Worst advice you got

[Magpie]

Worst advice we received: staying onsite is the only way to go, and the only way your vacation will be "magical". While POR was fine, we certainly didn't feel any "magic" in a single, small room with one bathroom. Yes, we may have only used the room for sleeping but separate bedrooms and bathrooms when travelling with a teenager is a special magic all in itself. The "resort" amenities at POR were limited as well. We have found a much greater degree of happiness, satisfaction, comfort and value at offsite properties. And don't even get me started on the "if I have to drive to the parks, it doesn't feel like vacation". Give me a rental vehicle (and control over my arrival and departure times) any day over waiting for a bus in the searing heat/pouring rain and hoping (a) I will actually get a seat and not have to stand and (b) I will make it to my destination at the appropriate time.

Our other worst advice: "you can sleep at home, your touring plan should be commando from open to close". That only makes for an over-tired and cranky family by the time our vacation is half-way over. We learned that it's okay to have a down day. Its okay to take a day away from the parks and the crowds. Its okay to (gasp!) get off Disney property and see some of the other things Orlando has to offer. And its okay to accept that not everyone can go all day, every day, from sun up to sun down without a break somewhere along the way.

The funny thing is, my husband was all, "I have to take the bus to work every day, I don't want to ride the bus on my vacation!" Then, several trips ago, I finally convinced him to give it a try, and now he's a convert!

We love the Disney busses. We love to "let Disney do the driving" while we're on vacation. For us, not having to trek through hot parking lots and breathe in stinky fumes is part of the attraction (plus, it makes getting to the Magic Kingdom much, much easier). We've never actually missed a FP or Dining reservation (though - once! - while staying at Coronado Springs we did come close to missing Soarin' - some resorts definitely have better busses than others).

It's really interesting how one person's "best advice" can be another person's "worst"!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

The funny thing is, my husband was all, "I have to take the bus to work every day, I don't want to ride the bus on my vacation!" Then, several trips ago, I finally convinced him to give it a try, and now he's a convert!

We love the Disney busses. We love to "let Disney do the driving" while we're on vacation. For us, not having to trek through hot parking lots and breathe in stinky fumes is part of the attraction (plus, it makes getting to the Magic Kingdom much, much easier). We've never actually missed a FP or Dining reservation (though - once! - while staying at Coronado Springs we did come close to missing Soarin' - some resorts definitely have better busses than others).

It's really interesting how one person's "best advice" can be another person's "worst"!

Perhaps that's the best take away from this entire thread.....that there's no one "right way" to do a Disney/Orlando vacation.....despite what you might be told from well-meaning folks here on the boards and everywhere else .

 

[EdmondD]

Maybe not terrible advice, but things I didn't agree with, necessarily.

Make a special effort to eat at Le Cellier
Do the Fantasmic Dining Package (and we ended up eating a meal we really didn't care about on a night the show was rained out)
Pin trading is great fun

 

[brooke789]

That the best character interaction is at character meals; otherwise, you will waste all your time in hot lines to meet characters. I mean, I will still probably plan some, but we had WAY better character interaction with A&E FP+, Epcot character spot FP+, Jake (short line at DHS), Sofia (short line at DHS) then we had at any of our meals.

Yes! We booked a character meal for each day of our first trip with the kids. We hated it! The character interaction was not good. The pics were terrible with tons of other people + messy tables, etc in the background. Actually, after the first one we decided to cancel all of the rest. We did do our 2nd one b/c we'd have had to pay a penalty to cancel due to being within 24 hrs) but those two were the only ones we did. We're not planning any character meals and actually possibly no TS for our next trip.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

"Take DME to/from the airport! It's so convenient!" Nope. There is nothing convenient about sitting on a bus for an hour waiting for it to load, not getting your luggage until 7 hours after check-in, or getting picked up 3 hours before your flight home so that you can sit on the bus some more to wait for it to load at various resorts. After renting a car on our last trip and seeing how convenient THAT is, I feel like a fool for buying into the DME myth for so long.

 

[Yahweh]

People who told us to stay off site!

 

[RustManFan]

going to HDDR. The night we were there the food wasn't very good. Something tasted "off". I guess this was not a common experience but we will never return

 

[JoshuaShaw]

get married

oh wrong thread

 

[Masonmj84]

My in-laws think we're Walt Disney Co. chumps because we insist on vacations where we stay and eat (table service meals) on site. In their minds, we're foolishly throwing our money away.

