Going to Disneyworld

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Oof. Man, if there’s one thing this thread has hammered home into this native Californian’s head, it’s Don’t Go To Disney World.

These past few years I’ve taken my family to Disneyland on a Wednesday in the second or third week of January. The holiday/weekend crowds are gone, the vast majority of kids are in school, and several rides (always Small World for some reason) are closed for maintenance and upgrades, but the larger point is that it’s the closest thing to an abandoned Disneyland you’ll ever see. Still plenty of people, but the lines are absolutely minimal. Until school lets out at 3:00 PM, you can literally step right off the Pirates ride, scamper back through the queue area, and be back on a boat in under two minutes. You’d never see the point of possessing a FastPass. It’s the only time we’ll go anymore, since we’ve lost interest in paying $119 a head for the privilege of spending three quarters of the day standing in line.

I don’t imagine this strategy would work too well in Florida, since January isn’t exactly the slow season there, and I utterly dread the prospect of a long August week in a swamp. But our last January day at Disneyland was 80 degrees with scattered clouds, just as lovely as can be.

I also don’t envy the princess-centricity of your proposed trip, Acer. If the girls get some fun out of it, that’s pretty much the whole point, but I’m deeply thankful that my daughter is about as interested in hugging Elsa as she is in hugging the lady behind the counter at the Mad Hatter’s shop.

And the size of WDW rather astonishes me. I mean, I really really love going to Disneyland (don’t have much use for California Adventure, except for the truly excellent Cars ride), but I can’t imagine wanting to spend more than two days there. But my friends and family who have been to WDW and tell me that you need at least three to five days just to get a good taste of it… man, the very idea exhausts me. I just can’t imagine blowing that much money on a family vacation rather than, say, spending two weeks in Europe.

And I really do like Disneyland!

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Oh, there’s no shortage of ridiculous tourist traps in the area!

I vividly remember visiting Weeki Wachee Springs to see the corny mermaid show, Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg, and the Xanadu House in Kissimmee. I never got to Kennedy Space Center, though; my little sister said it’d be bo-ring.

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It doesn’t have to be crazy expensive. Going to Disneyland for a day or two is pricey, but keep in mind that every day you go to WDW, it gets cheaper. After four or five days, I think it’s like ten dollars to add more days. So it’s not like you’re dropping a hundred+ a day like at Disneyland.

My family used to go on a high school teachers’ salary. We’d stay offsite, go over in the mornings, leave before the afternoon rain/crowds/sun hit, rest and eat dinner at the hotel, and go back in the evenings. We had to go during August, which is sweltering. An afternoon break is essential for keeping sanity.

Disneyland is far more compact and in many ways better designed than the Magic Kingdom at WDW, and I love it dearly, but I also really enjoy going to Epcot, the Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, the restaurants, etc etc.

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While WDW is a totally different beast than Disneyland in many respects, in WDW in the off-season you can loop Pirates/Haunted Mansion as a walk-on with no line, and have 10-15 min waits for Space Mountain/E-Ticket rides. In some weeks in Jan. and Feb it’s really quiet. And if you know how to work it, it’s a whole lot cheaper than going to (many places in) Europe, which is why we went there more. There’s ways to get really cheap tickets and cut costs on hotels. For it to be fun/cheap(ish) it’s a research project type vacation, though, which doesn’t appeal to all. If you’re going to Poland/Czech Republic and can get a mistake fare/dirt cheap air fare you could make the trip for less, though.

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Yup, Norway. Best food, too, of all the character meals (or at least it was…it’s been a while).

Reservations for special meals, etc., are made – I think – 6 months in advance, which means make sure you’re on the phone at the time they open the switchboard (7:00am Eastern Time, I think?) on that day.

There are some excellent books that point out the do’s and don’ts, with various hints/hacks. It’s worth reading one or two, but make sure they’re current, not a few years old. They get outdated quickly.

Make sure to see the park open once, and close once. They really know how to make both of those very special for kids.

Use the FastPass system to avoid standing in long lines.

The food is actually reasonably good and healthy there. For example, you can buy little bags of baby carrots as a snack. Yes, you can get junk food there, but really, it’s quite impressive how well they understand children and families and optimizing the experience. I know we wouldn’t have been able to spend even 2 days there if all we could eat was junk food. They know that: healthy food makes for non-cranky guests. But yeah, lots of junk food available also.

By staying on site, you can do things like go back for some quiet time or swimming in the hotel pool before going back, energized, later in the afternoon. You need to pace yourselves.

Figure out who likes what kind of rides and divide-and-conquer. If there’s an adult who loves roller coasters, don’t make the other adult do them too unless they want to. Conversely, if It’s a Small World is likely to make you a raving maniac, then let the other adult take the kids on that one.

Keep in mind that there are ways to relax there. For example, the Huck Finn island is quiet and peaceful. You don’t have to be on rides the whole time.

Sunscreen, and stay hydrated.

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BTW, I totally agree with everyone else’s points, now that I’ve read them, but am out of likes and so couldn’t indicate that agreement on each post.

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Yeah, I get ya. For me, growing up in San Diego (and now living in L.A.) Disneyland wasn’t so much of a destination vacation. We never had to pay airfare, or course, and usually didn’t bother with a hotel. In fact, when I was in high school (and gas was still something like 86 cents a gallon) we’d drive there, park in the parking lot where California Adventure is now, buy our tickets for like $22 each, and fart around until lunchtime, when we’d get our hands stamped and leave the park and walk to the McDonalds across the street.

Even today, my family of four can do a day at Disneyland for under $500 and sleep in our own beds (although that means buying no toys/hats/clothing and being especially frugal with the food, which I’m not actually cheapskate enough to do). I could get a 4-day package at WDW including hotel for $1900 (without airfare) so that’s not too terrible, I suppose.

But the humidity would kill me.

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This reminds me: I went to Epcot once with young children, and the drinking really made it a lot less magical. We’d seen the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom, so we stayed a full day at Epcot to see their fireworks, and while technically they were more interesting, having drunk adults bumping into the children, talking about non-child-friendly subjects and swearing, etc. ruined it for me. During the day it wasn’t so bad, but after dark it wasn’t a Disney place anymore.

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Ohhh…of course it has. So maybe it’s not as interesting as it used to be, when it was actually about, you know, Norway.

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Yeah, I’ve also heard that the quality of the Norwegian buffet has gone down.

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They still have a buffet with salad bar, cold veggie/potato salads, cold cuts, Norwegian cheeses, and smoked salmon & herring. But they don’t have quite as many varieties of herring or preserved vegetables as they used to. You still get a decent entree, however.

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