LisaBCanada
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2011
- Messages
- 18
We just returned from our first visit to Disney World with our 9 year old son and (just turned) 7 year old daughter. We flew from Ottawa, Canada direct to Orlando, rented a car and went from there. Thank you to everyone here who gave me tips and advice and shared their experience. It helped so much!
We decided to stay off-site at Disney, mainly because we wanted a suite hotel (2 sleeping rooms) and the Disney hotels were so expensive! We stayed at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, Lake Buena Vista (very close to everything). My Trip Advisor review is posted online. I chose it because the reviews were great, it had free parking, WIFI, hot breakfast every morning, heated pool, hot tub and the 2 rooms. Plus a great pizza place we ordered from close by that was fast and really good value.
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserR...a_Vista-Orlando_Florida.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT
We rented a car from Dollar Rental at the Orlando airport for 9 nights at a cost of $180.00 (taxes and mileage included!!) through Orbitz.com. The hotel offered free shuttles to Epcot, which you could then get a Disney shuttle to the other parks, but based on what everyone said here, we decided to drive to the park every day and pay the $14 parking cost. We just wanted to come and go as we please.
We bought a 3 day park pass and got a free day (4 days is what we spent there) from Undercover Tourist.com. I found their prices the best and I got the tickets in the mail within days! http://www.undercovertourist.com/orlando/attractions/tickets.html
We decided to go with just the base tickets rather than park hopper (means you can do more than one park a day). I figured for our first visit we wouldnt be jumping around, and that was a good choice for us!! We spent 4 days there and did Hollywood Studios the first afternoon/evening; Magic Kingdom the second day; Animal Kingdom the third day; then we all decided we wanted to go back to Magic Kingdom a second time on our last day. It was the best park. We skipped Epcot and the water parks since we only had 4 days.
Rides: Im not a ride person, but when you get in there, you just get carried away. A lot of the rides are tame. Some are really popular and they have a thing called Fastpass where you go to the ride and instead of waiting in the long line up (they post the wait time), you get a Fastpass from the ticket kiosk, and it tells you when to come back. Then you just bypass the line up and walk right on the ride during the Fastpass timeframe. Its AWESOME!! and many people dont use it weird!! Not all rides have Fastpasses but you can find out which ones do by going to the Disney site. I found the following forum information on the 4 parks online and I figured out an itinerary based on tips here. It was really good. Go with a plan for sure!!
A few things we did and liked:
Hollywood Studios: Indiana Jones show was awesome!! Gotta see that. Fantasmic is in the evening outside and I didnt think much of that. Toy Story Mania (ride) is apparently the best ride ever but we were too late to get a Fastpass and the wait was 1.5 hours so we passed!! Go there first and get your Fastpass, then youre all set.
Animal Kingdom: Lion King show was really good and worth seeing. Apparently the Beauty and the Beast show is great but we missed it. The safari is really cool! Go there first and get your Fastpass. Super fun and the animals are amazing. Theres also a walking tour of animals thats super cool!
Magic Kingdom: Space Mountain is unbelievable!! Its an inside rollercoaster in the dark and its absolutely TERRIFYING! I had no idea what I was getting on (and putting my kids on) but it is crazy and you all have to do it once. Get a Fastpass. Tomorrow Land (where Space Mountain is) is an awesome area all futuristic. Ride the People Mover. Fun! Splash Mountain is super fun (use raincoat) and so is the mountain rollercoaster (very tame)! Road it 3 x in a row with son. When you enter the park youll see the big castle amazing! On the right of the entrance is the place where the princesses are waiting to meet your little princess. Get a Fastpass to meet them. I could go on and on about Magic Kingdom. You can buy autograph books and then your kids can line up for all their favourite characters autographs and photos, all over the parks. We met Buzz Lightyear, Woody, of course Mickey and Minney Mouse princesses, fairies, the Incredibles, Jack Sparrow .
At all the parks, youll be walking around and all of a sudden loud music will start playing and a parade will go by. So much fun! Go to this website to get the park hours and information on special events for the month youre going: http://www.wdwmagic.com/calendar.htm If you stay at a Disney hotel, you get to go to the parks earlier or later than people not staying onsite. Its called early magic hours.
Food: The food in Disney isnt great! Wed eat our great buffet breakfast at the hotel, then have lunch at the Disney park, then usually have a snack and head back to the hotel/restaurant off site for dinner. That worked best for us as the kids were tired so we never stayed for the late fireworks. We went to Planet Hollywood in downtown Disney and the kids LOVED that!
