Tag Archives: WDW

Finding the Perfect Disney World Vacation Balance

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IMG_3152I am a creature of habit. I like a routine and if I find something that works I tend to stick to it. This is also true of my Walt Disney World vacations. I have resort hotels I really love, and attractions I can’t miss, and treats I must eat. (Ahem, Dole whip!!) And when in WDW I will go to any length to fit it all in. (My husband was entirely unprepared for this on our first trip together.)

As I mentioned yesterday in my Pack Like A Pro post, my cousin just honeymooned in WDW and I made this list of my “must see” attractions for her. It occurred me as we were talking about attractions and dining, that in my two recent trips I have focused on the things that I love to do and sort of dismissed things that didn’t fall into that category. Several times I said, “Well, I haven’t done that in a few trips, but I remember enjoying it.”

I am certain I can’t be the only person in this boat. Disney World is so massive, and offers so much to to do. You only have so much time when you’re there, and you feel this pressure to do the things you know you love because once you leave it’ll likely be a while before you go back. Sound familiar to anyone?

This repetition pattern is especially true for dining. Typically we only have one table service meal per day. We have spots that we really love to dine and so we repeat locations. Do we enjoy our meals? Absolutely. But trying a new restaurant is fun – and at Disney World it will probably be delicious.

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Peter Pan’s Flight was a 1st time experience for Hubs last June.

On our last trip, we did a better job of having a more balanced vacation. We enjoyed a little relaxation and did lots of swimming. We fit in attractions that we missed the trip before and all of our favorites. In our upcoming trip in June, Hubs and I have a new motto: balance what we love with “new” experiences. Let’s qualify “new.” New will be something neither of us has experienced, something one of us hasn’t experienced, or something we didn’t do in our last two trips.

IMG_3775For us, barring favored Les Chefs de France, all of our table service restaurants will be “new.” We are staying at Bay Lake Tower, which will be a brand new experience for both of us. We have a short list of attractions that we have not done together that we are going to try to hit. Additionally, to my husbands fervent delight, we have scheduled a day where we will not be going into a park. If you can manage it, a day away from the parks to rest and relax by the pool or whatnot is a great choice. You’ll be better refreshed and able to enjoy your vacation.

In the next few days I will be sharing my list of “can’t miss” favorite attractions, and I can assure you we will try to squeeze all of those in. (Our favorites list is plentiful.) But I think we are on our way to a more balanced Walt Disney World vacation that will leave both us feeling very joyful.

Ultimately everyone will have their own idea of a perfectly balanced Walt Disney World vacation. But for us, the perfect balance looks like this: our “must see” favorites mingled with new experiences and a little relaxation.

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Caribbean Beach Review

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I’ve said it before and I’ll stick to it. Deciding which Walt Disney World Resort Hotel to call home on your vacation is half the fun of planning. But with over 25 options covering three financial tiers (Deluxe, Moderate, and Value) each with its own theme, choosing can also be overwhelming. Fortunately any choice on property is a great choice.

When we booked our last trip to WDW it was late in the game and so we had few hotel options available to us. As it worked out Caribbean Beach was our luck. Already being a family favorite, no one was disappointed and our return visit only solidified the special place it has in our hearts.

IMG_2936You know the Jerry Maguire quote, “You had me at hello?” That’s Caribbean Beach for us. After exiting the Magical Express and approaching the Custom House where guest check-in is located, we were peppered with warm salutations and friendly smiles. The Custom House is enchanting with tile floors, high ceilings, fans swishing, and shuttered windows. Check-in was a breeze. We arrived early in the day and our room was not yet ready. Caribbean Beach graciously held our luggage and we made our way over to the Boardwalk for lunch. But that’s another story. Upon our return our room was ready, our luggage was delivered, and we took a stroll to survey the scene. IMG_2998What awaited us were bananas perfectly, inconspicuously hanging in the landscape. *Sigh* If only I could be looking at those beautiful bananas right now. And I hate bananas – I will not eat them. I think they’re revolting. My husband disagrees.

Vibrant colors are everywhere. The landscape is lush and tropical and the entire property hugs a lake named Barefoot Bay. Tell me that’s not inviting. Guest rooms are located in the six “villages” – Martinique, Barbados, Aruba, Jamaica, Trinidad North and Trinidad South that all sit around the lake. Caribbean Beach Lake ViewCaribbean BeachThere are seven white sand beaches with palm trees and hammocks and each village has its own pool.

