For years- YEARS- Shawn and I have kept a shared “bucket list” on our phones- and always, on that list has been “surprise our kids with a Disney trip” and “Disney at Christmas”.
Growing up, I was always a Disney kid- hoarding those classic, white-edged VHS tapes and constantly playing and rewinding my Disney soundtrack cassette tapes. In a game of name-that-Disney song- I WIN. I’d been a couple of times with my family growing up and we even took a trip as grown-up kids a few years after Shawn and I were married, which is when he was introduced to the Disney magic.✨
On our last Disney trip, Liv was 3 months old (yep! you read that right!) and Knox was 3 years old. Now that everyone was a little older and Lucy is finally home, we felt like it was the perfect time to go. So, we started planning our trip with our friend and travel agent, Ashly Moncrief with Foerster Travel. Ashly and her family are Disney experts, having been over 30 times, and so I trusted her advice on what to book/travel dates. They also happened to be going the same dates, which made it fun to run into some familiar faces and share a few memories with friends!
Our flight out of Lubbock got cancelled due to fog, so we made the decision to rent a van, drive 2 hours south to Midland, and catch a flight there. Did I mention we had to leave at 3:30 am? It was a very long day!
We wanted to surprise the kids right before it was time to leave- and so we had told them that I had a work trip and they all had to take me to the airport. So, the night before I had them sleep in their clothes so we didn’t have to change them. After our first flight out of Lubbock was cancelled due to fog, we made the decision to get a one-way rental and drive 2 hours south to Midland. Thankfully, they didn’t pick up on the fact that the drive to the airport lasted 2 hours- much longer than the normal 30 minutes!
We had to refill the gas tank before returning our one-way rental car, so that’s where we decided to hand them their note. Here’s the video below (the lighting gets better about 30 seconds in!):
Here’s what the note said, in case you can’t hear Knox:
I wrote this letter because I wanted you to hear
Christmas won't be quite the same this year.
The Christmas tree will still stand tall
and the Reason for the Season hasn't changed at all
but instead of visiting your house on Christmas Eve night
I thought it would be fun for you to take flight
You're visiting some friends of mine in a magical place
You'll know them when you see each and every face
Minnie, Mickey, Pluto- just to name a few
have so many wonderful things for you to do!
Your bags are packed, you're on your way-
all the way to Disney World- you're going- TODAY!
We ended up going the 1st week of December so as to avoid the high crowd capacity at Christmastime- apparently the closer to Christmas, the busier it gets. Yes, we did pull the kids out of school. It wasn’t as big of a deal as I might have thought it would be- the kids’ teachers were kind and sent home their makeup work which we did during down times and on the plane.
The pull-down Murphy bed in the Cars suite at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort
We have always stayed at a Disney resort, because of all the benefits- free transportation to the parks, extra magic hours (parks stay open early/late for resort guests only), and I love the luggage service! Essentially, once you check your bags at the airport, they take care of them all the way to your room. No messing with baggage claim- you just head straight to the complimentary buses to your resort.
I was very excited to stay in one of the Art of Animation family suites this time. This resort is such a fun one- filled with huge sculptures of Disney characters from The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Finding Nemo, and Cars. We stayed in the Cars area, which was definitely my favorite. Once we arrived at the hotel, we grabbed some snacks from the restaurant and enjoyed walking around to see all the characters. They even have a little playground area by the pool the kids enjoyed.
We spent a couple of hours just exploring the resort! Art of Animation has a ton of cool character sculptures that the kids loved.
Another perk of Art of Animation is that it is on the new Disney Skyliner route. This is a new gondola system that runs from several resorts to Hollywood Studios and Epcot. It was one of our favorite things and such a pleasant way to get to the parks! Since we brought our trusty double stroller, every time we boarded a bus to get to a park, we’d have to break it all down which was a pain. But since our stroller is inline (one seat behind the other, not side-by-side), we could roll right onto a gondola. There were times the line to the Skyliner was incredibly long, but we never waited more than 20 minutes to get on. We loved the views and the peaceful ride together.
Enjoying the views from the Skyliner.
Knox and I went hunting for Hidden Mickeys at our resort while the girls napped one day- we found several! This is a fun, easy thing to do with older kids- hidden Mickeys are everywhere at WDW!
Being at Disney World during Christmas was so special- each park, every little area- had completely custom decorations and each park had at least one huge Christmas tree with unique decorations. Christmas music filled the air, and they were extra generous with the snoap (Disney’s fake snow- which is actually small bits of soap they spray down from the tops of buildings), which made everything feel just magical. The nightly fireworks shows were INCREDIBLE and extra-Christmasy.
