No park tickets?? No Problem!!
When most people think of Disney world they automatically drift to thoughts of Magic Kingdom, Mickey Mouse, and lavish resorts. While all of that may be true, did you know there’s a side of Disney that doesn’t involve theme parks? There is so much to do and discover outside of the parks… which is exactly what we spend our last trip doing!
Play Miniature Golf
There are 2 miniature golf courses on Disney property Disney’s Fantasia Gardens and Disney’s Winter Summerland Golf Course (located at Blizzard Beach) each course gives a little taste of Disney magic at a fraction of the cost of the parks. Just make sure your kids are up for it, the courses are a bit spread out.
Go Bowling!
Splitsville is the bowling alley located at Disney Springs. We were able to join the walk up line and we waited about an hour for a lane to open up, which gave us plenty of time to explore the Christmas Tree Trail (see more about that below). We were able to bowl for an hour and a half, which was plenty of time for our family of 5. We got in 2 games and then stayed for dinner in the dining area of the bowling alley. While they have the typically sports bar type food, I was pleasantly surprised to see sushi on the menu… btw it was amazing!!
Disney Springs Christmas Tree Trail
While we waited for our lane to be ready we picked up a map for the tree trail. It comes with a map of Disney Springs and stickers of all the Christmas tree themes. As we walked through and found the trees, the girls got to put a sticker where each tree was located on the map. They loved trying to navigate on their own and see all the fun trees this year, which were a bit different from previous years. We finished finding the last 4 trees after our time bowling. I loved that it wasn’t something with a time limit.
Take a Boat out to the Fireworks
Fireworks from the boat was one of my favorite activities from this week! I’ve seen fireworks plenty of times inside the park but never from a boat outside of the park! We rented a boat out of the Contemporary for our family (they fit up to 10 people) and left the dock around 8:45pm. We sailed around the lagoon to the Wilderness Lodge where we parked and watched the Electrical Parade. Then we continued around to the front of Magic Kingdom and watched the fireworks from right outside the entrance to Main Street on the water. What a view! It was just as good as inside the park! We also learned that these boats are available to rent during the day for recreation. You can take the boat out on the lagoon for the day and just float around and enjoy!
If you still want a little taste of the parks you can attend a special event. We attended Mickeys Very Merry Christmas party while we were there just to give the kids a taste of magic kingdom. The best part about these events is the smaller crowds! Due to the limited number of tickets for each event, crowds are much smaller and therefor wait times are not nearly as long. Also, you get to see rare characters that are not out in the parks regularly (like Eric and Genie).
We also had a reservation at Chef Mickey’s on our last morning so we could say hello to our favorite 5 friends! Are the parks fun when you visit Disney world… absolutely! Are they necessary to enjoy your time there, not at all!
