Disney 2012: Planning the Trip

We went to Disney World!  It was a great trip - lots of work, but totally worth it.  There is so much I learned, and I wanted to blog about it so I can remember for future trips - and to have a quick reference for friends who might be interested.

Ever since Claire was itty bitty, we had been talking about taking her to Walt Disney World before she started school.  This past spring the topic of Disney came up one day at Little Gym, and I found out that a couple of moms took their families every year and had lots of advice.  One of the things I was surprised to learn was that they all recommended making reservations at least 6 months in advance - the restaurants/character meals open for reservations at the 180 day mark, and some book up quickly.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love to research - I was excited to have a new project.  I started checking out Disney travel guides from the library to start learning the basics and figure out which guide I liked the best before I paid for one.  After spending lots of hours looking at crowd calendars and reading hotel reviews, I narrowed down our hotel choices to the Contemporary, the Polynesian, or Wilderness Lodge.  About 7 1/2 months out, the less expensive rooms at the Contemporary & the Polynesian booked up - that made the decision for me!  I booked rooms at the Wilderness Lodge, and got online 180 days before our stay to make reservations for character meals (more on those later).  It was surprising how quickly the spots went, but I was happy with what we got.


Some of the best resources I found:

• My favorite travel book by far was "The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World".  Lots of detailed reviews of everything.  They also rate each ride by age group and note anything that might be frightening for kids, which is so helpful when traveling with young ones.
• The "Unofficial Guide" has a companion site, touringplans.com, that is available by subscription, and it is totally worth the extra few dollars.  The site has suggested itineraries, detailed crowd calendars that use historical data to predict overall levels and levels by park and an extremely useful message board in addition to containing reviews of all the restaurants, menus, hotel information, etc.  It is perfect for a data junkie like me.  It was important to us to go during low season and at a time that it wouldn't be really hot, so we it helped us decide to go the week before Thanksgiving - one of the times that usually have the lowest crowds all year.
• Mousesavers.com has tons of money saving information, including information on typical discounts offered by Disney (dates they were good for, dates the discounts were released, etc.).  Once the bulk of the planning done, I kept an eye out for any additional discounts.  A couple of months after I made our reservations I was excited to find that Disney released an offer of free dining during the dates of our stay.  I called and got our reservation changed over, and we were able to each have a table service meal, a counter service meal, and a snack every day of our stay for free - big savings!  Mousesavers also has an "ultimate packing list" that you can download, and I customized their huge list for our trip. 
• Gardengrocer.com is a grocery delivery service that has great service and reasonable prices.  I placed an order with them a week before we left, and they delivered everything to our hotel before we arrived.  Bell services kept the cold stuff refrigerated and delivered it to our room after we checked in.   I got a case of water, diapers, milk, yogurt, apple slices, cereal, snacks, disposable bowls & spoons, and a few other things - we were able to eat breakfast in our rooms a few days and have foods the kids were used to, which was really nice.  Would definitely use them again.
• Disney PhotoPass - If you think you might want to purchase some of the photos taken by the park photographers, preordering their PhotoPass service is the way to go.  We were eating at a few restaurants that offered photos with a character for sale, and they were all included on the PhotoPass Plus.  I also thought that getting a pass ahead of time would help me make sure I got some photos of the entire family, and that I would be in more than a few since I'm usually behind the camera.  I did the preorder, and they sent a voucher that I exchanged on the first day for a card.  Anytime we took a photo through Disney, they would scan the card, and then after our trip I was able to download all of the pictures.  It's not cheap, but definitely worth it if you think you will use it.
• Strollers - We ultimately decided on taking two single strollers rather than our double.  We checked our bigger stroller and used the smaller one at the airport.  The first day we just took our bigger stroller to see how we did with just one, and we never needed the other one.  We came back to the hotel after lunch for naps every day, and with that break, Claire was fine walking.  She rode a few times when it was crowded or when we were in a hurry (or when Will just wanted to be carried), but I think she would've been fine walking the entire time.  Disney has strollers for rent, but a lot of people rent from outside companies - they have really nice single and double strollers available, and they are a lot cheaper than Disney.
• One of the suggestions frequently mentioned on the message board for an inexpensive and fun souvenir is taking change for the penny press machines.  I got a little tube on mini M&Ms and stacked quarters and pennies inside (each pressed penny is 51 cents, so I alternated 2 quarters and a penny).  Claire and Will both loved using the machines and picking their designs, and we got them a little book to hold their pennies.  It was really fun, and every night they liked going through the book and looking at their pennies.

There is so much more info out there, but these were some of the things that worked out well for us.