The first day of our trip was my 36th birthday, so I got to pick where we ate for dinner- and I chose Sanaa, which is at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The sun had just set by the time we arrived, but in true Disney fashion, someone walked up and offered us night vision goggles so we could spy on the boars, giraffes, and zebras grazing outside. Dinner was delicious (the Naan and cheese samplers were amazing!) and the kids loved their dirt and worms desserts.
We LOVED our trip and made so many great memories. I plan on doing another blog post with our top WDW tips- so for now, here are the photos!
FIRST DAY- Animal Kingdom
Our amazing travel agent (thank you Ashly!) pre-programmed a few character stops in our My Disney Experience app, so we headed straight to meet Mickey and Minnie first thing- which was the perfect start to our trip! I was so worried Lucy, our youngest, wouldn’t like the characters, but she ended up loving them the most!
This was the first time we’ve been to Animal Kingdom since Pandora arrived, and it was one of our favorite parks because of that new addition! All of Pandora glows at night and the kids loved that aspect. We got to wander through the huge garden and see all sorts of animals, meet several characters, and enjoyed some of our favorite treats of the week here- the pongu pongu (a pineapple-cream cheese egg roll type snack), BBQ from Flame Tree Barbeque, and a giant Mickey cinnamon roll in Africa.
Dinner in Pandora was one of our favorites- Shawn is having some sort of green beverage with a steak and noodle bowl, and Knox enjoyed his hamburger “pod”. It was always easy to find things for our non-adventurous kids- mac and cheese is usually an option everywhere. :)
We fully utilized Rider Swap (more on that in another blog post), and so I took Liv on the Dinosaur ride after Shawn and Knox got off. That was a mistake- it terrified her! I promised to not take her on any more potentially scary rides. I am sort of glad we have this photo, though- haha! The look on her face is priceless! Also, check out the lady behind me!
SECOND DAY- Epcot
For us, Epcot meant 2 things- ANNA and ELSA. We have 2 Frozen fanatics and so meeting them was top priority. I feel like Liv is living her best life in these photos.
We ate lunch in “China” and got to see a dragon dance. One of my favorite parts about being at Disney in the winter was getting to drink coffee all day! Shawn was doing some high-level dadding here- both girls were asleep in the double stroller as we walked through the World Showcase.
I took several of our family photos with my iPhone and this handy tripod and bluetooth remote.
Here is the link to our favorite inline double stroller that has lasted through years of use! You can’t see it well in this photo, but Lucy is seated underneath Liv.
More great Liv faces from the Frozen ride. We snagged fast passes to this one and I’m so glad we did! The line was so long but it was a fun one.
We got to end the night at Epcot watching the fireworks with friends! They happened to take a trip on the same dates we did and it was so much fun!
DAY 3- Hollywood Studios
Hollywood Studios was probably our favorite this time around- because STAR WARS. This was our first time visiting Galaxy’s Edge and even our little girls thought it was awesome! We started our day at Toy Story Land and loved that everyone met the height restrictions there. We waited quite a while for the Slinky Dig Dash rollercoaster, but it was worth it. Liv wasn’t a huge fan, but check out Lucy’s face!
Liv = hiding. Lucy = LOVING IT. Parents = no longer cool.
Same spot, facing different directions. I loved having the Memory Maker so that I was guaranteed some photos of all 5 of us!
One of my favorite photos of the trip! This rollercoaster blasts you from 0 to 57 mph in 2.8 seconds…so you can understand Knox’s face here. Haha!
Galaxy’s Edge was definitely one of the coolest experiences. There were sound effects of ships flying over head, other languages, and characters would appear out of nowhere- “on mission”. Stormtroopers marched through and we had quite a few Chewy sightings. Shawn grabbed some blue milk from the Cantina and asked Kylo Ren if he’d had the blue milk. Kylo’s very robot-serious response was, “I would tread lightly”. Haha! We had so much fun!
We knew that Knox would love getting to build his own droid at the Droid Depot, so we scheduled an appointment in advance. He got to select his parts off the conveyor belt and put it all together. What a fun souvenir! He named his droid BA774, or Barry.
SNACKS! Always up for ice cream, even in our winter jackets.
The Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM! show at Hollywood Studios was way cooler than I expected it to be, and we all enjoyed watching it. As the park closed for the night, snoap sprayed down and it was a perfectly magical ending to a great day.
