Love your trip report. Live definitely is more exciting to read! How do you get your boys to keep returning to Disney?! My DS now 13 has been twice when he was younger and really enjoyed himself but when I approached him about this trip he said no way he'd rather not go on vacation this summer than go to Disney again.
We travel to other places as well.
But Disney is the definite favorite. My boys love being able to go off on their own, they like to have independent time to explore, especially the World Showcase. My youngest is a history buff and is obsessed with social studies and geography, Epcot feeds into his obsession.
WDW feels like a protective bubble, they can use the transportation and have a lot of freedom. So it's a vacation with Mom, but they are continuously ditching me.
I think it definitely depends on the kid though, my boys find a lot of enjoyment in and around the parks, and they enjoy a lot of down time too. We take these vacations very leisurely, we don't stress about hitting the parks and cramming in a ton of rides. We might go to a park, hit 3 rides, then leave. I'll go shopping for the afternoon while they jump on a boat and head off somewhere else. Then we'll all meet up for dinner. At night I love fireworks, my oldest hates them, so I'll watch Wishes and he'll ride Space Mountain.
We just don't have any rules, if we want to sleep late or go swimming, we just do what we want.
The last time I took my kids on a beach vacation it was complete torture for me. They get bored after a couple of hours on the beach and end up sitting in the hotel playing on their iphones and complaining about not having anything fun to do. Probably some kids have no problem keeping busy in the sand and surf, but my boys aren't really interested in doing a lot of swimming, they need more stimulation and things to see and do. Honestly I'd rather stay home than take them to the beach again.
We've also done tons of trips to the Smokies. Rented cabins, stayed in condos, also water park hotels. They have flat out refused to go back anymore. We drive up to Chicago a lot and do the big city thing. So that's old news. The only thing they really beg to do is go to Europe. They would absolutely love to go. But that's just not in the cards right now for me financially.
That was probably a longer explanation than you were counting on!