The holiday of a lifetime that you keep doing again and again... (Walt Disney World Resort Florida in general)

Member Name: mrmojorisin04

Product:	Walt Disney World Resort Florida in general
Date:	07/09/08 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Something for everyone

Disadvantages: Needs some advance planning to make the best of it

Having just returned from our second trip to Disney World, I can conclusively say that it is NOT a once in a lifetime experience. You will keep wanting to go back and back.

This time around we didn't have that first time awe, but we were much more experienced in knowing what it was we wanted to do, and how to do it, and that made for a much more relaxing trip.

What do you get:
There's a number of options available for the tickets themselves. The UK market exclusively has the 'Ultimate Ticket' that gives access to all four main parks:
Magic Kingdom
Epcot
Hollywood Studios
Animal Kingdom
and also the two water parks:
Blizzard Beach
Typhoon Lagoon
and also:
Disney Quest (an indoor arcade type experience)
Pleasure Island which is an adult own area, but is closing soon
I believe instead of Pleasure Island a round at one of the golf courses will be included in future.

These tickets are approx. £175 for adults for 14 days and £155 for kids up to 9.

Disney also do other tickets, most commonly the 'Magic Your Way' ones where you can choose the number of days to visit, whether the water parks are included, whether you can 'hop' between more than one major park in a day and whether the tickets expire.

We actually went for these this time, as we wanted the water parks but didn't feel the need to hop. Last time we only hopped once and that was only because we felt like we should take advantage of the option. Our 10 day tickets included the water parks and expired 14 days after first use with no hopping. They were only £30 per person cheaper, but with 5 of us that saving totted up to all our Seaworld tickets.

There's something for everyone at each park, ranging from the rides suitable for the very small (Pooh Ride, Small World) to the thrill seekers (Rock & Roller Coaster, Tower or Terror) and many rides and shows suitable for everyone in between.

Value for Money:
I make the Disney tickets pretty good value for money therefore - we visited the different parks 11 times in our 2 weeks so that's an average of approx. £13 each per visit.

In terms of the holiday itself then I'm sure it can be very expensive, but both times we have managed to get:
Flights approx £300 each (indirect this time, Virgin last time)
Villa £650 for two weeks. A beautiful 4 bed with private pool, jacuzzi, additional living areas, high quality furniture, etc. approx. 15/25 mins from door to car park.
Car Hire £220 for a full size car for 2 weeks

This was much cheaper than we could have found for similar accommodation in the Med.

Spending money is very reasonable, although that is in good part down to the exchange rate which is now sliding.

General information:
I won't go into detail on each park, as there's separate review areas for each one, but here's some general observations:

Depending on the time of year, the park's can get crazy busy. The one piece of advice that always holds true is to get there for opening if you can. Often there's an opening show to see and you'll get far more done in the first hour and a half of pre-peak time than you could in the rest of the day.

Download a park map in advance to see what you want to do. You don't have to have a military plan but if you establish in advance the rides that you most want to do then it makes sense to hit these first and try and plan a rough order to do them in so that you're not zig zagging around.

Fast passes allow you to get a ticket to return at a later time (how much later depends on how busy the ride is) and bypass most if not all of the standard queue. These are great for the headliners. You feel very smug wandering past a 60 minute queue right to the front! If there are a couple of major attractions near each other (which tends to be he case) then it's a good idea to get to them first and then get a fast pass for one and then ride the other. You can get fast passes with any ticket, so if you have children who don't want to do a ride, you could still get a fast pass with their tickets so that the others can benefit from a double ticket.

You can generally only have one fast pass outstanding for a ticket at a time, but you can get more when either the start time of the fast pass or two hours has passed, whichever is sooner. For example, if it's 9am and you get a fast pass that is valid between 10am and 11am then you couldn't get another fast pass until after 10am.

One thing that isn't publicised is that the end time of the fast pass window isn't generally enforced so you can usually use the ticket even after it has 'expired'. In the previous example you could therefore go on the ride even after the 11am expiry. This isn't guaranteed but I used half a dozen late fast passes recently with no problem.

If you do the main attractions in the first couple of hours, then it's a good idea to do the shows when the park starts to fill up as this gives you a welcome sit down and there's no real queuing involved.

I then like to take a break from the park in the afternoon usually after the afternoon parade and return again early evening for the evening parade and fireworks/show. When finding a spot for parades, near the start or the end is usually quietest - anything around the central landmarks can be a bit hectic and stressful.

There's water fountains around all parks so having a bottle to fill is a good idea.

In terms of best times to go then if you like heat it seems that October and April/May (avoiding Easter) offer the best balance of sun, lower crowd levels and the least rain. October is in the hurricane season though, and May can have lovebugs (harmless but annoying). October has Halloween parties and decorations, which are great.

The winter months (Christmas aside) can be quiet and still offer pleasant weather. If like us you're restricted to the school holidays then late August is much quieter than the rest of the summer and there can be late flight deals, but it can be quite wet, very humid, and is peak hurricane season (through September). It's still great though! Combining a break around the May and October half terms can be best, but the prices do reflect this.

(Almost) Finally, relax. There's nothing worse than seeing kids being dragged around to run to the next attraction. A little planning (but not too much!) can mean you can go at a sensible pace. Oh, and do build rest days, perhaps to the water parks or beach after those late nights. If you have a pool, make time to enjoy it. Don't try and cram everything in to make it the holiday of a lifetime, because there's too much, and you will be back!

Summary: I can conclusively say that Disney World is NOT a once in a lifetime experience.