Heading to Disney...any tips?

[hollyferry]

Well, GA is my home park. I had season passes all through the 90's until say 2000-2001. Last year we got passes again for my family, and this year as well. I'm so used to just going to the park, and riding what I want. Yes, there are lines, but you can get on most rides with little wait times. (unless you are there on a Saturday lol)

I'm actually a little...concerened-we are leaving Saturday to go to WDW for a week. I have our FastPass+ booked (and since I have little kids, I skipped things like Tower of Terror and Haunted Mansion)...but I'm not liking the entire "You have to have 80% of your trip booked at 60 days out".
I love that I can just go to GA, and really go do what we want without needing reservations and FastPass+ and riding rides at certain times.

Tell me that I will love it even with all the planning that had to be done.

[robertleax]

The last time I went was 2005 but I used the website allears.net for most of my planning. My kids were 4 and 7 at the time so I planned 1/2 day at the park, came back in the afternoon for a rest and then went back in the evening. We had the park hopper option also. What I planned on mainly was going to a certain park the day before or day after they had the early opening or stayed open late since it seems that the parks got crowded more on those days.

 

I went so far as printing out the schedule day by day, and it actually worked out well until the last day when my wife wanted to go back to Captain Jacks for dinner instead of going to Epcot for dinner.

 

The best thing we did was take a break in the afternoon... My son and wife would take a nap, my daughter would go swimming and I would watch her from the outside bar (we stay at All Star Movies).

 

I also planned on my schedule the "MUST SEE" attractions. That way if we got behind schedule we would skip something not as important so we can catch up.

 

The one thing we did was to go to each park at least twice (since we were going on 1/2 day at a time) so that way we if the kids saw something they really wanted to do again or something they did not want to go on (ex: Haunted Mansion for some reason) we were able to adjust our schedule.

 

The one thing that got the kids upset was that we did not so the Magic Kingdom the 1st day and went to Animal Kingdom 1st. They were like... "this ain't Disneyworld!!!", But I planned it that way because on that day Animal Kingdom was the least crowded and Magic Kingdom was the busiest.

 

I know this is too late for you but we planned on 2 character breakfast and made those reservations at 8am. It was nice to be in the park before the park opened to the public.

 

 

Have a great trip... wish I was going again soon!

[jdc12192]

Defiantly agree with decide on 'must do' things and park hopper! Park hopper was great when certain parks closed early, or you can hop around to catch multiple shows. Use your discretion though since you have little kids.

 

I felt the same way about fast pass +, like why do I have to plan a trip all around rides etc but in the end I actually really liked the system. Only reserve your priority attractions and just let the rest be. Only advice I have if its a popular attraction and is available, try to snag the fastpass for it anyway even if you aren't sure because you can always change it later on. With that being said if you go and something you fast passed has a small wait time, you can cancel your fastpass and choose something else. Or you can change the time if you would want to do it again. That part was really convienete.

 

One other thing is to make your FP times near in time this way you can eat up all your selections and go back to the kiosk and make a 4th,5th, etc. You are not limited to just those 3 but after those 3 are used you can go make a fourth. Once that 4th is used you can make a 5th, and so on.

 

It may seem like the fast pass is controlling your trip at this point but you are really in control and can switch it up until right before the fast pass time(depending on availability).

[DANofNJ]

I hope you made all your dining reservations.

[The Master]

Head to Disneyland instead, they still have the old, good fastpass system.

[gencx]

^ Yea, go to Disneyland, where you'll be bored after two days instead of Walt Disney World where you'll never get bored solely because DL still has paper fastpasses. That's silly.

 

As for advice, even though I see you've already left; yes, you'll love it. Unless you're someone who actively looks for things to complain about, and I doubt you are, Walt Disney World has something for everyone.

Edited April 26, 2015 by gencx

[The Master]

^ Yea, go to Disneyland, where you'll be bored after two days instead of Walt Disney World where you'll never get bored solely because DL still has paper fastpasses. That's silly.

 

As for advice, even though I see you've already left; yes, you'll love it. Unless you're someone who actively looks for things to complain about, and I doubt you are, Walt Disney World has something for everyone.

 

WDW, limited to 3 fastpasses all day, DL gets as many as you want (I use up to 10 a day there with 3 just for Indy while WDW has 0 FP rerides), plus DL itself has more rides than WDW's MK, and park hopping is easier with no buses. I go there for a week every year and I don't get bored. Also DL usually has shorter lines and some of their rides are better versions over the cliffnote versions at WDW.

 

You never get bored at WDW because you are lucky to do each major ride once during your trip opposed to riding them several times like DL. DL also has some great rides that WDW doesn't have such as Indy, Matterhorn, Rodger Rabbit, and Cars which blows away Test Track.