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Our Disney experience
This is lengthy, but I figured Emmy or others who are going soon might appreciate some of the details. Spoiler for those who don't want all of it: we had terrible weather, but managed to enjoy quite a bit!
We went Weds.-Mon. (5 nights), and it was the perfect amount of time. Maybe when the kids are older we would want to add a night or two more.
We flew Airtran and had some issues with luggage damage, so that sucked, but the flights themselves were fine. Snack packs, small blankets and the Kindle/iPad kept the kids quite content for our flights. If you don't have Dr. Panda apps, I highly recommend them -- they are completely enthralling to my kids!
We stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter and it was very nice. The rooms aren't huge, but I liked that the resort was on the smaller side. It's all three-story buildings, and the rooms are accessed directly from outside (vs an interior hallway), which I liked. And there weren't multiple shuttle stops (like there are at Riverside), so it made going back and forth to the parks fast/easy. The pool area was very nice and not overly crowded, and they seemed to have lots of activities for the kids. The food at the resort wasn't spectacular, but it was edible. We got breakfast/snacks/beer/wine/drinks from the Garden Grocer site and it worked out perfectly! Our things were stored and refrigerated at the bell station for us until we arrived, so there was no waiting around for the food. It was nice to wake up and have breakfast in the room before leaving for the parks, and to have little snack bags for the kids. We didn't do a meal plan, and I can't imagine the cost of buying them snacks every time they were bored/hungry throughout the day!
The first day we did the Magic Kingdom. We took an early flight, so we were able to check into our hotel, unpack and leave for the park by 2. The kids snoozed on the plane, so they were still pretty upbeat. It would have been perfectly planned, except that it started pouring an hour before we left the hotel and continued raining the rest of the night 
. The bright side was that we didn't have to wait in any lines, so we got to ride almost everything in the park that day. I definitely recommend bringing rain ponchos, although I also kept a small umbrella in my purse for really heavy periods of rain. We got ponchos for $1.50 at Target (in the camping section) and they were pretty much the same quality as the $8 ones at the parks. They are one-size-fits-all, but we tied Lanna's in a knot at the bottom to make it shorter. For a baby that may still not work, but Wes refused to wear one anyway! Lanna's favorite ride was Thunder Mountain, and Wes was obsessed with Dumbo. They also both loved Small World. We had dinner at Harbor House (counter service... fine, not amazing).
The second day we went to Animal Kingdom, and it was another wash out. We spent 2 hours just sitting at the pavilion connected to Tusker House in the middle of the day because it was raining too hard to even walk anywhere (although they did have mojitos there, so it could have been worse). The first thing we did was It's Tough to Be a Bug -- HUGE mistake! Lanna was terrified and for the rest of the vacation she refused to go on any dark rides (which eliminated quite a bit) and was antsy in theater settings. Not. Fun. The safari ride was awesome though -- my favorite one of the trip! We had lunch at Tusker (characters were fun, food just ok) and dinner at Rainforest Cafe (again, neat setting but average food for the cost).
Our third day was the pool day and we finally got some sunshine! I would never do this trip without at least one pool day. It was so nice to have the break, and the kids definitely appreciated having time to enjoy the resort they were previously seeing in passing. We went to Downtown Disney for dinner at Raglan Road and I was impressed with the food. Would definitely go back there! Lanna got to go on stage to do some sort of Irish tap dancing, which thrilled her. Of course it started to rain right after we got there and continued to pour, so the boat shuttle ride back was not fun!
Fourth day was Hollywood Studios. We arbitrarily selected the days we'd visit each park and this was one we really should have researched more. It was May 4th, and we found out after we arrived that HS was having some big "May the Fourth be with You" day and it was absolutely overrun with Star Wars fans. Lines were horrendous! We did Little Mermaid (without Lanna b/c dark + theater = no), the Disney Jr show, American Idol, Honey I Shunk the Kids play place and that's it. I wanted to ride Toy Story but it was a 3 hr wait and the fast passes were gone before 10. We had dinner at the 50's Cafe (average food, slightly annoying schtick) at 4:15 and then went back to the hotel to swim. In hindsight, I might have done HS during our first 1/2 day, or skipped it altogether (maybe done Epcot instead). For our kids, it just wasn't worthwhile.
Our last full day was back to MK. It was actually nice weather the whole day for the first/only time of the trip. Of course it was a weekend too, so much more crowded, but we'd done a lot on our first day so we were really just going on the few rides we missed and ones we wanted to repeat. We had Pinnochio Haus for lunch (awesome flatbreads), then I took Lanna to the Boutique while Pat took Wes on Little Mermaid (which he liked). While I'm not sure it was worth $70 (which is about what I pay to have my own hair cut/colored), Lanna did really enjoy the experience. It was a lot of gel, and a lot of sparkle, and not the most flattering result, but she was pretty thrilled. We just brought a regular dress from home for her to wear, so she had hair/makeup only. We also did dinner at the Castle that evening and while it was crazy expensive, the food was very good, service was excellent and they enjoyed meeting all of the main princesses (minus Belle). Lanna really liked being all dressed up for her fancy dinner, and it was probably the highlight of the trip. Since it was actually nice out, we stayed for the Electric Parade and hightailed it out of there before the fireworks started.
Our flight home left at 3:30, so we just hung out at the hotel playground till it was time to go. Shuttles to the airport worked out fine and we didn't once regret staying on property or not having a car. If we did a longer trip, I'd consider renting a car to go to Sea World or Universal, but for this time it was perfect.
Had the weather cooperated it would have been so, so much better, but we made the best of it and overall we had a great time! The kids had their ups and downs, and we didn't see every single thing, but we went at our own pace and prioritized their moods over our plans as much as we could. I don't think we'll be returning every year, but I could see us planning another trip when they're a few years older and a little more adventurous!
Re: Our Disney experience
Jake - 1.15.08
Liam - 5.17.11
Thanks for the review and the tips! We're doing Animal Kingdom on day 2 as well, and I think we'll avoid A Bug's Life. I've heard it's on the scary side, but thought "it's Disney....how scary can it be?"
And it stinks that the weather wasn't great for you, but it definitely served as a reality check for me that I'm likely not going to have the perfect weather that I'm envisioning :-P
I thought the same even though I heard it was scary, so I had Lanna watch a YouTube video of it and it looked funny and she wanted to do it. However, the actual experience with the 3D and the stuff dropping from the ceiling and shooting out from the stage was just overwhelming. Wes sat frozen in my lap for the part we saw, but Lanna lost her mind so we just all left. It wasn't even necessarily the storyline, or that they were bugs... it was just loud and they were spraying water and setting off smoke bombs and she was like eff this!
No offense taken - we go 3 - 4 times a year.
Ha ha! We leave on Thursday for a long weekend and it can't come soon enough!
Nearly the entire front pocket was torn off of the one roller bag. I don't even know how they did it -- it was a well made bag. Unfortunately, it was also our neighbor's (which we borrowed)!