How I Plan a Walt Disney World Trip
I am a huge Disney World fan. Most people who know me know this. I have been to Disney World more times than I can count on both hands. I started going at such a young age that the only memories I have of my trips are from the pictures taken and the stories my parents tell me. Disney has changed a whole lot over the years. Technology has been a huge part of this change. Now with the Fastpass+ system, planning is a key part in having a stress free and fun trip at Disney World. As recent as my honeymoon in 2013, planning wasn’t super important. Yes, we decided restaurants and where we would be on what days, but now you have to decide when you want to ride a specific ride 60 days in advance (or 30 days if you are staying off-site). Prior to this, you could just go to a kiosk and get a fastpass for whichever rides were available. This made parkhopping easy to use. Not anymore. However, I have found some methods that help me plan with this new system. I have planned two trips with this method, and it has really seemed to make things easier.
When planning, I use four websites:
I use many more websites than this, but these are the ones I use when making my “key” decisions. I use WDWPrepSchool for EVERYTHING. Shannon is amazing. I did not find her website until February/March 2014. I am so sad it took me that long to find her. She has so much valuable information. You will see me reference her a lot throughout this post. I primarily use EasyWDW for their crowd calendars. I search Disney Food Blog to help decide where we want to eat. As for TouringPlans, I use it for just that, making touring plans. This helps with the Fastpass+ decisions.
ONE: When?
The first thing I do is decide when to go to Disney World. Nine times out of ten the decision is made for me. For instance, every year my mom and I take a cruise for my birthday in January. We usually cruise out of Port Canaveral so that we can spend a day or two at Disney World. My husband and I decided to honeymoon at Disney World, and we wanted to honeymoon immediately after our beach wedding. One instance the decision was not pre-made was a recent trip in September 2014 with friends. All we knew was that we wanted to go in the fall of 2014. From there we based our decision on football schedules and work. My husband is a huge Ole Miss fan and refuses to miss a home game. My friends and I are Alabama fans and wanted to miss as little as possible. We found a week that worked and went with it.
We made this decision before I found WDWPrepSchool. She has an amazing chart that shows you the best and worst times to visit Disney World. I highly recommend using this chart and attempting to go during the “best” times when possible. Of course, there are going to be times when you can’t control when you go. That’s when your touring plan is critical. During these “best” times you can veer from your touring plans a lot more and make more on-the-go decisions.
TWO: Transportation
Now that I decided when to go, I need to decide how I am going to get there. The reason this is important so soon is it effects how many park days I will have and how many nights I need a room. We live about 10 hours from Orlando. How I get there depends on what else I may be doing. When my mom and I cruise, we always drive to Disney World. We find this much cheaper since we would have to pay for transportation to the cruise terminal. Plus, with our work schedules it is easier than being forced to be at an airport at a specific time. If all I am doing is Disney World (and maybe Universal), we will fly. With Disney’s Magical Express, you have free transportation to your Disney Resort from the Orlando International Airport. If you chose to stay off-site or want to visit any other Orlando attractions, you will have to decide if renting a car or paying for another form of transportation is worth it to you. So my decision process is easy: if we are only doing Disney, we fly; if we do anything else, we drive.
THREE: Where?
Next I decide where we should stay. I will never recommend staying off-site, especially now with MyMagic+. Currently, if you stay off-site you do not get Magic Bands unless you purchase them, you do not get charging privileges to your room, you can only book dining reservations at the 180-day mark, and you can only make Fastpass+ reservations at the 30-day mark. There are many more disadvantages, but those are the key ones for me. The main advantage is typically the price, but to me, staying on-site is worth the cost. WDWPrepSchool has some good articles discussing this. I have stayed off-site once, and I have stayed once with family who live about 5 minutes from Disney. Both were day trips and prior to MyMagic+ being fully implemented.
Deciding which resort to stay at on Disney property can be a challenge. For my mom and I, we almost always stay at the All-Star Sports Resort. We stay there for three reasons. One, it is one of the cheapest resorts, and since we are only there for two to three days, we are rarely in the room. We don’t care about the amenities and such. We just want a decent priced room on Disney property. Two, in our opinion, it is the best of the All Star Resorts. The main reason is the transportation to the parks. From our experience, the Sports is the first one to pick up and the first one to drop off to and from the parks. If the bus is full, it will go directly to the park instead of attempting to stop at the other hotels. However, sometimes it isn’t full and you do have to make those other stops, but to us it is ok because we more than likely get a seat! Three is the nostalgia for me. The All Star Sports Resort is the first resort I can actually remember staying at. I was a cheerleader all my life, and my parents thought it would be neat to stay in the buildings with the megaphones. And it was! To me, All Star Sports is Disney.