We snagged a last-minute reservation at Oga’s Cantina, and it was probably not the best choice to walk in with 3 tired kids at the end of a long day, but getting to sample some of their drink concoctions was so much fun!
DAY 4- Magic Kingdom
In trips past, we have gone to Magic Kingdom on the first day- right off the bat- but because of crowd calendars and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, we chose to go this day so that we could have an entire day at the park and see the Happily Ever After fireworks show. Y’all, it was SO CROWDED. This was the only day the crowds really got to us- we were seeing 2 hour waits for the most unpopular rides- so everything took longer and we had a few meltdowns. It was STILL MAGICAL, though- and we had lots of fun moments on the Big Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. Did you know there is a little play area underneath Splash Mountain where the littles can play while the big kids ride? Disney has thought of everything!
Mixed feelings on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad! I was proud of Liv for wanting to ride this one!
The wait for the Tea Party was long but worth it!
The girls loved playing in the kids’ play area next to the Splash Mountain waiting queue.
Sweet moments waiting for the Jingle (a.k.a. Jungle) Cruise! During the holidays they decorate it and change the name.
In the middle of this very crowded day at Magic Kingdom, we decided to escape to the Polynesian Resort for lunch- which was SUCH a good decision! The resort had zero wait for food and delicious Hawaiian BBQ, and a grassy area with cornhole, hula hoops, and building blocks for the kids to play with. We love this resort and also enjoyed seeing the Christmas decor there. So- that was a much-needed refreshing moment!
After waiting in another line to get our photo in front of Cinderella’s Castle (the photo just doesn’t do it justice! It was so twinkly!), we staked out a spot to watch the fireworks. We waited for about 1 hour on the concrete while Shawn scavenged some hot dogs for dinner. Note to self: bring a blanket or two next time and something to entertain the kids with! And mobile order food well in advance or pack a dinner in the backpack. Shawn and I were so tired of corralling kids, we almost went back to the room, but y’all- THE SHOW WAS SO WORTH IT! The Happily Ever After fireworks/laser show was simply incredible- and I think all 5 of us watched it with mouths wide open in awe. The way they tell a story and transform the castle with lights and lasers is incredible. Definitely worth the wait!
DAY 5- Magic Kingdom/Animal Kingdom
I was SO glad to have this last day to revisit some of the things we weren’t able to do earlier in the week. We decided to head back to Magic Kingdom in hopes to for shorter lines, and thankfully- the lines were indeed much shorter! We got to do some of the classic rides like Peter Pan (the girls are still talking about this one) and It’s a Small World.
After lunch, we went back to Animal Kingdom. We hadn’t been able to snag a Fast Pass for the Avatar ride Flight of Passage, so the guys decided they’d stick out the 2 hour wait for it. It actually turned out to be a really nice time- as the boys waited, the girls napped in the stroller while I got to walk around and take my time looking at the animals and shop. When they woke up, we got a coffee and HUGE Mickey Cinnamon roll to share. Once the boys were done, I got to Ride Swap and go with Knox. I’m so glad they waited it out so we all got to experience it- Flight of Passage was amazing! We ended the day shopping for a few ornaments to commemorate our trip.
My gorgeous girls! Moments I’ll never forget.
Animal Kingdom had these amazing handmade puppets that they would bring out. They were all so neat and in true Disney fashion, the kids were allowed to pet and interact with them.
DAY 6- Disney Springs/Go Home
We had an afternoon flight out so after we checked our bags at the counter at our resort (huge perk!), we took a bus to Disney Springs to explore. There is so much to do there- you could easily spend an entire day or two! I happened to see that they had a special Christmas tree trail and Santa, so we headed straight over. It was really neat- they had probably 20-30 themed trees to look out, and of course snoap was blowing out around the tree trail to make it extra Christmasy. We waited in line for just a bit to see Santa and it was such a perfect way to end our trip! The photos were included with our Memory Maker, so that was also a win!
Little did we know, there was one last surprise waiting. As we waited for our airport shuttle to arrive at our resort, Mickey walked in! It was the perfect way to say “see ya later!”.
The kids wore their Christmas pjs to breakfast the last morning of our trip. I loved all the Christmas decorations everywhere!
In the end, it was such a wonderful, unforgettable trip and we would go back tomorrow! I’m so glad we took the kids at these ages and can’t wait to go back!
I have more Disney posts coming up soon and would love to answer any questions you may have!