Help me out here with reservations! Never been to WDW.

[bumbershoot]

I think I'll get a magic band weather or not we stay on property. They sound very convenient.

I’m not a fan. I find keycards to be easier for doors, getting into parks, etc. You can only use them to charge to an onsite room, so if you’re offsite they do nothing financial for you.

Lastly, just try to see WDW as a whole nother animal and expect it to be nothing like DL.

YES.

It’ll be hard though. I’ve been to both several times and I’m still looking for New Orleans Square at MK.


OP, WDW is truly huge. I’ve seen a map laid over a map showing (at least) Disneyland fitting inside of the MK parking lot (which is called ticket and transportation center). 55mph highway-type roads and road signs from park to park. Huge.


Hydroguy on the DL boards has a thread about Wdw for DL vets.

Definitely get *the most recent* edition of the Unofficial Guide to Wdw. Looks like it was released in August 2017. All travel guides are somewhat out of date by the time they are published, so don’t bother with an older one. That book makes for great reading.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

You've gotten some great advice that I will not bother re-hashing. Instead, I'll focus on one item: the Blue Bayou-like dinner. Although San Angel is inside a Mayan temple, and you can see a bit of the Mexico boat ride from the restaurant, I would in no way equate it to Blue Bayou in quality. If it's the "quiet in the middle of an otherwise bustling park" atmosphere you're looking for as opposed to "hey look! people on rides!", I think you can find much better options elsewhere. Someone already mentioned California Grill at the Contempory, which gives you lovely views of the Magic Kingdom, including the fireworks if you time it right. Jiko is lovely, and allows you to get a glimpse of Animal Kingdom Lodge. Coral Reef used to be a huge standby for us (we had some server issues once that turned us off), and the aquarium is really cool to watch while you eat. In DL you have a few nice eateries in the parks/hotels, and a plethroa of middle-of-the-road chain-type restaurants in Dowtown Disney. At WDW there is an entire culinary world to choose from.

Other things that might be jarring to a DL vet?
-You cannot walk between the parks. Well, okay, you can walk between Epcot and Hollywood Studios, but it will take you a good 30 minutes to do so.
- You cannot walk from most hotels to the parks (there are a couple notable exceptions).
- You cannot walk to Disney Springs (with one notable exception). Also, as others pointed out, it's huge. I get more tired walking from one end of DS to the other than I do a whole day walking around the parks.
- You know how hard it is to get a FP for the racers in California Adventure? Yeah, every WDW park has that same issue with 1 or 2 of its rides. You really want to look into reserving your fastpasses ahead of schedule. If you're staying on site, you can do that at 60 days out.
- 4 days is really not enough to do WDW, whereas I feel I can successfully complete the DL/CA/DTD trifecta after 2 days. You will not be able to do everything. Not by a long shot.

Enjoy your trip!