Where to stay and when to go to Disney?
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Anonymous
| I heard it takes 9 months of planning. True? |
Anonymous
| We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge and loved it, went April 22-26. I planned it three months in advance and it was fine- by "planning", I made dinner reservations and chose my Fast Passes but other than that, that was it. We did;t do Park Hopper- a waste of money in my opinion and you can always add it to your tickets after the fact. My kids are 7 and 9. The quietest time to go is early September when all the schools start back up, and right after the holidays in January (minus MLK weekend). Trip Advisor has an entire discussion board dedicated to Disney with loads of helpful info. |
Anonymous
| Huh? It took me an hour of planning. I went during the off season so we wouldn't have to spend all day waiting in lines and so it wouldn't be super hot. |
Anonymous
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Went to Disneyland (the best!) in Southern California in February. Gorgeous! Stayed at the Disney hotel and the kids loved seeing their favorite characters at the breakfast buffet and loved taking the Disney train back and forth from the park to the hotel. Legoland is right next door.
For us, it was a fantastic and oddly relaxing trip. It is so much easier to go on vacation with little kids when the resort is geared to little kids. DH and I could relax. |
Anonymous
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We like park hoppers.
We have early rising young children and would go to 1 park in the morning, back to the hotel in early afternoon for some down time and to a different park for dinner and early evening activities. |
Anonymous
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Floridian that lives in DC now. I'm a Disney veteran. Here are some helpful (I hope) tips:
1. If you hotwire/priceline a hotel--almost all hotels in the Disney, Universal, Sea World are will provide free shuttle services to disney (parking is about 16 bucks a day) 2. You can park your car at downtown disney, and they have free shuttle services from there 3. We loved staying at the Boardwalk. They also have a bunch of adult stuff to do (piano bar, etc). 4. If your kids are a little older, take your time getting to the park. It clears out early afternoon with people who have infants and toddlers. You'll see a drastic difference in waiting in line as the day goes by |
Anonymous
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The best time to go is After Spring Break Season and before Memorial Day. Early November is good too. The weather is nice and the crowds are low. Sept has low crowds but it is usually extremely hot. October used to be wonderful but the crowds have picked up because of Halloween and Food/Wine Festival.
Where to stay depends on what you want. I always tell people if they have young kids to stay on the monorail line. So much easier for naps and strollers. If you are park lovers (morning until night) than don't bother with a deluxe room, stay at a moderate. French Quarter or Riverside are both nice with boat access to Down Town Disney. If you like more relaxing, different atmosphere then Animal Kingdom Lodge Savannah view. If you have older kids that would enjoy a little freedom, the Yacht and Beach Club is wonderful and the Boardwalk area is a lot of fun. There are a few arcades at the hotel, access to the boat to Hollywood Studios, ESPN Zone and walking distance to the countries at Epcot. |
Anonymous
Some quibbles with this. 1. The shuttles run by non-Disney hotels run much, much less frequently than Disney's own bus system. Some hotels charge for them. Often there are a couple of runs in the morning, a break mid-day, and then a few more runs around dinner and park closing - you will be very limited in when you can arrive and leave. If you have kids, you are better off renting a car than relying on a non-Disney shuttle. (Some would say you are better off renting even compared to the Disney shuttles - but the difference is less huge.) Parking at the parks is free if you're staying at at Disney resort. 2. No longer true - Disney stopped running shuttles between Downtown Disney and the parks for exactly the reason that people were using DD for free parking. Now you'd have to go from DD to a Disney resort and then use that resort's bus/monorail/boat. The DD buses also don't start until later in the day. 4. In my experience, it doesn't clear out until almost dinner time, except AK which clears out early afternoon. |
Anonymous
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Also downtown Disney is under massive rehab and the parking is a hot mess. They built a new garage which helps, but they were having folks park across the street in the cast area. There were road and lane closures as late as last month.
Monorail resorts are pricey, but make life easy. Stay on property if you can. If you are going for more than 3/4 days, look into renting points from a Disney timeshare owner (DVC) and get a room with a kitchen for much cheaper than it would cost to pay cash to Disney. Check out mousesavers for discounts, allearsnet for dining menus and hotel details and disboards for hundreds of others opinions about trip planning. get the app for your phone so you can check wait times easily. The biggest thing you need to plan in advance for is the really popular fast passes or rides if they are important to you (dwarves mine train, Anna and Elsa meet n greet, Toy story mania, Soarin') |
Anonymous
What?!?!?! There are 3 "Disney hotels"---and the "Disney train" is called the Monorail. Legoland is in Carlsbad, which is about an hour drive from Anaheim--not "right next door." |
Anonymous
I know, between this post and the "I lived in Florida, just show up late after the young kids go home" post, make me cringe. OP, you need to go to the DIS forum to get your Disney advice. |
Anonymous
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9 months of planning? no way! I had season tickets from the time I was born until 22. It doesn't take much planning at all. I would do a day at Magic Kingdom and then 1/2 day for the other parks (park hop the others).
Last time we went we just stayed in the Disney hotel and took the bus into the resorts (way easier than parking and paying parking fee). |
Anonymous
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When people talk about planing so far in advance, it's often because they want specific reservations, which can book 180 days in advance. We went to Disney last month, and it was a very last minute thing. We decided to go 2 weeks before our vacation. I was able to book the resort I wanted at the discount I wanted (we qualify for the current military promotion, and I wanted to stay at Coronado Springs resort) but did have to make some concessions--I originally booked 4 nights in their "business class" (like concierge level) but then we decided we wanted to stay one more night and when I called to add the extra night, there was not availability--so we ended up just getting a regular room instead of the business class. Not too big a deal for us--but just something that if we had planned further in advance, we might have been able to get "exactly" what we wanted.
Also for the dining reservations--like I said you are able to book up to 180 days in advance, and some DO sell out that quickly! So if you have your heart set on a particular restaurant (like the character meal with Cinderella in the castle, or "Be Our Guest") at a specific time, you want to book far in advance. In our case, we were able to get all the restaurants we wanted, and at the times we wanted--but we were not trying to book the most popular ones. As for where to stay--I think it depends on who is going---little kids? Older kids? Grandparents? For my older children, we really like the Beach Club, Yacht Club, and Boardwalk Inn. They are all within walking distance of Epcot and Hollywood Studios. For smaller children, I'd prefer the Contemporary because it's within walking distance of Magic Kingdom. People always hype up staying at a monorail resort--but I don't know if I just have terrible luck or what--but it ALWAYS seems to break down when I am on it. Also, I think I heard that right now they are doing work on it and the monorail isn't even running--or maybe just limited service? Anyway, because of that I would not pay premium prices for a monorail resort. But being able to walk, is worth paying a premium price for me. |
Anonymous
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If you have flexibility, my favorite time to go is between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The parks have really low attendance, they are very festive.
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Anonymous
| Staying on property is worth it if it's in the budget. |