Open Thread: The CorporetteMoms Guide to Disney World
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I saw some folks discussing Disney World in the comments and thought, let’s have some open threads to discuss the major theme parks! Have you been, what was your experience, what ages were your kids, what was your favorite ride/meal, and what did you think was overrated? What have been your favorite resources to research the trip?
We just booked last-minute tickets to Disney World for spring break, so… that’s happening. I’m still in research mode but dutifully bought a subscription to TouringPlans (haven’t used it once yet).
So, ladies who’ve been — do tell! What were your favorite things to do at Disney World?
Stock photo via Pixabay.
Ooh. Okay, I’ve never been the parent here, but I did just get back from a trip to Disney, so I can take a crack at this.
Your first order of business, for trips any time of the year and for any length of time: buy a copy of the Unofficial Guide to Disney World/Disneyland (as appropriate), updated for the current year. Read it cover to cover. Unless you and your family are all very into Maximizing Your Experience™ or just really like the idea of getting up at 6 AM while on vacation, don’t bother with the touring plans in the back, but the info in the rest of the book is incredibly useful. Do not pry your family out of bed at 6 AM or earlier to follow the plan if they’re not into it. Resentment and exhaustion do not result in an enjoyable family vacation.
I recommend staying on property at Disney World because it gives you better Fastpass+ booking, which will get you on three rides a day through much shorter lines. If you’re at a Disney hotel, you can book Fastpass+ slot 60 days in advance; if not, it’s 30 days. The Fastpass+ slots for some of the more popular rides are gone within the day. This is not a concern at Disneyland. At Disneyland, the equivalent is called MaxPass, it costs $20/person/day, and it is essentially easy mode for Fastpasses – everyone can get Fastpasses, but only the MaxPass users can check all the return times simultaneously and get the ones they decide on from a cell phone on the other side of the park. The time this saves you is impressive, but… $20/person/day. You do not need to be on-property to use MaxPass. (Fastpass+ is free, with above caveats re. the hotels.)
The food is generally acceptable at the normal-tier restaurants. They do have fancy restaurants, and the food at those is supposed to be better, but I haven’t tried it. Those require advance reservations and have a passing attempt at a dress code (boiling down to “nothing with visible holes”). They are excellent at working with dietary restrictions. There are options other than chicken strips and cheeseburgers, but there’s also almost always chicken strips or cheeseburgers. I was an extremely picky eater as a child and had no trouble eating at Disney.
Personal opinion on rides follows. My favorites, by park:
Disneyland: Matterhorn, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean
California Adventure: Soarin’, California Screamin’ (now Incredicoaster), Mission Breakout
Magic Kingdom: Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Seven Dwarves Mine Train
Epcot: Soarin’, Test Track, Spaceship Earth
Hollywood Studios: Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Rise of the Resistance (explaining how to get on this one has been the subject of several extremely long posts on the dedicated sites; Google can cover you better than I can)
Animal Kingdom: Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest, Flight of Passage
Flight of Passage is probably the best ride on US Disney property, in my opinion, and would be a top priority for any trip. (Can’t speak to non-US property.) Most of these are extremely variable; obviously you’ll need a completely different set for little kids, who can’t go on three-quarters of these. But hopefully this is at least somewhat useful.
Disneyland Daily website, instagram and FB – she is excellent. Not necessarily DW related but she will point you to the right group.
Love this thread so far! I was wondering if anyone could weigh in – I want to take my two littles before they both hit 3 years old – oldest would be just before cut off, younger would be 1.5. I know at that age there will be limitations in what can be done, but my question is – should I stay on resort or not? I have family in Orlando that we could stay with (which would save $), and I was thinking about saving the on-property trip for when they are older and have more stamina, and can appreciate the trip more (also I could convince DH for two trips if first trip was less expensive). Any thoughts, or general thoughts on taking 18 month old and near 3 year old?
Use ubers between parks and hotel – affordable and so much faster than shuttle busses.
Biggest tip with fast passes is that you can amend and refresh to improve your day.
When you book your original three they have to be an hour apart so for example 9am, 10am, 11am.
