Walt Disney World Oct 2015 - Pre-Trip & Planning

Where dreams come true....

I am still working on the 2013 Europe Cruise blog, but I want to start on the next chapter as well.  We are only about a month and a half from our next adventure:  Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL.  We are going to take our 1 year old daughter, Ellie, on her first vacation.  We are going with my parents and my brother and his family.  The Holk clan is about to invade Lake Buena Vista.

This trip has been a work in progress and we are finally paid and ready to go.  We had to pick a time to go, find a hotel, find airfare, buy park tickets, schedule dining reservations, and book Fast Passes in advance.  I am something of a Disney World nerd so some of this came pretty easy to me, but then getting all of us on the same page is not always easy.

For my parents, Spencer (my brother) and me, going to Disney World is almost like going home.  We went almost every year when we were growing up.  It is one of our favorite places.  Lisa and I have actually been 3 times since we have been together, 2 of those times with friends.

Food & Wine Festival at EPCOT

When:  Lisa and I went to Disney in October several years ago with another couple and we really enjoyed the Food and Wine Festival.  When deciding when to go on this trip, we wanted to go to it again, but it also worked out for other reasons.  We wanted to wait for Ellie to turn 1 because she will be able to interact with us and the parks better.  It is also a great time of year to go to Orlando because of the mild weather.

Disney's Boardwalk Resort

Hotel:  We have stayed at many of the hotels on Disney property and have enjoyed most of them.  We prefer to stay on property rather than off property to conserve time, use Disney transportation, and because they are great places to stay.  Our favorite area is the EPCOT hotels just outside the World Showcase of EPCOT.  These are very handy because you can walk to EPCOT, take a boat to Hollywood Studios, and then take buses to the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney.  We can also use the monorail to go to and from EPCOT and the Magic Kingdom.  The hotels in this area are the Boardwalk, Yacht & Beach Clubs, and the Swan & Dolphin.  All great hotels, but all not inexpensive.  So, I decided to do some research.  Three of these hotels are part of the Disney Vacation Club, which is Disney's timeshare program.  I found that people are able to rent their points to others, making these hotels much less expensive.  I found a couple of website that specialize in renting DVC points.  Through this process we landed on the DVC Rental Store and booked 3 studio rooms at the Boardwalk Villas.  It ended up being much less expensive than booking through Disney.

Airfare & Tickets:  Airfare actually came up pretty easy.  We watch airfares on everything but Southwest for several months, and then when Southwest was released, we realized we wasted our time.  Not only did Southwest have non-stop flights from KC to Orlando, but they were cheaper than the other airlines.  There were two big advantages to this option.  First, we think the non-stop will be good for flying with our daughter for the first time so that we don't have to change planes with her.  The second advantage is Southwest allows 2 checked bags at no cost.  This will be great flying with a child.  We are going to have a lot of stuff to take, and I'm sure we will have quite a few souvenirs to bring home.

Our park tickets we found on a discount ticket website.  There were not a lot of options to find tickets cheaper without listening to a timeshare presentation.  I decided to get 6 day park hopper passes.  We enjoy going to different parks during the day, one in the morning, early afternoon break, and then a different park in the evening.  With the Food & Wine Festival going on, we plan on spending quite a bit of time in EPCOT, but not all day everyday.

Dining:  Ah, dining....  Disney has created such high demand for their dining locations that they allow guests to book their dining times 180 days in advance.  That's right, 6 months before you go to Disney World, you have to decide where you want to eat.  I have figured out a way for me to decide when to eat where, but it is tricky.  The first thing I looked for was the park times.  The problem with park hours is they were not released until 1 week before I could book dining reservations.  This did not allow a lot of time to decide where to eat.  Our group had some discussion before this time period as to the restaurants we want to eat at, so that helped decide what to look for.  Since this will be the first trip that my wife and I and my brother and his wife have taken kids, we decided to only make lunch reservations, with a few exceptions.  This should allow some flexibility with naps for the kids and hopefully save a little money by not eating at sit down restaurants every meal.  The list of restaurants we are eating at are:

• Rose & Crown Dining Room at EPCOT
• Be Our Guest at the Magic Kingdom
• The Hollywood Brown Derby at Hollywood Studios
• Cinderella's Royal Table at the Magic Kingdom
• Monsieur Paul at EPCOT

The first 3 are lunch reservations.  Cinderella's Royal Table is actually a breakfast reservation and it is before the park opens.  I am really excited about seeing the Magic Kingdom basically empty.  We will be able to get some great pictures then.  The Monsieur Paul reservation is dinner, but it is for 4 so we are leaving the kids with the grandparents or one set of parents, and have an adult dinner.  Lisa and I have eaten there before and it is wonderful.  Be Our Guest is new to us and that sounds very good also.  It will be cool to see the restaurant since ii is set in the ballroom from Beauty and the Beast.

New Fantasyland - All New to Us

Fast Passes and Magic Bands:  To piggie back on the dining, Fast Passes are now booked 60 days in advance and the demand to get the big ticket rides is very high.  I happened to set ours up on day 60, but I waited til mid-morning, and the choices were starting to fill up.

Our family has not been to the new Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom.  No only will this be great for the kids, but we are excited to see the new stuff.  Our top choices for Fast Passes are:  Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Under the Sea, and the new Dumbo.  I will be riding Dumbo with Ellie to try and redeem my childhood home video where I screamed the entire ride with my dad.  The only thing you see is my dad and you hear me screaming.  Good times.

This will also be our first trip with Magic Bands.  Magic Bands are a wristband that you use to keep all of your trip information on it.  It is used for payment, your hotel key, park tickets and Fast Passes.  Seems like a pretty handy tool.  We'll see how it goes.

That wraps up the planning and pre-trip.  We have a lot of packing and stuff to get for the trip.  In just over a month, we'll be on our way.

Disney World......Here we come!