Wear good comfortable (tried and true) shoes or sandals for lots of walking. Your feet will probably swell - drink lots of water! We always take a good fanny pack and / or backpack with hats or visors, Xtra sunscreen (I take a partial bottle so it's less weight), our camera, some of those mini fans and rain ponchos if storms are forecast (no purse for me).
Take advantage of the early openings / late closings that are available to resort guests! You can accomplish a lot of rides quickly + snag a couple of fast passes if you're there when they open. Just for Example at Epcot - head for something busy like Test Track - while one or two of you wait in line the others grab fast passes for everyone to come back later. Once you ride it once, go to Mission Space - wait thru the line & ride that and then by the time you're done you can go back to Test Track with your fast passes (or vice versa). The fast passes work well - but you sorta gotta get the hang of working the system since you can only have one at once. We'd rather use them on something like Peter Pan that has a 90 min. wait and wait in line 90 minutes for Splash Mountain just 'cuz of the type of ride that it is.
Also, we prefer to eat a very light breakfast (like pastries) and then stop early for lunch (like by 11:30). We don't normally eat lunch until probably 1 or 1:30 on the weekends, but if you wait for 12 or 1:00 the lines will be awful and seating limited. If you stop early, you can have a more leisurely lunch at a good table (clean) & you won't have to hover over someone else with your tray while you're waiting for them to finish so you can snag it.
We also don't care a lot about sitting out in the hot sun waiting for the afternoon parades - we've noticed that a lot of the lines are less during the parades 'cuz a lot of people DO watch them - so it's a good time to catch stuff like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad etc. But that's our preference - we'd rather watch the evening parades when there's no sun.
Lastly, it's hard not to "go commando" when it's your first trip - but do try to take a break in the afternoons to go back to your hotel & catch some pool time! You'll need to get off your feet & relax some too! The refillable mugs they sell at the resorts are a good deal - last time we went they were like $10 but free refills on anything you wanted at the drink stations - so we'd get our coffee in the mornings...take them to the pools in the afternoons etc. If you decide to get those, get them on day #1 so you have them for the entire week.
(Insert deep breath here....OK!) Go and have fun!!
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ANd should someone become ill and not go...I would be more than happy to take their place
Does anyone know if you can get to Downtown Disney from Caribbean beach resort or do you have to take a shuttle to one of the parks, then from there get on the bus to DTD? I'm planning to do this on the day we arrive since it will be around six or seven, when we get to the resort from the airport on magical express.
