It's hard to beat the convenience of the monorail.  It's probably the quickest way to get to Magic Kingdom, though the Poly does have a boat option.  You can also walk over to the Ticket and Transportation center to ride the Monorail over to EPCOT.

Touches of the Pacific are all over the resort.  If you're going to be in the heat and humidity of Florida you might as well have a beautiful theme to match.  It's all very picturesque.

Since the Poly is one of Disney World's oldest resorts many of its original rooms are just a bit bigger than some other resort rooms.  I love that extra bit of space.  Many of the rooms can sleep up to 5 people.

We love the Moana theming!  We've stayed here a few times and all the rooms have been comfortable and beautiful.  Though where your room is located on the resort can make a big difference as to which amenities you will be close to.  We haven't stayed in the new tower yet, but the rooms look great from what we have seen, though some of the new rooms sleep only 4.

The breakfast food options are pretty standard but you're mostly there to meet Stitch, Lilo, Mickey, and Pluto.  Dinner on the other hand has some great eats!  We loved the Shrimp and Steak.  The noodles are a classic.  And there is no way you can skip the Ohana Bread Pudding!

The main pool area is the Lava Pool.  We absolutely love this pool, though it can get crowded.  There's a great little water slide that comes down the side of the volcano.  We usual reserve a break day when we are stay here to take advantage of the Lava Pool.  It's pretty easy to order some food and drinks from the waiters that come around.  It makes for a pretty relaxing way to spend an off day on your Disney vacation.

We've even splurged to stay Club Level.  The food in the Club Level lounge was AMAZING!  Every time they brought out new food I was simply impressed with the available options.

If you've never been to Trader Sam's, just go! Totally worth the reservation.  With a fun list of specialty cocktails that will often trigger chanting and magical tiki fun, you can't go wrong!  Plus they have some absolutely delicious food items.  I had to have the Piranha Pool cocktail in it's novelty cup because it was too cool not to.  Angie had some great Ramen, Niko went with some Tempura Shrimp, and Zoey had the Pupu Platter which basically came with a bunch of appetizer type items.  She loved it!  We finished off with Coconut cake, which was fabulous.

Our room was pretty nice and a good size.  I loved the Castle carving that extended over the beds.  Though I do feel the Mickey Mouse Hand sconces in the bathroom were a little much.  We really felt there wasn't enough storage in the room.  There were only 3 smallish drawers and a closet for the 4 of us, but we made due.  The Bathroom was poorly lit.  Angie said she felt like she was showering in a cave.

Here's a better look at some of the finer details of the room.

I think some of the best areas of the Disneyland Hotel are it's outside spaces!  The Monorail Waterslides and the Pool area are spectacular.  Lots of space to find seating, pools are big and spacious.  Overall beautiful areas to sit around and enjoy the California weather.

And what Hotel would be complete without a couple of gift shops.

Even the Lobby is cute with it's little Tea Cup Seats.

There is nothing more ICONIC than walking under the Mickey's Sorcerer Hat to get to Downtown Disney.  Plus there's always decor for the Holidays, since we were there around Spring Break there was a Saint Patrick's Day Topiary.

The decorations really were EVERYWHERE you look!

While Pixar Place is the furthest of Disney's resorts from the Disneyland park, about a 12 minute walk, it's very close to California Adventure.  It even has it's own special entrance into that park.  It was really nice popping right into California Adventure, especially since we were so close to the Cappuccino cart that has those great steak and egg breakfast burritos.

You could take the long way and walk straight into Downtown Disney, which was perfect for our reservation over at Din Tai Fung, or you could always cut through the Grand Californian.

Our room was a good size, with lots more great Pixar details.  They added a lot of USB outlets, which really makes a difference when you need to charge everyone's devices!

