Anyone got a Disney/Florida Holiday Planned Part 2

[Groovee]

Old Thread

I think I'm right in saying that he doesn't legally need a booster over there but if you have room in your luggage I can loan you TwigBoy's..It's very light so won't affect your luggage weight much but it will take up a bit of space. Bearing in mind that you all get a hand luggage allowance though I usually take it in hand luggage.

I thought they were quite big on car seat safety? Don't know where I read that though! So Halfords have got me one reserved it's £5 and lightweight so can't really argue with that! Our ones in the car here are bulky because they are from the bigger car seat.

I've never once been asked about car seats/booster seats.....the people at the desk are too busy trying to get you to fork out more money on upgrades/sat nav/insurance etc

Yes, they do love to do the hard sell don't they!!

They are hot on the law, as we are, but their law (at least Florida state law) only says they legally need a booster up to age 5, I think? That may have changed since we went though. £5, excellent! (will reply to your PMs later, btw)

Right I need tips on doing fastpasses....I know what rides I need to do them for but how do I get the timings right? I don't want to be zig zagging back and forth or just hanging around in one area waiting on the time.

I've got ages yet but its this kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night

Me too dog ! I can't do my Fastpasses for another 4 months but dream about them regularly.

I think you spread out your 3 choices, an hour after rope drop when you're likely to get on rides quickly anyway, according to where you want to be.

E.g. On our first day at the Magic Kingdom I know that DD will want to do lots in Fantasyland so will book FPs for 9:30-10:30, 10:30-11:30 and so on.
As we're going in August and aim to hit the parks early we'll probably leave after lunch.
I hope I've got that right, do let me know if I'm talking rubbish

We are going to Disneyworld third week of April but not able to organise anything due to work pressure and some unexpected family emergency.
We have booked flights, accomodation and tickets.
Three days in Disney, two in universal and one day in Kennedy space centre.
Any tips for advance reservation for breakfast with Disney character or meeting them?
Also just found out about fast passes - how does this work?
Do you have to stay in a Disney hotel, we are not.

I am trying to sort summer holiday as well it is complete nightmare.

Hello going

Lucky you, not long to go!

Go onto My Disney Experience website and create an account. You can make restaurant reservations and it's all quite straightforward.

I don't know as much about Fastpasses (see above post) if you're staying in a Disney hotel you can book Fastpasses 60days in advance, if you're staying off-site it's 30 days.

You must have a look at the Dibb website. There is loads and loads of information about all things, Disney/Orlando.

Good luck with your planning

Fastpasses are also booked on My Disney Experience.

goingtobefree, sorry that you are having a stressful time at the moment! It's easy to book fastpasses via your My Disney Experience account but you need to have tickets before you can do it. Once you've got them go to 'My Reservations and Tickets' and then you'll see a button saying 'link tickets'. From there the website explains what to do. Choosing your times is a little more complicated though - it chooses the times for you and offers you 3 options, most of which aren't usually exactkly what you want. So just choose the time closest to what you want and then you can alter each ride individually. NO idea why they do it this way - would be so much easier if you could just select individual times yourself at the time of booking!

I'm not sure about character breakfasts as I've only done one (O'hana, which was geat but pricey) but it's easy to meet characters. On the day you arrive at the park there will be a separate leaflet that lists the times and locaitons of all the characters there that day. Be warned that if you want to meet Anna & Elsa you are in for a VERY long wait (speaking from bitter experience - 4 hours!!!) You can FP a meet with them now but you have to get in quick, as soon as your 30 day window opens.

DogHairs, I can never decide when to book my FPs! There are lots of strategies. I think Bacon's one of arriving at rope drop and booking FPs for later in the morning is a great one. Once you've used your 3 FPs you can book further single ones, so booking original ones for 11am-ish means that you'll have plenty of time to book more for the afternoon (whereas if you've booked for 4pm-ish, you prob won't be able to get any more for that day). What rides are you booking for? If you have rides that you know are near each other then I suppose it makes sense to book them in s short time space - but there are shortcuts around the park so I don't think it's a huge problem to zig zag about a bit. Remember that you get an hour's timeslot so if you're in one land and do your 1st FP at the start of your timeslot you'll probably be waiting around a bit before your 2nd timeslot opens up.

Oh this is LOVELY. I've had a crappy week with both DCs off sick and this is the first day they've both gone back to school and I can come and talk about my happy place :)

Blimey lucas I didn't realise that once you've used your 3 FPs you could get more!! Hurrah

Cool, huh? :) We rarely got any more though because by the time our initial FPs were done we could usually only get one for much later, say 9pm or something. Also most of the good FPs are gone by then... we never manage to get to the parks early though (grrrrrr) so you should definitely be able to get more if you're using yours up earlyish.

I wish I had the park maps in front of me instead of looking at a screen old school but I've remembered I'll also use the PIL tickets as they won't go on most of the rides (well I've not asked them yet). I think I'll aim one day concentrating on FP for the little dc's and the next day FP for the big dc's as I have allocated 2 visits to each park.

Could one adult go with little DCs and another with big DCs, so you can get both done at the same time? I often do that - send my mum off with my DCs to do kiddie stuff whilst me and DH go on other stuff, then we all meet for the 'suitable for all' stuff.

Morning all.

I bought Memory Maker a few days ago - thought I'd better hurry up and sort it out - after all, only 212 days to go! Anyway, I got a tracking email this morning (they send a card out to you) and it was lovely to see "an item has been shipped to you from Lake Buena Vista, FL" - gave me a happy little buzz!

Only 212 days very organised!!!

I'm going to buy one too......I'm hoping its simple to set up as everything seems to be on a app, I also have tickets for the Orlando eye saved to my phone.

Forgot to add 88 days for me

It was easy when I did it - I was logged into the MDE app at the time but it sounds like it would've been more complicated if I wasn't logged in, so I'd definitely advise that route! I've never bought their pics before but got over-excited at the idea of on-ride photos and videos :) Shame there aren't more in-ride photos though - one of our fave things to do is pull silly faces when ou know the camera flash is coming up :)

I see what you mean now as I just bought and was also logged in!

If you don't mind me asking how much did the 179 dollars work out in pounds?

I can't wait for the Tower of Terror video lol I'm not telling anyone we'll be filmed until its over

I haven't got bands tho so do I get the card scanned

It was $169 and when I Googled a currency converter yesterday that came out at £111 - whether that might go up or down by a few quid by the time my credit card bill comes through, I'm not sure.

Yes, you get the card scanned - it might be worth buying a band though (only one needed) as I think I read that the videos are only available to people with bands. I may have that wrong - the Dibb will know! I can't wait to see the ToT video either - but I'm sure as hell not getting on it!! Check that your purchase appears in MDE - mine took overnight to appear.

I don't know where I got 179 from , I'm going to buy a band but for some reason the Disney store doesn't want to add it to the basket lol

I'm getting nervous at the thought of linking everything up! park tickets, memory maker, fast passes and now a band.

You can't buy bands in the UK, annoyingly (something abut the tech means that they can't be shipped internationally). You can pick one up on the first day and the CMs will link them for you - I hope they can do it quickly though as don't want to be wasting an hour of park time!

Ah that's a shame, I tried for ages to place a order too!

Does the Memory maker show up automatically in my disney app?

I've just realised that if you are doing childswap the person riding last doesn't need a fast pass . These FP are going to need military style preparation!