grassroots guide to surviving Disney world, learn me.

Probably not financial, I think the tickets cost the same no matter what - you may have a better time going Sunday-Friday or something though, in April the weather will be warming up and the crowds will probably be starting to increase as well.

Most of the days we were there the crowd levels were like 3-5. Everything wasn't packed, but there were plenty of people.

Google "Disney Crowd Levels" and plan according to whatever you find. If there's any way you can travel on a non-holiday, non-spring-break week, you'll have more fun.

I been a few times, and for going on a budget, it is hard to beat the All Star Resorts and a meal plan.

• Take the Disney bus to the park (no rental car)
• Take Disney Transportation for free to whatever park you are going to.
• I like the Movie-themed or Sports Themed hotel best for kids.
• Just a basic, simple room, nothing fancy, but you are never in it.
• All Star hotels have massive, multiple pools that are open late
• Get the meal plan and eat breakfast at the hotel. Large buffets with lots of options.
• Make reservations for meals in the parks, especially if you want to eat with Characters.
• If you don't you will wait forever or end up grabbing something from a food cart.
• Breakfast with the Princesses in the Castle: call 6 months to the day of when you want the reservation, and call at 7am exactly. It books up every day of the year in 5 minutes.
  -Downtown Disney has some restaurants on the Meal Plan. We did Wolfgang Pucks.
• Fast-Pass is a MUST. Figure it out and use it.
• Accept that you are going to wait in one line for an hour, and be prepared for it. I had snacks and drinks and games, we sat on a carpeted area indoors. My daughter loved it, and so did the other kids nearby that joined in on the game. Went by really fast.
• Break a leg and get in a wheelchair. (OK, this is really sleazy. But almost every ride is wheelchair accessible, and they go right in with no lines. Seriously, do not do that, because it is really sleazy.)

I actually really enjoy Disney. Can't wait to take the kid there.

sachilles wrote: We are staying on property, that much we aren't debating. Where on property is the kicker. Just a quick look online booking engine, we are sort of stuck between Carribean beach resort pirate room which is a mid grade room, or art of imagination...which has Cars themed rooms, but only as a suite. Being two adults and small kid, a suite seems like overkill, but my son loves Cars. The tie breaker there would be how long it takes to get into the park. Carribean beach looks close to Epcot. I remember there was a monorail from epcot to the MK. Would it be practical to bus to epcot and monorail to MK....or would that make it way to long of a trip?

Don't stay at any of the hotels out in that neck of the woods unless the Studio will be your main visiting place. STAY CLOSE!

If you can get on the monorail run you will be amazed at how convenient everything is except the water parks (BTDT and didn't even want the T shirt) and animal kingdom. You can pop in and out very easily so you do things you wouldn't.

I love the Polynesian Resort because you can walk to both the Monorail and bus lines plus the water taxis come to your door. That makes a lot of things very convenient. You also have some good restaurants and shows there and a very nice beach. Renting the little boats is fun and lets you run all over the place. You get an interesting perspective from the water.

The Contemporary is also very cool. It's the one the monorail goes through, but you need to be aware that the old section has much larger rooms than the new section. It has all the same amenities the Polynesian has.

The Wilderness Lodge is just a little less convenient but still way better than Carribean beach or any of those way out there places. It is very grand feeling and has cool pool areas as well as access to water taxis and little boats. You need to eat at the restaurant there. Book early and stay flexible as to timing as it's very popular.

We used to stay at Fort Wilderness when it really was a wilderness area and absolutely loved it, but once they expanded it and put trailers everywhere it lost some of it's charm and became a big, spread out hotel. It is still the place to go when you have a lot of people.

When I was a kid, we stayed at the Polynesian, really enjoyed it, but I fear that might be beyond our budget. Sadly, I think think price may rule out any of the places on the monorail route. Caribbean is on the back side of Epcot. Is it reasonable to walk or bus into epcot and take the monorail to the magic kingdom. I know the monorail will be a hit with my son, so we'll figure out ways to use it, if only for the ride itself.

all things being equal, 7 day tickets and the quick service meal plan(no airfare) The Value hotel option is Art of imagination basic room $2320.15 The next level up for hotels Caribbean beach resort $2981.59 Port Orleans french quarter $2806.15 The next level up which includes all the ones on the monorail. The least expensive one(on the monorail) is the Contemporary resort at $4463.12

Contemporary is too expensive for our budget.

Pros and cons for Caribbean vs port orleans? Is one location better than the other.

