Experiences

[TheDreamyLilacOtter]

Never been to the Disney park in Florida and would really like to go however I have no idea what to book ahead in advance and what it will be like. Would be helpful if you could tell me what you have to do in advance and if you enjoyed it.

There’s lots of variables, are you staying off site and iust visiting or staying at Disney for 2 weeks.
The main thing you need to book is restaurants, especially if you want to go early evening/ones with characters.
I haven’t been for a few years so all the ride booking has changed.
We booked bibbidy bobbidy boutique and my friend just went and her son had light sabre building prebooked.

I would go on site but the reason this is confusing is that someone else told me you had t o stay off-site and drive to all the different parks which are in different places. I know you have to book where your staying and pa to tickets and that. The main thing is how do you get to the parks from where you are staying

If you stay on site there are transport options, buses, the monorail and the skyliner depending on the hotel. If you stay offsite you either rent a car, use ubers or some offside hotels do shuttle buses. The parking is around $30 per day if you have your own car.

On site what is actually there. Is it like gift shops and stuff

Yes there are gift shops in the Disney owned hotels, they all have a swimming pool too and some sort of dining option. The value resorts tend to have food courts with fast food options where the more expensive resorts will have sit down restaurant with different themes and some with character dining which you would need to book in advance of your stay. We've done it both ways and while staying on site is convenient for the transport the food does tend to get a bit samey after a few days if you eat in your resort a lot. Staying off site means the transport is far less convenient but the last place we stayed was on International Drive near to lots of different dining options.

“On site” means staying on Disney property in a Disney Hotel. The hotels are large and there are many of them. Within Disney property there’s a large shopping and dining complex called Disney Springs with the largest Disney store in the world.

There are shuttle buses running between the hotels the 4 main parks, the water parks, and Disney Springs. There’s also a monorail and a cable car that runs between some of them. You can also drive between your hotel and the parks.

The DIBB is the best website for finding out everything you need to know. They have lots of information and a busy forum for questions.

I think you should watch some videos on YouTube to see what there is and get a sense of the place and look at a site map… but

on site there are multiple hotels each with restaurants and gift shops and pools. Different prices from cheaper to extremely expensive.
there are the actual parks - magic kingdom, animal kingdom, Hollywood studios, Epcot. Different themes. Each with rides, shops, shows, meet and greets etc.
2 water parks.
all connected by monorail, skylines, boats and buses.
Disney Springs is a big shopping area (free for anyone to visit) with restaurants and cinema and cirque du solei.

its big and not a cheap holiday to stay onsite, usually you would try and get the dining plan included so most of your food is included (and why you need to book restaurants).

Pop into a travel agent (we used TUI) and pick up a Disney holiday brochure and seek advice from the people there. Yes, you can certainly do it cheaper online but going for a package deal is so much easier for a first Disney trip.

You need to watch a lot of videos on yT. There are millions! There are videos covering all the different hotels. And videos covering all the different restaurants. and all the different parks. Etc. Buy yourself the latest copy of the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World from a good book store. It covers all the parks, rides, restaurants and resorts.

Not sure if mentioned, but all of the travel options within the park are all free. That's why it is frequently called "the bubble". And three of the parks have hotel options that are walkable, e.g. Grand Floridian to Magic Kingdom park (MK). And a few hotels walkable to Epcot and Disney Studios.

The next really important question is who you are travelling with, what excitement factor you can tolerate and what your expected budget is. This will determine if you should even base yourself at Walt Disney World (WDW) or base yourself at Universal Studios Orlando (USO) instead, and spend a few days at the other.

Lastly, for now, WDW is struggling and offering great deals on packages where your dining is included free on top of other benefits. That's quite a discount.

Very lastly, little children will often say that the best part of their WDW holiday was the hotel pool. Think wisely before setting your expectations!

My personal recommendation is to stay off site on Hotel Plaza Blvd which is directly adjacent to Disney Springs. It’s considerably cheaper and some of the hotels are Disney partner hotels meaning they still have gift shops, character dining etc. You can walk to the Disney Springs bus station from these hotels and use the Disney buses, and some of the hotels run their own shuttles to some of the parks as well. This location is much closer to the parks than staying on I-drive for example.

At the other end of Hotel Plaze Blvd is a retail park with lots of dining options like Denny’s, IHOP etc so you can eat far cheaper than the parks. Be aware that it’s a long ish road (maybe 30 minutes walk end to end) so it’s in your best interest to pick a hotel closer to Disney Springs or you add a lot of steps to a walking heavy holiday.