Category Archives: Planning

That’s a first!

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As I put the final details in place for our forthcoming trip to the World I realise that this visit could yet again be full of magical first time Disney experiences.

It’s clear to see that by simply changing the time of year for our visit it has opened up a number of new experiences and events which I will see for the first time. By visiting Walt Disney World in October I will see Magic Kingdom decorated for Halloween and get to attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.

This also means that I will be visiting Epcot during the Food and Wine Festival; I’m looking forward to not only sampling some of the dishes on offer but seeing how World Showcase looks with the addition of the international marketplace booths.

Due to a special promotion I was able to include the Disney Dining Plan for free on my vacation booking which means I’ll be experiencing Disney dining on a whole new level. I’ll be visiting Signature restaurants for the first time and some of our advanced dining reservations will take us into resorts that we’ve never really had the chance to explore before.

After attending the Key To The Kingdom tour on our last visit I knew that I wanted to book at least one tour or special experience on this trip….well, I decided to fit three in! We will FINALLY get to Dine With An Imagineer, we will be taking a unique look at Animal Kingdom on the Wild By Design tour and last but by no means least we will be taking in the detail of Magic Kingdom during a park tour with Lou Mongello.

Something else which will make this trip so unique is the number of friends that we hope to be meeting up with during our two week vacation. A few years ago, before I started blogging and talking to fellow Disney fans across the social networks, I had no idea that I would make friends with so many people who lived close to or worked at my favourite vacation destination.

And lastly…now this could well make or break a vacation….we have unplanned days on our WDW daily schedule!!!! That’s right, I threw out the original daily plan which I had spent so long researching and planning! So the new schedule includes the booked tours, ADR’s and a couple of planned meet ups but that’s it! We are going to decide that morning or the night before which park we feel like going to each day….if we wake up and feel like stuffing our faces at the Food and Wine Festival we’ll head on over to Epcot, if we feel like spending a morning people watching in a busy Magic Kingdom then we’ll head on over there!!! For a mega planner like me this is pretty scary stuff but there’s a first time for everything!! :)

So what about you? Do you like to visit at the same time of year or stay at the same resort because you like to know every detail of your vacation? Do you make sure that you experience at least one new thing during each trip or do you throw caution to the wind and never plan your trips, hoping that magic and surprises come along to make memories that you’ll cherish forever???

 

 

 

 

Stay on target!

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I decided that it was time to get back to our vacation planning. Last time I left you with ‘the great wait‘…I hope you’ve filled your time wisely because we now have only two months before our trip! ;)

It’s around this time that I like to triple check my passport to make sure it’s in date, double-check my travel insurance has been booked for the right dates and re-visit that ESTA website to check that I’m allowed into the USA!

And now….it’s time to start thinking about packing!!!! Yes, yes, I know that you think that I’m a little bit loopy but I like to occupy my time with these things and I can assure you that this is a tried and tested practice….go with me here…..

Your luggage restrictions will be dependent on your airline; you may be allowed one or two suitcases per passenger, hand luggage allowances vary but nearly all airlines these days are strict on weight limits for bags.

Now if you are a crazy Disney shopper like me you may have experienced that sinking feeling on the last day of your vacation; looking at everything in your hotel room that needs to go back in that suitcase which was perfectly suitable for the job on the way over to Florida but now you’re hoping that somehow when you zip up that case the items will weigh half as much as when you squeezed them in.

Combine that with the fact that I never travel light when it comes to make up, hair products, medicines etc. I can guarantee that at the beginning of the trip those toiletries were taking up as much room in my suitcase as my clothes for the two weeks!! And you know those cute little travel sized bottles you can get, there’s never enough in those for two weeks!

And so, over the last few years I have come up with a two-fold fail safe packing method! Firstly I have my digital luggage scale. How did I ever travel without this amazing gadget?!  Simply hook it onto your suitcase, get someone strong enough to lift the handle plus suitcase, wait for the beep and then pray that the digital screen is showing less than your airline’s weight limit :)

 

The other part of the packing method comes into play about two months before my trip. When I’m out doing my regular shopping I’ll start picking up the toiletries which I need for my trip; just the everyday stuff like shampoo, conditioner etc. But instead of buying just the one I buy two of each item….that’s why it’s good to start a while before your trip, you can spread the cost out that way.

