Everything we learnt as Disney World First Timers!
- Jess
- Jun 12, 2021
- 13 min read
Updated: Jul 12, 2021
The most magical place on earth is exactly that.. but it can be the most stressful to plan as first timers! Not knowing what to bring, what you need to reserve and how things go down, can be quite daunting - we know first hand! Thats why we want to add all of our insights into one place. One easy post of tips, ideas, hacks and must dos!
So, lets start with things to think about before you even get on that plane.
Tip 1: Decide your budget. Just because its a Disney trip, it doesn't HAVE to be too expensive. You have to narrow down what you're willing to do and what's important to you. So for example, staying on site is something we like to do as you normally get extra time in the parks. (As of 15th March 2020, when they closed due to the pandemic, they have stopped the official Extra Magic Hours but slowly they have started adding a small portion of extra time for hotel guests.) If this is not something you're too bothered about and the regular park hours are enough for you, offsite should be a major option for saving your £££,the only difference then is that you'll need to get your party into the parks by yourself ie. Car, Uber.
Tip 2: On that note, Download the My Disney Experience app. Its your Disney account and if youre staying on site, it has all the details of your stay in one place. Even if you only have tickets, its the most useful tool you will take with you into the parks. You can mobile order food, use it to enter the park instead of a ticket or magic band, make fast passes and just keep an itinerary for the day. If you by the Memory Maker (which we recommend if you have a long trip), all your images will come straight onto the account so straight onto the app on your phone for you to share and view.
Tip 3: Plan, but not too much! We know how it feels to LOVE to plan each trip to the minute, but trust me when I say, if you do that, you won't stick to it. All sorts can happen when you're there like getting an extra fast pass, thunder and rain storms that interrupt your day, tiredness can kick in... all stuff that you cannot plan for. We recommend planning your fast passes, evening dining and what parks you want to visit each day - as of when Im writing this (11/06/21) you have to make Park Reservations anyway, but sticking to a very strict itinerary can end up making your holiday way less relaxing and more stressful to try and fit everything in. Watch lots of vlogs - here's a link to ours - to give you an idea of how days generally work out and all the things that you might experience while you're there. We like making a bucket list instead of daily detailed plans and see which we can cross off in each park.
Tip 4: Buy GOOD shoes and wear them in!! Buy MULTIPLE good shoes and wear them in!! The WORST part of Disney is having your feet hurt, blisters specifically because no matter what your feet will ache from the shear amount of steps you'll do (the picture is our first full days steps), but at least blisters can be prevented by bringing good footwear that you feel comfortable in. A thing I found was when you go back to the hotel for a break, or when you sit down wherever, change your shoes and socks (if youre wearing some). Somehow, even though I was still going to be walking changing shoes made my feet less sore. I think its as the first pair has been trodden flat and the second pairs soles have puffed back up from their previous wear and can support your feet a little better. Lots of people like flip flops, which are great if you find them comfortable, just remember about going on rides where your feet dangle as you'll have to take them off.
Tip 5: Check your baggage allowance and leave room for souvenirs. Our baggage on Tui gave us a suitcase, a backpack type hand luggage and one other hand luggage (which was useful for all the snacks on the way home!) but your allowance might be different. If you are only allowed a suitcase and 1 bag, it might be useful to have your hand luggage be a cabin suitcase even if you don't fill it on the outbound journey. The size of things is what will be the issue, even just bringing home a mug, you'll wrap it up to protect it and that bulks out your luggage more than you think.
Don't get dishearten if you ever feel like you've made any mistakes, just enjoy your trip and that's a win in itself. Disney World is HUGE - It’s 25,000 acres of land which has 24 hotels, 4 theme parks and 2 water parks so just give yourself and break! It is going to be tiring so just do what you want to do to make it the most magical!
Now onto tips for in the park:
Tip 6: Pick up maps. Even if you know where youre going, they make great keepsakes as they have the date on and something significant that's happening or new at the time of your visit. They look great in frames and can be a great way to remember your trip. Make sure you get one in your own language though!!
Tip 7: Make sure you wear lots of suncream and take breaks in the shade in the middle of the day (12 - 3) as that's when the sun and UV rays are at there hottest and strongest. You ca 100% get burnt and at worst get sun stroke which will knock you our for the rest of the day. Stay safe everyone!!
Tip 8: You may think that people exaggerate about the love bugs, but they don't! These annoying bugs fly in pairs stuck together but also in swarms, most commonly during their two specific mating seasons--once in the spring (April to May), and then again in the late summer (August to September). So buy the best bug spray you can find, they won't hurt you but they're just super annoying! If you're going between those months, you've been warned! You can see how many are gathered on the front of this car in Universal Studios Simpsons Land, everything was COVERED!
