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Thread: Disney Advice

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Halifax, Nova Scotia

    Talking Disney Advice

    I have appreciated the advice in this thread and thought I would revive it as we are taking our 5 and 7 year old daughters for a half day at Downtown Disney and one day at Magic Kingdom in a couple weeks. We are staying at Port Orleans and have a lunch reserved for 11:30 at Crystal Palace. We plan to go back to the resort for a couple hour break and pool time in the afternoon.
    I have tried to do a fair bit of reading and have been on some other sites (mousesavers saved me a few bucks on the resort), but thought I would ask others here if you have any other advice, tips, suggestions.
    Thanks.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by NSDukeFan View Post
    I have appreciated the advice in this thread and thought I would revive it as we are taking our 5 and 7 year old daughters for a half day at Downtown Disney and one day at Magic Kingdom in a couple weeks. We are staying at Port Orleans and have a lunch reserved for 11:30 at Crystal Palace. We plan to go back to the resort for a couple hour break and pool time in the afternoon.
    I have tried to do a fair bit of reading and have been on some other sites (mousesavers saved me a few bucks on the resort), but thought I would ask others here if you have any other advice, tips, suggestions.
    Thanks.
    We weren't huge fans of Downtown Disney. It was basically a glorified shopping village, in our humble opinion. We decided to skip it and spend an extra day in the park next time. Most of our group actually had our best day at Sea World. It was awesome.

    Definitely get the Unofficial Guide to Disney. Totally worth it.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Charlotte, North Carolina
    Your daughters are a little older than mine (6 and 2.5), but if they're still in Disney Princess mode, you can't beat a couple of character dinner options. Dinner at Cinderella's castle gets you a meet and greet with "Cinderella" and then most of the other princesses come by the table during the meal. Also, there is a great breakfast buffet at the Grand Floridian resort where Cinderella, the Prince, the mice, and the Step Mother and Step Sisters come around. If they aren't into the princesses, then there are fun character dinners at Chef Mickey's (the classic Disney characters - Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, etc), and a great character breakfast at the Polynesian Resort at Ohana with the Lilo and Stitch characters.

  4. #4

    easywdw

    another web site, you may want peruse is the easywdw.com. lots of pictures, menus, reviews, and commentary...

    here's a link to their "cheat sheets" for each park...

    http://www.easywdw.com/category/cheat-sheets/

    and a review of the two port orleans resorts:

    http://www.easywdw.com/resorts/port-...-disney-world/

    and

    http://www.easywdw.com/resorts/port-...-disney-world/

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Halifax, Nova Scotia
    Quote Originally Posted by bjornolf View Post
    We weren't huge fans of Downtown Disney. It was basically a glorified shopping village, in our humble opinion. We decided to skip it and spend an extra day in the park next time. Most of our group actually had our best day at Sea World. It was awesome.

    Definitely get the Unofficial Guide to Disney. Totally worth it.
    We fly into Orlando around noon our first day. That's why we figure we will just spend a few hours at Downtown and glorified shopping village would likely sound heavenly to my wife.
    Quote Originally Posted by bcsu View Post
    another web site, you may want peruse is the easywdw.com. lots of pictures, menus, reviews, and commentary...

    here's a link to their "cheat sheets" for each park...

    http://www.easywdw.com/category/cheat-sheets/

    and a review of the two port orleans resorts:

    http://www.easywdw.com/resorts/port-...-disney-world/

    and

    http://www.easywdw.com/resorts/port-...-disney-world/
    I had just seen that site within the last week and looked at one of their cheat sheets, but will take a look at the others you listed here as well.
    Thanks

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Halifax, Nova Scotia
    Quote Originally Posted by davekay1971 View Post
    Your daughters are a little older than mine (6 and 2.5), but if they're still in Disney Princess mode, you can't beat a couple of character dinner options. Dinner at Cinderella's castle gets you a meet and greet with "Cinderella" and then most of the other princesses come by the table during the meal. Also, there is a great breakfast buffet at the Grand Floridian resort where Cinderella, the Prince, the mice, and the Step Mother and Step Sisters come around. If they aren't into the princesses, then there are fun character dinners at Chef Mickey's (the classic Disney characters - Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Daisy, etc), and a great character breakfast at the Polynesian Resort at Ohana with the Lilo and Stitch characters.
    Our daughters certainly like princesses. Too bad Doc McStuffins is at one of the other parks as that would be a huge hit for our youngest. They would be too scared for the bigger rides, so no Mountains for us.

