DisneyWorld/Orlando in 3 days... what to do?

Excellent question. There are a lot of not-so-nice sit-down places at Disney. You have to be VERY careful!

 

We stayed at The Contemporary Resort and ate at two of their restaurants: Concourse Steakhouse and Chef Mickey's ($28 buffet with Disney characters).

 

BTW, I can not recommend enough The Contemporary Resort. It had a 5 minute walk to the Magic Kingdom (and a 20 minute monorail ride to and a 2 minute ride back, not counting the wait).

 

The thing with Chef Mickey's has always been the character dining. Character meals have never been known for having fabulous food (although I do like the French Toast from the Cinderella meal at MK.)

 

My family was at DisneyWorld for my cousin's wedding last june, and here are my suggestions:

For Adults, EPCOT is the way to go. And, yes the Fast Pass is really cool(the new ride at EPCOT when I was there was Test Track). There are tons of neat rides/shows at EPCOT, and the World Showcase is very cool as well. You should go see the Honey I Shrunk the Audience IMAX style show, and there is a show on Energy featuring Ellen Degeneres. Also, MGM has some nice rides as well(the best one is the Tower of Terror imho). If you want to meet the characters/get autographs go to Magic Kingdom and get a signing book. You can also dine with them as well. But in my opinion, the must thing to do in Magic Kingdom is go on a ride called Space Mountain. It's a roller coaster ride that is primarily in the dark. One of my personal fav's quite frankly.

MadMax, my family ate at the main sit down restaurant in the China part of the World Showcase: Nine Dragons restaurant. It was very good.

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/dining/diningDetail?id=NineDragonsRestaurantDiningPage

 

There are several web sites you may want to check out for Disney information. Here's a few of the better ones:

www.mousesavers.com This one will help you plan a cheap Disney trip. Has lots of tips on where to stay for less and sometimes has discount codes.

www.wdwmagic.com Check out the forums here. Tons of good information from people who go there regularly. There are also travel agents who post fantastically helpful info. If you've got a Disney question, ask here and you shall get tons of answers...quickly.

www.allearsnet.com This one isn't quite as good, but they post menus from the restaraunts. Good thing to take a look at before you go so you don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out where you want to eat.

By the way, I highly recommend Earl of Sandwich at Downtown Disney. The bread is fab...and the $1.95 muffin tops are yummy...great thing to keep in the room or in a backpack for a quick snack! Sandwiches are $4.95.

 

yeah, i'm not a fan of either one. the california grill at the contemporary is great, though. pricey...and you'd want a babysitter but very good.

there are tons of really good sit-down restaurants in the WDW complex...a lot of them at hotels, as well as in the parks. but you're right...you need to have the time to pull it off.

Dvauthrin -- yeah, that's excellent Chinese food. if you go back, i recommend the tempura bar in Japan. so freaking good.

 

i get the allearsnet newsletter via email, which is pretty good. but wdwmagic is the best of these sites, i think.

 

Universal is the one that locals buy the season pass to. Islands of Adventure is mostly rides while Studios is "your in the movie". Most pass on the right side (Studios) and do the rides at Islands of Adventure. But Islands of Adventure is not for young kids (under 10). Your 3 year old would not have had too much fun. For families with young kids, I would recommend Disney over Universal. But if you've done that and your kids are older - Unversal is the place. I've been to dozens of parks and done the Disney thing, but Universal is the only one I want to go back to.

This link has access to a video overview comparing Universal to Disney.
http://themeparks.universalstudios.com/orlando/website/ioa_landing.html?__dest=ioa_landing.TOP

 

If you're looking for rollercoaster and thriller rides, Universal is the place to be. However, if you're looking for more of an experience, so to speak, Disney would be the better choice. It's environment and atmosphere is at another level. To me, Universal is like a Six Flags in terms of atmosphere, theme, etc.