So let’s use shampoo for this example. I will have already worked out approximately how much shampoo I use in two weeks….I know it’s more than can ever be contained in a cute travel bottle!! I will start to use one of the bottles of shampoo at home and once I have roughly that amount left in my bottle it goes into the ‘vacation’ storage. I then start to use the other unopened bottle at home as normal. I then repeat this process for all the toiletries I need to take on my vacation, bearing in mind that this only works for things that will not perish in the time between opening and vacation.

When you are ready to pack for your vacation your toiletry items will weigh less than full bottles and can be thrown out when you pack for your return journey home, as the product should just about be finished and you know that you have another bottle waiting at home which you can continue to use until your next post-vacation trip to the shops. Therefore creating more space and less weight in your luggage for all those Disney goodies….and you’re not throwing away unused product in the desperate hope of meeting your weight limit!!

Okay, so I’ve shared my bizarre packing routine….what do you do to make sure all that Disney shopping comes home with YOU???

 

 

The great wait….

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So we’ve researched, planned, booked and now what? ….We…..wait…….

My planning posts have been about us Disney fans who plan and book our trips to Walt Disney World months and often years in advance. It’s great, I love it that way, the build up is totally part of the vacation process for me.

At first it’s all about the researching and making decisions on when to go and where to stay. Once the vacation is booked we research dining and the parks, awaiting the release of the park hours and our ADR window. At the same time as booking our ADR’s we set up our draft daily itinerary and book behind the scene tours. There’s a flurry of activity and it finally sinks in that we are returning to the World.

And then….comes ‘the great wait’….

I’ve spoken to others who have experienced the same. There is a period in our WDW countdown when all we can do is wait it out. Once all the plans have been made around the 180 day mark, and maybe you’ve tweaked a few of your ADR’s, there’s nothing else to do until you get to a month or so before your departure date.

Sure you keep reading the daily Disney news, re-checking park hours, special events and restaurant menus but there is a time where you cannot actually do anything other than wait.

News might come out about special events but they will be over before your trip, news might come out about merchandise being released in the parks but you can’t get too excited as it might be gone before you get there. News about future changes to attractions might be released but often the dates are so vague you don’t know if you need to take the changes into account until a few weeks or even days before your trip.

Now I’m not saying that this wait is necessarily a bad thing…it just seems to be a natural stage of the WDW planning process, something that many of us have experienced….a time when we have to be patient ;)

But don’t worry, the great wait will end. And then the real countdown begins. Then we’ll be able to start thinking about printing off that final itinerary, preparing our vacation clothing, buying our toiletries and magazines for the plane….and soon enough it will be our time to travel to the magic :)

So what about you? Have you experienced ‘the great wait’ whilst waiting for your Disney vacation to arrive???

 

 

Oh….THAT Phineas and Ferb!

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So in last week’s post I admitted to not really knowing a lot about Phineas and Ferb, and how I thought I had better change that before my next trip to Walt Disney World.

It was great to get so many comments from Phineas and Ferb fans…and yes, it’s clear that adults are the biggest fans out there!!

I watched a few episodes and I enjoyed how colourful and fast paced the stories are. There were a couple of times when I thought ‘huh, why did Agent P do that?’ but then I reminded myself that this is all about imagination…it’s okay to forget logic for fifteen minutes!!

And just like it was planned to link into my blog post, on May 16 the official Disney Parks Blog posted an update regarding the Phineas and Ferb experience coming to Epcot’s World Showcase this June. I am looking forward to seeing how this new game is introduced to World Showcase and whether a newcomer to the Phineas and Ferb storylines will be able to enjoy the experience as much as the ‘serious’ fan!

