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I'll be going with the family to WDW fron December 27, 09 to January 04. 10. I'll be staying at the Disney's Port Orleans. Any recommendations?

reyquila wrote:I'll be going with the family to WDW fron December 27, 09 to January 04. 10. I'll be staying at the Disney's Port Orleans. Any recommedations?

Hmmm. Interesting. We're planning to go to WDW from December 2-16. A book called The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World is very helpful. We got the 2008 version and are thinking about updating it to a 2009 version. How many days are you planning to actually go to WDW? Universial Studios/Islands of Adventure is also good as is SeaWorld Orlando. The time you're going is a good time as the parks will be decorated for Christmas. The time at the end of December is also fairly busy and that's why we're going at the beginning of December. A warning is that WDW could be busy during that time.

How long is your flying time from San Juan to Orlando. I know we're flying from Vancouver to Orlando and it's going to take us over 7 hours flying time with a transfer in between.

Eat at Earl of Sandwich at least once during your trip. The Caribbean Jerk Chicken sandwich is my favourite, and their tomato soup is out of this world.

Master the art of judging which is FastPass-worthy and which is wait-in-line worthy. If you arrive at an attraction at 1:00, see that there's a 25-minute wait, and the current fastpass window for that attraction is 1:30-2:30...just go for the 25-minute wait and FastPass something else.

If you know you're going to want to ride something more than once but the fastpass window is for a few hours later, get the fastpass then go to the standby line anyway (if it's a reasonable wait time, for me anything less than 45 minutes is reasonable, anything more is skippable or fastpassable). When you're done with the ride, you'll have plenty of free time to do other things before your fastpass time comes up.

If you miss your fastpass window, you can still use the fastpass after the time. So if your fastpass is 5:25-6:25, and you get there at 6:45, your fastpass is still good.

Don't bring bags into the parks. Over time, they become heavier than you think, hold more than you really need, and are a burden to store when doing rides. Honestly, the most anyone needs to have fun in a park is their ticket and ID (and clothes and footwear, naturally). Pockets are your friends, and cargo shorts are your best friends.

Invest in a refillable water bottle (plus a holster) to avoid paying for Disney's. To refill it with guaranteed cold water, simply go to any quick service restaurant and ask for a cup of water. They'll usually give you the standard size cup (like, 20oz), with ice. It's a helluva lot cheaper than paying for the bottled one and honestly, water is water. Florida's tap water is actually better than most tap I've had.

To avoid carrying around more bags when shopping, do Package Pick-Up. Or, since you're staying at a Disney hotel, have them shipped to your hotel room.

Port Orleans is a beautiful hotel. Take some pictures around the place on a day off. If you have some extra days, do so at other resorts too, there's plenty of prime picture opportunities.

Be nice to the castmembers and they'll take care of you. Guests think that half of the jobs in a theme park are just menial labor that a monkey can do, but it's so much more. Guests never seem to appreciate how much hard work castmembers do to ensure every guest's visit to the park is a magical one. So be nice to them. Compliment them when they do a good job. Go to Guest Services and report on exceptionally excellent above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty castmembers. Remember that without them, you wouldn't have a park to play in or a hotel to relax at or a store to shop around.

Be nice to other guests. Remember that this is their vacation too, they want to have fun and relax and have a good time without strangers having to ruin it all by cutting ahead of them in line or pushing them to see a parade. Don't walk in front of them when they try to take a picture. Instead, offer to take the picture for them so that everyone in the party is smiling. They'll remember the act of kindness and pay it forward to another guest later on.

albert

I feel sorry for the stores now. Reyquila will buy everything out, in a flash.

On the plus side, the castmembers will make their commission in less than an hour!

Plus, Disney stores never run out. They keep those babies stocked no matter what. It's frowned upon for stores and vendors to run out of something (unless it's like, a limited-edition thing that they only make a certain number of).

albert

Call Disney Dining 407-WDW-DINE or go on the website (go to DisneyWorld.com and scroll down to "dining"); now you can do online reservations.

For sit-down restaurants, you really should have a "reservation" (it's not really called that, but sit-down restaurants get booked up, so you'll want to call and see what's available). Otherwise, you'll eat whenever they have an opening, versus at a time you really want. Counter-service restaurants are great, too, and you never need a reservation for those!

If you're traveling with kids, at least one character meal would be fun. They can be a little expensive (not out of this world expensive, but more than an average meal), but are so much fun, for the kids and adults alike. Character meal breakfasts are cheaper than character meal dinners, just FYI.

Trail's End at Fort Wilderness is the cheapest buffet, and it has awesome selection. No characters, but it's cheaper!

I just remembered this- ask about (when you call Disney Dining) the Disney Dining Plan. I think they'll be offering it for when you're there. You may or may not be interested in it, but it's worth asking about!

And, you can bring food and drinks into the park, so if you are carrying luggage, or will be using strollers (where you can stash your stuff), to save some money, you may want to bring in some snacks.

