acewashere
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2012
So I completed my first trip to Disney World, and it didn't go as planned. Someone in my party got sick, so we took a day off hoping it was a one-day bug and turned out it was the flu. So we didn't do Animal Kingdom. But here are my advice to all the other first timers.
1) Research!!! Gather as much information as you can beforehand.
2) Look up crowd levels for each park (Google "Disney World Crowd Level") and plan accordingly. Also look at the weather, because that can play a big factor on crowd levels as well. I arranged it so it was Epcot, MK, HS, AK.
3) Pre-plan the parks. You want to know which rides you want to go on, which characters you want to meet, where you want to eat. Each park has a map, and a time sheet that tell you times of shows and characters appearances.
4) Pack light for the parks. If you plan on going to any of the parks around opening, the lines are huge for bag checks. I had a string bag that stuffed into a pocket and carried the signature book by hand. After getting into the park I threw everything in out pockets into the string bag.
5) Gum! They don't sell it in the park. They do have mints for bad breath.
6) Baggies - In case it rains, zip lock baggies are your friend. This is my theme park #1 rules because I don't want my stuff ruined. I usually pack way more then I need. (Wallet, Signature Book, Phone, Pens, Medicine, Camera, etc)
7) Magic Kingdom does not offer free refills (Epcot and Hollywood Studios)
8) Taxi cost us $25 ($5.20 tip included) one way to go from epcot to Hawthorne suites, because we didn't want to wait 2hrs for the hotel bus.
9) Animal and Magic Kingdom allows all visitors to use FastPass+ while Epcot and Hollywood Studios only resort guest. Learn what fast pass is and abuse it.
10) Use the Disney photographers, its basically a free service which you can decide later if its worth it to you. If I had purchased memory maker, I could of abused them enough to make it worth it in my opinion since I left my DSLR in the hotel room for the fear of rain.
11) My family likes buying magnets for our trips, and each park had a park specific one. For magic kingdom I got the castle one instead of the actual park specific one.
12) Budget... I threw it out the window when we got to the park. I was so paranoid about money that I decided I was going to ruin the trip for everyone. I haven't looked at my credit card statement online yet, but I can say I enjoyed it.
13) The rides at Universal own Disney. The best rides are at Hollywood Studios. I hate coasters, I get motion sickness, but my favorite was rock and roller. I went on Tower of Terror and if it went up one more time I probably would of lost my lunch. The worst ride for me was star tours, which was almost like sea worlds arctic wild ride. I went on mild for mission space, and that was cake and would have tried orange if the line had calmed down.
14) Disney world tries to hit you on nostalgia and the experience on meeting characters. If you want rides, go to Universal. The character meetings at Disney world was priceless.
15) As long as there is a place holder, you can leave the character lines and visit other parts of the park. For example the Frozen characters had a 3hr wait. Longest wait time for anything at the park. Next longest was a tie for 70min for arial, fast track, haunted mansion, soaring.
So recap:
Goto disney world for the experience, not for thrill rides. Plan for a budget but then throw it out your budget once you get to the park. Pack light, pack gum, use the services that they offer you (Photopass, Fast pass, free refils at certain parks). Pre-plan your parks, otherwise you wont get to do as much especially at epcot and magic kingdom.
1) Research!!! Gather as much information as you can beforehand.
2) Look up crowd levels for each park (Google "Disney World Crowd Level") and plan accordingly. Also look at the weather, because that can play a big factor on crowd levels as well. I arranged it so it was Epcot, MK, HS, AK.
3) Pre-plan the parks. You want to know which rides you want to go on, which characters you want to meet, where you want to eat. Each park has a map, and a time sheet that tell you times of shows and characters appearances.
4) Pack light for the parks. If you plan on going to any of the parks around opening, the lines are huge for bag checks. I had a string bag that stuffed into a pocket and carried the signature book by hand. After getting into the park I threw everything in out pockets into the string bag.
5) Gum! They don't sell it in the park. They do have mints for bad breath.
6) Baggies - In case it rains, zip lock baggies are your friend. This is my theme park #1 rules because I don't want my stuff ruined. I usually pack way more then I need. (Wallet, Signature Book, Phone, Pens, Medicine, Camera, etc)
7) Magic Kingdom does not offer free refills (Epcot and Hollywood Studios)
8) Taxi cost us $25 ($5.20 tip included) one way to go from epcot to Hawthorne suites, because we didn't want to wait 2hrs for the hotel bus.
9) Animal and Magic Kingdom allows all visitors to use FastPass+ while Epcot and Hollywood Studios only resort guest. Learn what fast pass is and abuse it.
10) Use the Disney photographers, its basically a free service which you can decide later if its worth it to you. If I had purchased memory maker, I could of abused them enough to make it worth it in my opinion since I left my DSLR in the hotel room for the fear of rain.
11) My family likes buying magnets for our trips, and each park had a park specific one. For magic kingdom I got the castle one instead of the actual park specific one.
12) Budget... I threw it out the window when we got to the park. I was so paranoid about money that I decided I was going to ruin the trip for everyone. I haven't looked at my credit card statement online yet, but I can say I enjoyed it.
13) The rides at Universal own Disney. The best rides are at Hollywood Studios. I hate coasters, I get motion sickness, but my favorite was rock and roller. I went on Tower of Terror and if it went up one more time I probably would of lost my lunch. The worst ride for me was star tours, which was almost like sea worlds arctic wild ride. I went on mild for mission space, and that was cake and would have tried orange if the line had calmed down.
14) Disney world tries to hit you on nostalgia and the experience on meeting characters. If you want rides, go to Universal. The character meetings at Disney world was priceless.
15) As long as there is a place holder, you can leave the character lines and visit other parts of the park. For example the Frozen characters had a 3hr wait. Longest wait time for anything at the park. Next longest was a tie for 70min for arial, fast track, haunted mansion, soaring.
So recap:
Goto disney world for the experience, not for thrill rides. Plan for a budget but then throw it out your budget once you get to the park. Pack light, pack gum, use the services that they offer you (Photopass, Fast pass, free refils at certain parks). Pre-plan your parks, otherwise you wont get to do as much especially at epcot and magic kingdom.