What lessons did I learn from our last visit?

 As I said before, we don't visit often.  My daughter and I have been on four trips - two Disney cruises (when she was little), a visit to Disneyland Paris and a visit to Disney World. All this spread over 15 years.  My husband has only been on one of those trips - the one to Disney World.  Our second trip was planned for last year, which would have been five years after our previous one.   Each trip has been paid by using "bonus" funds; we could not afford one on our usual salaries.  It's therefore vitally important that any trip we do make is treated as our last, and fit in absolutely everything we possibly can.  

The key to this is to look at what we've done before, change what didn't work and improve upon what did.   For the new trip, I decided to concentrate on my critique of the last Disney World trip.

In my last post, I mentioned how much I loved being part of a big family - I could never before have imagined being part of a group like that and it felt really special.  It might seem odd to others but as someone brought up as an only child in a small family, it really was beyond anything I could imagine.  This trip even had three generations, Phil's Mum, him, his sister, his sister-in-law, two nieces and a nephew.  And then there was Lyta and me!   There was enough of us to completely take over a single ride boat - the ride photo was just us!  

However, this is also the source of my first change.  Much as I absolutely adored being part of a large group, it was also a huge challenge.  You cannot please everyone all the time; and often it just meant that we spent a lot of time splitting into smaller groups and even more time trying to find each other again. I always want to please everyone and therefore got stressed when this wasn't possible. In the end I spent more time worrying about making sure everyone else was having a good time than actually enjoying myself.  This needs to change! 

This time around, there will also not be any children.  Last time we had four between the ages of 11 and 16, not young but still with very different priorities; and of course they were the most important people there. This time therefore, we can be more "adult" in our childishness and sample the more grown-up aspects whilst still acting like youngsters!

Phil and I are also determined that we don't have to be up at first light every day.  We are by nature early risers; but Lyta and Andy are not, so we are going to try being more laid-back, get up a bit later some days and therefore maybe be able to stay out a bit later too! 

The lack of children is also the source of another major change.  We no longer have to travel during school holiday periods, hopefully therefore missing some of the larger crowds. Our last tip was in August, so also in hurricane season.  We only saw the edge of one hurricane, but our day in Animal Kingdom was completely washed out because of the resulting rain, interspersed with showers and deluges... we swam back to the car!  We are therefore considering mid-May since it is outside peak holiday season and hurricane season but should also be very warm!

Last time we stayed at a hotel on I-Drive (budgetary constraints.) It was a great hotel and we had a fantastic time, plus being on I-Drive was our proximity to other facilities and being close to Universal.  The downside was that once we'd left the parks for the day, we didn't go back, so never saw any of the fireworks displays or evening parades.  When we started to plan our return, we were determined to stay in a Disney hotel so we could benefit from the all-encompassing experience.  However, we are again looking to change that and go for a villa in Kissimmee.  This will give us a great saving on accommodation and will therefore allow us to spend more on other luxuries.   All we need to do is be more mindful of what we want to do and when, and make sure we stay late in the parks on occasion.

Finally, as mentioned in my second post, we are undertaking daily research - literally! Before the last trip, I read a couple of guide books.  Now we're watching YouTube every day, reading subscription emails, taking in Instagram posts as they appear on our devices and still reading the books!  With the help of Molly, AJ, Tom and their teams we are determined to get the most out of our trip.