Heather C Heather C is a married, mom of three: big sis Lily and identical twins Natalie and Sophia. She has been guest blogging for Mumbling Mommy since February of 2012 and began working as a Social Media Editor in 2014. After nearly a decade in banking, she now works part time at a doctor's office specializing in breastfeeding medicine and spends the rest of her days in her Midwest home as zookeeper/stay-at-home-mom. Heather C is also a runner, hiker, yogi, bike rider and more. She reads when she finds more than a few minutes to herself and she hosts a lot of pajama dance parties in her kitchen. In her spare time, she's the co-leader for her daughter's Girl Scout troop and an active member of the school's Parent-Teacher Committee as well as a certified postpartum doula.

Disney World is touted as the most magical place in the world. I’ve been there. And honestly, it really, truly is as magical as they say. Sure, it’s overpriced and often crowded. There are a million other places more beautiful (the seven wonders of the world just to name a few …) But Disney is absolutely magical in its ability to transform anyone back to the best parts of their childhood.

Disney World

I went to Disney World for the first time when I was 25 years old. My husband, 20-month-old daughter, parents, brother and sister-in law were with me. We just did one park for one day, and we picked the Magic Kingdom. I loved every minute of it.

Shortly after that vacation, I found myself pregnant with our twin daughters. Once the dust settled and we hit our stride raising three kids 2 years old and younger, I started dreaming about the day all five of us could take a vacation and stay in one of the themed resort suites and visit every park over the course of the week.

We go on a lot of vacations and see many parts of the country, including a lot of mountains and coastlines, and we spend a lot of time in nature. Still, we wanted to do this completely high-maintenance vacation, too.

As time went on, we decided 2017 would be the year to take our family to Disney World. The girls would be 5 and almost 8 years old. We wouldn’t have to worry about naps or strollers, and the kids would be old enough to remember the trip. We definitely planned on it being a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing.

Then this year, my husband and I took an adults-only one-day trip to Universal Studios. We had an absolutely amazing time but spent 14 straight hours doing both parks and the City Walk area. We walked over 20,000 steps. It was incredible. It was memorable. But it was exhausting!

It was in that moment that I realized we are definitely not ready to do the massive Disney World week-long vacation with the whole family yet. I don’t know when we will end up deciding to go. Maybe when the kids are more like 10 and 12? Or 12 and 14?

I know my kids, and we have done full days at theme parks like Six Flags, Busch Gardens, and Sea World plus plenty of zoo and museum trips. We always have a blast, but there is a lot of down time, a lot of “I’m tireds,” a lot of battles to put sunscreen on yet again. It’s fine for one day. We’d be in jail if it lasted for seven days.

In the meantime we will travel a lot and make a lot of memories together, but for now, we changed our minds about taking our family to Disney World.

How old were your kids when your family went to Disney World? What are the ideal ages for a Disney World trip?

Photo credit: Wikipedia

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Category: Vacation

Tags: Disney World