what you wish you had known........

[jann1033]

about alot of the little extra details and such, like on the secrets thread cause I know i will never be able to see them all this trip and could have been looking in the past!

 

[MELSMICE]

Originally posted by mickeysaver
I wish that I had not listened to all those that claim that Animal Kingdom is a "1/2 day park"

Not everyone "gets" the Animal Kingdom park experience. We are among those that do. Mickey

Mickey - I hear ya!! I get annoyed when people say "We're not doing AK because there's not much to see & do there." I then proceed to start rattling off all the shows & attractions & tell them they could spend the entire doing the walking trails & looking at everything.

The park is completely under rated because not enough things go up, down, backwards or spin!!!

 

[DianaPrincessofWales]

I wish my husand would have picked the travel car holder type refillable mug so we could use it at home! Instead of the wide bottom kind that is collecting dust in my cupboard. Just a thought.

 

[greendoor678]

I wish I had know how terribly busy WDW was during Spring Break.
Since I don't have kids to plan around school schedules, I won't plan to visit again during this time any time soon.
I love Disney so much, but my Spring Break trip was just exhausting. The crowds were so overwhelming.
I know families w/ children must plan time to visit the parks when the kids aren't in school.
So if you don't have kids, plan to visit a few weeks after the Spring Break crowds have 'died down.'

I agree about allowing extra time for transportation.

Love the Mouse!

 

[TimeWarp]

I wish I had known that I wouldn't be able to see Wishes on the Tomorrow Land bridge. We got stuck there and it was too late to move. The trees can block your view. Wishes is off to the right of the castle. No regrets though, I loved it.

 

[saraha62]

Think twice about that My Pal Mickey. He's nice to have to keep the kids occupied when waiting (at Disney?? Wait???) but figure out when you rent him exactly where you'll be able to return him. The CM told us "any park or resort". Sounds great? I waited in two lines at AK and three more at Wilderness Lodge before I found someone who knew where/how to accept his return and refund my $45.

Are they thinking we'll get frustrated and just forfeit the full $60 and take him home? Ya think?

 

[disneychrista]

That it was going to be the second wettest December in History (last December)

 

[Kuffam]

Steak out a spot EARLY for parades!! We had a bad spot for Share a Dream at MK.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

Wish I would have studied these boards a little more before spending $2700 on our last Disney trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was for 9 days and 8 nights on what was then called the DISCOVERY MAGIC PACKAGE, but I've learned my lesson well as our next trip 7 days and 6 nights will only be about $1300. That's tickets, hotel, and food. DH and I will be driving so gas is included in that total also.

 

[tinkerbellmagic]

I wish I would have known:

1. The medical treatment permission slip I had from my daughter, (in case my grandson needed medical care), needed to be notarized to be valid. We were refused treatment at the medical center outside Disney and ended up spending 10 hours in the ER (5 of those hours were spent waiting to be treated).

2. How much easier it would have been to call DOCS from our resort. We ended up calling DOCS the next morning when my grandson's condition worsened and were very pleased with the service, got our meds delivered quickly, and were on the road to recovery. All this, without ever leaving the hotel room. I would highly recommend calling DOCS and having a doctor come to your hotel room instead of travelling outside Disney for medical treatment, whenever possible. For those that don't know about DOCS, info about their service is available at the front desk, but you have to ask for it.

3. What a blessing an in-room refrigerator is! I requested a fridge for my grandson's anti-biotics and quickly realized how nice it was to have one.

 

[kevind65]

I wish I would have known:

About these boards.

That you could book room only ressies and purchase your tickets seperately....saving big bucks..

about codes and AP rates(that one cost us about 1,200 on that 1st trip).

that you don't need to rent a car when staying on property.

not to try and drive that car to the magic kingdom!!!yuuuuck.

that the florida sun is different than the illinois sun....ouch!! that really burns!!! (even if you don't normally burn; listing to the wife and use the sunscreen...especially at Blizzard Beach...think lobster here).

to relax and enjoy the trip a little more. (does the name rambo ring a bell here people?)

that some of the attractions wouldn't be here the next time I come back.

how completely hooked on disney our family was to become.

