Help..first time.

[sunny1016]

Hi, my family is planning a trip to Disney in April, around the last week. We have not planned anything. We have no clue where to start! I have been reading some stuff online, but most of it seems to be in a different language!lol. We will be travelling by car from pa. with a 5yr old son and 7 yr old daughter. None of us have ever been there and we have no idea what to expect. We know we want to stay in a moderate resort..or so our finances tell us . But other than that....HELP!!!!
Any advice would be welcome! Please help us out!

 

[princessdisneybelle]

Go to Disneyworld.com. You can look at pics of the hotels. Look around at activities for kids. I would also recomend allears.net. They have lots of great pics and reviews. You can go to the different boards on here. Like the Disney Resort board, theme park board. To get more ideas. Happy planning

 

[vatchr]

Hi, my family is planning a trip to Disney in April, around the last week. We have not planned anything. We have no clue where to start! I have been reading some stuff online, but most of it seems to be in a different language!lol. We will be travelling by car from pa. with a 5yr old son and 7 yr old daughter. None of us have ever been there and we have no idea what to expect. We know we want to stay in a moderate resort..or so our finances tell us . But other than that....HELP!!!!
Any advice would be welcome! Please help us out!

We went last June for the first time with our 4 and 6 year old daughters. We had so much fun, we're going back again this June with them. I 've got lots of tips and ideas, so pm me if you've got specific questions. Are you getting the dining plan? If so, you will want to make your table service reservations (ADR's) now. I can tell you about a lot of the fun restaurants with characters for that age. You'll have a great time. We can't wait for June.

 

[Ariel8676]

Good Luck and try not to stress too much, this is supposed to be fun..remember..lol.
We go to WDW a lot and if you have any questions feel free to PM me.
A few things..definitely make your ADR's asap.. http://allearsnet.com/ , there is a ton of info here..menus and reviews, park hours..everything.
If you are looking to stay at a Moderate, look into Port Orleans French Quarter..it is a smaller resort, but my fav of the moderates(has a cool waterslide in the pool too..lol). My girls love it there...
Most of all have fun, don't plan too much....

 

[wdwdancerwannabe]

Are you going to take advantage of the Disney Dining Plan? If you are, you need to plan, plan, plan. As you have to determine (sometimes) 3 months in advance where you are going to eat. Where you eat determines what park you'll be in...etc. (but it's SO worth it!) there are TONS of threads here on Dining plan.

If you aren't going to use the DDP, then you don't have to plan as much....but you can if planning is your thing.

ALSO - take a look at EMH (extra magic hours) at least one park per day opens one hour early and one park per day stays open 3 hours late. (for those staying on property) If you do EMH, you have to plan it right ---- you can't EMH at night and then EMH early morning!! Especially if you have children.

There are LOTS of things to do outside the parks. Our favorite thing is to go to one of the Deluxe resorts at night and watch the electric water parade on the beach. If you time it right and look at the schedules, you may be able to catch WISHES from a distance at the same time! We eat at O'Hana for dinner - then go down to the beach and watch the parade on the lagoon. Adults may think this is a little cheesy, but the kids love it.

Don't miss: Wishes, Spectromagic, and Fantasmic

here is the link to June 2007 schedule. http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/june07.cfm?requesttimeout=1000
as the year progresses, there will be more months added.

Hope some of this info is helpful to you.

 

[coyandrew]

I would start with allearsnet.com. They have pictures of everything, along with maps of the entire resort, parks, and each individual resort. This can help you plan greatly. You should finalize when you are going first, then book your hotel (and decide if you want the dining plan, personally we don't because we don't like making advanced seating arrangements because we like don't like the structure and like smaller meals when we are doing the parks). Then, I would just plan what days during your trip you would like to go to which specific park. I would suggest matching your park days with the day a park has extra magic hours (when guests staying on the resort can get in early and stay late). This is a great way to beat any crowds and ride the popular attractions!

After all the planning is done, just remember to have fun while you are there. I see people running through the parks to get to every ride and they miss the magic that is Disneyworld. Relax, do as much as you can, and have fun together. BTW - the drive from PA isn't bad. We just drove it in December and made great time. The key for us was that we left extremely early (2:30 AM) and that gets you through Richmond (the last major city on I-95) before any type of traffic. We were at Disney by 6 PM that night.

 

[OhioFamily]

I agree with everyone...join allearsnet.com first. I'd also sign up for the mousesavers.com newletter (good $$ saving ideas and monthly specials).
You could also email a travel agent for a quote and leave some of the planning for them. Dreamsunlimitedtravel.com will give you a free quote in only a day.

If you like to plan everything yourself I'd pick up a book. Passporter's is good. In any case...don't panic!! Disney is about fun and planning if half of the fun

 

[sunny1016]

Wow, thanks for all the info. Okay here's another question....we haven't decided about the dining plan, we are going to try AAA for more info. But how much $$$ do people usually spend in a week??? I know it could vary widely, but could someone post a round about amount they have spent? Not including your room.

