Review: Walt Disney World Adventure A Field Guide and Activity Book for Explorers

Do you think of educational when you think of Disney World? If not you should! Disney is full of everything from history and geography to science and art. When we planned our trip to Disney I was determined that in the homeschooling way, that even our vacation would be a learning experience. I flopped. Well sort of. I have to admit that in all of the chaos I did not pull Walt Disney World Adventure out at all, but not to worry! This book is so fun and thurough that we were able to complete it as a unit study after we got back!

Walt Disney World Adventure: A Field Guide and Activity Book for Explorers is a great book by Tracie A. Cook filled that retails for around $12  and is filled with fun facts and activities. There are traveling tips, back stories to the rides, puzzles and other interesting facts through out the book. It covers all four of the parks so you will have plenty do do! The over 100 pages activities are age appropriate for around 8-14 but even as an adult I found the facts in it interesting! Activities include mazes, cryptograms, numeric puzzles, decoding and so much more. With a little bit of help even my youngest could do some of the activities. And don't worry, the answers are in the back of the book if you get stuck on something!

While this book is obviously more fun at the parks or directly after, you could actually modify this to be a unit study! So whether you are just looking to make your trip educational or if you are just interested in studying Disney World, Walt Disney World Adventure: A Field Guide and Activity Book for Explorers this book is a blast!

Be sure to visit Tracie's site for other Adventure guides as well as crafts and more!

I was given a free copy of Tracie's book in exchange for an honest review. This blog is a truthful opinion of the book. Please take a moment to check out my full disclosure.

Disney World Day 2: Epcot

Day two was the start of a series of early risings for breakfast reservations. We were up at 6am to make it in time for breakfast with the princesses at Akershus.

Breakfast was wonderful. This might have been one of my favorite meals. The food was just buffet style American food but the atmosphere was wonderful and the girls especially loved meeting Belle!



After breakfast we set about riding anything we passed that striked our fancy. We managed the Mission Space, Soarin, and a few others. It was VERY hot and when it wasn't hot it was pouring rain so between that and our dining reservations we didn't do much but walk. Epcot has never been my favorite park though so I was fine with it. The kids seemed to have fun despite all of the walking. We did have a bit of a mix up with our dinner reservations so ended up having to make some last minute changes. We ended up at Maya Grill (don't waste your time!) and it was nearly mid-night before we got back to the hotel!

Is the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan Worth the Cost?



We visited Disney during the free dining plan promotion they run during the off season, but we also decided to go ahead and pay the difference to upgrade to the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan. Here is our reservation list, a short blurb on what we thought of each experience, the cost and whether we thought it was worth it.

The details:
Basic Plan: Free
Upgrade for 4 adults and 3 children: $1130
Dining Plan includes 3 table service meals and 2 snacks per person per day.

We ate most of our meals together so I will work this out as one plan but will note how many people ate at each meal to give you a better idea of how much it costs per person. I will also do a cumulative OOP (out of pocket) and a cumulative DDP (Disney Dining Plan) total

Day 1:
Yactsman Steak House at the Beach Club Resort
Nice atmosphere. Classy Casual. Food was B+.
2 adult meals and 2 children's meals
Total: $175 (covered by plan)
Tip:$35 (out of pocket)

Day 2:
Akershus with the Princesses at Epcot
Buffet Style Breakfast. Food was  typical of a breakfast buffet
4 adults 3 children
Total:$201
Tip:$35

Dinner at Maya Grill
Food was mediocre and it took forever to get out of there!
3 children 4 adults
Total:$113
Tip:$39

Day 3:

Supercalifragilistic Breakfast
Typical American Buffet
3 children 4 adults
Total: $124
Tip: $22

Lunch at Hollywood and Vine
Typical Buffet
3 children 4 adults
Total: $164
Tip:$29

Day 4:
Breakfast at Ohana
Family Style Buffet (FAVORITE)
3 children 4 adults
Total: $110
Tip: $22

Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern
Homestyle Americana
2 children 4 adults (sleeping 3 year old)
Total: $138
Tip: $28

Dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table
So I hesitate saying this but of all of our meals this was my least favorite. Our reservation was for $8:10 and the parade crowd was scary. All entrances to the front of the castle were closed so they made you go around through Tomorrow Land. This would have been fine except that the crowd was so packed that we had to fight to get through. I had people yelling at me while they were the ones blocking the paths! We got around to the side to be told we had to go back to the other side. I nearly broke into tears and the guy felt sorry enough that he escorted us to the castle so that we didn't have to fight the crowd again. We got there on time (barely as it took us an hour to fight the crowd) only to wait another hour for our names to be called. The food was only so-so, though we did have a nice view of Wishes. The girls enjoyed the princesses but they did at Akershus as well and it was much less stressful. I would never pay out of pocket for the food at CRT and if you make reservations, DO NOT make them during wishes or the parade times!
3 children 4 adults
Total: $296
Tip $46

Day 5
Breakfast at Tusker House
Buffet
3 children 4 adults
Total:$141
Tip:$ 27

Lunch at Tusker House
Buffet
3 children 4 adults
Total:$171
Tip:$34

Dinner at Yactsman
Atmosphere was wonderful and the food was ok but not spectacular. They have a great kids desert!
3 children 4 adults
Total: $275 (missing one receipt so did an average)
Tip:$ 55

