Mar 27 2014

Disney World Planning Basics: Admission Ticket Options

When planning your visit to Walt Disney World another thing that you will need to pick is the type of admission ticket that you will purchase. Just like with everything else, Disney World gives you lots of options!

Single Day Tickets Just like the name implies, this ticket will get you a single day admission into one of the four Walt Disney World theme parks; Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom. This type of ticket really only makes sense if you are only going to be visiting Disney World for one day. As of 2014, these tickets are about $100 per day.
Multi Day Base Tickets These tickets will get you admission into one theme park per day for however many days you purchase. These tickets are available for anywhere between two to ten days worth of admissions. They must be used within 14 days of the first use. As of 2014, these tickets start at about $200 for two days up to $377 for ten days. As you can see, the more days you purchase, the more the price per day drops!

Once you decide if you will be visiting for a single day or multiple days, next up you get to choose your ticket options. These ticket options are only able to be added to the Multi Day Base Tickets.

Park Hopper Option For an additional charge of $49 for a one to three-day Multi Day Base Ticket or an additional $60 for a four-day or more Multi Day Base Ticket, this feature will allow you same day admission to all four of the Disney World theme parks so you can enjoy visiting more than one theme park in a single day.
Water Park Fun & More Option For an additional charge of $60 for a two-day or more Multi Day Base Ticket, this option allows you an equal number of visits to the number of theme park day admissions you purchased to the following locations: Disney’s Blizzard Beach, Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon, DisneyQuest Indoor Interactive Theme Park, ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course, Disney’s Fantasia Gardens Miniature Golf Course (before 4pm) and Disney’s Winter Summerland Miniature Golf Course (before 4pm). So if you buy a three-day Multi Day Base Ticket with the Water Park Fun & More Option, you can enjoy three days in the theme parks plus three visits to these other locations. All of the theme park admissions and the additional option visits must be used within 14 days of the first use.
Park Hopper and Water Park Fun & More Option Or you can go all out and for an additional charge of just $86 for a two-day or more Multi Day Base Ticket, you can have all of these options included!

Other Considerations

Annual Passes If you are going to be visiting more than once during a 12 month period, you may want to consider an Annual Pass. For example, let’s say you are going to visit Disney World twice this year for three days each trip. With Disney World’s current 2014 ticket pricing, if you were to purchase two three-day Multi Day Base Tickets with the Park Hopper Option, it would be $344 per trip for a total of $688 (including tax). On the flip side, you could purchase an Annual Pass for just $675 (including tax) for a savings of $13. This doesn’t include the savings you will see from the free parking and special discounts that you receive on dining, resort stays and merchandise as an Annual Passholder.

Where To Purchase Always looking for convenience, I purchase my tickets (usually Annual Passes) straight from Disney’s website. You can also check out Touring Plans ticket calculator, if you would like to purchase your tickets from a discounter. Please be sure you are purchasing your tickets from an authorized Disney ticket discount wholesaler! Watch out for random ticket stands set up around Orlando. If the seller asks you what specific dates that you will be using the tickets, this is a huge red flag! Some of these random sellers have been known to buy up and resell partially used admission tickets. Your tickets will be one of the most expensive parts of your trip, so please use a reputable ticket seller so that you protect your investment.

What about you? Which type of tickets do you usually purchase and from where?

Please leave a comment!

Mar 18 2014

Disney World Planning Basics: A Planning Timeline

Planning a trip to Walt Disney World can be a daunting task, especially for a first timer. It’s almost like planning a wedding with all of the details and deadlines. Here is the basic timeline that I follow when planning my Disney World vacations.

As Soon As You Start Thinking About A Trip As soon as you start considering a trip to Walt Disney World the first thing to do is sign up for a My Disney Experience account. This is Walt Disney World’s official site where you will be able to book your room reservation, dining reservations, purchase and link your park admission tickets and book your Fastpass+ reservations.
12 Months Or More In Advance Now is the time to research where you want to stay and to book your room reservation.
10 Months In Advance If you are going to be flying to Disney World, now is the time to start checking for flights and once you find a great deal that works for you, book it.
8 Months In Advance You should now start researching restaurants, tours and experiences that you would like to book and make a list of your most wanted reservations.
6 1/2 Months In Advance This is the time to check the park hours for your trip, choose what days you would like to visit each park and start getting it all down on paper by creating a planning spreadsheet. At this point, it’s a good idea to take your list of most wanted reservations and match it up to what day you will be in each park.
6 Months In Advance (180 Days Exactly) This is an important day! Today’s the day to book your dining, tour and experience reservations! Some things like dining with the princesses at Cinderella’s Royal Table book up within minutes of the reservation window opening. Grab your list of most wanted reservations and get busy booking them fast! Fill them in on your planning spreadsheet as you get them reserved.
5 Months In Advance Next up is researching your different ticket options to figure out which one is best for you and your family.
4 Months In Advance Now is the time to purchase the admission tickets that you researched and then link them to your My Disney Experience account as soon as they arrive. If you are going to be renting a car while in Disney World, this is a great time to book one.
3 1/2 Months In Advance (100 Days) This is a perfect time to create a clever countdown to your vacation to get the whole family in on the anticipation and excitement. You might try a colorful paper chain, a cute Disney calendar to mark the days off of or just a simple countdown on the refrigerator!
3 Months In Advance At this point, you can research what attractions you and your family would like to see at the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. Because Walt Disney World is so large, it is very difficult to see everything during one trip, so be sure to get everyone’s top priorities. Add these attractions to your planning spreadsheet on the day that you will be visiting that particular park.
2 Months In Advance (60 Days Exactly) Another important day! Today’s the day for guests staying on property to book Fastpass+ reservations! In case you aren’t familiar with it, Fastpass+ is Disney’s ride reservation system that allows you to book a reserved one hour window to enjoy an attraction. You can pre-book Fastpass+ reservations on three different attractions in one park per day. These are great to use for the very popular headliner attractions to help minimize your wait in line. This is also the day for on property guests to check in online for your Disney resort hotel room.
1 Month In Advance (30 Days Exactly)This is the day for guests staying off property to book their Fastpass+ reservations. Also, now is the time to finalize your planning spreadsheet making sure it includes all of your dining, tour, experience and Fastpass+ reservations. You can even create more detailed daily plans at this time if you wish. This is also a perfect time to develop a packing list to make sure you remember to take everything you will need for your trip!
1 Week In Advance It’s finally time to confirm all of your reservations, print your travel documents and pack.
Last but not least, have a great trip!