As soon as you check in for the 9am, go onto the app and see if you can edit the 10am one to bring it closer. Say you get 9.30am, you tap into that one and the modify what was previously booked for 11am. Let’s propose you get a 10am. It’s now 10am and you’ve used your 3 fast passes up an hour quicker than anticipated. Scan in for your 10am and then you can start looking for your 4th. Find the ride you want and take a fast pass , even if the next time is 4pm. Keep modifying and refreshing and every time a time comes up that’s earlier take it. 90% of the time you’ll get what you want and earlier that it originally told you was available! Once you’ve scanned for the 4th you can go for the 5th.
Also there are same day fast pass drops for bigger rides like Flight of Passage so don’t give up if you don’t get them in advance.
Avoid extra magic hours unless you plan to make use of them and then move to a different park.
I allocate an hour to get anywhere via Disney transport. If we’re going to a dinner reservation and we’re late on time I get a Uber or lyft. If taking an Uber or lyft to Epcot get it to the beach club and walk into the international gateway, and to Magic Kingdom take it to the contemporary and walk over. If you get a Minnievan you can take them right up to the MK entrance.
If coming from the UK, collect your bags at MCO and carry them to the magic express – so not use the second bag drop. It’s worth the extra cardio to not be waiting all that extra time for them to arrive.
Also not a tip, but I do a fact of the day each day which pleases my husband greatly.
I’m definitely a Disney person, having gone a lot as a kid/teen/young adult and now two times with kids. Lots of great tips here! I’ll add some I didn’t see above.
-With littles, hands down, I would recommend the Magic Kingdom area resorts. There is so much more to do in the Magic Kingdom that my kids like; on our last trip, we often did the morning in one park and the afternoon at Magic Kingdom. Each resort has its benefits. We prefer the monorail resorts and particularly the Polynesian because we can walk to the ticket and transportation center and get on the Epcot monorail there. Also, you clear security for Magic Kingdom and now Epcot before you get on the monorail, which is a huge time saver. But, the Wildnerness Lodge has a boat to Magic Kingdom which is extremely convenient, and it tends to be less expensive than the monorail resorts.
-With older kids, I’d do the Epcot area resorts, and particularly the Yacht Club or Beach Club. The pool is amazing and you can walk to Epcot, and, if you’re up to it, a long walk to Hollywood Studios.
-We have such bad luck with the buses that we avoid them almost completely. Since we still have two car seat age kids, we generally take Minnie Van when bus is the only available option (for us, to and from Hollywood Studios). We never had to wait more than ten minutes for one to show up. But, the car seats are generally in the trunk, so it may take a few minutes to get going once one arrives, so plan accordingly. When my kids get bigger, we’ll take Uber or Lyft.
-On our last trip, we went to morning Extra Magic Hours. We found that the crowds in the park were higher on those days and we didn’t get as much done during the hour as you could with two bigger kids, so this time, we are specifically avoiding parks on days where there are morning extra magic hours. We will still arrive about 30 minutes prior to park open.
-If you are going for a longer trip and you think you’ll do a lot of character meals, get the dining plan. The character meals are crazy expensive, and sometimes one child price is almost as much or more than the whole day of dining for a child.
-The splurge for the club level at the Polynesian is worth it for us, because it gives the grown ups a place to hang out after kids go to bed – which for us is at 7. (We go with my parents and take turns leaving one adult in the adjoining room.) Unlimited beer and wine, and snacks/dessert, and a great view of the fireworks with music piped in. And, on the last night, we let the kids stay up late and watched the fireworks from there (w/ kids in PJs, teeth brushed, as recommended above.)
-We do not take a mid-day break as may people recommend b/c my kids won’t nap at the hotel. They crash out in the stroller if they need it. But we have early dinner (5 p.m.) and kids are asleep by 7 p.m.
-We get two single strollers instead of a double, for dividing and conquering. I recommend Kingdom Strollers and the Citi Mini GT, though the under basket storage is not great. But the ease of opening and closing more than makes up for it.
We fully anticipate being given a trip as an inheritance kind of thing (it’s sort of a tradition in husbands family). I have a special needs kid and I do not want to go. If husband insists on taking kid I would go to help with kid but I know I would hate it (I hate crowds and lines and our kid might be overwhelmed and hate every second). It would be a jerk move to just get husband to do it himself even though he would deserve it.
So I think of Disney with dread. I could and would do a cruise so hopefully the money can go to that. Fingers crossed I guess.