 

[OhioFamily]

In my family (me, DH, DD6, and DS9) this is what we normally spend:

Dinner every night usually $100 per night..that is for a nice sit down resturant like Boma, Ohana's..ect..

Lunch is usually about $20 per day and we stick to the counter service resturants.

Snack is $15 per day

Breakfast would be around $300 for a week

average total: $1245

My kids and husband like to eat!! For us the DDP would be a good investment. I like not having to worry about what we could afford on a menu.

 

[coyandrew]

For meals we usually average around $600 for my wife, daughter (only a toddler though so she is on the kid's menu) and I, but we usually eat counter service at lunch and then alternate nights with nice meals versus counter service. One tip is to take (or buy) a box of cereal for your breakfasts and then you just need milk. You could also consider renting DVC points from someone for your vacation for about the same price as a moderate resort. There are other threads that discuss the process of doing that.

 

[MeLaNie9]

DH and I had been to WDW in 2000 alone and were park commandos, rushing around to see and do everything and we didin't plan much ahead of time. Our trip this May was our first with kids. We did a fair amount of planning. These boards helped a lot as far as choice of hotel and restaurants. We use the menus on allearsnet.com to help plan meals as I can be a bit picky. I would definitely make your ADRs ASAP. For us, this involves sitting down to discuss which parks we want to go to on what days, deciding which restaurants we want to try during the trip, and then trying to match those up so that we aren't traveling a ton to get from park to restaurant. We use the Ultimate Guide for our touring plans - how to see the most/ride the rides we want to without much of a wait. Those touring plans really worked for us in May and we didn't wait more than 15 min for anything.
Have fun planning and on your trip!

 

[Poohbear77]

No advise per say, but wanted to say hello.

We will be in Disney 4/28-5/5. This is our 2nd trip, but 1st time driving from Maryland. We are also still debating on using the Dining Plan. We are more fly by the seat of our pants kind of people(especially with a toddler). I do not like the idea of having to plan out where we eat every day, though from what we figured it would save us money in the end.

Maybe we could meet up if you will be there the same time??

 

[sunny1016]

Okay we are eaters too!! I would love to pm about specific questions but it won't let me yet
Can anyone advise on the nicest restaurants? Also what about character meals and the princess or Cinderella meals. My DD LOVES the princesses! Any suggestions there??
Reading this board has me sooo excited I can barely sit in my computer chair!

 

[karibritt01]

For my family (DH, me, DS8, and DD3 last year) we spent $100/day for DDP, but our receipts averaged $150-$190/day. We did eat at a lot of nice restaurants that we would have skipped without the DDP. Do check AAA for your trip - we saved $250+ going through them. The travel agent is free, and they will make all arrangements for you, so you don't have to deal with Disney directly. There are also perks offered by AAA that you might like.

My thoughts for planning:

1) Go to www.disneyworld.com and look over the park schedules and extra magic hours for the time you will be staying. Decide which parks you will be in on which day. My kids did the evening EMH at the parks each night, and were able to ride more than they did all day long. We let them sleep late in the AM, went to the pool, had lunch, then went into the parks and stayed through close.

2) Decide if you are going to eat any sit-down restaurants - whether you do DDP or not, you will need ADR for any TS meals. Standby time can sometimes be 2+ hours without ADR.

3) If you are going to do any shows or character meals, get those scheduled. My kids both loved the Hoop Dee Doo Revue. The food was all you can eat, free beer and sangria, and the show was so much fun.

4) Choose your hotel. allearsnet.com has awesome photos and reader reviews. We stayed at Coronado Springs last year, and it was wonderful. My DS8 loved the water slide - the biggest out of all the mod resorts. CSR is a convention hotel, so they tend to keep it nicer. It is also the only mod with central A/C, as opposed to a window unit. People seem to really like POFQ as well. I hear a lot of hit and miss about POR and CBR.

5) Use the itenerary section on disneyworld.com. It is great to be able to plan your days as you think of it, make changes, etc. Then just print it out before you go, and you have all confirmation numbers, ADR numbers, etc with you.

Sorry so lengthy. Please feel free to email me if I can help or answer any questions.

 

[dangler]

Hi, my family is planning a trip to Disney in April, around the last week. We have not planned anything. We have no clue where to start! I have been reading some stuff online, but most of it seems to be in a different language!lol. We will be travelling by car from pa. with a 5yr old son and 7 yr old daughter. None of us have ever been there and we have no idea what to expect. We know we want to stay in a moderate resort..or so our finances tell us . But other than that....HELP!!!!
Any advice would be welcome! Please help us out!

