Walt Disney World Planning Tips: Family Travel

After five family trips to Walt Disney World, and many more to come (ha), I have learned MANY things about planning this trip as a family. I’m updating this massive post with my latest to help you plan your own magical time.

Pick your Date

We wanted to go at a time when it wasn’t too hot in sunny Florida but also, and more importantly, when the parks wouldn’t be at their busiest (President’s Day, our Family Day weekend is SUPER busy for example)

After speaking with friends who had gone in January, and checking out some very handy Walt Disney World blogs (like this one and this one), we found links like this one that told us when the busy times were.  While we knew some rides wouldn’t be available (a common factor during ‘off peak’ weeks), this didn’t concern us.

Note: Sometimes when you go during ‘low season’ some rides will be unavailable because they use this time to work on them.

We’ve picked the last week of January or into the first week of February most years. Which sometimes happens to be my birthday as well. Woot. This year, for my 40th, we specifically kicked off the trip with my birthday at Magic Kingdom. That’s how I wanted to celebrate.

We have also gone the week before March break. Now, as the kids are getting older and we’ll soon be dealing with high school exams, we are back to looking at March Break. It will be busy, but we are confident that because of all we’ve learned over the years it won’t affect our time.

(Note: This year, the week in February was super busy for some reason. It was fine, but we noticed the difference.)

Book Ahead

Once you decide on your date of travel, you’ll need to worry about two major things when planning your trip: How you are getting to Orlando (your travel arrangements), and booking the place you are going to stay.

For the purpose of this post, because it has been our experience, I am going to talk about staying at Disney itself, at a Disney World property. There are many places nearby Disney that you can stay at, but we have always stayed on resort and love it.

We have often used points to fly (and save money!) before, or have waited for sales. When using points, you may need to book in advance to maximize which points to use.

Now, as the kids have gotten older, we’ve changed our strategy. Instead of only using Air Canada (and points) we have decided that our favourite flight is the evening on a Saturday with WestJet, and the Noon flight coming home with Air Canada (vs West Jet’s late evening flight coming home).

This is for my Ottawa friends who are planning – the reason is, the early morning wake up to make a 7 am flight is ROUGH and some of us don’t fly well to begin with. Having all day to finish packing and eating normally really makes a difference. Plus, the day we fly in is never a Park day, so really, we just end up being overly tired and hanging at the resort (which is fine, but doesn’t always work for us).

What to consider when looking at resorts

Next, you will want to book your resort stay.  To book your stay, and guarantee your resort won’t be booked up, you only need to put a $200 deposit down. You then have up to about 45 days before your actual trip to make changes.

Here’s also what I learned: If a better deal comes up, and there is availability at your resort, you can sometimes get that better deal applied. We’ve had this happen multiple times (although it’s not guaranteed).

Usually, the next year accommodations get posted around mid-June. If you are planning to go, book your resort ASAP, then swap if a deal is available.

This year, we booked at Disney’s Pop Century for the first time. I secured it in June. It was sold out very quickly so while there wasn’t a deal, it was still the better purchase (it’s less expensive than some others typically). But I could have missed it completely if I waited.

Booking your Resort

For many years, we stayed at and loved Port Orleans Riverside.  We took recommendations from people who had previously been there, searched websites for recommendations, and then looked at the price differences vs the facilities to make our decision.

Here’s the long and short of it: You can spend a lot more or less money depending on what you need or want. We basically ended up in the middle ground for budget.  Each resort has different restaurants, amenities,  themes, and so on, but ultimately, you need to decide what your priorities are.  We wanted something with easy access to food and transportation (although I would guess most have great transportation to the parks.)

Port Orleans Riverside (and nearby is the Port Orleans French Quarter which is also a great pick from what I hear) feels like you are somewhere different and it’s green and lush. In our early years, when we spent more time at the resort (and ended our park days earlier because the kids were younger) this was perfect.

Riverside has two transportation methods to use: Buses at four different stop points (it’s a big resort), that take you to the parks, but also a boat service to get to Disney Springs. We always enjoyed the boat.

Last year, when we stayed, we literally only showed up in our room for sleep, and the one ‘off park day’ we usually book.

Because of that, this year we decided to try Pop Century. It saves us about $100 a night, and has recently been refinished so the rooms were really new and well organized (lots of storage space). They aren’t huge in size, and ours had a murphy bed pull out (plus another bed) but it was perfect for our needs.

In addition, new this year is Disney’s Skyliner transportation service. These gondolas connect Pop Century, Art of Animation, Riviera and Caribbean Beach Resorts to Epcot and Hollywood, given us the Skyliner and bus as options. WE LOVED the Skyliner. It’s a total game changer for getting to and from Epcot and Hollywood.

It helped secure our decision that Pop is our new go-to resort.

