First time visitor

[Funtimeswithteenagers]

We have done Disneyland a few times but we are coming to Disney World end of April/ first week of May for cheer My understanding is you need more planning for DW. We are getting park hoppers with the discount tickets, but I'm planning on 1 park a day. We would like to hit every park.
Do we need magic bands? I dont think we will stay on site. We need bigger rooms for our family.
Any great places to eat we need to book now for reservations?
I'm a little stressed planning an entire disney trip in 3 months! I need longer for Disneyland and theres almost no planning for that.
I'll take any of your tips and must do activities! I'm clueless!

 

[Faithful Raider]

I'm an old Disneyland vet who's been planning our first WDW trip, which is next week! You can check out my plan thread where I talk about my struggles planning our first trip, but I'll answer a few based on what I've gone through.

You need to be ready for the reality that booking advanced dining reservations (ADR's) for popular spots is harder if staying offsite. Not sure if you know, but when staying at an official disney resort (or swan and dolphin too I believe) you get to book not only at 60 days, but for every day past 60 days you will be staying up to 10 extra days. So if you have a 10 day stay at Art of Animation, you can book "60+10", or up to 70 days out. Which means resort guests can completely book up a restaurant before off-site guests even get a chance.

We are staying offsite, and we eventually got everything we wanted... but we started 83 days ago, and I just got the last ADR I've been trying for today. There are TONS of great places to eat, but getting a reservation for many of them could be extremely difficult. Cinderella's Royal Table, Space 220 (and Space 220 Lounge), Topolino's breakfast, Artist Point Story Book Dining are all EXTREMELY tough to get if staying off-site. None of these had any availability for me when I booked 60 days out (we only got them later). And almost all character dining is pretty tough to get good times for at 60 days when staying off-site. While not as tough, getting an ADR at Be Our Guest or Chef Mickey's or even Sci-Fi can still be challenging! Where you want to eat is kind of up to your group, but we knew we wanted to do as many character dining experiences for our first trip. If that's you too, then you'll need to be flexible in your times because chances are, there won't be many openings at even 60 days for these. If you're not picky then there are plenty of places that have last minute reservations, but eating at Tony's when you really wanted to be at Be Our Guest probably isn't how you want to spend your first WDW trip. I'd suggest watching YouTube videos of WDW restaurant reviews and see what catches your eye! That said, ADR's aren't what makes or breaks a disney trip for many. And you might just be too busy to stop for a 2 hour meal during your park day. And don't forget, there are TONS of great food outside the parks. Disney Springs restaurants are easier to get a reservation for, and some even can be booked on OpenTable, avoiding the whole disney ADR mess.

As for magic bands, they aren't necessary but are convenient. Most phones can replace magic bands for a lot of things, but I hear that magic bands are best for capturing on-ride photos. We will probably be buying magic bands when we arrive, but we know we could do without them if we wanted to.

 

[Funtimeswithteenagers]

Thank you!
Honestly, I have zero knowledge of disneyworld!! I dont know anything or any places to eat! So, I have zero expectations or desires. Maybe that's better! I'd love to do shows and fireworks if they are doing them there. We were just looking up rides last night. We dont even know the rides there over. I am trying to help us get prepared, so we don't waste the little time we have there.

 

[mouschievous]

Thank you!
Honestly, I have zero knowledge of disneyworld!! I dont know anything or any places to eat! So, I have zero expectations or desires. Maybe that's better! I'd love to do shows and fireworks if they are doing them there. We were just looking up rides last night. We dont even know the rides there over. I am trying to help us get prepared, so we don't waste the little time we have there.

Hi! We just got back from our first WDW trip after being DL people.

First thing, we're still DL people We definitely prefer Land to World but World was still really fun! One thing that was hard for us was that the rides are spread among so many parks. In DL, most of our favorite rides are in one place., but those rides are split between MK and HS at WDW. There were a lot fewer rides we wanted to do in each place (and actually, just fewer rides in each place) than at DL.

Places we ate that we enjoyed -

• Liberty Tree Tavern in MK (all you can eat pot roast, roast turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, etc)
• 50s Prime Time Cafe in Hollywood Studios
• Biergarten in Epcot Germany pavilion
• Topolino's Character Breakfast (at the Riviera Resort) - it's SO GOOD, the food is nothing like the food at the DL character breakfasts!

We thought Space 220 (Epcot) was meh. Satuli Canteen is a quick service at Animal Kingdom that we really enjoyed.