Planning 1st trip to Disney! HELP!!

[allstonsmommy]

Hey everyone! I am new to this site and I am planning our first trip to Disney World. DH is active duty military. I have one DS who is 3. We will be going mid May and staying 5days and we will be driving there. We are staying at Shades of Green. I don't even know where to start plannng! Any tips would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[DisGirl23]

First, you should look into your dining. If you plan on trying any of the table service restaurants, you'll need to call 407/WDW-DINE as soon as possible to make Advanced Dining Reservations. You can call 180 days out so, a lot of spots may be filled up already. You can go to http://www.allears.net to view menus to see where you may like to eat.
Go to Disney's website to make note of the hours for all the parks you'll want to visit on your trip. We usually try to avoid the EMH parks during the normal park hours and they are usually extremely busy.
You can also make a list for each park of "must see" attractions.
And spend time on this site. Everyone is so helpful and you can learn a lot!
Have a great trip!

 

[Uno Mas]

Figure out where you want to go first - what parks are you planning to visit? If all of them, make sure you buy Park Hopper passes so you can bounce around from park to park - that's always fun. Look at the attractions that interest you and make that your game plan for the day. You can check out some crowd calendars for each day and coincide that with park hours. If you are doing the dining plan you'll need to make some reservations too that will work with your planned park days. We don't do dining plan because we prefer to eat whenever, wherever, and not be stuck having to go someone at a specific time to eat.

Just visit the boards often and learn what attractions are Must See's in every park and how you can strategize to see them all. But start with your park plan and go from there. It's so much fun to plan - don't let it stress you out!

 

[Lglchick]

As someone who is pretty much right where you are, I completely understand your excitement/stress level. I can tell you where I started:

Make your dinner reservations NOW! You can check out allears.net for menus to all the restaurants to help you decide the best places for your family.

Read this board (although, I will tell you, it becomes addictive very quickly). There are lots of people on here who have created trip planners and are willing to share them. It's how I got mine!

I bought the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, The PassPorter and Walt Disney World With Kids. Yes, yes, I went a little overboard, but I was in euphoria after booking the trip, so no one can officially hold it against me.

Good luck and HAVE FUN with your planning!

 

[RDM83]

Hey everybody! This is also my first trip to Disney World and I will be going with DH, DD6 DS3 and DD 18 mo.. I Finally convinced DH after overloading on Disney info and ordering Free dvd from Disney website. His exact words were "oh alright let's just go already". Since he is not a Disney lover I feel extremely pressured to make this trip worth his while, especially since i do not intend this to be our last. I have been doing tons of research but of course there is nothing like tips from fellow Disers that have lived the experience!

 

[DisGirl23]

Hey everybody! This is also my first trip to Disney World and I will be going with DH, DD6 DS3 and DD 18 mo.. I Finally convinced DH after overloading on Disney info and ordering Free dvd from Disney website. His exact words were "oh alright let's just go already". Since he is not a Disney lover I feel extremely pressured to make this trip worth his while, especially since i do not intend this to be our last. I have been doing tons of research but of course there is nothing like tips from fellow Disers that have lived the experience!

Have you looked into resorts yet? Coronado Springs is a good moderate resort choice. It's more adult oriented (as to not scare DH right back to MCO and on the first flight back home), has a great pool, exercise room, hot tub and bar. All the rooms have just been renovated. Queen beds, flat screen TV, fridge, and coffee maker
Don't let the pressure get to you... he's either going to like it or he's not. Not much will change that. And if you try to hard and are worried the entire time that he may not be having fun, he may pick up on that.
Plan to spend some time at Epcot. Does he golf? You could plan a Tee for him while you and the kiddos enjoy a character breakfast or pool time. There's also fishing and other things he may be interested in.
Check out http://www.allears.net for menus of the restaurants and try to pick 1 or 2 that he might enjoy and make reservations.
I think once he's down there, and seeing his children's faces, he'll enjoy himself, probably more than he thought he would. Most people don't realize just how much there is to do down there. It's not just flying elephants.
And relax! You'll have a great trip!

 

[brekin67]

Love SOG and the flag ceremony.

 

[RDM83]

thnx for the input...I should relax! Imagine being stressed in the most Magical place on Earth!!!! that's just silly!

 

[Chrisbeary]

Are you aware of the 4-day Military tickets for $99 promotion that they are offering right now. Also they have a 40% military room rate at the Disney resorts and you can add the meal plan to that as a package. We book through our local ITT office.

 

[Chrisbeary]

The "Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World" book has a ton of useful information. You can find them in major bookstores in the vacation section. Plus if you purchase the book you can sign up for unlimited access to their website for the year, so that is very helpful also. The crowd calendar on their website is very useful. It tells you which parks to avoid which days and which are the best. We just took our first trip to Disney World back in November and I used the book and website a lot in my planning.

 

[KimDis]

Hi guys! So excited about your upcoming trips. I know you'll have a great time. Glad you reached out to the folks here. They are a great resource and I've made some wonderful friends along the way too.

