In this video you're going learn 10
essential tips that every adult visiting
Walt Disney World in Florida really
needs to know in order to have a
fantastic trip, and get the most of
everything that Walt Disney World has to
offer.
Hi, I'm Gary Bembridge of Tips For Travellers.
Walt Disney World Resort has a lot to offer,
there's so much to do. So let me talk a
little bit about what's available.
First of all you've got Magic Kingdom.
Magic Kingdom opened in 1971.
It's the classic park, its icon is a
Cinderella Castle. In my view it's a
little bit dated now and it's very much for
smaller kids and probably the least adult
of all of the parks. However it is the
classic and real icon of Disney
World, so you might decide that this is a
park you want to go. The second park is
Epcot that opened it in 1982, and
basically Epcot
celebrates human achievement, both in
terms of Technology and culture. And this
is a really good park for adults because
it is a whole mixture of some really
good rides and also has the World
Showcase, which showcases a whole range
of different countries, their food ,their
culture and their drinks.
The third park is Disney Hollywood
studios that opened in 1989. It's now
very much focused on Star Wars and Toy Story,
but lots of other links to various
television shows and movies. The
fourth park is Disney Animal Kingdom.
Disney Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, as
its name suggests it really focuses on
animals and conservation. It's kind
of like a mixture between a zoo, a safari
park and a theme park. Disney also has
two water parks (Typhoon Lagoon and
Blizzard Beach) and then there's Disney
Springs, which is a big entertainment
dining and shopping complex. Now if you
were to spend time at all of those you
would easily spend a day at each, so you
could easily spend a whole week just
going to the Disney parks and not seeing
anything else in Orlando. So if you don't
have to travel with young kids and
not linked to school holidays, when is
the best time to go? Always focus on
going on weekdays, avoid the weekends
because they become very popular for
weekend trippers or even locals. And
avoid any week that has
public holiday or any school
holidays. In particularly focus on of
course the United States, but bear in
mind a lot of people come from around
the world. So when are the best times to
go as an adults? Mid-january to mid
February, March is pretty good but watch
out once you head into April because you
have spring break and Easter break.
May and June are pretty good times.
October, November and early December are
also pretty good times. Going to
Disney is not an inexpensive activity.
A ticket to get into each park is going to
cost you around about US $130 per
person per day. If you are driving to the
park it's going to cost you at least
$20 to park and once you're
in the park there is food and
drink to purchase is on top of that. Now
the great news is, there are lots of
packages and deals. These tend to
differ a little bit by country. So when
you go to the Disney site in your
particular country, you'll be served up
various offers and deals. So for example
in the USA it's much easier to buy single
day passes or two or three or four day
passes. If you're coming from say the UK
for example you'll find there's much
more packages linked to family tickets,
often around seven day or fourteen day
packages. Now if for example you're
adults and you just want to buy
individual tickets (or shorter tickets),
one of the things you do is go to the
USA site, so if your default site comes
up you can sometimes change the country
and visit the Disney USA site, which is
what I did
where I could buy a ticket for
all four parks but it only cost the price
of going to three parks. What's also
important, unlike say Universal, is the
price of your ticket includes three fast
passes. So it gives you the chance to
avoid the long lines and get to right to
the front of the queue. Every single
ticket includes those fast passes. The
next step I have is a very very
important one. Way before you go, park by
part by park look at the rides and put
them in order of priority that you want
to ride them. Some of the rides that I would
recommend are the following: so in the Magic
Kingdom I would recommend Splash
Mountain, there's a Seven Dwarfs Mine
Train which is really good fun, Big
Thunder Mountain Railroad which is a
real Disney classic. In Epcot Soarin'
which is a fantastic visual effects,
Mission Space you have two versions of
that, Test
Track where you zoom out in a car and doing
the whole World Showcase where you go
around all those different countries. And
Disney Hollywood studios, this is
changing a lot, but there's lots of Star
Wars rides. So you have Star Tours,
from 2019 you've got the whole mass of
the Star Wars Galaxies area. There's a
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and then
you have the Rock and Roll coaster
starring Aerosmith and then there's the
classic Indiana Jones epic stunt
spectacular. In Disney Animal Kingdom
Pandora is so popular, they have the
Navi River journey and the
most popular art of all which gets big
waiting times is the Avatar Flight of
Passage,
there's the Expedition Everest which is
a crazy roller coaster, you have the
Karli water Rapids and very highly
recommended is the Kilimanjaro Safari,
which is where you get a chance to see
lions, you'll see elephants, you'll see
zebra. It's very important that you
decide for each Park which ride you want
to do and the order that you do them to
make sure that you focus on doing those
rides you really want to do it - and you
do not leave the park disappointed. Leading from that
it's onto my next tip: how do you get
the most of your day in each of the
parks, and how do you make sure that you
get to ride those rides that you
absolutely want to do. It does take some
planning, and here's what you do when you
decide which park to go to on which day
that you're there. Take a look at the
opening hours, now any day that has the
early opening the magic hours or the
late closing hours I would actually
recommend you avoid going to the park on
those days, because everyone that's
staying at Disney properties heads there
on that day and those parks are
manically busy. Stay away because you
will find the parks are just crazy busy
and it's really really hard to get on
the rides on those days. So pick your
days very carefully about which days you
go. If you're staying at a Disney property, two
months before you go but if you're not
staying in the Disney property one month
before you go, you need to make sure that
you've bought your Park tickets because
if you stay no Disney property two months
before (60 days before) you can access the
Fast Pass system. If you're not staying on a
Disney property it's 30 days before.
