Disneyworld advice?

Our toddler is indifferent to Disney so far. Hoping it stays that way.

 

And there is an urban legend among facility people that Disney spends six months training someone how to pick up trash. They will spend one day the proper way to handle trash and the remaining six months making them know where everything is in the park.

You can ask anyone down there anything and they will know the answer. It is golden when searching for a bathroom or when a parade will come through.

 

We spent seven days there last year...

We did three full days at the Magic Kingdom and then came back at night for the Christmas Parade, which was pretty awesome...

If you stay on site you'll get a day or two where you can stay early or late, which is really nice, especially if you want to hit a ride where the lines are insane during normal hours...

Obviously, use the fast pass whenever you can...

The meal plan, especially the deluxe plan, is beyond awesome... Nobody can eat that much food and you get a couple free snacks during the day so you never need to worry about how much cash you have on you... Not having to worry about that is pretty damn nice...

My kids love the character meals... Animal Kingdom has a pretty good character breakfast that we were pretty impressed by... Not counting the princess one which I haven't been to, Chef Mickey's is the best because they have Donald, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto there, and if you see them at breakfast, you don't have to stand in line for an hour to meet them at the park. It's a nice time save...

I love Hollywood Studios. If your kids watch the Disney cartoons most of those characters are there and the Toy Story guys are there, Phineas and Ferb are there... Jake and the Neverland Pirates are there... I'll be curious if Disney buying Star Wars gets more Star Wars characters there... Right now, I think they only do special "Star Wars" weekends and from what friends have told us, it gets crowded as fuck and less kid friendly when the Star Wars diehards descend on the place...

Restaurants I've really liked:

Chef Mickey's
Tony's (Magic Kingdom) It's the italian place from Lady and the Tramp...
There's a character breakfast at the Grand Floridian which is pretty nice... A lot of the Alice in Wonderland characters are there...
Be Our Guest (This is at the new Fantasy Land, Beauty and the Beast themed....) I got a ribeye there that was as good as anything you'll get at a steakhouse...

If you get the dining plan, splurge and get the deluxe plan. It's definitely worth it.

 

Disney introducing some cool band based technology in coming months that will allow you to monitor ride lines via smart phone.

Also will identify families to characters so for example if you register Mickey Mouse could say "Happy Birthday Johnny" when the your kids comes up to him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/business/media/at-disney-parks-a-bracelet-meant-to-build-loyalty-and-sales.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

The place is crazy clean and most of the people who work there are just beyond nice and helpful.

We had an incident at Hollywood Studios three years ago when my then 2-year-old wanted to meet Buzz Lightyear and we missed him by a few minutes... He started to cry (It had been a long day...) and the handler got on the walkie-talkie and they brought Buzz back out, basically just for my kids... I'm sure that doesn't happen regularly, but Holy Shit did that make an impact.

 

We used our phones to monitor the lines... We even got updates on when they were bringing characters out... It was great...

 

Two good friends of my parents went every year to Disneyworld on New Year's Day. They swore that was the day where all lines were shortest.

 

We went in late January one year because they were offering crazy discounts. I think we got 30 percent off the resort and free deluxe dining. The lines were by far the shortest we had ever seen there. If you live down south, that's probably the ideal time to go. If you live anywhere where weather could be an issue, it adds an element of stress to the trip. We had a blizzard two days before we went, not where we live, but in an area where we would have been flying through and flights that day were canceled. We ended up being fine, and we had bought trip insurance, so it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but I'm guessing my kids would have felt otherwise...

 

Seen both. I'll take Disney. Over.

Break.

We're staying at the Caribbean in early May. We have little ones -- 3 and 5. We're doing a day at Animal Kingdom, one at Hollywood Studios and two at Magic Kingdom.

We have the Boutique scheduled, the pirate dress up day scheduled, dinner with Cinderella, and another character dinner scheduled with a meal plan.

We've coordinated our days with extra magic hours, but I need a little advice on the fast pass. Can someone break it down to Army Idiot-level?

This itinerary sound OK to you guys?

 

I don't remember the meal at the Castle, but I remember my six year old girl getting to eat a meal at the Castle. So, yeah, it's worth the two credits.

 

That is how I would divide four days if I was not using park hopper.

With the hopper, I would do a HS/Epcot day.

 

Fast pass is used through your resort card. The more popular rides have 2 lines - normal and fast pass. There is a machine your run your card through and it gives you a fast pass time to come back. You then go to fast pass line at that time and the wait is much shorter than normal line. In mean time you can do other stuff at park instead of just standing in line. You get one fast pass per card. Once used you can then go get another fast pass.

At Hollywood a good strategy is to go to early opening and immediately fast pass Tower of Terror and then go to Rock and Roll roller coaster. By the time you are done at RRC your fast pass time should be available for TOT.