Disney Vacation Tip #5: Embrace Magical Moments

Magical Moments at Disney can happen in many shapes and forms.  Sometimes it is just a cast member going out of the way to help you with something.    Or it could be one of your kids meeting their favorite Disney character.   When a magical moment happens Embrace it –because it could be a moment that you will remember forever.  A Magical Moment happened for us at the end of our Disney Vacation.

On our vacation in March we stayed at the Saratoga Springs (I’ll talk about that in a future blog). Our schedule which included my step daughter’s cheer competition was such that we needed to spend one night at a different hotel at the end of our trip.   So we had booked a room at the Art of Animation hotel which was one of the newer hotels –but reasonable priced.    I was looking forward to staying there and checking out all of the Cars, Nemo and Little Mermaid areas and pools and thought the kids would enjoy it as well. 

Sunday morning came and my wife had to take her daughter to the last day of her Cheer Competition –it was my job with the help of my step son to move all of our stuff and check into the new hotel.     The 2 of us struggled with all of the luggage into a taxi and headed over to the Art of Animation.

As we arrived at the check in desk for our one night a Magical Moment happened.   It seems like the Art of Animation was overbooked ---and the girl behind the desk asked us if we would mind being moved to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. 

I thought about it for about 5 seconds…….And then embraced the moment.   I couldn’t believe our luck.

A magical upgrade!!!   I mentioned that we had luggage for the whole family and had just taken a taxi to get here and Disney said no problem --they would pay for us to get there as well.    I didn’t even hesitate…..I texted my wife on the way over that we were no longer staying at the same hotel. We just jumped in the taxi and headed for the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  All the things I was excited to see at the Art of Animation went out the door and were immediately forgotten.

When we were looking at Resorts (especially Timeshare ones we could trade into) Animal Kingdom was our number one choice.

But it wasn’t available to trade into for the time period we needed to go.  Animal Kingdom Lodge or the Polynesian would be my top 2 choices of resorts to stay at.   So when they asked us if we would mind upgrading from a Moderate resort like Art of Animation to a room with a view of Giraffes and zebras it was a no brainer.   I’ll remember how special that one night was for the rest of my life.  It was like having part of the Kilimanjaro  Safaris in your room.

Waking up before the rest of the family and sitting out on the 

balcony with this view was definitely a memorable moment.

Here is one of the cool little patios you can relax on and check out the animals from.

A gorgeous wide open pool with a cool thatched bar area.  As much as I loved the Condo style larger rooms at Saratoga Springs  --I would have loved to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge for the entire week.   It was just breathtaking.

I’ll go into more detail and share more pictures from our brief stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge in a couple of upcoming blogs.

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Disney Vacation Tip #2 : When you Realize that you could have just skipped the park and stayed at the pool

The Disney Vacation Tip deals with the Pools:

That moment in the middle of the day when you are at the Theme Parks and you realize you could have saved a whole bunch of money and just stayed at the pool.   It was the first time my wife and her kids age 9 and 13 had ever been to Disneyworld.   We were there for my step daughter's cheerleading competition which was at the back end of our trip.   Since the last days of our trip including a cheer practice on Friday and competition  days on Saturday and Sunday we had to do the parks at the beginning of our trip.  4 parks in 4 days!!!   Oh Yeah!.....Okay so it wasn't the ideal way to do our trip- but I wanted them to see all 4 parks and that is just the way the trip worked out.  (I have several upcoming blogs that will talk about this topic).    

Well in the middle of day 2 the kids (who were having a great time at the parks) asked what time we were leaving ---because they wanted to go swimming in the pool.    The Pool I thought????   Are these kids crazy.  They want to leave the theme park early to go to the pool??  We had talked about Friday (which was cheer practice day) being a rest day where we would just hang out at the pool ---but they wanted to go to the pool now.   You mean I could have just saved $400 and hung out at the pool all day?  Maybe the next time we go on vacation we should just forget about the theme parks and just find a place with a cool pool?  (Yeah not really)

Okay so Saratoga Springs does have several cool pools so I can kind of understand why the kids wanted to go to the pool . If we could have planned our trip differently - we definitely wouldn't have tried to do 4 parks in 4 days.  Ideally 2 park days and a Resort day at the pool followed by 2 more parks and maybe another Resort day at the end would probably be ideal.

So the Disney Vacation trip Tip is to take a break from the parks and plan a pool day.  Especially if your resort has a cool pool like this one.  The kids went on this slide at least 30 times.  

Take a break from the parks and the "go - go -go" mentality and relax.

We even got lucky and had some pool time at Animal Kingdom Lodge at the end of our trip after Cheer (which is a whole different blog---which I will post soon)

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