It was a  very comfortable stay, the only issue was the new style of elevators that confused a lot of guests.  You just press the button for your floor and it tells you what elevator bay to wait for.   Each elevator would only stop at a few floors of the people riding that specific elevator.   People kept pressing the button repeatedly causing multiple elevators to then stop at their floor even though they were on a different elevator.  Sometimes I do believe some signage with instructions might help people.

One of the coolest features of this hotel has to be the rooftop pool area.

There was even a nice little band that performed for a bit near the lounge area.

Our night begins over at Animal Kingdom Lodge.  The Starlight Safari is just one of those cool experiences you can have at a Disney Deluxe Resort, but you don't have to be staying there to experience this one.  Like most Disney extras a reservation is required.  Since we knew we were going to end up at Animal Kingdom Lodge we also made an earlier dinner reservation at Boma for a fantastic meal.

The Starlight Safari happens twice each night, once at 8:30pm and again at 10pm.  We booked the earlier one.  This safari does have a few restrictions.  All guests have to be 8+ years old and in good enough health to ride this bumpy safari vehicle.  Guests who ride in an EVC can come too, they just have to leave their mobility vehicle at the resort during the safari.  Total cost ends up being $89 per person.

We hopped into our rugged safari vehicle with 2 other families and our guide.  I think there were a total of 12 guests on our ride.  The sun hadn't quite set, but darkness was quickly approaching.  We each had access to a monocular night vision device, which was REALLY COOL.  So once it got dark we had a cool green night vision to keep seeing everything around us. 

Our guide, Paola, gave us lots of interesting information about the Animal Kingdom grounds and about each of the animals we encountered along the way.  No you don't get to see any predator animals on this safari, we drove through a few different open sections, which would be difficult to keep the predators away from their prey. 

We saw around 20 different species of birds and large herbivores on our safari.  We even saw a Giraffe sitting down, which is a rarity.  Apparently giraffes only sleep for about a half hour a day, but broken up into sessions of a few minutes throughout the day.  So for a giraffe to sit down and rest meant they felt very safe.  It's not easy for them to sit down and get back up.

Towards the end Paola pulled out an empty Ostrich Egg for us to examine.  All the Ostriches in Animal Kingdom are females, so they lay lots of eggs.  The resort does lots of different things with them, which are pretty funny.  Some are hard boiled and given to some of the big cats to chew on for enrichment and others are used around Easter for Holiday decoration activities.

There are lots of Disney resorts you can stay at, but nothing beats the ease of getting to Magic Kingdom from Disney's Contemporary Resort.

The Contemporary has 3 different buildings on property.  There's the Main Building, the Garden Wing, and Bay Lake Tower.  Not all rooms here are created equal.  I definitely felt our Studio Room at Bay Lake Tower was much smaller than our rooms over in the Main Building.

When we stayed on Club Level our room was focused on Frozone!

Now don't worry if you didn't get a park view room.  If you head over to the Main Building the 4th floor has a wonderful viewing area where you can enjoy the fireworks too!  They even pump in the music from MK to really make it an experience.

The Contemporary also has some amazing on-site dining locations!  Steakhouse 71 is right downstairs for some good food options and Chef Mickey's is a solid character meal on the 4th floor.  Both are great choices when it comes to Disney dining.

If you thought the Contemporary was close to Magic Kingdom, the Grand Californian puts that to shame.  This is as close as you can stay to any Disney park. ​There isn't really any transportation to the parks in Disneyland.  It's ALL walking distance., but that walking distance can vary quite a bit.  Many hotels and resorts are a good 15 minute walk from the park gates.

After you have put in over 30,000 steps in the Disneyland from 8am to midnight, proximity is a blessing.  10 more minutes of walking can be agony on weary feet, trust me I know!

Now if you really want to add that next level of Boujie you can always stay at Club Level!

Just when you thought the Grand Californian was done, they up the ante on special occasions.

