When I planned a Disney World trip with Bebe last fall, I obviously had no idea that the parks would be shut down less than 6 months later for COVID-19! It was a bit intimidating to plan a trip with a 15 month old, but now I am so glad we did Disney together and I really treasure the memories!
Mr. LOTG plans an annual golf trip every year, and last fall it was near Orlando. I planned to fly in and out with Mr. LOTG but when it turned out he was on a 6 am flight, I nixed that idea and we only flew home with Mr. LOTG. The rest of the time, our Disney trip was just Bebe and me! We took a 4 day weekend for the trip – flying to Orlando on Thursday, and home on Sunday afternoon.
So, with that in mind, I thought a lot about hotels when planning my Disney World trip. My biggest goal was ease. Traveling solo with an older baby meant that I wanted the days to go as smoothly as possible, with the easiest transportation possible to and from the parks. We only were going to do two park days, and I planned to do one park per day. Bebe has not seen any Disney movies yet, so he wasn’t itching to do anything in particular (and honestly had no idea where we were).
I definitely viewed this trip as sort of a scouting mission – a low pressure trip to learn more about current Disney (FastPass+ and the My Disney Experience app were all new to me although I had been to Disney lots of times growing up!) before Bebe has all sort of ideas about things he wants to do or see! I also planned to come back to the hotel every afternoon for afternoon nap. This meant that I only looked at hotels on Disney property, with the goal of walking with the stroller to the parks if possible.
I used the Disney website a lot when planning the trip. There are SO many hotels at Disney World – it is best to acquaint yourself with the property map and think about your priorities. Which parks are your favorites? Do you plan to spend lots of time at the hotel, and are pools and resort amenities important to you? What will you do for nap time – on the go or back to the room? And what will you do for bedtime – are you willing to stay up late, go home early, or rely on Disney transportation to get you back to the hotel?
I first considered staying at one of the hotels on the Monorail line, which means particularly easy access to Magic Kingdom. However, when I looked at rates for the October weekend, even 6+ months in advance, the rates were definitely higher than I expected. I didn’t think the baby would adequately appreciate the extra amount paid just to stay on the monorail line. With that in mind, and still wanting a quality hotel that had good access to parks, I decided to stay at the Walt Disney World Swan hotel. It is a Marriott Bonvoy property, and I had Marriott points that I could combine with cash to pay for the stay, making it much more affordable than the monorail hotels.
When I travel just myself and Bebe, I don’t mind having just one room so I booked a standard hotel room. I put Bebe to bed in the dark room, and sneak off to the bathroom or wherever I can. In this instance, there was a little area outside of the bathroom, so I just put a chair there and worked on my laptop a bit after Bebe went down. When Mr. LOTG and I travel together with Bebe, we prefer a room with a divider or some separate area so we aren’t sitting in the dark together! I also know people have used the SlumberPod with success, but we haven’t tried it ourselves.
The Swan has a great location on the Disney property. It is walking distance to Epcot, and a short boat ride from Hollywood Studios. It’s also walking distance to the Boardwalk area, which Bebe and I loved and visited every single day! The only hard part was how to get to Magic Kingdom. I didn’t love the idea of the Disney buses, as I knew we had time constraints due to lunch and naptime and I wasn’t sure how I would handle both a stroller and the baby to get on/off the buses. And honestly, I just didn’t want to bother with the hassle of buses if I didn’t have to!
Disney World Transportation Strategy
Day 1 – Travel Day
The first day, Bebe and I flew into Orlando. I brought his car seat with us to Orlando, and we called an Uber to take us to the Swan. For dinner, we walked to the Boardwalk where we had dinner.
Day 2 – Epcot
We strolled to Epcot first thing in the morning, and had breakfast in the park. After spending the morning and having lunch at the park, we walked back to the hotel for nap. We walked back to Epcot in the afternoon, and back to the hotel after dinner.
Day 3 – Magic Kingdom
Bebe and I took an Uber with a car seat first thing in the morning to the Contemporary Hotel. One great thing about Orlando is that they offer Ubers with car seats! I wasn’t sure of the quality of an Uber car seat, so I still brought baby’s car seat for transportation to and from the airport, but I felt comfortable with an Uber car seat for the short drive around the park property.
I chose the Contemporary for breakfast because it is the only hotel from which you can walk to Magic Kingdom, and I wanted to be in charge of our transportation as much as possible to reduce waits on monorail/bus/boat etc.
After breakfast at the Contemporary, we strolled to Magic Kingdom. We reversed this journey at lunchtime, and caught an Uber back to the Swan from the Contemporary for lunch. I decided to not go back to Magic Kingdom after nap (because there was only about a 2 hour window between nap and dinnertime). Instead, we played in the room for a while and then strolled down to the Boardwalk, where Bebe played with other kiddos on the big green space there before dinner.
Day 4 – Character Breakfast and Travel Home
We had a mid-day flight home, so I wanted to make the most of our morning. We strolled down to the Boardwalk and went to a character breakfast before playing on the green there (where Mr. LOTG met us!). We came back to the airport with Mr. LOTG in the rental car, using the car seat.
I loved our location at the Swan! Honestly, I could have just done Epcot and Hollywood Studios (there is a boat from the Swan area to Hollywood Studios) and had an even easier time of the transportation! But, because it was Bebe’s first trip, I ultimately wanted to take him to the Magic Kingdom — and we had the BEST time thanks to some extra magic. And I’ll share all about that, and what we did, where we ate, and all the baby/toddler-friendly play places we found, in our next Disney post!