Planning your first trip to WDW can be a little over whelming at times, actually planning any Disney vacation can be over whelming because there is SO MANY things that factor into a WDW vacation. Your first Disney vacation, however, is a BIG deal! Whether it’s the first time for you as an adult or the first time for your kids, each experience is different and deserves extra attention! In this post, I am going to go through all of the steps that it takes to plan a WDW vacation. The plan with this post is to direct you in the right path so you can make your Disney Vacation one that makes you wanna go back over and over again! So, with that let’s plan your FIRST WDW Vacation!
The VERY first thing that you will need to know before you even get started is when will your vacation dates be. Well of course that all depends on your work schedule and school schedule and what works out best for you and your family. So, to answer the most asked question when it comes to visiting WDW, when is the best time go to WDW? Well like I said that all depends on you and your family’s schedule! The best advice that I can give you is to visit during the off-season, which can be hard if you’re trying not to miss too much school or work.
The off-season is considered to be Mid-January to February and September through Mid-November. Unfortunately, these times are when the majority of schools are back in session. BUT if you have older children or you don’t have children, this is THE best option for you! The peak season is, yup you guessed it! HOLIDAYS! If you do not like crowds do your best to STAY AWAY during the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and the Fourth of July. Also, you will tend to see heavier crowds during the weekends around the other minor Holidays throughout the year.
This next part of the planning process is deciding on where to stay during your visit. So, the next question you should be asking yourself is where am I going to stay?
There are many different hotels and resorts to choose from within the Orlando area. The first step is deciding on if you are going to stay on Disney property or off Disney property. If you want to get more bang for your buck and aren’t too concerned with being inside the “Disney Bubble”, then an off-site hotel is going to be the best option for you. But if you want to get the full-on Disney experience, I would suggest staying at one of the highly themed Disney Resort Hotels!
Another way to decide on where to stay is the size of your party. If you are a mutli-family group of 10 or more I would suggest looking into a condo off-site. You will all be under one roof and it will save you a lot of money! If your party is under 10 people, I would suggest taking a look at your options with Disney’s Resort Hotels. The Resort Hotels are priced from value to deluxe and can accommodate anywhere from two to six people per room. If you want more pros and cons for staying on-site vs. off-site, I have a separate video that will help in that decision. So, with that let’s move on to the next step in the planning process.
So, now that you’ve figured out when you will be traveling and where you’ll be staying. Now it’s time to figure out how many days you’ll be staying and visiting the parks.
My rule of thumb for this answer is a four-day minimum, which I will explain in just a minute. But for you, this should be an easy question to answer because this will be based how much time you can take off from work and for those of you that have children how much school they can miss without getting behind. If you don’t have much time off in both situations I would suggest a spending a long weekend, at least three to four days in the parks. If you do have the opportunity to spend a week or longer in Disney, I would suggest taking the time and spending five to seven days in the parks with a rest day or two.
Four days is the least amount of time, in my opinion, that you should spend in Disney if you are planning on visiting all four parks. My reason being is that you’ll get one whole day to visit each park at your own pace and not feel rushed. Basically, I would suggest basing the number of days in the parks based on the number of parks you want to visit during your vacation. For example, if you are planning on visiting one or two parks, then two to three days is enough time in Disney. I’m just going to warn you though; you’re going to want to stay longer! The ideal length of time to visit Disney is five to six days. This is going to give you plenty of time to visit each park, including the water parks and Disney Springs. Visiting for this long will also give you plenty of time to rest and relax because you’re gonna need it! After all this is your vacation!
Alright, so you’ve got your dates picked, your hotel selected and your length of stay. The next thing you’ll need to decide on is what kind of park tickets are you going to purchase!
Disney offers a variety of tickets and ticket packages. You can select anywhere in between a single day ticket and a 14-day ticket. There are two types of tickets to choose from. One is the base ticket, which grants you access to one park per day. The second is to upgrade to the park hopper ticket. If you choose to get the park-hopper ticket you will be able to visit more than one park in one day. The park hopper is more expensive than the base ticket, but you are getting access to all four parks per day instead of just one.
The base ticket is offered to everyone when booking. In order to receive the park hopper ticket, you have to upgrade your base ticket to a park hopper. If you are going to be visiting WDW for a week or longer, I would suggest going with the base ticket because you will have plenty of time to enjoy yourself. If you are visiting WDW for a short amount of time, four days or less, then I would suggest the park hopper only because it will allow you to do more in a short amount of time. My family has always chosen to go with the park hopper ticket regardless of how long we’re in Orlando, only because we like to visit more than one park in a day.
At this point in the planning process you are pretty much done. Now there are some more reservations that need to be made but if you are more than 180 days out from your travel dates then it’s time to sit back and relax. BUT, if you are within your 180 days then it’s time to make your advanced dining reservations.
Advanced Dining Reservation’s are not a must in the planning process and are only really required if you have the Basic Dining Plan or Deluxe Dining Plan. Now, if you are thinking about having a sit-down dinner with your family at one of the 140 table service restaurants on property during your vacation; then I would highly suggest making an Advanced Dining Reservation. This is because the demand for table reservations has become very popular in the last few years and I would really hate for you to not be able to eat at one of Disney’s restaurants. Please be aware that if you decide to eat at one of the character dining locations or popular dining locations and do not have a dining reservations, there is a very high chance that you and your party will be turned away or have to wait close to an hour because there is not a table available.
The next step in the planning process is going to be selecting your Fastpass+! Your fastpass selection window opens when you are 60 days out from your travel dates, if you are staying on property. If you are staying off property your window opens at 30 days. Choosing your fastpasses depends on what park you are visiting on what day. Now this part is totally up to you, but how I decide my park days depends on the park hours. The rides and attractions that you choose to use fastpasses on is totally up to you as well. My opinion on the selection process is choosing the more popular rides to use fastpasses on because they will have the longest lines.
After you have made your fastpass selections the next thing to do is countdown the days until Disney! Now, what I do during this time is gather my day to day plans. Things like show times and character meet and greet locations and kind of get an idea of the park map and my must do list for that particular day. I also look up what the weather is going to be like and make sure that I have everything packed to coincide with that.
So, now that we’ve covered the whole planning process of booking a Walt Disney world vacation. You’re ready to go to Disney!