I have been traveling and planning across-the-globe journeys for decades – a year in China, five weeks in Vietnam, three cities in nine days through Europe – no problem! So imagine my surprise at the complexities and nuances of planning a trip to Orlando and Walt Disney World. We are first timers at Disney. Seriously, it has been quite overwhelming despite the plethora of Disney-specific travel blogs, FaceBook pages and Pinterest pins with sage advice, tips and reviews. Where to stay? What to ride? What to eat? Which characters to see? What souvenirs are worth it? Calgon take me away!
Even though we are still about three weeks from our trip, here are some tips that I’ve already learned.
1. Start planning early, especially for dining reservations
I generally start planning trips about five to six months in advance, so we had plane tickets to Orlando and our hotels booked well in advance. However, what I didn’t appreciate is getting reservations for dining at Disney can happen 180 days ahead of time. Keeping an eye on your dates is especially important if you want a character meal at a popular restaurant (I so did not appreciate this!) I started trying dining reservations a little more than three months in advance with little success. With a princess-loving son, we ended up with a 1:40 pm reservation for lunch with Belle and some other Disney royalty. It’s not ideal, but I was willing to take anything, and most importantly, my kiddo is super excited!
2. Play with the Disney apps before you go
There are dozens of helpful Disney apps – both Park-sponsored and others. It’s better to familiarize yourself with them prior to being on site. My Disney Experience is essential and playing around with it in advance will help you learn the shortcuts. You can check your FastPass status, make restaurant reservations, check park hours, and even order food in advance. Note that any purchases you make through the app (like a Memory Maker – the photo service) will be billed via your Apple ID payment.
3. Afraid of being stuck in lines the whole day?
Check out other apps that can help you find the fastest time to ride. I’ve heard awesome things about RideMax – you tell the web-based app what day, which park, which rides and if you want time for a break, and it spits out an itinerary. My girlfriend used it in October and said she never waited more than 20 minutes for a ride. Fingers crossed that we have similar luck! It’s $19.99 for a year.
3. There’s more to do than just the Parks
Disney Springs and the Resort hotels offer lots of other experiences and opportunities for family fun – pool time, shopping, live concerts, character experiences, the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique (where kids can be made up in a spa like their favorite princess), bowling, balloon rides and a virtual reality adventure.
4. Order groceries to your hotel
To save on dining costs at the Park and make sure you get food you like, consider ordering food from a grocery store via a delivery service like InstaCart, Shipt or even Amazon Prime Now and have it delivered to your hotel. Most hotels on Disney property will accept them, but I’d call in advance to make sure. We’ll be ordering some stuff for breakfast, drinks (some will also deliver alcohol), and snacks.
5. Don’t overschedule
I’m used to putting together agenda that are pretty tight, so that we see everything we want to see, but with Disney it would be really easy to go overboard. I’ve seen some sample itineraries from moms that are dizzying. Other than one character lunch and our Fast Passes, that’s all we’ve scheduled. We’re going to take it as easy as we can. As we are early risers, we’ll head to the parks before they open and be there for the rope drop, hit our Fast Passes and some other attractions, and if we’re tired, we’ll head back to the hotel and go back later. Or, we might have days were we jam all day long. We’ll see how hard core the kiddos are as we’ve only been to an amusement park a few times. And let’s be honest, it will all be determined with how well my husband and I are faring.
6. Consider enlisting the help of an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner.
As a self-admitted control freak and lover of planning travel, I chose to plan this trip, but in hindsight, I could have halved the time I took researching it, if I had taken advantage of the free travel planners that help with Disney trips.
I’m sure there are plenty of things that I haven’t accounted for and am totally missing, and we will learn plenty more once we go, but thought these tips would be helpful to any Disney first timers who are in the midst of planning.
