Disney theme parks are known for being the happiest places on earth. It’s a believable phrase where dreams really do come true. Millions of people flock to Disney each day to enjoy everything they have on offer in the parks they have around the world. Starting in 1923 as animated films by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, it has grown into a multinational mass media, entertainment conglomerate. Headed up by their cartoon creation and mascot Mickey Mouse.
I have managed to check out a few different Disney theme parks during my travels around the world. They are all magical in their own way but none come bigger and better than Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida, USA. Disneyworld itself comprises of four theme parks, two water parks, several golf courses and other entertainment venues plus a multitude of themed resort hotels. To say it is huge is an understatement. You would need several weeks to see everything it has to offer. It is the world’s most visited vacation resort. Disney has been around for many years, their experience and know how allows them to keep up a magical appearance with children and adults from all over the world longing to visit.
To organise a trip to Disneyworld you almost need to get a degree in holiday planning, there is so much involved to make things work just right. There is a lot of information available on the internet to help with this planning or you can gain the assistance of a travel agent who has been to Disney themselves. Like me of course!
You will be able to get information about when is the best time to go according to crowds. The best places to dine relating to where there is tasty food or where you can interact with the Disney characters. The best resorts to stay at, the best shows to attend, the best vantage points for parades and fireworks, the best routes to take, the best rides to go on first, the list goes on and on. A little research will help facilitate the process but there is so much information it can get overwhelming and confusing.
For Australians travelling to Disneyworld it is likely that this will be a once in a lifetime trip so you are best to stay onsite. There are so many choices for accommodation, there will be something for everyone, plus, you are closer to all the action. Some of the extra perks you get by staying onsite are you will get free use of all the Disney resort transportation between hotels and theme parks. You also get earlier access to fast pass and dining reservations. The parks have “magic hours” which are extra hours you can use the parks, exclusive to resort guests.
The Fast pass system is what Disney have implemented to help with crowd control. You will be able to get information about which rides are the best rides to obtain fast passes for according to their popularity. As we discovered fast passes are like gold. They can make an enormous difference in the amount of time you will have to line up to go on any given ride. You will get 3 with your theme park tickets and once these are used you can apply for another one, use it and repeat the process in applying for another, etc, etc. Fast passes can be reserved up to 30 days in advance with normal tickets and 60 days in advance with Disney hotel reservation packages. The best rides will book up quickly so the sooner you can apply the better. I will give my opinions on the most popular rides per park, these will be the ones to get fast passes for where possible.
Dining at Disney is another tricky thing to navigate. There is high competition for a lot of the popular restaurants onsite. The best places to dine will be booked out, so again you need to reserve table service restaurants as soon as possible online. Reservations will open 180 days in advance, those staying in a resort hotel again will have an advantage as they can book the entire length of their stay (up to 10 days) 180 days out from their first night’s reservation. Disneyworld have special dining packages that can be added into the tickets and reservations which are flexible and convenient.
One final thing to consider is the Disney Memory Maker. This is unlimited digital downloads of all your Disney Photo Pass vacation photos for the one price. I highly recommend purchasing this. It might sound a little pricey at the time. However, when you consider a lot of the rides have photos taken on them at exciting points, like when you are just about to go down the big dip on the rollercoaster. This photo can be quite funny and a wonderful memory to have. There are also several photographers within the parks who are always ready to take your photo in front of an iconic building or with a character. They can add special effects or creatures or even logos within the photo system too. The photos are professional and a great memory to have. Over a 4-day period we had over 200 photos to download off our Disney memory maker.
To consolidate all this information there is an official Disney App. Be sure to down load this and use it with your smart phone daily. This is very handy, not only is it a map of the parks, it gives wait times, show times, park hours, all your own ticketing information, including fast passes and dining reservations and you will also see your photos scanned from the memory maker. The wonderful thing about this is you can change things instantly. If you arrive at your fast pass ride and there is only a 5-minute wait, don’t use your fast pass, change your selection to another option where it will be more use. I highly recommend using this app for everything.
Our accommodation-
We stayed at Disney’s Art of Animation hotel. As a family of six we did not have that many options for onsite accommodation that would fit us all. This hotel was amazingly one of the value options. It was great, heavily themed in Disney characters of course, we stayed in the “Car’s” area. Other options were Lion King or Little Mermaid themes that looked equally as good. The hotel was relatively new, it had 3 huge pool areas, a quick service restaurant for food, a large shop and pool bar. Our room worked well for us, it was essentially a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchenette and 2 bathrooms. The sofa turned into a double bed and the dining table pulled down to another double bed. With lots of storage areas and amble space it was perfect for a family of six. To get to the theme parks each day we would walk to the reception area and catch the free shuttle buses that came every 15 minutes or so. I would highly recommend this accommodation.
