worked from. It was probably roughly right. Some of the meals in the fancy restaurants with characters were $250+ on their own. But sometimes we all just shared a couple of large pizza slices for $20 as a meal. It really varied and you can definitely do it cheaper than we did but we were going for complete ease.

TOP TIP: You can get a grocery store delivery to your hotel if you want to save money on snacks and drinks. There are apps that do this so you can order before you go. Try @krogerco app. I also took snacks from home in our suitcase for park days.

DISNEY RESTAURANT BOOKINGS

After the accommodation, booking restaurants for our 10 days in Disney was the next most complex thing in the research I did before we went. There are SO MANY options for places to eat. My husband and I love our food so I knew we would want a couple of restaurants to please us. My kids are pretty typical and love chicken nuggets, pizza, chips and burgers so I was looking to suit them too (but I knew that wouldn’t be a challenge!).

Disney allow you to book table service restaurants on their app 60 days before you check in. I knew that I needed to know exactly what I wanted to book before that date. In January 2024 (5 months before we went) I set about looking into all the restaurants. I did a similar process to previously. I went onto the blogs and vlogs - mainly DFB - and Facebook groups (try IT’S ORLANDO TIME and Walt Disney World Tips and Tricks) and screen shot or wrote down all the recommendations that I liked the look of.

I also knew from our previous experience in Disneyland Paris that restaurants are a good way to meet characters without having to queue. In Paris we queued for nearly 2 hours for the kids to meet Stitch. THIS time we would meet him in an air-condition restaurant with some yummy food. MUCH better.

3 months before we went, I looked through all my screen shots and recommendations I had saved and started making a plan. I looked at the menus of each restaurant to check there were options we would all like, and then also started to write down a plan of what days we would be in which parks. This helped narrow it down. I wanted to have a few sit down meals and a few character meals scattered throughout the 10 days. Here is what I settled on:

Day 1: arrival day, no bookings
Day 2: EPCOT: Akershus lunch to meet the Princesses - family style sharing platters
Day 3: MAGIC KINGDOM: Breakfast at Ohana in the Polynesian resort with Lila, Stitch, Mickey and Pluto - family style sharing platters
Day 4: DISNEY SPRINGS: Dinner at Terralina - Italian restaurant as we all like pizza, pasta and risotto etc.
Day 5: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS: Lunch at the Sci-Fi Drive in Movie Theatre - novelty and nostalgia for me as I went here as a kid
Day 6: WATER PARK - no booking
Day 7: ANIMAL KINGDOM: Lunch at Tusker House African style buffet with Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Donald and Goofy.
Day 8: EPCOT: Evening fireworks package at the Rose and Crown pub (fish and chips for kids) with a view across the lake
Day 9: Lunch at Space 220 - novelty restaurant with good food and cocktails
Day 10: Dinner booked for Whispering Canyon Cafe at Wilderness Lodge - novelty fun restaurant

I booked more at Epcot because this is the park we could easily get to/home from on the Skyliner.

We never made it to Whispering Canyon as we didn’t fancy the journey that day in the end, and I also had back up bookings at Nomad Lounge for Animal Kingdom (for afternoon cocktails) but the kids were too tired that day to stay at the park. I also had on my recommended list: Blaze Pizza, the Crystal Palace, Round Up Rodeo, breakfast at the Contemporary hotel (Chef Mickey’s), and Coral Reef. It was good to know where else we could try at the last minute if we needed it. But we didn’t.

Some of the restaurants get booked up fast at certain times so I knew I had to be quick off the mark when it came booking them 60 days before we went. I checked on Google to make sure I knew when bookings opened and it was 10am UK time. So on the date that was 60 days before check in, at 9:30 am I started opening tabs on my laptop of all the restaurants I wanted to book, with the one we most wanted at the front (Ohana).

As soon as 10am hit I clicked on each one to book in the correct date and time and boom! By 10:10 I had all the restaurant bookings I wanted. Lovely stuff!

TOP TIP: If you really want a restaurant booking but don’t get it, or decide you want to go somewhere nearer the time, then there are apps which can help you get tricky bookings. You could try the Mouse Watcher App or the Add More Magic App.

