Dim29.com - Our Disney World Trips

I have been to Walt Disney World over a dozen times since 1977. My parents took my sister and I to Disney World on vacation in June of 1977. We camped at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort. The Magic Kingdom was the only park there at that time.

In May of 1997 Heather and I visited together for the first time. We did not stay on Disney property. We stayed at a Super 8 motel on route 192 just off Disney property. Epcot and MGM Studios were added by this time, so we got to visit 3 different parks.

In May of 2004 we decided to take Ryan to Disney World for the first time. My parents and Heather's parents also joined us on this trip. We all stayed at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort. By this time Animal Kingdom had also been added to Walt Disney World.

We had been planning to return in December of 2004 to experience Disney World at Christmas time, but we couldn't seem to wait that long. We had annual passes so why not use them as much as possible, right? So we added another trip in September of 2004. We also talked my parents into joining us for this trip. This time we stayed at Disney's Pop Century Resort.

The same group from September returned in December of 2004 as planned. We stayed at our first "deluxe" resort on Disney property. We got rooms at Disney's Wilderness Lodge. This was our first visit during Christmas season and we attended our first Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. We also got to see our first Candlelight Processional at Epcot.

In April of 2005 Heather's parents rejoined the group. All 7 of us went back and stayed at Disney's Port Orleans (French Quarter) Resort.

Since we enjoyed the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party in December, we decided to return in September / October of 2005 and try out Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. My parents came with us again and this time we stayed at Disney's Polynesian Resort. This was our first time staying at one of the monorail resorts.

We returned for Christmas again in December of 2005. This time it was just Heather, Ryan and I. We stayed at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. We also went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party on 2 different nights and saw the Candlelight Processional at Epcot again.

Our first trip last year was in May of 2006. This time we stayed at Disney's Boardwalk Resort. My parents came with us again on this trip. MGM Studios was having one of their Star Wars Weekends while we were there, so Ryan got to meet a lot of Star Wars characters.

We returned in September / October 2006. This trip was once again just the 3 of us: Heather, Ryan & me. We stayed at Disney's All-Star Music Resort. We attended 2 different Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Parties this year. We also played miniature golf at Disney for the first time. We played both courses at Disney's Winter Summerland golf course.

Since we love visiting Walt Disney World during the holiday season so much, it seems to have become an annual tradition. In December of 2006 Heather, Ryan and I returned and this time we stayed at Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge. Again we went to 2 different Mickey's Very Merry Christmas parties and saw the Candlelight Processional at Epcot for the 3rd straight year.

In May of 2007 we paid another visit to Disney World. It was just Heather, Ryan and I again and we stayed at Disney's Pop Century Resort for our second time. This was the first resort that we ever stayed at for a second time. Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex was hosting the first ever regular season Major League Baseball games in central Florida during our stay, so we went to a game and I got to add a new ballpark to my ballpark visits site.

In September of 2007 we took a trip to Florida to look for a house to rent in Melbourne. We were scheduled to sign our lease on October 1st, so we left PA a few days early so that we could spend the weekend at Disney World. Heather, Ryan and I stayed at Disney's Port Orleans (French Quarter) Resort. This was our second stay at the French Quarter. We got to attend a special pass holder event at Animal Kingdom to celebrate the DVD release of The Jungle Book. We also went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party.

Now that we are living in Florida, just 1 hour from Disney World, we will be visiting much more often than 3 times a year. I will still add trip links whenever we stay overnight at Disney for a few days. Since we will also be making lots of visits that don't really count as "trips", I will be adding a link below all of the trip links

Pictures - Select one of the trips below to go to the main page for that trip. From there you can see pictures from our resorts, different parks, characters, special events and more.


June 1977	May 1997
May 2004	September 2004
December 2004	April 2005
Sept. / Oct. 2005	December 2005
May 2006	Sept. / Oct. 2006
December 2006	May 2007
September 2007

Pictures from our quick Disney World Visits

Meeting Characters - Something we found out that we enjoyed doing was meeting different characters and holiday storytellers in the parks and getting their pictures and autographs. We have met 222 different characters and storytellers so far. We have met classic Disney characters, characters from Disney movies, characters from Disney short cartoons, characters from Disney television shows, original characters from some of the theme parks, Star Wars characters from special Star Wars weekends held at MGM Studios and many different holiday storytellers from Epcot's Holidays Around the World Celebrations at Christmastime.

Click on the Autograph Book to See Ryan's Disney Character Collection

Our Next Trip - We don't have another trip planned at this time but now that we live an hour from Disney we will be making lots of quick visits.

Got any questions or comments? Feel free to email me !