Why a Travel Agent:
I listen to a Disney podcast called DIS Unplugged which is run by the owners of a Disney travel agency called Dreams Unlimited. These guys know Disney. They live and breathe Disney. I am truly embarrassed, but I am certain that they know more about Disney then I do. I highly recommend that you use their company whenever you book a trip to Disney. We don’t use them, because my parents belong to the Disney Vacation Club and we have to do it all ourselves. But if you are going to Disney please give them a call. There is no fee to you and they will find you the best possible deals that exist. Their travel agents are truly Disney fluent.
Where to Stay:
There are practically numerous options about what accommodations you can get in the Disney area. I have never stayed off the Disney property when we go, but many of my friends have had great success with this. They book large condos for the whole family and get them much cheaper than on Disney property. Staying on property is more expensive, so you have to decide if it is worth it to you. Do you want to use Disney transportation? Then you need to be on property. Yet, some of the nearby hotels offer their own transportation to the parks. Do you want to take advantage of the extended hours that Disney offers only to Disney hotel guests? This is something we always take advantage of and is an important factor to us. Every day of the week a different park is open early or late for Disney Resort Guests only. This leads to very short lines, if any. We love Magic Hours. Plus – the Disney hotels have that Disney Magic that I crave when I go on vacation. It’s a personal choice and there is no right answer for every situation.
If I was going and buying rooms for my family of six I would go with Art of Animation. They have a family suite that would sleep all six of us and the resort is so pretty. If my family was four people and we could fit in one room then you can’t go wrong with any of the other resorts. Each one has pro’s and con’s. I love the Contempory and the Polynesian but both are very expensive. We almost always stay at Old Key West, which is a Disney Vacation Club resort. It’s moderate sized condos and we are very comfortable there. It isn’t reasonable to pay cash for one of those on park condos, as they are thousands of dollars a night. Disney Vacation Club is the blessing that gets my family into Disney as often as we go.
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My Disney Experience:
This is a free app or website that help you organize your dinning reservations, fast passes, and other plans. It tells you wait times on rides and gives you park hours. It has all the need to know information. With the updates to technology at Disney World I feel this app is an essential thing to have.
Tickets:
We have a very specific knowledge of what we want and what we don’t want. We always get the Magic Your Way base ticket. We never do add ons like Park Hopper or No Expiration. We have so many kids and such a variety of age groups that jumping from one park to another does not sound like any fun to me at all. We plan our trip to enjoy one park a day and to spend as little time as possible in transportation mode. With the additional cost of adding park jumping to tickets it doesn’t appeal to me at all. No Expiration would make sense to us, except it is so expensive. If you want to spend a bunch of money on me, feel free to give me a 10 day no expiration ticket. I promise to use it up eventually. Once you get past about four days the cost of an additional day ticket is very minimal.
Magic Bands:
Magic bands are sent to you in the mail. We get a reminder email telling us to make sure we turn in our customizations for colors and names. The Magic Bands are bracelets you where on you wrist. You scan them and they work as your park ticket, your room key, and they store information about your fast passes. You can also use them to charge things to your room account. For kids you can set them to have charging privileges or to not. They come in a variety of colors. They are comfortable to wear. The packaging they arrive in makes it really clear you are about to set out on an awesome adventure of magic.
Fast Passes:
Fast passes can be booked up to 180 days before your vacation. You book them by logging in to the My Disney Experience App. The whole process is very easy - promise. You get online and pick a one hour time period that you want to ride a certain ride. Currently you get to pick three rides ahead of time. As long as you arrive in the time period they give you, you get to cut to the front of the line. This program must be utilized to get the least amount of time spent in lines. Don't be late because when your Fast Pass expires, its gone, and they do not make exceptions.
Dining Plan:
Quick over view – You can buy, or Disney often offers a deal where they give you the dining plan free with your room, a package of dinning credits. There are three different plans and they are based on how many days you are staying at the park. The details are summed up very well on the Disney Website. For the sake of discussion I am going to discuss the middle plan and the quick service meal as they relate to my family of six. The majority of quick service places and sit down restaurants at Disney world accept credits from the dinning plan, and they are clearly listed in park literature. All the plans no longer include gratuity for the server if you go to a sit down restaurant.
This whole concept is not for us. We used to always get the dinning plan. We liked knowing about how much food was going to cost us. We also used to have a lot less kids and took much more joy in sitting down to have a long leisurely meal. The two girls where great with that, but when wild boy one and two came along I find trying to make them sit through an entire meal, even in the kid friendly environment of Disney, to be zero fun for me. We may go to one or two sit down meals a trip, but they are always wild and crazy places like O’Hana or a character meal where the kids can eat and dance and be wild things. When Josh and I go to Disney just the two of us we still occasionally get the dinning plan, just to try new places and have date nights planned well into the budget.
My advice about Dining Plan is that for seasoned Disney people this plan is not worth it. We can eat better and cheaper by knowing where to go. For a family that currently doesn’t want to spend park time sitting at a table trying to keep young kids in line, this plan is not for you. We don’t need a fancy meal every night to be happy. Obviously, if Disney is offering it free with your room it’s a great deal. For non-seasoned Disney people going when it is not being offered free I still don’t feel like you are getting your monies worth. DIS Unplugged says that you have to order the most expensive thing on the menu at every meal to really get your money out of it.
Planning:
Disney is no longer the kind of place that you can just skip in with four kids and expect to be able to take advantage of all that the park has to offer. But how much planning is over the top and how much is needed. At the very least you need to have your Fast Passes mapped out a few weeks before you go. You need to have your dinner reservations pretty locked down a few months before you go. Especially if you want to do something really special like, “Be Our Guest” for dinner. The more research you do the better, but I am always open to letting the day develop itself.
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