Remember I told you that we traveled to Disney with our friends, Betsy and Jay {and their lovely Lulabelle and Baby Ethel?}….and no, her name probably won’t be Ethel, but who knows?!?!?!  Well, I let Bets take the reins today and give you some hints for traveling 6 months pregnant to Disney!  Enjoy!My Disney vacation may be atypical from most and certainly from Shara’s in that my awesome husband took the reins of planning!  We discussed everything we decided, but as you read my recap, know that I don’t take credit for the plans he came up with or our schedule.  We both tried to be flexible with plans and just have fun because that’s all you can do with a 2-year-old and your in-laws in tow!

We rode with my in-laws in their RV so we were able to save money on food and stay at a campground overnight on the way to and from Florida {4 days total of travel to/from Disney from Maryland, and 6 days of Florida}.

Accommodations

We chose to stay at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Campground for a few key reasons.

We were making this trip with my in-laws and wanted to be near them to make plans to meet up and eat meals together as easy as possible.  We could have all squeezed in their RV all week, but Fort Wilderness has cabins, so the three of us opted for one of those for everyone’s sanity.  It was great!  We really liked everything about it.

Fort Wilderness is a really nicely laid out campground that has spoiled me for campgrounds everywhere.  Disney just knows how to do things right.  It is expansive, interspersed beautifully with trees and wildlife so you don’t see a million RVs everywhere you look, and there is bus transportation to help you get all around, though most everyone ends up splurging on renting golf carts for the week (including my father-in-law!  Even after we had planned not to splurge on renting one and sticking to the bus transport, he decided it would be well worth it for the ease of getting around, so we were fine with that!).  Two great pools, several playgrounds, two well-stocked shops with lots of food and drink essentials as well as gifty Disney stuff, pony rides, a delicious buffet, and easy free transportation to all of the parks plus Downtown Disney all made it a great choice for our family. They also had an awesome campfire sing-a-long featuring Chip and Dale every night with marshmallow roasting and a movie under the stars.

• Note 1. Bring your own marshmallows/s’mores stuff.  They sell everything there, but its pricey!
• Note 2. Go during the weekdays.  We went on Wednesday night and again on Friday night (though I think some people go every night, hey its free entertainment) and Wednesday was nice and calm and peaceful while Friday was packed and slightly chaotic!The cabins can sleep up to 6 people total, so our little family of 3 was able to spread out quite nicely.  The cabin had a full kitchen and one full bathroom, one bedroom with bunkbeds and a double bed, and a livingroom with a Murphy bed.  Jason and I chose to sleep out on the Murphy bed so we could put Lulabelle to bed at bedtime and stay up to watch TV for awhile without disturbing her.  It worked out really well.  Plus we had the luxury of housekeeping everyday… that’s my kind of camping!  We researched ahead of time and found that RV lots are not really intermixed with cabins in their layout, but you can call ahead to request specific areas if possible, so we so did that and got loops next to each other……ended up within walking distance to my in-law’s but not so close that we got on each others’ nerves.Parks

We also opted for the 4 tickets and got the 5^th day free, but to save money we forewent the park hopper option and just did straight days.  The hopper would have been beneficial to some extent, but we didn’t really miss it.

Magic Kingdom notes:

-Be Our Guest restaurant

• Ridiculous line just to get inside to eat, but I’ve decided it was worth it!  Disney made the Beast’s castle look so realistic and amazing, it was really a treat to get to sit there and eat!  A delicious feast for the tummy and for the eyes.
• I was frustrated by the ordering process – touchscreen computers each party orders on themselves are a bad idea when a Disney staff person has to run from computer to computer helping all the people figure out how to take the accidental extra beverages off their total or swipe their credit card!  But my note to poor starving preggos or people with toddlers would be to just have a little snack while in line so you’re not dead or ready to kill someone by the time you get to the ordering screens.
• The meals were pricey, but in reality quite comparable to the other restaurants in the parks – 4 adult meals with drinks and one kid’s meal with milk came to $55 – and the food was really quite good – I got a quiche that came with a good-sized spinach salad and champagne vinaigrette, mmm….
• The other pretty cool thing to note was the servers bringing out your food using some method of GPS or tracking to figure out exactly where your party is seated.  It was done via a little red, circular rose that you take with you after ordering and set on the table you’ve chosen, and then within a few minutes a waiter comes wheeling out a fancy food cart directly to your table.  When my husband asked how he knew where we were, the waiter just said “magic,” we were in an enchanted castle after all.  Anyway, we sat in the main ballroom, in fancy chairs, under gorgeous chandeliers, with computer-generated snow falling outside beautiful windows – I absolutely loved it.Epcot notes:

-Nemo ride + big aquarium afterwards!

• We knew about Turtle Talk with Crush after the Nemo ride, but I did not know there was a full-fledged aquarium to check out in there as well with manatees, dolphins, turtles, fish!  We ended up staying in that one building for close to 2 hours even with no line to get on the Nemo ride at all!
• Note: bring a snack in if you’re pregnant and hungry every half an hour.Hollywood Studios notes:

-Disney Jr. show

• This was pretty much the main thing we thought Lu would want to do so we got in line early on and excitedly got front row seats inside the theater.  Terrible idea.  We could not see anything from the front row because they have you sit on the floor (my other bone to pick with that show – I don’t get up and down all that easily these days!) and the characters are all puppets.  Most times we could see just the tops of characters’ heads, but sometimes we couldn’t see them at all when they were talking.
• We also had a Disney staff member who kept making little Lu sit down when she tried to see a little better (even though in the middle rows all the kids were standing up and even though the only people she could have been blocking were her dad and grandpa).  SO, aim for the center of the theater, maybe even towards the back.
• And warn the grandparents and preggos in your family they’ll be sitting on the floor.

And finally, a shout-out to my shoes!  I researched good, supportive sandals for walking before we left, and these are what I decided on.  They are Spencos http://www.zappos.com/spenco-kholo-straw-java~1 I ordered from zappos.com, and they did a great job supporting me in all of our walking.  According to the reviews, they run a little wide, which was great for me as I have slightly wide feet on a normal day and was very worried my pregnant lady feet might swell especially in the heat.  They have great arch support, and I never had a day of discomfort with extended walking every day we were there.  Yay!

Overall, it was a magical Disney vacation!  In a nutshell, if you choose to do Disney while pregnant, make sure you wear good shoes, bring lots of water and snacks, and stay in the shade.  We can’t wait to go back, or at least go on vacation with Shara and Dave again soon!  Thanks for reading!

Betsy

Betsy is the cake creator over at Betsy’s Cakes, the Godmother of Jayna and Amelia, and the Mommy of Lullabelle.  She’s also the wife of Jay, and lover of all things Disney.  She’s also Shara’s best friend, and can be found in this post, this one, and this one.  Oh yeah, she also is the mastermind behind the Super Popular Dr. Suess Party post!