  7. #7
    So I'm a former Disney podcaster, and have many friends there that work and operate at the parks. I love Disney. With that being said, Downtown Disney (or Disney Springs as its soon to be called) is all talk. They push it so much because no one goes to it except for the World of Disney Store (which actually is pretty amazing).

    Downtown Disney is going through that conversion to Springs, so you'll find a lot of roadwork in the area until 2016. Mainly in the parking area. The Marketplace parking garage should be finished soon, the West Side garage is done. If you go to Downtown Disney, and you're staying on property, just take a bus. It saves hassle of actually parking in that insane area. If you're driving, just go typically midday. Its nowhere near as crowded as night time, which is basically H-E-Double Hockey sticks.

    Magic Kingdom opened the New Fantasyland expansion a couple of years ago, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opened last year. Out of all of the "mountains" there, this one is probably the most suitable for kids. Splash isn't bad either, with the exception of that big drop at the end. Its a fun ride, just have to get past that drop if you're a kid. Try Mine Train first, because its relatively short, and it has some kind of thrill to it. But make sure you ride it early, or the waits will exceed 90 min (so try for a FastPass+).

    If you're looking at Crystal Palace, it's pretty good. The characters are Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore. Food is so-so, but experience is great. If its possible, go for Be Our Guest. They serve breakfast/lunch/dinner now. You can get a reservation now, if you're lucky. If you can't get one, try over and over. You will get one. I tried for 6 months last year getting a reservation for it, and lucked up one day. Its really expensive but there is no food or experience like it on property.

    I just saw you're staying at Port Orleans! Which I absolutely love that resort.

    Most important thing, is just have fun. I swear its a job planning a Disney vacation nowadays.

    Make sure you take time to enjoy it. Take pictures with Talking Mickey in Town Square theater, best character interaction ever. Take tons of pictures.

    I used to work for this website, WDWNT.com. they have podcasts, articles, trip planning materials.

    Have fun!

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by NSDukeFan View Post
    Our daughters certainly like princesses. Too bad Doc McStuffins is at one of the other parks as that would be a huge hit for our youngest. They would be too scared for the bigger rides, so no Mountains for us.
    If they like Beauty & The Beast, the character meal at Beast's Castle in the new Fantasyland is cool. Belle comes around, and so does Beast. Plus, the ballroom is gorgeous and always snowing outside the windows.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Mount Kisco, NY
    I've been to Disney with my family every other year for about the past 10 years. My kids are about to age out of the Disney parks in terms of being more interested in the thrill rides at nearby Universal Studios, so our most recent trip was focused on hitting the rides they wanted to hit early and often as opposed to stopping to smell the flowers.

    To that end, last year was the first time I ever consulted a "touring plan", which is a name for Disney experts advice on how to navigate a park to maximize your ability to hit the most popular rides as often as possible. It sounded crazy to me, but it worked. Basically, you have to get to the park at "rope drop", literally the moment they start letting people in, and then you go full tilt for a few hours. The routes they suggest may seem counter-intuitive, but, again, these are written and developed by zealots who have this stuff down to a science. There is a lot of temptation to gaze in wonder at the grandeur of the surroundings when you first enter, but these plans are all about putting your head down and moving quickly to minimize wait times. The fact is, it's all about the first few hours because by 11 or so, the place is mobbed and you will have lines wherever you go...that's when you stop to smell the flowers. Judicious use of FastPass is also key, but these touring plans include fastpast strategies, too.