For my husband, he loves The Contemporary. I spoiled him on the honeymoon by staying there. He has a hard time staying at any resort that isn’t within walking distance to a park. We have stayed at Port Orleans Riverside before, but for him, it was just way too big of a resort and didn’t have much benefit.
Here is my full recommendation on how to decide where to stay. One, how much time are you going to be spending at your resort? This will rule out whether amenities are truly important. Two, what can you afford? Keep in mind, special offers are released a lot of the times. On WDWPrepSchool, you can check out the monthly dashboards for when you plan to go and she has a link to show previous offers that were offered for that month. Keep that in mind when deciding your resort (and be willing to change resorts if needed if your resort is not included in the offer that is actually released). Lastly, how often are you going to need to go back to your room? If you have little ones and plan to go back for naps, it may be beneficial to stay at a resort within walking distance of your favorite park (or at least close by so that the bus transportation isn’t too long of a commute). WDWPrepSchool has a pros and cons blog post about all the on-site resorts.
FOUR: Tickets
Once I have decided how I am getting to Disney World and where I am staying, it is time to decide what tickets to purchase. There are so many options to choose from. But the first thing you should consider (I wish I had in the past), is there a special event going on that requires a hard ticket? If so, do you want to attend? If you do, then do not plan on getting a park ticket for that day. Instead use that as a relaxing morning/afternoon, and then attend the event that evening. There is no reason to waste money on a park ticket for that day if you are also going to pay for a hard ticket that evening. Now I decide how many days worth of tickets I need. For us, we never plan to attend the parks the arrival or departure day. If we are there more than 5 days, we plan a day of no park activity. So for a Saturday – Saturday trip, we would get a 5-day ticket. If there is an event going on, we would probably still get a 5-day ticket and the hard ticket event, but that is a personal choice. We would use the morning and afternoon of the hard ticket event to relax. If you think you may attend water parks and chose to add the water parks fun and more option, you will want to remove a park ticket day. In that case, you’d get a 4-day park ticket plus water park fun and more option and go to the water park on your 5th day. The benefit here is you get admission to the water parks, DisneyQuest, ESPN Wide World of Sports, miniature golf and more for the same number of days you get a park ticket. So if you get a 4-day park ticket with water park fun and more option, you can visit the parks 4 days and one of the attractions above up to 4 other days (as long as it is within 14 days of the first usage). The last option is the parkhopper feature. We also get this. It gives you the ability to go between parks throughout the day. We have used this feature on all the trips I can remember. If we day trip it, we hit all four parks in one day. On long trips, we tend to eat at Epcot for a lot of dinners, so we will spend the day in one park then end up at Epcot in the evening.
FIVE: Dining Plan?
Now I decide about whether or not to do the dining plan. Prior to September 2014, I was very anti-dining plans. Paying out of pocket was always cheaper for us because we do not always get dessert, and my husband and I split a lot of meals. In September 2014, we took advantage of the free dining offer. We got the Disney Dining Plan that included 1 Quick Service meal per day, 1 Table Service meal per day, 1 Snack per day, and 1 Resort Mug for the length of our trip. You get all this at the beginning of your trip and can use it as you wish. For a 7-night trip for 2 people, you get 14 Quick Service meals, 14 Table Service meals, 14 Snacks, and 2 Resort Mugs. We still were able to split Quick Service meals. To be safe, only one of us went to the counter to order. It was typically plenty especially with the inclusion of the dessert. My mom and I are taking advantage of the Play Stay and Dine offer that basically gives you the Adult Dining Plan at children’s prices. My husband and I will probably always get the dining plan, even if we pay for it. We really enjoyed getting to eat at so many sit down restaurants. That is his favorite part. However, it isn’t for everyone. If you can get it free or discounted, I would recommend giving it a try. Otherwise, look at the Disney website and check out the restaurant menus, calculate how much you think you will spend, then see which comes out to be cheaper. WDWPrepSchool also has some info on the dining plans and what restaurants are the best values on and off the dining plan.
SIX: Book It!
Now I book my trip. If a special offer comes up, you can call Disney and have them apply it to your trip, or if it applies to a resort other than yours, you can call and change resorts if you wish. I will have a blog post later about this.
SEVEN: Which Parks?