Fast Pass!

If you happen to be going during the little ones birthday, make sure you notify them while booking. Notyfy during booking that it's his first visit. Staff/characters make a big deal of it.

Also, if you're son still likes teddy bears, get a Duffy bear early on because the staff/characters make a fuss over that, also.

I like to be comfortable, but I don't get too hung up about which resort. You are going to be at the parks most of the time and only going back to the resort for sleep and breakfast. I go for the moderate. So far I've stayed at The Caribbean and Coronado Springs and had no complaints. I also do have to confess that I will be caving into the family's request to do The Contemporary next time.

Due to your son's age, Keys to the Kingdom isn't an option, but if you do some research beforehand into the "behind the scenes stuff", you can enjoy the geek side of it with the history and technology of it all.

Test Track (recently redesigned) and Rockin' Rollercoaster (0-60 is sub 3 sec) are good for gearheads. I recommend Soarin'.

Eats: Biergarten and Tepan Edo at Epcot are my favs. Excellent beer at Epcot but if you're going during the hot season and you're doing alot of walking, might not be a good idea.

Quick tips on the website never let me down.

Recommend PhotoPass. Yea, it's expensive, but it beats carrying a camera around, they set up great shots (some with special effects), and use high quality equipment.

sachilles wrote: all things being equal, 7 day tickets and the quick service meal plan(no airfare) The Value hotel option is Art of imagination basic room $2320.15 The next level up for hotels Caribbean beach resort $2981.59 Port Orleans french quarter $2806.15 The next level up which includes all the ones on the monorail. The least expensive one(on the monorail) is the Contemporary resort at $4463.12 Contemporary is too expensive for our budget. Pros and cons for Caribbean vs port orleans? Is one location better than the other.

Everyplace has the bus and I don't think I've ever waited longer that 10 minutes for one.

While they do have stellar people mover skills times vary by location and TIME OF DAY plus travel time needs to be factored in. It can take an hour to get from point A to point B sometimes. This place is BIG!

As far as getting special pricing, sign up for a Disney Account, it's in the bar at the top of the web page, and they will send you some special prices.

We've never paid sticker price.

Mrs. Poop had never been to Disney, so I took her when we were dating. We stayed at the Carribean and LOVED it. I don't remember having any problems at all getting to/in the park from there. I also don't remember it being anywhere berkeleying near that expensive, but I'm thinking we only stayed for like two nights. Is there really that much to do/see that you'd want to stay longer? Also, we were 19 or 20, and they gave us a room with a MINI-BAR! YEEHAW!!!!

Keep in mind a kid of 4 doesn't move that fast, and takes a mid afternoon nap. They see things at a different pace. There is the magic kingdom, epcot, hollywood studios and animal kingdom. That is 4 parks. When you figure travel into a 7 day vacation, you probably only get 6 days worth of park time. I honestly think we'll still miss a fair amount, and that is ok. If we saw it all there would be no reason to go back. Certainly a different pace can be had without a kid involved, but the whole point in going is for the little guy. So if he wants to spend all day on one ride, I'm cool with that. There is stuff the wife and I would enjoy seeing, but if we don't get to it, not a big deal.

I love the little guy, but I never fully realized how much having a child changes your pace until we had him.

What we like to do, probably came from taking our kids there when they were young and needed a nap.

We do one park till after lunch then go back to the room, take a nap and get recleaned up and then hit another park. It's like getting two... two . . . two days in one!

Double your pleasure, double your fun . . .

Even though yer kid is only 4, you prolly oughtta bust the budget and find a way to get to Charley's Steakhouse on International Drive. It's walking distance from the convention center iirc, so a bit of a hike from disney, and looks like a tourist trap kinda place, but they served up the best goldern steak I've ever had. Gah. Save it for the next trip when he's older. Our kid was 10 when we went to Universal for the Harry Potter thing (yeah OK it was kinda neato but everything else was not up to Disney standards), and all 3 of us still talk about those steaks... he'll be at a better age to appreciate the Kennedy Space center as well, which is to me the primary reason to go to that state anyhow.

