Walt Disney World Trip September 2026

Our 8 Day, 7 Night Walt Disney World Trip with Older Kids

In September 2026, our family of four spent 8 days and 7 nights at Walt Disney World! With two adults and two kids, ages 9 and 12, this was our fourth visit to Disney World!

For this trip, we stayed at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village, spent five days in the parks, and visited all four Disney World theme parks, with two days at Magic Kingdom. We kept things simple by skipping sit down dining reservations and sticking to quick service meals and snacks. Here’s a little of what our 8 Day, 7 night Walt Disney World trip with older kids looked like.

We did not pay for photo pass this time. Can you tell? 🤣

Trip Logistics

Hotel: Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village (we rented DVC points). We had requested a room close to the lobby and were assigned room 7237. Our room was about a five-minute walk to transportation, a seven-minute walk to Jambo House, and a ten-minute walk to the pool. Our room overlooked the parking lot rather than the savanna, but we were pleasantly surprised by how nice the view was! There were lots of trees, and the area was quiet. While a savanna view would have been fun, we were perfectly happy with our room, especially since we had requested a location that would make getting around a little easier.

Dates: September 8-15, 2026

The benefits of this time were lower crowds and less busy (relatively) but negatives were that it was swelteringly hot and rainy!! It rained every afternoon for at least a couple of hours.

Parks: 5 park days: 2 days at Magic Kingdom and 1 day at each of the other three parks

Food: No sit down dining reservations. We stuck to quick service restaurants, snacks, and food from our Walmart grocery delivery.

Trip Highlight Reel 😀

Love, love, love seeing Magic Kingdom all decorated for Halloween. Next goal is to see it at Christmas! 🎄

Jake’s first time on a rollercoaster that went upside down! He loved it! New favorite ride!

We giggled our whole way through Alien Swirling Saucers and it was one of our favorite rides of the trip. We were reminded the best rides in the park for you are very much based on your personal preferences!

Love this photo and how it perfectly captures what we all looked like by 3 PM. Hot and sweaty!

We had a surprise ride on Rise of the Resistance. Wait time was posted at only 20 minutes, which ends up being a walk on once you walk through the cue. It was the best experience we’ve ever had on this ride too.

We came prepared with plenty of rain gear!

But it was so hot the rain actually ended up being pretty nice. It cooled things down.

Banyan Tree outside Yak & Yeti Restaurant in the Asia section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom

It’s so easy to find quiet tucked away spots in this park.

We had such a good ride on Safari this trip too. Our favorite we ever had.

We spent some time resort hopping this trip and it was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I loved seeing some places we’ve never been and visiting some old ones we love too.

Anika loved it here!

Classic photo at the Contemporary Resort. We love this place too.

Our Epcot day was so chill this trip. Our Lightning Lane stack was perfect and we just enjoyed so many things about this park that we had never had the time to do before.