nataliesdaddy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 27, 2003
- Messages
- 2,172
Ok, so when I went to disneyworld for xmas of 2001 we didn't have a plan - we just took it as it goes - and in four days we did about maybe 15 things in total - this time I added it up and it was 14 things per day on average and that even though we left the park by 2 to 2:30 everyday !!! - now I am sure veterans here can probably pack even more into a day... but for now so you will know this is how we did it this time
1) wake up and get to the park (whichever park) before it opens - my kid and I are both crankier at this time of the morning but once inside the gates our attitude adjusted on its own incredibly fast.
2) take advantage of early entrance mornings at the parks... you may have to get up so early that you will be groggy... but by the time you enter the park you will be ok
3) take whatever you need with you so you do not have to go back to the hotel for something... or bring a huge wad of cash so you can buy it at the park (i.e. bring extra clothes and store them in a locker)
4) stay as close as you can to the park you want to see the most!!!
5) book priority seatings at charcter greet meals... I consider that an "activity" ... because frankly you get done with one and you'll know it was...
6) take advantage of e-ride nights!!!
7) USE FASTPASS
8) rent a car if possible - commuting by bus or park hopping by bus uses up a tremendous amount of time waiting for buses...getting on... then the bus may make multiple stops... and lastly they are just plain slower...
9) stay on property if possible
10) be sure to have gone over the rides with your traveling companions far in advance of your going - so you can then plan your execution - if the main set of rides you want to do is in two geographic clusters then do everything in one cluster one then the next cluster... meandering back and forth will be a collosal waste of time !!! Also if you do this in advance of your trip then expectations are already set in your kids minds that they will get to do the things they want to do but that they may not get to do them on impulse whenever the desire hits them.
10) bring ponchos and hope for rain... people leave when it rains and also they are less likely to stand in lines when it rains... you can get in mondo rides on a day when everyone else is calling it quits.
Ok - so then - realize I was the trip itinerary guy...I did not do 14 things a day... my kid and my fiance did...
specifics - first I will list how to do more if you don't have the bucks to stay at the resorts next to the park you want to see and if you can't afford to rent a car on top of everything else ... after that I will outline what to do if you can afford it.
Get your tickets before you show up at the gates!!!! arriving just to get in a long line to buy tickets is a thourough waste of time and energy better spent on doing rides or hanging out.
Get to the parks early - if you are not on disney property then there is no early entry day - so wake up at whatever time you have to to catch the earliest shuttle from where you are staying because you for sure want to be at the front gate a MINIMUM of half an hour early.
bring extra clothes with you in case the kids get soaked or it rains or whatever ... then put them in a locker... lockers are located next to the front gats of every park.
You should have made a list of MUST DO RIDES, a list of WANT TO DO RIDES, and a list of rides that no one will be terribly upset if you miss. Check various resources like this site to see which rides and shows you can expect to be busiest... space mountain, Tough to be a bug, test track etc. The rides that are on your MUST DO list do them first thing in the morning...an hour or two into the day the waits will be huge...
Then as you start to see crowds swelling - round up your tickets from the kids or whoever is standing in line to get into a ride... and you the ininerary planner forgo that ride in favor of getting everyone fast passes for everyone to one of the MUST DO rides. When the kids get off the ride that they were on as you were getting them fast passes... when they get off... you will have time before your fast pass is good so go do one of the "want to" rides or a "must do" ride that is not popular with everyone else.... the lines won't be long that way - and by avoiding the long waits of popular rides you won't eat into your fast pass time... so then when the kids get off one of that ride then use your fast pass... then it is probably time to or close to time to use your fast pass... and here is the catch!!!! about 5 minutes before the start of your hour window of time to use your fast pass you can get fast passes to another ride... so then you go get fast passes to yet another of the MUST DO rides that are so popular that lines get huge... this way you got in one MUST DO ride first thing, got fast passes, did a "want to do" ride that has less of a line anyway... and then you can hit two MUST DO rides back to back with little or no wait at all. Four rides, maybe five if you are efficient at timing the fast pass thing and hitting less crowded rides while you are waiting to use your fast pass...and it probably isn't even 11:00 and you were able to be relaxed about it. 5 may not seem like much but it is...
Then do an early lunch - get it out of the way... lines for the parks get shorter sometimes when lunch hits - and also lines for lunch can get huge too so get it done early or way late... but not at the normal lunch time...
BLOW OFF THE PARADE - now I know some people would rather die then to miss this but it is a great time to catch some rides with shorter waits - you can normally get in at least two or more rides with little wait during the parade time. Go to the parade once during your visit... the rest of the time use it for rides...