I feel that I should also add that because of this little ‘adventure’ for my blog I have also discovered another new cartoon character in the last week….and yes, I know it’s been around since 2010 but bear with me!!! Whilst checking the programme listings for the Disney XD channel the title of a cartoon caught my eye….Kick Buttowski…. With such a clever and cool name I knew I had to check this programme out…and now I am hooked!

I love the rockin’ theme tune and the fact that Kick keeps throwing the horns (non-rock fans may want to ask a teenager for reference)! Now…if this guy was appearing in the parks I would be super excited……anyone know of any hidden merch?!

And this is why I’m so passionate about Disney. We all get interested and hooked on different things. Why does one thing click with one person and not another? It might be a song, a character, a reference to something in your ‘non-Disney’ life which you can relate to…who knows? But with Disney in our lives we can discover new and simple things everyday…and yes, it also helps us to not take life too seriously ;)

 

 

Just who are Phibeas and Fern?!

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Okay…so I know that it’s really Phineas and Ferb….but who are they???

I spend so much of my time (yes, probably TOO much of my time) reading Disney related news and trying to retain as much knowledge as I can for my next trip to the World. I know which attractions have changed since my last visit, what time fireworks and parades will occur (and not just at 3 o’clock), which snacks are now on sale in the parks and all kinds of other useful information!

But just sometimes there will be changes made in the parks that leave you a little puzzled about your next visit….and this is where Phineas and Ferb come in!

Being a big kid myself means that I have a pretty good grasp on what’s cool (is it even okay to say ‘cool’ anymore?) and what’s not….I also now have an 18 month old nephew who I can rely on to educate me on the cartoons all the kids are watching. For example the other day he introduced me to Jake and the Neverland Pirates…well, he sat on my lap whilst I watched my first ever episode…Jake is one pretty cool pirate :)

During 2011 I had read about Phineas and Ferb ‘meet and greets’ being introduced to the Disney parks, nothing unusual there…we’re all used to seeing new characters being brought into WDW for the younger generations. But along with the abundance of Phineas and Ferb merchandise on sale in the parks, earlier this year Disney announced that Kim Possible would be leaving her World Showcase Adventure in Epcot  and Agent P would be taking her place.

The official Disney Parks Blog posted the following:

“Coming this summer, ‘Disney Phineas & Ferb: Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure’ is based on the wily secret-agent alter-ego of Perry the Platypus – faithful pet to the title characters from Disney’s animated series ‘Phineas & Ferb’. Although just a simple pet to Phineas and Ferb, Perry turns into Agent P in each episode to help stop the misguided plans of his nemesis, Dr. Doofenshmirtz.”

So this is the point where I ask not only who are Phineas and Ferb, but should I know who Agent P is too?!

And so, in the interest of daydreamingdisney.com…and perhaps my sanity as a Disney expert….during the next seven days I will be watching several episodes of Phineas and Ferb.

Will I love it and want to buy all the merch I can find at WDW? Will I hate it and run screaming from the Phineas and Ferb characters in Disney’s Hollywood Studios? Watch this space and you’ll find out next week….. ;)

I’ve got the Key!

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What does a Disney fan do when they’ve exhausted all attractions, shows and eateries in every park but still craves something new? Well if they’re anything like me…obsessed with Disney history, the Disney Company and the behind the scenes organisation of the parks…they’ll book up one of the Walt Disney World tours!

During my last visit to the World I FINALLY got to attend the Keys To The Kingdom tour in Magic Kingdom. I’d spoken to friends and family who raved about it…I’d read reviews that were ‘so, so’ about it. Knowing that I have a craving for knowledge of what goes on behind the magic I knew that I had to experience it for myself in order to have my own opinion of the experience.

Now I’m not going to go into the finer details of the tour as I don’t want to spoil it for any of my readers that have yet to take part but I will say that personally I thought this tour was AMAZING!!!

I understand from reading reviews that your tour guide can make or break the tour. Our guide was knowledgeable, with a fun but dry sense of humour and even strict in some places. By the way, their costumes are awesome! We had a great time with our guide and he even let us know that he used to be a ‘friend’ of Goofy’s!

