Our Vacation to Disney World! (The Resort)

My first post on Disney was our travel experience. You can read about that here.

We stayed at Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa. We did a lot of research when it came to where we would stay. We checked out hotels and resorts off the Disney property, and decided that it'd be nice to take advantage of Disney's Magical Express (where they take your luggage to and from the airport for you) and the free transportation. Then we had some deciding to do when it came to where we'd actually stay on the property. We looked at the value, moderate, deluxe and deluxe villa resorts. Of course, I immediately check out deluxe vilas, because I am a spoiled snob and I wanted to see if it was something even close to our price range. 

Simply put: they're not.

However, we were directed to a phenomenal website where there are great deals for the deluxe accommodations. We made a request to see what was available, and it still was outside of our price range, so we continued to look elsewhere until we got a last minute deals email. We made another request and there were two room types at Saratoga Springs that were available. We decided to go for a one bedroom villa since Charlotte goes to bed much earlier than we do, and we didn't want to keep her up too late and ruin a perfectly fun vacation. But since it was a "last minute deal", we were leaving in TWO weeks.

The resort was beautiful. It wasn't Disney overload, and our room was perfect.

View from balcony looking in. Full kitchen, so we didn't need to dine out for every meal with two little kids!

Our view. It was so peaceful and calm. No wailing kids or anything obnoxious.

We had a few groceries delivered so we could enjoy a quick breakfast at "home" instead of spending $50 dining out.

There was a pack n play available, but Charlotte slept on the pull out couch, which was her first time sleeping  without being stuck in a baby jail. There's something funny to me about seeing her sleep somewhere besides her crib or a pack n play. The first morning, she waited until she saw a light turn on to call to us. Later that day, she napped in our bed while we were out in the living area. It was completely quiet when we saw a little figure scamper towards the door. Charlotte had silently opened the bedroom door, and wandered out, but didn't know the layout of the place so she was headed for the exit. 

After we caught the escapee. Love that bed head!

Lena slept in her car seat in our bedroom. That's all I have on that.  She's little, and doesn't do a whole lot. What she did do, was sleep really well the entire trip. She gave us 7+ hour stretches every night. She got a little congested on the last two nights and was coughing a bit. I think it was just the air in the hotel or something. It would have been really nice to have packed the baby saline spray, but I didn't think of it. (Something to consider when traveling with your littles.)

Saratoga Springs is very close to Downtown Disney. We learned that we could walk if we wanted to, but there was ferry transportation also. We did both. The resort is enormous, so you have to be okay with doing a little walking to get where you want to go, I think if you had two small kids who weren't in a stroller (think 4 or 5) you may want to take advantage of the bike rental. They're really cute carriage-like with a surrey, and the whole family can ride on one.

The pools were fantastic. I'm a moron and forgot swim diapers, but fortunately the shop had some available in packages of one or two, That's a lot better than needing to buy a package of 20. Charlotte loved swimming way more than she did this summer. The pools have a great activity schedule which would be great to take advantage of if you have a little more time to spend there. 

She wanted to do this SO.BAD. but looks terrified. She went down 3-4 times.

Lena loved the pools too.

High Rock Spring Pool

The Paddock pool (my favorite)

There are also quick dining options at the resort, but we never went. Overall, I really liked this place, but would definitely like to check out the Animal Kingdom Lodge next time. :)

Next up: our experience at the parks!