MY REVIEW ON OUR DISNEY DINING

Overall, I felt I got the restaurant bookings just right. We all enjoyed them, we ate some great food - particular highlights were Tusker House and Space 220 and the kids met all the characters they wanted to (apart from Minnie who we found later!)
The fireworks package at EPCOT was fab because we had the best table and a perfect view. We checked in at 8pm and the fireworks went off at 9pm as we ate our desserts.
The Sci-fi restaurant was probably the worst, as it was average fast food and the air con was up so high the kids were cold (we found this in a lot of restaurants actually! We ended up taking jumpers everywhere!) but we still enjoyed the novelty of it. Worth it for a one off.
The best for me was breakfast at Ohana because we got in super early with a 7:40am booking, we had a view over the Magic Kingdom to the castle and the kids faces as they met Mickey and Stitch were just absolutely priceless. Plus we all ate loads of sausages, eggs, waffles and the delicious juice and they just keep it coming! I cried when they all sang and danced.
My husband nearly keeled over at Akurshus when the bill came. It was a family style serving of Scandinavian style food which was relatively basic but us adults enjoyed. The kids didn’t touch it! Not anything!!! And so the cost was extortionate given the actual food consumed. But we’ve got lovely photos of the kids with the princesses so as Belle would say, c’est la vie!!!

TOP TIP: If you’re going to Animal Kingdom you could have breakfast at Ravello at The Four Seasons hotel. You get character dining and don’t need to be staying in the hotel. We didn’t try this but I heard this tip more than once!

WHAT ABOUT DINING AT UNIVERSAL?

I decided that for Universal I wouldn’t worry about booking anything. We would just go with the flow and see what happened. There wasn’t anything in particular I wanted to try there and there isn’t character dining so it just felt unnecessary. As it turned out, I was right. We ate in the hotel except for these three meals:

Lunch at a quick service restaurant called Fire Eaters Grill in Islands of Adventure - we had gyros and they were great, I ordered on the app and we walked over to collect. A top tip as the queue was big but we completely skipped it!
Seafood table service restaurant called Lombard’s Seafood Grille in Universal Studios - which we walked into at midday and got a table. The food was excellent. We all really enjoyed this meal. I had shrimp and grits which was delicious and the kids ordered adults fish and chips and demolished it all. A fab chilled atmosphere, an escape from the busy park.
For our final evening I booked a restaurant in the Citywalk area at the last minute called Big Fire and it was brilliant - a fabulous final meal out with steaks and smores.

You don’t need to stress if you don’t want to. There are so many options you will always easily find something. I also found that I didn’t eat especially unhealthily. I had salads, and fish, sandwiches and pasta. I only ate one burger all holiday. The options are there if you look for them. You just need to put a bit of thinking into it. My kids on the other hand existed almost entirely on chips, pizza and chicken tenders, but isn’t that how a childhood holiday should be?!

SNACKS

If you do any kind of research into Disney Theme parks you will hear a LOT about the snacks. There are snack carts, shops and stands across the parks and they all have different things in them to try, some of which seem to have an almost cult status / fame following online! My main question upon entering into this bizarre world was, WTF is Dole Whip?!

There are loads of great videos purely based on snacks to try which are really fun to watch in the build up to your holiday. You can each choose a snack you simply HAVE to try and then seek them out when you get there. For my husband it was the cheeseburger spring rolls and for me it was the mysterious Dole Whip. My kids wanted to try the pandora boba drink and the pretzels with cheese sauce.

As it turned out here are our thoughts on some of the snacks we did manage to find and try:

Frozen banana covered with chocolate and peanuts - for Florence these were 10/10. She must have eaten about 12 of them. She had 2 in about 3 hours once. Carts in Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom.
Strawberry ice lolly - super refreshing and delicious. My husband ate loads of these in all the parks and rated them 10/10.
Mickey Pretzel with cheese sauce - 1/10. The pretzel was ok but WHAT IS THAT SAUCE? It’s like cheese if it was acid. So salty and tastes absolutely nothing like actual cheese. We all were appalled!
Funnel cake in Typhoon Lagoon with ice cream and chocolate sauce. All four of us shared this. It was epic. 10/10.
Dole Whip - I finally got to try tree orange Dole whip on our final day in Disney at Magic Kingdom. It was so cooling, refreshing and delicious - like a cross between a sorbet and an ice cream. 10/10 from me.
Snow Cone in typhoon lagoon - it was massive!!! So much ice, nice and refreshing and tasty - 9/10 from the kids.
Cheeseburger spring rolls from a cart in Magic Kingdom - absolutely delicious, as good as we hoped. We ate just these for lunch one day! 10/10
Mickey Ice cream sandwich - 5/10. Kids seemed OK with them. Pretty average.
Popcorn bucket - absolutely yuk. Soooo salty and slightly stale texture. We were glad we didn’t invest in a refillable bucket even though people said this is a great value snack. Not for us! 1/10
Night Blossom Pandora Boba slushy from Animal Kingdom - 10/10 - sooo delicious. Me and the kids loved this. Super tasty and refreshing.
Chocolate sprinkle doughnut - Epcot - 5/10 average
Doughnut holes from Art of Animation food court - 1/10. Both me and Flo were so disappointed as we got these to watch the movie on the lawn one evening and they were grim.
Mickey cupcake from Art of Animation food court - 9/10. Really yummy and lots of buttercream!
Mickey cinnamon roll - 8/10. Really nice! We enjoyed sharing this for breakfast.

