A friend of mine asked for some thoughts on going to Disney World with her 3 and 6 year old daughters (their first time visiting the park). I thought I would post it here in case anyone else was interested in our thoughts (and my response because a bit too wordy for email!). Here goes:
We had a wonderful time at Disney over the holidays (Bob AND Charlotte's first time) and I did a ton of research before booking our trip.
We booked through Disney and applied for the Disney credit card. Disney online travel site had a wonderful promotion going on at the time and we received our 7-day meal plan for free for two adults (Charlotte was free/ineligible since she's under 3, but that's fine since she eats off my plate anyway!). If you pay for it with your Disney credit card, you also get 6 months of 0 APR, which wasn't a huge deal for us, but it's still nice (I guess 6 months of the full amount in our savings account would earn us something like $28 if that ;).
We stayed on the resort (Animal Kingdom Lodge) and I would strongly recommend staying on the resort. You have to pay for parking every day if you stay off-resort ($14/day - possibly each time if you leave the resort) and the resort is HUGE so you would end up having to drive 30 minutes from your hotel to each park. The on-resort hotels have shuttle buses that run all the time, plus (big perk), they allow guests staying in the resorts to have extra hours at each park. The extra morning hours are really nice because you can beat the crowds getting in the park and bypass some of the longer lines (we rode "it's a small world" twice back-to-back with no lines).
I would highly recommend Animal Kingdom Lodge if your girls are into animals. It's a really beautiful hotel overall, but being able to see giraffes and zebras and other animals outside your balcony? Priceless. But if you're going to spend most of your time at Magic Kingdom (which you might do since they're 3 and 6, although you might also really like Hollywood Studios), you can also stay at the Contemporary (?) that has a monorail that runs straight to Magic Kingdom. If you go for the deluxe level hotels, get the concierge club. We did at Animal Kingdom and it was totally worth it. They have snacks (and coffee!!) and drinks all day from 6:30am - 10pm and it was a lifesaver between meals if she wanted milk to drink or we needed coffee. It's also a separate lounge with comfy seats and tvs and tables and a nice place to chill before dinner, and we weren't stuck in our rooms when we weren't at the parks.
I don't think the park hopper or the no expiration dates were worth it. We had no problem just doing one park per day (but we did get the 7-day pass, so we had ample time to do every park twice except one). But since your girls are older, you might want the park hopper. I just didn't think it was worth it - there's plenty to see to spend one whole day (at least) at each park.
We didn't do the water parks (thank goodness!) because it was December and she's still in diapers. Turns out, it was in the 40's when we were there, so the water park would have been a real waste of time. In April though, you might really like it. I can't say one way or the other since we didn't do it. I did feel like there are plenty of water parks everywhere and I would rather spend the extra days at Disney rather than a water park.
Dining plan - this is really hard to say. On one hand, we received it for free as part of our vacation package, so it wasn't a waste of money (although we could have gotten a % off the total package and not gotten the meal plan at all and that would have saved more money I suppose). I liked that it meant less thinking and headaches with planning the trip. BUT the meal plans include an entree, a drink (non-alcoholic), and a dessert at every meal (one sit-down, one fast-food) and a snack, so three "meals" per day. I thought getting a dessert at every meal (instead of say, an appetizer or salad) got old after the first day. We're not really big dessert people, so it was just a waste. The next level up where you get three meals a day also includes an appetizer and dessert and entree, which is honestly just way, way too much food (proportion-wise, although I suppose the variety is nice and you could just taste a bit of each dish). Also, this is where the concierge club totally makes its money back - we had breakfast up there everyday and they had a wonderful spread. No protein, but oatmeal and cereal and fruit and croissants and cream cheese and pastries and an amazing coffee/espresso machine and loads of drinks. The concierge club also had: breakfast -> snacks -> afternoon tea -> wine and cheese (+hot hors devours) -> dessert and night caps (alcoholic). So next time, we will not get the dining plan but we will definitely get the concierge club.
A word about the restaurants (and another reason why we didn't like the meal plans): almost all of them require reservations. We didn't realize this and thought only the more popular ones required reservations (like the character meals - you should book these as soon as you book the vacation, you can do it up to 120 days before and they fill up very quickly). But we tried to get lunch or dinner at some places (sit-down restaurants) and they had 2 hour waits. Luckily, the concierge club was able to make us a couple of reservations, but we still had a hard time. And when your meal plan is one sit-down and one quick-serve a day, you have to use up your 7 sit-downs (they are not interchangeable with the quick-serve). However, the meal plan does allow you to use them in whatever order you want - so you can do all your quick-serve meals first, then use your sit-downs, or whatever you want. They just expire on midnight of the day you check-out of your hotel. Again, this is another argument for NOT doing the dining plan and just having the freedom to eat wherever you want at your convenience. But if you do want to dine at the sit-down restaurants, you will want to make reservations. I thought the Coral Reef restaurant at Epcot was totally worth it. They seat you next to a huge coral reef aquarium and you get to watch incredible fish and turtles and sharks while you eat (the food was fantastic as well).
Also, if you stay at the resorts, you get complimentary shuttle service roundtrip to/from the airport AND baggage service. So, check your baggage in at your home airport and it will make its way to your hotel room. Voila! And on the way back? They will check you into your flight at the hotel and check your baggage for you - just step into the shuttle with your carry-on luggage and you're done. SO worth it (at least for us with a toddler in tow). Charlotte was still napping also (she's 2 1/2), so the complimentary shuttles and being closer to our hotel was also really important to getting her home in time for naps.
Pack for warm weather, but also toss in a few things for extreme weather. We ended up spending almost $200 on three sweatshirts/jackets because the temps plummeted and I had packed for warm weather (which at the time of packing, it was predicted to be high 60's, low 70's). At least throw in a few layering pieces and a nice warm coat.
I don't know if you are still using a stroller or not, but the rentals are expensive ($15/day) and even if the girls do not need a stroller, it's kind of nice to have one to throw your things in for the day (bottles of water, camera, jackets, souvenirs you buy in the parks, etc.). I would bring a cheapie umbrella stroller that you can double as a shopping cart and that you don't mind parking in the stroller parking lots and you won't fear having it stolen. We found it to be really useful when you're walking all day long to have the stroller as an extra pair of hands (she wanted to be carried a lot and went in her stroller only occasionally).
FASTPASS – you can get tickets to really popular rides with long wait times and then come back at a later time (printed on the tickets) for the ride and have a 5-minute wait (definitely worth it if the current wait time is 2 hours). But here’s the caveat (that wasn’t made clear to me), you can only get one FASTPASS per person every two hours. So plan your trip wisely. Figure out a priority list of “must see” rides and then get a FASTPASS for the ones highest on your list with the longest wait times. A lot of rides have very little to no wait time, so you won’t need FASTPASS for those (and I’m not sure they are offered for them actually). Also, we’re on Verizon for our cellphones and they have an app that tells you what the wait times are currently for each ride at each park. This was SO helpful. I think there are apps for iPhones and Android phones too. I would definitely get it and play around with it a bit before you go.
Disney lets you make custom maps for free and they’re really nice keepsakes for after the trip. If you go on their website, you can pre-program which attractions/events you really want to do and they will mark them on these really detailed, pretty maps for you and send them to you before your trip. They’re free, so you might as well! (plus, they are much prettier than the generic park maps):
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/myVacation/customizedMaps/index?id=CustomizedMapsFlashPage
Okay, that’s it. I know that’s a lot of information. Feel free to email me if you have any other specific questions! And have a really wonderful time – I’m sure you will :)
