Suggestions Please

[TCRAIG]

I'm not in Guest Service or trained to sell FastPasses so I'm not sure what the sales are for FPs exactly. All I know is that once you've used the three free fast passes you can book another ride one after the other. There are also FP Kiosks if people wanted to purchase them. I dont think this would be necessary though.

Say you have a party of six, which means you have six tickets. When you book a fast pass you're booking ONE fast pass with six people in it, not six individual fast passes.
That being said Im not sure why people would need to buy more FPs but the option is available if necessary I guess.

Kiosks are for getting another FP once you’ve used your initial 3 (in case you don’t have a smart phone or tablet with you)....not for purchasing them. And FPs are per ticket...so yes - if you book FPs for 6 people - that’s 6 individual fast passes...

 

[Nancyg56]

Thank you for your response. We're wanting to hit Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom as well as Magic Kingdom and Epcot. It would just be our family of four. I know that with the way my family is, that I'll exhaust myself trying to get them moving quickly and on also keeping to a schedule, so I pretty much have to leave a lot of room to rest and relax. Our family would enjoy seeing the countries and shows, but also the rides. I do remember as a child, LOVING Epcot and in fact, wishing that we could have spent an extra day there (this was YEARS ago, well over 25 years ago), but I don't know if it's changed a lot in recent years. So, I guess I was wondering if six days gives us time to see a lot of what Disney has to offer and if taking a couple of rest days to hang out by the pool, or go to Disney Springs would be a good game plan.

I think that the best way to begin planning is to get a book, as PP's have suggested. I also woudl pay very close attention to the theme parks board here becasue I believe that with all the changes happening the parks are going to be busy, with no real slower times.

I would plan for how your family likes to tour. For instance, we have been several times in January and in December, and for Thanksgiving, as well as a few times in October. The timeing depends on what your family wants to see. We like the Holiday events and decorations, so we tend to visit in December, or for Thanksgiving into the first week of December, but that means we take time for resort hopping and visiting the WS to enjoy the holiday kiosks, decorations, and storytellers. For us, Epcot is multiday, as is the MK. There are parties going on in the MK so if you want to see the evening entertainment, I think that hoppers are teh way to go. You can RD one park, head out to swim or relax a few hours, and pop into another for dinner and evening entertainment.

EPcot is my family's favorit park and we tend to spend at least one day there and a few evenings. It is lovely at night.

Animal Kingdom is a half day park for some folks but it is a park we visit at least twice a trip. WE do not spend all day there, but we are not those folks, so we will usually go two times, and try to be there once in the evening for a little while at least.

DHS is another park we hit twice. It is a small park but packed with Holiday Decorations if you choose that time of year. We go for RD once and then go for a later time to enjoy the nighttime entertainment.

We do build in time to just kick back and relax, we are not a commando family. If you do tis you will need at least a week, IMO.

I also think you may want to reconsider making a few ADR's. You cannot just walk into a restaurant in WDW, so if you have any specific restaurants you want to visit, I would make the ADR. If you want to be spontaneous and are not meal crazy ( my family is) then don't worry about booking meals until the day before or even a few hours before. But you need to book them. The way DIsney is set up, you really cannot walk up to a TS restaurant and be seated. You really will have to make the ADR.

One more tip I give folks who either have not been or have not been in many years. Subscribe to Touring Plans and fool around on the planner. WDW parks are deceptive in size, and that makes it tough to have a realistic view of timing. If you make mock touring plans you willl not only be able to have a general idea of how long it takes to get from one spot to another, you will be able to become familiar with the park layout. After over 14 years of multiple trips I still cannot find my way in or out of these parks! LOL! I think that even if you never use the plans, you will be able to create an outline to follow once you arrive in the parks, and that alone is a timesaver.

WDW is huge, and offers so much to do. You cannot do and see it all, so no matter when you choose to visit, you will need to manage your expectations. Have your family involve themselves in their top 3 things to do or see in each park. I always figure if we hit our 3 FP, and we respect the choices each person finds important we have done what we set out to do The rest is a bonus.

 

[Callist]

My family sounds like yours - I'd happily rope drop, but they won't. They're on vacation, so they want to sleep in, get to the parks around 10, and leisurely walk around. And we still have a great time.

I'd say MK for two days, definitely. Depending on your pace and how much they like to stop to enjoy the experience, you might not see it all, but you'll see a lot!

EPCOT can easily be 1-2 days, depending on how much you want to explore the countries. We did the Agent Perry's game with our kids for three of the countries. That took up quite a lot of time, but we had a lot of fun doing it. We barely skimmed the other countries.

Animal Kingdom took most of a day for us, we left in the late afternoon when a storm came in. I felt that we saw and experienced the things we wanted to see, so that worked out for us. One day park, in my opinion.

As for not making ADR's, we only ever make one. My husband likes a certain restaurant in EPCOT, so we make reservations for that, but otherwise we do counter service only and it's worked out fine for us. My family is NOT adventurous, and I'll never get them to "fancy" cuisine, or anything Indian or African or French; they're pretty strictly hamburger and chicken nugget people. The counter service restaurants aren't anything special, but they feed us, give us a chance to sit down in the shade or AC, and maybe find a FP.

As for FP, you can make 3 ahead of time for your entire party. You make the fast passes online, choosing your entire party. When you use your initial 3 at the park, you can then make another one. Once you use that one, while you're standing in the fast pass line for your ride, you can use your phone to look for the next ride. Since my family really doesn't like to plan, planning one ride ahead is about as much as they'll do. We still got to ride everything we wanted to (that we had time for).

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Our trips are usually: 2 MK, 2 Epcot, 1 AK, 1 DHS, 1 rest day. So, 7 full vacation days - 9 days total with travel days.

I definitely think Epcot deserves 2 days and 2 is enough for MK.

I like this but I would add on another day in order to build in two days of rest and time to explore your resort. We realized on early trips that that's what we were missing. We'd get home and say, "We really would've liked to spend more time at the resort", so we make sure we do that now, and those are some of our favorite days. You can also go and explore some of the other resorts and areas like Disney Springs, too.

In re to Park Hoppers. If you have older kids/teens you may find that they want to keep going, so they might like Park Hoppers. Just something to keep in mind. (I know you said you think they'll be tired, but they might surprise you! It's kind of fun for them to be able to go off by themselves somewhere, too.) That's what ours like to do while we have some R&R. If not, you can still leave the park for rest time and come back later with Base tickets. It does make lfe easier if you stay at a Disney Resort because if they do want to go off by themselves, they can use the Disney transportation system.

Definitely take your time at Epcot. There are a lot of threads scattered around here (or you could start a new one) of what everyone's favorite things are to see/do/eat at Epcot or World Showcase. I always learn about new things that way that we haven't tried before even though Epcot is our favorite park and we spend lots of time there. So give it a shot! Be sure to explore all the countries inside, watch all the movies and such, many can easily be overlooked.