Travel Tips for the Orlando Smörgåsbord!

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Orlando, tips and tricks from our
family to yours

Take it from a family who goes on each grandchild’s 6^th
birthday, 2 down, 3 more to go!

 

So, it has come upon you. The inevitable ‘ Disney’ trip. No amount of buying Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party plates will do, your kids are forcing you to take them to Disney World. And you
know in your heart of hearts, it’s not the Disney World that you remember from
your child hood with a 19 hour drive to Orlando and a cliché ride on the mad
teacups. Orlando is now a mecca for theme park advocates as it houses not one
but four major theme parks within driving distance of each other. In addition
to the almighty four major parked-Walt Disney World, there is now two Universal
Studios parks, two SeaWorld parks, and rounding out the group is Legoland. What
used to be a good ole week trip to WDW, is now having to be divided to some of
the other parks, dang that Harry Potter.  With all that’s going on in Orlando, you may be thinking of hiding out with your spouse from your kids or taking a second mortgage on your house to
help pay for this week long adventure. Well please please don’t! I’m going to
give you a few tricks of the trade from our family to yours. We go every other
year in honor of one of my sister’s kids’ 6^th birthday and coming
before I know it, my two kids’ 6^th birthday… it’s a family
tradition.

First, if you are anything like my family.. the whole crew goes. My sister and I are super close, so of course our families go on every family trip together, and where my sister and I go, so
go our parents. So at this point that is, count them 11, yes 11 people! 11
people on a straight, no discount, no shortcut, Florida trip could soar upwards
of $15,000. NO SWEAT. So, to say that we look for the most economic way to do
everything, is quite an understatement. So when you decide that you want to go
on a trip to Orlando, my first tip to you would be to have an actual family
meeting. Don’t be afraid to budget it out, this is no run of the mill family
vacation, this is THE family vacation that everyone will talk about for the
rest of time…. Or at least until the next time you go.

Once a budget is set, set a timeline for reaching that goal. We as a family know that our kids are going to
want every stuffed animal representing any character they’ve ever seen on a tv
show..EVER.. so it doesn’t come cheap. We usually set a goal that we can reach
within six months and plan out our trip a year in advance. The first time we
went, we only set about a 3 month saving and planning period..disaster. A year
might seem like a long time but believe me, it’s just right.
 

Ok, so you’ve set a budget and you’ve set a date, sounds a lot like a wedding right? Hahahaha, if only it were that simple. The first thing you want to do is find a travel agent, most work
off of commission so all those long hours they work finding the perfect flight
+ hotel combination, is completely free of cost to you. Yes, FREE. They’ll
start looking up flight and hotel information right away as vacation packages
need a deposit about 6-8 months out. This is where the planning ahead comes in
handy.  If you have kids, early flights are the best. For one thing, they’re already up early, and for two, less people.  You may also want to do some research on which airlines charge the cheapest baggage fees, but your travel agent can help you with that as well. Remember if you have any preference, make
sure to tell your travel agent before they start searching for you. Travel Tip…MCO is the airport code for
Orlando International Airport.
 

Well, that’s it for part one folks! Stay tuned next week for our next foray into Orlando travel!