I'm going to echo what the folks on the podcast shared last week. Make sure you take time to smell the roses. Sometimes we're so rushed to do it all (which is completely impossible to do) that we don't have as much fun. And what is the point of vacationing in the Happiest Place on Earth if you aren't having fun?

If you've ordered the DVD, find out what rides/parks interest your family and what they want to do. That will help you figure out your must sees.

Think about how you like to vacation and find a way to incorporate that into your trip. You don't always have to do the same thing at the same time all together. And you can always ask the folks here either directly or via a post for ideas.

During the busier times of year, make sure you get to the parks for rope drop at least a couple times. This can be tough as no one understands getting up at 6am on vacation. But it save you sooo much time and keeps you out of the worst of the heat, crowds, and waits. You don't have to do it every day - but you should at least try it a few days.

Now if any of you are coming for the major holidays (4th of July/Christmas) I take that back. You MUST be at the park you'd like to visit at least 45 min before rope drop. Trust me. I thought I went during a busy time in July and I was blown away by how crazy it was at Epoct on New Year's Eve. We were there for rope drop and even then in the 10 minutes it took my friends to get from the gate to Test Track I watched the standby time (avg wait) go from 10 min to 65!

We went on Soarin, Test Track, Mission Space and Nemo before 11:30am. Then we head to the pool... and past thousands of people STILL pouring into the parks.

Most importantly - take a break from the parks. Now that was hard for me to even type but if you're staying for more than 5 days make sure you sleep in one morning. Or take a day completely off. You could have a pool day at your resort - Disney has amazing themed pools. Some are like mini water parks! You could also explore Downtown Disney. Lots to see and do there.

Hope this helps!

 

[disneynutsx4]

I heartily second the recommendation of "The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World" for anyone planning their very first trip. Here it is at Amazon.com.

This book really does walk you through WDW one attraction at a time, and does a great job of explaining who will enjoy the attraction the most, how long you'll wait, when you should try to see it, and so on. There's a fair amount of information on places to eat, prices, etc. It's more grounded than the WDW planning DVD which is fun but not too specific about anything. Good luck and have a great time!

 

[Cruz91]

...don't even think about 'doing it all'. We are planning our 9th trip and there are STILL things we haven't done. Just be ready to enjoy what you do get to see. My recommendations for that age:

- Plan on spending most of your time at Magic Kingdom. There are the most rides / attractions for your 3 yr old there.
- Second most would probably be DHS, where you will find Toy Story Mania (TSM), Playhouse Disney, and a good bit of other stuff our 3 yr old boy liked.
- Third, HAVE FUN!!!

 

[SupercaliSal]

You are going to have a great time no matter what you do! Just "throw caution to the wind" and go with the flow!!!

 

[happyjen]

I'm a first timer here too, and stressing! We are staying at the WL (I am so cool, getting the dis lingo down) We are staying a Wed. through Wed., whole fam is going, me, DH, DS (4), my parents and my brother(20's), so we are in 2 rooms (sorry, I love the little smiley things, they are too darn cute and I can't help myself) Can you tell i'm excited!! I did not know there was a book out that would help you plan, I am going to find that whenever I can get off these boards!

I am thinking that we will be spending a lot of time in MK, for me and my son. We are both not happy campers when we are woken up, so i'm a bit concerned how we are going to do early breakfast etc. Now, i'm stressed that we don't have any reservations made yet, I hope there is still time I am having a hard time since there are so many of us, and i'm not sure who is going to want to do character meals with me, DH, and DS, etc. I have tried to explain to my family that I need to figure this out and they all think I have lost my mind (remember this is our first trip). I guess I feel more pressure to make sure that they get to do everything they want to do..

OK, enough for now, deep breaths.. Hi, i'm Jen and a little overwhelmed

 

[ZoZo]

Welcome to the DIS!

My first suggestion is to get a good guidebook (I like the Unofficial Guide the best); it gives you lots of basic information about tons of things like restaurants, rides, "plans of attack" regarding your touring plan, how to use Fast Pass, etc. For a newbie, I think it's easier to have all of the basics presented in "chapter format" (in a book) than trying to find everything on the chat board. Once you have some basic information, you can ask more specific questions on this chat board.

Also, as someone else said, it would be a good idea to make some dining reservations now; the good places fill up quickly. Go on the "restaurants" board and read some of the posts there - it will give you some ideas about some good restaurants.

 

[Cruz91]

... We are both not happy campers when we are woken up, so i'm a bit concerned how we are going to do early breakfast etc. ... :

I know a lot of people love to sleep in, and it IS vacation... I will tell you, though, that you can usually get more done within the first 2 hours of rope drop than you can the whole rest of the day. What I tell people is to drag yourself out of bed and get to the park, then go back for a nap while all the other fools are waiting in long lunch lines, then go back to the park in the evening and laugh at the people with kids who are melting down because they got there early and didn't take a nap!

 

[noahdove]

As a grandmother, you want to make the best for your little one. If you don't make it to all the parks, that is ok...Last August I took my 8 year old great niece and we spent 3 days at MK She loved it and loved going back to the things she loved the most...we took our time and covered everything in MK Enjoy the time thru the eyes of your child