We usually stay at All Star Sports (stayed there 13 of the last 14 trips over the last 8 years). If you're going to stay at an All Star resort, pick that one since it's the first one "in line". This is important if you are going to be using the buses (Disney Trans) and they happen to be sharing them between resorts since you'll be first on, first off (it makes a difference, trust me). Also, try to get a 'preferred room'...they are closer to the main building where the buses are. Trust me, you don't want to get off the bus only to have to hike another mile (or so it seems) to get to the last building b/c that's where you ended up! (they're usually like $25 or so more a night). Also, the advice about looking up the "disney crowd calendar" is good....I forget which website my wife gets the info from, but it's usually fairly accurate at predicting crowd levels. So much so that on the rare occasions that we go against the recommendation, more often than not, we end up regretting it. Also, we don't do the dining plan...we get the plan that gets you a 20% discount at many of the dining places (like, the dining hall in All Star Sports, for example...or Pizzafari in Animal Kingdom, etc)...but it doesn't work in Epcot's World Showcase. It cost like $50 or so, so if you're going for a week, it may or may not pan out for you....we usually go 2-3 times a year, in which case, it more than makes up for the cost. We go a lot...I can answer lots of questions :)

I think the only time we left Disney property was to go out to eat once and once to drive "scenically" around Orlando looking for a drug store that took our insurance for some Amoxicillin for the youngin.

See that is the bus info I was hoping for, thank you.

Does the bus loop?

Lets say there are 4 value resorts, A,B,C,D. Does the bus go to A, then to B then C then to D then to the park gate, then back to A, B, C, D and so on? So if the whole loop takes 60 minutes, it might be 10 minutes to the park but 50 minutes back? Does that make sense the way I'm asking. Or does one bus just go back and forth from their resort? Or is it completely random?

They route the buses as needed to the available parks. The bus you board is going to that park from your resort. It doesn't stop anywhere else to get more people. What is being said is the available buses to you resort and back will vary.

No worries, in a 7 day trip, you definitely won't see it all. Nor should you try to. Take your time, enjoy whatever it is you're doing. Don't try to rush through it so you can get to the next thing. There is so much to do and see. Getting around is pretty easy once your inside any of the parks, but it does take time. Their bus system is probably as big or as bigger than many small city's public transit system. There are buses everywhere.

sachilles wrote: See that is the bus info I was hoping for, thank you. Does the bus loop? Lets say there are 4 value resorts, A,B,C,D. Does the bus go to A, then to B then C then to D then to the park gate, then back to A, B, C, D and so on? So if the whole loop takes 60 minutes, it might be 10 minutes to the park but 50 minutes back? Does that make sense the way I'm asking. Or does one bus just go back and forth from their resort? Or is it completely random?

Like others have stated, there are buses dedicated to each park / resort. With respect to the All Star resorts, however, sometimes the bus will also stop at the other 2 All Star resorts. It's when this happens, you'll be glad you're at Sports since, if the bus is being 'shared' across resorts, it will always stop there first.

Also, if you can help it, you might not want to sit in the seats on the driver's side in the middle of the bus. Those are the seats that fold up because they are reserved for the motorized scooters....you will be asked to get up if someone pulls up on one while the bus is being loaded.

...and, at Epcot, if you go when it's really busy, you'll almost have to choose between Fast Passing Test Track or Soaring....but since you're reading this on GRM, the choice is obvious

Ranger50 wrote: I think the only time we left Disney property was to go out to eat once and once to drive "scenically" around Orlando looking for a drug store that took our insurance for some Amoxicillin for the youngin.

Next time you need amoxicillin, don't worry too much about insurance coverage. It's cheap as hell.

In reply to M2Pilot:

Amox is cheap, but I misspoke. We needed a over the phone prescribed oral suspension steroid. It was $150 minus insurance....

Don't know if its been said, but if you have a smart phone get the Disney apps. There's one that will give you current wait times on all the rides which is awesome. The mapping ones are great as well, I found it easy to get slightly turned around in the crowds. Helps you find restaurants too. As stated, learn fast pass and use it. The kids had a blast when we were there. No amount of fun can make crowds like that fun for me.

I'm not an amusement park kind of guy, but when I took my 4 yo son for a week a couple of years ago I managed to enjoy myself nearly the whole time.

We stayed at a Disney resort and used thier transportation services the whole time. The only thing that we left Disney property for was the "Arabian Nights" dinner theater. Next time I would also leave to go to Sea World for a day.

I found the meal plan was a worthwhile investment.

We stayed at the "Key West" resort, since I don't golf, it wasn't worth the premium. Next time I would take lodging on the next tier down, which will probably put me closer to the parks.

For young kids the magic kingdom and animal kingdom will be the most entertaining. Epcot is great for adults and ok for young kids. The only thing in the movie studio themed park that my son liked was the toy story shooting gallery ride.