Disney Tips Part 1

 

Over the months before we went to Walt Disney World, we were fortunate to receive hundreds of valuable tips and pieces of advice from friends who had gone down with their families before us.  My friend Lori is a WDW expert, having been there many times and studied every book, website and informational video about the resorts and theme parks.  She took time out of her busy life to write down detailed information for us, and ever since we got back I’ve been promising to do the same for many of our friends.

Unless I note otherwise, I’m going to share what worked out best for us.  Much of what I’ll share was what Lori shared with us and it made our vacation so perfect that I have to pass along the information.  Ultimately though, when planning a trip to Disney World, you have to figure out what will work best for you and your family in order for everyone to have the best vacation possible.  We did what worked best for us and there is not a single thing I would’ve changed about the plans we made.  Having gone now, there are a few things I would choose to do differently the next time, but overall we had the most perfect 8 days in Florida that we could’ve had.  It was like a dream!

PLANNING (in no particular order; best to read them all through before you start booking everything for your vacation):

The first thing I would suggest doing in planning for a WDW vacation would be to purchase The Unofficial Guide Walt Disney World 2012 (Unofficial Guides)  by Bob Sehlinger, Len Testa.  Do not let amazon.com talk you into buying a package deal with this book and it’s colorful companion The Unofficial Guide: The Color Companion to Walt Disney World (Unofficial Guides)  by Bob Sehlinger, Len Testa.  Save your money instead for a Disney souvenir and just buy the first book because they have identical information in them.  The difference is that the book I’m recommending goes into much greater detail and the book with the color photos doesn’t include any photos that will actually aid in your planning.  Most of the photos are candid snapshots and silly set-up pics.

The second thing you have to do is set your dates.  In order to give yourself the most flexibility in choosing locations and times for dining, you should plan your Disney vacation more than 6 months in advance and then be ready to book ALL of your reservations for meals exactly 6 months prior to when your trip begins (which is how far in advance Disney allows you to make reservations).  I will admit, we booked our trip only 2 ½ months in advance and booked most of our meals about a month before we left.  We did get lucky and got to dine in the places where we wanted to and at times that worked out well, but many do not get so lucky.  So it’s better to make reservations in advance!

Third, and before you book your dining plans, you have to plan which parks you will go to on which days of your trip.  This is another place where booking your trip in advance will pay off.  If you go to touringplans.com at least 30, but no more than 60 days before your trip, you can see a guide for how crowded Disney will be on a scale of 1 to 10 for each day of your trip, as well as which parks will be the least and most crowded on a given day (for free—you can see it sooner or later by paying for a subscription to the website).  My recommendation is that you create a spreadsheet or list of the hours of operation of each park for the dates of your trip (see http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/hours/mar12.cfm for the hours of operation of each park listed on one calendar) and then highlight or circle which parks are recommended by this website for you to go to for each date.  Why do this?  Because you will avoid one mistake we made.  We planned our itinerary based only on the website’s recommendations for which park would be the least crowded on a given day.  Later, after it was too late to change all of our dinner reservations, we found out that we were not able to take advantage of the parks’ “Magic Hours” on 6 of the 7 days of our trip because automatically, the website recommends NOT going to the park that has magic hours each day.  Yes, parks that have “Magic Hours” are the most crowded on a given day, however, it may be worthwhile to get into Magic Kingdom an hour before the majority of people arrive or to be able to stay at Epcot for two or three hours after many aren’t able to stay and enjoy attractions.  You have to make that call, again with your own family and situation in mind.  Take the time to make a list or spreadsheet; it’s worthwhile in the end :)  (P.S.  “Magic Hours” are available only to those staying at Disney Resorts.)

