Need Disney Vacation Advice

You have already received a lot of great advise. We usually stay there and you can ride the buses and not have to pay to park. Buy film ahead of time if you do not have a digital camera. The meal passes should be worth it. We love Soaring at epcot it was awesome!.. have fun.

We have done disney a bunch of times. And have done both on and off site. Here are a few benefits to both.
on site
You get to have different days where you get to stay in the park later and go in earlier than someone offsite. you get to use all park transportation free. so hopping from one park to the next is great. if you need to go and change clothes take a nap etc it is closer. all the hotels have food courts / restraunts attached so you can eat before getting into the car and or the transportation to the parks. down side the rooms at the all star are pretty small you have only the most basic amenities but you really only sleep there so who cares. also the disney transportation is great but the hotels are sometimes pretty far from whichever park your trying to get to. even though it says onsite hotel it may be 20 miles from the actual entrance to say magic kingdom etc. the disney property is huge. we have stayed at all of the allstar / pop century hotels. the pop century is a step up from all star.
off site
cheaper if you are really careful looking. we actually stayed at a place called the magic castle. had horrible reviews but was less than one mile from the disney gates cost us like $20 a night. no amenities lol but all we were doing was sleeping there and we had our car. we have also done the renting a condo thing. this was great when our kids were bigger. had its own pool. found it on ebay of all places. had 4 bedrooms and a kitchen 2 bathrooms and living room/dining room. cost us $650 for a week. we had all the kids fly from their respective colleges for a spring break week. best disney vacation we have had yet. although the first when they were 3 and 4 and 10 was pretty cool also.

Last time we were there disney had photographers all over the park. they hand you a card like a gift card. its free. they scan it and take your photo. keep it with you. or collect a new one each time whatever doesn't matter. they take photos and at the end of the trip when you go home you can go online and look at them and choose what you want. yes they are expensive but they have cools stuff like the castle in perfect background, they had our grandkids hold their hands together and put a little simba (lion king) and tinkerbell into their hands int he phot. also yes yes yes do the autograph book. we bought one. a tip is to open the book to the page you want them to sign. don't go every page. we took a photo of our kids with each character then had them sign the book on every other page. then we taped a photo of our kid/character in the book next to the signature. do some of the character breakfast if you can. the best one we had with all kids was at animal kingdom. the best my grand daughter had was a disney princess one. dinner at cinderella's castle was a must when my daughter was younger as cinderella actually puts in an appearance. my kids loved the sci fi theater we took pbj sandwiches with us each day to avoid stops for $4 apples etc. had breakfast before going and pbj's for lunch. had one main meal in the park. go for your mail meal at an off time. stop and sit to rest. sometimes people get so worked up trying to see/do it all that they miss some of the best stuff.

Stay on property. It makes your entire trip so easy. Disney picks you up at the airport and delivers you back at the end of the trip. You never need to rent a car. We went last year mid January and stayed at Animal Kingdom with a Savannah view room. It was really cool. Our twins were five at the time, so they were the perfect Disney age.

You need to book your reservation soon. It's not that the hotels will sell out. You want to get a reservation to have a meal with the Princesses. It is the best way to see them all. We had lunch at Cinderella's Castle. Our girls LOVED it.

Be sure to buy your daughter's princess dress at Target. It's way too expensive to buy it at Disney. All the little girls wear princess dresses to a meal with the Princesses.

Also, book a meal at the Crystal Palace. This is where all the Pooh characters are.

As soon as you arrive, get your daughter an autograph book (bring several pens) She'll want to carry it with her. The characters always pose for a photo and autograph the books.

The character meals are totally worth it. They are the best way to see the characters and get the photos/autographs.

We bought a meal plan for the convenience of it. Everything -- meals, park tickets, etc. -- is ties to your room key. You don't need to carry more than a couple of dollars.

One mistake we made is we didn't eat at enough of the fine dining restaurants. We didn't think the girls would like the menu, but DUH, it's Disney. Even their best restaurants have a kids menu. This year we're going back and we won't make that mistake again.

You are wise to take her out of school for a few days. It's what we did last year and what we'll do again this year. It's not quite as warm as if you go in the summer, but trust me it's worth it. I've been to Disney in June when you have to wait an hour to get on the teacup ride in 90 degree heat. It's not fun.

One more thing...limit the time you spend in the park. We found that six hours was our max. I know you are spending a lot of money, but it's miserable when the kids are overtired. It's much better when everyone leaves before the kids are overtired. We altered our days so we were there early one day and late another.

Enjoy your trip! It's so magical for the little girls.

