5 reasons to vacation in Disney (or Universal Orlando) with adult kids
Surrounded by your people you can really lean into your weirdness. PLUS: Where to eat at Disney and a few great travel pieces.
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Hello MidLife friends:
Think that trips to Disney World are a thing of the past now that your kids are grown? For some parents, that might be a huge relief — like knowing you never have to sit through another T-ball game or attend a back-to-school night.
But if you are the kind of person who sorta liked theme parks when the kids were little and the idea of returning without having to push a sweaty toddler in a stroller through the equivalent of Times Square on New Year’s Eve sounds appealing, read on.
I just returned from a five-night stay in Orlando with my four adult children PLUS one very lovely future daughter-in-law and while I’m still processing the trip, I can say that it was fabulous. The six of us converged in Orlando on Mother’s Day and spent the next five days driving around in our minivan rental to different theme parks and really settling into the weirdness of our family.
We kicked things off on Sunday with the new Planet of the Apes movie at Disney Springs (my Mother’s Day gift) and a terrific dinner at Morimoto Asia later that night and then throughout the next four days headed early each morning to a different theme park (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and both Universal parks in one day).
Was it a lot? Yes. Do I now know what my theme park boundaries are? Indeed (two — maybe three — in a row before hitting a wall). Will I think twice before doing so many rides so many days in a row? For sure. Would I do it all again? Absolutely (although maybe not every year).
Here are 5 reasons to vacation in Disney or Universal with your adult kids:
1. Everyone can (mostly) pay their own way. There is much to be said for not having to pay for everything. I treated everyone to the three-bedroom unit at the nearby Marriott Imperial Palms that I cannot recommend enough. It was super close to all the Disney parks, had two bathrooms, a new-ish kitchen with giant island and roomy sitting area where we could all converge in the morning and collapse at night. Aside from that, we used the Splitwise app to divvy up all the meals, daily Disney Genie+ expenses and the minivan rental.
2. The food is weirdly great. We went to both Disney and Universal numerous times when the kids were young and our park meals mostly consisted of paper plates of chicken strips and French fries at the big cafeteria-style dining spots. It was always crowded and expensive and not very good. But for this trip, thanks to TikTok, we had a list of must-try snacks at smaller food vendors on our list for us to split. Most memorable?
· The Spring Roll Wagon at the Magic Kingdom’s cheeseburger spring rolls
· Jalenpeno cheese pretzel at Magic Kingdom
· THE HYPE IS REAL: Dole whip with vanilla swirl in Magic Kingdom
· Brioche ice cream sandwich in Epcot’s France Pavillion
We had dinner reservations each night and I have to say, we loved them all:
· After our Planet of the Apes movie we hit Morimoto Asia for dinner and shared a bunch of sushi rolls and Asian-inspired plates. Super yummy.
· Ohana all-you-can-eat dinner at the Polynesian Resort (after a full day at the Magic Kingdom, my daughter observed that the prix fixe meal where you make zero decisions and they just keep bringing things to the table was the gift we didn’t know we needed that night)
· La Hacienda de San Angel in Epcot’s Mexico Pavillion was also great. We had a bunch of apps and the six of us split three or four giant entrees, which left plenty of room for more snacking later that night.
· We left Hollywood Studios in late afternoon to have time to shower and change to drive to Maggiano’s in nearby Pointe Orlando where we had a family-style meal that was good for morale.
· After an absolutely exhausting last day doing both Universal Orlando theme parks and feeling slightly nauseous after the final sickening rollercoaster of the Simpson’s ride, dinner at the Cowfish Sushi Burger Bar in CityWalk was a balm (or sorts). I had a ridiculous cheeseburger concoction sliced sushi-roll-style topped off by a milkshake sprinkled with popcorn.
