Trip of a Lifetime 2022
How often do you go to Disney?: First time for 5 year old, second time for 12 year old (she went when she was 6), first time as a parent (last and only other time I went I was 3ish), and first time as a grandma (last time she went was over 30 years ago).
Trip Deets (Month, Length of Trip, Group Demographics): July 20-27, 2022. Our group was 5 year old boy (46 inches tall), 12 year old girl, step mom, and 68 year old retired grandma. Stayed at Double Tree Suites at Disney Springs (they are a partner location so we had early entry, plus they have complimentary shuttle option for Disney parks). We did 3 days at Disney (Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom), 2 1/2 days at Universal (had park to park tickets), and 1 day at SeaWorld.
The Best Part of Your Trip?: So so many choices for this loaded question. Each person would probably give different response. For me (step mom, who did all the planning) best part was being able to spend one on one time doing something special with each child along with seeing their reactions. Took 5 year old to the amazing Topolino’s and seeing his reaction to meeting Mickey there was priceless (seriously would have paid double the price we paid for that alone, and as added bonus the food was DELICIOUS). For the 12 year old seeing her photos riding Hagrid’s Motorbike x2 we’re also priceless she hit jackpot and was able to drive and ride in front row due to child swap. For Grandma getting to see her experience everything in Galaxy’s Edge with 5 year old grandson who she introduced to Star Wars was so amazing to witness (we were able to ride EVERY SINGLE RIDE at Hollywood Studios, even rode Millennium Falcon x2, went to Oga’s, and had character dining that took nearly 2 hours; all of which I wouldn’t have been able to do without Jessica’s tips, helps, encouragement).
What Would You Do Different?: I would have scheduled rest day for day after Magic Kingdom (they were open until 11 pm on our day, we took ferry to park around 7:30 am then took ferry back around 11:45 pm). Next trip will consider doing two days at Magic Kingdoms since there’s to much to do all in 1 day at that park as well as consider splurging for park hopper (mainly so kids can go back to favorite attractions at other parks).
What is the Best Tip you got from Well Hello Disney?: Biggest two were probably suggestions on what to pack for summer bag and info on how to maximize Genie+.
Give us Your Best Disney Tip!: Stay positive and excited, the kids will feed off your energy. If you have option to splurge on extras do it! Think Genie+, Character Dining, ability to stay somewhere with perks.
What was your most useful Platform on Well Hello Disney?: Stories and posts, mainly because I was doing a lot of research late at night or on lunch breaks.
Leave Well Hello Disney a review!: I can’t say thank you enough. I was overwhelmed with all the info on Disney after I made decision we were going. Your platform and content helped prepare me, made me feel like we could do all the things, and was able to ease my fears about the trip. Your genuine interest in helping to ensure we were having amazing time by quickly responding was so so kind!
BONUS!
How much we spent and how we saved: We are Hilton Honors members with an Aspire Amex and I utilized and maximized our benefits from it this year for this trip. Including the $250 resort fee credit, the $250 airline incidental credit (it paid for our bags both ways on Frontier), we used our $30/day dining credit for breakfast everyday and the kids were free because they are 5 & 12. I checked the room rates several times last few weeks before our trip and edited our stays because the price kept dropping from our original rates. Plus we used one of our free nights that was about to expire. We flew Frontier because kids under 15 fly free on Tuesday & Wednesday if you are den member, plus they were offering tons of miles to get one of their cards. So between the flight cost, den membership cost for the year, and the annual card fee for this year I still only spent $376 total for 4 of us to fly.
I went through my employer discount program for our universal tickets and got 3 day P2P tickets through it cheaper than 2 day P2P tickets through Universal was going to cost me.
Transportation: We took 15 Lyft rides for a total of $265, our rental car alone was going to be $305, plus parking at our hotel would have been $154, plus parking at Seaworld and Universal would have been a total of $111, I estimate we saved about $335, by ditching the rental car.
Total Cost: Our complete total expenses even souvenirs and meals (like everything matching shirts; park bag things like fans, blister bandaids etc; random stuff we needed like hair brushes, pony tail holders), I even included all our tips we gave in cash (I used to work in food service so we are religious about cash tipping). Our out of pocket expenses after using our perks (resort credits, airline credits, visa gift card I had from work I used for Topolino’s). It was $7600 for 4 of us. I could have cut that down even more, but even then my goal was to keep us between $8,000-$10,000 so I feel pretty successful. Plus we earned a ton of HH points (they are partners with Lyft so we got bonus points every time we rode) that we will use for our next mini long weekend trip. The was an ULTIMATE BUCKET LIST trip for us.
