Disney World advice thread

We did WDW about 4 years ago. Stayed at the smaller of the two Animal Kingdom hotels, I think it's called Kidani.
Amazing when we checked in, pulled the drapes and had a giraffe right outside the window. We had some kind of VIP deal where we had access to the 6th floor concierge area that included comp continental breakfast in the morning and beer and wine in the afternoon, plus concierge service. The African dinner buffet was great (and we don't usually do buffets).
It was very noticeable that a majority of the employees were African emigrants who truly appreciated being here and did whatever they could to make your visit enjoyable.
Highly recommend the Sunrise Safari. It is a morning tram ride through the Animal Kingdom next to the theme park, just as the animals are waking up and leaving their caves for morning feeding. The tram ride ends at the theme park where you are escorted to an excellent breakfast buffet. Then early entry into the theme park.
Hoop-de-Doo was hokey and fun (it is Disney, of course). All-you-can eat BBQ (ribs, chicken, sausage, try-tip). "May I have another bucket of meat please?" The beer was a Bud Light. It was so bad we only drank 3 pitchers.
We went in June and suffered through the rainy season. That was the only complaint.
Our vacation was 12 days. We spent 3 at Universal (my kid is a Harry Potter freak) and one week at Disney. The extra day was "Culture Day." We went to the Kennedy Space Center and took in a ballgame at Daytona Beach.

 

My DIL is a HUGE Disney freak, and we went last year with their family (kids 3 & 1) and my wife. We went the week after Thanksgiving, which is THE best week of the year to go. Weather is bearable, crowds are down and all the Christmas lights are up at all of the parks. We did four parks in five days: Farted around the Magic Kingdom for a bit the first day (Saturday), then did Hollywood Studios on Sunday, MK on Monday. Tuesday, we took as a rest day, although we did make a trip to Disney Springs for the afternoon (meh, basically a mall on steroids), Epcot on Wednesday and Animal Kingdom on Thursday. By the time we got to Thursday, we were cooked, and my wife was seriously ill, although we didn't know it at the time (pneumonia>dehydration landed her in the ER two days after we got home. Animal Kingdom is OK, but if you have to sacrifice one of the parks, that's the one I'd pick.

We stayed at the Fort Wilderness cabins. Very reasonable and very nice. As for rides, don't buy into the negative comments on the Disney site, bite the bullet and pay extra for the Fastpass. It cuts your wait time in the lines for the rides by more than half, plus it helps you in setting your plans, when you know you have to be at a particular ride at a certain time. If you have small kids, do 1-2 character dinners. The quality of the food varies (best was the Tusker House in Animal Kingdom, a great African-style buffet), but it's fun and the kids will get a kick out of meeting their favorite characters.

By now, you should have the latest edition of the Pass-Porter Guide to Disney World, which is the bible for planning a trip. It breaks everything down at each facility and is independent of the Disney Corp, so you get honest assessments of the attractions.

Like I said, my son and DIL are experts at stretching their dollars at Disney World; they've been multiple times, and we're already talking about going back in 2019.

 

I haven't been back since the FastPasses switched from being an in-park thing to an online version of the Oklahoma land rush, so I won't speak to the mechanics of getting from ride to ride. I would highly recommend getting one of these Disney planner people or a travel guide to help with it. Decision fatigue is no joke.

I will share the best Disney advice I ever got prior to the one time I took my son and his cousins. Let's go back to 2008 and hear from @heyabbott

Damn if he wasn't right. You've sort of got to make your peace with what you're doing and be ready to roll with it as soon as you're down there.

• Rent a stroller for your 5-year-old. There will be much protesting and whaling and gnashing of teeth and perhaps an initial refusal to ride. Just store your stuff in it and wait an hour. They'll come around.
• Find one of those deals where you pay for all your meals up front. The snack bars and fast food places are mediocre, just like everywhere else in the real world. But there are several sit-down restaurants that are actually quite good, some very good, and you get to do some of those as well.
• Stay on property, but don't be afraid to go downmarket. Staying on property gets you into a park an hour early (different one each day), and let's you use the shuttle buses and never worry about parking or Orange/Osceola County traffic, which is hell on earth. We stayed at Wide World of Sports, which had rooms that looked like a Super 8 (albeit a really clean one), but everybody was so worn out at night that all we did was sleep. And it still had food service options and a nice pool.
• One park per day is fine. If you can, try to plan it so that Magic Kingdom is the last day, or last two days. Epcot and Animal Kingdom are fun (Hollywood Studios too but it doesn't have enough rides), but they can feel like a letdown to kids after MK. If you do them first, they'll enjoy them just fine.

