Walt Disney World Wednesday--The Ten Basic Pieces of Disney Advice

Last week, I was talking to a good friend, who, like me, participated in the Walt Disney World College Program, and who is actually doing the program again right now as a grad student. In last go 'round he had a job where he had much less face to face guest interaction, but this time his guest interaction is pretty much constant, so the other day, we were talking about the unbelievably hilarious questions one is asked as a Disney Cast Member. It's the first time he's experiencing these questions in bulk and the job he has, which is the same one I had on my second College Program is one where you have TONS of questions asked of you. We were laughing because, as he said, "so many of them are doing it WRONG." (Said opinion created when someone asked him "So, how long does it take to do this?" "This" being an entire theme park.) We kind of joked about how we should write a book, but then when I started really thinking about it, I realized HOW MUCH Disney vacation advice I give--I've already helped two people this week!--and I realized that I'm spending an awful lot of time on Facebook messaging saying the same basics over and over.

I've also realized that the best way to insure that I write in my blog is to give myself specific, scheduled tasks. Thus, henceforth, in these parts, Wednesdays are Walt Disney World Wednesdays. You've got two dedicated advice-givers and LOTS of others who are planning on chiming in from time to time. We don't promise that we know EVERYTHING. But we'll do our best to find things out if we don't. We have tons of practical experience and suggestions. And we're pretty funny. So there's always that. To start out, I decided that I'm going to give the ten basic pieces of overall advice that I think are the most important. (We'll get to specifics on resorts, restaurants, attractions, etc. later, although if you have a question about any of that, feel free to ask in the comments and we'll hook you up real nice).

#1 Stay On Property: This means staying at one of the Disney resorts within the confines of the 27 square miles or property that make up Walt Disney World. The Hilton on Hotel Plaza Boulevard counts in a pinch because its guests get Magic Hours privileges (but not the others I'm going to mention). Why stay at one of the Disney resorts, rather than in Kissimmee where you might find something a little cheaper? Well, it's easy, for one thing. And if you're paying for parking every day, it might turn out that staying at Disney is cheaper. It doesn't have to be terribly pricey (although it certainly can be, if you want it!). You can take part in Extra Magic Hours, in which select Disney parks are open an hour early or two hours late for Disney resort guests, and you can take part in the Disney Dining Plan (more on that later). Did I mention that it's easy? Disney transportation is a wonder. Sure, there are the occasional glitches, but as my friend, Justin, said while we were having dinner the other night, "You 10 ten minutes for a bus. MAYBE 15." There's also the Magical Express, so if you're flying into Orlando International, they take you to your resort and then back to the airport. All of this transportation? Free. Excellent guest services at your fingertips. Fabulous pools with great activities for the kids (like movie nights!) and plenty of places that have meals or snacks or adult libations. I can probably counter pretty much any argument someone comes up with as to why they should stay off-property. Of all the advice I have, this may be the most hard and fast rule.

#2 Get the Park Hopper Upgrade--This upgrade (currently,on a 7-day ticket it ups it from about $355 to $408, on a 5-day from $323 to $387, just for examples) means that you can change theme parks during the day and it won't use another day's admission. I have a friend who just told me that her family didn't get it for their upcoming trip because of the way Fast Passes are working now that MyMagic+ is fully integrated. I thought about what she said and it still doesn't change MY mind. Her thought was that with only three FPs per day, all within one park, there's no point in changing parks. My thought is that my worst nightmare is being stuck in a park that unexpectedly is slammed (it happens, no matter what those projected crowd websites tell you). It also means that every single day must be planned to accommodate your scheduled FPs AND in-park ADR (Advance Dining Reservations), so if you make your ADR 6 months out and then you can get the much-coveted Be Our Guest dinner reservation on a day when the MK is, for whatever reason, packed to the gills, it means that you can't go to Epcot until 4 and then head to the MK. It's at the upper end, 10 dollars a day per ticket and I can almost guarantee that at one point in your visit, it will be worth the entire $50 or so you spent on it.