NOTE: Most resorts are set for up to 4 people. This means that families of 5 or more, start to get limited in their options. You’ll notice that while Riverside will accommodate 5, Pop actually doesn’t (but the neighbouring Art of Animation will. There is price difference though!)

Using the My Disney Experience App

What you should do right away is download the My Disney Experience App Sign up for an account and set up the members of your travel party. If other adults are travelling, they can sign up for their own account and then you can link them together.  This will give you access, and everyone else you connect with, to your ticket information, booking dinner reservations, making FastPass selections, requesting special room needs and more.

This App is amazing. We use the app to keep an eye out on bus times at our resort, dining options nearby, booking and changing dining or FastPass selections and more. It’s the only app you’ll need the entire week you are there! Love it.

Dining and Food

I’ll update some of our favourite biets to eat in a whole other post, but there are a couple of things to note.

In the first few years of our Disney travels, we did opt for the Disney Dining Plan which included a quick service, snack and Table Service each day. Gratuities aren’t included, but a main course, dessert and drink are with table service.  A main, drink and dessert is also included in the quick service.  A snack is a variety of things: bakery bites are a snack, Mickey Ice Cream bars are snacks, and fresh fruit is a snack etc.

We spent a lot of time researching dining plans and deciding if it was best for us at the time because the kids were under 10. Even the first year when we had our son turn 10 and become an ‘adult’ for Disney, it still worked.

It’s nice to have the ease of buying food and booking any dinners you like. However, after that last year with our eldest being an adult (but not really eating adult portions) we decided to start going off-plan. The past couple of years we saved SO MUCH money off plan. In part because the kids are both adults (and the cost difference no longer makes sense) and because we just don’t eat that many table services, expensive meals or even that amount of food.

I’ll do a separate food post with our tips on dining, on and off plan, but message me if you have questions.

Also, it’s important to note that our goal being off plan was to still never say no to a meal or bite we wanted – even eating when and whatever we wanted we still saved.

NOTE: You can book resort and park passes and opt out of dining. Sometimes, dining is included as a special, or you get a discount if you book a complete package with dining. It’s worth crunching the numbers to see! Bottom line – if your kids are under 10, definitely consider the dining plan.

What I do recommend is that you make dining reservations in advance.  These can change right up until the day before your reservation, but some character meals and popular places to eat book up quickly. If you know where you want to eat, book it as soon as you can!

What we did find was that most restaurants took a certain amount of walk-ins the day of, but if you really want to eat with Cinderella, I wouldn’t take the chance. Dining locations with characters, or ones like Be Our Guest will all need reservations (otherwise, you can wait in a stand by line but those can be long. I may wait for some rides but I don’t love waiting for food!)

180 days before you will be notified that you can start making your dining selections.  Even if you aren’t sure of all of your plans yet, it’s worth booking them, especially for the character experiences.

Here’s how we did it:

We decided which park we wanted to visit on which day, and then focused on food in or around the park.  If we desperately wanted to eat at a certain restaurant, and the day we planned on being at that park wasn’t available, we swapped our park days.  Yes, our trip was heavily planned around food (of course!)

We based our restaurant selections on how many stars they received on Trip Advisor, the menu, the atmosphere and the location.  Menu was very important! Also, some restaurants use up two credits for a meal instead of one, so we were cautious of that. There weren’t any restaurants we looked at that didn’t have fantastic, varied options for the kids, so it was more about what we wanted to eat.

Now that we are off plan, we still basically use the same formula and focus on location and menu.

TIP: Use the My Disney Experience App to keep an eye out for ‘better’ reservation times or experiences if you don’t get them when you first try. I couldn’t get reservations at Oga’s Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge when I first tried (and that was 180 days out!) but in the months leading up to our trip I kept checking and scored some!!

What Park on What Days? Our schedule

Since year 1, this has been the order we have done the parks:

Fly into Orlando Saturday

Magic Kingdom Sunday

Epcot Monday

Hollywood Tuesday

BREAK on Wednesday (swimming around the resort, shopping at Disney Springs)

Animal Kingdom Thursday

Magic Kingdom Friday

Fly home Saturday

This year, we added an extra day so after our day and doubled up on Hollywood (because of Star Wars) and Magic Kingdom.

If you can swing it, I always recommend doubling up on Magic Kingdom Days. There’s just so much to do and repeat, and it gives you the chance to make sure you see their fireworks at least one night.

The reason we pick our order like that is because we want to book end the trip with Magic Kingdom, and Epcot is usually a quieter day (lots of eating) so since Sunday is a full day after travelling, and we stay up late for the fireworks, we don’t want a go-go-go pack on Monday.

I consider Epcot and Animal Kingdom parks to be less ‘hustle’ and more chill.