Day 6:
Breakfast at Crystal Palace
Buffet by far the worst out of all of them we tried. Loved the building though.
Total:$158
Tip:$32

Lunch was quick service
Dinner at California Grill
Spectacular food and the view we had was A.maze.ing. It was noisy though so that was a bit disappointing considering how upscale it is supposed to be
2 adults (my birthday with my DH!)
Total:$110
Tip $22

Kids, MIL and SIL had Pizza

Day 7:
Breakfast at Chef Mickeys
Ok so by this point I was SO sick of food I barely ate. It was a typical buffet.
3 children 4 adults
Total: $140
Tip: $29

Lunch was snacks

Dinner Tony's Town Square
Italian. It was good but apparently they were ready to go home because we were rushed. Our appetizer plates disappeared as we were still pulling food off of them.
3 children 4 adults
Total:$218
Tip:$36
Total for DDP was $2383
Snack and QS Total: $450
Total OOP was: $491
Total spent including cost to upgrade and tips:$1621
Saved: $1212



So we did save money based on what we ate on the plan, but was it worth it? Well, I don't think so. Had we not been on the plan we would not have eaten an appetizer, entree and desert per person. Sticking to just an entree and an occasional desert would have cut down the cost significantly. We also had 23 snack credits left at the end of our trip so we easily could have survived on just the basic free meal plan. Something else to consider was that we were slaves to our reservations. Some require a credit card to secure so missing them would have been expensive. I am glad that we got to experience some of the places we ate, but I think in future we will stick with the basic plan and just choose a few nice places to visit and pay out of pocket.

Disney World Day 1

It was my intention to blog this as we went, but the days all blurred into one and I just didn't have time or energy! So I am going to chronicle them in a few different posts. I want to talk a bit about the deluxe dining plan and if it is worth it as well as give a few dinner reviews.

We had an early flight on Thursday, September 22nd so I dressed the kids in their travel clothes, we took down our last Mickey and they headed to bed!

Sort of. Luke ended up awake until after 10 and then slept on our floor and around 11pm the girls wandered into our room, unable to sleep. Finally, around midnight we were all asleep! I was rather restless, but everyone else was getting a good rest. We had to wake around 5am and by 6:30am we were headed to the airport! Of course everyone was so excited! We did cut it kind of close but got to the airport just in time to grab a quick bite to eat and head onto the plane. The kids did well. Luke slept for about half of it and since the flight is only 2 hours the girls colored and such. After you land you still have to go through the process of getting to the bus and then taking the bus to the resort so it was about 2pm before we were at the hotel.

 Thankfully, we had checked in online and other than sorting out Brianna's room card (she was booked with my MIL who hadn't arrived yet), it was pretty easy.The hotel was pretty fun! We really enjoyed walking around and checking out all of the decor. We even got an amazingly appropriate location in the 90's building right above a giant laptop (my DH is a computer tech and junkie).

 We stopped by the room to drop off our carry on luggage and then headed to Magic Kingdom to get a few rides in before heading to our 5pm reservation at Yactsman.

We headed straight for Space Mountain. This year both Brianna and Keira were tall enough to get on most of the rides, but it truly surprised me when Brianna wanted to go on this one! She loved it, though it did make me a bit nervous with her being in her own seat.

By the time we finished Space Mountain we had to head to the restaurant. It had been raining, but we didn't have time to go back and freshen up so off we went. We arrived at the Beach Club looking like travel weary drowned rats. The restaurant turned out to be a upper class steak house and we looked completely out of place. The waitress was either feeling very sorry for me or unsure of my parental abilities as she kept coming by the table offering to do things that I should be doing (not that I wasn't doing them, she just sort of interjected herself. It was very strange.). Karl and I both ordered steak and the kids had chicken and mac and cheese. The atmosphere was amazing. It was quiet and relaxing and if it hadn't been for how tired and gross we were feeling, we would have really enjoyed it. The food was OK. I don't know that I would have paid out of pocket for it, but it was good and the kids got a really neat desert that they "decorated" themselves.

After we ate my MIL and SIL arrived so we headed back to the hotel to see them and to get some rest for the next day at Epcot!

Click here to see our Disney Deluxe Dining Plan Details and to read if we thought it was worth the cost to upgrade!

Disney World Paint Chip Countdown Calendar

I have been having a blast finding fun and frugal ways to get us all excited about our September 2011 Disney World Trip. Browsing the internet gave me quite a few ideas and one of my favorites was the Paint Chip Countdown Calendar. This one is mine:




For those that don't know, paint chips are the sample cards you find at your local hardware store that have the different paint colors on them. HomeDepot carries the Behr brand of Disney paints and the paint chip cards are cute Mickey heads. My dad picked mine up for me, but if you decide to do this, I think the best way to go about it would be to either get them while you are actually purchasing paint, or to ask if you can have them. After all, the store does have to pay for them. Anyways, there are numerous cute ways to do this, but since I don't have a fancy die cut machine and didn't feel like taking the time to cut out numbers I just took a black marker and put down the days. As we hit each day we will take one down! The cards are great because they gradually change tones and colors and it gives a really neat effect.

Here are a few other ideas that I will be adding to as I find more!