We booked the first tour of the day which meant that we got into Magic Kingdom before the park opened…cue photos on an empty Main Street! As an extra bonus we were waiting outside City Hall for the tour to start when the performers turned up for the park opening ceremony and one of the male dancers stopped to make a fuss about my “awesome” hair!

You are given a ‘guest’ badge to wear on the tour and boy did I feel special walking around MK all morning showing off my ‘guest’ pass ;) Other guests look at the group; you can see them wondering who you are and why you are part of a group with a guide…it makes you feel like a VIP.

There were so many highlights of the tour for me. We got to ride Haunted Mansion, but jumped the queue by using a cast member entrance! We got to go backstage; seeing the back of Splash Mountain, some of the parade vehicles being worked on and we might have even seen one or two characters on their break!

And then…the moment I had been waiting for all my Disney fan life….we went into a shop on Main Street, passed through a ‘cast member only’ doorway, descended some steps…and entered the Utilidors…..

Yes, I know they are only corridors, there’s nothing magical about them….or is there? You see to me there is….I like stripping back the pixie dust and seeing what makes Walt Disney World operate. Down in those corridors it felt like any other workplace, in any other part of the world. There were notice boards with motivational messages, staff rooms, training rooms, lockers and tired looking staff. To me it’s important that we don’t forget the effort and energy these people put into making our special place so magical….and that’s why seeing the Utilidors was so important for me.

Were there any negatives of the tour for me? At a push I would say the lunch at Columbia Harbour House…the food was just okay…but then again, it was nice to eat somewhere I hadn’t been before.

And if that wasn’t enough magic for one morning something else happened that will always make me smile when I think about this tour. When you arrive at MK for the tour you report to a cast member in City Hall who is responsible for signing you in, giving you your badge and taking your lunch order. That same cast member is also around at lunch time to show you to your tables. Well, a few days later we were walking around Epcot and I saw that same cast member walking by talking to a couple of people in smart dress. The cast member interrupted his conversation with these important looking people and went out of his way to say hello to us and asked if we were enjoying our vacation. I felt so humbled that he had remembered us from the tour a few days before and that little gesture made me feel like a valued guest.

So would I recommend the Keys To The Kingdom tour? Yes…if you want a small glimpse of what goes on behind the magic…but don’t expect to learn every secret of Walt Disney World…. because some things do have to be left to your imagination ;)

Gettin’ around….

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As I have previously mentioned we don’t drive whilst at Walt Disney World. Letting someone else take the strain of getting us from A to B is part of the break for us.

I do however have a vivid memory of having a hire car in Orlando and I think I have just about recovered from the experience! It was during a family holiday back in the 90’s, in the days before everyone had GPS and sat navs. I will spare you all the gory details but I will say that we left Universal Studios in the dark, via the wrong exit, and spent hours trying to get back to our hotel….well, it felt like hours to the scared and embarrassed teenager that I was at the time!!!

Now that I’m all grown up and have the luxury of staying on property we make full use of the complimentary Disney Resort Transportation, or ‘Disney buses’ for short! We love the convenience of hopping on and off the buses, going from resort to park and back again.

Once you know your way around the transportation system you can work out how to get to just about anywhere on property. When we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside we started to notice that the buses going from the parks to Port Orleans French Quarter would often arrive more frequently and there would be less of a queue, so we soon started hopping on the French Quarter one and walking the short distance along the river back to Riverside.

During our last stay at Wilderness Lodge we noticed that the Magic Kingdom bus only took 5 to 10 minutes to get to the park so we started hopping on that one and then making our way elsewhere from MK. Whilst trying to get to Epcot from Ft Wilderness one night a Wilderness Lodge bus turned up so we jumped on that, knowing that we could start the journey again from our home resort!

Unfortunately in recent years the Disney Company has chosen to limit the bus drivers’ interaction with guests. I’m not sure of the official reason for this but I wonder if it had something to do with the negative ‘situations’ the bus drivers seemed to be experiencing with guests. I still get an excited feeling when I hear the recorded message announcing where the bus is heading to, for you to “have a nice day” or when the familiar music starts as you head towards your home resort, but it’s not quite the same as the crazy interactions we used to have with drivers in the past.