Tip 9: Book your dining reservations ASAP as they book up quickly. So when I say just plan where you want to eat, if its not a Quick Service, you need to book it in advance. These are sit down restaurants, buffets and character dining. Quick service just means like take away style, even though they all have seating. So it use to be that you booked your dining 180 days in advance but now the official statement on the Disney website is: "Guests may make advance reservations for dining and other experiences up to 60 days in advance. In addition, Disney Resort hotel Guests can make reservations up to 60 days in advance plus the length of their stay (up to 10 days)." You can do this on your My Disney Experience page and it'll be on your holiday itinerary.
Tip 9: (This tip is still temporary unavailable) If you have a big family or like to eat.. a Dining Plan is probably something for you to look at. Disney tends to do some offers where they have free dining plans when you book your hotel and tickets with them. The quick service dining plan tends to be around $50 a person a day, in that you get 2 meals and 2 snacks per person per day, these are called credits. You can also get a Standard Dining Plan and a Deluxe Dining plan which gives you table service credits and more snacks, but that's also for more money a day. On our trip we got our Quick Service Dining Plan for FREE, but kept all of our receipts to total up how much we would have spent in total. We ended up paying SIGNIFICANTLY less and its interesting to see all the numbers. We made a video on it and I will leave that here for you:
Tip 10: Talking of Snacks - Take a box or ziplock bag with you as some of them are HUGE! We definitely had a few snacks we ate throughout the day as they were just that big. They are also helpful for putting any tech in when you go on water rides if your bag isn't waterproof. You use to be able to pick up a really cool Zipadee Do Da Ziploc bag in the queue for Splash Mountain but I don't think you can get them now due to the pandemic and the retheming of this ride.
Tip 11: The last thing money related is the Memory Maker. This is a photo package where you can get all your ride photos, any taken around the parks by cast members and even little ride videos, sent straight to your account for you to browse and save as you please. You can print them yourself or get them printed in the parks but its almost instantaneous. This normally costs $199 but it comes built in to almost every single UK park hopper ticket that we can buy, so most the time you don't need to worry about this. Another great thing about the Memory Maker is that cast members you see wandering around the park with a camera sometimes can do things called Magic Shots. These are special photographs where they insert a character or a moving feature to make it look like you're in the world with the Disney magic. They are lovely fun pictures that make great family moments or are great for social media.
Tip 12: Did you know, you can visit Disney hotels, even if youre not staying in one! The hotels all have great food, shops and activities that Disney loves to share with all their guest so limiting you to only visiting one isn't magical! You can book in some of the eatery's, we highly recommend Ohana at the Polynesian, they also have great bars and seating areas around the resort. Most of them have beaches!
Tip 13: While were on free places to go, Disney Springs isn't actually part of your Disney ticket. Its a shopping district that ANYONE can visit but there is lots of food and restaurants here that you can use your Disney Dining Plan credits at! As much as it isn't in a park, World of Disney is the biggest Disney shop you'll see and you can buy parks merchandise in there before you've even stepped foot on property. They also have so many more Disney touches like Goofys Candy Co where you can customise your own Mickey Rice Krispy Treat!!
Tip 14: Now, while youre shopping in that HUGE Disney Store - and any store at that matter, keep in mind that in the US the tax of items gets added on at the checkout. So your total will always be a bit more than what is on the price tag. Its somewhere between 6-7% so not a massive amount but just keep it in mind if you do a $100 shop that it will be $107. Same goes with tips in restaurants. You ALWAYS tip in a sit down restaurant or buffets if you have any sort of waiting staff serve you, this is how they get most of their wages. Gratuity is 15-20% or higher if you feel like you've had excellent service, meaning a $50 dinner is going to be $60+.. Our family style (a selection of unlimited food brought to your table) character breakfast at Ohana came to $76 but then with Tax and Tip on top of that, we ended up paying $95 for us both. (Picture shows our receipt from this restaurant) For the unlimited food and drink, character interactions with no wait in a beautiful setting, we would both say that Ohana was worth the nearly $50 each.
Tip 15: Disney is always so strong about staying environmentally friendly, clean and making everything such an amazing experience for their guests. In the resorts they still try to do this by giving you the choice with your housekeeping, or as they say - Mousekeeping. The housekeepers normally change your sheets, take out the rubbish and bring clean towels everyday - minimum. This is a great feeling after having a long day in the parks, getting into the shower and then relaxing on your fresh bed, but not everyone is bothered by this. On our trip we decided to Opt out of Housekeeping. Disney actually encouraged this option as it helps them save on water and all the other things that uses power and products, in an effort to stay a bit more green. This use to come with an incentive of a gift card for $10 per night of your stay minus the first night, so we got $130's for us to spend in the park. GREAT. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, this incentive isn't there as Disney would rather keep everywhere safe for their guests and help stop any spreading of germs that might have been gathered throughout the day. I thought I would add this into the list though as one day it might come back.
