Remember in the beginning how nicely I talked about all the things I had scheduled for my week in Kissimmee? Yeah…it turns out that my awesome plans had to deal with a deviation or two. Today we were supposed to start things off with a character breakfast at the Magic Kingdom followed by hours and hours of fun at the various attractions. That was my ideal, life is grand, we’ll all be happy every single day plan. The new me, the one that has spent days exploring Gatorland, the beach, and Disney, the one with the blister on her toe and extremely sore feet, the one that kept her children up to midnight last night to attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party…that person decided at 1:30 AM that she was not pulling her kids out of bed for a character breakfast. That new person also threw out her plan of attack for the Magic Kingdom and decided that the family would go and just wing it. I know that Frommer’s would disapprove, but that’s what I decided. And you know what? It worked out really well for us.
I’ve learned a thing or two during this week and here’s my key lesson for all of you. Do NOT over schedule yourself. You’ll be tempted, but try to resist the urge. I didn’t and I’m exhausted. The family is having fun, but we might need a vacation to recover from this vacation. I wanted to fit in as much as possible because I didn’t know how many years it would be before we could visit again. Even though it is possible that it might be many years before we return, if I had to do this week again I’d plan a slower pace. I’d make sure there was more time for just hanging out at our vacation home and enjoying the pool. I’d make sure that we didn’t leave the house before noon and we’d be home by 6 PM each night. I would order more pizza and spend less time in the kitchen. You get the general idea.
When I polled a few of the other adults in the family, I heard a common theme. They would have liked to have had a break between park visits. For instance, visit the Animal Kingdom and then have the next day be a down day at the house or at the beach. Then visit Epcot and have another down day, and so on. As I think more about it, I believe that probably would have been the better way to go. I wasn’t sure if the recommendation was realistic with the way Disney tickets work, but I looked them up and discovered that even if you don’t buy the no-expiration addition, you still have 14 days to use them from first use. So I could have broken up the park visits since the Disney tickets didn’t need to be used in consecutive days. This is good information for the future.
So please…learn from me. If you want to have a fantastic time in Kissimmee and not feel so tired, adjust your plans, and move at a slower pace. Enjoy some down time and don’t feel like you have to see everything at once. Your family and your feet will thank you for it!
Laura…
Blogger Malise Terrell will visit Kissimmee next week! Want to share your Kissimmee story? 
