Wow, what a week. We had a wonderful time and hopefully this report will be of help to those planning a trip to WDW. We are a family of four, kids are 9 and 6.

We flew Southwest, non-stop both ways for $171 R/T per person. I downloaded "DING" (from Southwest's website)which enables you to have access to special offers and fares. I lucked out and was able to save 15% off our fare. FYI I booked our flight as soon as Southwest released travel dates for October. The fare nearly doubled since April. The flights departed on time and arrived 10-15 minutes early. Good experience.

Booked car rental through Southwest's website as they offer special discounts and corporate discount codes. Initially I booked through Alamo for a standard sedan for $148+ tax/fees. Kept checking back and got it for $126+ tax/fees. A couple of weeks before leaving Budget had an offer of $108 + tax/fees. This is what we ended up doing.

Had to wait about 1 hour in the Budget line to get our car. A warm up to the lines we had to withstand at WDW you could say.

Rented our condo through www.vrbo.com. We have used this website many times as have friends and family members. We have always been pleased and have had positive experiences. We chose to stay off Disney property and some friends were aghast that we could do something so ridiculous. The nerve of us, I'll tell you!

We enjoyed having a seperate bedroom from the kids and we all needed a little space form one another from time to time. We also felt we got lots more for our money by staying off property. $84/night for nicely appointed 2BR/2BA condo 2 miles from main entrance to WDW. Lagoon style pool, arcade, movie theater, washer/dryer in our unit, etc... The complex is called Windsor Hills for anyone interested.

We did opt to go to Magic Kingdom the day of our arrival. Spent 4-5 hours there which was well tolerated. Able to do quite a lot more than I expected.

Animal Kingdom the next day. Headed straight for Kilimanjaro Safari which was fun and educational. Got drenched on Kali River Rapids! Finding Nemo--The Musical is wonderful and we all enjoyed it! It's Tough to be a Bug was SCARY! My kids only lasted about 5 minutes of this realistic 3D show with big fat hairy spiders and creepy crawly bugs. Yuk. Festival of the Lion King is terrific! Rode Expedition Everest with my DS. A great ride and boy did we get lucky and got to sit in the front seat. Yes, lucky. A sad but true realization came over me while riding this--my roller coaster riding days peaked long ago. I still get dizzy when I think about riding it. DD met characters and got autographs. Also got to see the Jammin' Jungle Parade. Very enjoyable.

The next day we went to EPCOT but not until later in the afternoon. We hung out by the pool and relaxed some. Nice change of pace. This was the worst day weather wise. Downpour, sun, downpour, sun. But we managed to laugh a lot. We went through World Showcase and stomped in lots of puddles along our trek. The kids liked the KidCot stations. Contrary to popular opinion, EPCOT offers a lot to kids. We broke out our dollar store ponchos and my DH put on his rendition of Poncho Man, to the beat of Macho Man. What a site we were! We all got a good laugh out of it. We missed IllumiNations which I am ashamed to admit. I hear it's wonderful.

On to Hollywood Studios the next day. We loved this park! Old Hollywood style with lots of art deco. Fun things to do here. Went straight to the new Toy Story ride, waited 20-30 minutes to ride, got in line about 9:30. Got a FastPass for later in the afternoon to do again--we loved it! At one time the line was 2 hours long! OUCH! Glad we didn't have to do that! Rode Tower of Terror with DS. A very cool experience. Did the Great Movie Ride which has some wonderful parts to it but also includes some gangster violence which we really didn't enjoy. Saw Voyage of the Little Mermaid--very nice and saw the stunt show Lights! Motors! Action! This was fair. The kids liked it but it got kind of slow and cheesey while setting up for the next stunt. Herbie was there and we all love the Love Bug! We wanted to see Fantasmic which is supposed to be out of this world. However, the park closed early that night, 6:00pm, for a special event. Whah.... We did see Block Party Bash. This was enjoyable and it's more of a show than a parade as it stops a couple of times along the parade route for performances.

Back to Magic Kingdom. Splash Mountain is so nice. Did the Hall of Presidents--my DS is fascinated by them and loves history. Watched the Dreams Come True Parade near Pecos Bill's in FrontierLand. Great spot, nice and shady. They have great BBQ beef there too. My favorite WDW food. SpectroMagic we also saw that night. Don't miss it!

EPCOT again the next day. Did Future World, went straight for FastPass for Soarin'. This ride is the best by far. Worth the admission to EPCOT. Kids loved Spaceship Earth and it has been redone since I visited last in 1991. Very interactive, DS and DH did Test Track, they loved it. Also did Nemo and Friends and Turtle Talk with Crush. Had character dinner at The Garden Grill. Save your money--at least this character meal wasn't worth it. The food was so-so. Gorssly overpriced.

Last day we spent the am at Magic Kingdom. DH and DS rode Space Mountain. DD and I got princess autographs. She was mesmerized when she got to meet Aurora, Belle and Cinderella.

