How to plan a Disney World trip - PREP220

These are notes from this episode. There’s much more info included in the audio so be sure to listen to the episode for a better explanation.

In this article

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Links/notes mentioned in this episode

PICKING DATES

crowd calendar
fave times are in January and February, September good for low crowds

HOTEL

Choose onsite or offsite w/onsite perks
Faves onsite: Pop Century, Art of Animation suite, like all moderates almost equally except for bus stops, fave deluxe are Contemporary and Beach Club
Faves offsite: Swan/Dolphin, Four Seasons, Disney Springs hotels

DAILY PLAN

choose where you’re going to be each day
use our monthly calendars to help determine best parks

DINING

choose dining based on where you’ll be

TOURING

plan park time to avoid lines and minimize waits
Touring plans grouped by hour for the first 3 hours
have had to pick and choose a lot the last few years – too many attractions and nighttime shows + FastPass tiering

EXTRAS

scavenger hunts at hotels
pressed coins
Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique
Early Morning Magic, After Hours
Tours

Quick tip of the day

Quick tip from Kathy S.:

“Make sure you update/renter your credit card on file in your My Disney Experience account. Especially if you haven’t been to the parks in a while to know your card is still active in your account.

My brother and I were ready at 6am this morning to make our ADRs. We followed the advice for getting hard-to-get ADRs on WDWPrepSchool.com and thought we had everything ready.

I was able to work through my list easily with no problems. The tab idea on the website worked wonderfully. My brother was not having the same luck as he was asked to renter his credit card info on his first reservation.

While trying it do that, the page froze and wouldn’t reload. He tried again and it froze again. He had to log in using a different browser then re-enter his credit card into his account.

From there he was able to start over with trying to make reservations. By this point, I had made all 4 of the ADRs on my list and 2 of them from his list.

His credit card was still in his account from his last trip 2.5 years ago, but clearly Disney felt it needed verified.

My last trip was 4 months ago so my card must have still been active in the system. This one little hiccup could mean the difference in getting those high priority ADRs.

Planning ahead and working together allowed us to get every ADR we wanted.”

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