It’s no secret that as a family, we have fallen in love with Walt Disney World. In 2015, our oldest three girls had the amazing opportunity to go to Disney with Indiana Youth Ballet to perform at Disney Springs! We had never been there as a family, so we couldn’t pass up the chance to take our family on this trip.

We began making plans in early 2015.  As overwhelming as it was, I really got into the planning. I read tons of blogs and talked to some Disney-loving friends, asking them a million questions and taking gobs of notes. I wanted to soak up as much of Disney as we could in our time there. The hours we spent talking and researching and switching around our fast passes and advanced dining reservations were countless.

As I planned our week, leaving plenty of room for flexibility but being strategic with our schedule, our excitement escalated. We left on a Tuesday afternoon from Chicago Midway International Airport with our four oldest girls in tow. We made a hard decision to leave the baby at home with Grandma Shirley, as she was just a year old. Landing in Orlando that evening, we hopped on the Magic Express to begin our Disney experience. We knew the moment we boarded the bus that we were going to have an amazing time. And, boy, did we ever! It was the best week ever! We made some of the most special memories, not only with our own family, but with our dance family as well.

We had so much fun that we went on the trip again in 2016 and are considering going in 2017!

In the next several weeks, I’m going to be posting some tips and tricks from our time at Disney. Some of you that follow my blog may not be Disney fans, and that’s okay. I just know that several of my friends have been asking me questions about our trips and thought this might be helpful to others as well. I chose to share these posts on Mondays, because, well, it sounds best and because Mondays need some magic!

If you have specific questions or things you would like me to talk about in this series, comment below and I’ll try to cover them!

Check out the Magical Monday series here!

Have a Magical Monday 😉