I’ve probably forgotten some, as there were a lot of ice creams/crisps/nibbles. There are so many more I would have loved to try, mostly across EPCOT and all the countries. But you can only grab what there is when you need a snack!

Also, shout out to the lemon and mint ice lolly I had at Universal Studios opposite the rip ride rocket and next to Bake My Day (another yum snack stop!) That ice lolly was the best lolly I’ve ever eaten. I was gorgeous. Like a mojito! Unfortunately Flo didn’t like the mango one she chose so after a few licks of my heavenly choice I swapped it with my daughter because that’s what us parents do, isn’t it? However, if the enjoyment of the rest of the trip isn’t a reason enough to return one day then that lolly definitely is!!! Ha!

PACKING

Believe it or not, I started planning the packing well before our trip. NO KIDDING. Isn’t everything so far about planning in advance? Mad isn’t it? For a two week holiday? WHY?! I hear you. I thought the same. But the reason for being so bonkers about this level of detailed planning before we went, is so that once I was there I could totally relax. I was trying to take all the last minute choices out of it so there was no questioning or being flustered once there. It worked. I’m only sharing this because it was a success - otherwise I’d never bother saying anything at all!

When it came to packing I was trying to get prepared for three reasons:

Because we had never been away for two weeks before so I didn’t even know if we had enough summer clothes for that amount of time
Because if I sorted out their summer wardrobes early it meant we were sorted for the next few months once we returned too
I wanted the kids to wear cute outfits that matched what park we were in. Yep, I am THAT person!

First up, what clothes did they already have. In the Easter holidays about a month before we went, I spent one day doing a stock take on the kids wardrobes. I sat on my bed and asked them each in turn to bring me every single item of clothing from their bedroom. Once we had a big pile, we went through each item. If they liked it, they tried it on. If it fitted it stayed. If they no longer liked it or it didn’t fit it went into a donate/sell pile.

As we went through this process I pulled out items which would be great for our holiday and together with the kids started to put together outfits. Once we had gone through all the clothes I could clearly see how many days worth of outfits they had and what was still actually needed. There were washing machines in the hotels we were staying in, but I really didn’t want to have to do wash loads on my holiday unless it was completely necessary. I had invested in some decent suitcases for us all in the boxing day sales purely so that we would have space for everything we needed. It was 14 outfits that I required for each child. 2 travel days and 12 holiday days.

I took photos of all the outfits we planned and then started shopping on Vinted for items needed. Sandals, extra shorts, new swimming costumes etc. I updated the photos of outfits for each kid, saving them in a folder on my phone until I had them all sorted.

When it came to actually packing a month later this process made it super easy. I just looked at my phone, our holiday schedule and then pulled out the outfits one by one. I rolled them together, including socks and pants, into a sausage and then put them into packing cubes in day order. I had one packing cube for each week. All the kids outfits into four packing cubes, DONE.

When we were away it meant that for each morning I just pulled out that days ‘outfit sausage’ and gave it to my kids. No thinking required.

I did the same for my own clothes, putting together outfits for each day that I checked on my phone each morning. It just took out all the stress. I felt comfy and happy in what I was wearing all holiday, as did the kids. I would do it again.

My husband packed like a normal human, bunging stuff into his suitcase the day before. I’m pretty sure he thought I’d lost it at this point!

WHAT TO BUY BEFORE YOU GO

There are certain things that you might well want to have with you for a theme park visit in the heat or a holiday such as this. Of course, you can buy them all there if you wish, it is just more expensive and you might not always see what you’re looking for when you need it. Because I had done so much research I knew exactly what I wanted to buy and here is a list for you all. If you want links for all the items listed below click HERE.

