Part of the problem is that when experts give advice to newbies, they forget that the newbies literally KNOW NOTHING. So there were tons of hints and tips that I read but they just didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time (in retrospect, they do, but that didn't help in the moment). And nothing takes the fun out of Disney like stopping your day to whip out a printout of all the hints you wanted to remember for that particular park. It was too much for a beginner, who was just trying to understand it all in the first place.
I've mentioned this before, but I didn't even realize that there were four different parks when I first started planning. I though the big ball WAS Epcot and that it was just...well, like part of the main park. I was totally clueless. So I'll try to share some "Beginner Level One" hints that a complete newbie could use to make their trip a little more enjoyable without being completely overwhelming. I hope. But I'm going to be completely honest: the whole thing is overwhelming. So you just kind of have to suck it up and prepare to be overwhelmed. These are COMPLETE newbie tips; if you've been even once you'll be like, "DUH." But this is what would have helped me out when I first started planning.
WHEN YOU FIRST START PLANNING YOUR TRIP
8-12+ months in advance
GUIDEBOOKS I LIKED
As soon as you know you're thinking about going, get a guide book and start reading...check one out from the library! They change year to year, but even one that is slightly outdated will give you a good overview of the parks and the different hotel options and decent background to start planning. They'll all have maps of the parks and the Disney World compound - being aware of the layout of the entire place will help you with your planning and understanding, too. And you'll learn, like I did, that there are four parks and that Epcot is one of those four...not just the ball. ;)
I knew Disney World was big. But I thought when people said that, they meant that the PARKS were big. Which - they are. But not as big as I had in my head. However, I had NO idea it would be a 20-30 minute drive from our hotel to Magic Kingdom - not including wait time or loading/unloading time! I didn't realize at all that you wouldn't be right next to another resort, or that the resorts themselves were so huge. I thought I'd be able to easily drop something off at a different resort for someone to pick up - nope.
I liked these books:
Easy Guide to Walt Disney World (truly easy! Short and to the point!)
Birnbaum's Guide (huge and detailed)
XXXXX
Click here for full size image. We stayed at #25. It looks like we're super close to Epcot - but no. It was still at least 15 minutes of drive time, and 20-30 minutes of drive time to Magic Kingdom (that doesn't include the waiting for the bus or loading/unloading the bus!). And that one building that this map shows for Port Orleans? It's actually DOZENS of buildings - so this isn't at all to scale.
WEBSITES I LIKED
There are a TON of sites that you can look at for information, but these are a few that I found helpful.
Hint: Star a Pinterest board so that you don't feel overwhelmed trying to remember or organize all of the helpful hints at once. Just save the article to read later when you're closer to your trip. Here's a link to mine. I also just had a document where I copied and pasted all the little hints I found as I went, which I sorted out later, closer to the trip.
USE A DISNEY TRAVEL AGENT.
They're free. They'll plan everything for you. They'll book your restaurant reservations, your Fast Passes, your hotel, your park tickets and more - even stroller or crib rentals! They'll answer all of your questions and more. Since I was going as part of a group, I couldn't use one, but you sure can. And you should. It would take a HUGE amount of stress off of you, I promise.
STAY AT A DISNEY RESORT
Ok, I mean, I've only stayed at Disney. So granted, I don't have much to compare it to. But I found that the benefits to staying on-site are huge - particularly the ability to get a 60-day jump start on Fast Pass reservations (more on that later). Plus you get free airport transportation via the Magical Express that is TRULY magical because THEY HANDLE YOUR BAGS FOR YOU. It's awesome. You just get off the plan, jump on the bus to the hotel, and your bags appear in your room a couple hours later. Similarly, when you're leaving, you check your bags in at the hotel (and print your boarding passes there too - go straight to security!!!) and then you don't have to think about them again until you arrive home. There are also free buses to and from the parks each day (or boats or monorail depending on what hotel you stay at). The bus service was hit or miss - there were a couple days with long waits at the bus depot and many days when it was standing room only...and with a 20-30 minute drive to the park from the resort (Disney grounds are HUGE), that was not ideal. However, some of that was probably the fact that we were part of a 650-person group all at the same hotel. Most depots didn't have lines nearly as big as ours. Other little things are awesome too - you can have your souvenirs from the park sent back to your hotel room so you don't have to worry about them all day, you can charge EVERYTHING you buy at the parks (souvenirs, meals, etc.) back to your room, you can use Disney gift cards to pay, etc. There are different tiers of resorts available depending on your budget - value, moderate, and deluxe. Your Disney travel agent can help you figure out which will be the best for you, or the guidebooks and sites all have good breakdowns of each hotel option.