On our last trip we were on a bus around midday heading to Downtown Disney with only a few other guests on board. I assume the driver decided we looked like a friendly bunch as he switched off the pre-recorded announcements and decided to have a quiz with us! We had such fun answering his trivia questions about the number of fireworks let off in WDW during a year or how many cars are on Disney property on New Year’s Eve!! It felt even more fun as he sounded EXACTLY like John Candy!! The driver really made our day and we departed at DTD with huge grins on our faces; that was a magical Disney memory right there.

I know that some people have bad things to say about the Disney buses but I think they do a pretty impressive job of transporting thousands of guests around the WDW property each day. Yes, you can be stood at a bus stop for what feels like ages, seeing every bus go by except the one you want, but that’s no different from being in your home town or city…traffic is traffic no matter how much pixie dust there is to go around!

The only downside of Disney buses for me is unfortunately the other guests who use them. For some reason at certain resorts guests waiting for a bus choose not to queue, just stand in a crowd around several of the bus shelters, and then try to push their way to the front when a bus arrives. If you want to be first on a bus why not form an orderly queue? The other unfortunate habit is the people who think they can board first by using the side doors…you know….the doors that say ‘exit only’!!

So I’m prepared to put my hand up and announce that I love the Disney buses ;) I will continue to tolerate other people’s bad behaviour in order to use a transportation system that suits my needs whilst in the World.

And all I ask is the next time you use a Disney bus make sure you smile and thank that driver for his or her hard work, for they are responsible for getting us to the magic everyday :)

Making room….

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Picture the scene….you’ve just returned home, it’s been a wonderful vacation, now you must start the unpacking. You open your suitcase and take in the sight of the wonderful new goodies you picked up during your latest Walt Disney World trip. You take each one out, overjoyed that it survived the plane journey home. Now it begins…where will this Vinylmation go? Which drawer will accommodate the new t-shirts? Do I have room in my jewellery box for those new bracelets I just had to buy?

Does this sound familiar? Are you a WDW shopping addict like me? I just love, love, love shopping in the States and always return home with far more items than I planned on buying! Following my last trip I returned home with Vinylmations, jewellery, handbags, hoodies, t-shirts, books, mugs and numerous other collectibles. And yes, I wandered around the house looking for room to display and store the various new items!

So this time I’ve decided to take action. Let’s make room before I go on my vacation!

You know what it’s like when you have to tidy a room, cupboard or wardrobe? It feels like the most tedious job in the world, something you put off for as long as possible because you are being ‘forced’ to tidy. I can tell you it feels a lot better when you are clearing out a wardrobe knowing that in a few months you’ll be filling it full of wonderful new Disney items!

Pre-holiday tidying allows you to evaluate what you don’t need anymore and more importantly what you MUST replace during your next WDW trip! Organising your Vinylmations and buying a bigger display case just confirms that you NEED that new series mentioned on the Disney Parks blog recently. You can also be reassured that you will NEED that new Dooney and Bourke bag to finish off that perfect outfit you’ve just discovered in your wardrobe…..

And if you’re really organised you might find time to sell off some of your ‘surplus’ items on Ebay or at a car boot sale. It’s amazing how getting some extra spending money together for your trip is incentive enough to get out of bed early on a Sunday morning and stand in a field selling your unwanted things to strangers!!

So why not give it a go? Have a Disney spring clean and make some money. Make some room for your new Walt Disney World treasures :)

 

DDP…easy as one, two, free!

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The Disney Dining Plan (DDP) has always fascinated me…or should that be that the people using the DDP have always fascinated me? Despite the plan providing a daily allocation of meals and snacks for your vacation there always seems to be this issue with managing the use of your table service credits and using the numerous unspent snack credits on enough snacks to take home for all your friends and relatives.

