New Year’s in Orlando

Now I wouldn’t recommend booking a trip as last minute as we did but my husband had some extra time off of work and wanted to get out of town so on a spur of the moment whim we went on a trip over New Year’s to Orlando, FL. While we didn’t hit everything we did manage to make a pretty good trip out of it especially considering how last minute it was and we were both able to catch up with family that lives in Florida which is always an added cherry on top when you have a little one.

For those looking to travel to Orlando in late December/early January, you should note that while it is much warmer than most places in the U.S during this time we did have some chilly, downpour rainy days so make sure you plan your clothes appropriately for all weather conditions.

Animal Kingdom

One of my favorite things we did was go to Animal Kingdom. This was the perfect park for a 5 month old since it was pretty low key and we could take her on the safari which she absolutely loved! We did the safari first thing in the morning which I would strongly recommend since all of the animals were out and active. There were several rides that had multiple hour waits since this is a busy time for Disney World so if you are going for the rides make sure you planning accordingly and if you want to hit all of the parks make sure you book tickets well in advance since some of the parks did sell out so for us last minute travelers some tickets were not available.

Disney Springs

Since we weren’t able to get more Disney park tickets for New Year’s Eve we decided to just go to the festivities at Disney Springs. This ended up being so much fun! And a lot cheaper than booking a park ticket at Disney World. There were so many different types of live music that it was great to just walk around and enjoy the variety. Our little one absolutely loves music so she ended up having a blast especially when we found a spot to stop and had a little Latin dance party. All of their restaurants and stores were open so it was also great just popping in and grabbing a coffee and when it got close to Midnight my husband and I also indulged in some New Year’s cake and champagne at the Patisserie.

Kennedy Space Center

This was actually a very cool stop on our trip. Even though our little one was too small to enjoy the exhibits this was my husband and I’s first time so we really enjoyed getting to walk around and see all of the actual space memorabilia. There was also a very cool video that eventually leads to being able to see a real space shuttle which was extremely impactful so if you have kids who love space or are just a big space fan yourself I would highly recommend this stop even though it is a little bit of a drive from Orlando. The nice part is there are several restaurants and food options on site so you don’t have to worry about leaving and can really take your time. If we were to go back the only thing we wish we could have done but wasn’t available the day we went was the astronaut training simulators. So when our little one is a little older we are hoping to take a second trip back and will hopefully get to try it out next time.

Our Hotel

We chose to stay at Westgate Resorts since it was pretty cheap even though we were booking a hotel last minute. The bad part is that it is a timeshare chain (which I didn’t realize when I was booking it) so they offer your free perks to go to their “short” timeshare presentation. While informative on how timeshare pitches work it was a total waste of time and I would never sit through the presentation again. There were even a few times we caught our sales person in a lie so be very careful if you choose to participate in the sales pitch. It was supposed to be 90 minutes and ended up being several hours so not worth wasting your vacation time on. Otherwise the room was fine enough and was in a good location for everything we wanted to do.