 

tell me why Epcot please amfootball, Magic Kingdom is in, it is down to Epcot v MGM

I'd say EPCOT, because this is an all-day park. I personally love MGM and usually go everyday I'm there (I have the season pass, though.) Here's a little break down between MGM & EPCOT:

MGM is more shows than things to do...little kiddie shows. There's some Little Mermaid one, a Beauty & the Beast one and I think there's a Bear in the Big Blue House one now and there are others. The upside to MGM is the Tower of Terror, Rockin' Rollercoaster, Star Tours, Great Movie Ride (warning: the line for this is always freaking long and it's really not that great. however, if you do do this, the second boat on the ride has the better actor.), Indy Stunt Show, Muppets 3-D (look under the mat at the box office right after you walk inside) and Backlot Tour (if they ask you to volunteer for this one, do it. it's a lot of fun! you can also ask a cast member at the ride if you can volunteer...you may have to wait for the next show, though.) Their nighttime show is Fantasmic!, which I never have liked myself, but others seem to. This is their version of fireworks and it's in a limited-seating theatre.

EPCOT is more for adults. You've got Future World that has Test Track, Soarin', Journey Into Your Imagination, Mission:Space, Ellen's Energy Adventure and others. You've got World Showcase. I know you said you've traveled a lot, but I bet you've never gone all over the world in a day. You've got Mexico, Norway, Japan, Germany, Italy, China, Morocco, USA, France, Great Britain and Canada. There's great food, interesting shopping and some cool rides. There are little shows they do periodically as well. At the end of the night is illuminations, their fireworks & laser show in World Showcase.

If you go to MGM, that would give you time to go to Downtown Disney, too. At Downtown Disney there's the marketplace with lots of shopping; Westside with dining, movie theatre and Disney Quest (never been, but I hear it's great) and Pleasure Island, which has lots of nightclubs. You could also go over to Fantasia Gardens for miniature golf or something like that.

It's a tough decision to make between those two. If it was me and I was only doing one park a day, I'd go with EPCOT.

we can't avoid the particular days, we only have this small window in our trip from Australia, as flights and destinations either side are booked, although i guess we could do magic kingdom on 17th and epcot or MGM on 16th and avoid them

Do that. For some reason people think having an extra hour in the park is the best thing since sliced bread. It's not. People pack in there like sardines, creating huge lines at the attractions. The other parks see fewer visitors than normal. The extra Magic Hour is only offered to Disney resort guests, too.

other questions AM FOOTBALL or anyone

1. Stay in or out of the Park?

I'm a big fan of staying ON Disney property. I've done both, but by far happier staying on. I just did a quick pricing of a value resort on Disney's web site...you should be able to book a value resort for $389, including all taxes. The major benefits to staying on property are:
- Disney's Magical Express. This is a FREE shuttle service from the airport to your resort. If you book early enough ahead of time, they'll send you tags to put on your luggage and Disney will pick up your luggage for you and magically deliver it to your room. They'll also take you back to the airport when it's time to leave.
- Free Parking. This one applies only if you have a rental car. You can get a rental car on Disney property if you decide on the spur of the moment to go someplace off property that you don't want to take a cab for. Parking at Disney theme parks is $8/day.
- Package Service. Find something at the park you want to buy but don't want to carry around? No problem! Every store will send your package to your resort. Pick it up in the gift shop at your resort later that evening. You can't do this on the day of checkout, though.
- Disney shuttles. They'll take you all over the world, but no where out of the world.
- More fun at the hotel. They've all got some sort of theme, so the fun never ends. Most of the rooms have wallpaper, shower curtains, curtains, bedspreads, etc with hidden Mickey's in them, too.

2. Should we wait till just before and try to get hotel deal at last minute?

If you go with staying on property, book now. You're going during peak season so the value resorts will fill up on their least-expensive rooms quickly. If you're staying off property, you may be able to get a deal closer to your date, but it's doubtful as it is peak season and everyone else will be looking for deals, too. If you do stay on property, make sure you get a standard view room. It's not pretty to look out the window, but it will save you about $50.