Sometime during the day - stop, sit in the shade, drink water, eat icecream...whatever,.. but for godsake rest recoup.... there are some very nice, not crowded in the least, shady places in the MK...for a long time recoup...not for 5 minutes... if you have followed what I have said so far you have outdone most of the people that arrived at 10am... you have done more then they will do all day probably...so rest..enjoy... when everyone is finally no longer exhausted... head out again... always remembering to use your fast passes and using the wait time between fast pass times as an opportunity to do less crowded things...
OK THEN IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY FOR IT - stay on property follow the same rules as above just add two things... DO ERIDE NIGHT and DO EARLY ENTRY DAY and show up early to early entry day!!!!!!!!! the park will be totally yours for about 30 to 60 minutes!!! blast out a slew of rides and then start breaking your fast paases out.
OK if you can really afford a chunk of change STAY AT THE CONTEMPORARY, POLYNESIAN, or GRAND FLORIDIAN if you the MAGIC KINGDOM is the main park you want to see. Your life will be comparative bliss to having to take buses to and from the magic kingdom... plus the busses only get you to what?? to the monorail !! and that can take another good wait...the time saved is frankly astounding!! From the Contemporary our walk to MK was 5 minutes tops...That is at least an hour and a half of commute time that we got to use doing rides AND RELAXING INSTEAD !!! and rent a car...so if you want to go to one of the non-monorail parks you do not have to wait for buses...and again...go early !!! Plus if you do park hop it will be much more at your pleasing and not the bus schedule's. If you park hop on a bus expect to use up at LEAST another 45 minutes to an hour to get to one additional park... by a car its maybe 20...
at the resorts - we stayed at contemporary this time - last time we stayed at the hotel royal plaza a very nice place on wdw property... but you had to take the buses to and from anything unless you rented a car...which we had... but I did not realize the advantage of that as it was the first i went in 20 years - we should have taken the car...but we took the bus...TAKING THE BUSES BURNS UP LOADS OF TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The contemporary was a tremendous advantage because 1) you don't have to wake up even earlier to get one of the buses to show up early 2) it is simple to come and go as you please...3) you don't burn up time riding the buses!!! 4) we had a continental breakfast waiting for us each morning so breakfast did not eat up an inordinate amount of time. and also, I don't know about other places... but the contemporary has oozles of things for kids to do right there...
GO TO ERIDE NIGHT !!!!!!!! it is amazing - we took our time just farting around and we got 3 space mountain rides, 3 buzz lightyear rides, alien encounter, thundermountain - 8 rides on rides that had no wait that usually have at least a 45 minute wait!!! and we were being lazy about it !!! By using early morning or by being there prior to park open and by using fast pass - we never had a wait longer then 10 minutes...
Do Stuff at the hotels !!! It got hot there in early June - so we would leave the parks by about 2:30 - my kid loves water and water slides so the pools at the Contemporary were just her speed. Also, they have chef mickeys there which made that easy to do... and a large game room. We had 5 PS character reservations before we left for vacation - literally those are events in themselves.
a bit of a repat from above...How to plan the day!!!! first know what your kids want to see before you go to the park least the night before... in my kids case she had a list 2 months in advance... complete with pictures I cut and pasted from the wdw site... she had time to fill out what she HAD to DO, what she would LIke to DO, and what she wouldn't mind if we missed due to lack of time - this gave her the ability to "be in control" and helped me make sure "she got to do everything she wanted to do" - or at least give her the impression that we did. Also, that way I could plan the days - get the maps of the park - realize where the things people wanted to do are... I could then batch things into groups of activities close to eachother so you don't wind up going from one end of the park to the other - the giving my daughter the list thing allowed her to let go and trust dad to get stuff done...our prior trip she would want to "go here" want to "go there" and she had no idea what was really there in the first place...she never went to wdw before... get the list of rides open during early mornings and the list of rides available during e-ride nights...wherever possible match those things up with your your "want to see list" and your idea of where the main cluster of things you want to see are...
