I'm goin' to Disney World!

[Ivy]

My husband was offered some kind of promotion for having a shit ton of hotel points from business trips, and so it looks like we get a free 4-night stay in Orlando sometime in the next six months. I completely, totally, un-ironically love Disney World, so I am thrilled. However, we haven't been there since 2007 and a lot has changed since then. The whole "FastPass" thing was pretty new then, and you could only do it once you got into the parks that day, at kiosks in front of each individual ride. Now, they have these fancy RFID tickets with the Fast Pass built into them. I've been told that you can book rides months in advance and basically completely micro-manage your Disney experience. We're looking at about 3 months out, and I am concerned if a bunch of crazy people are planning this shit 6 months ahead of time we may be at a disadvantage. In my youth we would take off for Disney World and buy tickets when we got there and just totally wing it the whole time. It looks like that may not be a viable plan anymore.

Anybody been recently? What can you tell me about how things work now? Does it kill the spontaneity, or make it so waiting in line is no longer a necessity? I have to admit that this an attractive idea.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

Cool! I unironically love the Disney parks as well. I haven't been to Disney World since like 1996, so I can't help you with specific attractions. But there is an app called RideMax that I have heard really works. You tell it what dates you're going and what your must-sees are, and it creates a schedule for you. It's not for people who like to be spontaneous, but if you want to see all you can see, I'd look into it.

Also, it's not super close, but if you've never been to Kennedy Space Center, I couldn't recommend it more. I'm admittedly a space nerd, but it's really cool. You can do it in a day, and seeing the entire Saturn V moon rocket laid on the ground end to end is worth the visit in itself.

 

[Ivy]

Apparently you can only book your FastPass stuff 30 days out (or 60 if you're staying in a Disney hotel). So I guess we're not SOL yet. Still, who wants to plan what rides they're going to go on a month in advance? The most advance planning we did last time was which park to go to on which day based on crowd predictions I found online. And I thought that was a little micro-managey.

 

[Ivy]

I'm glad to know another un-ironic WDW fan! I'll definitely check that out. I'll be real here, I'd miss the spontaneity of just winging it, but if just winging it means we have to stand in line for hours and we can avoid that by following a schedule, I'll take the schedule.

Hey! Why come I can't like posts in here?

 

[prplchknz]

I went I want to say dec 2011 with my best friend from highschool. we got 4 day park hopper passes plus tickets to the christmas party which was about 94 dollars per person total, but my friend lived in orlando at the time and was a florida resident so we used the discount. I have a friend in kissimee but i dunno if it be ok for me to ask. but defintly get the park hopper it's extra but is worth it, because it ends up being more to buy tickets to each park seperate. plus some parks you'll want to spend more time in. the best rides are in hollywood studios imo. and the fast passes are great for the really popular rides but get them first thing cuz they have a set amount each day and once they're gone but i believe those are free. i could be wrong that might be another FL resident perk, you should probably look that up.