For years, planning a Walt Disney World vacation was almost as much fun for me as actually taking one. Before my family moved to Florida, our Disney trips were true vacations. We flew into Orlando, stayed for at least a week, and knew it might be quite a while before we came back. That made every trip feel important, and I wanted to know absolutely everything before we arrived. I would spend hours in the evenings reading the DISboards, researching restaurants, learning about attractions, figuring out what was new, and making notes about all the little things I didn’t want us to miss. I loved every minute of it. The anticipation and planning were a huge part of the experience for me.
Then we moved to Saint Johns, Florida, and for about nine years, Walt Disney World was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. Being able to hop in the car and head to Orlando whenever I wanted was fantastic, but it completely changed the way I approached Disney World. When you know you can come back relatively easily, that sense of urgency disappears. Didn’t get to that restaurant? Next time. Missed an attraction? We’ll ride it on another trip. Didn’t make it over to EPCOT before the end of the night? No big deal. We’ll be back.
When Disney World Becomes a Road Trip
There’s something incredibly freeing about experiencing Walt Disney World that way. You don’t feel nearly as much pressure to squeeze every last thing into every park day. If everyone is tired, you can leave. If the weather is miserable, you can change your plans. If you miss something you really wanted to do, it isn’t a catastrophe because you haven’t spent a year saving and planning for this one precious week that now has to live up to all those expectations.
But there’s another side to that, and I didn’t really recognize it until later. I stopped planning. Not completely, of course. After all, this is me we’re talking about. But I stopped doing the kind of Disney vacation planning that I had once loved so much. I didn’t need to spend night after night researching every detail because I knew we’d be back. Walt Disney World became familiar. It was still special, and I certainly never stopped loving it, but it wasn’t this faraway place that I spent months dreaming about visiting anymore.
Does Going More Often Make Disney Less Special?
I don’t think Walt Disney World ever became boring to me. That’s an important distinction because it really didn’t. But familiarity absolutely changes the experience. There’s a difference between waking up on the first morning of a vacation you’ve anticipated for a year and waking up on a Saturday morning knowing you could be at Magic Kingdom by lunchtime if you felt like making the drive. Both are wonderful ways to experience Disney World, but they’re definitely not the same.
When Disney World is relatively close to home, you get the luxury of slowing down and enjoying it differently. Ironically, though, I think you can also start taking some of it for granted. You don’t have to see everything because there’s always next time. There’s no need to worry about missing something because you’ll catch it on another visit. And after living that way for years, I think I forgot a little bit about what it felt like when there wasn’t always a next time right around the corner.
Now I Feel Like I Need Two Weeks!
My last Walt Disney World visit was in May 2025, and something funny has happened since then. Disney World feels far away again, and there have been so many changes since my last visit that I’m starting to feel like that person who used to sit at home researching an upcoming Disney vacation for hours. There are new things I haven’t seen, experiences I need to catch up on, restaurants I haven’t visited in ages, and entire seasonal events I haven’t attended in years. I haven’t been to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party or Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party in multiple years, and with everything changing across Walt Disney World right now, my list is only getting longer.
Suddenly, I’m thinking, can I just go for two weeks? I want enough time to wander around and notice what’s different. I want to see the things I’ve missed without racing from one attraction to another. I want to eat at places I haven’t visited in years, explore the resorts, and probably spend an unreasonable amount of time poking around merchandise shops. And, strangely enough, I want to plan again. I want to research what’s changed and make my spreadsheets and lists and figure out how I’m possibly going to fit everything in. That part of a Disney vacation that I loved so much before we moved to Florida might start to feel exciting again.
Maybe the Magic Doesn’t Go Away After All
Living in Florida didn’t make me love Walt Disney World any less. If anything, those nine years gave me a completely different way to experience a place I’d already loved for years. I learned how wonderful Disney World can be when you remove the pressure to do everything. There’s a lot to be said for wandering through a park or resort without worrying about whether you’re maximizing every minute because whatever you miss will still be there for another visit.
But now that there is quite a bit of distance (the entire country!) between me and Walt Disney World, I’m realizing there was something pretty fabulous about the old way, too. The hours of research, the anticipation, the ridiculous lists, and let’s not forget those spreadsheets. There was something so special about a trip getting closer after spending months thinking about everything I wanted to see and do.
Maybe living close to Walt Disney World doesn’t make it less magical. Maybe it just changes where some of that magic comes from. When we lived in Florida, the freedom of knowing we’d be back soon was part of it. Nowadays, I find myself dreaming of finding that magic in the planning aspect again, only this time I already know what’s there waiting for me. It’s just that I haven’t personally experienced much of it yet. And suddenly, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to fit it all into one trip!