Fourth, you have to decide where you’re going to stay, and, if on Disney property, if you’re going to use the dining plan.  We absolutely LOVED where we stayed and will ONLY stay where we did no matter if we return to WDW 3 more times or 300.  Here’s our scoop:  We stayed at the Swan / Dolphin resort.  It is the ONLY resort located ON Disney property that is NOT owned by WDW.  It is actually a Westin / Sheraton resort, so Starwood points can be redeemed and earned on property.  We’ve had an American Express card that earns Starwood points ever since Scott and I got married, so we were able to use points towards paying for our stay.  This wasn’t the only perk though.  We also had boat service to Epcot AND Hollywood Studios.  When traveling by boat, you don’t have to fold up your stroller to load and unload, so we could pack up the stroller and leave it as is going to and from the park.  When traveling by bus on the other hand (the other form of free transportation from Disney hotels to the parks), you have to unload and fold up your stroller.  If you see the list of items we took into the parks each day (stick around!) you’ll understand that not only was it much easier to keep two kiddos in the double stroller, but it was also much easier to keep all of our bags and loot in the stroller basket than it was to have to unload, especially after a full day at the park.  If you want to do a WDW vacation, want the same boat service as the Swan / Dolphin, but want to be at a Disney-owned resort, your other options are the Boardwalk, Boat Club and Yacht Club.  These resorts are the only places at WDW where you have boat access to TWO parks.  The one downside to staying at the Swan / Dolphin is that you are not able to book a Disney Dining Plan.  All other “perks” such as airport transportation and Disney property transportation are available to those at the Swan / Dolphin just like those at the other Disney resorts.  I’m not at liberty to stay anything more about where to stay since as an adult I’ve only had this experience.  However, as a child I did stay at the Fort Wilderness Resort and it was a blast…

Fifth, you have to decide on dining.  I would suggest doing a cost comparison of what you would typically budget for food for each day of your trip and then compare it to what it costs to add the Disney Dining plan to your trip.  It is my understanding that the dining plan is only available as a package deal with staying at a Disney resort and your park tickets.  In my mind, I planned on $150 for food each day for our family which typically included a walk-up lunch, sit-down dinner and a snack if needed.  I’d say we did pretty well sticking to this aside from our dinner in Cinderella’s castle with the princesses, which we paid for in advance and cost the most of any dinner during our week.

Why didn’t I factor in money for breakfast, you ask?  Well, because my sixth piece of advice would be to decide whether it would benefit you to rent a car, even for just one day, and to use that car to make a run to Walmart for breakfast items, drinks and other necessities.  We decided to rent a car on the day we were arriving in Orlando to drive ourselves and all of our stuff to our hotel and then to load up on goods from Walmart.  It cost us $66 for the rental AND one of the Alamo drop off spots is at….drum roll please….The Swan/ Dolphin!!  So at the end of the night I handed over my keys to the bellman and he took care of the rest.  I know that there are other options for car rental return on Disney property, but I’m not sure of details.  However, it’s worth looking into.  Or, if you stay at one of the resorts near Swan / Dolphin (Boardwalk, Beach Club, Yacht Club) you can return your Alamo rental at the Swan / Dolphin and take the 5 minute walk back to your own hotel.

7^th, Now for a big heads up about Walmart:  It was ABSOLUTELY worth every penny and every minute of my time to do the Walmart run.  However, to understand the Orlando Walmart you must close your eyes for a moment and take a little journey in your mind to the WORST Walmart you could ever imagine.  Now multiply the chaos, disorganization and crowd (of interesting people of course!) by 10.  Now you have it—that’s the best way to describe the Orlando location.  Consider yourself warned—I wish I had been!  In thinking about how many people are touring the Orlando area on any given day, I actually have to give that Walmart a little bit of credit.  They must constantly be stocking huge amounts of food and Disney souvenirs.  The night I was there (a Wednesday evening) there were no fewer than 100 pallets of goods sitting among the aisles.  Some items we stocked up on were:  bottled water, juice boxes, milk, yogurt, cereal, granola bars, crackers, baby food and snacks, diapers, candy (better to spend $1 on 10 reese cups than $10 on one ice cream treat in the parks…just sayin), pop and beer.  We also got plastic cups and Ziploc bags.  Our hotel room had a mini fridge which held the milk and yogurt, and each night we would stock it with drinks for the next day.  You can take ANY drinks and snacks into the parks that you want to, so I can count on one hand the number of times we purchased a drink or snack except for drinks we had with a meal.  I was super happy to have spent $8 total on water for the entire week instead of $20+ per day on bottles inside the park.  So, renting a car and making the trip to Walmart saved us a bundle in the long run.

Eighth, do yourself a big favor and buy the Disney Photo Pass in advance.  You will save money AND stress by doing so.  At http://www.disneyphotopass.com/previsitoffer.aspx you can purchase in advance a CD of EVERY photo taken by Disney Photographers of you and your family for $99.  If you were going to a Disney park for one day, I wouldn’t consider this worthwhile.  However, if you are planning a vacation that includes several days in the parks, this $99 is DEFINITELY worth every penny.  Without even trying, our family had over 500 photos taken of us by Disney photographers during our 7 days in the parks.  Those who know me know that I LOVE photographs, but I swear to you that I did not seek out photographers to take our picture.  There are Disney photographers EVERYWHERE who take several shots each time you use them.  Photographers are always in front of the best photo locations (such as in front of Cinderella’s castle or in front of the Epcot ball), at Character meet & greets, at meals with the characters, etc.  For more details on the Disney PhotoPass, visit http://www.disneyphotopass.com/aboutdpp_plan.aspx.  I’m so glad we got this since I didn’t have to worry about getting the perfect shot of my girls with each character that they met, and without the photopass there would only be five or so photos of me from the entire trip since I’m the resident photographer of this family.