Disney was something I wasnt excited about doing, but it kind of fell in our lap and we went with it. I can tell you it was AWESOME!!!!!! Everyone has to go!
Lisa
We decided to stay off-site at Disney, mainly because we wanted a suite hotel (2 sleeping rooms) and the Disney hotels were so expensive! We stayed at the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, Lake Buena Vista (very close to everything). My Trip Advisor review is posted online. I chose it because the reviews were great, it had free parking, WIFI, hot breakfast every morning, heated pool, hot tub and the 2 rooms. Plus a great pizza place we ordered from close by that was fast and really good value.
http://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserR...a_Vista-Orlando_Florida.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT
We rented a car from Dollar Rental at the Orlando airport for 9 nights at a cost of $180.00 (taxes and mileage included!!) through Orbitz.com. The hotel offered free shuttles to Epcot, which you could then get a Disney shuttle to the other parks, but based on what everyone said here, we decided to drive to the park every day and pay the $14 parking cost. We just wanted to come and go as we please.
We bought a 3 day park pass and got a free day (4 days is what we spent there) from Undercover Tourist.com. I found their prices the best and I got the tickets in the mail within days! http://www.undercovertourist.com/orlando/attractions/tickets.html
We decided to go with just the base tickets rather than park hopper (means you can do more than one park a day). I figured for our first visit we wouldnt be jumping around, and that was a good choice for us!! We spent 4 days there and did Hollywood Studios the first afternoon/evening; Magic Kingdom the second day; Animal Kingdom the third day; then we all decided we wanted to go back to Magic Kingdom a second time on our last day. It was the best park. We skipped Epcot and the water parks since we only had 4 days.
Rides: Im not a ride person, but when you get in there, you just get carried away. A lot of the rides are tame. Some are really popular and they have a thing called Fastpass where you go to the ride and instead of waiting in the long line up (they post the wait time), you get a Fastpass from the ticket kiosk, and it tells you when to come back. Then you just bypass the line up and walk right on the ride during the Fastpass timeframe. Its AWESOME!! and many people dont use it weird!! Not all rides have Fastpasses but you can find out which ones do by going to the Disney site. I found the following forum information on the 4 parks online and I figured out an itinerary based on tips here. It was really good. Go with a plan for sure!!
A few things we did and liked:
Hollywood Studios: Indiana Jones show was awesome!! Gotta see that. Fantasmic is in the evening outside and I didnt think much of that. Toy Story Mania (ride) is apparently the best ride ever but we were too late to get a Fastpass and the wait was 1.5 hours so we passed!! Go there first and get your Fastpass, then youre all set.
Animal Kingdom: Lion King show was really good and worth seeing. Apparently the Beauty and the Beast show is great but we missed it. The safari is really cool! Go there first and get your Fastpass. Super fun and the animals are amazing. Theres also a walking tour of animals thats super cool!
Magic Kingdom: Space Mountain is unbelievable!! Its an inside rollercoaster in the dark and its absolutely TERRIFYING! I had no idea what I was getting on (and putting my kids on) but it is crazy and you all have to do it once. Get a Fastpass. Tomorrow Land (where Space Mountain is) is an awesome area all futuristic. Ride the People Mover. Fun! Splash Mountain is super fun (use raincoat) and so is the mountain rollercoaster (very tame)! Road it 3 x in a row with son. When you enter the park youll see the big castle amazing! On the right of the entrance is the place where the princesses are waiting to meet your little princess. Get a Fastpass to meet them. I could go on and on about Magic Kingdom. You can buy autograph books and then your kids can line up for all their favourite characters autographs and photos, all over the parks. We met Buzz Lightyear, Woody, of course Mickey and Minney Mouse princesses, fairies, the Incredibles, Jack Sparrow .
At all the parks, youll be walking around and all of a sudden loud music will start playing and a parade will go by. So much fun! Go to this website to get the park hours and information on special events for the month youre going: http://www.wdwmagic.com/calendar.htm If you stay at a Disney hotel, you get to go to the parks earlier or later than people not staying onsite. Its called early magic hours.
Food: The food in Disney isnt great! Wed eat our great buffet breakfast at the hotel, then have lunch at the Disney park, then usually have a snack and head back to the hotel/restaurant off site for dinner. That worked best for us as the kids were tired so we never stayed for the late fireworks. We went to Planet Hollywood in downtown Disney and the kids LOVED that!
Disney was something I wasnt excited about doing, but it kind of fell in our lap and we went with it. I can tell you it was AWESOME!!!!!! Everyone has to go!
Lisa