Everyone that has a Disney park ticket
can choose three fast passes in advance,
once they've used all three on the day
they can start selecting
more. But you want to get in as
early as possible and start signing up for
fast passes. Those popular rides
that I spoke about
will be chosen very very quickly. If
you don't have a fast pass you have
to join the queue and sometimes at very
busy times it can be two hours long for
some of the really popular rides. Get
into the fast pass system as soon as you
can and using that list of rides
make sure you lock down
fast passes for those rides. So having
done all that before you head to Walt
Disney World,
how do you make the most of your day
actually in each park? First of all make
sure you have the App on your phone and make
sure you have your smartphone with you.
Make sure that you get to the parks
early, so before what's known as rope
drop. You need to be there way before
9:00 a.m. in the morning. As you head
into the park, make sure you grab the map
and also the leaflet which will
have that particular days times for
things like the parade shows, anything
that is closed or changes - so you know
exactly what is happening that day so
you might have to adjust your plans. When
the rope drop happens make your way
as fast as possible to the number one
ride on your list, because you'll be
there right at the very beginning and you
should get on that ride at least once.
Then make a beeline for the second ride and
the third ride. So hopefully by 10
o'clock or 10:30 you've done the
three big rides that you want to do and
then you can basically look at
your fast passes and do rides
again or change your plans. The other
thing to do is, of course, keep looking at
the app to keep an eye on wait times and
find what's busy and not busy, and keep
adapting what you do as you look at the
rides, bear in mind that most people
eat lunch around 12 o'clock 1 o'clock
they'll be less busy, also a lot of people if
it's a Magic Kingdom will watch the parade
at 3 o'clock - so those are good times to
think about doing rides. I
also recommend in terms of dining
is while a lot of people like to book those
sit-down restaurants for the whole
experience, I have to recommend you don't
do that and go for the easy dining
option. Largely because it's quicker but
also the great thing about that is on
the app you can order the food in
advance. So you can decide what food you
want and when you're either at the
restaurant or you're ready to eat you
basically there's a little button you
push on the app which tells them you like are ready
for your food right now and they
prepare it and bring it out so you can
wait
just minutes before the food comes
out. It means you don't have to line up
with everybody
to place your order. It's just much more
efficient. Another great tip for making
the most of your day is any ride that
has a solo rider or a single rider
option, take that option if you don't
mind or do not
necessarily go on rides with your friends
or partner or whoever you're traveling
with, because those lies are often quite
short because a lot of people of course
like to go on rides with who they're
traveling with. My next tip is around
what should you take into the park.
It is Florida, so it's hot and humid so
make sure you've got a hat, sunscreen,
sunglasses. Florida is also prone to
bursts of rain which can often just
chuck down and then clear up, so take one of those
plastic ponchos with you. It's really
handy and it's better than an umbrella and
also for some of those rides where they
are outside or you are likely to
get wet it's it's a real boon to have
one of those plastic ponchos.
Take a water bottle with you and you can
keep filling it up and stay hydrated. Of
course make sure that you've either if
you staying on a Disney property that you've got
your Magic Band on or got cash and
credit cards to buy things for
lunch or buy merchandise. Because you're
going to be relying on your smartphone
to manage the day, make sure that
you've either got an extra charger for
your smartphone or make sure that
you've brought along a charger, so if you
do have to plug it in anywhere you can
plug it in. There's lots of places you
can charge phones or if you struggling
then go to guest services and they can normally
help you charge phones. The next tip I
have is deciding to stay on a Disney
property or not. What are the benefits
of staying on a Disney property? Well one
of them is that you get access to the
Fastpass way in advance, you get
transfers from the airport, you have
extended park hours, you get free
transport to and from the park and things you
buying the park can be
shipped direct to your hotel. The
downsides are if you're traveling as an
adult, it can be a more expensive option
because of course the rooms are designed
to really host families and also, of
course, you're more likely to have lots
of kids. So if you're actually looking
for an adult break, why not consider
actually staying off properties so for
example on International Drive.
Look for hotels which are perhaps more
business-focused or conference focused,
you'll often get rooms much cheaper and
a lot of the hotels, even those
conference hotels, will include free
transport to all of the parks. So I would
as an adult visiting Disney, unless you
want to go for total Disney
experience, consider staying off property.
My last tip is, how do you get help
on the go? The app has lots
of help and there is a manned Twitter
account which is @WDWtoday which is
there to help support everybody when in the
Park. So, if you've got any questions
queries or problems use Twitter. They
reply really quickly and provide great
support. To have a successful trip to
Walt Disney World in Florida you need to
be prepared. It takes a lot of planning
before you go, you need to know
exactly which parks are going to you,
need to know which days to go, you need
to know which riders you want to do, you
need to make sure you've got your fast
passes done as soon as you possibly can. On
the day you need to make sure you've got
a plan of action to make sure you're
going to do the things that you want to do.
So planning and preparation is
incredibly important. So don't
underestimate it. Spend as much time
as you possibly can researching and
planning. If you just pitch up on the day
at some park and hope to see
stuff, you're probably going to be
disappointed. So planning and preparation
is absolutely key. Walt Disney World in
Florida has so much to do. There are
those four parks, there's the Disney
Springs, there's two water parks. Enormous
amount to do, a lot for adults to do if
you are focused and plan exactly what
you want to do. Hopefully this video has
helped you do that and if it did and you
found it helpful, I'd love it if you
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