3. You are not the only one (in theory) making all the plans. Back in the day, I did all the planning, which meant all the people who were not remotely interested in doing any research before the trip were suddenly highly critical of everything on the agenda once the vacation began. At least that’s how I remembered it. For this trip, my oldest daughter took on that role and did a TON of research and planning for us in the weeks and months leading up to vacation. She made all our dinner reservations, learned how to navigate the complicated Disney attraction reservation system and also had a list of all the TikTok-recommended snack spots. She killed it. We also worked with a Disney vacation planner to decide how to build our park itinerary, buy our tickets, link up our wristbands and get tips on where to eat and how to navigate that super-complicated Disney reservation system. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
4. With family, you can let your freak flag fly. Guys, it turns out we are people who feel comfortable walking around in public with little stuffed animals on our shoulders. This discovery I made walking through Epcot behind my kids with said stuffed animals on their shoulders had me dying and laughing harder than I have laughed in forever. These are my people and I salute their embrace of Legos, Star Wars and kung-fu fighting.
5. The attention to detail is not lost on them. The Toy Story movie timeline happens to coincide with my oldest son’s own timeline. The original movie came out when he was about Andy’s age and the video was constantly playing on our VCR and my son’s Woody doll was loved almost as much as Andy loved his. Fast forward a few movies and a decade of so and that son of mine went to college the same year that Andy did and just ask my daughters how much I cried watching that movie. All this is background to tell you about how nostalgic I felt waiting online for the Slinky Dog rollercoaster in Hollywood Studio’s Toy Story Land in Andy’s childhood bedroom that’s scaled to make you feel like you are one of the toys. There’s the cloud wallpaper and oversized Uno cards and the plastic Barrel of Monkeys hanging from the ceiling and the attention to detail was just amazing. My kids and I marveled that that was someone’s actual job.
My boys totally geeked out in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge that totally recreated sets from the movies including various spacecrafts and sound effects coming from speakers nestled in the foliage.
6. The nostalgia factor is high. See Andy’s bedroom above. But also, there’s something about walking down Main Street in the Magic Kingdom with your kids when you first enter the park that’s kind of, well, magical. Maybe that’s me? Throughout the trip, we had a lot of “remember when” moments and me reminding them of things that happened on trips when they were young. Even my youngest got into the act, trying to recreate pictures we had taken so many years before. And rides that we’d done so many times in the past — It’s a Small World or Pirates of the Caribbean, for instance — were surprisingly pretty fun to revisit.
7. You’re making so many new memories. We laughed a lot. Whether it was from some silly inside joke about me tapping to get them to do things they don’t want to do, repeating some Planet of the Apes line (over and over again) or wearing the aforementioned stuffed animals on our shoulders — we have a lot of new material. And some of the new rides we experienced had all of us gushing afterwards — like the Velocicoaster and King Kong rides at Universal and the amazing Guardians of the Galaxy ride at Epcot (AND we got the song “September”). Even just all the standing on lines we did all week gave us the opportunity to talk, joke, connect. It reminded me of when they were little and standing on a particularly hot line for the Jungle Cruise and my daughter teaching me how to do armpit farts and showing off how she could use the back of her knee to squeeze them out. When else do you get to do that?
I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts on this week I just spent running around theme parks with adult kids. We did have a setback on Day 2 after 12 hours and 10 miles spent walking around Epcot and I may have had something to do with bringing the mood down. I’m still learning that there really CAN be too much of a good thing. And my younger daughter did make an offhand joke pointing to the Ratatouille rat on her shoulder about all of us healing our inner children.
But as vacations go, this one was pretty epic and is filled with happy memories of time spent with my kids. I am loving looking at the pictures on the Disney app of me on the various rides throughout the week and seeing all our faces — the pure joy that’s on my face as I hurtle through space surrounded by my kids.
sunday shares: read + watch + eat + buy
It rained. It poured. It was all a million degrees. Here are some pieces that helped get me through.
This giant bag of an Amazon dress is a true gem. I also own in white, which was great for dinner in Aruba last fall. And I’m eyeing it in navy.
I wore red H&M linen pants I bought last summer on both flights and got a ton of compliments on them. These Old Navy pull-ons have the same vibe.
White Hoka Bondi 8s for the win. While I was hot for the New Balance look, my trusty Hokas got me through 10-mile days walking around the parks.
Thanks for reading! See you next Sunday. xoAmy
So happy for you and your adult kiddos! I’m hoping to take mine to Hawaii next year (recommendations from my fellow readers would be appreciated ☺️) Quick question- I just checked out the bag dress on Amazon because loved it on you 😍, what size did you order?… they look huge (but I guess that’s the whole point 😂)
What an epic post! Thanks for taking the time to write it and put it all together.