By doing this I knew what rides to hit first thing in the morning from my daughters list... I mean if your kid wants to do Kali river rapids... don't head over to pocahontas and her friends and then lion king and then finally make your way to Kali at 11 in the morning!!!! The line will not be short!!! This is how we did it... got there before open on early morning...Kali river rapids does not open at erly morning so...we did "tough to be a bug" first. very popular attraction and my daughters MUST DO... got a fast pass for the safari... did face painting... danced with some street dancers... walked the exploration trail...daddy left mid way in the trail because right before the window of time for your fast pass ride you can go get another fast pass somewhere else..so I got one for kali river rapids... I head back over to the exit of the trail... meet my GF and DD go to the safari ride...mind you we'd been taking it easy all morning just dinking along seeing the sites and doing photo ops...we get to the safari NO WAIT...we fart around some more...go to Kali..fast pass NO WAIT!!...started raining so we went to our PS lunch at rain forest cafe...when we went home at 2 pm that day we had done with no lines 1) three popular usual long wait rides 2) face painting 3) danced with "natives" in africa 4) walked the exploration trail 5)_ saw the lion king 6) saw pocahontas with my little one getting to meet pocahontas and introduce her before the show...and 7) ate at the Rainforest cafe..and I travel with two females so obviously there was lots of window shopping and real shopping !!!!! It even rained for two hours before two o'clock that day and we still got all that done...!!! All of it at a very relaxed pace. It was a monday DO NOT DO MK ON MONDAYS - so then we went back to the contemporary... we had a bunch of snacks waiting for us... we ate snacks....went swimming and did the water slide at the pool... went to chef mickeys for dinner and did character greetings... then walked over over to the MK and while the two women were shopping...I staked out a good place to see spectromagic and the fireworks.... an hour later I am joined by my kid and fiance...we see the shows...and then hang out while the throngs of people leave... and when it is fairly uncrowded...we take a stroll home... so at way relaxed pace we did 13 seperate activities... not counting shopping, the snacktime, and the rainforest cafe...13 and that was a slow day !!!
So then a good hint is GO EARLY LEAVE EARLY get refreshed go swimming, go to the game room, go to a character dinner, get a nap... rent a water mouse...whatever just plan to get out of the parks early ... by 2 o'clock waits can be brutal..and then get back to the park later in the day when by that time everyone else is totally burnt out...and you are not.
Oh and one last thing that brought our average things doen per day way down.... but it is a good hint... if it is a week long vacation like we did PLAN AT LEAST ONE DAY TO DO NOTHING BUT REST !!!!...or whatever else is restful for you... by wednesday at noon we all went back to the contemporary and did not set foot in the park again until the following day...we swam... we went to chef mickeys again, daddy had a gin and tonic at the lounge...we did the game room... then went to the balcony to see the fireworks... very mellow day...
take care - good luck on your trip...and thank you to all the people on this board that made a truly wonderful vacation possible... !!!
1) wake up and get to the park (whichever park) before it opens - my kid and I are both crankier at this time of the morning but once inside the gates our attitude adjusted on its own incredibly fast.
2) take advantage of early entrance mornings at the parks... you may have to get up so early that you will be groggy... but by the time you enter the park you will be ok
3) take whatever you need with you so you do not have to go back to the hotel for something... or bring a huge wad of cash so you can buy it at the park (i.e. bring extra clothes and store them in a locker)
4) stay as close as you can to the park you want to see the most!!!
5) book priority seatings at charcter greet meals... I consider that an "activity" ... because frankly you get done with one and you'll know it was...
6) take advantage of e-ride nights!!!
7) USE FASTPASS
8) rent a car if possible - commuting by bus or park hopping by bus uses up a tremendous amount of time waiting for buses...getting on... then the bus may make multiple stops... and lastly they are just plain slower...
9) stay on property if possible
10) be sure to have gone over the rides with your traveling companions far in advance of your going - so you can then plan your execution - if the main set of rides you want to do is in two geographic clusters then do everything in one cluster one then the next cluster... meandering back and forth will be a collosal waste of time !!! Also if you do this in advance of your trip then expectations are already set in your kids minds that they will get to do the things they want to do but that they may not get to do them on impulse whenever the desire hits them.
10) bring ponchos and hope for rain... people leave when it rains and also they are less likely to stand in lines when it rains... you can get in mondo rides on a day when everyone else is calling it quits.
Ok - so then - realize I was the trip itinerary guy...I did not do 14 things a day... my kid and my fiance did...
specifics - first I will list how to do more if you don't have the bucks to stay at the resorts next to the park you want to see and if you can't afford to rent a car on top of everything else ... after that I will outline what to do if you can afford it.
Get your tickets before you show up at the gates!!!! arriving just to get in a long line to buy tickets is a thourough waste of time and energy better spent on doing rides or hanging out.
