Disney Vacation - Resort and thoughts

 We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside Resort. The resort was beautiful and peaceful. We were surprised that the rooms were all separate - we had expected a regular hotel with hallways. 

We had to get a royal room because we had to change our reservations late to take advantage of free dining. The royal room had fancier curtains, pictures of the princesses and, as we discovered the second night we were there, light shows in the headboards!

The Loot. 

The grandparents had given some spending money so the girls were able to buy more than they planned, but it sure didn't go very far there.  

We had put off going to Disney for quite some time, because I had heard of the extensive planning required, the expense, the lines, the heat, and the crowds. So with that in mind, we went with low expectations and were pleasantly surprised. I think it helped that the time we went they were doing both sets of fast passes. Otherwise we would have waited in a lot more lines because the crowds that week were very heavy.

We had amazing weather throughout the trip. Once day and in the evenings it was chilly but the weather was pretty close to perfect. It was always overcast and looked like it was going to rain, but it never actually did. 

We really didn't do a whole lot of planning - most was done by our travel agent and some Disney loving friends. But we felt like we had some freedom in where to go while having the assurance that some of our rides and our meals were set for us. We were there for eight days and felt like we saw almost everything and never felt too rushed, although we did keep moving all the time. 

When we consider that everything was included except $25 in tips per day, the cost was pretty good too, so except for the air tickets we had to buy at an expensive time it was actually pretty reasonable. 

So in all, we had a really nice (if exhausting) trip. The kids had lots of fun, and we would consider going again if they forget too much in a few years. 

Many thanks to Lacee, Christina, Andrea and Kimber for help in planning!