1st family trip with questions

[amottmers]

Hi,
We are going this June for 5 days and was wondering when we should plan to spend some time at downtown disney, should we split a day between it and one of the parks? And do you need tickets for it?
One more question what is the photopass?
Thank you!!

 

[MinMouse]

On my first trip I wouldn't make Downtown Disney a priority. But I never want to "waste" any park time. DD is a shopping/entertainment/eating area. It's fun but we still have trips where we don't get there or just stop in at our favorite spots to shop (Basin) and eat (Rain Forest Cafe) and leave. No tickets are needed; however.

Photopass tracks the photos taken of you and your family while you are at Disney. If you want to take advantage just have the first photographer give you the photopass (no cost) and give it to each photographer who takes your family's pictures. You can then look at the pictures at one of the photo stations at the parks or in the leisure of your own home when you get back.

Have a great first trip!

 

[hvivona]

We always save Downtown Disney for our last day there. We check out of the hotel then head to DTD for lunch and shopping then we hit the road. It keeps us from wasteing a Park day and is a great way to pick up last minute souvenirs that we forgot while in the parks.

 

[TheDizMom]

We hit DTD after dinner one night (we usually ate about 6)and that worked really well. It took about 2 hours. We went, we saw, we left. It's mostly shopping, unless you have kids who are into arcades, leggos or you want to do the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. I don't think you would want to do Pleasure Island, unless you are planning a night out without the kids. Don't take a whole day there's never enough time to do everything at the parks. My only other suggestion is if you are going to use 11/2 days say at MK and then want to use the other half for DTD.

 

[Justkell]

No you dont have to split it all.Downtown Disney is shops and resturants and admission is free except for pleaseure island which is a string of nightclubs that has a age limit of 21 to enter the island (this rule changed last week) I would do the parks durring the day and do the shops and resturants at night.Do downtown disney on a day that you do animal kingdom, it closes early due to the animals and it gives you pleanty of time to do both Animal kingdom and dowtown with no rushing.

 

[emmismom05]

On our upcoming trip, we are just doing MGM until the afternoon since we have a toddler and won't spend all day there. Then, we are going to DTD for dinner and to shop in the evening. I think if you aren't planning on spending all day in one park, it's a good place to go and eat/shop.

 

[LuvOrlando]

We always save Downtown Disney for our last day there. We check out of the hotel then head to DTD for lunch and shopping then we hit the road. It keeps us from wasteing a Park day and is a great way to pick up last minute souvenirs that we forgot while in the parks.

I agree this is a great idea and used to do it all the time. The only exception is if you are using Magical Expressin the early part of the day. Since ME wants you to leave your hotel 3 hrs before your flight the trip to DD might make it a close call. We had a 1:15 flight and had to get to ME by 10:15 so we dropped off our luggage.


If you are doing ME then you can squeeze a visit into another day. For our family Animal Kingdom is usually the shortest park day so we'll get a visit into DD on the day we go there.