Old Port Royale FountainAt the heart of everything is Old Port Royale Centertown. Here you can grab a bite to eat at the food court or at the restaurant Shutters. Or perhaps take a dip in the Fuentes del Morro pool, complete with cannons dripping water and two waterslides. One slide is 102 feet long, and I promise you’ll go back for seconds and thirds. Next to the pool is a magnificent splash area for little ones in the form of a wrecked pirate ship. Mini-slides and a giant barrel atop the mast that periodically dumps its water contents will delight toddlers. We paid a couple of visits to the Banana Cabana Pool Bar where you’ll find beer, wine, and plenty of tropical cocktails. At night they show a movie next to the bar on a giant screen. One of the best memories my husband and I had from our last trip was watching Wall-E with a cocktail after dinner at Shutters and a dip in the pool. (Our swim may or may not have included several trips down the large waterslide.) Fuentes del MorroRooms are comfortable with soft, fluffy beds and extra touches you expect from Disney. There is a Finding Nemo motif to each room, and it meshes perfectly with the Caribbean themeing. IMG_3001Bed Detail

Shower Curtain

Shower Curtain Detail

View from our room.

View from our room.

The temperatures have dropped into the 40s and 30s this last week and right now the rain is gushing down. As it is true that a picture is worth more than words I will cease my rambling and display some of the images from our stay at Caribbean Beach. I hope they bring you the smile and thoughts of warm days that they bring me.

Caribbean Beach MapGrab N Go Windows Gran N Go Cups Menu ShuttersCaribbean Beach Sidewalk Detail  Fuente Del Morrow Morning Aruba HibiscusAruba SidewalkAruba Pool 2 Aruba PoolPlayground Aruba Sunrise

June 2014 Video Montage

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Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, my family took vacations to Walt Disney World. We always drove and the trip would take 18 hours of drive time on average. Good ol’ dad always documented these trips. (Mum usually did/does most of the driving.) The old school version of good ol’ dad’s documentations included a very large, black video camera that rested on one shoulder while filming and video casette tapes. Yikes! Talk about the Carousel of Progress…

While filming, part of good ol’ dad’s routine was acting as if he was reporting in for a news station – “WDW T.R.I.P.” This little routine has stuck around in my family for a lot of years. When my husband and I got married in Disney World in 2012, my parents gave us a video camera and passed the baton to me. As a point of interest, this camera fits in the palm of my hand. So when you hear me checking in with WDW T.R.I.P. know that it’s a time honored tradition.

And so without further ado, I present the Walt Disney World Blog June 2014 Video Montage! I hope you enjoy.

How To Plan Your Dining Reservations at Walt Disney World

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HOW TO PLAN YOUR DINING RESERVATIONS AT WALT DISNEY WORLDHello friends! As promised from my post earlier this week, I am sharing my dining reservation strategy with you. I’ve been using this method for many years now, and I find it to be the best, most efficient way to plan my time at WDW.

Here are the two firm truths about planning a WDW vacation – short or long. 1.) Walt Disney World is expensive. 2.) Walt Disney World is gigantic, with hundreds of options for things to do. If you don’t at least spend a little time planning your trip before you go – you will end up wasting precious time. Using the WDW Blog Disney Vacationing Theorem we know that Truth 1 + Truth 2 = THE ULTIMATE TRUTH. See below:

WDW is Expensive + Nearly Infinite Ways to Spend Your Time =
TIME IS MONEY!!

Like my lesson for the day? It’s true. I promise. But here’s the deal – I’m not saying you have to pre-plan every minute of your trip. In fact, I frown upon that. Over-planning is a great way to be miserable during your vacation. You can’t control everything at Disney World. Buses run on loops. Attraction queue line times fluctuate. It’s all about balance. Your planning should have structure – but not be overly full. And your plans should be FLEXIBLE.

When I start to plan my WDW vacation I start with my Table Service dining reservations. Why? Disney World restaurants are not like regular restaurants. Availability is limited, reservations do fill up and a stand-by wait time can be hours. MAKE RESERVATIONS. And make them early. You had better believe I am online or on the phone 180 days out from my vacation to make dining reservations. If you do that, you can usually have any restaurant you want at any time you want.

As you know from my last post, my upcoming trip was short notice. As soon as we had booked our room we got working on planning and making said dining reservations. Here’s how I go about it.