Magic Kingdom- the original park in Florida, it is a larger version of Disneyland in Anaheim and like Disney parks we have visited throughout the world. It has been around for a long time and compared to some of the newer more spectacular rides on offer in other parks it does seem a little tired. A standard Disney ride is you take a boat, car, train or some form transportation through a series of displays that are based on the ride theme. The technology of these displays is dated in a lot of the Magic Kingdom rides. They are still amazing but things like robotics and special effects have gotten a lot better over the years and this is reflected in the rides here. There are some newer rides like the Pirates of the Caribbean (a voyage on a pirate ship through a time where pirates ruled the seas) or Buzz Lightyears Space ranger spin (seated within a space ship you make your way through shooting galleries where you try to shoot the highest score) where this is not the case.
Disney has a magical aura no matter which park you are at, it really does, it’s exciting and whimsical and literally the stuff fairy tales are made of. A major part of visiting Magic Kingdom is the parade and the fireworks display of an evening over the central and iconic castle. We planned our day around these 2 events. All our theme park days we had Breakfast in the park, this gains you early access in some cases. I chose a popular ride near to our breakfast destination to ride first before the crowds came in, then selected our first fast passes for around 10am, 11am and 12pm. This way you have quick access to 4 rides. Once all 3 fast passes are used in the morning you can select more. So essentially then you can get up to 6 or 7 fast passes a day, again cutting back on cue time.
Popular rides are the ones you must select fast passes for. The popular selections for Magic Kingdom are- Splash Mountain, Space mountain, Peter Pan’s flight, Big thunder rail road, Pirates of the Caribbean and Seven Dwarfs mine train. My favourite ride was probably Splash mountain, this ride is a traditional log ride, where at the end you go down a big dip and get pretty wet. It is a lot of fun and refreshing to get a little wet as it was so hot when we were there in July.
We had breakfast at the Be our Guest quick service restaurant which was ok. It is a popular selection due to the location within the Beast’s castle. We stayed for dinner at Chef Mickey’s buffet which is a popular choice due to the character interaction. You get to be up close and personal with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and a few more of the gang. This is based in a location just outside the park but has a magnificent view of the fireworks over the castle of an evening.
Epcot- Which means the experimental prototype community of tomorrow. It was the second of the parks to open and was designed to celebrate human achievement. It is very different to Magic Kingdom in appearance, it is referred to as a world fair and looks exactly like this. There are 11 countries represented in the world showcase, each has a dedicated building or buildings that look exactly like you are in that particular country. Having travelled to several of the countries myself it is done very well. You really do get a sense of being there. They also sell many of the items that you would usually buy as a tourist travelling to these countries in the shops and markets within the country displays. Most of the destinations have restaurants also reflecting the food you would get in each country. It was a wonderful way to travel around the world in a limited time frame.
Epcot has one of the newest and most popular rides housed within the Norway precinct. This is Frozen ever after. Here you board a Viking ship and sail through the fantastical world of “frozen”. This ride makes use of advanced technologies in robotics and special effects which really heightens the experience of the traditional boat ride through themed displays. There are a few twists and turns that are unexpected which make it an exciting ride. I can see why it is popular, besides the obvious love of Elsa and Anna.
My favourite ride was Test Track. This is very thrilling, yet not too scary. You create your own virtual reality vehicle, then you get to test it out. You go through hills, quick turns and speed tests on the “Test Track” circuit. Your vehicle is competing against others in your group to see which one comes up the winner. It is a lot of fun and one not to be missed.
Besides these 2 rides other ones that are popular and should be considered for Fast passes or to ride first up are, Soarin (where you soar high in the sky for a virtual trip around the globe), Mission Space (NASA style training) and Spaceship Earth (exploring a history of innovations through various displays).
We had our Breakfast at Garden Grill, which is again popular due to character interaction, here you get a big pan full of breakfast to share. It is also a revolving restaurant but there is not too much to see, it is close to Soarin if you want to tick this ride off the list first up. We ate dinner with the Princesses at Akershus Royal Banquet hall. This was probably one of the best meals we had, but it was also one of the most expensive. Epcot also has an amazing fireworks display of an evening that is not to be missed.
Hollywood Studios- This park is dedicated to all the facets of show business. Film, television, music and theatre are all represented here. It was the 3rd of the 4 theme parks to be opened by Disney, it was initially a production studio as well as a theme park and offers a lot of the old Hollywood charm.