Thinking about taking a Disney vacation?  We're here to take all the planning worries off your hands.  Let us help customize that fantastic vacation loaded with memories that will last a lifetime.  When it's time to plan for Disney:

The Captain's Suite is actually a Galaxy Class Suite and a Standard Cabin combined...

During our ship's muster and the safety video before boarding the ship we were shown safety procedures in case of a real emergency.  Each room has it's own "panic room" built into the wall, so if you are unable to get out, you can lock yourself in and call for help on the phone inside.

Our room had all the standard hotel room amenities you'd expect.  There was a small refrigerator and safe, but there were some nice extras like a water pitcher and a variety of glasses above a little bar sink.  There was also some odd alien plant-life growing inside a case in the wall.

In case you missed Angie's live session, here is her room tour video.

Overall the rooms was pretty comfortable and roomy, I would definitely consider this upgrade for anyone who needs privacy or extra breathing space.  Our next voyage will probably be in a standard cabin with our younglings.  They don't take up much space.

Photo session time slots are limited, but some of the best times are right after boarding, early the second morning, during the Batuu excursion, or during dinner times.  Because there are other guests running around doing missions, you can't have your photo session interfere with mission activities.  So if you want to take pictures in the Engineering room and its currently occupied by an activity, you'll have to pick somewhere else for photos.  These times also typically don't interfere with your ability to do missions as well.

We didn't want to miss out on anything we could do on the ship, so we opted for pictures first thing in the morning our second day.  I was even able to run off and eat breakfast before our photo session.  We shared our photo session with our cabin mates, so we all were able to get some GREAT pictures.  Here are some of the highlights from our session.

There are few photographers walking around on your arrival day, so you can get some pictures on the bridge and in the atrium, but we really enjoyed getting some quality photos when people weren't around.

Overall we had an AMAZING experience aboard the Galactic Starcruiser.  If you're a big Star Wars fan, you have to find a way to budget one of these trips in your future.  I hope you all enjoyed our coverage aboard the Halcyon, we'll be back there in December with the kids!  So I'm very excited!

From alien musicians to officers of the First Order, you will meet a wide variety of characters on the ship.  I highly recommend having unique outfits for yourself as I felt we were interacted with more often than the guests in normal clothing.

You can have interactions a plenty!  The Galactic Starcruiser is not just a hotel for you to enjoy, it's a full on experience!  The more you engage the characters and follow along with your personal story, the more you will get out of this experience.  You get so much more by talking to them.  But in person interactions aren't the only way to further your story.

Since you are located on the lake you get access to all the restaurants along the Boardwalk like one of our favorites Trattoria al Forno.  Beach Club has Cape May Cafe, Beaches and Cream, or eat at Ale and Compass at Yacht Club either way you have ample dining locations.  You can always swing by The Market at Ale and Compass for a quick bite to eat or shopping.  We liked to stop there to trade at their pin board.

The water slide, the Flying Jib, was pretty great!  Who doesn't want to go down a pirate ship water slide?!

And just in case you want to see it all at once, here is Angie's live tour of the pool area.

Yacht Club has so many conveniences that we just absolutely LOVED it.  Deluxe resorts are on the pricey end, but we felt this one was worth the splurge.  Feel free to ask us for more information or recommendations.  We are here to help you make that next Disney vacation that much more magical.

Each resort offers transportation to and from the parks as well as to Disney Springs.  Each resort has it's own food court, gift shop, and pools.  The value resorts feature great Disney style theming!  From the rooms, to the walkways, all the way into the pool everything has eye catching decorations.  Let's breakdown each group.

All Star Music has added Family Suites recently which sleep up to 6.  The rooms are similar to the standard rooms, but have a separate bedroom and a kitchenette that features a large refrigerator and a microwave. They also have two beds that pull down out of the walls in the living area, very similar to our video above showing that setup in Pop. 

There are standard rooms located in the Little Mermaid area, but these rooms are a little smaller.  Even with renovations these rooms have two full sized mattresses, instead of queens like most resort rooms.