    Google "Disney Touring Plans" if you are interested. You'll be amazed at what you find...entire years worth of calendars, developed over decades, that tell you how busy it will be basically every day of the year.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Billy Dat View Post
    Google "Disney Touring Plans" if you are interested. You'll be amazed at what you find...entire years worth of calendars, developed over decades, that tell you how busy it will be basically every day of the year.
    I did quite a bit of research on these, and Unofficial Guide to Disney is the best I've found. Their app with realtime wait times is awesome. The book is good, and if you buy it, you'll get a code to get a discount on the website membership. They have it broken down by date on every day of the year that they've compiled data from over a dozen years of thousands of people visiting. It's kind of scary, really, but we found it really helped, and while it was kinda weird to think about at first, we found having a good plan to follow really helped with our stress level when we were actually there.

  11. #11
    We just visited Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom (1 day each) at the beginning of March with our two boys aged 3 and 5. There was plenty to do, but I think the three-year-old was kind of borderline, as he was too short to ride the faster coasters. Neither kid is particularly interested (or aware) of the Disney mythos—other than Planes/Cars—and there's really nothing Planes/Cars-related at in Florida. Having said that, there were TONS of little girls dressed up as various Disney princesses who seemed to being having a blast!

    We rode Goofy's Barnstormer about 5 times, Thunder Mountain, Tea Cups, Dumbo, the People Mover, the perimeter train, and Peter Pan. Fastpass is definitely of the essence!

    I would also agree completely with skipping Downtown Disney. The only reason my kids wanted to go was the Lego store, but it's just a big outdoor mall, and it's heavily under construction right now.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Nov 2014
    Location
    Austin
    I just got back from WDW on Sunday. We stayed Thursday through Saturday at Saratoga Springs. My daughter is 4, my soon 2. We geared this trip around her so I have a lot of comments surrounding the princesses

    The Dinner (or in our case breakfast) with Cinderella is expensive but worth it if your daughters are into them. The visit with Cinderella is short (a picture line) but the 4 princesses that came to the breakfast were better. They could stop and converse and really brighten things for the kids. We saw Snow White, Jasmine, Aurora and Ariel during the meal, but I believe they rotate. The food is alright and the room you eat in isn't to crowded which was nice.

    My daughter's favorite is Belle so we did a fast past to her "Enchanted Tales' show. This was the best one on one. Essentially you walk in as a small group - 20 ish- and they set it up so that the kids get to play parts as characters (with cardboard cutouts) to tell the story of Belle and the Beast. No one plays Belle as she actually shows up and eventually after a short show by the kids meets each one individually. Its all indoors and not crowded at all.

    We also did Elsa and Ana with a fast past. Without was an 80 minute wait. This was more or less a photo op with each, no real exhibit or show tied to it. Elsa comes off as pretty cold (true to character) and Ana very friendly. There was a similar set up for Cinderella and Rapunzel that we skipped.

    Merida also had a picture line set up that was pretty short. No fast past, in and out of line with pics in under 10.

    All of those were either in the castle or in Fantasy Land right behind it. We did a meet Tinkerbell that is right inside the front gate and it was good. Very well done by the actor and very personable, more than the rest. Just so happened that Tiana was set up right outside the exit and the line for her was short too. My guess is that because of where she is, and lesser popularity, most people didn't realize where she was being so close to the entrance/exit.

    A few other notes: The Festival of Fantasies parade is the best, and it ran through Main Street around 3:15. Lines start forming around 2. We caught a show on the castle stage at 1:30 and then just turned around and set up shop on the tracks as the parade marched right by. Worked out well to stop, eat, etc. while we waited for the parade, and we didn't have to fight the very large crowd.

    There is also no bus that takes you straight to Downtown Disney from Magic Kingdom (seemed odd to me). We had to ride back to our resort, and then hop one to DD.

    Staying at Saratoga Springs (while older and farther out, was actually really nice. The resort is LARGE but has at least 4 different family friendly pool areas, a nice café w/store and the lines to go to and from the resort using the shuttle was never busy (almost like no one was staying there) while most every other resorts shuttle was packed.

    If you want to leave for the park early from your resort, check with the front desk about a comped taxi. The shuttle for ours wasn't leaving soon enough for the breakfast, so they comped the taxi ride for us instead.