Hopefully, this timeline will give you a good starting point for planning your Disney World vacation. It has always been a big help for me! And don’t forget to check out all of the great links in this post for lots of information to help with your planning process. After all, the planning and anticipation are half of the fun!

Mar 10 2014

Disney World Planning Basics: Do I Need A Car?

One of the questions that I get asked most often by people while they are planning their vacation to Walt Disney World is if they will need a car while they are there. Here are a few things to consider when making the decision.

Cost Depending on what size car you need, you can get some great deals on rental cars at the Orlando International Airport. Even with a great deal, a car can cost a few hundred dollars for a week. Plus you will also need to pay for gasoline and tolls. Those expenses can really eat into your vacation budget.
Convenience Think about what is more convenient for you. Do you like the idea of getting into your own rental car and going to the parks on your schedule? On the flip side, do you feel like it is more convenient to just hop on the abundant Disney transportation and leave the driving to them?
Visiting Outside Attractions Are you planning to visit any other attractions besides Walt Disney World while you are in Orlando? If so, having your own rental car is very handy. Now, if you are traveling solo or as a couple, just catching a cab to Universal Studios on the day you want to visit is no big deal. But if you are a large family, especially one with small children that still require car seats, it’s not that simple.
Traveling Party Who are you traveling with? Do you need to take large strollers or wheelchairs to the park? This can certainly be done by using Disney World transportation, but sometimes the buses are full making it more difficult.
Where Are You Staying Are you staying on property at a Disney World resort hotel or are you staying off property? If you are staying off property, the hotel that you are staying at might say that they offer free transportation to the Disney World theme parks. Definitely get all of the details from your hotel about this. You will often find that it is a shuttle bus service that only runs certain times of the day. If that is the case, you will be forced to come and go by that bus schedule. That might work fine for some people, but others might need the flexibility that a rental car would offer.
Where Are You Going Inside Disney World Will you be visiting other resort hotels during your stay? If so, that can be very time-consuming to do without your own rental car. Disney’s official stance is to allow at least 90 minutes to travel between two resorts. That is because you will have to ride at least two forms of transportation to do it. So if you are staying at Pop Century and you are trying to get to your character meal at Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary, it can take a long time on Disney transportation!
Supplies Are you staying at one of the Disney World resort hotels that offers a kitchen in your room? Or are you traveling with an infant that requires a lot of supplies? In either of these cases, you might want your own rental car to be able to leave Disney World and do some grocery shopping. However, it is not always necessary. Every Disney World resort hotel that offers rooms with kitchens also has a shop where you can buy basic food items to cook in your room. Other people use grocery delivery services like Garden Grocer.

My Thoughts: This year I will be taking two trips to Walt Disney World. During one, we will be renting a car and during the other, we will be using Disney transportation exclusively. During our first trip this year, we will be renting a car, because my husband is coming with us and he prefers to drive. We will be staying at Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa that features rooms with full size kitchens, so we’ll be going to the grocery store to get a few snacks and drinks to have in our room. We’ve also made some dining reservations at other Disney World resort hotels which would require us to take two modes of transportation to get to them if we didn’t have the car. During my second trip this year, I will be traveling with my parents and my kids and I’ll be staying at the Art of Animation resort. I prefer to leave the driving to Disney and I won’t have a kitchen in my room. When my kids were younger, I really loved having the rental car. It was so convenient not having to wait in line for a bus or to stand on a crowded bus holding a baby. Plus getting two kids, a huge double stroller and a backpack full of baby supplies on a crowded bus or monorail wasn’t always easy.

Whether you chose to rent a car of your own or to take Disney transportation, they both can work for you!

