Play & Dine at Hollywood Studios

I highly recommend that if you go on a Disney vacation that you go all the way and stay on Disney property and take advantage of one of their dining plans. Though I loved the luxury of the Waldorf, I felt a lot less stress once we moved to Disney property. It was a lot easier to get around, and because we purchased a deluxe dining plan, getting our meals & snacks was as easy as handing a cast member our "key to the Kingdom" card. This was really great for me because I am one who tends to worry about the cost of things. Food at Disney is not cheap, but using a prepaid plan I didn't ever fret over the prices. If the kids wanted ice cream, we got ice cream. This made for a lot happier vacation for all of us.

Kyrie with Leo from Little Einsteins.

So, my strategy for our Disney trip was to take advantage of as many character dining experiences as I could using our Disney Dining plan. There are some disadvantages to this as you have to make reservations, which means that your schedule is dictated by where & when you are eating (traveling from one place on Disney property to another can take up to an hour and a half depending on wait times for buses, etc. so it can really cut into your time at the parks). Thankfully, for us, this didn't turn out to be a big issue.



Degen giving Special Agent Oso a big hug!



In all, we had 10 dining reservations and 8 of those were character dining experiences. You can imagine that with that many reservations, we really did have to keep to a schedule, which included early mornings and sometimes leaving parks early. My rationale for choosing meals over time at the parks was that these meals would provide the best opportunities for my kids to interact with some of the Disney characters. I knew they would be overwhelmed by the crowds and too impatient for the long lines that form at the character greetings sites. Instead, we sat down and ate a meal and waited for the characters to come to us. The kids got some one-on-one time (or two-on-one) with each character who was at the meals. (I must note that there are TONS of characters who we didn't get to see because they weren't at the meals, but that's a good excuse for us to go again... in a few years.) There was an additional cost for these table service meals, but for us it was definitely worth it. Almost all of the photos that we took were during our character meals.

A hug from Handy Manny can fix anything!

Our first 'official' day as Disney guests was my birthday, and I took the kids to Hollywood Studios. We really had a great day! This park is a lot less crowded than Magic Kingdom, and the whole environment was a lot more relaxed. Lunch that day was the Play & Dine at Hollywood Vine and included characters from Disney Junior.

Degen with June from Little Einsteins.

 Our favorite things about Hollywood Studios were the Great Movie Ride, the Little Mermaid Show, the Disney Junior Show and the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids play area. My birthday present came at dinner when Darren rushed over in a cab after his conference ended to meet us for our dinner reservation at the 50s Prime Time Cafe. This meal was delightfully fun (with no characters, except for our waitress, "Mama") and a great end to our day.

Kyrie showing Leo the start of her WDW pressed penny collection! This was the first day she started collecting the pennies, and I bought her a book to keep her collection. This became a fun, family activity for the entire trip.... we filled up all but 4 of the slots. Another great reason to go back... in a few years.