Disney World- An Introduction

Let’s talk Disney because, let’s face it: if you are a family with kids (especially young ones), and you want to immerse yourselves in a few days of magic and whimsey, then I’d bet a Disney trip is somewhere on your list.

With over 10 main theme parks across the world, its no doubt Disney has cracked the code to family fun. That being said, planning and orchestrating a Disney vacation can be downright overwhelming! So if you’re already someone who doesn’t love researching and planning vacations, a trip to Disney might just take you down. Given this simple fact, I’m just going to tell you right now to expect multiple posts on the topic of Disney since there are SO MANY elements to a Disney vacation.

For our immediate purposes, we’ll start slow and focus on providing an overview of the 4 parks that are part of Walt Disney World Resort ( Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Disney's Animal Kingdom). We’ll save Disneyland and California Adventure for a post in our “California” guide section.

First up: Magic Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom opened in 1971 and was designed to expand on Disneyland’s success with a larger footprint.

With a massive average visitor count of over 20 million people a year (Holy Buckets!), its the most-visited theme park in the world!

And its not hard to see why with 6 different themed lands spread out over 100+ acres (in comparison, that’s the size of 72 football fields)!

From the ultra little kid friendly Fantasyland to the futuristic, high-energy Tommorowland, the exotic Adventureland to the wild and rustic Frontierland, and the colonial America of Liberty Square to small town, 20th century of Main Street, U.S.A. There’s rides, food and shopping, oh my!

Not to mention, the park’s central icon of Cinderella’s Castle (featured in this blog’s main photo) provides an idyllic backdrop for pictures, parades and fireworks.

And to top it all off, there’s a railroad circling the park with stops throughout.

Quick Tip: Magic Kingdom is a family favorite and for good reason! We usually spend two days here because, not only does it have the most rides of any of the other parks, but it also has a wide variety of entertainment for folks of all ages.

Next, there’s EPCOT.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Disney’s Animal Kingdom