 

[momof2inPA]

I wish I would have known that we would keep going back and just bought the AP's to begin with.

 

[LoriMistress]

Originally posted by Pooh67_68
What had I wished I had known...

How addicting DISNEY really is!

Definatly...I agree with you. We are all ready planning our trip in another year or two. We love DL, but we haven't been there in so long it seems out of our minds...DL doesn't hold a candle to WDW.

 

[LoriMistress]

Originally posted by bratdeb
i wish I had found out sooner that it was so much cheaper to plan everything separate. I learned tjat very hard lesson a few years ago

For our first trip, I just did the Expedia.com deal, since it would be easier for us to purchase all at once...now I know we could have saved a great deal of money.

 

[Tiggernut_jadie]

From my first trip I learned the following......

1) Air-conditioning (NOT a common occurance in the UK!) - don't get dressed in the morning for the temperature in the room! It was November and evening time when we arrived - the A/C was on in the room and the following morning we got showered and dressed in our jeans and sweatshirts - then opened the front door......IT WAS 80 DEGREES AT 8 AM!!! A quick dash back into the room for shorts and t-shirts - needless to say the sweatshirts only got very brief outings all holiday and the jeans not at all!!!!

2) Related to the above...for our first trip we packed 14 t-shirts (one for each day), 6/7 sweathsirts, 5/6 pairs of jeans and just a couple of pairs of shorts each! We failed to realise that our most popular souvenier was - you've guessed it - T-SHIRTS! We carried aout 10 clean 'UK' bought t-shirts home, along with 6 claen pairs of jeans, 5 clean sweatshirts.......plus all the dirty 'new WDW' t-shirts and 5 or 6 new pairs of shorts!!! We had to buy a new case to get it all home!!!!!

Needless to say the next time we went we took the minimal amount of clothes - sadly we STILL needed another holdall - we just like those t-shirts too much!!!!!!!!

 

[CourtasanSatine]

that you can't find Dr.Pepper in the parks(it became a morning custom to stop at the service station offsite near the hotel to get drinks)

that i fell in love in PI

 

[MELSMICE]

Originally posted by CourtasanSatine
that you can't find Dr.Pepper in the parks

Or Diet Dr. Pepper - which I have come to the conclusion that I am addicted to!

 

[mike981]

* That it would be better than we ever imagined. I am 37 and have wanted to go since I was very young. It was all I ever hoped for and more.
* I planned our trip for our family to be our trip of a lifetime. Little did I know, by the second day we were talking about our next visit to WDW.
* How glad I was to plan on busy mornings with the early morning hour and relaxing afternoons.
* How cool AKL is!
* How much fun it is to see it all through an eight and ten year olds eyes.
* How big the whole place is! I mean all of WDW.
* How nice it was to go during a slow time, Right after Thanksgiving.
* That I made the right choice to just do Disney this time. No Universal. No Sea World…We stayed for a week and it was perfect.
* That it is so true, the more you plan, the better the trip.

I also need to give a big thank you to everyone here with the great advice! As you can see, I don’t post much. But I still feel like one of the family, since I have spent days looking over all of the information. Now I am trying to figure out how to do it again for about half the cost.

 

[IowaGirl]

I learned a ton from this site before we went in 2002. The one thing I had to figure out by going was not to spend $$$ on cute outfits to wear to the parks. May of 2002 turned out to be extemely hot, and we all decided next trip we would be in our most comfy old t-shirts rather than newly washed, still stiff new Disney shirts.
Actually, we are all going to wear men's swim trunks (girl's included), running sandals and tank tops and get as wet as we possibly can in August 2004.

The last thing I learned that hot feet are no fun and I was thankful for the running sandals I bought for myself, but next trip I will insist for all.

 

[tigger&tigerlover]

I wish I'd known that walking "only" a mile a day before Disney was not enough. My legs were very tired after the first few days.

I wish I'd used this site before I booked the trip, I saved quite a bit of time and money once I found the DIS boards, but I could have saved more money.

I knew I'd want to go back again, but if I'd known that DH would have liked it as much as he did, I'd have planned for longer than just one week.