A Disney-Dumbo Plans Her First Trip [Part 1]

"Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them."
~ Anne of Green Gables

A year ago, I was a total novice at planning a Disney World vacation. I've only been to The World once when I was eight years old and, even then, I spent much of my vacation in our hotel sick with the stomach flu. (You can read that sad story HERE.) I've learned a TON in the past year as I've worked on planning our family's trip, but we are still months away from our adventure, so I can't comment on the results of all of my planning... yet. In spite of all this, I've had a few requests to chat about our plans for our upcoming trip, so here goes!

The first thing you need to decide when planning your trip to Disney is whether you are going to stay onsite or off. Let's imagine one of those flowcharts that asks you questions and sends you in different directions based on your answer. At the top of my flowchart is the question, "Are you staying onsite?" If your answer is "yes," keep reading. If your answer is "no," you may want to read a different post because I have no idea how to help you. [Haha! OK, I hope you'll find something helpful here, but I maintain that planning strategies differ dramatically based on where you are staying.]

About a year ago, I was browsing Disney's website dreaming about our upcoming vacation. I had a question, so I began a chat session with a Disney "cast member" [aka customer service rep] who advised me that, if I knew the dates we wanted to stay as well as the location, it would be wise to book our resort right away. I called up and made our resort reservation, knowing that I could modify it later if I needed to. I was also told that I would be able to apply promotions as they arose, which I was banking on for cost savings. [Incidentally, I've found that there is a great range in how helpful cast members can be. I recently stumbled upon a cast member whom I found particularly helpful, so I was sure to write down her 7-digit extension number as well as her email address. If you'd like this information, feel free to email me.]

We are planning a 9-day trip, and we are staying at Beach Club Resort. We decided on a long 9-day stay mostly because (a) we want to visit all four Disney parks and (b) we will be traveling with very young children (ages 4 and just-turned-2, in addition to our 10 and 7-year-old), so we are building in rest days to let them recoup... and hopefully lessen the number of meltdowns. As for our decision to stay at Beach Club, I have a friend who used to work at Disney [so she is obviously very knowledgeable] and also has four boys. She said that, of all the resorts her family has stayed at, Beach Club was her favorite. That was good enough for me!

The next step in planning our trip was deciding how to spend our time at Disney. Here is our current plan:

Day 1 - Arrive

Day 2 - Epcot

Day 3 - Animal Kingdom

Day 4 - Rest

Day 5 - Magic Kingdom

Day 6 - Disney's Hollywood Studios

Day 7 - Rest

Day 8 - Magic Kingdom

Day 9 - Depart

The reasoning behind our order was also based on the advice of Disney-savvy friends. Several people advised me that Epcot is their family's least favorite park and that we should consider skipping it. The biggest complaint we heard was that Epcot is "boring" and "educational." Well, we're a homeschooling family, so "educational" isn't a negative word in our vocabulary! (The Spaceship Earth ride features several scenes that line up with our Classical Conversations timeline!) Even though we are choosing to form our own opinions of Epcot, we are still tipping our hat to these warnings by starting out with Epcot, effectively "setting the bar low." We had similar reasoning when choosing Animal Kingdom as our second park. Several friends commented, "We can visit the zoo anytime." The aspect of our plan worth mentioning is that we are spending TWO days at Magic Kingdom, based on the advice in this very helpful book, The Unofficial Guide to Disney World with Kids. 

By staying onsite, we are able to enjoy some major perks. The biggest one, in my mind, is being able to make dining reservations 180 days ahead of time. From my careful study of The Unofficial Guide, I realized that the two most difficult reservations to obtain are breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table and dinner at Be Our Guest [both located at Magic Kingdom]. So, of course, being the challenge-loving person that I am, I set my sights on those two... I have the BEST hubby in the world because, even though he could probably care less where we eat, he woke up with me at 4:30 AM the morning our reservation ability went live, so we could pounce on those reservations like we were college students registering for classes. It was intense, guys, and you would probably have laughed at us. [We're planning on going back to Disney in about seven years so Logan and Theo can better enjoy and remember it. We'll have the older boys set up on devices, so they can help us with reservations too!] We were able to obtain both of those reservations (although not necessarily our first choice of dates), as well as several others on our wishlist.

Another huge advantage of staying onsite is that you can make FastPass reservations 60 days before the day of check-in. (First choice!) This is what I currently need to be focusing on... making a wishlist of the FastPass reservations I want to make for each day at a park.

I also love that guests staying onsite can utilize My Magical Express, a service [already built into your price] in which Disney will send you special luggage tags before your trip, and they will collect your baggage from MCO [Orlando's airport] and deliver it to your room! [And the other way around when it's time to depart.] With a 4 and 2-year-old on this trip, we are ALL about convenience.

I have so much more to say about Disney, but this is getting a little long. Other topics I hope to chat about in a future post: tickets (hopper or no hopper), booking elements separately vs. a package, retroactively applying a promotional discount to your reservation, the dining plans, my best sources for cute and inexpensive Disney merch, and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. Is there anything else you're interested in?

Hit me with your Disney wisdom! Already, your advice has been positively invaluable! Every day, I'm feeling less like a "Disney Dumbo" and more like a "Professor Ludwig Von Drake."

XOXO,

Kristin