#3 At Least Consider the Dining Plan--I've heard people say that they don't do it because they have a picky eater off-spring. Or they don't want to be "controlled" by having dining reservations while they're there. Or they don't really want to waste time on full service meals. All valid points. That said, if you have ONE picky eater amongst your kids, then I'm pretty sure that what the adults in the party get for what they're paying makes up for what you lose on the kid. Also, Disney restaurants are pretty good about accommodating (I knew someone who's 4 year old ate buttered pasta at every restaurant in WDW). If you don't want to feel trapped into being at a certain place at a certain time by restaurant reservations or waste park time eating, there's a meal plan that covers just counter service restaurants. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but it's worth running some numbers on it.

#4 Get A Guidebook--The various Birnbaum's are great and I get a new one every couple of years. Fodor's Walt Disney World with Kids is good, too. But the absolute gold standard of Disney guidebooks, is, in my opinion, Bob Sehlinger's Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. I have never gotten a new one and not found out something I didn't know about WDW. It's an entertaining read, to boot. In any event, get a book. It helps you orient yourself at the very least.

#5 Make Some Plans...--I like to at least sketch out a plan. I've done this tons of times and could probably navigate it going in cold. That said, when I know the dates of my trip I make a chart of the Magic Hours during those dates so I can get an idea of how to approach dining reservations, which you can make 180 days in advance (+10 more for resort guests so you can make all of your reservations at once and not have to call 180 days from each of your days). You can also check pretty far out to see what's going to be closed for rehab. You can check crowd predictor calendars on any number of websites (just Google "Disney Crowd Predictor" and you'll get a bunch) which can help you plan where you want to go. If there's a reservation you couldn't get, a good day to call is 45 out from your trip--reservations must be paid in full by then so if someone's booked a vacation and changed plans, their reservations might turn up then!)

#6 …But Be Flexible--Don't make some elaborate schedule and then make yourself miserable trying to follow it. If the place you planned to be is too crowded and it won't interfere with your dining or FastPass? Go to another park! If there's some restaurant you're DYING to go to and you couldn't get a reservation? Go up to the podium and ask on the day you're at that park! (And then if you're on a dining plan, you can cancel one of your later reservations as long as you do it 24 hours out.) If you're absolutely wiped out, go back to the hotel and take a one hour power nap…you may lose a total of three hours in transit and nap and getting yourself back together, but you'll feel better and navigate the parks more easily and you'll just enjoy it more! Also…you've probably planned for it to be 75 degrees and sunny. It won't be. It will rain at least once and as everyone pours out of the park, you stay, because punking out because of rain is for wusses. And the lines will be short!

#7 Get There Early--If the park opens at 8 (with Magic Hours), get there at 7:45. That means you want to be at the bus stop at your hotel by 7:15. There will be a lot of people there right at opening, but it's nothing like peak entry hour which is almost always between 11 and noon. The other bonus is that you're there for the rope drop which is fun to watch and at the Magic Kingdom there's the opening show which is just adorable and fun.

#8 Do All The Night Stuff--That means you need to see The Main Street Electrical Parade and Wishes at The Magic Kingdom, the Electrical Water Pageant which you can see from the beaches at all three monorail hotels, Disney's Wilderness Lodge and Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, Illuminations at Epcot, and Fantasmic at Disney's Hollywood Studios. And here's the thing…Main Street at the Magic Kingdom stays open an hour past park closing, so if you stay until the end, you can hang out there for a while so that the bus/monorail crowds die down.

#9 Travel Light--This is for both the stuff you take with you there and the stuff you take with you into the park when you get there. I'm getting better about not taking too many clothes, and last time I took in a small purse that held my phone (used it as my only camera) room key and credit cards and a little cash. It was sublime. As for the things you take on the trip--a rain jacket and comfortable shoes are your friend--at least two pairs in case one gets wet--but a lot of the things you think you MUST have with you…probably you don't.

#10 Be Nice--To other guests. To Cast Members. Just…be nice. Talk to people. Make friends. By the time I got on WDW property via Magical Express last time, I had made friends with half the bus. Other guests sometimes have good stories. And talk to the Cast Members. You'll make their day and maybe get some good tips or perks. Being nice is a good idea all the time, but it's the BEST idea when you're there. And if there's some problem or something's going wrong…tell a Cast Member! Politely tell them, but tell them. They want you to have the BEST time and will do everything they can to make it happen!!

