We went to Disney World for the 4th of July this year, and we had a blast! It was hot, like really, really hot y’all! We arrived on the 1st (in the late evening), hit the parks the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and headed home on the 5th. While the heat was at times pretty unbearable, it was hands down the best fireworks show I’ve ever seen in my 4o years of living! Not over exaggerating one single bit. The fireworks show at Epcot was absolutely worth the price of admission and suffering through the heat!
So many of you who followed along on Instagram asked me to share a trip recap on the blog. So I opened up a question dialogue box in my instagram stories to make sure to include all of the things you wanted to know about the most.
Q. Where did you stay?
A. We’ve been to Disney World quite a few times now. And we’ve stayed at The Polynesian, The Beach Club, The Yacht Club, The French Quarter and Wilderness Lodge, and we’ve come to really love staying in the Beach Club/Yacht Club area which is right along the Boardwalk and is walking distance to Epcot. This time we stayed at The Swan which isn’t technically a Disney Resort, but is right next to the Boardwalk area. And FYI, you can use Marriott points at this hotel.
Q. What parks did you go to? And was it super crowded?
A. We did Epcot on the 2nd and the 4th, and Animal Kingdom on the 3rd. We have older kids now (13 and 15), and they’re not as interested in the characters and attractions that Magic Kingdom has to offer. Plus we knew that Magic Kingdom would most likely be the busiest park, and truth be told, we prefer the food at Epcot and Animal Kingdom. Hollywood Studios we opted to skip this trip as well, because we didn’t get a park hopper pass and we really wanted to spend the 4th in Epcot for the fireworks show.
Was Disney World crowded in July? Is that a trick question? 😉 I think your perception will be based on your expectations. We expected that it would be super busy because hello, it’s summer and also, it’s a holiday. But we were pleasantly surprised that it really wasn’t as crowded as we thought it would be. We didn’t spend any time waiting in long lines for rides or for food. We used the Disney app and planned out our fast passes and made our restaurant reservations way in advance. Plus as I mentioned above, we didn’t go to Magic Kingdom which is almost always the busiest park.
My best advice for making the most of a Disney trip is to plan ahead! Figure out what rides/ shows/ restaurants you really want to go to and schedule all of that way ahead of your trip. This makes a world of difference!
Animal Kingdom is probably my favorite of all the Disney Theme Parks. It’s like a zoo and an amusement park rolled into one, and the grounds are just so beautiful!
Q. Did you do a dining plan?
A. No, we chose not to for this trip. We’ve done the dining plan before, and we felt like we ended up eating way more than we would have without it. Which meant we ended up spending more $ than we needed to. So for this trip we opted to pay as we went rather than purchase a dining package.
Q. How did you navigate being gluten free?
A. One of the main reasons we’ve been back to Disney so many times is because it’s one of the easiest places to vacation with food allergies. Many of you know my entire family is gluten free, and Disney does a phenomenal job of providing really great gluten free options throughout their parks.
My family’s favorite breakfast is at Ohana (at The Polynesian). It’s the only character breakfast we do. We all love the gluten free Mickey waffles as much as we love Stitch. 🙂
All of the Disney parks have great gluten free options, but we prefer Epcot and Animal Kingdom’s food options to the other parks.
At Epcot, we like the Japanese quick service and the Mexican restaurant. And at Animal Kingdom we’re big fans of Flame Tree BBQ.
But two Disney Resort restaurants that are absolute MUSTS if you’re gluten free are:
- Trattoria al Forno – an amazing Italian restaurant on Disney’s Boardwalk right outside of Epcot. Literally everything but the lasagna can be made gluten free. I’m talking fired calamari and chicken parmesan, and it’s all ridiculously good!
- And over in Disney Springs is Raglan Road, a fun Irish pub and restaurant where you can order things like Fish and Chips gluten free!
Q. What did you wear and do to try and stay cool in the heat?
A. We tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible during the peak hours of the day. We did inside lunches, shopped in air conditioned stores, watched shows, anything that would keep us out of the direct sun from about 12 to 3 p.m. We drank lots of water and a few frozen treats. 😉 We all wore hats and slathered on our sunscreen (which I carried in a small backpack). My daughter got a cooling towel (those things work really well!) and one of those battery operated spray fans. We all wore light-weight clothing. And I brought tennis shoes and flip flops to walk around in, and at the end of the day I felt more comfortable in the flip flops than I did in my tennis shoes.
Honestly, around 4 pm every day it cooled off enough to be able to walk around outside pretty comfortably. Florida always gets some scattered thunderstorms this time of year and they help to cool the temps. It sprinkled for about an hour on the 4th just before the fireworks show, and it felt amazing!
Q. Does Disney do anything special for the 4th of July?
A. Yes! But not every park does something especially patriotic. Magic Kingdom and Epcot both had special fireworks shows on both the 3rd and the 4th. Epcot also had a special Voices of Liberty concert at three different times in the evening. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Epcot’s Heartbeat of Freedom fireworks show that started right after their Illuminations show was absolutely incredible! It was the perfect finale to our summer vacation and will be a 4th of July we’ll never forget!
We had a great time! I don’t know if we’ll ever do Disney again in July, but this was definitely a memorable family vacation!
I think Disney at Christmas is more our speed. 😉
Are you a theme park person?