Mar 7 2014

Friday Favorites – Best Disney World Websites

For today’s Friday Favorites, I wanted to share with you some of my all time favorite Disney websites. I enjoy visiting these sites daily and they were my inspiration to create my own blog about my passion…Walt Disney World!

www.touringplans.com I absolutely love this website! I have used it for years when planning my own Disney World vacations. This site has comprehensive information about all of the parks, hotels and restaurants. It also includes a crowd calendar, blog and a great tool to create your own daily touring plans.
www.disneytouristblog.com Another one of my all time favorite websites! The author of this site is an amazing photographer and posts tons of beautiful photos. This site also has lots of great information written with a terrific sense of humor and a section of Trip Reports that will make you feel like you are right there along with him.
www.disneyfoodblog.com For all of you foodies out there, this website is for you! This site features everything you ever wanted to know about eating in Disney World including menus, reviews and amazing photos!
www.mousesavers.com Do you want to save some money? If so, check out this website! This site has ideas, information and codes for getting discounts during your Disney World vacation.
www.allears.net This is another great website! This site includes lots of information, reviews and photos about everything in Disney World. They also have a great weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to. I am always so excited when it comes to my email each week!
www.wdwinfo.com Another amazing website to get all of your Disney questions answered! This site covers everything Disney and has an amazing Forums section. If you have a question, it has probably been asked and answered there.

I hope you will enjoy all of these websites as much as I do and find them useful in planning your magical Walt Disney World vacation!

What about you? Do you have any favorite Disney websites?

Please leave a comment!

Mar 6 2014

Disney World Tips & Tricks – Have A Plan

There are a lot of tips and tricks that will help you make the most out of your Disney World vacation, but I believe the most valuable tip is to have a plan. That, of course, is just my opinion and I am a planner by nature, but I can’t imagine visiting Disney World with no plan whatsoever. Let’s say for example you were to visit New York City for your family vacation. Would you arrive with no idea what sights to see, no dining reservations, no show tickets? Of course not! Well, Disney World is twice the size of Manhattan! Now if you are one of those people who prefers to wing it then I admire you, but I get shaky just thinking about it! Just how detailed you want to be with your plan is up to you. I create a spreadsheet that is an outline of where I’m going to go, where I’m going to eat and what I’m going to see. Compulsive, right? I know, but here’s how I put it together!

First, I make a column for each day I’m going to be on vacation and label them.
Next, in each column I enter the park hours for the four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom) for that day. I also note the days I can take advantage of Extra Magic Hours with an asterisk (*). Click this park hours link to find the times that the parks will be open during your vacation.
Then I create a row for each unit of time that I would naturally divide my day into. For my family, we have breakfast, morning, lunch, afternoon, dinner and evening. Your family might divide your days differently. For example, you may need a unit for nap time if you have young children.
Now the real fun begins! I start filling in the units of time with where I will be visiting each day, what restaurants I will be eating at, and any other miscellaneous activities that I have planned.
Under each column I have created, I make a list of the attractions that my family and I would like to see that day.

Here’s a sample of a few days out of my trip from last summer.

	Saturday	Sunday	Monday
MK Hours	9am-11pm	9am-1am*	9am-11pm
EP Hours	9am-9pm	9am-9pm	9am-9pm
HS Hours	8am-10pm	8am-10pm	9am-12am*
AK Hours	8am*-7pm	9am-7pm	8am*-8pm
Breakfast	Boma	Starring Rolls	Kiosk
Morning	MK – Frontier/Adventure	Hollywood Studios	Epcot – Future World
Lunch	Pecos Bills	Sci-Fi Dine In	Sunshine Seasons
Afternoon	Break	Break	Break
Dinner	Beaches N Cream	Earl of Sandwich	The Plaza
Evening	Epcot – World Showcase	Downtown Disney	MK – Tomorrowland

	Magic Carpets	Toy Story	Test Track
	Jungle Cruise	Star Tours	Nemo
	Pirates	Rockin Roller Coaster	Imagination
	Big Thunder	Great Movie Ride	Living with the Land
	Splash Mountain	Tower of Terror	Soarin
	Country Bear Jamboree		Universe of Energy
	Enchanted Tiki Birds		Spaceship Earth

	Mexico Ride		Buzz Lightyear
	Norway Ride		Tomorrowland Speedway
			Space Mountain
			Carousel of Progress
			Monsters Inc
			Peoplemover

This is just my general outline that I use during my first stages of planning. I’m currently working on the one that I will use for my trip this summer. Each day I spend a little time making dining reservations, checking with my family to find out about their top priorities and organizing my spreadsheet. When I get to about 90 days out from my trip, I begin creating a detailed daily plan that I will carry to the parks with me. My daily plan will include dining confirmation numbers, the best order to see the rides to minimize wait times and fastpasses.

So this is the way I plan my Disney World vacations. Now it is up to you how you want to create your plan. You might want to be as detailed as me or just choose a park for each day and a few attractions you want to see there. My best tip would be to have some sort of plan..elaborate or simple. Walt Disney World is a huge place and you definitely want to make the most of your time there!

What about you? Do you have a plan when you visit Disney World? How do you go about creating it? Please leave a comment!