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Disney World.
The dream of every child and the nightmare of every parent who doesn't enjoy bleeding their hard earned money. Surprisingly Disney can be an affordable vacation. There is not much variation in the price of tickets from place to place on the internet. I do not recommend waiting until you arrive at the gate to purchase them or you will be spending additional money per ticket.
When we went I bought Park Hopper tickets, which meant that we could go from park to park on any given day. There is an additional charge for this and we did not use this option once during our vacation. I am not sure that I would do it again, unless I were going to be doing Disney for a long vacation. As it was we did not see everything in any one of the parks and certainly did not feel like dealing with the hassle of leaving one park and going to a different one.
Also check out the prices of the tickets. The per day goes down the more days you buy tickets for. This means the admission price for 4 days is virtually identical to the admission price for 5 days. (In fact I just purchased tickets for our upcoming Disney trip next month and they had a special running 5 days admission for the price of 3. I think the bad economy is hurting even the Mouse. They are hoping that once you are in the park you will spend lots of money on other things like snacks and photos.)
My first and most important piece of unsolicited yet often given advice: GO OFF SEASON.
Shall I repeat it?
GO OFF SEASON.
Ignore this advice if:
1) You enjoy being inches away from the unwashed masses of humanity while waiting in line for hours on end, while your children beg you to leave Disney and take them back to the hotel to go swimming in the pool, because they do not have pools in your home state, and
2) you also enjoy 105 degree temperatures with 95% humidity which essentially means you will be stewing in your own sweat as well as that of other people who think deodorant is optional.
If that scenario sounds like something you would really enjoy to have played out several times over just as many days, then by all means go during the summer vacation season. Also, get some professional help.
For everyone else, doing Disney off season means there will be less people, less crowds, and little to no waiting in lines. We were able to ride the popular rides numerous times without ever waiting in a line. Getting off the ride and getting right back on it. It was fabulous. Honestly I don't think I could have enjoyed Disney world if I had to wait on line for more than five minutes.
Going off season also means that accommodations will be less expensive. I know many people swear by staying at the Disney run hotels. I, however, am not one of them.
We rented a three bedroom, 2 bathroom condo that had a full kitchen, laundry inside the condo, and a swimming pool. It was also in a gated community, if that is something that matters to you. Being from New England where we don't have anything like this I don't quite get it's appeal, but there ya go. At $120 per night, it was considerably less a night than any of the Disney single hotel room options. (For our upcoming trip this year we found a 6 bedroom private house with a pool to rent. It will cost us $1500 for the entire week and is only a 10 minute drive to the park.)
One of the great things about going this route, is that you don't have to eat out for every meal. As exciting as that seems while you are planning the trip from the comfort of your own home and internet connection, it gets old really quickly, especially when you have cranky, overtired, hot children whose idea of fun is not sitting quietly in a restaurant.
I used the kitchen to it's fullest. As soon as we arrived in Orlando we drove right over to the Super Walmart and went grocery shopping.
As we shopped we kept in mind: 1) what sort of foods did we want to
