I have been chatting a lot with friends planning Disney trips lately - I love it! If you have questions, want to learn the Disney language, let me know! But, the most important thing to realize is there is a timeline to get things done and make things work smoothly. If you are a first time Disney-er - here is the schedule for you to remember (I've linked a lot of the pages for help):
- Settle on the time of year, the location of your hotel, and the parks you want to see and do at least 8-10 months in advance. (think about Disney Festivals that draw crowds to different parks; the fact that pools at the hotels are closed most of Florida's "winter" and more.) Also think about where you want to be in terms of transportation to and fro parks.
- Book your vacation (preferably within a Disney resort if you want my help, I am no good on help of travel outside of parks!) 7-8 months in advance.
- 7-8 months in advance, look up park schedules. Map out when you want to be where. Start thinking about ideal restaurant reservations! Research your food!
- 180 days out of the day you arrive - 7am, book your restaurants online and/or on the phone. The restaurants that go the quickest are Be Our Guest, Chef Mickey's, anything with princesses. You can book your entire vacation's worth of restaurants from 180 days out of your first day there, so you will have a better chance at getting the tougher restaurants towards the end of your trip.
- Look into any special experiences you may want to do - Peter Pan's Pirate Cruise, Spa, Golf, and book them.
- Take a break, you deserve it!
- Download the Disney World app and play around, you will be able to see wait times in all the parks and get to know the rides and how long the waits are… start making a list!
- 60 days out - have prepared a list of all where you would like to Fast Pass, then again, 7am - book all your fast passes for your entire trip. Anna and Elsa, 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, Toy Story Mania go the quickest here!
- Start to buy cheaper Mickey-themed clothing from Target or Kohls. (limits your expense when you hit the parks, everyone goes with the theme here, even Mom and Dad - wait until you see embroidered team-family shirts!).
- 2 weeks out - order from gardengrocer.com what you may need in your room and orlandostroller.com if you want a stroller.
- Pack, and get ready to have tons of fun!
Sounds like a lot, but if you stick to the timeline you parcel out the work and you have the best chance at getting all of the reservations you want. This way you are not overwhelmed and trying to plan and learn the whole thing in one week when you realize you can't get reservations in half the restaurants. Even though your vacation maybe more than 3, 4 or 5 months away, it will all be gone (or not ideal). So, take it from me! Take the time in advance, and it will be awesome! (IT WILL STILL BE AWESOME IF YOU DO IT LAST MINUTE TOO. JUST TRYING TO MAKE IT THE MOST IDEAL HERE!)
My blog has lots more info about what to do in advance, details on reservations and all that fun stuff, but ask away!
Additional Notes
ReplyDeleteGet you MDE (My Disney Experience) account set up on the Disney website as soon as you make your hotel reservation. This is the online tool for booking everything (Dining, FastPass, Online Check In, Magic Bands, and Tickets)
Dining Reservations can be Made 180 days prior to your Arrival Date for up to the first 10 days of your vacation. Online Reservations open at 6AM, Phone reservations open at 7AM. Online is easier to use. Make sure you have your MDE account and credit card all set up in the system, it will make this process much quicker. As stated in the Blog, Be Our Guest, Cinderella's Royal Table, O'Hana, Askerhaus, Chef Mickey, Victoria & Alberts, Fantasmic Dinner Package and California Grill may get completely booked within hours of the 6AM booking time. Some of the early days of your vacation may already be booked before your window opens, but there is usually availability at the end of your vacation. Also, if you want to get an 8AM breakfast reservation in the parks (most park restaurants open at 8AM) for a day when they open at 9AM (Most parks open at 9AM except for Extra magic Hours that open at 8AM), so you can be first in the park, these spots go quickly at all breakfast places in the parks.
Microsoft excel Hint - enter your arrival date in an excel spreadsheet, then in another cell, calculate that date - 180, and Excel will display the date you can start making reservations.
Look into and do the Fantasmic dinner package, especially if you are on the meal plan. It gets you a meal and premium access to fantasmic at Hollywood studios, which guarantees good seats for a great show, that you would otherwise have to line up for 1.5+ hrs before the show to get comparable seats.
Park Schedules are posted prior to the 180 day mark, so plan your parks then, but be forewarned that park schedules often change about a month or 2 before you arrive. Normally hours get extended based on the volume of bookings, also evening extra magic hours often get extended from 1hr to 2Hrs. Morning Extra Magic Hours almost always stay the same and are only 1Hr.
When planning which parks on which days, consult an online "Disney crowd calendar" Google it, several will come up. The predict which parks will be least crowded each day, and usually do a good job. Some of this planning is counter intuitive. You may look at the park hours and say, "hey look Hollywood studios is open late and has magic hours, lets go there that day", the same logic that makes you think this, makes every other person planning there vacation think the same thing, so all the sudden you have extra late hours and magic hours to spend in lines with every other person in the world, when another park may have been completely empty where you could have done twice as much in half the time. These crowd calendars explain all this backward logic for you.
Fast Passes open 60 days prior to arrival at 12 Midnight for on property guests. Anna & Elsa meet is by far the hardest to get with Seven Dwarfs a close second most others are available easily on day 60. On our recent trip, Anna and Elsa was only available on the last day of our trip, 7 dwarfs was open on day 3 of our trip and everyday after that, nothing else was overbooked. But on day 30, Fast Pass opens to offsite guests and Locals. So tons of fast passes and early times will disappear on day 30, so definitely have your plans nailed down by then. As for Fast pass strategy overall. You get 3 per day that can be booked at 60 days out, On any given day, once you USE those 3, you can book a 4th fast pass at a kiosk in the park, after the 4th is used, you can book a 5th, etc... Why does this matter, book your first 3 fast passes for the morning so you can use them up quicker. Ideally, you have booked 9-10, 10-11, and 11-12. Then you can hit a kiosk on the way to lunch and try to book a 4th from 1-2 or 2-3, etc...
ReplyDeleteDon't waste fast passes on parades or fireworks viewing areas, you still have to show up early to get a good area on the premium sections because of all the other fast pass people, and they often fill up anyway making you fast pass useless. Just fight for your spot with the rest of the masses and save FP's for rides.
Finally if you have a question or want more info, go to disboards.com . There are disney pros way beyond anything we know and they have info and opinions on everything. They have great info on Fast Pass priorities on one of the threads which is a must read. That way you do not waste a Fast Pass on a ride that never has any rides. Here it is http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3326057