Walt Disney World,, A Guide to make your vist magical!

  The flight is booked, the resort reservation made, and now you just need to figure out how, when , where and what you are going to be doing at the most magical place in the world. Take a breather, you have stopped at the right place, this will guide you through the maze that is WDW and help your vacation get off to a good start. Watch for my series on WDW.  Over the next few weeks I will be writing guides to WDW which covers everything from where to eat, what the best rides are for young kids to how to always get ahead of the long lunch line (there is a trick to that!).

  A little info about me (if you already have not read my about me page).  I am a annual passholder going on nine years, and a Disney Vacation Club member for two. We currently live in Orlando, and vist the parks at least every Saturday. If I total up my visits to WDW it would number into the hundreds.  Okay,, enough about me,, lets get started....

  First of all, Walt Disney World is divided in four parks (one world , four parks). Magic Kingdom , Epcot, Disney MGM Studios and Animal Kingdom. In addition to the four parks there are two water parks, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, Disney shopping at Downtown Disney and for the evening hours, Pleasure Island. 

  Also on Disney property are the resorts, they range from the super expensive (Grand Floridian) to the more moderate priced (Pop Century).  Disney's goal is to keep you on Disney property for your entire stay. Which is nice as once you park the rental car, you will not need it again until you leave for the airport. Disney has three main units of transportation for the guest , bus, monorail and boat. Using one of these methods, you will get from point A to point B with no trouble at all. 

TICKETS:

 Disney offers a couple of ways vist the parks. The most common and best value is something called a park hopper.

 ****NOTE***** NEVER ,, NEVER BUY USED TICKETS. DISNEY NOW USES A FINGERPRINTING SCANNER AND EACH TICKET BELONGS TO THOSE WHO USED IT LAST!!!****

  To put it in simple terms, a park hopper will allow you to "hop" from one park to the next without having to purchase an additional ticket. Disney does sell one day tickets, but those are only good for the park that  you bought the ticket for. Example,,, you purchase a one day at Animal Kingdom,, which closes at 6pm. You cannot take that ticket and then that evening go watch Epcots fireworks. You would have to re-purchase another ticket. A park hopper ticket , does allow you to use it at both parks, as long it is within the same day!

   Park Hopper tickets are priced according to how many days you buy. Example,, you can buy a three day park hopper or a 7 day park hopper. The more days that you purchase, even though it does not seem like it,, you are saving money with that option. If  you are visiting the parks for more than two days,,, buy the park hopper! Trust me on this one, once you get here, you will want to vist all four parks. MGM and Animal Kingdom both close in the early evening. You can then hop from them and go say to Magic Kingdom which stays open until 11pm on some nights.

   Okay,, what is the fingerprinting business you ask? About a year ago, Disney started scanning fingers of those ages 10 and over. Used to be that all Disney ticket days still could be used even if the ticket was years old. Thus the re-selling of partially used tickets came into being. Rumor has it that Disney wanting to try to stop this by starting the finger scanning process. Stay safe, avoid those selling tickets on ebay or by the side of the road in Orlando.

   Don't take the chance that it is your tickets that Disney decides to confiscate at the gate.

Coming soon.... guides on all four parks.....