How I start planning a vacation to Disney World
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For those who have asked me for advice, this is my starting point! Disney World has been a wonderful family vacation spot for us since 2014. I found it quite fun for just about anyone in any stage of life, as you see from all the different Disney addicts out there and I am so happy to be joining the ranks to help others celebrate their lives by making great memories together. Thank you again for asking me to share my love for WDW, my safe and happy place.
The easiest way I can start you off is this:
DATE
TIME
PLACE
FUN
Go in that order and you’ll be fine.
First steps
1. Date. Figure out WHEN you want to go. I recommend going JANUARY through May or September-November. Those are low crowd times. When you’re new at it, the crowds are overwhelming and the heat added to that can make the trip miserable.
2. Time. The best advice I’ve ever followed is taking a break in the middle of the day. If you guys get up early during the week, get up early on your first day. Try the rope drop - it’s charming and worth getting up early - but you’ll be exhausted all the other days - so plan that for the first day. Then LEAVE the park between noon or 2pm if you got a late start and hit the resort pool,nap in your room, shower, change clothes, repack, private bathroom. or whatever helps you recharge. Go back for the magic: 3PM parade is definitely worth seeing - but you can see that the second day if you get up early the first day. That you you can catch the fireworks on the first night - my favorite reason to return at night.
3. Place. Pick a resort by your budget. How do you figure that out? 40% of my cost of going to Disney is the resort/hotel cost. The other is park tickets and food. Make it easy the first time and just shorten your trip to 3-5 days or your double your budget (ha!). For your family I would say the cost is $1500. You cannot do WDW in less than 3 days, especially if you’ve never been there. I would start with a Disney resort - try Pop Century or Art of Animation. They have little mermaid rooms that are nearby the acton at AoA and Pop Century is affordable and the food is great even though it’s considered a value resort. If you have more than $1500 or less time, stay at the Beach Club because it is awesome. It is by far the best resort because if the sandy bottom pool that is made for little ones. It is even better than Grand Floridian! The only reasons we love Grand Floridian better is the monorail and fireworks view. The pool is great there but it is expensive. If you want to check it out, make a dining reservation at 1900 Park Fare.
4. FUN. Once you figure all that out, talk to me about FastPass and Rides…
You will easily get overwhelmed with all the options for resorts/hotels and restaurants. And that doesn’t even include the rides and parks!
Resources
Winter is a great time to go because it is low season. Less crowds, lower prices and while children are younger than Kindergarten, it doesn’t count against attendance at school. We got letters from the public school system warning us about taking us to court if our kids were out of school with any more unexcused absences. But that was pushing 15+ days with them sick and all. I also didn’t know I had to send notes and something I learned the hard way.
OK add yourself to these groups and just listen and read:
I learned 99% of the tips/tricks from Kristen at Couponingtodisney - she runs the Facebook group above - SavEars. Her Website gets a lot of tracking / pop-ups - and it keeps track of a lot so it can be a slipper slope for spending on cheap stuff vs. just getting advice. It is:
www.couponingtodisney.com - Generally you could use whatever she says - she’s been right on just about everything!
Here are another two websites I used:
The Disney Parks are good to watch too:
Remember, it is easy to get overwhelmed. When you get to that point, just contact me and I'll help you get restarted. ;)
