Disney World 2025: our honest review, costs and tips!
If you’re planning a Disney trip with little ones, it can feel a bit overwhelming - tickets, flights, accommodation, food, transport… and that’s before you’ve even stepped foot in the parks!
We’ve recently come back from our holiday so I’ve rounded up exactly what we did, what we spent, and what I wish I’d have known before we went.
Tickets
We booked our tickets through Attraction Tickets for £467 per person. This included the Memory Maker (where all the professional character pictures of you are free and sent straight to your phone), and the Park Hopper - which lets you visit all four parks (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios) and hop between them as many times as you’d like in the same day!
We also got a deal with that meaning our tickets were for 14 days but were the price of 7 which definitely took the pressure off. It meant if we had a rest day, it didnt feel like we were ‘wasting’ a ticket.
Also, Disney transport between parks is constant so you could start at Magic Kingdom in the morning, hop to Epcot in the afternoon and then head back to magic for the firework display in the evening!
Travel
We flew with Norse Atlantic over the May half term and I’d heard they were the Ryanair of long haul, but honestly they were absolutely fine - comfy seats, decent leg room, a meal and drink included and I even managed to watch the new Twister film!
We paid £400 per person (£1,600 in total for our family of four) and it included one full-sized checked bag each.
The only mistake? Flying into Miami. I was really naive about how far away everything is in America and after a 9-hour flight and 1 hour waiting in immigration, a 4-hour drive was the last thing we wanted to do with the kids. So next time I’d say I would 100% pay the extra £400 to fly into Sanford or Tampa.
Top tip: Bring your own wired headphones for the plane though as the ones on board weren’t the comfiest for $5.
Accommodation
We stayed in a self-catering villa in Davenport (Saltero Resort) with extended family and I’d 100% do it again.
It was £1,800 for 12 nights for 8 people so £900 for our family and we were only a 20-minute drive from Disney. This was so important for us as Disney was obviously a big part of our trip, but we still wanted it to feel like a holiday, so it was nice to have the best of both worlds with some chill time between the busy park days.
Pros of staying in a self-catered villa:
We had more space for the kids (they sleep better in their own rooms)
Having a kitchen meant that we could stick to some familiar foods without eating out constantly
The private pool made such a difference especially on non park days
Some of our family weren’t doing Disney so it was nice to have that shared base
Splitting the cost of this with my family made it more affordable than having separate rooms in a hotel.
Now some of the cons:
The 20-minute drive was easy enough but once you park there’s then a tram and then a walk which does all eat into your time and makes it not ideal if you just want to pop in for a couple of hours.
Park hopping did feel like quite a faff too as we felt like we were constantly driving back and forth but honestly it was worth it to come back to a quiet space.
We haven’t done a Disney hotel before though so it’s hard to compare, but this worked for us.
Costs to factor in
Parking: Costs $30 a day which worked out at about £22 (but you can park throughout any of the parks all day then) However head to my Disney tips and tricks blog to see how you can dodge that cost!
Fuel: Cost us around $70 for a full tank which came out at about £50.
Food: It’s pricey but the portions are huge and it actually tastes great! You definitely have to try the cheese burger spring rolls which are around $10 and two big hot dogs and drinks at Blizzard Beach cost us $30 (£22) but it easily fed the four of us.
Phones: We used a Holafly travel eSim for unlimited data while we were away which made us avoid the huge roaming charges.
The weather and wildlife
We went in May half term and it was hot - but not too busy. Florida does get tropical storms, so expect sudden heavy rain but still warm temperatures.
A lot of people have asked me about the wildlife while we were there and honestly, we didn’t see a snake the whole trip, but did spot a few alligators - no where near Disney though!
Lightening lanes - are they worth it?
Lightening lanes (Disney’s fast-track) are handy for popular bigger rides, but most have to be booked the day before which means sticking to a rigid plan (not really suitable for us as we weren’t keeping to an itinerary). So we didn’t think we needed this and getting to the shows 30 minutes early was enough to get great seats!
Maybe I’m just tight but we were honestly surprised by how short the character meet queues were as the wait was less than 10 minutes on most of them!
And lots of the rides aimed at younger kids have great interactive entertainment throughout the queues anyway such as the Tangled ride.
Were our kids the right age?
I would say yes and no. Yes, because the magic in their eyes when they met all the characters was priceless.
But in terms of rides and how hot it was, they probably were a little bit too young as we had them in the strollers all day as they just wouldn’t have coped walking round in the heat.
So if you want magical memories for you, take them now. If you want them to remember it more themselves maybe wait until they are older as ours werent too fussed about the rides, just loved the characters, parades and the shows.
For reference our kids are four and five, but I have put together everything you can do at Disney with little ones in a blog here.
What to take
My top recommendation of things to take with you would be fan sprayer (as these are $30 around the parks), a neck fan, cooling towel, water bottles as they can be filled up for free at the quick service spots. I also took a bag full of snacks. I’d definitely buy your Disney merchandise and Mickey ears beforehand from Walmart too!
How long to go for?
I’d say at least 3 days per park to see it all at a relaxed pace. One thing about Disney is it’s absolutely huge - one park alone feels bigger than Alton Towers!
Final thoughts
If we went again we could probably have a totally different experience because theres so much we didn’t get to do this time! It’s a long way to go to miss out on things so I’d definitely save up a little bit longer to be able to experience it all properly.
Overall this trip was magical, exhausting, but worth every penny! Disney with little ones is a big investment but if you go in with a good plan you can definitely save loads of money!
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