First, I make a chart for the number of days I am going to be on vacation, and I include a bisection for each of the four main theme parks: chart 1Below the WDW Vacation 2014 block I have 7 spaces down the left side of the paper, one block for each of the days on my vacation. Across, to the right of the WDW Vacation 2014 block I have 4 large blocks for the 4 main theme parks: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom.

Once I have the grid in, I start to fill in the blocks across for the 4 parks and the blocks down with the specific dates of my trip.chart 2Once all the dates are filled in, I visit Disney’s official website to find out what hours each of the 4 parks are open every day. AND most importantly, what the Extra Magic Hours are for the days of my vacation. Extra Magic Hours are extra times, either before a park opens or after it closes that are available ONLY to guests staying at a Disney Resort Hotel. EMHs (Extra Magic Hours) are a great way to visit your favorite attractions with lightened wait times. I place morning EMHs above the parks regular hours, and night EMHs below. I also highlight the EMHs so I can see them apart from the regular park hours. I do this because I almost always take advantage of the EMHs when they are offered. You’ll also notice Epcot is divided into two. That’s because Future World (FW) and World Showcase (WS) have different hours. time chart completeOnce everything is filled in, I take a look at the chart with a PENCIL (so you can make changes) and circle what park I think I’ll visit on what day. This is almost always dictated by the EMHs. Above you can see that on Friday, May 9 the park hours aren’t filled in. This is the theoretical day I arrive at WDW. I won’t go into the parks that day. Instead I’ll hang by the pool, go shopping at Downtown Disney, visit Disney’s Boardwalk, or buy tickets to Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach.day planning chartFor me, this all comes down to what parks I love and the EMHs. On Saturday, May 10 I circled Disney’s Hollywood Studios because it has morning EMHs. I then drew an arrow over to Epcot because I’ll probably finish my day there. Same thing happened on Wednesday, May 14. I chose to take advantage of the morning EMHs at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but have myself jumping to Animal Kingdom that afternoon.

Once I have this tentative plan sketched out in pencil I consider my dining reservations. Typically my family will eat at one Table Service Restaurant a day, and eat at Quick Service spots for the rest of the day. Usually our Table Service picks are for dinner, but now and again we’ll go for breakfast or lunch. This is where the WDW Blog Vacationing Theorem comes into effect. To make the most out of your time you want plan your Table Service dining reservations to be in the park you’re visiting that day. If you’re in Animal Kingdom for the entire day, but you have dining reservations at Epcot, you will lose time traveling to Epcot, which could take up to an hour. If you had dinner at Animal Kingdom you could spend that hour visiting an attraction or two.

So for example, on Sunday, May 11, I circled Magic Kingdom. Magic Kingdom has evening EMHs, so I would plan to be at MK all day and night. So logically I want to make dining reservations for a Magic Kingdom restaurant. On Wednesday May 14th, I have morning EMHs at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and then plan to hop over to Animal Kingdom to finish the evening. I should plan to make Table Service reservations for breakfast at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, or dinner at Animal Kingdom. Lunch reservations could be made at either park, depending on when I want to hop from one to the other. Since Animal Kingdom closes early (6 PM), another choice would be to have dinnerat my Resort Hotel after Animal Kingdom is closed.

Once I have planned what meal I want to eat in what park, I start looking for reservations. If you’re calling 180 days in advance, you shouldn’t have any problems snagging what you want. If you’re like us this year, planning a short notice trip, you just need to be a little flexible with your times and restaurants. We had no trouble making satisfactory reservations for our upcoming trip in June. IMG_2739Once I have my dining reservations made, I like to highlight the block where they occur, and write the place and time off to the side (PINK). I also marked my park visiting plan in purple. This paper becomes my go-to physical reference for what’s going on, before I leave for my vacation. The My Disney Experience Application on my phone (or on Disney’s website) is my digital copy. The My Disney Experience App really makes it easy to see what you have going on each day. Love it.

Here’s a recap of my Table Service Dining Tips:

  • Reserve Early! – You should be prepared to make your reservations 180 days out from your vacation, or as soon as you can if you’re planning a last minute trip. This will grant you the most choices.
  • Plan to eat where you’re playing! This is where my chart is useful. If you’re going to be in Epcot – eat in Epcot. This will save you the most time. (Again referencing the WDW Blog Vacationing Theorem stated above.)
  • Keep your times consistent! If you make reservations for dinner every night, make them for about the same time. This will keep your body from going haywire.

