Family Vacations: Making Memories on a Budget

When deciding to take your first family trip with a child, all the activities done will revolve around your child’s interests.The biggest question parents wonder about is, “what’s the perfect age to travel with a child?” Just like myself, many families wonder when the right age is to take your child to Florida to maybe embark on the Disney World experience. Before my fiancé and I decided that we were actually going to make our first family trip to Florida, I read a lot of articles that talked about the perfect age to take your child so that they will have the ultimate experience, but unlike those parents and my own, I didn’t want to wait until my daughter was 11-years-old. So after researching ticket prices, hotels/ resorts, and plane tickets, I also looked up other activities to do in Florida with children outside of Disney all while trying to stay in our budget of $1,100 or less.

My fiancé and I decided that we would go to Florida for our daughters 2nd birthday for a week, which was considered Halloween season (September) at most of the parks. We went on Expedia and found a nice bundle for a flight and small resort with a water park in Kissimmee, FL called “The Flamingo Waterpark Resort,” which wasn’t that far from all the great attractions Florida had to offer. Our flights included layovers, but we didn’t mind it, being our first family trip. We also decided to do a “red eye” flight there so that the layovers didn’t take away from our trip. Since my daughter was going to be turning 2 while we were in Florida, she was able to sit in my lap on the plane, but all together the bundle came up to about $800.

After our flight and resort was booked, we made a list of activities that we wanted to do while there. We made the decision not to go to any of the Disney Parks being that they were so expensive and our daughter was still really young for most of the rides. Plus we were unsure how she would react to all the people dressed up in costume for Halloween and the Disney characters walking around. So we took into consideration what our daughter actually liked aside from some of the Disney characters, which are “Animals.” Our final itinerary that we came up with consisted of: trick or Treating at Sea World and all their great shows; a Birthday dinner at Universal Studios with live music; a tour of Downtown Orlando; taking advantage of our resort's water park, and other activities provided on site.

Now if your child is anything like ours, she was still be taking long naps and will be extremely cranky if she didn’t at age 2-years-old. So to accommodate for her naps we tried sticking to one major event each day along with smaller activities so that she would have fun, but at the same time have her nap or naps so she was not overly tired. For example, the day of her birthday we went out for breakfast and then got changed to go to our resort's water park. After that we had lunch, then it was nap time. When she woke up, we went to Universal Studios for dinner and live music. By the time we got back to the resort, she was asleep and my fiancé and I enjoyed a bottle of wine and a movie.

Our daughter had a blast and she didn’t even see Mickey Mouse. We ultimately decided not to visit any of the parks to save money and have something to do on our future family trips to Florida. When traveling to Florida on a set budget and at the same time trying to make memories with your toddler, try visiting one major park and do little equally as fun activities. Trust me, your little tot will enjoy it either way and you’ll be happy with the money you saved.