Tip 16: Staying onsite has a lot of perks but the biggest one is the transport. There is a lot of options for getting around Disney which all are included in your holiday. Hotels all have their own buses that go to all the parks, water parks and Disney springs. Theres also monorails and the skyline that can transport you all around property. But these benefits aren't just for hotel residents, anyone can use them to get from park to park and visit hotels. Ive written a whole separate post on all the transport at Disney - Read it Here. We highly recommend when on your holiday, you always leave an extra 20 - 30 minutes for travelling around as anything can happen like traffic jams or having to slow down transport to let on people in wheelchairs.
Tip 17: A thing you might be rushing for, or leaving that 30 minutes to get to is a Fast Pass. What is this Fast Pass thing youre talking about I here you say! A fast pass is a skip the line pass that you can book before your stay. Due to COVID the fast pass system isn't currently running but it is one of the amenities that I'm sure will return as every park has it in some sort of form. At Walt Disney World, they make it easy so that either 60 days (if youre staying onsite) or 30 days(if youre staying off site) you can book 3 fast passes for each day, meaning you can choose a time to skip the line on your favourite rides in a park. This is another perk they give you for staying on site, because 60 days before your stay you can book your ENTIRE holidays fast passes to make sure you get those top tier rides, where as off site, you can book each day as it becomes 30 days from your stay, so day 1, 30 days from being there..day 2, 30 days from being there and so on! Fast Passes are restricted to putting all 3 passes in 1 park each day, but once you have used up your 3 that were booked in advanced, you can book another pass in any park, if they are still available on the My Disney Experience app or on the Fast Pass booking machines around the park. You can get fastpasses for Shows as well as Rides - we highly suggest trying to get a Fantasmic or Epcot Fireworks Show fast pass for the best views. We have a whole video of the day we booked our fast passes here:
Talking of shows here's a little *Dont Forget* kind of tip- After watching the famous and amazing Happily Ever After, don't rush out the park with all the crowds, about 20-30 mins later there's another small projection show called Once Upon a Time.. its so cute. The premise is basically Mrs Potts telling Chip a bed time story of different Disney Fairytales.. not to be missed!
Tip 18: So you're staying off site or you missed a fast pass for a ride you really want to get on... Rope drop it. Rope Drop is a term we use for getting to the park before it opens, to be there as soon as you can get in line. This normally makes the queues way shorter as not everyone gets there for opening, especially if you go during the Extra Time for hotel guests as the capacity is reduced to just those staying on property. Rope Dropping can be an excellent way to get a majority of your rides done before the park gets busy, so we always recommend leaving your fast passes until later in the day when capacity is higher and there is more of a line that you'll be skipping.
Tip 19: Most of the time though even if your skipping a line, the displayed wait time for that ride mostly comes out higher than the actual time you end up waiting, especially at the end of the day. If something displays a 15 minute wait before closing, get yourself over there still as its most likely a walk on! The only rides that are probably going to be more accurate are newer rides that everyone wants to get on, although sometimes they increase the displayed queue time to deter it from getting any bigger. If that's the case, some rides do have a single rider queue and we recommend using it as it can be a lot shorter. Of course during these times they can't put people right next to each other but I think they are putting 1 seat apart so if youre as a single rider and a party of 2 sits on a row of 4, you could skip the queue and get on that ride quicker. Most of the parties are 2 as well so if youre also a 2 but in the single rider line, you could possibly still get on the same ride just behind each other instead of next to.
Tip 20: This last tip should just be common sense and decency anyway but, be nice to cast members! The people who work at Disney are there to deliver the magic, and Ive never met any cast member who's made my day worse in the parks. They also have a lot of power when it comes to sprinkling extra pixie dust on your visit so just be your kind, smiley, fun selves and that might just happen to you. Cast members have been known to give out free fast passes, they can give you extra magic like LITERALLY sprinkling you with pixie dust or as we were AMAZINGLY treated to by a lovely girl Demi, to skipping the line for the Princess Pavilions. We then left her a #CastCompliment on our social media, this is such a great way to let her and the company know that you really appreciate everything they did for you.Any compliments will go onto that cast members file and can really benefit them and their time at the company. They make our dreams come true and we can make there's come true too.
But that is all our tips! We hope they help you plan your trip of a lifetime to one of our favourite places in the world! Let us know your best moments from Disney as sharing the magic is one of the best bits of the Disney Community!
Thanks for reading everyone! X
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