I would start at allears.net. There you can see all the hotels, there is a slide show you can look at. Second I would either get touring plans from ***************** or Tour Guide Mike, tourguidemike.com. We went last year at the end of April and used tourguide Mike. His advice was fabulous! We waited for nothing! He is my recommendation
My daughter was 6 and I took her to Cinderellas Royal Table for breakfast before Magic Kingdom (my son wanted no part of anything princess) and it was the most amazing experience for her. Pricy, but very worth the money. The only other character meal we had was at Liberty Tree Tavern in Magic Kingdom, the whole family really enjoyed it there.
Good luck and have a blast

 

[LaraK]

I just PM'd you. I am a planner and am going down April 20th to the 28th. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have. We don't do the DDP because it doesn't work well with our eating habits (we don't really do counter service because my son has bizzarre food allergies)

We have an ADR for Cinderella's Royal Table for breakfast, but I doubt you can get a breakfast reservation at this point for April for Cindy's (trust me, scoring one is a whole different conversation!) You can try to get Cindy's for lunch and I think they have similar characters. We are also trying 1900 Park Fare for the first time for dinner....princesses are supposed to be there as well. We didn't care for the princess meal in Epcot, but I think we are the exception on that one.

We've stayed at Carribean Beach and Port Orleans Riverside...we're trying Port Orleans French Quarter for the second half of our trip this time. We've also stayed at the All Stars and thought that was just fine as well (a little small). CBR was really lovely and very quiet. We were in the section across the lake from the main pool, but it was a short walk and we had a quiet pool just outside our room. POR was wonderfully themed (we were in the Alligator Bayou section) but it was a very long walk to get anywhere.

In terms of planning your days, remember that Senior nights are the last two weekends in April. That just means that you don't want to do Magic Kingdom on Friday or Saturday afternoons. We plan to do MK on Saturday morning, but will hop to Epcot after naptime. I tend to plan the mornings very rigidly (what rides in what order) but then play the afternoons by ear (the only planning I do is make a dinner ADR....which means that I know what park we want to got to. However, I am quick to cancel those ADRs if the family is worn out and needs to take it easy)

Let me know if there is any other way I can help....I'm in Annapolis, I'd also be happy to give you a PM with any additional info you need.

 

[lovethecastle]

Make sure everyone has comfortable shoes. Disney is truly a walking vacation. Believe it or not my 8 yr old was asking us to rent a stroller for him by the 3rd day.

The character breakfasts are fun. We did the dining plan last year when we went & found it too structured.

Also, most people leave the parks in the afternoon to use the pool at their hotel & relax.

Have fun

 

[vatchr]

Okay we are eaters too!! I would love to pm about specific questions but it won't let me yet
Can anyone advise on the nicest restaurants? Also what about character meals and the princess or Cinderella meals. My DD LOVES the princesses! Any suggestions there??
Reading this board has me sooo excited I can barely sit in my computer chair!

We got the dining plan last June and did again for this June. IMO it is worth it. We had a character meal every day (my 2 dd's loved it, as did my dh and I) and it was a nice way to relax and have a little fun while eating. My dd's are picky eaters, but it was still worth it. We didn't have to worry about spending money for meals, just for souvenirs and the fun stuff.

Last June we ate at: Chef Mickey's dinner and breakfast - great buffet and lots of loud, fun with the characters
Princess Breakfast in Norway- Epcot - great family style breakfast and 5 of the princesses were there (also less expensive than Cinderella Castle meals)
Donald's Breakfastasaurus in Animal Kingdom - great breakfast buffet - lots of fun with Donald, Goofy, and the gang
1900 Park Fair Breakfast - buffet breakfast at Grand Floridian resort with Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatter, pooh and tigger - lots of fun and GREAT character interaction
Hoop di doo revue at Fort Wilderness Campground - dinner theater show - lots of fun - our girls loved it, the food was also good. This show/meal does cost extra - even if on the dining plan.

We are going back this June and are going to do:
Ohana Breakfast with Stitch at the Poly resort. It sounds like a lot of fun. Also Liberty Tree Tavern dinner at MK - with the characters, that also sounds like fun.

Even if you are not getting the dining plan, you might want to pick 2 or 3 character meals that you are interested in and pick a day and call and make the reservations. I just made our ADR's for June and did not get all the times that I requested (and I called at the 180 day mark).

Good luck and continue to ask questions - you will have a great time! Let me know if I can be of any more help.

 

[sunny1016]

We are planning on the last week of April, maybe the 20th to 28th???
Bummer about missing the Cinderella meal, my dd would have loved it!
What about the weather? Anyone been down there this same week? Oh and you can eat at any resort?? Not just the one you stay at? How long does it take to drive from park to park or resort to resort? Is it hard to get around?
How about any one-- "don't miss this"???
We were planning on going late September, but we had also planned on going this past October and it never happened. So we decided to bite the bullet and just go for it. We're hoping this will just be our first trip with many to follow!
By the way my 6yr dd thinks she IS a Disney princess!

 

[sunny1016]

Laura
All your info was great!
But what does WL stand for??
(Sorry I am still trying to figure out all the abbreviations.)