[Christien]

My dad used to take me every year when I was a kid, up until I was about 11 or 12 I think. So I couldn't wait to take our kids. We went this past February with our 2 daughters, oldest was 2 1/2, youngest was 3 months. We knew it would be a bit harder with the baby, but my wife was on maternity leave, so it made sense, as we could go in the off season.

I'm with Rob on this one - sure, ostensibly it was for the kids, but we had an absolute blast as well. Yes, there are lots of fat people on scooters because they're too lazy to walk. Just ignore them. Yes, there are plenty of smelly sweaty people. So what, big deal, I'm sure there are on a beach in Mexico or the Italian Riviera too.

We stayed on-site in one of the "value" resorts, and got a meal plan as well. Yes, it's a bit more expensive, but for the convenience and time-savings it's WELL worth it. I'm on vacation - I don't want to spend my time in traffic, driving or on shuttle buses.

As for the meal plan, it worked really well for us. Our youngest is still breast feeding, so that doesn't apply. Our oldest was under 3 so she was allowed to share from our meal plan, which worked out really well, as we only needed to buy 2. We did run out of some things near the end, but our package came with a $200 gift card, so we just put some food on there (didn't buy too many souvenirs, just some plush toys). I would recommend doing the meal plan - we will again when we go back in December, though we'll buy one for our daughter as well (they have kid plans that are cheaper). Someone mentioned the food was bad - I couldn't disagree more. No, it surely wasn't gourmet, but for buffets it was excellent (and I'm not a big buffet fan). Lots of selection of both kid and adult food, always fresh, of course junk food but lots of healthy stuff too. We didn't have high expectations, and were really impressed with the food. The only catch is that you need reservations for pretty much any restaurant that has character dining (where the characters come to your table for pictures and "autographs"). But again, it's well worth it, because the kids LOVE it.

I'm not anywhere near as obsessive as those people on the disney boards that log ALL their trips, with a count-down timer to the next one, but we are DEFINITELY excited to be going back this winter!

Oh yeah, and about low vs high season - our last day there was the first day of the high season (Feb. 15). WHAT a difference in crowd size! I'll bet there were twice as many people as the day before. Absolutely nuts. I'll never go in high season.