I did not take the time to include everything we did. We did have to pay $12/day to park. We did not follow any of the touring plans. We got in line early for the big headliner attractions and spontaneously enjoyed our time in the parks. WDW really is magical. Everything is so well done with so much attention to detail. Oh, and commercialism at its finest.

I hope some fellow Fodorites find this useful and I am happy to answer specifics if anyone should have any questions.

My advice to a family planning a trip--use a stroller for kids under 5 or 6. We bought a cheapy umbrella stroller for the week and that was money well spent. Don't try to do everything--it'll never happen. Plan plenty of time to rest and relax. Save, save, save before you go. Be spontaneous!

Oops, I wanted to thank everyone for their input while I was planning this trip! Thank you!!

thanks for offering such a detailed report. Wish others would do so. HG

Thanks HG for reading!! I was beginning to think my efforts were wasted.

Scarlet & Gray:

I read your report and enjoyed it very much. Your kids are the perfect age to get the most out of it. Thanks for your effort.

MY

Very nice report!
We too love WDW and have slso
stayed off site (along with many
times on site) and similar to you
to the disdain of our friends.

I am curious though, did you
have to take your kids out of
school, or were they on fall
break? Would like to take out
ours also (to go off season)
but DH is against it.

Thanks for posting.

Dear Wanderluster:

Now that our daughter is in HS, we don't take her out of school. But when she was in elementary & middle school, we did. Not much, but looking back, I wish I hadn't worried about it and taken her on more trips. She was a good student, so it worked out OK.

We did take her out for WDW in early May. It was warm, but not crowded at all. We rode some rides over & over.

Good luck,

MY

Sounds like you had a great trip. I'm surprised you and your kids didn't like It's Tough to be a Bug. I think it's very clever and really well done.

Wanderluster--very good question! I was waiting to see if anyone would ask about the school issue. Our kids were out the entire week. The town we live in has a very large festival every year and the kids are out of school the entire week. So, we are very fortunate because not too many families get to travel in October when it's generally cheaper and less crowded.

BarbaraS--I agree that It's Tough to be a Bug is clever, we're just wimps when it comes to bugs. Mickey's PhilHarmagic is similar with the effects which we enjoyed--without the spiders!

I've never seen Mickey's PhilHarmagic - I guess I'd better plan a trip!

So nice of you to write a report. I remember taking our children out of school in October to go to Disneyworld. They had Friday and Monday off, we took them out Thurs., flying down Wednesday evening. It was a really fun time (except it was the first stock market crash in 1987(?). We visited one more time--Modell sold the Browns--We decided we would just stop going to Disneyworld.

I wonder if anyone remembers one of the funniest trip reports ever. A man took his second wife and their children to Disneyworld and I can just remember laughing out loud at his trip report.

You enjoyed Disney more than he did.

Sounds like a fun trip We did WDW almost two years ago. Loved the safari and Expedition Everest, but we skipped Tough to be a Bug. Our kids were (are) teens, so maybe that is why (I don't remember). Anyway, we too took our kids out of school for a week. We went for a shuttle launch for a friend, so added WDW to our plans for an extra couple of days.

Hi ScarletandGray: Curious where you ate? On or off property? did you cook in your condo? One of the benefits to us of staying on property was being able to get the Disney Dining Plan.

We ate breakfast in the condo, lunch at WDW when we were there full days and dinner usually back at the condo with the exception of our character dinner.

We packed snacks and drinks to munch on throughout the day.

This worked out well for us. My kids loved eating at Pizza Planet and playing in the arcade! DH and I liked Pecos Bill's. Terrific BBQ!

The dining plan was not available to us as we chose to stay off property. I really didn't research it as I knew it wouldn't apply to us. But my first thought on hearing about it was it's probably most beneficial to WDW, not to the consumer. Do you really get your money's worth?

There was a shuttle launch planned for 10/14 but was cancelled about a week before we left. Postponed until 2009. That would have been something to see.

Well, I think the answer to that depends on how and what you like to eat.

We got the Disney Dining Plan for free last year during one of the promotions, so it was definitely a good value! I now see that they are offering it in several "flavors" for 2009:

http://www.mouseplanet.com/articles.php?art=mo080829sr

But let's say you just take the basic Dining Plan. That's $39.99 for adults and $10.99 for kids. You get 1 table service meal, 1 counter service meal and 1 snack credit per person. The meals include entree, dessert and beverage. We used our snack credits for breakfast (cereal, bagel or latte counts as a snack). We used the counter service for a meal in the parks. We used our table service for a nicer meal in one of the WDW hotels or at Epcot. If you did this, you would essentially be spending $100 a day on food. You saw the bills coming back from the counter service meals for a party of 4 -- do you think it would be worth it? I think so, especially if you use your table service for a "nice" meal (these will be at least $25-35 per adult without booze) and you use your snack credits for breakfast. As the article explains, even if the plan offers the food to you for less than you would otherwise pay for it, it still represents a profit for Disney AND it makes you eat on property each day -- a big win for them. JMHO.