Disney World Has It All: Hot Weather, Long Lines, Crabby Kids … And Cockroaches [PHOTOS]

Our first family trip to Florida was a ball of fun and exhaustion all rolled into one.

Florida proved to be what everyone had warned us about -- very hot, very humid and very stormy.

Everything is bigger in Florida, where Walt Disney didn't want to make the same mistake with Disney World as he had with Disneyland. He wanted plenty of room to expand. Disney World is 47 square miles with its own ZIP code -- much larger than Disneyland, which is only 85 acres.

Disney World has four parks -- Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. And it has two water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach. Universal now has two parks with Harry Potter stuff in both parks. Each park takes you about a day to get through and even then you won't see everything.

The weather can also make getting through the rides difficult. If there is thunder and lightning, then all the outside rides close up. Sometimes they close the entire park down!

Let's not forget about the bugs -- mainly the cockroaches, who for some reason seemed to like me, but no one else in my family. I found one while packing my suitcase to return home crawling across my clothes. I guess he was trying to stow away a ride to Washington ... LOL!

My advice if your family ventures to Florida: DO NOT go in the summer. Go during the off season. The weather will be better as well as the lines. Take advantage of the Disney app and schedule your three fast passes a day for the popular rides. Make reservations for dinner at restaurants in the parks (some of the restaurants require reservations), otherwise you'll be stuck eating fast food all the time.

Go knowing that you'll have to deal with lines, rude people, bratty kids and bugs. And if it's summertime, then hot humid weather mixed with storms.

But in the end, the memories you'll make with your family outweigh all of that stuff. You just might need a vacation from your vacation. LOL!