Pre WDW

Walt Disney World

Wed 18 Sept to Wed 2 Oct

This is a ridiculously long and detailed report. It might not be for people new to Disney Parks, because it is not all favourable and I don’t want to turn people off. This was our final bucket list ‘finish all of the parks’ moment, so there is a lot of comparison. I was actually nervous that I would want WDW to be our home park after this trip, but California keeps the crown for us.

14 day park tickets Park tickets from Attraction tickets. Easy to enter ticket numbers into your phone once purchased.

Includes Magic band and memory maker.

We had to go to Disney Springs Planet Hollywood to get the magic bands, I was really worried that they were going to be awful, old holiday ones or something, but they were teal, which is my favourite colour, so that was awesome!

The memory maker was also awesome, we always get this at parks and this time we got around 250 photos. Take advantage of photo pass photographers, it’s so nice to have good quality family shots! And of course attraction shots. Some of the attractions automatically transferred your pics through your magic band to your Disney account, loved that technology!

Tips for the weather: Orlando is hot and wet in September, 34 degrees and 90% humidity. I knew we would struggle, but it was the only time of the year we could make the trip work.

We bought:

Rain coats from Kmart for $20 which were a must. I hate ponchos and generally anything single use. We used these a few days of the trip and it was absolutely worth having them in our backpacks when rain was possible.

Chilly towels, we loved these in Asia, but only my husband used his and felt it was beneficial. We have 3 left unopened.

Portable fans, these were about $20 on Amazon (I hate using Amazon but couldn’t find the ones we wanted anywhere else). These were a game changer! We all used them, the kids and husband most days, me for a few, but when I did, it was such a relief. Make sure you take a battery pack to recharge these.

Cast compliments: in your Disney experience app there is a tab for cast compliments. Please use this, if anyone makes your day special in any way. You just need their name, date and place of the interaction. We did at least one of these every day. For the amount of cast members that felt like they were just doing a job, it was nice to acknowledge the cast members that make your day special. There were absolutely times we would leave and I would make my son run back and grab their name!

We had a few attractions break down, or keep us sat waiting for over 15 mins while they figured something out. Those were:

Remy - a walk off

Haunted Mansion LL cancelled because broken down TWICE in one day 

Tianas Bayou boarding group 8, broke down around 6 for hours, we still got on! Separately stopped for around 20 mins when we were on it 

Pirates stopped a lot, only once for 15 mins though 

Donald’s fiesta stopped for 20 mins 

Pandoras flight stopped twice, once in the pre boarding room, once on the attraction  

Buzz Lightyear Space ranger spin stopped for 20 mins 

Country Bears Jamboree broke down for hours 

The reason I am listing these is that is these are attractions you want to get on, go on them early in case they do break down.

EVERY RIDE PHOTO IN WDW! This helped us to know when to expect a pic.

Attraction pics are so much fun, here are all of them currently:

MAGIC KINGDOM

TRON Lightcycle / Run (ours didn’t get sent to our app though, following it up) 

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin 

Space Mountain 

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 

Pirates of the Caribbean (before the drop, very strange)

Haunted Mansion

ЕРСОТ

Frozen Ever After

Guardians of the Galaxy, Cosmic Rewind

DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Slinky Dog Dash

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

DISNEY'S ANIMAL KINGDOM:

DINOSAUR

Expedition Everest

Another tip for October Mickey’s Not So Scary parties are on Fri Sun Tues, the parks close by 6 that day, but they are so quiet! You can get a lot done on a quiet day like that.

I was going to do my first booking with a travel agent, but girl was going to charge me $100 fee for booking each of our flights, there is no version of me paying some $400 to book a trip. I am skilled at booking trips, so took over. I understand if you need that support, but I was going to try being lazy, it didn’t work out.