I’m exhausted just reading this thread. :P
I went reluctantly with a 3 year old and a 1 year old (with my in-laws) and I had a fantastic time! We went the week of spring break, so a busy time, but it still did not seem too crowded. The fastpass system makes such a difference.
I didn’t find the busses too burdensome, except for some poorly planned meals. It was worth it to me to not have to lug multiple carseats through the airport. We are not a stroller family in every day life, but appreciated having a stroller for the 3 year old. Babywearing was best for the 1 year old, and he could stay in there for most of the rides.
We enjoyed Epcot, and found enough stuff that the kids enjoyed. Besides Frozen, we liked the Nemo stuff and the Mickey shorts. There was more stuff for the kids than Animal Kingdom or Hollywood Studios, although that was before Toy Story Land and the Star Wars stuff.
I think the key to having a good time is not trying to fit in everything.
I have so many tips, but no time to add them.
I will plug Fort Wilderness (Disney’s onsite campground) as an excellent place to stay. I went two years ago in a group of 9. It must MUCH cheaper than getting hotel rooms for all of us, and the campground itself is peaceful and serene.
We rented a luxury camper from a company that only rents out to people staying at Fort Wilderness. It was completely set up by the time we arrived. It was great to sit outside and chat/drink with the other adults while the kids slept inside. We only purchased one meal per day – all else was made at our campsite. We didn’t have pets, but I believe it is pet friendly too.
You take a boat to Magic Kingdom, which has its own kind of magic. Chip and Dale have a free campfire sing along every night before a free movie. The pools were nice.
We just did Disney with our 4 and 8YOs this past spring. Was the 4YO’s first time, 8YO’s second but she really didn’t remember much from her first time. I am super type A but manage to chill on vacations :-)
– if you think you might ever go to disney, and you have kids and any kind of large recurring bill that can go on a credit card, get thee a disney visa asap. We put four years of daycare on the card (made paying a two step process instead of one, but worth it) and the points basically paid the difference between staying at a value resort and staying at the Poly. Monorail adjacent resorts are fabulous only because we could zip around pretty quickly. Also 4YO loves transportation of all kinds, so that was an easy win. We could see the fireworks from our room.
– do not get the dining plan. YMMV but packing nonperishable snacks that won’t make you feel gross, and (key for me) grocery delivery for breakfasts that aren’t super carby and calorific – meant that we dis not get our money’s worth. We do not want dessert with lunch and dinner. Also, the dining plan requires that kids order from the kids menu, and my kids were frequently NOT COOL with that!
– favorite buffet meal is still tusker house at animal kingdom, but that’s the park that i feel like you could skip unless you are super into Avatar.
– crystal palace and chef mickey’s were fine, kids LOVED them and chef mickeys was fun to take the monorail to
– Be our guest for lunch was GREAT
– Our kids actually loved epcot but YMMV. For us, I think it was bc our kids are adventurous eaters :-)
– plan a day in the middle for a rest day. We were going to go to the pool and chill but it rained, so we watched a movie in the room and then went to disney springs
– Oh, Homecomin’ at disney springs is fantastic. DH travels to orlando regularly for work and he always tries to eat there!
– highly recommend using Small World Vacations esp if you are a first timer. Super super helpful.
– do not get the photo package unless you just know that you will want all. The. Pictures. We bought seven photos a la carte and it was cheaper (i limited it to full-family shots where we all had our eyes open). We used our phones for candids.
We aren’t HUGE disney people, but we loved every single minute!
We went for a week when our kids were 6, 5 and almost 2. It was, hands down, the best week of my life. We had so much fun! It didn’t hurt that my daughters were in the height of their princess phase and every single thing was absolutely magical to them.
We spent 2 days at magic kingdom and one at each of the other parks. With the exception of the princess breakfast at Akserhus and the Frozen ride, Epcot wasn’t the greatest. We’d probably skip Epcot the next time around.
The best decision we made was renting a double stroller from Kingdom Strollers and having it delivered to our hotel. Even though our girls were older the stroller was necessary for hauling snacks, diaper bag, first aid supplies, change of clothes (at least one outfit for each kid and each grown up – water rides and inevitable kid messes made this necessary). It was a pain to haul on the bus, but worth it. Our little guy did well in our umbrella stroller and took longer naps in the double when needed.