Get to the parks early - if you are not on disney property then there is no early entry day - so wake up at whatever time you have to to catch the earliest shuttle from where you are staying because you for sure want to be at the front gate a MINIMUM of half an hour early.
bring extra clothes with you in case the kids get soaked or it rains or whatever ... then put them in a locker... lockers are located next to the front gats of every park.
You should have made a list of MUST DO RIDES, a list of WANT TO DO RIDES, and a list of rides that no one will be terribly upset if you miss. Check various resources like this site to see which rides and shows you can expect to be busiest... space mountain, Tough to be a bug, test track etc. The rides that are on your MUST DO list do them first thing in the morning...an hour or two into the day the waits will be huge...
Then as you start to see crowds swelling - round up your tickets from the kids or whoever is standing in line to get into a ride... and you the ininerary planner forgo that ride in favor of getting everyone fast passes for everyone to one of the MUST DO rides. When the kids get off the ride that they were on as you were getting them fast passes... when they get off... you will have time before your fast pass is good so go do one of the "want to" rides or a "must do" ride that is not popular with everyone else.... the lines won't be long that way - and by avoiding the long waits of popular rides you won't eat into your fast pass time... so then when the kids get off one of that ride then use your fast pass... then it is probably time to or close to time to use your fast pass... and here is the catch!!!! about 5 minutes before the start of your hour window of time to use your fast pass you can get fast passes to another ride... so then you go get fast passes to yet another of the MUST DO rides that are so popular that lines get huge... this way you got in one MUST DO ride first thing, got fast passes, did a "want to do" ride that has less of a line anyway... and then you can hit two MUST DO rides back to back with little or no wait at all. Four rides, maybe five if you are efficient at timing the fast pass thing and hitting less crowded rides while you are waiting to use your fast pass...and it probably isn't even 11:00 and you were able to be relaxed about it. 5 may not seem like much but it is...
Then do an early lunch - get it out of the way... lines for the parks get shorter sometimes when lunch hits - and also lines for lunch can get huge too so get it done early or way late... but not at the normal lunch time...
BLOW OFF THE PARADE - now I know some people would rather die then to miss this but it is a great time to catch some rides with shorter waits - you can normally get in at least two or more rides with little wait during the parade time. Go to the parade once during your visit... the rest of the time use it for rides...
Sometime during the day - stop, sit in the shade, drink water, eat icecream...whatever,.. but for godsake rest recoup.... there are some very nice, not crowded in the least, shady places in the MK...for a long time recoup...not for 5 minutes... if you have followed what I have said so far you have outdone most of the people that arrived at 10am... you have done more then they will do all day probably...so rest..enjoy... when everyone is finally no longer exhausted... head out again... always remembering to use your fast passes and using the wait time between fast pass times as an opportunity to do less crowded things...
OK THEN IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY FOR IT - stay on property follow the same rules as above just add two things... DO ERIDE NIGHT and DO EARLY ENTRY DAY and show up early to early entry day!!!!!!!!! the park will be totally yours for about 30 to 60 minutes!!! blast out a slew of rides and then start breaking your fast paases out.
OK if you can really afford a chunk of change STAY AT THE CONTEMPORARY, POLYNESIAN, or GRAND FLORIDIAN if you the MAGIC KINGDOM is the main park you want to see. Your life will be comparative bliss to having to take buses to and from the magic kingdom... plus the busses only get you to what?? to the monorail !! and that can take another good wait...the time saved is frankly astounding!! From the Contemporary our walk to MK was 5 minutes tops...That is at least an hour and a half of commute time that we got to use doing rides AND RELAXING INSTEAD !!! and rent a car...so if you want to go to one of the non-monorail parks you do not have to wait for buses...and again...go early !!! Plus if you do park hop it will be much more at your pleasing and not the bus schedule's. If you park hop on a bus expect to use up at LEAST another 45 minutes to an hour to get to one additional park... by a car its maybe 20...
at the resorts - we stayed at contemporary this time - last time we stayed at the hotel royal plaza a very nice place on wdw property... but you had to take the buses to and from anything unless you rented a car...which we had... but I did not realize the advantage of that as it was the first i went in 20 years - we should have taken the car...but we took the bus...TAKING THE BUSES BURNS UP LOADS OF TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The contemporary was a tremendous advantage because 1) you don't have to wake up even earlier to get one of the buses to show up early 2) it is simple to come and go as you please...3) you don't burn up time riding the buses!!! 4) we had a continental breakfast waiting for us each morning so breakfast did not eat up an inordinate amount of time. and also, I don't know about other places... but the contemporary has oozles of things for kids to do right there...