Something Disney doesn't advertise is you CAN bring food in. We went last year (were fortunate enough to stay at my brothers timeshare) Depending on what your budget is--we sat through one of the time share speeches (knowing that we would say no--but they are very persuasive--just stick to the no)and we got a 3 day pass (2 major parks and then a water park) for around $145 for my husband AND me. They then sold us a discounted tickets for our kids. I think the first time my brother went down he was able to stay at the timeshare for a few days for free.
Just an alternative way to do it if you are on a budget--and we brought our meals with us. At Epcot, we picniced in the parking lot and brought juice boxes and snacks in and at Disney we brought in lunch and bought dinner.

Everyone has great response to your request that I don't think I could add much more...but I do want you to check out this web site...it may help you a bit more.... www.mousesavers.com goodluck and have fun!!

~K.

Hi Deanna,
Disney - how exciting! We have been 3 times in the last 2 years staying both on and off property. I am a HUGE fan of staying on property b/c I love not having to rent a car and worry about transportation.
Personally, I didn't think the meal plan was worth it for us. If you like having a big "sit down" meal daily you will certainly save using the meal plan. Personally, I thought it was too much food and we were better off without but if you like to eat in restaurants, it's the way to go. We prefer to just grab snacks along the way...maybe one or nicer meals.
I would suggest buying one of the books about going to Disney with kids. I thought it was silly but it was really helpful. The descriptions of the rides and the knowing the "scare factor" was very helpful, especially with a young girl.
Have a GREAT time!!!

We were just there last summer with our two 5yr old daughters and 4 yr old son. We stayed at the Pop Century which was totally fine, you don't need an amazing place - you're hardly there. There are buses to take you to the parks, but they do take a long time We would bring swimming gear and just hop the monorail to the closest resort when we needed a break (instead of going all the way back to the pop century) We would swim and play at the little beach area, eat and go back to the park refreshed.

We did the meal plan and that was totally worth it to us. There is more than enough food. You get two meals a day and one snack per person. We brought some breakfast type foods and ate in the room in the morning then did our meals at the park. We did a late breakfast one mornng at Chef Mickey - that was awesome. The Luau was a blast, everyone loved the Beirgarten and we also really enjoyed Akerhuas which is a princess dinner. We didn't do dinner at the castle and heard it's not worth it.

Our kids were tall enough to do everything except the Rockin Rollarcoaster, and they did try everything. They loved most of what we did, except the Yeti ride. They loved Pirates of the Carribean and actually the Tikki room right next door was a huge hit - I don't quite see the pull, but we were there with 4 of our neices and nephews and they all love it too. They really just loved the entire experience and I know you guys will have a blast!

I have not read all the posts but one thing I do recommend after taking my kids there a couple of times and now that they are a lot older, DO NOT worry about taking your child/children out of school for a few days. Work can always be made up. Disney is a great place and you don't want to cut it short. I know school seems really important right now, but in the big scheme of things it really is not. I regret some of the things I passed up for my kids while they were in junior high, thinking school was more important. You child is so much younger, I wouldn't worry about it. Enjoy your time together - the years fly by!

Shari S's advice is spot on. Get the princess dress ahead of time (you'll pay about $100 for the dress & accessories there). Book character meals; Cinderella's castle was great and you should be sure to have your little girl wear the princess dress there. Chef Mickey's was another fun one. The meals save so much time because each character absolutley comes to your table, poses for pictures and signs the child's autograph book. It beats the heck out of waiting in line at the Magic Kingdom to meet characters. Stay on property-the transporation alone is worth it. Enjoy every second!

We have stayed twice in a row at the Beach Club, it is SO efficient b/c you can walk to Epcot in about 5 minutes, where the majority of the best food is, and take a boat ride to MGM/Hollywood Studios. Plus they have an amazing real-sand pool! I wouldn't recommend staying out of the park if you want to max your time, even if you stay in the park at a place where you need to take a bus everywhere you have to add a chunk of time to each commute to allow for the buses. When you make reservations they suggest you allow an hour and a half!!

The meal plans were free for a while a few months ago - depending on how many sit-down places you would go to is how to determine if it's worth it...you come out ahead if you do a sit-down a day.

Not to miss - the Toy Story ride at MGM (get a fastpass early), the rafting ride at Animal Kingdom was a lot of fun, and we went on Goofy's roller coaster in Magic Kingdom twice in a row.