If bringing a stroller and staying until dark, make sure you have lights or glow sticks. We bought some battery operated twinkle lights to wind around the handles so others could see our stroller when we were there late into the evening.
Fast passes are essential. Plan them for early in the day and use them up, so you can get more. You’ll need the app for this. If you have little ones in your group or kids who might be scared/unable/not want to ride a certain ride, the Rider Switch program basically lets your kids use the fast past twice to ride with each parent and can effectively double your family’s fast pass. https://wdwprepschool.com/how-to-child-swap-rider-switch-at-disney-world/
We stayed at Art of Animation, one of the “budget” hotels on property. Our girls loved the Little Mermaid theme and the 3 pools were great. They also had a food court that had options that satisfied even the pickiest kids in our family. We didn’t mind the smaller rooms or the distance because we spent almost all our time at the parks, with the exception of a planned afternoon at the pools. We were always at the parks for rope drop or earlier for scheduled character meals. Our kids are early risers and that’s what worked best for us. That first bus out generally wasn’t crowded.
We put the money we saved on the hotel towards the meal plan, which was worth it for the convenience alone. it was so easy to order from the app and just scan the magic band to pay. Bonus: Starbucks participates in the meal plan and most things on the menu count for one snack credit.
Dole Whip was our favorite treat. As a bonus for the grown ups, you can get Dole Whip with rum at Tamu Tamu in Animal Kingdom.
This is so timely! I have a question! We visit my parents in Florida in the Ft. Myers area every year for a week and I was thinking of doing a one night trip up to disney with my 2 and 4 year old, as 4 year old is obsessed with the classic disney characters (mickey, minnie). Has no experience with the princesses as we haven’t watched those movies. Would we have fun? Could we do a character meal with Mickey, or do they have to be planned super far in advance? Is it worth all that money if they are both two small for the rides and don’t know a lot of the characters? How should we plan our time, since we’ll be checking out of the hotel that morning and driving back to my parents that night? I am literally disney clueless, so look forward to reading all the advice- or if you have other resources to suggest that would be helpful too!
We went when my kids were 3 and 5 and had a ‘meh’ time. We splurged on the Polynesian, but the main pool was closed on all of the days we’d reserved for swimming so we never actually got in the main pool–it was closed once for a turd, once for maintenance, and twice for thunder storms. Super disappointing.
We also had tons and tons of ride outages that really screwed up our Fast Pass schedule (combo of maintenance issues and thunderstorms), a fire in a Disney restaurant that ate up nearly half of a day, tons and tons of issues with our My Disney Experience account that required us to stand in long Guest Services lines 3-5 times a day, and grumpy kids that wouldn’t nap. Disney never made any of it right and even gave us attitude when we were frustrated about having to wait in a guest services line for our 5th time that day. It think they were overwhelmed with complaints about the ride outages and had made a decision not to do anything about it. But it sucks to spend 6 hours at Magic Kingdom with only 30% of the rides operational, and those few rides having 3+ hour waits. And then to come back for a second visit to Magic Kingdom later the same week to have every headliner (Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, 7 Dwarves) all closed for our whole visit that day. We may have just had spectacularly bad timing, but it wasn’t a good trip. Disney really let us down.
I’m type A minus (mostly A but kinda lax about it) and of course I have a planning spreadsheet. If anyone wants it.
We’ve been to WDW twice in the last couple of years and I was “trained” on how to do it by a coworker who goes multiple times a year every year. Planning ahead is key and helps make the experience really smooth once you’re there. On our first trip we were there for 5 full days – 2 in magic kingdom and 1 each in the other parks. On our more recent trip we were there for 4 days- 3 in magic kingdom and 1 in Hollywood Studios
Overall suggestions:
– get the WDW app. it is key.
– you can check ride wait times on the app. it’s not always accurate but gives you a good ballpark.
– on the app you can order food at quick service restaurants. I like to order food while we’re walking to the restaurant, then one parent takes kiddo and find a table to sit at and the other parent collects the food.
– also on the app you can get fast passes. most fast passes are for hour long windows. shows and stuff like that might have shorter windows.