GO TO ERIDE NIGHT !!!!!!!! it is amazing - we took our time just farting around and we got 3 space mountain rides, 3 buzz lightyear rides, alien encounter, thundermountain - 8 rides on rides that had no wait that usually have at least a 45 minute wait!!! and we were being lazy about it !!! By using early morning or by being there prior to park open and by using fast pass - we never had a wait longer then 10 minutes...
Do Stuff at the hotels !!! It got hot there in early June - so we would leave the parks by about 2:30 - my kid loves water and water slides so the pools at the Contemporary were just her speed. Also, they have chef mickeys there which made that easy to do... and a large game room. We had 5 PS character reservations before we left for vacation - literally those are events in themselves.
a bit of a repat from above...How to plan the day!!!! first know what your kids want to see before you go to the park least the night before... in my kids case she had a list 2 months in advance... complete with pictures I cut and pasted from the wdw site... she had time to fill out what she HAD to DO, what she would LIke to DO, and what she wouldn't mind if we missed due to lack of time - this gave her the ability to "be in control" and helped me make sure "she got to do everything she wanted to do" - or at least give her the impression that we did. Also, that way I could plan the days - get the maps of the park - realize where the things people wanted to do are... I could then batch things into groups of activities close to eachother so you don't wind up going from one end of the park to the other - the giving my daughter the list thing allowed her to let go and trust dad to get stuff done...our prior trip she would want to "go here" want to "go there" and she had no idea what was really there in the first place...she never went to wdw before... get the list of rides open during early mornings and the list of rides available during e-ride nights...wherever possible match those things up with your your "want to see list" and your idea of where the main cluster of things you want to see are...
By doing this I knew what rides to hit first thing in the morning from my daughters list... I mean if your kid wants to do Kali river rapids... don't head over to pocahontas and her friends and then lion king and then finally make your way to Kali at 11 in the morning!!!! The line will not be short!!! This is how we did it... got there before open on early morning...Kali river rapids does not open at erly morning so...we did "tough to be a bug" first. very popular attraction and my daughters MUST DO... got a fast pass for the safari... did face painting... danced with some street dancers... walked the exploration trail...daddy left mid way in the trail because right before the window of time for your fast pass ride you can go get another fast pass somewhere else..so I got one for kali river rapids... I head back over to the exit of the trail... meet my GF and DD go to the safari ride...mind you we'd been taking it easy all morning just dinking along seeing the sites and doing photo ops...we get to the safari NO WAIT...we fart around some more...go to Kali..fast pass NO WAIT!!...started raining so we went to our PS lunch at rain forest cafe...when we went home at 2 pm that day we had done with no lines 1) three popular usual long wait rides 2) face painting 3) danced with "natives" in africa 4) walked the exploration trail 5)_ saw the lion king 6) saw pocahontas with my little one getting to meet pocahontas and introduce her before the show...and 7) ate at the Rainforest cafe..and I travel with two females so obviously there was lots of window shopping and real shopping !!!!! It even rained for two hours before two o'clock that day and we still got all that done...!!! All of it at a very relaxed pace. It was a monday DO NOT DO MK ON MONDAYS - so then we went back to the contemporary... we had a bunch of snacks waiting for us... we ate snacks....went swimming and did the water slide at the pool... went to chef mickeys for dinner and did character greetings... then walked over over to the MK and while the two women were shopping...I staked out a good place to see spectromagic and the fireworks.... an hour later I am joined by my kid and fiance...we see the shows...and then hang out while the throngs of people leave... and when it is fairly uncrowded...we take a stroll home... so at way relaxed pace we did 13 seperate activities... not counting shopping, the snacktime, and the rainforest cafe...13 and that was a slow day !!!
So then a good hint is GO EARLY LEAVE EARLY get refreshed go swimming, go to the game room, go to a character dinner, get a nap... rent a water mouse...whatever just plan to get out of the parks early ... by 2 o'clock waits can be brutal..and then get back to the park later in the day when by that time everyone else is totally burnt out...and you are not.
Oh and one last thing that brought our average things doen per day way down.... but it is a good hint... if it is a week long vacation like we did PLAN AT LEAST ONE DAY TO DO NOTHING BUT REST !!!!...or whatever else is restful for you... by wednesday at noon we all went back to the contemporary and did not set foot in the park again until the following day...we swam... we went to chef mickeys again, daddy had a gin and tonic at the lounge...we did the game room... then went to the balcony to see the fireworks... very mellow day...
take care - good luck on your trip...and thank you to all the people on this board that made a truly wonderful vacation possible... !!!