Here comes the fun part (although for me, all of this is fun!), deciding when to attend which parks. To decide this, I use WDWPrepSchool’s Monthly Dashboard as well as EasyWDW’s Crowd Calendars. I use these hand in hand and try and attend the parks that both websites recommend. Now this doesn’t always work out. For instance, if you are only there two days, you are bound to attend a park that isn’t recommended. In those cases, I try and hit the not recommended park earliest in the day before the crowds pick up. Another instance is if you have your heart set on attending a specific park first. On our honeymoon, my husband wanted to attend a park for the first time in the morning and not park hop to a park that we had not been to first. We were forced to do Epcot the first day since we parkhopped to Epcot most nights for dinner. Now that he has been a few times to Disney World, this rule isn’t in place, but it did alter the plans on the honeymoon. One last instance that I will mention is special events. On days there are special events, like Star Wars Weekend, the calendars may not recommend that park. But if you want to attend that event, you will have to “break that rule”. Again, get there early and have a plan!
EIGHT: Dining Reservations
Next, I decide where to make dining reservations. We have a few must always eat at restaurants: The Garden Grill, Teppan Edo, and one of the French restaurants (all at Epcot!). If we are on the dining plan we eat at Chefs de France. If we are paying out of pocket we do Monsieur Paul since it would be two meal credits to eat there. Both are amazing. I recommend researching the menus at each restaurant and deciding what sounds best and making sure it fits into where you plan to be. Don’t plan to do lunch in Epcot if you plan to be at Magic Kingdom that morning and evening. Try and eat where you plan to be. That is why we do dinner at Epcot a lot. We spend the day at the park we want then finish up at Epcot. We try not to go back and forth. We did that once during the Food and Wine Festival and it was exhausting! I recommend using the Disney Food Blog to search the restaurants, their menus, and the reviews people have made. They even have pictures of different menu items in the reviews that can be really helpful. If you are using the dining plan, remember the recommended high value restaurants from WDWPrepSchool to get the most for your money.
NINE: Touring Plans
My last step in planning is making touring plans. I use the TouringPlans website for this. They even have an app that you can download so that your plans are always with you. First, I decide all the rides, shows, parades, etc. my group wants to do and how many times we want to do them. If you are going to be at a park multiple times, decide which times you want to do what. Maybe you want to ride Space Mountain both visits to Magic Kingdom, but Pirates of the Caribbean only the first time. You will have to create a free account on the TouringPlans website, then you can create customized touring plans. It gives you the option to utilize “Extra Magic Hours”, and you can select the times you plan to be at the park. This is really important if you have dinner reservations in another park and know you have to leave the first park by a certain time.
Then you select all the rides, shows, parades, etc. that you plan to do and how many times you want to do them. Don’t forget to include the dining reservations you have already made. I always schedule 60 minutes for eating at a Table Service Restaurant and 45 minutes at a Quick Service one. You do want to plan any in-park meals in your touring plans for it to be realistic. I don’t schedule snack stops. We just stop for snacks when we feel like it. However, if there is a certain snack stop you want to make (like getting a Dole Whip at Magic Kingdom) consider that when making your plans so that you aren’t running across the park to get the snack you wanted.
Once you have finished, you can customize your plan one of two ways. You can have the website determine when you should do everything or you can sort them in the order you want to do them. I let the website do it first, then customize so that I can see what the website thinks are the best time to do the popular attractions. The problem with the website deciding is you may want to ride Space Mountain five times in one day, but three in the morning and two in the afternoon. The website will put all five in a row.
Now I decide Fastpass+ times. So I typically do as many popular attractions in the morning, and after lunch walk the park in "order". I pick the Fastpass+ reservations by choosing what has the longest waits. You have to be careful since some parks have “Tiers”. In the middle of the page, you can pick your Fastpass+ times and update your touring plan accordingly. This will allow you to see what is going to have the best benefit to you and your plans as well as show you how much time you’ll be saving. Once you have chosen your three, write them down. When your 60-day mark hits, you can book your Fastpass+ on the Disney website. Now, if you are planning any hard-to-get Fastpass+ attractions, book those FIRST regardless of the day. I recommend doing the hard-to-get attractions on your last day since you can book those before other people. The reason is on the 60-day mark you can book all of your Fastpass+ for your ENTIRE trip. Be careful because while the TouringPlans website will allow you to plan as many Fastpass+ a day and at as many parks as you want, you can only book three a day at one park. In order to get any more Fastpass+, you have to use your first three, then go to a kiosk within the park and get more. One last tip, when you are FINALLY at the park and its time to use your Fastpass+, if you get there and the wait isn’t long, use the My Disney Experience App or a Fastpass+ Kiosk to change your Fastpass+ time. You don’t want to waste a Fastpass+.
So that wraps up my trip planning advice. This is simply a planning method I use. It may not work for everyone. I really recommend the four websites above to help plan your Disney vacation. There is so much valuable information on there that you will not want to pass up. Happy Planning!
