Wally World Tips and Tricks -- part two

We're talking Walt Disney World in Florida here, not Wal-Mart . . . though I do have some suggestions how to survive the trip to that particular Wally World and it usually involves copious amounts of adult beverages, or going there when the rest of the world is asleep.

So if you bought the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World and cracked open the pages, you should be totally overwhelmed right about now.

Break it down.

• If you already have your trip scheduled don't bother to look at the section that talks about planning your trip
• If you have a hotel, then don't bother looking at the hotels section right now.
• If you aren't going to visit Universal or SeaWorld, skip those sections
• Only read the sections that pertain to you and your family

There are a few things I can guarantee: it will be HOT, HUMID, CROWDED, and YOU WILL WALK MORE THAN YOU EVER THOUGHT YOU COULD EVER WALK. Get used to the concept before you read any more.

Again, I'll reiterate, if you stay on WDW property, you will have access to their transportation: Bus, boats, or monorails. Or a car if you rented or drove one.

If you are staying off site, you will have to drive to each park.

For the most part, there are advantages/disadvantages with each hotel in relation to the various parks.
Just to clarify, WDW has FOUR parks: Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom and Epcot, while Universal has TWO: Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios.

Universal is simple in the fact that if you drive to the park, you must park in their parking garage and walk through City Walk to the entrances of both parks, roughly 1/2 mile or more, depending where you parked. IMO: Islands of Adventure is slightly closer to the car park than the Studios. BUT if you are staying onsite at one of their hotels, you must travel by boat, rickshaw, or foot to the parks. The boats run on a schedule, which means if you missed one, you might have a 10-15 minute wait for the next boat.

The two Universal parks are very close to each other, only a 5-10 minute walk. Yes, we've park hopped many, many times.

In WDW, the parks are quite a distance from the other parks--with the exception of Magic Kingdom and Epcot. You can go back and forth, provided you have a park hopper pass, simply by climbing on the Monorail.

This is where the location of your onsite hotel plays a big role. A few examples:

• If you stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, you can walk to the Animal Kingdom park.
• If you stay at Wilderness Lodge, you can take a boat across Bay Lake to the park . . . or ride a bus
• If you stay at the Yacht and Beach Club, you can walk to the back entrance of Epcot, AND you can take a boat to Hollywood Studios.

BUT there are some disadvantages to using WDW transportation system.

• If you miss the boat or bus, or whatever, you might have to wait 10-20 minutes for the next one.
• Depending on your hotel, the transportation might have to stop one or more times to pick up visitors from other hotels. The same is true when you return from a park.
• The boats are slow. Yes, it's fun, but be aware that these are not speed boats, and must go slowly to their destinations.
• If you decide to 'beat the rush' after the fireworks and hurry to catch the bus, realize that many times they STOP transporting visitors and will wait until AFTER the show to even board the buses. Yes, you can see them waiting across the parking lot, while you are hot, sweaty and cranky and would kill for a little AC.
• Bay Lake has a little electric light show almost nightly. If you happen to take your boat home at that time, be prepared to wait.

Which is why we tend to drive our rental car to the Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. Sometimes we'll take the transportation, but you have to be mentally prepared for the waits. Parking at the Magic Kingdom is at the Ticket and Transportation center, and you will have the option of taking the Monorail, bus, or paddleboat to the Magic Kingdom entrance. Epcot is drivable, but you do have to walk through Future World to get to the countries in the back of Epcot.

It all depends on your particular vacation agenda.

There are a few things that you should prepare for, and I've already mentioned them at the beginning of this blog:

• It's hot and humid-- if you are in Florida in the summer, plan to be hot and sweaty. If you come from a cooler climate, then you need to start sitting in a sauna to get used to the heat.
• It's crowded -- it used to be less crowded during the offseason, or shoulder season, but too many visitors are taking advantage of Disney deals to fill up their hotels during the slow months. Anymore, there aren't any slow months. Just be aware that you will be up close and personal with people who aren't your immediate family. Wear your deodorant.
• Walking -- you will be walking miles and miles . . . and miles! One day we park hopped three parks and walked close to 20 miles! Do yourself and your family a favor and start walking at home. One--you need to get used to the exercise, two--you need to break your shoes in. I will never understand people who wear flip-flops to an amusement park, but some people have to after they wore brand new sneakers to a park and ended up with feet covered in blisters. Make the little ones walk, too. Strollers must be parked, and the kids need to learn to walk to get on the particular ride. Unless you enjoy carting a 30 pounds of a hot, sweaty and wiggly child, then make them walk!
• Keep hydrated -- again, it's hot and humid, drink plenty of water.  
• Bring lots of $$ -- drinks and snacks are expensive in the parks. It's a fact. Get used to the idea. If you decide to do their meal deals, it's up to you to calculate whether or not it is advantageous for your family's needs.
• Go early to the parks -- I know you're on vacation and want to sleep in, but going early will beat the heat and some of the crowds. After the first wave of crowds hit the turnstiles, it will calm down until late morning when the rest of the hotel guests will roll out of bed to join you.