Because Paul C. said to do this...

This post is Molly and Paul's fault. Paul posted a link to an article about 16 unusual Walt Disney World facts on Facebook. However, the facts were (mostly) just flat-out wrong. Then Molly said that I could come up with 16 better ones. So, now I'm under pressure to come up with 16 facts that are both true and entertaining. So here goes...

1. That the buildings on Main Street, USA are built using forced perspective is pretty common knowledge. If you DON'T know this, what it means is that the first story of each building is of "regular" size. The second story is shorter than normal and the third is shorter still. This means that the buildings look much taller than they actually are. (This is also true of Cinderella Castle). Less known is that Main Street ITSELF is created with forced perspective. By making the street wider at the Town Square end and narrower at the castle end, it makes the walk up to the castle LOOK much longer. Conversely, when you're leaving at night and have tired feet, it looks like your walk is much shorter. This feeling is exacerbated by the fact that approaching the castle Main Street is on a very slight incline--so you're walking up a hill when you enter and down when you leave.

2. I like Main Street trivia so here's another one. The windows on Main Street are filled with names. Most people know that these names are people who are in some way important to the Walt Disney Company and especially to Walt Disney World. The "business" with which their name is paired is often a further nod to either the contribution they've made or to some personal interest they have or had. (My favorite is that of former Disney President, the late Frank Wells which is for Seven Summit Expeditions, a nod to his desire to scale the highest peak on each of the seven continents.) But there's a deeper meaning to the windows. The Magic Kingdom is a show. Main Street is like the opening credits. The train station, which hides everything behind it, it like a curtain. The windows are the credits. The last window you pass (and the only one that faces the castle) is Walter Elias Disney. Just like in a movie, the last credit at the beginning and the first one at the end is the director. This is also represented by the statue of Roy Disney (the "producer")in Town Square and Walt Disney (the "director") in the Hub.

3. Aaaaaaand another Main Street fact. The sidewalks on Main Street are a deep pinkish-red. There are two reasons for that. The first is relates back to the idea of a show: the sidewalks represent a red carpet. The second is that the Disney Imagineers and Kodak worked long and hard to discover an EXACT shade of red paint that, in pictures, makes the Florida sky look exceptionally blue on a sunny day.

4. Two of the monorail loop resorts are connected with moments in history that are, if not historically significant, then at the least, historically interesting. President Richard Nixon made the his famous "I am not a crook." statement to reporters while in the ballroom of the Contemporary Resort. Meanwhile, in a room at the Polynesian Resort, John Lennon received the voluminous legal paperwork necessary to officially dissolve The Beatles and signed it in his suite, thus ending The Beatles at the Polynesian.

5. The outlying buildings which contain the guest rooms at the Polynesian Resort are called longhouses, inspired by the similarly named dwellings in the South Pacific islands which thematically inspired the resort. The longhouses are named for South Pacific islands. In the late 1990s the buildings were renamed so that the way they are geographically laid out in the resort mirrors the way they are ACTUALLY laid out geographically in the South Pacific.

6. If you stayed in a different room at a Disney resort every night, you would be able to stay in every room currently on Walt Disney World property...in about 60 years.

7. When you are in Liberty Square, the architecture is indicative of the East Coast--the Hudson River Valley for the Haunted Mansion, a New England fishing village for Columbia Harbour House and colonial Philadelphia for the area around the Hall of Presidents. As you walk further and enter Frontierland it's like you are traveling deeper into the American West. The Diamond Horseshoe building is based on the architecture of St. Louis, MO during the heyday of its time as the jumping off point for thousands of American pioneers. The next set of buildings become more rustic--log buildings with wide plank floors--and finally Pecos Bill's Cafe is an adobe building representing the Spanish influence of the American Southwest with the buttes and mesas in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad being the silver mining boomtowns.

