Disney: Advice for next time

Well, it's over.  We had a wonderful time and I know it will be a trip we will remember for years to come.

Below is a list of my final thoughts about the trip - incase we ever make our way there again, or for anyone else who welcomes the advice.

Disney Bucks

 (I borrowed this idea from my friend Shari)

I printed out business cards from Vistaprint for our Disney Bucks.  A few months before our trip, the kids got the chance to start earning Disney Bucks.  Each Buck was worth a dollar and the total of Bucks they earned they split before we left for our trip.  

This idea was great for two reasons: first, it helped with behavior months before the trip.  Anytime I wanted exceptional behavior I would offer a Disney Buck.  The kids really got into earning them and counting up how many they had in the jar.  Second, they each ended up having $75 to spend on vacation.  This was great because there was no begging and pleading for stuff.  If they wanted something they could have it - but they were on a budget.  This method took Adam and I out of the equation and left them to the math and the decision making. We fully intended to buy the kids some souvenirs anyway so this way just made it more fun, and the kids earned their items before hand.

Trip Planner

We used Kelli Trent from Mouse Travel who happens to live in our neighborhood.  She has been to Disney World 14 times.  That's 14 times people.  After buying the Disney Planning book a few years ago, I realized that I didn't find it fun to try to plan this trip.  Some people love getting the book and researching everything they should do - I did not.  The thought of planning a Disney trip totally overwhelmed me - so I didn't.  Instead, I met with Kelli told her what we were looking to do and she planned the trip for us.  And by that I mean not only did she book our flight, hotel, meal plan, and park tickets, but she also made a daily plan for us to follow at each park including dinner reservations and tips to follow at each park.  It was a life saver and made the entire trip more enjoyable for me.  I love to be organized, but I didn't want to put in all the research to be organized.  Having Kelli gave me the expertise I wanted without the work it would have taken me.  And like all (or I believe most) travel agents, her services were free.  FREE.  What a deal!

Resorts

There are different tiers of resorts you can stay on at the Disney Property.  We stayed at a high tier resort (Wilderness Lodge) because we thought this would be our only trip to Disney so we wanted to do it up nice.  After spending a week there, I realized we probably wasted some money on this decision.  Our hotel was beautiful and it was great to be able to take a boat to Magic Kingdom, but overall we were hardly in our room.  We were there 8 days.  We hit the parks around 8 a.m. each morning and sometimes didn't make it back to our room until past 10:30 p.m.  If we were going again, I would say a low or middle tier resort would be just as wonderful.  We didn't use the pool so that didn't matter to us.  The food was good, but I'm guessing a middle tier resort would have similar food options.  If I were going again I would look to stay in a middle tier resort that had the best transportation to the parks.  I'm thinking staying at a resort that connected to the monorail would be the best choice.  I don't even know if there are mid level resorts on the monorail, but for me, transportation ended up being the biggest deal at the hotel.  If we couldn't take the boat then we had to take the buses, which meant that we had to wait for the bus and then make a few other stops to pick up people before we got to our park.  I think being able to ride the monorail the whole time would have saved a lot of time.  

Disney Pins

Our kids didn't get into the pin trading until the 4th day we were there.  It took them that long to figure out what it was all about and decide they wanted to do it.  Thankfully, a guy Adam worked with gave us 24 pins so the kids each had 12 pins to start.  They decided to each buy a lanyard (with their Disney Bucks) to put their pins on.  The best part about the pins is the trading.  Disney Cast Members have to trade you if you ask, so the kids would always stop and visit with Cast Members who were wearing pins.  You can also trade with other Disney guests, but we didn't do this much.  The kids did buy some of their own pins, but for the most part they just traded the ones Adam had given them.  Each pin cost a minimum of $8 so it can be an expensive hobby.  I would highly recommend going on eBay and buying a lot of pins to start with.  This is so much cheaper and if you plan to trade them anyway, it doesn't matter which ones you start out with (as long as they're official Disney trademark pins).

Other thoughts:

Use the Fast Passes in every park.  We used them for all the busy rides.  It takes a little more planning, but it's worth it and it's free.

Get to the park early.  This helps with lines getting in and with getting on rides early and getting Fast Passes.

I loved being there for 8 days.  We did everything - except for the Little Mermaid show which we could just never fit in. If we went again we would only go for 3-5 days and just do our favorite things.

Going in October was wonderful.  The weather was great and we got to take advantage of Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and the Food and Wine Festival in Epcot.  It was still busier then I thought it would be, but nothing like what I would imagine summer or holiday traffic being.

Our kids were a good age to go - 10 and 8.  They were old enough to do all the walking (although Wesley did his share of complaining his legs were tired), but still young enough to enjoy all the characters.  They were also both tall enough to ride all the rides.

If you do the meal plan then you get a drink with all your meals.  If we ate at the hotel we would use our mugs (given to you upon arrival) for our drinks and then get bottles of water with our meals.  Then we would use the bottles of water to take with us to the park.  I also packed as many bottles of water as I could in my suit case so we'd have some to start.  I hate spending $3 on a bottle of water.

The meal plan was great.  You get so much food with a quick service meal that we ended up splitting a lot of them which allowed us to have more meals throughout the week to make up for the sit down meals that used more credits.

I hope to go again someday... maybe a Disney Cruise next time.