One of our favorite things about living in Central Florida is that we are close to Disney! They offer great Florida resident rates on their season and annual passes and we love being able to drive over to the parks for just an afternoon or evening. Our girls are the perfect age for Disney--seeing all of the wonder of fairytales, adventure stories, characters and princesses through their little eyes is what makes it so much fun for us.
We let our passes expire over the summer and decided to wait to renew them until after we've been home "laying low" and bonding with Diamond for a few months. In the meantime, we've continued to enjoy lots of fun activities offered at the various resorts. We spent an evening at Animal Kingdom Lodge with dinner at Boma's (an African-themed restaurant) followed by watching the animals in the park through night-vision binoculars provided by guides. Really fun! Another night, we ate dinner at the Polynesian Resort and watched the fireworks over Cinderella's Castle from their beach. Also fun and so exciting for the girls!
We had a little cold snap this past weekend (it actually dipped down into the 50's! brrr!)--perfect weather for a campfire! We drove over to Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground, hung out with Chip and Dale, toasted smarshmallows (as Miss A calls them), and cozied up to watch the animated movie Tarzan on a big screen under the stars.
No charge for parking. No admission fee. And since we stopped by the grocery store to purchase our s'more fixins and only bought the roasting sticks (75 cents each), popcorn ($2) and drinks ($3) at the event (next time we'll take along our own thermos of hot chocolate!)--the entire evening cost us less than $15.00! For an evening of Disney fun, and a movie, you just can't beat that!
Chip and Dale leading the crowd in songs and dances:
The girls were not too sure about Hus-B's "catch-it-on-fire-then-blow-it-out" technique. Look at those expressions!
But the end results were delicious! Gimme s'more!
Cuddling before the movie:
How do you park for free if you don't have a season pass? We always have to show ours for free parking. I'd love to know b/c we may let ours lapse for a little while next spring/summer!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Mama Henley:
ReplyDeleteIt could be that we always just luck out with generous parking attendants, but we've been doing this so long, I'm inclined to think not.
If we aren't planning to go into one of the parks and are just going to one of the resorts in the main park area (Contemporary, Polynesian, Fort Wilderness, Grand Floridian), we just tell the guy/girl at the main parking station (the big one with the Walt Disney World sign across the top), "we're just going to the Polynesian for dinner (or whatever we're doing)" and they just say okay, stay on the right and we drive on through.
Once we get to the parking lot for the resort (whether or not we go through the main parking station), we just tell them "we're just here for the campfire (or dinner or whatever)" and all they've ever asked to see is our driver's license (not sure what they are looking for, but they usually ask to see it and sometimes will make a little scribble on their clipboard after they glance at it), then they just waive us on through.
The only thing we've ever had to show our annual pass for parking for is to park in the Magic Kingom/Epcot/Hollywood Studios parking lots (which has previously been included in an annual pass but not a season pass but they may run specials where a season pass gets free parking (if not, another secret we've learned is that if you want free parking but only want seasonal passes is to upgrade one of your children's passes to an annual (children's passes are cheaper than adult's but both include free parking) and get the season passes for the rest of your family).
Try it out before your passes expire and let me know if it works for you!
Of course... give me the deets, send me a photo, and I'll do my best to snoop around :-) My email is shaunasinclair1@comcast.net
ReplyDeleteShauna
How fun...I love how you said it was cold in the 50's.....I pray for high 50's right now here in WI....during the days. I would give anything to live down by you but my hubby is a hunter is we must stay North..darn:( Love to see youe great posts and pcis...thanks for sharing:)
ReplyDeleteKaren
Fun- we love campfires & smores!!!
ReplyDeleteWow... what a great perk! I love Disney and dream about living in FL so we can go all the time! Cute pictures.
ReplyDelete