  13. #13
    Headed there with our 5 y/o girl the first week of May for 5 days & nights. Staying at the Swan; got a suite on points.

    Anyone have any feedback on the non Magic Kingdom parks? We did not pay extra for park hopper. Worth it to do Epcot for a day? How about Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios? Worthwhile attractions at the other parks? We plan to try to do jedi training Academy at Hollywood Studios (she likes Star Wars, despite having not seen the movies).

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Reisen View Post
    Headed there with our 5 y/o girl the first week of May for 5 days & nights. Staying at the Swan; got a suite on points.

    Anyone have any feedback on the non Magic Kingdom parks? We did not pay extra for park hopper. Worth it to do Epcot for a day? How about Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios? Worthwhile attractions at the other parks? We plan to try to do jedi training Academy at Hollywood Studios (she likes Star Wars, despite having not seen the movies).
    5 year old girl? How tall is she?

    Hollywood:
    The indiana Jones stunt show is pretty cool. If she likes the Muppets, the Muppet 4D theater is fun. They also have a pretty cool Little Mermaid Show. Hollywood Tower of Terror might be a bit much for her, though my son liked it at 5. I don't know if she'd be tall enough for the Aerosmith roller coaster, but my kids loved it. Katie was 6 and tall enough.

    Animal:
    Kids LOVED the safari with the real animals. Breakfast with the Safari characters at the ?Tuscan? was excellent. There was a Khali River get wet raft ride that our 6 year old like, again, height could be an issue. There is also a train ride to Rakishi's animal village with some cool presentations and a really good petting zoo.

    Epcot:
    Test Track and Soarin' are awesome, as are a few of the nations.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by bjornolf View Post
    5 year old girl? How tall is she?

    Hollywood:
    The indiana Jones stunt show is pretty cool. If she likes the Muppets, the Muppet 4D theater is fun. They also have a pretty cool Little Mermaid Show. Hollywood Tower of Terror might be a bit much for her, though my son liked it at 5. I don't know if she'd be tall enough for the Aerosmith roller coaster, but my kids loved it. Katie was 6 and tall enough.

    Animal:
    Kids LOVED the safari with the real animals. Breakfast with the Safari characters at the ?Tuscan? was excellent. There was a Khali River get wet raft ride that our 6 year old like, again, height could be an issue. There is also a train ride to Rakishi's animal village with some cool presentations and a really good petting zoo.

    Epcot:
    Test Track and Soarin' are awesome, as are a few of the nations.
    Very tall. She's actually still 4 (we're taking her for her 5th birthday) and is already 46 inches. I'm 6'1, my wife is 5'10, but my father is 6'4, and her brothers, father, and uncles are all between 6'5 and 6'9. Who knows, we might have the Duke women's PF for the 2028 class on our hands.

    Thanks for the recommendations!

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by bjornolf View Post
    5 year old girl? How tall is she?

    Hollywood:
    The indiana Jones stunt show is pretty cool. If she likes the Muppets, the Muppet 4D theater is fun. They also have a pretty cool Little Mermaid Show. Hollywood Tower of Terror might be a bit much for her, though my son liked it at 5. I don't know if she'd be tall enough for the Aerosmith roller coaster, but my kids loved it. Katie was 6 and tall enough.

    Animal:
    Kids LOVED the safari with the real animals. Breakfast with the Safari characters at the ?Tuscan? was excellent. There was a Khali River get wet raft ride that our 6 year old like, again, height could be an issue. There is also a train ride to Rakishi's animal village with some cool presentations and a really good petting zoo.

    Epcot:
    Test Track and Soarin' are awesome, as are a few of the nations.
    Sorry, not Rakishi, Rafiki.

    Wife says there really wasn't much for a 5 y.o. at Epcot. She said she wouldn't waste a day on Epcot for one that age. Animal and Hollywood better for 5 y.o. according to her.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    raleigh
    definitely eat at T-Rex and BE OUR GUEST if you can get in...

    also, SOARING was a great ride...
    "One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese

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