Shows are a big draw card here, Fantasmic is the major show of an evening with pyrotechnics and water projections featuring Mickey Mouse and all the Disney characters. It is another one not to be missed. There are several other great shows on here to plan your day around, such as Indiana Jones Stunt spectacular and Beauty and the Beast live on stage just to name a few.
We ate at Mama Melrose Ristorante Italiano, where we had a fixed menu for lunch that included fast pass tickets to the Fantasmic show. This was a terrific way to ensure we had good seats for the show, the food was also lovely but there was way too much of it.
My favourite ride here was probably Star tours, it is a 3D motion simulator type ride that gives you a lot of thrills as you fly through space in the Star Wars theme. I have a love/hate relationship with the iconic Tower of Terror, I knew it involved an elevator and a malfunction of some sort so I was waiting to lose my belly and that did happen. Can’t say I liked it as such, but it was well done. You enter through a themed hotel and the build up to the ride itself had one of my kids in tears and opting out before it had even begun. It is worth the experience if you dare!
Other rides to consider getting the fast passes for are Toy story mania (3D shooting game within the toy story theme) and Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster staring Aerosmith. This one had me torn, as you walk through an entarance way to the ride which indicates that it is a roller coaster that goes upside down and that was where I tapped out. Although it gets rave reviews I can’t stand going upside down, so this one is for the dare devils out there, not for me.
Animal Kingdom- The fourth and final Disney theme park based in Orlando. It has an obvious zoological theme. It was dedicated to and themed around a natural environment and animal conservation. The icon to the park is the amazing tree of life. It is the centre piece of the park itself, make sure you get up close to the tree and don’t just view it from a distance. It is covered in animals carved out of the wood. They also have a movie projected onto it of an evening which is pretty special.
The most recent ride to open and definitely the most amazing ride across all 4 theme parks is situated here. There is a whole new land created within Animal Kingdom that is quite spectacular in itself and that is Pandora- the world of Avatar. There are 2 new rides one being a Navi river Journey which takes you through a bioluminescent rainforest and the other is Avatar flight of passage. This ride is something else. The technology and special effects of this ride really do blow your mind. In essence, you are riding on the back of a banshee (like a prehistoric bird). You get strapped onto it like you are riding a motor bike and you are put in front of a huge movie screen like an IMAX. You are then taken on the ride of your life, the banshee goes very fast and takes huge dips from great heights, things jump out in front of you, it’s amazing. You feel the wind in your hair, water splashes your face you even feel the banshee breathing, it is quite something. The technology really makes you feel like you are in the moment. I am slightly afraid of heights and had to close my eyes on several occasions because it was really scary. Even though it is completely virtual it feels 100% real. This ride is really worth the wait if you can’t get a fast pass. A walk through the land of Pandora itself is an amazing experience. How they have done it feels literally out of this world.
Kilimanjaro Safaris is another popular attraction, here you board a safari track and take a ride through an African Savannah where you will see several real animals. The animals seen will depend on what they are doing at the time but they have all types of animals that live there, like giraffes, elephants, lions, and more. We ate at nearby Tusker House, this restaurant is popular again due to character interaction. Here we got to meet Donald Duck and a few others who were dressed up ready for their Safari. This was in a whole zone dedicated to Africa which like the zones within Epcot was very realistic.
A great little experience is It’s tough to be a bug. This is a 3D film that has you watching and feeling some of the creepy crawlies. There is a puppet show/ musical that was dedicated to finding Nemo that was also worth seeing. The major show of an evening is Rivers of Light, another spectacle of water and light. Then there is the Lion King show, it is like you are at Broadway, another one to add to the list of must sees.
Besides what I have already mentioned rides to get fast passes for would include Expedition Everest (a fast roller coaster I did not dare to ride) and Dinosaur, a safari in the dark where you set off to find and save a dinosaur from extinction. You can also get fast passes for popular shows like the Lion King show which puts you in a priority line for better and guaranteed seating.
So that’s a wrap! Disneyworld Orlando, done and dusted…..we did not even touch on the many other theme park options in the area. There are just so many to choose from. We have travelled to USA on several occasions and each time I just discover more and more things that I would love to go back and see. If you are planning on visiting the USA and would like some advice of just to chat about it I would love too. I can be contacted by email kylie@kb4travel.com.au or my Facebook page is KB 4 Travel & Cruise. Here I post regular blogs and travel hints and tips. I am a travel agent in Australia, and I will also post great deals that I find. Would love you to like and share.
Thanks for reading. Kylie