Well I will NEVER go back to Disney during Christmas break again!!!
We went to see the mouse and went down after Christmas and stayed through the New Years week. This was probably our 10th trip down there as a family. But every other trip we made to pay homage to the mouse was made in mid-October or mid-January, while kids were safely back in school (we pulled Melen out of school for the prior trips) and we didn't have any of the massive crowds to deal with.
The day we went to Sea World they had 'record' crowds. The day we went to the Magic Kingdom was also a 'record' crowd day. Oh so much fun.
To make matters worse, we took along my sister in law for this trip and the day before we left for Florida she fell down in the snow and broke her foot. She we had to push her around the parks in a wheel chair
Talk about a PITA, compounded by the crowds, it was so much fun 
When Anita was visiting us over Thanksgiving we stressed to her that this is one place she should not have missed. Unfortunately while she spent a couple weeks in Florida, she did not have time to go to Disney, at that would have been a perfect time to go, with very small crowds. So these photos are for all you Disney fans, and for Anita to see what she missed.
I will say that New Years day we spent the day in Epcot and the crowds were down 50% of the other days.
This was also the first year we stayed "off property" and that is something I will never do again. While the costs off property are probably 60% lower than staying in the Disney complex, it just didn't seem worth it. And saying that says a lot because we had a beautiful 3 bedroom townhouse, with private pool, in a gated community literally a couple minutes from the main gate to Disney and even that was not worth it compared to staying on property. There are simply too many advantages to staying on the Disney property and most of them are related to saving time, effort and grief. Anyway, we learned.
We went to see the mouse and went down after Christmas and stayed through the New Years week. This was probably our 10th trip down there as a family. But every other trip we made to pay homage to the mouse was made in mid-October or mid-January, while kids were safely back in school (we pulled Melen out of school for the prior trips) and we didn't have any of the massive crowds to deal with.
The day we went to Sea World they had 'record' crowds. The day we went to the Magic Kingdom was also a 'record' crowd day. Oh so much fun.
To make matters worse, we took along my sister in law for this trip and the day before we left for Florida she fell down in the snow and broke her foot. She we had to push her around the parks in a wheel chair
Talk about a PITA, compounded by the crowds, it was so much fun When Anita was visiting us over Thanksgiving we stressed to her that this is one place she should not have missed. Unfortunately while she spent a couple weeks in Florida, she did not have time to go to Disney, at that would have been a perfect time to go, with very small crowds. So these photos are for all you Disney fans, and for Anita to see what she missed.
I will say that New Years day we spent the day in Epcot and the crowds were down 50% of the other days.
This was also the first year we stayed "off property" and that is something I will never do again. While the costs off property are probably 60% lower than staying in the Disney complex, it just didn't seem worth it. And saying that says a lot because we had a beautiful 3 bedroom townhouse, with private pool, in a gated community literally a couple minutes from the main gate to Disney and even that was not worth it compared to staying on property. There are simply too many advantages to staying on the Disney property and most of them are related to saving time, effort and grief. Anyway, we learned.
It was fun with the kids but enough is enough. 