My ninth planning tip is to familiarize yourself with this site:  http://www.wdwent.com/  At the top of the site, you can click on each park to see the schedule of character appearances, shows, parades, etc. for the week.  This information is available on paper in each park next to the park maps, but I found it easy to bookmark this site in my iphone and access it as needed.  Using the schedules on this site and the paper ones in the park, we were able to plot out our days to make sure we met every character that we wanted to and that we made it to each show and parade at the parks.  Familiarize yourself with this site now, but know that things will change and you’ll have to re-visit the site once you’re at Disney so that you can see the exact details for your vacation dates.

Tenth, you may want to check this website to see which attractions may be closed or under construction during your trip:  http://allears.net/tp/rehabs.htm  We understood that many rehabs take place during the slow season, aka the winter months post-Christmas, but we still felt it was worthwhile to plan our trip for the non-busy season.  In the end, our girls never even noticed that they didn’t ride the famous Dumbo ride.  We all DID notice though that the crowd level was extraordinarily low and the longest we waited was 15 minutes for a ride (Aladdin’s magic carpets in Magic Kingdom) and 30 minutes to meet a character (Rapunzel in Magic Kingdom).

Eleventh, plain and simple:  decide (if you have daughters) whether you’re going to do Bibbity Bobbity Boutique, and if so, book it for the Magic Kingdom location (inside the castle!) 6 months in advance.  The BBB schedule fills up quickly and if that magical experience is necessary to making your trip perfect, then book it as soon as you can (6 months out is the first chance Disney will allow you to do so).  If you decide late to do BBB and can’t get in at the Castle, have no fear as there is another location at Downtown Disney which you’re bound to be able to get into.  However, know that Downtown Disney is a not-so-short bus ride from any of the theme parks and every little princess wants to show off her pretty ‘do and dress inside the theme parks (specifically Magic Kingdom so that they can meet all of their fellow fairytale princesses while all done up) so you’re going to eat up a good chunk of your day that could be spent in the park by trekking to Downtown Disney and back for BBB.  While we’re on this subject, let me give you an additional piece of advice:  Buy your princess dress BEFORE you go to Disney lest you want to dip into your college savings account to afford the BBB’s prices.  Dresses cost $80-$100 apiece at the BBB; they cost $20 at Toys R Us and $40-$50 at the Disney Store (or disneystore.com).  If you take your own dress, you can still change in the BBB changing rooms and you’ll pay $55 for hair, make-up and nails.  The little princess also gets to take home $10 worth of nail polish, a make-up kit, sash, beautiful rhinestone tiara and rhinestone Mickey shaped barrette at that $55 price point.  Yes, it’s pricey.  But what at Disney isn’t?  And how many little girls can say they got done up as a princess IN Cinderella’s castle?

#12, consider purchasing some souvenirs before your trip and use them to surprise your kids while on vacation.  If you know that your kid is going to want a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, buy one at Walmart before you leave and save at least 50%.  If you foresee your kid wanting a light-up toy to carry around once it gets dark, save 66% or more by buying them at Walgreens (they carry many Disney themed trinkets!) before you pack up.  If stuffed animals are your kid’s primary love, save 50% by buying them at the Orlando Walmart instead of inside the parks.  If you still plan to give your child(ren) money for souvenirs,  give them control of their own money by purchasing a Disney gift card in advance for the set amount you’d like them to have for trinkets (and if you live near a Giant Eagle store, earn free gas for your Disney gift card purchase!).

Have I completely overwhelmed anyone yet?  Ha!  This is only the beginning.  But this is what I’ll say—if you plan well for Disney, you will have a stress-free, FUN vacation.  If you get there without having planned anything in advance, you will spend more money, hit fewer attractions and possibly feel unfulfilled by a vacation that you spent thousands of dollars for.  So hang in there and stay tuned.  Next up…my packing recommendations and tips for strategizing your way through each park!