Last year we purchased tickets to go to Disneyland for Lady Hiva's birthday celebration. She is constantly complaining that her "Winter Birthday" we don't get to do anything fun; yet, for the rest of the family's summer birthdays, we go do all kinds of fun things. But the week were supposed to be at Disneyland in CA, they closed due to COVID. LAME!! We hoped all year last year that it would open again. They still have not opened. We decided to see about going to Disney World instead during the Autumn. I called and they told me that they "extended the expiration date" of our tickets to 2022, but after further conversation and a long hold while managers got involved they gave us a voucher for us to use in Florida.
Then Lady Hiva's dad passed away so we did not get to go in Autumn. We have been striving to find a time to go...there is always some reason to not go. But then some cousins mentioned they were going in FEB and we decided to invite ourselves to join them. Within an hour we had our tickets book and parks reserved to go!
Can I just tell you that in our family going to Disney World is an EVENT. We are so excited to prepare and go--all of us! This time we told the Muggles that they had to earn their money to spend down there. We set a chart with a list of chores--not the normal chores they do--but extra things, like cleaning the blinds, sweeping the garage, fixing a meal for the family, and doing laundry. I love that there is stool in the laundry room so they can reach into the washer to get the clothes out. They both worked so hard to have money.
We cover both Disney World and Universal Florida here.
Transportation:
Flying to Orlando (MCO) is relatively easy. There are great places to find flights right now. Google Flights works best for us. It allows you to search several airlines and see the price by date (put in your departing airport and arriving airport, then do not put in a date and click on the calendar button. It will tell you the price of tickets for every day. This is especially helpful when you have flexible dates.
Ground Transportation: MCO does not have a train from the airport to the parks. If you are staying on Disney property you could book "Magical Express" (at least for now, Disney just announced they are discontinuing that service). Other options are to Uber, taxi or rent a car. We decided to rent. Uber from MCO to resorts near Disney for our family of 4 was about $60. We found a rental car on Hotwire.com for $130 for the duration of our stay.
Once you are at your hotel, you can see if there are shuttles to the parks. Again, Disney Springs hotels and Disney Property hotels have busses. This makes it easier to be dropped off right at the park entrance. It does take a little bit of time as they have several stops. Uber is an option as well. We found that it was cheaper to just pay the $25/day for parking and drove ourselves. With COVID right now, if you go early enough you park really close anyway. No need to pay extra for "preferred parking." The iconic parking trams are not running. So if you cannot walk far, get a handicap pass or make sure the parking people know you need to drop people off before you park.
Strollers: We have realized that our children do better when they have a stroller to relax in. It makes for less whining as days get long. It also is a place to sleep if a nap is needed. You can rent a stroller single or double. The double stroller for one day is $30. I then noticed that there were several strollers around that looked like rental places in the park. I did a quick search and found a company called "Rent Baby Gear Orlando" They were so great! I spent $60 for the duration of the trip. They dropped it off at the hotel and picked it up. The most amazing experience ever.
Hotels:
There are several options for hotels in Orlando. You can stay on property near Disney World or near Universal Florida. Both have great options. There are also several other options around the area. Disney hotels are fun and themed really well. They have several options for different budgets. If you want to stay near Disney but do not want to pay for a Disney hotel, there are some Official Disney affiliated hotels at Disney Springs. We found a great hotel on Hotwire.com right off property. It had a kitchen in the room, free breakfast, and a laundry facility on site. That was great. Most hotels have pools as well.
You will want to make sure to see if they have have hidden fees--parking, internet, resort fees etc. That can be a shock if you are not prepared for it. Having breakfast offered as part of your hotel makes the day before going to park easier. This will allow you to eat well before you set off.
Food:
Like hotels, there is a diversity of food and budgets for that food in Orlando. Remember anything on park property is going to be more expensive than outside. We made sure to eat a big breakfast beforehand and then we would eat in the park for lunch or dinner. Take snacks and water. This will help you as it gets hot and everyone just needs a boost to get to the next meal. All parks offer cups of free water, just ask any place that sells food. Do not spend $8 on a bottle of water. We brought our reusable water filled at the hotel and then got the water cups to supplement.
Most places do mobile ordering for food. Make life easier for yourself by having the Disney app and the Universal App downloaded already. Have a card on file. That way you save time when you are ready to eat.
If you have young kids, Character Dining is an amazing experience. There are several options for you. Book online in advance of you going. They are more expensive, but the family gets to have interaction with the characters. You also get to see parts of the park you would not see otherwise.
We liked Yak and Yeti in Animal Kingdom, Leaky Cauldron and Hogshead at Universal, Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood Studios, Be Our Guest at Magic Kingdom. Ohana is our all-time Disney World restaurant but it is closed right now.