Next year, we are looking at March Break so we may change up the order to ensure we don’t end up at Magic on a Saturday if possible (I worry about it being extra busy)

Also, every day, typically, one of the parks has ‘magic hours’ for people staying on resort. These are extended park hours. You could try to make your park schedule based on this if you can their hours planned in advance.

FastPass

You may have heard about the FastPass at Disney.  Basically, it’s like a ‘cutting the line’ ticket that you can plan for.  It’s included in your ticket. You get 3 FastPasses per park per day, and there are some limitations. When choosing your FastPass, you are given grouped options, which means you may not get the exact 3 FastPasses you want. There are different tiers.

No matter what, USE THEM. Book them as soon as you can (60 days out from your trip if you are staying at a resort). They were amazing for us.  There are definitely better ways to use them – I’ll try to put together a list (for example, some rides don’t have long wait times so it’s not worth using the FP)

In our early years, when the kids were doing fewer rides, we Fastpassed a lot of character meet and greets and that was totally worth it. Now, we use them for all the most amazing rides possible.

Once you decide your priorities, plan to go for those.

One year, I stayed up until 1 am to try and FastPass (Anna and Elsa were hard to get at the time!) and the system wasn’t ready yet, so I bailed, woke up at 6:30 and got in. I actually didn’t get the first date I wanted for them (they were booked already!) but did get our additional date since we doubled up on visiting Magic Kingdom. That’s how popular some of these FastPasses can be.

A quick note about Rise of the Resistance:

I know I have to do more posts about these stuff, like about Galaxy’s Edge – but I will say this. At this time, Rise of the Resistance is the most sought after ride at Disney (and that’s saying a lot because there are still 4 hour waits some days for Avatar’s Flights of Passage!)

You can’t FastPass Rise currently, but they have a Boarding Pass System. It’s all done through the My Disney Experience App (see how important that App is?) and Boarding Pass opportunities don’t open up until the Park opens for that day. BUT you and all of your party who plans to ride will need to be scanned INTO the park to have a chance. Then, when the Park opens, the App opens up the chance and you try to get them.

This means that going there at 6 am won’t matter. Sure, Disney has been letting people into the Park earlier than it opens (because otherwise the lines were getting ridiculous) but sitting in the park that early doesn’t give you a better chance. You do want to give yourself enough time to catch a bus, or uber, and get to the park, through security and find a place to use Wifi or data.

So when we went, both days, the park opened at 8 am. We arrived on the first day at 7:15, the second around 7:30. Although we were in the park and nothing else was open, it was nice not to stress about the security line to make sure we were in.

I used wifi and the app and Andy used data and the app so at 8 am when passes were available, we both tried to get them.

We did both days, and let me tell you this ride is an EXPERIENCE. I loved it so much. I can’t say much more because I don’t want to offer spoilers – but YES it was worth us planning the extra day for it to make sure we got on it.

Other things to note:

Magic Bands are amazing. They aren’t mailed to Canadians ahead of time, but you get them at check in, and with your My Disney Experience App or web log in, you can customize them with your names, colours etc. They link up to your credit card too. You can pay for merchandise with them, use them for your meal plan etc. We didn’t need to carry wallets.

The Magical Express (which my son called the Evil Express upon leaving because it was going to take us home) is your transportation to and from the airport and resorts.  It’s easy to find at the Orlando airport, but they do pick you up on your day of departure about 4 hours before your flight time. You need to call and add yourself to their list to ensure you have a spot on the bus when you arrive or depart. This needs to be done in advance.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that we travel with the kids quite a bit, but that we take rather relaxing vacations.  A lot of downtime is involved.  We weren’t sure how Disney would be for us since we are crowd-avoiders usually, however, thanks to the time of year we went, plus some great planning (and a little luck), it turned out to be amazing. You can guess how much we love it since we keep going back!

We ran the kids pretty hard some days with a few very late nights, but what we decided to do was sleep if we needed to sleep. That is, there were no days that we got to any park before it opens. For some, this isn’t great planning since it’s quiet first thing and you can get to some rides quicker, but for us, the extra leisurely morning set us up well for a really great day. Know your kids and take breaks when you need to. We aren’t rope-droppers. We don’t want to rush our mornings (we typically would arrive at the parks at 9:30ish)

You will NOT get to see everything at Disney in a week. It’s impossible, and you’ll be disappointed if you tell yourself you are missing out on stuff, so pick your priorities, expect some surprises and know that because you won’t cover it all, you should just enjoy what you can!

Be opportunistic – this works well for us. Sometimes, if we walk by and a line up is short, we just hop in! We don’t plan every moment of the day because some of our best experiences have been impromptu.

I’ll have more about food in another post! That deserves its own! Plus, some tips for planning out the week and our favourite rides and shows.

Have questions? Ask away!

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