8. Almost of the buildings and streets in the Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard areas of Disney's Hollywood Studios are based on real locations in and around Hollywood. Of course, geography and size have been fudged a little bit, but it's meant to evoke Hollywood, CA at a very specific point in time--1947.

9. At Disney's Animal Kingdom, the restrooms all have very large, reinforced outer doors with bolted locks. That's because in the EXTREMELY unlikely event that an animal escaped from one of the habitats, there's enough space in the bathrooms, theaters and restaurants for a capacity crowd at the park to be safely behind closed and locked doors.

10. The American Adventure building in World Showcase at Epcot is situated directly across from where you enter World Showcase, on the other side of the World Showcase Lagoon. Colonial buildings, like the those on which the American Adventure is based (it's not a specific one, but an homage to several buildings), were small, generally not more than two stories tall. A two-story building would be very insignificant from a long distance and almost completely hidden by the America Garden Theater. It would also be too small to accommodate the enormous theater where the animatronics are lowered from the stage and then moved on tracks and stored UNDER house of the theater while the other "actors" are performing AND which houses the largest rear-projection screen in the world. The Disney Imagineers employed REVERSE forced perspective on the American pavilion. It's actually five stories tall, but it only LOOKS two stories tall. It's built from more than 100,000 handcrafted Georgia red clay bricks.

11. Walt Disney World is the largest single site employer in the world, employing almost 70,000 cast members.

12. Disney horticulturists (of which there are more than 750) maintain a tree farm so that if a tree which is "onstage"--that's Disney for in a guest area--is damaged or sick, they can replace it with one that is almost an exact duplicate. They do this overnight. They can also completely change out the onstage flower beds, etc. This means that you can go on Monday and the Mickey floral is one set of colors and then go on Tuesday and it's completely different.

13. Since the day it opened on October 1, 1971, Walt Disney World's maingate parks have been completely closed--as in never opened at all--a total of three times. There had been days when the parks closed early due to weather (read that as a hurricane) and in 2002 there was a day when Epcot never opened because there was a power outage caused by a transformer fire overnight (although all the other three parks opened.) That said, in 1999, during Hurricane Floyd, for the first time in its 28 years of operation, the Disney theme parks ceased operations for a day. WDW also closed completely (although, obviously, resort guests weren't ousted into the storm) twice in a period of three weeks when Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne made almost identical landfalls causing significant damage in the Orlando area. On September 11, 2001, the Disney parks had already opened their gates--for a regular 9 a.m. rope drop, the turnstiles usually open at 8:30--when the first plane hit in New York. The public address system in Walt Disney World is the stuff of legends. It is almost NEVER used. That morning at 11 a.m. an announcement came over the public address system stating, "Due to circumstances beyond our control, all Disney parks are now closed." At that point Cast Members ushered all guests out of all shops and attractions and custodial Cast Members cleared and closed the restrooms. With all guests in the streets, Cast Members joined hands, forming human chains backed by Disney security and slowly walked to the front of the park herding the guests out in front of them. It took thirty minutes for all four parks to be completely cleared.

14. The only Disney theme park that has two gated entrances is Epcot. Most people use the main entrance at the front of Future World, but there is a second, much smaller set of turnstiles in World Showcase, between France and the United Kingdom. Boat transportation to Disney's Boardwalk Resort and Villas, the Yacht and Beach Clubs, the Swan and Dolphin (and eventually Disney's Hollywood Studios), as well as a walkway to and from the Boardwalk Resort are available.

15. The Streetmosphere performers at Walt Disney World are actors, particularly at the Magic Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios, who interact with guests while remaining completely in character as various persons who are either Citizens of Main Street or Citizens of Hollywood. The Citizens of Hollywood have been around longer and, in fact have been a part of the experience in the park since it opened as Disney-MGM Studios in 1989. Kathryn Joosten, who is probably most known for playing President Jed Bartlet's secretary, Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing, was a later-in-life-getting-started actress. Her first acting job outside of community theater was as a Streetmosphere performer at the Studios when she was in her 50s.

