We are taking my son (7) to Disney World around June. Any recommendation on where to start looking for deals for hotels or resorts. Which parks are must go? Should we go to both Universal Studios? Fast Pass? Please share your experience. Thanks in advance.
I don't remember the site but I'm guessing I went to disneyworld.com or the sort. But I recommend staying at one of the Disney World resorts. You don't have to rent a car as they provide shuttles all day to whatever park you want. There's an option for a meal plan that was worth it IMO. Try to get a pass that you can go in/out of any parks you like for as many times as you want. Pretty much look for the different packages where you stay in one of the resorts as they'll include everything you need. I think that'll be the easiest and some are more affordable than others.
Where to start? I think the Powerball drawing is at something like $450,000,000. I suggest you purchase a few tickets and start there. But seriously... I'm going to follow this thread. My daughter is two now, and we'll be taken her a few years from now.
I recommend staying at the Swan/Dolphin resort. It is nicer than the Disney premium resorts and noticeably cheaper. You can walk (or take the water shuttle) to Epcot and Hollywood parks. Dinner options include Epcot and The Boardwalk. Universal Studio parks are more teen targeted than the Disney parks. I also recommend the Park Hopper pass. With that pass you can go to multiple parks in the same day with the one ticket. My son did not find enough to do for one full day at the Hollywood Studios Park or at Epcot. We also went to multiple parks our last two days, redoing the highlights. Finally with the Park Hopper, you can eat dinner every night at the Epcot restaurants (providing you get reservations, which most likely means way before your vacation starts).
Do: read up and study this website: http://www.mousesavers.com stay on property - you won't need a rental car & they'll pick you up/drop you off at the airport & even pick up your bags for you Get a meal plan - or you'll easily spend over $100 a day just on meals for 3. Stay for 5 days, rent a stroller (yes, for a 7yr old..otherwise he'll never make it walking the parks for several days) Use a travel agent or better yet: http://www.smallworldvacations.com They can answer any and all questions you have and make valid, informed suggestions. They don't charge any fees, their service is free to you. Get the magic bands & plan your trip early using: http://touringplans.com Schedule your fast-passes on https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/plan/my-disney-experience as soon as you can based on the schedule you planned using the touring plans.com website Have lots of Fun. 7 is a magical age to go to Disney.
1) Stay on site. We stayed in a moderate resort and it was perfect. 2) Don't try to do everything in one visit. 3) Be prepared for crowds. 4) Research the Dining plan, it is usually a good value but it will depend on your eating habits. 5) Get park hopper. There are parks that offer extra hours at night or in the morning. What we did and had success with was going to a non extra hours park for most of the day then when it closed used park hopper to go to the extra hours park for the rest of the night. 6) Rain isn't necessarily a bad thing. One day while we were there it poured. We pulled out Ponchos and enjoyed the day (we were soaked) and there were very few lines for anything we wanted to do. Only a few rides shut down for rain. 7) Fast Pass is great. Make sure to fast pass things that are hard to get into. (Toy Story at Disney Studios is a long wait without it). The way Fast Pass works is you choose 3 attractions at one park and you can get on rather quickly. What a lot of people don't realize is once you have used up your 3 you can schedule more. (Unfortunately when it is extremely crowded this part doesn't always work) 8)If your son has any love for Star Wars get to Disney Studios when it opens and go straight to the ABC sound stage and sign him up for Jedi Training. It was the highlight of my 10 Year olds trip. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWQ8bBGJ5_c) 9) Don't be afraid to ask for stuff. Most of the workers will bend over backwards to do things for you. For example, my 10 year old did not like the choices on the kids menu at some places, we asked if he could get child portions of some of the regular menu items and they always accommodated him. 10) Places we enjoyed eating: Whispering Canyon- great BBQ, tons of food; ask for ketchup Tony's Town Square- I almost changed this to something else and I'm glad I didn't. There is a strip steak on the menu that is on the dining plan and it was wonderful. O'Hana- Get a reservation for around 8:20pm. You will wait 40 minutes regardless of when your reservation is. Ask for a castle view table when you check in. At 10:00 you get an awesome view of the fireworks and they pipe in the music from the show. And the food here is fabulous, as well. Be our Guest has a great quick serve lunch. the bakery on Main Street has a good breakfast sandwich deal. Every dessert we had was great. Do a Character breakfast at least once. even my 14 year old enjoyed this. WE did Chef Mickey and there are lots of characters to interact with. If you get a dining plan your snacks can be used for tons of different things. We used a couple at the parks but we racked up at downtown Disney. Goofy's candy shop makes mickey ear rice krispy treats to order. they are huge and have a ton of stuff you can add on them. We saved them for the plane ride home. On the dining plan you get a free refill cup to use at the resorts. You can use it in the parks if you know how. The trick is to find a place that has self serve fountain and use it there. The attendants never told us we couldn't use it even though we really weren't supposed to. 11) Other things we enjoyed: Test Track Fantasmic (sit close to the front) Strangely Enough my kids really enjoyed the Spaceship Earth ride Most of the iconic rides (I made my kids ride It's a Small World, and we promptly got stuck for 5 minutes near the end so they could load a group of handicapped people. they hated me for that :grin 12) things we didn't enjoy: The food at 50's diner (Waitress was good though) The shuttle buses were unusually crowded The Orlando Airport is a dump Animal Kingdom (maybe we didn't see the right stuff, but it just seemed like a glorified zoo with a couple of extra rides)
^^^All that being said^^^ it still costs us about $5300 for a family of 4 last summer. However, you can make the meal plans last, so you don't need the highest meal plans.
Yep 4 of us too was about the same price. We used the mid range dining plan and it was fine. I agree with the stroller part. My kids are a little older and handled the walking okay. I wish I had rented one for my parents, who went with us, though. We got up every day around 6 and got back to our room every night after midnight (We went at Thanksgiving and Magic Kingdom was open until 1am every night). We will be going back at some point to do Universal Studios for Harry Potter.
and feline aids is the number one killer of domestic housecats. let the dude enjoy his trip. my folks and other siblings are planning to go for old times sake. went roughly 28 years ago and planning to do it again.
Don't try to do more than 2 parks in one day. The Disney park with the animals is a complete waste of time
I recommend downloading and paying the $10 (or whatever the fee is) for a touring plan http://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/touring-plans Lots of information, but can help you decide/map out each park, tell you which days, what fast pass to get, etc. Universal is worth a day visit as well.
but not for your 7 year old. If you do stay at a Disney World hotel, you will want to get a bus service to/from Universal Studios. Ticket plus bus packages are available. We drove ourselves and easily wasted a hour getting in and out of the parking garage. Universal Studios has two separate side by side parks. You can either a single park per day ticket or two parks per day ticket (like "Park Hopper"). Universal Studios also has several grades of their "Free Pass" called Express Pass. We go the Express Unlimited Pass since we were only going to do one day at Universal. Besides Disney and Universal, Orlando area also has Sea World, Lego Land and Astros spring training (at least for two more years).
I went to Disney World when I was 13. Memories are a bit foggy now... However, take them in 'off peak' times. I remember being there the whole day, not queuing for anything, and pretty much doing the whole park. If we enjoyed a ride, we just went straight back on it. I assume people were at school, and I'm sure it was a weekday must have been late October or early November (I remember being in San Fran for Thanksgiving, that was at the end of the trip). That was 25 years ago, no doubt things have changed! But OFF PEAK
