hi all im a newbie to the group.
my husband and i are hoping to go to disney in late aug-sept 2013 for his 30th birthday and our wedding anniversary. so excited...its the only thing he wants to do for his birthday so im going to try my hardest to make it happen. its the one thing weve both wanted since we were children. weve never been.
we live in australia. we are huge disney fans.
hope ur all having a great day cya jane
We like to stay on WDW property and we have been a number of times August/Septbmer the last few years Disney has had a Free Dining promo during most of those dates. We now plan all of our yearly trips around the Free Dining Promos. With a free dining discount your family can save a huge amount of money at a value or a moderate resort. A room discount is better at a Deluxe resort - if the discount is at least 40%, if the room discount is less, then a free dining discount is better. Here's a link to everything about Free Dining discounts and promos:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2771101
I highly recommend the All-Star Movies Resort, it is definitely our kid's favorite resort. Getting 2 connecting rooms at a value resort for your family will be the cheapest way to stay on-site. They will be opening a new value resort called the Art of Animation and it will have Family Suites and will be themed with Nemo, Lion King and Cars - we are really excited about this new resort - I am afraid though, with it being new, that it will be blacked out for discounts. Port Orleans is our favorite moderate resort and The Polynesian is our favorite deluxe resort. The website
www.allearsnet.com has great pictures and reviews of all the Disney resorts.
We really like the
Disney Dining Plan, the regular plan with 1 Table Service/Character Meal, 1 Counter Service/Fast Food Meal and 1 Snack per person per day. I find the Quick Service Plan a wash and the one time we did the Deluxe Plan but we felt like it took up too much time and I would not recommend it for someone new to Disney. It's hard enough to navigate everything in WDW the first time you go without spending 6 or more hours per day getting to an from restaurants and eating. Our favorite restauarants are:
Ohana - In my opinion, the best restaurant in all of Disney World
Kona
Chef Mickey's
1900 Park Fare
Crystal Palace
Liberty Tree Tavern
Whispering Canyon
Coral Reef
LeCellier
Boma
Sci-Fi Drive In
Mama Melrose's
You really don't need the hopper ticket option added to your base tickets because you are new to touring Disney World, you really won't miss it. I would recommend 5 to 6 park days for a first visit - 2 days MK, 2 days Epcot, 1 day Ak and 1 day DHS. If you are wanting to visit one of the Water Parks, it's cheaper to just pay out of pocket for one of Water Parks.
I do recommend The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World and their companion website,
www.touringplans.com. I use their crowd/best days calendar to plan all our park days and then once I know which park we will be in on which days I can make my Advance Dining Reservations around those parks or in resorts close to those parks. Again, I highly recommend the Basic Disney Dining Plan if your party is going to eat at least one sit down/table service/character meal per day. You can make Advance Dining Reservations 180 before your check-in date. Make sure you have Advance Dining Reservations as a lot of the popular table service restaurants and character meals do not take walk-ups and book up quickly.
I do see that you are from Australia, so if you are booking through the U.K. site, I think they have already released their free dining dates for August and September. Also, their DDP packages can vary slighly from the U.S. site.
Good luck!
. You will have loads of fun 
and hope you can meet some Diser's at the parks 
. 
.