PLAN YOUR DATES AROUND FREE DINING
Disney offers a free dining promotion every year, where you can stay at select Disney hotels and get the dining plan for free. Considering how expensive food is at Disney, this can be HUGE. If you're flexible in your dates, watch for this announcement and book your dates during this time (your Disney Travel agent can help with this). I think for this year there were dates in August, September, November, and December. Again, we couldn't take advantage of this (or the dining plan at all) but it would have saved us a LOT of money. I don't think we would have paid for the dining plan, but getting it free? Heck yes.
TALK TO FRIENDS
I'm sure you have friends who have been to Disney, particularly if they've gone that time of the year and particularly if they have similarly-aged kids. Talk to them in person. Take notes. What hotel did they stay at? What was their schedule like? What rides were their favorite? Get their best advice. We found a perfect spot to watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from thanks to a friend that I didn't see listed in any source. See if they have guidebooks or mister fans or anything else that you can borrow that they liked using during their trip so you don't have to buy it yourself.
PLANNING YOUR TRIP
6 months in advance
ADVANCE DINING RESERVATIONS (ADRs)
You can - and often NEED to - make restaurant reservations a full 180 days in advance; particularly for in-demand restaurants like Be Our Guest and Cinderella's Royal Table. You CAN get last-minute reservations as people cancel, but it's stressful to have to continually be checking for cancellations. So just suck it up and wake up at 6am Eastern time 180 days before your trip to do it. The good news is that if you're staying at a Disney hotel, you can book reservations for the entire trip 180 days from the first day. If you're not staying at a Disney hotel, you'll need to do each day separately. Jump on the Disney site on your computer and be all ready to go - do a test run before (they won't let you do the exact days you need, but practice with earlier dates) so you can figure out the fastest way to do it and know all the steps. Book the most in demand restaurant first, regardless of whether that's for the first day. Note: this means that you have to have a vague plan of what park you're going to on what date - so make sure you have that lined up BEFORE you go to book your reservations. There are tons of crowd calendars/predictors online that you can use to find the best park for each day and you can use those to have the general schedule figured out.
As far as dining reservations go, we had one per day and that was perfect. It gave some structure to our day without forcing us to rush from one ADR to another, with plenty of time before and after to enjoy ourselves (plus, it obviously saved a lot of money to only do it once a day). Also - every dining reservation except for one was for a character meal, meaning that the characters came around to your table. This was AWESOME. It kept the girls busy during the meal and meant we got to skip a ton of lines in the parks to meet the characters. I really liked lunch reservations - breakfast is easy to do on the go (bars, yogurt tubes, etc.) and we were definitely ready for a break and a chance to sit in air conditioning for a while by the time lunch came around.
Hint: Most reservations allow you to cancel 24 hours in advance of the reservation - even the pre-paid ones - so if you still aren't sure of your park plans, book a bunch of reservations on a bunch of different days and then cancel what you don't need. For instance, I booked four Be Our Guest dinner reservations and then cancelled three of them when I had our schedule more finalized and did the same for most other reservations.
There are plenty of websites with restaurant reviews, but the ones we loved were Cinderella's Royal Table, Be Our Guest (for dinner - you get to meet the Beast!), Ohana, and Tusker House (my fave food of the trip!). Hollywood & Vine was good for the character meetings, but the food was not great. We only did one reservation for a sit-down non-character meal - San Angel Inn, which we did have a reservation for and had delicious food and a really fun/unique atmosphere.
If you aren't able to get the reservations you want, keep trying. Periodically check the availability - people cancel all the time, especially in the 72-24 hour window before the reservation date.
PLANNING YOUR TRIP
3-6 months in advance
SIGN UP FOR A CHASE DISNEY CARD
Chris and I each separately signed up for a Chase Disney credit card and each received a $200 gift card after our first $500 was spent on each card. Since we were spending more than $500 on the trip, we just put two $500 payments on the two cards (and then immediately paid them off with the money that we had saved up for the trip). So that was $400 in free Disney money which was HUGE considering that we had one meal that was $200 just by itself. **EMAIL ME FOR THE REFERRAL LINK (largirl@gmail.com)!** I found a lot of offers that had this deal with a $50/yearly fee (still a great deal) but the one I signed up for had NO yearly fee. The Disney card also gives you a 10% discount on purchases over $50 at retail outlets (and at the Disney store) and at a couple different restaurants at the parks, as well as special cardholder character meet-and-greets with much smaller lines than the normal meet and greets. It only took a month from the time we got our cards to the time we got the gift cards, but I'd do it a few months in advance just to be on the safe side.
ASK FOR DISNEY GIFT CARDS FOR GIFTS
Birthday or holiday before the trip? Spread the word that you're going to Disney World and let people know that you would be able to use Disney gift cards! Carys got $70 in Disney money for her birthday, which let her pick out her own souvenirs and saved us from having to pay for them out of pocket - and she LOVED having her own little stash of gift cards to spend.
