Staying on site at WDW is amazing. I am pretty sure you could bring the kids and run around to all the resort activities, leave without entering any of the parks and still convince the kids they were in Disney World.
The Wilderness cabins were perfect for us. Space to stretch out and a whole kitchen-we even got groceries delivered so we could have breakfast at home everyday. You can also stay in tents or an RV! Every night they light the campfire, have a sign along, meet Chip and Dale and show a movie under the stars-yeah!
All of the working horses come back here at the end of the day.
Real life wildlife right outside our cabin. We also saw frogs and fun birds.
The buffet at the Trail's End is lovely.
Water transport!
You can take a boat to the Contemporary Resort (contemporary 1970). One of the few resorts where you can take the monorail.
The captains have a lot of leaway-we had one sing to us and another who told pirate jokes the whole trip.
Downtown Disney is awesome. Food, Cirque show, bowling. We spent an afternoon in the video game emporium, Disney Quest. The make your own roller coaster and simulated pirate ship are clearly the best, but I loved that they have Fix-It-Felix (the game from Wreck-It Ralph)
This is the House of Blues-I don't know who was playing that night, but people were in line starting at noon.
Balloon ride in the back ground. Though they never remove the rope,....
Oh! Remember the Electric Light Parade? It is gone from Disneyland, but is still in Disney World. As a bonus they have a Water Light Parade. So cute! The boats go from resort to resort and then do their parade in place. We went to our beach, totally got great seats (unlike the crazy crowds in the parks) and had a awesome, relaxed time.
And of course you can't have hotels without towel sculptures these days.
Too cute!
Of course we went to the Magic Kingdom. The line to meet Elsa and Anna was CRAZY! luckily our little princess was happy to get out of line and get a dress. That was fantastic-all day cast members and other little girls were calling her Anna and Princess.
And then we did get meet some other princesses.
Rapunzel so funny and she practiced twirling
Cinderella so regal, she taught us to curtsy
I love that they have kept the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house!
And probably the best thing in the park-the Hall of Presidents-why haven't they kept this in Disneyland? You can see I am distressed about it. That dress? A copy of the original Tiki room hostess dress. I love it but don't get too many occasions to wear it.
Festival of Fantasy parade: We did get to see a tiny little bit of this new parade, but only because we happened to be on our way to lunch. Anna, from the parade recognized our Princess and pointed to her dress and mimed that she liked it-how fun!