We stayed in a hotel seperate from disney and it was fine but we drove so had a car to easily get around. Transportation to and from the parks as well is easier if you stay on site but not necessary. Most hotels offer transport however the schedule for ours did not match up with the schedule we wanted to keep so we did not use hotel transport and paid $12 for parking daily.
Be sure to get the park hopper which allows you to visit more than one park a day. Some parks like Animal Kingdom close early and then you can eat dinner and goto another park for the evening and fireworks. Without it, one park per day only. I love all of disney so I can't say what is a most see. We went in September and I want to go back already. I loved it. The character meetings take time so plan for that.. because most kids (even my 10 year old son) want to see all the characters, get autographs and pictures. If you don't want to buy an disney autograph book (like $6 I think) just bring a notebook or something the characters will sign anything. Toy story mania was awesome... go with the fast pass ( i assume they offer those all year) they are totally worth it... we didn't realize what they were or how they worked until the 3rd of our 5 days or we could have saved a ton of time. Soarin' is a great ride too, well worth it. Ohhhh how I wish I were going with you! Check out the webiste extensively.. you can get park hours, specialized maps so you know where things are before you get there. A word of advise if your daughter wants to see a certain character check right away as to where they are and times. We went to see the princesses and only 3 were there. My youngests favorite is Snow White which I found out is at Epcot but we totally missed her. She is still upset about that. We saw "everyone elses favorite" she says. At hollywood studios the Great movie ride is great if you love movies... all movies. There are scences from old westerns, gangster movies, great classics like wizard of oz, etc. But kids were not totally impressed unless it was a movie they knew. Mine knew several but we are movie people here and unless there is something inappropriate about it we watch it together not just kids movies. Magic Kingdom is really great. There are so many fun things to do there and characters everywhere. Plan ahead and it will make things alot smoother but leave wiggle room. Our kids 10, 5 3/4 and 3 3/4 at the time all got tired (ofcourse it was super hot then too) so plan time to rest and have naps even if needed or just hang out at the hotel pool to refresh for a bit before going back to the park. You are going to have such a great time! Enjoy and say hello to Mickey for us!

We went in November 2 yrs ago, and we stayed at the Port Orleans Resort. I was great to just walk out of the property and grab the bus to whichever park you plan to go to that day.

I am going to second that the meal plan was way too much food, and you had to figure out which sit down place you were going and make reservations. You got breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack everyday, we always had extra food. Most of the sit down restaurants had the same kids meals, and my kids were getting sick of the same food everynight.

Have a great time, I wish I was going back again.

Hi Deanna,

If you are only going for a few days I would recommend staying on site as not to waste precious time traveling to the parks and having to park a rental car. The Disney resorts have buses or water taxis that take you from your resort to the parks, very convenient. Also, you won't need to bring a booster seat as they are not needed on the Disney buses/transportation. You are going at a perfect time of year. We go in early February every year and it is not that crowded. Try to avoid President's Day weekend as it is very busy. Have a wonderful vacation!

Deanna,

We have done Walt Disney World both staying on property and off, you need to “work” the numbers to see what is best for you and your budget. With some of the specials that Disney is offering you can do it pretty reasonably. I priced it out and a 4 day 3 night package including dining and 4 day hoppers at the Pop Century would be about 1,490.00. The dining package includes:
Magic Your Way Package Plus Dining
One table-service meal per person, per night (ages 3+)**
One quick-service meal per person, per night (ages 3+)**
One snack per person, per night (ages 3+)**

This is a lot of food if you use it right and eat at the right places; Disney gives you a lot of food.

Going in another direction you could book a room only right now they are running a discount special and you could book the Pop Century and it would be around $75.00 per night. Your 4 day Park Hopper tickets would cost 798.0, 3 day would be 781.00 and then add the cost of your food, but you can save there also buy stopping on your way to the hotel for bottle water, things to snack on and such.

I also have a spreadsheet I made for my boss and her 5 year old daughter letting her know what attractions would be good for her age and height resections and I would be happy to email it to you if you would like it. My other suggestion would be a Character Breakfast, which the kids love! There is also a Disney Outlet not far from the entrance to the park and if you want to get an autograph book or lanyard and a few pins to start daughter off and save some money I can let you know where that is too. We stopped there on the way to the parks last week and got gifts for our boys and saved a lot of money.

If you have any questions, please let me know I would be happy to help.

J.

If you don't want to rent a car stay at a Disney resort and use Disney Transportation.

I would recommend you talk to my travel agent, Angela Santoro with Home Run tours and cruises. She plans trips to Disney all the time and saves her clients lots of money.
Her email is ____@____.com or ###-###-####.

M. in Elk Grove Village

When my now adult kids were small, we'd go in January every other year or so. At that time, the parks closed early during the week, around 6 or 8 p.m., so we could leave the parks and have dinner offsite, which is a huge savings. If they are open later, the meal plan is a terrific savings (considering the prices of the meals there, which are not cheap). Have fun!!