Their vacation style is to rent a condo off-site, buy a bunch of groceries at Costco, go commando between about 10 am and 6 pm, and have breakfast and dinner back at the condo (while brown bagging lunch and snacks).

To me, this is a completely a different strokes for different folks kind of thing (their vacation style, while more economical, just wouldn't be nearly as fun or relaxing for me). But they think their style is objectively superior (and that we've just drunk waaaay too much of the Disney Kool-Aid).

 

[Praying Colonel]

That flying into Sanford is as convenient as, if not more convenient than, flying into MCO. Nope--especially if your condo is on the west side of 192. Rookie mistake that won't be repeated.

 

[larryz]

How friggin' cool would that be if they actually had rooms you could stay in at DHS TOT?

Not very -- imagine the noise complaints!!!

And I'm kind of pleased to be able to say I've never received any bad advice about WDW.

 

[Dr Gunnie]

Worst advice - "The wait time is low at Stitch's Great Escape, let's go check it out."

 

[DCbride]

A parent of a classmate heard that we were going to Disney and told DD that she needs to stand on Main Street to watch fireworks because Cinderella flies out of her castle to start the fireworks. DD was around 6 at the time and promptly told her that it was Tinkerbell not Cinderella and we like to stand on the bridge by Splash Mt.

 

[bball15fan]

I heard they are in the process of building a monorail from the Orlando airport to Disney World.

 

[Kohara]

get married

oh wrong thread

Best thing ever

 

[BudgieMama]

"Take DME to/from the airport! It's so convenient!" Nope. There is nothing convenient about sitting on a bus for an hour waiting for it to load, not getting your luggage until 7 hours after check-in, or getting picked up 3 hours before your flight home so that you can sit on the bus some more to wait for it to load at various resorts. After renting a car on our last trip and seeing how convenient THAT is, I feel like a fool for buying into the DME myth for so long.

We love DME, but are glad we ignored advice to let Disney handle our luggage for us. We arrived around 7pm from the UK and bed wasn't far off our list of priorities. Personally, I won't leave an airport without my luggage in my hand, just in case, and DME was a dream for us. So simple and really convenient. No way we'd consider hiring a car and stressing about a different set of road rules when Disney will literally do all the driving for us.

I was told by a friend that we would need go visit Universal during our first trip as there wasn't enough to keep two adults occupied for 7 nights. We're currently planning a 14 night trip with no Universal in the schedule because WDW is more than enough!

 

[Jadyreen1282]

To add the water parks and more ticket to our package ... did it once and haven't done it since!

Add it every trip. The waterparks are awesome.

 

[BlackMagicWoman]

Add it every trip. The waterparks are awesome.

Agreed, I went for years with no waterpark and then the last time we tried and I was all what the heck have I been missing. Got it again for August.

 

[Ava]

Worse advice I ever followed: If it rains, just keep going. Now, this is usually good advice, unless the rain continues on for 18 hours and sets records for the area. Then, just pack it in. Of course, no way to know that would be the case. Along the same lines, this advice: dollar store ponchos work fine. Maybe in a fleeting shower, but when it rains cats and dogs for hours on end, nope - dollar store ponchos are sadly ineffective.

I bought into the dollar store poncho advice for our trip last Sept - never again! I bought one for DD5 labeled "Youth Size" but it was just as long as the adult ones! Poor kid had to slosh out of Animal Kingdom in a complete downpour while trying not to trip over her poncho. She was a trooper but I felt bad for her. I won't make that mistake again and am on the hunt for good quality, reusable ponchos for our trip next month.

The other advice you see a lot that I won't follow again is booking a pre-rope drop ADR to get a jump on the crowds. This may be YMMV, but it didn't work for us at CRT last year. Cinderella was late coming out to start the photo ops, so even with an 8:05 ADR we didn't get seated until at least 8:20. We had better luck with Akershus, and are actually repeating it this year, but I won't hinge my morning touring plans on being finished with breakfast before RD.

 

[crostorfer]

Maybe they could build some high rise DVC bungalows right outside the windows on ToT.

Don't give them any ideas...