I’ve shared how I planned a cruise as an adult. Now, I want to share how I planned my 5-day Disney trip as an adult.

This Disney World trip was my first big trip I planned with five (originally six) people coming from 4 different locations.

How the Trip Came to Be 

As I mentioned in the first Disney World post, my college roommates and I wanted to go to Disney together. We didn’t go while we were still in school and we’d made peace with that.

Then, in February 2020, I won four Disney tickets at my job! I thought, “This is perfect! There’s one for each of us!” The tickets were only for one day each. Still, this was the excuse we needed to 1) go to Disney 2) see each other again since graduating.

However, I also wanted to invite two of my closest friends from college (the same ones who went on the January cruise with me). Now, it would potentially be six people instead of four. I ended up wanting to use the four tickets for myself (4 parks, 4 days) and invited everyone if they wanted to join.

Good News Turned Sour

My tickets were only good for that year. It wasn’t a problem until, the pandemic hit the States. We’d planned to go in September 2020 which was one the cheapest times to go but with the height of Covid and no vaccine at the time, none of us felt comfortable traveling. We decided to push it back a year.

Disney then refused to extend the expiration date of my tickets despite the situation. I ended up losing out on those park tickets. It still ticks me off when I think about it.

When things were still looking bleak, we pushed it back again to accommodate everyone’s schedule. We decided on going in March. It was the week of my friend’s – who is a teacher – spring break and it was a week before one of my old roommate’s birthday. We thought we could use it as a celebration. It was a little more expensive than September but not as expensive as the summer months.

Planning

Hotel

Once we nailed down a date we started re-looking at where to stay. Disney has the Walt Disney World Resorts but there are also “Good Neighbor Hotels” like the one Celeste and I stayed in for Disneyland. There’s Airbnb as an option also.

Originally, we were looking at all option: Disney Resorts, good neighbor hotels, and Airbnb.

Half of the group had never been to Disney World (one of them lived in California so they’d only been to Disneyland). I wanted them to get the full experience but was okay we chose a cheaper option. At first we’d all agreed to stay at a Disney Resort.

Later, one of my friends was pushing to stay off the Disney campus but ultimately everyone else wanted to stay at a Disney Resort. That friend ended up not going all together.

When it was six of us we were going to stay at Pop Century and get two rooms. Since the number of people had gone down to five, everyone wanted to be in the same room. So, we switched to the Art of Animation and stayed in a family suite. It cost more than the two rooms but everyone was okay with that (well, I wasn’t because I wanted my own bed but majority rules).

Transportation and Disney Resort Perks

Besides wanting the full Disney experience, everyone was on board with the Disney World resort because they offered complimentary transportation from the airport to the resort. However, starting 2022 they no longer offered the free transportation. Mears Connect is the replacement. At the time it was $16 per adult and $13.50 per child (3-9 years old) one way (it looks like it’s gone up since then but as of May 15, 2023 they have a spring sale for essentially the same price). Children under 3 are free.

The complimentary airport shuttle discontinuing was part of the reason why my friend ended up not going on the trip. However, staying on the resort does have other benefits like:

• Transportation to the parks and Disney Springs
• Early park entry
• Early restaurant reservation ability

Staying at the Art of Animation, we’d take the bus to Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom and use the Skyliner to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. You can check the Disney World App map for ways to get to the parks (it functions similar to Google maps).

I’ll stop here for now. We’ll get into park tickets, reserving for parks, and itinerary in the next planning post.