FAST PASS+ (FP+) RESERVATIONS
Fast Passes (the system that lets you make reservations for rides/attractions for a specific time so you don't have to wait in line for 60+ minutes), can be booked 60 days in advance if you're staying at a Disney hotel (as with dining, this is 60 days from the day of arrival and you can book Fast Passes for the entire stay at once) or 30 days in advance if you're not staying at a Disney hotel. Trust me, you want to be staying at a Disney hotel to get those extra 30 days! You'll want to have your general schedule of which park you're going to on which days as well as your dining reservation schedule in mind when you go to book these, as well as a map of each park. You can only book one per hour, and you can only book three total. At Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios, they group the attractions into two tiers based on popularity, and you can only book ONE from the highest tier, and then you can book two more from the lower tiers (this is a good breakdown).
Here's the FP booking strategy that worked really well for me:
1. Know the day you're going to each park.
2. Make a list of the rides you want to go to at each park, and highlight those that you'll need a Fast Pass for (some rides need Fast Passes if you want to ride without waiting for an hour; some you can generally walk right onto). Here's a good breakdown of which rides you'll want to get a FP for and which you'll be okay without. Remember, you can only choose three, and you'll want to keep them all from the "top priority" lists for each park (for parks with a tier, you'll want one "top priority" from tier one and two "top priority" from tier two). The lower priority ones you can usually scoop up that day after you've used the first three Fast Passes.
3. Look at a map and circle all of your top priority ones for that park. You don't want to book two back-to-back Fast Passes that are on opposite sides of the park. Don't forget to keep in mind your restaurant reservations, too! You don't want to be finishing up your last Fast Pass and then have to spring across the park to make a reservation.So when planning, look for an easy route from one attraction to the next (and to your restaurant reservations). I then made a list of the Fast Passes I wanted for the park based on that route. I also listed alternates for each one in case that one wasn't available.
4. Do a practice run booking FPes for a random day just so you can see how it works and can be prepared. Once your 60 days arrives, jump on the site at 6am Eastern Time and be ready to go!Based on the loose route/map list I'd made, I booked the highest priority/hardest to get Fast Passes first (even if they weren't in the same park or on the same day), then went back and filled in the rest of the slots for each day. Generally speaking, you want to start your first Fast Pass around 9:30am. Most rides don't have much of a line before that, so you'll be able to ride a few before your first Fast Pass reservation comes up - you don't want to "waste" a FP on a ride without a line. And you don't want to spread them out throughout the day either - you want to book them back-to-back. Once you've used your last FP at the park, you can book a fourth FP...and when you've used your fourth, you can book a fifth, and so on. But you can't book more until the first three are done. And you WILL be able to book more once you're at the park - so you want to be able to use them up and get booking the next one as soon as possible.
5. If you don't get exactly what you want, keep checking back. I was able to modify the times of some of mine to fit our schedule better closer to our date of arrival.
Here's something that's kind of hard to accept - or it was for me, anyway. You won't be able to do all the rides you want. You'll have to give up some of them. You won't be able to get some Fast Passes you want, and you won't want to wait in line for an hour for those rides. And even with all the Fast Passes in the world, there's just not enough TIME for it all. This is especially true at the bigger parks like Magic Kingdom - at smaller parks like Epcot you'll have a better chance of fitting it all in. Accept that, make peace with it, and move on. Just plan on doing the ones you missed next time. Or book a longer trip where you can do more days at each park. ;)
CLOSE TO YOUR TRIP
0-3 months in advance
PIN TRADING
Disney sells small lapel-type pins that can be traded between other guests and cast members. You'll see cast members wearing lanyards or small aprons at their waists full of pins, and you can go up to anyone with pins and ask to trade. Most resorts, stores, and restaurants have a "pin board" full of pins that you can trade from as well.
I read mixed reviews about pin trading when I was researching it, but I thought the girls would enjoy it, so I ordered two 25-packs of pins from Amazon. I'm sure some were fakes or factory rejects ("scrappers") but they were good enough for the cast members to trade them, and since we weren't trading as serious collectors, I didn't mind if we got scrappers back in return, as long as the girls liked them. It was true that we saw the same pins over and over again on cast member lanyards, but the girls were generally able to find a pin that they wanted. This was a super fun activity that was relatively cheap and easy, and the girls really liked it.
DURING YOUR TRIP
USING YOUR FAST PASS
The most efficient way I found to use up your Fast Passes was to do the first one towards the end of the window, the second one towards the middle of the window, and the last one at the beginning of the window. That way you could get all three done in just over an hour, and be ready to book your fourth fast pass quickly. You'll want to book that fourth one AS SOON AS YOU SCAN THE THIRD ONE! While you're in line for that third ride waiting to board, know what you want to ride next and try to get it!(someday I'll finish this post)
No comments:
Post a Comment