Nala wrote:

reyquila wrote:I'll be going with the family to WDW fron December 27, 09 to January 04. 10. I'll be staying at the Disney's Port Orleans. Any recommedations?

Hmmm. Interesting. We're planning to go to WDW from December 2-16. A book called The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World is very helpful. We got the 2008 version and are thinking about updating it to a 2009 version. How many days are you planning to actually go to WDW? Universial Studios/Islands of Adventure is also good as is SeaWorld Orlando. The time you're going is a good time as the parks will be decorated for Christmas. The time at the end of December is also fairly busy and that's why we're going at the beginning of December. A warning is that WDW could be busy during that time.

How long is your flying time from San Juan to Orlando. I know we're flying from Vancouver to Orlando and it's going to take us over 7 hours flying time with a transfer in between.

From San Juan to Orlando it's a three hour flight. I'll be going to Magic Kingdom (two times), Epcot (Half a day), Disney Studios (Half a Day) and Animal Kingdom (Half a Day). Then Sea World, Busch Gardens, Universal, and shopping or course.

Thanks to everyone for the kindess and for the sarcasm!!!

reyquila wrote:

Nala wrote: Hmmm. Interesting. We're planning to go to WDW from December 2-16. A book called The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World is very helpful. We got the 2008 version and are thinking about updating it to a 2009 version. How many days are you planning to actually go to WDW? Universial Studios/Islands of Adventure is also good as is SeaWorld Orlando. The time you're going is a good time as the parks will be decorated for Christmas. The time at the end of December is also fairly busy and that's why we're going at the beginning of December. A warning is that WDW could be busy during that time.

How long is your flying time from San Juan to Orlando. I know we're flying from Vancouver to Orlando and it's going to take us over 7 hours flying time with a transfer in between.

From San Juan to Orlando it's a three hour flight. I'll be going to Magic Kingdom (two times), Epcot (Half a day), Disney Studios (Half a Day) and Animal Kingdom (Half a Day). Then Sea World, Busch Gardens, Universal, and shopping or course.

Thanks to everyone for the kindess and for the sarcasm!!!

With what you're saying, you're doing an awful lot in just 9 days. A word of warning. Three and a half days at WDW is not enough. Considering you're going over the New Year, it is going to very busy and there are going to be a lot of people there. You'll find half a day at the other three parks not enough.

We had a 7-day park hopper for WDW and we found it wasn't enough. When we're going in December, we're getting a 10-day park hopper as well as a 2-day unlimited Universal Studios and Sea World.

Our flight takes most of day to get to Orlando from Vancovuer. It will take us longer than 7 hours plus a transfer. Mind you we're flying from the west coast to the east coast.

Half a day in any Disney park is not enough to do very much. In particular, Epcot will take a lot longer to explore to any significant degree. Both times I've gone to WDW, Epcot is the park that I chose for my overflow time.

BrandonH wrote:Half a day in any Disney park is not enough to do very much. In particular, Epcot will take a lot longer to explore to any significant degree. Both times I've gone to WDW, Epcot is the park that I chose for my overflow time.

Agreed. We had a 7-day park hopper and found it wasn't enough. We went back to Epcot twice from another park. Once we got caught in the rain at AK and went to Epcot. The second time we went was after AK closed and we again went to Epcot. We're going to WDW in December and we're getting the 10-day park hopper. At least with a 10-day park hopper, we won't be rushed at doing things. The OP also wants to take in Universal and SeaWorld. Universal Florida takes 2 days at least since there's Universal and Islands of Adventure. There's 2 parks there and not 1 like in Hollywood. The OP is pushing it time wise as well as a lot of people since it's close to New Year when the OP is going.

reyquila wrote:

Nala wrote: Hmmm. Interesting. We're planning to go to WDW from December 2-16. A book called The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World is very helpful. We got the 2008 version and are thinking about updating it to a 2009 version. How many days are you planning to actually go to WDW? Universial Studios/Islands of Adventure is also good as is SeaWorld Orlando. The time you're going is a good time as the parks will be decorated for Christmas. The time at the end of December is also fairly busy and that's why we're going at the beginning of December. A warning is that WDW could be busy during that time.

How long is your flying time from San Juan to Orlando. I know we're flying from Vancouver to Orlando and it's going to take us over 7 hours flying time with a transfer in between.

From San Juan to Orlando it's a three hour flight. I'll be going to Magic Kingdom (two times), Epcot (Half a day), Disney Studios (Half a Day) and Animal Kingdom (Half a Day). Then Sea World, Busch Gardens, Universal, and shopping or course.

Thanks to everyone for the kindess and for the sarcasm!!!

Busch Gardens is in Tampa and it takes about an hour to get to Busch Gardens from Orlando. It's a a nice park. At Busch Gardens, try to catch the alligator feeding if they still feed them in December.

Here are some pictures from Busch Gardens.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jasmine370/ ... 6521719362

You can check the rest of the pictures of our Florida and California trips.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jasmine370

have fun!!!!