That's it for today. The next few blogs will focus on the various parks.

And yes, I did make a spreadsheet of the various rides for when the kidlet was little. The spreadsheet had the height requirements, and whether or not it was a dark ride, or a rollercoaster, and if water was involved (for me. I don't like getting wet.).

Planning and an awareness of the rides helps you to decide if it is something you want to do or not.

Later, Peeps!

Wally World Tips and Tricks--part one

I drafted this blog last summer as soon as we returned from Florida, but I never got around to posting it . . .  probably because I never wrote part two! I'll work on part two this weekend and post it next week some time. Hope this helps!

So you are planning to go to Walt Disney World (WDW)? Or Universal Florida (UF)?

Then you better be prepared with more than a wallet stuffed full of money!

I have so much information to share that this might take more than one blog to do it in. In the past, I've shared a few 'must do' secrets, but if you have to go to these parks smack dab in the busy season, then you really need to follow my tips and tricks.

If you have never been to these parks, the first thing you need to do is go out and buy the UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD. No, I am not associated with this book, nor I do not get any financial recompense for recommending this book. It's just a good book that CRAMS loads of information on every page. And I highly recommend you start reading this book 6-8 months PRIOR to your vacation. Yes, there is that much information to be had. The last version that I bought--2007--is about 2-inches thick with tiny font, plus it had added information about Universal Studios. I don't know if the newer books provide that information.

I'll tell you up front--the book is overwhelming--true, there's tons of information, but you have to sift through the words to find what's important for you and your family.

AND this will change as your family becomes older and your preferences change. For example: going to these parks with little kids is totally different than going to them with pre-teens.

Before you even contemplate going to either one of these parks, see if you can pull your kid from school to hit the parks during 'shoulder season'. Shoulder season is off season, usually when the kiddos are in school, but the windows of time are narrowing. The key thing to remember is that the crowds are lighter, the lines aren't as long, the temperature cooler, and it might be just a little bit cheaper.

Getting there--this last year, we drove. It was it's own adventure reminiscent of the road trip I took in my youth. Kids have it so easy now with electronic gadgets and gizmos, while I had to play I SPY or read while I was that age.

Driving was fun, but time-consuming and boring. I don't know if hubby crunched the numbers, but with the added gasoline/hotel/meals I don't know if we saved any money driving vs. flying, or not. Part of the reason we drove was so the kidlet could go to the beach. We went to two different beaches, so that part was worth it.

In the past when we flew, we would board a plane at 5-6 AM, arrive in Atlanta at 2.5 hours, board another flight to Orlando, rent a car and be eating Wendy's no later than 1 PM. Many times we would be in our hotel and on a ride three hours later. The added expense of a rental car is slightly offset by the convenience of having a car and not having to rely on the park transportation to get you to the individual parks.

Hotels--I'm spoiled here. We have always stayed at an on-site hotel. We stay at the Portofino when at Universal, and this last time at WDW we stayed at the Beach Club, which is walking distance from Epcot, instead of the Wilderness Lodge (still my favorite hotel!). I don't care where you stay because during the crowded season, you can expect most of your hotel costs to DOUBLE! BUT there are a few advantages to staying on-site.

• If you're simply comparing room sizes to outside hotels then you are doing yourself a disfavor because you need to factor in the experience and convenience of being onsite. For example: if you stay at the Wilderness Lodge, you will feel like you are visiting Yellowstone National Park. And when you travel to the Magic Kingdom, you go by boat, which is a fun experience! When at the Beach Club, you can walk to the back entrance of Epcot. Staying at the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, or Contemporary, then you can ride the Monorail to the Magic Kingdom. And WDW has a fleet of buses that travel from all hotels to the various parks.
• If stay on site and you do drive your car to the parks, you don't have to pay a parking fee at those parks, which can save you $16/day/park (2014).

Staying onsite at the Universal hotels will provide you with an Express Pass voucher for the days you are in the park. Of course, for those people who don't stay at one of their hotels, UF offers a variety of options for the Express pass--the cost depends on the estimated crowd levels and time of year. The more crowded it is, the more an Express pass will cost. Click on their site to find out what a daily pass is for X amount of people in your family--and then decide if it's more beneficial to stay at an on-site hotel or not!