3. any hotel reccomendations? right now we are eying Radison Parkway for $500 for the 3 nights (that is $500 aussie dollar total including taxes so probably about $300 US before taxes)

A Disney Value resort should do just fine. I'd go with Pop Century first, followed by All Star Sports. Just be warned: the check in lines can be lengthy and take up to 30 minutes to get through. However, since you're coming in early, the line may be shorter...keyword: may.

4. what the hell is up with mousesavers website, been trying to get on for weeks, finally got homepage up today but none of other pages off frontpage, someone please tell me if it is just me?

It's just you. It's working fine for me.

5. Epcot or MGM ...please discuss

See above.

6. Other sites to visit in Orlando.... ie what do on day we arrive, arrive at 10:30 from Milwaukee.... the wife is keen on Belz outlets are they worth for bargins???

There's an outlet mall on the freeway right by Disney World. Not sure of the name of this one, but I've never been impressed by their prices. They've got some major stores in there (including Barney's New York), but the deals have never been that good to me. But after I got a $300 suede jacket at Foley's for $7.99, I haven't been impressed with much. The best thing in there is a Disney outlet store with merchandise they're no longer selling in the park. The only other place I've bought anything in there is the Nike store, because they had orange shox. Couldn't pass that up.

If you've got a rental car or don't mind a cab ride, I would highly recommend what others have said on here, Universal Studios. They have two parks there...Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Islands of Adventure has more thrill rides and the decor is absolutely stunning. They put a lot of work and money into this one and it shows. My number one ride there is the 3-D Spiderman ride. This one is worth waiting in line 90 minutes for.

I haven't ventured out much further than the parks myself. The only other thing I've done is Magic games, but you'll need to check their schedule on that one.

7. where to get cheap tickets, mousesavers has link to get tickets at last years prices, as price just went up, which is about $130 each for the two days[/QUOTE]

For single day tickets, it's tough to get discounted ones, unless you go to a broker. That's always risky, though. If you book a room through Disney, you can get tickets from them at a discounted price. You have to do this at the time you book your room...you have to pay full price for tickets at the gate or at your resort's front desk. It's usually best to just suck it up and buy them through Disney as a) the discounts at brokers aren't going to be more than about $5 per ticket and b) there's no way to know if the ticket you buy from a broker is any good.

 

MGM or EPCOT: Never been to MGM.

Hotel/Accommodations: I did a package with a travel agency and got a good price on a CourtYard Marriott on Sand Lake Blvd. plus Alamo Rent-a-Car that time, couldn't tell you about in what hotel to stay if you're not doing a travel agency. The other time I stayed at a Comfort Inn Suites on Coral Lake (by Sand Lake) and got a government discount. Can't help you here, either...

Other Sites: see my previous post with what to see

Cheap tickets: online packages directly from www.disneyworld.com (pick up at park).
--------------

Dang, amfootball, that's a big load of info. Good stuff.

 

the food. and there are some rides back there as well...the ride in the norway pavillion is called the Maelstrom, and it's pretty good.

but go with MGM, then. that's not a bad call, at all. again...eat pizza at mama melrose's if you end up there! the brown derby is really the only nice sit-down restaurant there...and i don't like it much...but check out the menus online, and see if it appeals to you more. my family loves the brown derby...i just don't. the 50's prime time diner is kinda fun...it's like you're in a typical home in the 50's or 60's in america, eating around the TV. old reruns are shown on the tv's..."mom" is the chef and the waiters/waitresses pretend to be "brother" or "sister." the food is pretty good there.

ride Tower of Terror. don't get out of there without riding that. great freaking ride. a drop ride with incredible theming around the Twilight Zone concept. very, very well done.

at any park you go to, be there when it opens. particularly since you're only working on 2 days.

as amfootball said...definitely stay at a disney resort. it's part of the experience.