One last word: the strategy listed today is really all about time and making the most of it. It doesn’t factor in other dining considerations such as character dining. If you have kids who would love Mickey & Friends character dining – find a place that does that! But be logical about it. If you’re at Magic Kingdom, make a reservation for Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary. Yes,The Contemporary is outside of Magic Kingdom, but it’s right next door just a short walk or Monorail ride away. You won’t waste much time in transit.

ABOVE ALL, be prepared AND be flexible. Have a game plan going in, but be prepared to change. On my last trip to WDW I probably changed or canceled at least 2 of our dining reservations. Maybe you wind up wanting to spend more time at one park over the other, or you decide you want to just cut your day short and go back to the hotel for a pizza and a swim. Go with it!

P. S. Just so you know, the chart I made up for this post was just an example chart. It was much prettier than my charts usually end up looking when in process. See below for my working draft of our upcoming trip… Needless to say, I made a nicer draft in the end.

my real chart

 

Disney World Here We Come!! Planning a great vacation on short notice.

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Hello to you all again! Hopefully you all remember me, I don’t blame you if you don’t. It has been a long, dark hole of absence from me. All I can say is that spring finally sprung and gardens needed to be planted, yard needed to be tended, and work was a MEAN, time consuming, and selfish monster for awhile.

But I come to you all with great news. The greatest news a Disney blog author can have… We are going to Walt Disney World!!!!!!!!

DSC_0135This upcoming trip is rapidly approaching – next month in fact! It is nearly a complete surprise to be telling you all that I am going. This trip is the best kind – unexpected. And full disclosure here, while the short notice, unexpected kind of trip is awesome, it is also the most difficult to plan when you’re approaching WDW peak season. So should you find yourself in our shoes, let me share with you how we are conquering this challenge.

Mum & PadreAbout a week or so ago I got a call from my Mumsy. She and my Padre are celebrating 35 years of marriage this year. Whoa. To celebrate they decided to take a lengthy Florida vacation and of course Disney World was among their stops. While on the phone chatting about this anniversary excursion she asked if hubs and I would like to join them for the WDW portion of their trip. I don’t think I need to tell you how enthusiastically I agreed. That was the easy part. Next, came the hard work.

As you know from my many rants, staying at a Walt Disney World resort hotel is absolutely essential to having the best possible Walt Disney World vacation. For us, there is no other option. So we were terribly frustrated to learn that the original dates my Mum had selected proved to be overly popular at WDW. There were no moderate resorts available. None. Additionally, availability was incredibly limited at the Deluxe resort hotels as well as the Value resorts. Disheartened, Mumsy called to fill me in on how booked up everything was. She spent 2 days on the phone trying to get in to any of Disney’s moderate resorts with no luck. We now faced three choices:

  1. Keep on trying for our originally chosen dates. Things happen – people cancel vacations, guests over-book and cancel certain dates, wedding room blocks are being held that won’t all be used, and so on. If you keep calling morning and night, it is very probable you will eventually land some sort of reservation with which you’ll be satisfied. Persistence does pay. BUT, there are several drawbacks. Firstly, there is no guarantee – something may not open up and you’d be forced to be in a hotel outside of your budget or without all of the amenities you want. Secondly, it is time consuming. Not everyone has time to spend constantly checking Disney’s website or calling to check availability. Thirdly, without booking you can not move forward with making FastPass+ reservations, etc.
  2. Change our dates. This option is the most logical. Adjusting your dates means that you get more choice of where you’ll be staying. More availability means slightly lower crowds – which means better pickings of dining and what not as well. But in our situation this was difficult because my parents had reservations at other places in Florida since they plan to travel throughout the state. There were also forced to factor in our work availability.
  3. Cancel the trip. Fortunately this was a completely last resort option that wasn’t really an option. We are just not quitters. We will triumph! We would rather compromise than not go.

In the end, with an egregious amount of juggling, phone calls, and trial and error my amazing Mum was able to tweak the dates and find reservations for us at Disney’s Caribbean Beach. She wins the newly founded Walt Disney World Blog award for Successful Vacations Reservation via Patience and Flexibility. Congrats Mum.

Over the next few days I’ll share with you my planning strategies for scheduling dining and FastPass+ reservations. I’ll also give you a peak at my WDW vacation countdown calendar. So much to look forward to!