Rain Ponchos - despite being very warm Florida gets a lot of rain, daily sometimes, so you need to be prepare for a torrential downpour. These are also handy if you don’t want to get soaked on some rides. We didn’t mind as it was so hot we needed that cool down. As it turned out, we didn’t use our ponchos as it didn’t rain once, but we were told this was unusual and I was glad we had them.
Neck fans - it gets really hot and stick. These neck fans are great to wear to just give that tiny but of cooling air. They are rechargeable so we just put them on charge each evening ready for the next day.
Cooling towels - another great item we used a lot on hot days. A microfibre towel you get wet and then place anywhere over your body to cool off. We wore ours around our necks and just constantly stopped at the water fountains to get them wet and cool off. Very handy.
Autograph books - my kids are hugely into meeting all the Disney character because they are massive Disney nuts or big movie fans. They were keen to meet Mickey and Stitch, but otherwise not massively bothered. So to help them get into it a bit more, and to make the character meals I had booked really seem worthwhile, I got them each an autograph book. It absolutely worked, and they both LOVED collecting all the signatures. The magic of Mickey’s always being the same no matter where we met him blew their minds. Also, even though Ewan is 10 and too cool for princesses he was still happy to meet them all in Akurshus so they could sign his book. A great souvenir to bring home too.
Clickable sharpies - the ideal pens to go with the autograph books
Ears - we got ours from Magic Maker Ears - there are loads on Etsy or you can go to the Disney Shop and get official ones. Worth checking sales.
Sunscreen - again you can get this there but take some of your own for the first few days at least
Snacks, cereal, Robinsons mini squeeze squash and tea bags to bring in your case.
Phone lanyard - I got a phone case with a strap attached. BEST thing I did. You use your phone a LOT in the parks so it’s great to have it attached to you but hands free.
Carabina clips - I put these on my rucksack to attached stuff to it. Worked well!

If you would like to see my exact packing lists for me and the kids, plus my park bag must haves, plus templates for your own packing lists then please CLICK HERE!

TELLING THE KIDS

I have seen so many videos online of people telling their kids at the airport or on the morning they go. I love their reactions and that element of surprise. Plus Flo is sometimes overwhelmed when there is something exciting looming on the horizon and her behaviour reflects this, so we often like to tell her at the last minute to help her out. However when it came to this trip, I just couldn’t keep it a secret. I was too excited!

I wanted them to be involved with the build up. I watched the vlogs on the TV and they watched with me. I started by saying ‘I’m just researching as I’m hoping one day we might save enough money to go.’ But they soon started to rumble me. So we decided to do it as follows so we got the best of both the building excitement AND the element of surprise.

Around 6 months before, we told them we had booked to go to Orlando, Florida to WDW and Universal Studios for our holiday in summer 2024 in a low key way one evening over dinner. They were happy but not too excited as we said it was a long time until we went and kept our glee to a minimum. Over the next 6 months we watched videos and chose the rides and snacks we were excited for, and I showed them the photos from my previous holidays as a child.They enjoyed doing that but still didn’t know exactly when we were going. We just kept saying ‘summer’ when they asked.

On the week of us going it was Florence’s 8th birthday. I didn’t want anything to detract from that because when you are 8 your birthday is a really big deal. We decided to keep it secret as long as we could get away for, knowing her birthday was the Wednesday and we flew on the Saturday.

I packed in secret, using packing cubes hidden around the house. Then on the Friday when they went to school, we got the suitcases down from the loft and I packed like mad getting all the final bits done. Luckily because I’d been so organised before this was easy.

When they came home from school on the Friday, we sat them both down in the lounge told them to close their eyes and got out two pairs of Minnie ears which we put on their heads. We then said we had one question for them and they needed to open their eyes and answer it. We asked “where are we going tomorrow?’ They open their eyes and looked at each other. Ewan nervously said ‘are we going to Florida?’ And we replied. ‘We are going to Disney World Florida, TOMORROW!” And they both went absolutely bananas!!! They were completed surprised. It was brilliant. The best of both!

They had that evening to pack their own things and get excited, then the next morning my dad picked us up at 7am to head to the airport and we were off!

If you have read all of that you have earned your ORLANDO FLORIDA DEGREE WITH FMM! Kidding, but actually WOW! However it doesn’t end here. This is all the prep but what about when we got there? What did we do? What was it like? I have another blog post coming very soon which is our daily diary. WATCH THIS SPACE.

(Yes there is MORE, I know, I can’t believe it either!)

*It isn’t going to be a once in a lifetime holiday. We all want to go back. We are saving again.

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