• Again, trust me, the extra cost of an onsite hotel is totally worth the advantage of Express Passing the long lines, plus getting into the park an hour early to the Harry Potter experience and Transformers.
• You can walk to the parks (NOT recommended if you're at the Portofino as you will get plenty of walking at the parks!), or take a bike taxi, or wait for the boat.

That's it for today. I'll have a few more suggestions in a few more days!
. . . and will probably remember a few that I forgot about when I wrote this blog!

Later, Peeps!

Did y'all miss me?

Probably not.

But that's okay. I pre-wrote all my blogs and had every intention of sending it to my accounts (Facebook, Twitter and Google) and commenting, but that was before I discovered my hubster's new Google pad wasn't totally able to function, plus we didn't have Internet access and had to use his cell to connect to satellites.

Don't ask.

I usually don't. I just nod my head like I understand and say, "uh-huh, yes, honey" Trust me, it's easier my way, otherwise, he'll go into some truly geek-tech jargon and I'm totally lost.

Anyhoo--We went on vacation for nine days, arriving back home late Sunday,the night before my kidlet had her first day of school. But she seems to have weathered her lack of sleep just fine.

We enjoyed a nice vacation in the land of heat, humidity, afternoon thunderstorms and love bugs (though they aren’t in their *love- making* time of the year . . . that’s usually late September), in other words, FLORIDA. I managed to read 2.5 books on the airplane and during our ‘downtime’--when we left the parks early and missed the thunderstorms :-) As much as I love my Kindle, I hate the fact that I had to turn it off during takeoffs and landings. Bummer.

On the writing related front, I managed to think out story #2 in my quadrology--how does a hunky pirate ghost sound? So exciting! To that end, I just ordered four pirate books. Arr, me mateys!
When we go to DisneyWorld and Universal, we walk A LOT.  Anyhoo, this year, my feet survived!! Yay! No blisters! Last year, I had blisters upon blisters, blisters upon calluses and walking was totally NOT FUN. The feet relief was due in part to my wonderful New Balance sneaks with a metatarsal insert AND my rigid walking regime over the last two months. I didn’t wear a pedometer this time around, but I know we easily clocked 10+ miles per day as we tend to walk quickly from one ride to the next one and then walk to another park to do it all over again!

Aug. and Sept, are big months for Latin American and Brit visitors, though the Brits outnumbered the LA’s this time around. It was fun listening to the accents and trying to figure out where they were from. I'm not as good with the Spanish speaking cultures, but English, yes. I also heard Italian, French and a small variety of Germanic languages.

Overhead view of Harry Potter experience

First we visited both parks at Universal , enjoying the Harry Potter experience--a MUST DO, if you get a chance to go--as much as possible considering the area was seriously jammed with people. Srsly, they had to shut that section of the park off because it was over populated. We rode numerous rollercoasters over and over and over again. The blue and red are dueling coasters in the Dragon Challenge, the snow-covered buildings are Hogsmeade, and, of course, Hogwarts is the castle/ride.

*NOTE TO SELF* Do NOT drink butterbeer and then ride the HULK rollercoaster without seriously belching A LOT. Sorry, if that was TMI, but it had to be mentioned—and no, I didn’t get sick. . . just burped a lot, though we did see someone tossing cookies into a trashcan after the 3-D Spiderman ride—not a coaster, but a simulator--what a wuss . . .

After 2.5 days at Universal, we drove to the Wilderness Lodge to enjoy the Disney parks for six days.

Wilderness Lodge from Pool

Disney. . . what can I say? 

Nope it would take up too much room to write it down, you just have to go and experience it. We did the meal plan again this year—basically pre-paid food (one table service{entrée, dessert}, one counter service, and one snack per day per night in a Disney hotel). And yes, I was scared I would go crazy over the food, but I didn’t. If the family got Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, I got a water and ate a Mickey ear and savored the delish bite. I did force myself to eat dessert with our table service coupons. And with all the walking, albeit much standing, I only gained 1.4 lbs upon my weigh-in 12 hours after we flew back into town. All in all, I’m very happy with it. I’m back on track and fully believe I’ll lose that weight gain by next week—

But then again, my 50th B-D is on Monday and hubster made a reservation at Flemings . . . I’ll just weigh-in PRIOR to my B-D dinner. :-)Yeah, I like that plan.
Well, time to go and use my new Mickey Mouse French Coffee press. Cute, huh?

TTFN {Tigger speak for TA-TA FOR NOW}