 

Sent you a message. Been there a few times. Lots of good advice on this threat already, so I'll save my big spiel. Main thing is if you do Disney World, have a plan. It's four parks (six if you add water parks) and a lot to see and do, so much that you can't possibly do it all in one trip, so go in with those expectations.

Planning is key, though. Disney can be very overwhelming, but with the right plan, it can be a breeze.

 

That's very solid advice. Don't kill yourself (or your kids) trying to "get to everything." Get to what you can, enjoy it all and you'll save yourself a ton of stress.

Also, I know the first time we went, we thought we'd "maximize" our time by flying in early (6 a.m. flight = waking the kids up 3 a.m.), figuring they'd sleep on the plane and/or nap in the afternoon, then hit Epcot for a half day in the late afternoon early evening. Our oldest never fell back asleep and wound up unable to fall asleep until 10 p.m. There was so much excitement and stimulation. It really set us back for the next two days as he was overtired and a nightmare to deal with.

This year, we chalked up the first day to travel and pool time, flew in later (11 a.m. flight) and everything that followed was much easier (having the separate bedroom in the cabins helped, too).

Your kids are older, so you aren't likely going to face that challenge as much, but we're going to adopt that strategy for the foreseeable future.

 

The one thing I get with a lot of people that go to Disney is what I call "hitting the Disney wall." It happens unless you plan to avoid it. It's just human nature to get there and want to do it, see it, experience it all. First things first, NOBODY realizes how much walking you're going to do. I'm talking an average of 7 miles a day, some days as much as 10 miles. Adrenaline and the stimulation will sustain you for a couple of days, but then you will hit that Disney wall and by the third or fourth day you're snapping at each other, getting aggravated (especially when it's hot) and it's all downhill from there.

It's best to always build in a rest day, even if it's a day you only do half a day in the park. The tendency, because you spent so much money, is to get your money's worth and the way to do that is to "not sit around the damn hotel room." So, you want to be in the parks from park open to park close. It doesn't take long for that to catch up with you. So, now I have that day in the middle of our trip where we don't do anything except rest. We sleep late, we take our time getting dressed. We go to the pool for a couple of hours. We visit the arcade. Those days, we usually schedule one meal at a resort to get us out of our hotel. But we avoid the parks, we avoid that hustle and bustle. And we go to bed at a decent hour, ready to resume the trip.

Other piece of advice I always give is take midday breaks. If you want to get the most out of Disney, I think the first hour of park opening is critical because a lot of vacationers are late risers, so you can take advantage of a somewhat empty park in the first hour, hour and a half. Then when it starts to get really crowded (and hot) around Noon, you go back to the room, either take a nap with young ones, or let the older kids swim. Then return to the park around 4 or 5 p.m. with recharged batteries.

 

This post is so on point. It also explains the appeal of spending a bit more on the hotel and not going with a bare bones, off-property approach. At least by staying on-property, getting to and from the parks is fast and easy, making it easy to head back to the hotel for an hour or two and then head back to the park. Also, you don't feel like you're wasting time and money by hanging out at the hotel for a day, or an afternoon, or whatever. There's plenty to do and you can relax and enjoy a little bit of downtime.

It was easy for us to get to the park at opening because our kids are up early, but I can't imagine rolling in there at 11 a.m. and spending the entire day fighting the crowds. You can do so much in that first hour.

 

Kiddos gotta kiddo ...

 

That is an example of when it is appropriate to beat a child within an inch of his or her life.
Not just a spanking, like 'go cut me a switch so I can whoop your @ss' beating.

 

I loved amusement parks as a youth, but I've never been much of a Disney fan.
My wife recently got the twins Disney sheets for their cribs, and my first thought was 'How lame.'

Anyway, they are two young for a trip to Disney at 2.
I'm holding out hope that Disney will go bankrupt and close all of its parks in the next three years.

 

We went a few years ago and I had a much better time than I anticipated.

We are considering going back this winter. You can get some very reasonable packages through Costco.