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We were hosted by Walt Disney World to share in a multigenerational #GrandAdventure.  All opinions are my own. 3 Simple Tips for Planning a Magical Trip to Walt Disney World 

3 Simple Tips for Planning a Magical Trip to Walt Disney World

This was our first visit to Walt Disney World, and being able to share the grand adventure with our grandkids, made it even more magical. Watching their little faces light up when they saw the castle for the first time. Katie screamed with joy! That’s a memory I’ll cherish forever. 3 Simple Tips for Planning a Magical Trip to Walt Disney World.

We were fortunate enough to be able to take a peek at some of the action behind the WDW scene. I was in awe at the sheer enormity of the place. To work in a place where your job is to make people happy would be so much fun. Oh wait, that’s what I do in my job! You can feel the excitement when you first walk in the parks. There are kids and adults walking around with mouse ears, laughing, and smiling. It was magical. There is so much to see, I kept bumping into people because I was in awe and taking pictures. Thank goodness papal was pushing the grandkids in a park stroller, I would have surely injured somebody if I was driving. 🙂

Fun Fact: Did you know that the at WDW (Walt Disney World) employees are called “cast members”? And when they are in the park, they are “on stage”, very cool. The photo below was taken at Hollywood & Vine where you can meet Disney Jr. characters during breakfast and lunch buffets. The food was fantastic, and the experience was very cool. Tyler was a little nervous, you can’t blame a kid for being nervous, lol. Katie likes Doc so they took a picture together.

3 Simple Tips for Planning a Magical Trip to Walt Disney World

1. Manage your trip through the Walt Disney World website and phone app. You are able to make hotel reservations, restaurant reservations, buy park tickets, almost anything you can imagine you can do on this site/app. I love to be organized so this was right up my ally. The navigation is very simple and clear.

There’s a special section on the site called “My Disney Experience”, it’s in the upper right-hand corner, this section lets you set up your itinerary, down to every detail. Since this was my first visit to WDW the planning felt overwhelming, Disney World is huge, it’s twice the size of Manhatten, over 40 square miles!  I also love how it includes detailed maps of all the parks and resorts.

Every year Disney gets more high tech, they keep perfecting the experience. They have the coolest device called “MagicBands”, they seamlessly connect you to your reservations, park admission, credit card and much more. It’s a comfortable waterproof wristband that carries all your information, pin protected. It helps to have everything in one place, you can travel lighter. I loved mine, It even opens your WDW resort room door! You can choose one of 8 colors, Katie chose pink, Tyler red. They are wearing them in the picture below. This was the morning of our second day, right before we went to our first park.

2. FastPass ~ Consider purchasing a FastPass. With your FP you can select up to 3 experiences/rides ahead of time. It’s like a reservation, you skip the standby line and shorten your wait time considerably. Decide which 3 experiences/rides you really want to do and choose your times. Some experiences fill up really fast. If you purchase your park ticket ahead of time you can reserve your experiences 30 days in advance. Even better if you are staying in a Disney Park resort, you can reserve your FP experiences 60 days in advance. We used FP and it made a ton of difference on time spent in lines, especially with young children. We wanted to see and do as much as we could in 4 days.

3. Purchase Photo Pass ~ It’s part of the My Disney Experience. There are photographers and cameras all over the park and on the rides waiting to take your picture. Some of our favorite photographs were the ones taken while we were on some of the rides. Check out these funny faces while we were riding the small coaster ride called, “Seven Dwarfs Mine Train”. We all loved that ride. It was pretty fast and we screamed a lot!

We had a magical time in Walt Disney World. We stayed 4 days and they were full days! Do you have any Walt Disney world trip tips?  Please share.

3 Simple Tips for Planning a Magical Trip to Walt Disney World