There is some amazing food to eat in the parks. Some of our favorites included:
- The
Coconut Kakamura float in Magic Kingdom Adventure Isle.
- Anything
from Yack and Yeti at Animal Kingdom
- Butter
Beer at Universal
- Florian
and Fortescue Ice cream (fun flavors)
- Dole
Whip Nachos at Disney Springs
- Pastries from Le Halle at EPCOT
Parks:
Again, this is just an overview, I will cover each park in more detail in other posts.
WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT
Before you go:
There are a few things that you need to do before you go. Buy tickets and make sure to have a park reservation. With Extra Magic Hours gone and parks closing earlier, we did not see the need for Park Hopper passes. But you have to have both a ticket and a reservation in advance to get into the park.
Make sure you have comfortable shoes you will do A LOT of walking and standing. Have comfortable masks and plenty of them. You have to wear a mask--always. Unless you are sitting and eating. If you do not have a comfortable mask it makes your ears really not like you! Some of the rides get you wet, and the heat makes you sweat, so having a few clean masks makes a difference.
Have rain gear. In Florida, it rains suddenly and hard. We found umbrellas cumbersome, but a stroller cover worked well and we bought some $1 rain ponchos at Wal-mart before we went in. They are 10x more than price in the park. That small purchase makes the day more enjoyable--because who wants to wear stogy clothes all day?!
Have a hat and/or sunscreen. Florida sun is real people. Believe me, your bald head will thank you, I know speaking from experience.
Make a plan of what rides you want to do and which have the longest ride times. You can do this by monitoring the Disney app.
If you are going to wear Disney themed clothes, it is cheaper to buy them before you head to the park. If you cannot find shirts you like, wait until you get to Orlando, there are plenty of stores that sell the shirts on discount. Walmarts near Disney World also have great selections of gifts, magnets and gear all Disney themed at 1/3 the price of items in the parks.
Day of:
Go early. The days are shorter so go early to get everything done. We went 30 minutes before park open time and they allow you in to cut down on COVID gathering at entrances. You can then go to the rides with the longest wait times first. Many days we rode all the "big" rides before the park even "opened."
Make sure to check out the bathrooms. Bathroom tourism is a real thing at Disney. No, not in any gross way, it is just that Disney is into the details and there are so many details in each bathroom theming.
Know where you want to eat so you don't miss out. Have a plan for how to ride the rides, you do not want to miss out on precious time and precious steps going across the park back and forth.
Queues are COVID spacing. That was amazing. Even if the line looked long, it was often just due to COVID spacing. It cuts down on sharing sweaty smells with the people in line around you, but it also made it so some parts of the queue theming did not work. For example in Haunted Mansion the "elevator room" was not working, you just walked through it. Or the "build your car experience" did not work in Test Track.
Overall Best Rides:
There are some iconic rides that we will always love (Splash Mountain, Kilimanjaro Safari, Peter Pan, It's A Small World, Haunted Mansion, Tower of Terror)--but there are also some new technology that has created some amazing experiences. Here are some of our favorite rides:
- Rise of the Resistance in Hollywood Studios. I have never seen Star Wars and have NO idea what was really going on, but this experience was AMAZING! Note that you have to book a "boarding time" from the app at 0700h or 1300h the day of you admission. Don't miss this ride
- Avatar Flight of Passage in Animal Kingdom. Think Soarin' and Big Thunder Mountain combined. That is this ride. It is different than anything else you have ever done. Truly amazing.
- Runway Railway at Hollywood Studios. The technology on this experience is worth the wait in line.
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA
Before you go:
To be honest, we really only went here for Harry Potter. But that was enough. We booked two days, one for each park. Again, hours are limited so we did not think we wanted to pay extra for two parks. If you have the park hopper pass you can ride Hogwarts Express between parks. So we did not get to do that. After being in Disney World for 4 days, there are parts of Universal that are dreary, faded, and dated. They don't have the same level of detail as Disney. There are not as many rides for small children either. That being said, the Harry Potter portions of the park are AMAZING! I think if we were to do it again we would just get 1 day park hopper and only do the Harry Potter version and that would be sufficient. If you have older children that love roller coasters, you still may enjoy the other rides in the park, even if the theming is decades old.
Day of:
Try all the food. Buy an interactive wand to try all the spells around the park. It is so much fun. We waited in line first to go to Olivanders to get Lucky Dragon a want, that way the rest of the days at Universal he could use it.
Bathrooms are not themed like Disney, but their shops are. Especially in the Harry Potter sections. So even if you do not buy anything, go inside and explore.
Overall Best Rides:
- Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure. I was sad to see they got rid of the dragon coasters, we really liked those. But Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure was fantastic!
- Minion Mayhem. This was a hit with our children.
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