RositaFound!
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2024
Hi everyone!
I'm new to posting on this board, but I've been browsing it for a while as I start to plan our upcoming, first half of November 2025 trip. We'll be a party of 8, going for 10 days and 9 nights (hoping for 2 days at MK, 2 at Epcot, 1 AK, and 1 HS) hoping to celebrate a big wedding anniversary for my parents and a couple milestone birthdays as well. We are all HUGE Disney fans that are Disneyland locals. We had passes for decades. While we know Disneyland like the back of our hands, Disney World is pretty much brand-new to us. My parents went once right after Epcot opened, and I've been a couple times (once in high school and once in my early 20's...and now I'm edging closer to 40!) but no one else has been, so we're effectively total newbies!
This will be a multigenerational trip which definitely complicates things. We'll have my girls, who will be just a few weeks short of 3, and 5.5 years old; my generation of adults in our family (early 30's though early 40's - my sister, me, and our husbands), and my parents who will be in their early 70's. My parents have some mobility issues. Both walk completely independently in real life, but my dad has a knee injury and my mom has MS, so we typically rent one ECV at the gate at Disneyland for them to rotate using to prevent fatigue/pain, but by the end of the day they usually both need it and it's a struggle. I don't know if I could talk them into it (both resist using them more than they need to in the parks), but given the major increase in distances at Disney World, I sort of think both of them need their own. But this complicates things because it seems like renting at the parks each day at Disney World might be a huge pain, but my parents would HATE the bus system and boarding with them (and don't need them to get around the resort/etc, just for a long park day).
In an ideal world, the resort my whole family would love would be Wilderness Lodge. We're all gigantic national park fans, we love the Grand Californian (and I know it's not the same, but a somewhat similar vibe), and I love the idea of a boat to MK! We do plan to rent cars anyway (we want one day to be a side trip to Cape Canaveral) so we could just drive to the other parks were it not for the ECV concern. How big a pain is it to rent for the day at the parks? If they were out at the beginning of the day and we had to wait for one to be available, my parents could handle that (happens at Disneyland sometimes) but I wonder how much of a pain timing-wise it would be. I know renting at the parks is probably more expensive, too, but that's not an issue for them.
Given that we'll have a double stroller, possibly two ECV's, and mainly be going to MK and Epcot, I was thinking a monorail resort might make more sense. But we're really not into the Contemporary, my older daughter is somewhat inexplicably terrified of Moana (she's only seen like 10 minutes of the movie but as it stands now, she'd flip in a bad way staying in a Moana room!), and I'd sort of prefer to not go with the most $$$ option with the Grand Floridian, haha, though we can (it's also one of the two places I've already stayed and would love to try something new if possible just since we don't often go).
Would love suggestions! And yes, I know my family is ridiculously high maintenance haha.
I'm new to posting on this board, but I've been browsing it for a while as I start to plan our upcoming, first half of November 2025 trip. We'll be a party of 8, going for 10 days and 9 nights (hoping for 2 days at MK, 2 at Epcot, 1 AK, and 1 HS) hoping to celebrate a big wedding anniversary for my parents and a couple milestone birthdays as well. We are all HUGE Disney fans that are Disneyland locals. We had passes for decades. While we know Disneyland like the back of our hands, Disney World is pretty much brand-new to us. My parents went once right after Epcot opened, and I've been a couple times (once in high school and once in my early 20's...and now I'm edging closer to 40!) but no one else has been, so we're effectively total newbies!
This will be a multigenerational trip which definitely complicates things. We'll have my girls, who will be just a few weeks short of 3, and 5.5 years old; my generation of adults in our family (early 30's though early 40's - my sister, me, and our husbands), and my parents who will be in their early 70's. My parents have some mobility issues. Both walk completely independently in real life, but my dad has a knee injury and my mom has MS, so we typically rent one ECV at the gate at Disneyland for them to rotate using to prevent fatigue/pain, but by the end of the day they usually both need it and it's a struggle. I don't know if I could talk them into it (both resist using them more than they need to in the parks), but given the major increase in distances at Disney World, I sort of think both of them need their own. But this complicates things because it seems like renting at the parks each day at Disney World might be a huge pain, but my parents would HATE the bus system and boarding with them (and don't need them to get around the resort/etc, just for a long park day).
In an ideal world, the resort my whole family would love would be Wilderness Lodge. We're all gigantic national park fans, we love the Grand Californian (and I know it's not the same, but a somewhat similar vibe), and I love the idea of a boat to MK! We do plan to rent cars anyway (we want one day to be a side trip to Cape Canaveral) so we could just drive to the other parks were it not for the ECV concern. How big a pain is it to rent for the day at the parks? If they were out at the beginning of the day and we had to wait for one to be available, my parents could handle that (happens at Disneyland sometimes) but I wonder how much of a pain timing-wise it would be. I know renting at the parks is probably more expensive, too, but that's not an issue for them.
Given that we'll have a double stroller, possibly two ECV's, and mainly be going to MK and Epcot, I was thinking a monorail resort might make more sense. But we're really not into the Contemporary, my older daughter is somewhat inexplicably terrified of Moana (she's only seen like 10 minutes of the movie but as it stands now, she'd flip in a bad way staying in a Moana room!), and I'd sort of prefer to not go with the most $$$ option with the Grand Floridian, haha, though we can (it's also one of the two places I've already stayed and would love to try something new if possible just since we don't often go).
Would love suggestions! And yes, I know my family is ridiculously high maintenance haha.