– when you click on each ride in the app it will tell you the height limits
– book your first three fast passes 30 days out if you are not staying on property or 60 days out if you are
– book your fast passes for 10-11, 11-12, and 12-1 (ish). Do as many walk on and low wait rides as you can first thing in the morning. Use the first one at the end of the window (like 10:45 ish), and the last one at the beginning of the window. As soon as you scan in for the third fast pass, you can get on the app to get another fast pass. Once you use that one, get another, etc. I like to use time waiting in line to get my next fast pass lined up.
– not everyone in the party has to use their fast pass at the same time. So if, say, you have three people in your party and for example your kid is too scared to ride space mountain, you could get fast passes just for the parents, and one adult could ride space mountain in the first half of the fast pass window while the other parent takes the kid on something docile like the people mover, then switch out and let the other parent ride space mountain. hypothetically speaking. :)
– space mountain is really really fun but you may need to go directly to the chiropractor as soon as you get off.
– there is a reservation finder on touring plans dot com that you can use to alert you when a reservation at a particular restaurant becomes available if there is not one at a time you need.
– if you can, go to disney before your kids are school aged and go in January or February or some other “off” time. It’s crowded no matter what, but don’t make it worse on yourself than it has to be.
– it’s okay to skip big rides with long waits. you can go again someday. there’s no way in heck I’m going to spend two hours in line for something with a 5 year old even if it means missing flight of passage.
– with several of the roller coasters/big rides, there is a single rider line, which typically moves way faster than the normal group line. It’s a great way for parents (and other folks who don’t need to stay in a particular group) to switch off and get to ride some rides by themselves quickly. I did smugglers run in about 25 minutes using the single rider line vs the hour plus wait if you go in the normal line.
Magic Kingdom:
– favorite park for me and for 5 yo daughter. It’s the classic princesses, winnie the pooh, cinderella castle, etc.
– Peter Pan’s flight is not worth an hour wait. No way, no how. It’s the same as any of the other slow rides, but for some reason it has a ridiculous wait time.
– if you want to ride the mine train and cant get a fast pass, the best thing to do is get an early morning dining reservation (as close to 8 am as possible) at either be our guest or cinderella’s castle. As soon as you finish eating, you can go get in line at the mine train and wait til the park opens. We did this recently and only had to wait in line for about 10 minutes and were on the second ride of the day.
– at rope drop first thing in the morning, probably 75% of everyone rushes for mine train and the wait is immediately ridiculous. it’s a great time to rush for peter pan though. We did this an “only” had to wait 20-25 minutes.
– if you stay til the fireworks (which we only did one night), the ferry is a great way to get out of the park at the end. People rush to the monorail and it can take forever. We left a little before the fireworks were over, and it was really cool getting to see them from the boat.
– the tiki room and small world are the best thing my kitschy little heart could ever dream of
– get a dole whip and a mickey pretzel
– the dumbo ride has an indoor playground built into the tent that my kid begged to play on. it’s a really great “unstructured” break in the middle of the day. they give you a pager and you play until your pager goes off, then it’s your turn to go on the ride. it’s only for non-fast pass people
– do NOT wait a long time to ride the barnstormer. it’s a pass for me if the wait is longer than 15 minutes. it’s the world’s shortest roller coaster.
Animal Kingdom:
– I was underwhelmed. If you’re into zoos you may love it.
– The Lion King musical was amazing though
– the food was really good
Epcot:
– not a child friendly park for the most part. Except of course they put the Frozen ride in here. We skipped epcot our second time.
– was mostly a miserable slog because my kid doesnt care about watching videos about Canada or France and there are not a lot of rides in the park
– a lot of sloppily drunk people
Hollywood Studios:
– all the star wars stuff is here
– and the tower of terror
– get there before park opening so you can get on a boarding group for rise of the resistance. Your entire group has to be scanned into the park before you can get a boarding group and you need to do it the minute the park opens. It is hands down the most amazing ride I have ever been on in my life and I almost cried. I like star wars and all but I’m not an enormous fan-girl and it was still really amazing.
– lots of shows are here. The frozen sing a long is adorable
– and toy story land — shockingly I was able to get a ton of fast passes day of in toy story land (tragically not for slinky dog)
– food is more meh but woody’s lunchbox is good.
– so is the blue milk in star wars land. It’s a slushy.
I was really surprised overall at what rides my kid did and didn’t like. She was way more okay with high up spinny kinds of rides like the astro orbiter, and way too scared by “dark” rides like haunted mansion and pirates.