16. Anything taller than 200 feet tall must, according to FAA regulations, display a blinking red light at it's highest point to alert low flying small aircraft. (There is, additionally, a no-fly zone that extends 3000 feet above and in a 3 mile radius from Cinderella Castle). Because Disney feels that a blinking light on top of the attractions would detract from the show, none of the attractions at WDW are taller than 199 feet--Tower of Terror and Expedition Everest are each 199 feet tall, the Castle is 189, Spaceship Earth is 180.

Acute WDW Withdrawal Syndrome

Here's the thing...I either have bronchitis/asthma/allergies or whooping cough or my body is physically reacting to being removed from the Greater Walt Disney World Area.

It's true. On my second to last full day there, I woke up with a sore throat. On the last full day, I started with a tickly kind of cough. Which has, in the week that I've been home, developed into an actual full-on cough. Now granted, clean as it is, WDW has to be like a culture of germs. I mean, there's kids EVERYWHERE touching everything--I once saw my niece LICK a handrail in a queue--and there's no way you can wash your hands every single time you touch something, because if you did, you'd never get to ride anything or watch anything because all you'd ever do is wash your hands. Also, on the night before I woke up with a sore throat, we spent an hour sitting in the pouring rain waiting for Fantasmic which turned out not to happen. And it was COLD. Not just that night, but except for the first day we were there, pretty much the whole time. I had to buy a hoodie the night we watched Illuminations (where it also rained). I mean, I'm educated enough to know that, no matter WHAT my paternal grandmother used to insist, you can't actually GET a cold/cough/fever/flu from BEING cold. Although I don't think that it helps the situation when you've already managed to slurp up all the various germs that must lurk all over the Magic Kingdom.

Anyway, if you happen to encounter me in real life, I'm taking all kinds of meds. I'm not attempting to infect the general populace. I actually FEEL fine. And really, I don't think that it's possible for someone to CATCH Disney Ennui. At least not from person to person contact.

Countdown to Disney--31 Days

Let's say that I am given the opportunity to choose to go anywhere on the planet. Cost is not a factor.

I would choose Walt Disney World.

I'll wait while you finish laughing hysterically. There it is. I don't know if it's sad, but it's true. Disney is a HUGE thing in my family. My parents went there in 1972 for their honeymoon. My grandparents went almost every year for MANY years until they began swapping it every other year for a trip out west. Of course, the family prize, I like to think, goes to me who worked there as part of the Walt Disney World College Program in 1995 and 1996. We have been in all manner of configurations: Mom and Dad; all of us; just me; just my sister; the parents and me; the grandparents, Mom, my brother and me. The last trip that any of us made in that direction was two years ago when my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece went, thus crowning my nephew and niece--ages 13 months and turning three while there--with the honor of being the YOUNGEST of us to ever score a trip to WDW. But coming up in just one short month is the big one...my parents, brother, sister-in-law, sister, nephew, niece and me--all of us, staying at the Caribbean Beach Resort (in the pirate rooms, no less) for seven awesome days.

So since we are exactly one month from departure, I am hereby starting the countdown.

THIRTY-ONE DAYS, PEOPLE!!!

And to get us started, here's a little bit of one of my ALL-TIME favorite things at Walt Disney World. EVER. The sadly defunct Diamond Horseshoe Jamboree. It ran four shows a day for about 20 years before closing in 2003. It was AMAZING. If you never saw it, but have been to the Hoop Dee Do Revue, then that's the closest approximation. It was in Frontierland, right next to the cut-through to Adventureland. You had to have reservations and there was a lunch counter service. I think that the restaurant part is still active in the busier seasons, but the real attraction here was the show. The first time I went, in 1981, Miss Lily sat on my grandfather's lap and left a lipstick kiss on his head, which is one of the most distinct memories I have of the entire trip. Later, when I worked at Aloha Isle, we rode up from the Tunnel in the same elevator as the performers. I once rode the elevator with Miss Lily. It remains one of the greatest celebrity encounters of my life. So enjoy, because it rocked. It rocked HARD:

THE DIAMOND HORSESHOE REVUE

I hope the Miss Lily, Bartender Sam and their Cowboys and Saloon Girls party on in that Great Theme Park in the Sky.