Search any number of Disney fan forums and you will find numerous threads on how to ‘efficiently’ use the DDP. Getting your money’s worth….that’s the key…the issue…the deal breaker…

So what happens when you get the Disney Plan for free? Surely that should be where the fun begins; it’s free food after all. But because it’s free does that mean you need to use the plan even more effectively? Don’t waste those credits…get the most out of it…this has cost you NOTHING!!!

Now I have never used a Disney Dining Plan. I have never felt the need. When we go to Walt Disney World we’ll plan a couple of ADRs (Advanced Dining Reservations) but certainly not one a day for the full fourteen days. We’ll book specific restaurants that we know we want to visit because of their food, atmosphere or how an early ADR will get us into a park before opening.

We love American style breakfasts so we tend to eat A LOT first thing. We love cakes so we’ll usually have at least one of those to keep us going during the day. We love hanging out at our resort in the evening so we’ll usually grab something from the food court if we haven’t already eaten at a counter service during the day. And that’s it; no regular meals, no regular meal times, no rules.

For us when looking at the cost of the DDP it hasn’t added up. Yes, you get a lot of food on the plan for the duration of your vacation. But we don’t actually spend as much on food as we would on buying the dining plan. So until now we’ve ignored all those forum threads, we’ve ignored the little notes on the food counter advising how many credits it will cost to buy this burger and cupcake, and we’ve laughed and shrugged it off when our server looks horrified when we say ‘no, we’re not paying with the dining plan’.

But that is all about to change…..for we shall be using the Disney Dining Plan on our next trip. And it will be free. When booking our latest trip we just couldn’t ignore the offers that were available if we travelled at a certain time of the year so we went for it. And now we are getting free food.

I’m really looking forward to the experience. I’ve tried to play it cool and go along with the ‘well it’s free’ philosophy, but every now and again you find yourself planning a day’s events around that ADR you want to book or how many table service points you’ll have used by that day.

Will we have an abundance of snack credits? Will we feel like we are eating all day long? Will we look for the most expensive thing on the menu…because it’s free? I can’t wait for this new Disney experience.

So what about you? Do you have any tales from using a Disney Dining Plan for the very first time? Or any traditions that you have when eating ‘free food’ in WDW?

Three cheers for All Ears!!

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I confess….I really should have mentioned All Ears when we first started talking about planning a trip to Walt Disney World….because this website covers everything you need to know for a WDW vacation. It’s one of those websites which you’ll visit to look up a specific snippet of information and two hours later you’ve wandered far from the original information you needed, probably reading a section you never knew existed before!

So, if you are one of the few who doesn’t know about All Ears.net bookmark it now!!

Deb Wills set up All Ears as a Disney information resource over 15 years ago, and the website still continues to grow every day. I discovered the All Ears weekly newsletter about 7 years ago and have visited the site on a regular basis ever since looking for Disney news and planning information.

All Ears doesn’t just provide everything you need to know about Walt Disney World; it also covers Disneyland and Disney Cruise Line. There are sections relating to Disney news, blogs, reader reviews and tips. You name it…you’ll find it on this site!

One of my favourite areas of the website is the Rate and Review section. If you want to read what other Disney visitors think of a resort, a restaurant, an attraction or a special event then this is the place to go. Now remember…..people like and dislike different things….and the Rate and Review section is based on personal and individual opinion….This means that you shouldn’t decide against something just because someone has written a negative review, just take into account what they have written and ask yourself if this would impact your experience. Personally I love reading other people’s opinion of somewhere I’ve visited on property!

The other great section which I could spend hours reading (and the reason I should have mentioned the website earlier in my planning posts) is the Accommodation section. Here you’ll find details of every hotel on Disney property; complete with resort maps, photos of rooms and menus for the various restaurants and food courts.

Okay, I’m going to resist listing every section covered on the website as it’s yours to explore….and it would take me forever to set up the links!! If you want to know what a certain room looks like at Port Orleans French Quarter, which room is closest to a bus stop at All Star Music or the height restrictions for all the attractions in WDW you’ll find it on this site.

Make sure you get to know the lovely All Ears team via their blogs and check out All Ears on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You’ll wonder just how you planned a Disney vacation without the help of All Ears!!! ;)