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Stay on site |
See my "Where to stay" page.
http://www.wdwmyway.com/resorts.asp |
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Think about booking through a Travel Agent
that Specializes in Disney |
By using a Travel Agent that specializes in Disney it doesn't cost
you anymore than booking it on your own and there are less headaches.
Most Agents will alert you when a special discount comes available
and automatically apply it to your package. For example if the
Free Dining promotion becomes available during your stay they will
add it to your current reservation thus saving you money.
Other perks include having them make any tours or dining
reservations for you, this can save you a lot of time and trouble.
You can also transfer an existing reservation over to them.
For example when we booked a "bounce back" reservation with free
dining we transferred the reservation when we got home. This
also allows you to book online then transfer it if you wish to. |
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Book Dining Reservations as early as possible |
Walt Disney World has over 130 restaurants with popular ones filling
up early.
Dining reservations can be a pain to book, so it is important that
you book early to ensure you get what you want, currently you can
book 180 days out if staying on site, and believe me there are plenty of people booking
as early as possible. Also if you book through a Travel Agent
specializing in Disney vacation they can make the reservations for
you, this alone is a reason to us a Travel Agent.
UPDATE: Disney now has an online engine to allow you to book your
Advance Dining Reservations, it works fairly well. |
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If possible take advantage of "off season" |
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I suggest going off season when ever possible, if school is in then
crowds will be lower. September is a good time to go as most
parents will not take kids out of school just after it starts.
We have gone several times now during the last week of August as
southern schools including Florida are back in session and the
crowds are manageable, plus we have gotten free dining as a perk. |
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Be flexible |
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This may be the best tip I have. Be flexible about where to stay, where
to eat, when to eat, and which parks to see and when. For
example many times we may plan to got to a specific park such as the
Magic Kingdom, however the Hollywood Studios bus may pull up and we
will jump on. This also goes hand in hand with the next tip about
Park Hoppers because they afford the option of being more flexible. |
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Get the "Park Hopper" option on
your tickets |
The "Park Hopper" (PH) option allows you to switch or "hop"
from one park to another during the day. If you have a Magic Your
Way ticket package you cannot use more than one park admission in a
day.
This tip goes hand in hand with my be flexible tip. For example if
you have a dining reservation for a restaurant in Epcot you will
forced to spend that day at Epcot. However, with the PH option you
can hop over to Epcot from any other park thus giving you more
options of when and which parks to see. This is also helpful
if a certain park is more crowded and you want to try to get away
from the crowds. |
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Use Photo Pass |
Disney has photographers placed throughout the parks that will take
your picture digitally. They give you a plastic card that you
carry with you and as you get your pictures taken it is swiped and
therefore tracks your photos. You can then go to the camera stores
at each park to view and purchase your pictures. They will also add
special effects to the pictures, for example you may be holding
Tinkerbell in your hands or see Stitch coming out of a manhole.
To me the best value however is to get the CD with all of your
pictures, it is currently $149 but you can preorder it for $99 using
the link here:
Preorder PhotoPass CD. Another good tip is to take a picture of the
Photo Pass card number with your own camera, this way if you lose it
you can recover the pictures.
AllEars.net also has a nice listing of the locations of the
Photographers and any special character poses that can be found
here:
http://allears.net/tp/ppass.htm |
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RESEARCH |
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Walt Disney World is unlike any other vacation you will ever take.
WDW covers 47 square miles or roughly twice the size of Manhattan.
Disney owns almost 20 resort hotels with over 25,000 rooms, this
does not include the thousands of off site rooms and vacation homes
available. There are busses, monorails and boats to get you around
the resort area. You can go on boating excursions, see shows, go to
spas, golf, dine in over 130 restaurants, and book one of many tours
such as scuba diving in the Living Seas or go behind the scenes at
one of the parks. Of course there are 4 Theme Parks, 2 water
parks and a whole shopping dining district called Downtown Disney.
There is no way that you can enjoy yourself unless you research and
plan what you would like to see and book dining and tours in
advance. If you just wing it without advance reservations and
research you will not enjoy yourself and after spending
thousands of dollars you will not be happy. |
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