How to plan a Disney Christmas (plus Universal!)

This Christmas leave the stress of extended family behind and take your own bunch to Disney to celebrate!

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A budget of around $2,000 for a family of four. (airfare not included)

1. Get off of work for the week around Christmas!

2. Decide your itinerary. Here is a sample:
   1. Arrival
   2. Universal Studios
   3. Universal Studios
   4. Islands of Adventure
   5. Islands of Adventure
   6. Magic Kingdom
   7. Animal Kingdom
   8. Home
   This itinerary calls for the purchase of two day one park Magic Your Way tickets from Walt Disneyworld and the 7-day 2 park tickets from Universal Studios. The WDW tickets cost around $200 each and the Universal tickets only $94 for the entire week (that is why the itinerary stays there more!).

3. Book a hotel outside of the parks. You will not be spending much time in your hotel if your vacation is a success so do not waste your money. Find a bargain of a clean hotel outside but near the theme parks that has a kitchenette. Rodeway Inn has some great options, as does the Suburban Lodge.

4. Book a reservation for a Christmas Day meal. These are going to be hard to come by past September, but persevere, people cancel every day! Make sure you book the reservation for the park you will be in that day. Disney has some great dining experiences. Call 1-800-WDW-DINE.

5. For the rest of your trip, use that kitchenette! Purchase frozen meals like lasagna, meatloaf, pizza, corn dogs, etc. to feed your group after a day at the parks. For lunches, pack peanut jelly sandwiches, or ham and cheese. Disney does allow you to bring in food (just not coolers). There are plenty of pretty locales for you to have a family picnic each day.

6. Prepare something to do for your kids on the day of arrival and the day of departure.
   Arrival Day- Take a visit to Downtown Disney. There is no fee to enter and there are a lot of really cool stores and restaurants. I recommend visiting Lego Imagination Station for the kids (there are life-size dinosaur sculptures from legos), and eating at the new T-Rex Cafe (which also obviously has a dinosaur theme). This will be plenty of excitement for the first day at Disneyworld.
   
   Departure: Continue that dinosaur theme by visiting Dino World about an hour north of Orlando. It will take the edge off of the sadness of your vacation's end.

Tips & Warnings

• Just because Blizzard Beach is open at Christmas does not mean your kids will enjoy freezing their buns off at a waterpark at Christmas. If you are a snowbird (someone from the northern states) you may find it acceptable but anyone below the Mason Dixon is not going to think it is warm enough to swim.

[sunshine11219]

on 3/2/2009 sounds awesome