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Author Archives: Kami

Kami is a married mom of three who has loved all things Disney since her first trip to Disney World when she was eight years old. She is always planning her family's next trip to WDW and dreaming of Mickey ice cream bars.

10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

1. Use a authorized Disney vacation planner By taking advantage of a Disney authorized vacation planner, you get access to all the expertise at no extra cost! A good vacation planner will help you work through all the steps on this list, all while giving you inside tips and personalized customer service. They can handle everything for you, while you ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

2. Make a packing list  The best way to have the time of your life at Disney is to be prepared. By planning to pack things you need (and ditching the things you don’t need), you’ll maximize your luggage space and your time. Who wants to spend their vacation searching the gift shop for band aids or ibuprofen when you ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

Disney Park Tickets _ buying tickets

5. Buy tickets Once you’ve thought about your schedule, you’ll need to buy tickets. You can do this in a variety of ways and from several different places. You can purchase tickets in increments of days. However, the main thing you need to think about when buying tickets is what you want to do with your time. On the base ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

Cream brule

4. Make dining reservations  You don’t technically have to have tickets purchased to make meal reservations. The dining reservations open 180 days prior to the day you are reserving them, so if you have started planning a trip but haven’t purchased tickets by 180 days prior to you trip, you can still make reservations. Take a look back at your ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

FastPass

3. Make FastPass reservations At 60 days (for Disney resort guests) and 30 days (for off property guests) prior to your visit, you can make FastPass reservations. This allows you to reserve a time window to hop in a much shorter line for a given attraction. Since you’ve already decided which day you will be visiting which park, you should ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

Kilimanjaro Safaris

6. Make a rough draft schedule I like to make a schedule by thinking about which days of my trip I would like to spend at each park. If you know, for instance, you’ll be attending a separately ticketed event (like Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party) in the evening, I would choose a different park during that day. Take a ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

Polynesian

7. Research and pick accommodations Now that you’ve decided your budget, how long you want to stay, and how you’ll get to central Florida, it’s time to research your accommodation options. We absolutely love staying on-property and there are so many resorts to choose from. Staying at a Disney resort has a lot of perks, including free transportation to and ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

Airplane

8. Determine transportation  Are you driving or flying to Florida? This probably depends on where you live. Flights can be expensive unless you live close to an airport with a direct flight to Orlando. If you want to take advantage of Magical Express, Disney’s complimentary airport shuttle for their guests staying at on-property resorts, you will have to fly into ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

Monorail Contemporary

9. Decide how long you’ll stay This is one of the things that may be determined for you by your budget, commitments at home or school schedules. If not, though, how many days do you plan to stay? Are you going to want to squeeze in some other activities on the way to Florida and back, or are you maximizing ...

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10 Essential Steps to Planning Your Disney World Vacation

Castle Money

10. Set a budget The first step in planning your Disney vacation is to determine how much you are willing to spend. Is this a once in a lifetime, no expense spared luxury vacation? Is this a super-budget, we just want to eat Mickey ears ice cream and don’t care what else happens trip? One of the most appealing things ...

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