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Veteran
Posts: 294
 
| I want to add that we had groceries delivered to our room so we ate breakfast in our room. Garden Grocery delivered it. | |
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Veteran
Posts: 197
| We did Disney four years ago. Bought a packaged special from Disney, and it was great (less than $2k for 4 of us for a week including food, tickets and fast passes). We stayed at a Moderate priced Disney hotel and loved it. It was roomy, nice and we were able to easily come back, nap, get up and go back to the park for evening riding. We went in August so it was hotter than H##L - so we were at the park when it opened and napping in the a/c during the really hot part of the day and back to ride again when it cooled off a little. Also, if you stayed at a Disney hotel, you got extended hours. We definitely took advantage of this.
We paid for the meal plan. LOVED it. Never had a bad meal. I made our reservations to certain special restaurants several months in advance. We had no out of pocket expenses for food because we had already paid for everything.
We did not buy Park Hopper or tickets to the Water Park. I was glad we didn't. We have a couple of awesome water parks in Texas - we were at Disney to ride rides and the pool at our hotel was really cool. My girls had fun playing in the water there.
Fast passes are worth their weight in gold. There are books that you can buy at Barnes/Noble the are titled something like "How to Plan your Disney Day". It is published every year. It would give you a schedule and maps of your route through the park during the day - ie - Go get this Fast Pass first and then ride this ride while you wait on your Fast Pass to be active. This worked WONDERFULLY. Our first loop around the park, we knew which way we were headed and where to go next. When we came back to the park in the evening, we already had ridden everything and just went back to our favorite rides to get another Fast Pass.
A couple of tips that worked really well for us. I would freeze two bottles of water for the backpack we carried in the park. This would provide us with plenty of cold water without spending any money - I would simply add a little water at the water fountain as the ice melted. Other backpack necessities - Wet wipes (eew germs everywhere), ponchos (it WILL rain), a little towel for the water rides, small medicine kit, liquid skin for blisters and I bought a cheap camera to keep from banging up my good one. We also dressed in like color shirts everyday. My girls were 7 and 11 when we went but getting on and off rides it was still very easy to get separated from them. With like shirts, the park attendants knew we 'went' together. ;) And of course, plenty of sunscreen, a hats for everyone and super comfy shoes!
Went last year to Universal Studios in Florida with my youngest daughter after a VB tourney at Wide World of Sports. We stayed onsite because that was the only way to get their "Fast Pass" (but it is called something else) It was worth the outrageous room prices to avoid the crazy lines. Worth every penny. My daughter LOVED the rides at Universal. I lost count of the number of times she rode the crazy red rollercoaster.
If you are not currently on an exercise program, start walking NOW. Everyday. The rides are very very very far apart. My hubby described it as a ride every 2 miles with a Disney mall in between!
We absolutely loved Disney. Pricey yes but for us worth every penny. I had no problems with saying no at all of the Disney shops - my girls know exactly what no means and they were ok when they ran out of their allotted fun $$$. The workers at Disney were extremely friendly and helpful. They have ruined us for any other park. No one comes close to Disney's customer service.
My two cents. As a family we loved it. BY FAR the most we have ever spent on a vacation but for us it was worth it. We would love to go back but now I have 2 teenagers playing 2 different year round sports. My life is not my own at the moment......
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Queen Bean of Ponyland
Posts: 24954
  
Location: WYOMING | We take our RV to Fort Wilderness when we go down to Disney. Ft Wilderness IS DA BOMBBBB of RV parks. We can spend the weekend there riding our bikes around, walking, people watching, meeting tourists... and never go to a park, but there are bus and water shuttles to the parks from Ft. Wilderness. | |
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