My reason for writing this entry is to help any of you who are embarking on the mammoth Disney vay-cay in Florida because even for Team Rose, who are ultra organised, it was a bloody hard two weeks! AND if you think this is a “Holiday” you’re sorely mistaken (that’s sorely, as in, your feet will drop off they’re SO sore from all of the walking).
It was a cold December 2013 when Mumma Shiggsy turned 59 and declared “for my 60th I want to swim with Dolphins in Florida” so, what the matriarch wants the matriarch gets……along with the whole troupe, who decided this would be the best time for a family holiday GRISWOLDS STYLE! Yes, we are that annoying family!
There were itinerary’s, planning meetings and even a secret Florida 2015 Facebook page set up, where we could all add ideas and info about what we wanted from the holiday. NOTE: 7 adults, who are giving up 2 weeks of holiday and a few thousand ££ will all want different things out of this break – make sure everyone gets to do something they want, it will make life SO much easier.
We were lucky enough to have some Disney mad family friends, who prepped us about the best things to do, things to avoid and how to put your 2 week holiday together. I was then given the task of putting together the itinerary – the daily schedule of events which will rule your freakin life for 2 weeks of Mickey bloody Mouse fun. It was also the most pressure i’ve ever had – worse than doing my dissertation!
Above is the itinerary we did – it is pretty packed and hard going, so I will tell you the best way to get the most out of your two weeks and also how to manage it all time-wise.
This isn’t for the faint-hearted so if you’re not up for walking 5 miles MINIMUM a day in 30 degree heat, this isn’t the holiday for you. Leave now, stage left – goodbye.
Tip 1 – The Airport
When you land at Orlando make sure you get off the plane and into the queue for immigration ASAP. It can take a while, so be prepared to queue for around 40 mins or so (that’s if no other flights have landed at the same time). Then make your way straight to the baggage carousel. Once you have your luggage you will head out towards the exit but will have to leave your trolley there and head up some escalators. Now this was a great tip from our friends – take your luggage and go up the escalators and carry it yourself. Don’t let the airport staff badger you into putting it onto another conveyor belt, which takes it up to the terminal for you because it can take around 45 mins. We managed this with much hilarity! There were 7 of us (one pregnant) and a one year old baby (not walking), 7 cases, 7 sets of hand-luggage, a push chair and a car seat! Carrying all of that was like watching something out of a slapstick comedy but we didn’t want to have to wait, so we did it. My niece was traumatised by the end of it as I was carrying her and trying to drag my hand-luggage at the same time – she ended up slipping so far down my body that she was holding on for dear life. The main thing is she survived (and so did we……just).
Tip 2 – Car Hire
Depending on how many of you there are and also where you’re staying will depend on whether or not you hire a vehicle. As I mentioned, we had 7 Adults plus 1 Baby and were staying around 30-40 mins from the parks, so we hired a 15 seater mini-van from Alamo. After we booked it we did think that perhaps it was overkill and toyed with the idea of down-sizing but I have to tell you, we wouldn’t have got all of us plus luggage in anything smaller. The Van was ace and after my Dad downloaded the Homer Simpson voice sat-nav it became the “Family Truckster”. We’re all National Lampoons fans and each car journey would start with my Dad playing “Holiday Road” from the National Lampoons films, which as you can imagine did wear thin after 2 weeks and many hours in the car. To give you an idea of the distnce we drove over two weeks – when we picked the van up it was brand new, with 7 miles on the clock. When we returned it, it had over 1000 miles on it!
Tip 3 – The Disney Package
We bought all of our park tickets months in advance and did a lot of shopping around to get the best price – they don’t come cheap. We ended up getting the Orlando Freedom ticket package through Attraction Tickets Direct which gave us all of the Disney, Universal & Sea World parks (Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Universal Studios, Universal Islands of Adventure, Sea World, Aquatica and Discovery Cove) they were all unlimited access for 14 days and for the princely sum of £519 per person (apart from the baby who was free as she was Under 3 years old). It’s a lot but that is everything you need and it’s cheaper than buying them separately or even buying them once you’re in the US.
Tip 4 – Wrist Bands & Fast Passes
So these days you can buy wrist bands which are allocated to a Disney account that you can set up online and you can use them at any of the Disney parks. The wrist bands are bought inside the park and are about $12 each and come in a range of colours (surprise surprise I had Pink). You then link them together and around the park you will see official Disney photographers, who will take your picture in front of a landmark and zap your wrist band, which then uploads to your account. This is called the Memory Maker package, which my Dad added for us at an extra cost of $150. Sounds like a lot but you will come home with literally hundreds of pictures on your account. They also superimpose Disney characters into the picture with you, which is really cute and just adds a bit of extra Disney magic. These wrist bands also then become your entrance to the park, so you can get through barriers quickly and they also hold all of the information about your Fast Passes – they’re great. Fast Passes do exactly what they say on the tin – they allow you to queue jump and get straight to the front of the rides. You can only have 3 Fast Passes per day and you can book them up to 180 days before you go to the park. If there’s only one thing you take away from reading this blog then make it that you book these early. We didn’t get the hang of this until we were in Florida and so were planning them a couple of days in advance. As you can imagine, the major more popular rides were already booked so we had to queue for those. If there’s someone in your group who is mega organised, get them to be the Fast Past person – my Sister did a sterling job at this.
The Parks
I won’t go on too much but here are some tips and observations about the best and easiest way to get round the parks and what they each have there:
Sea World: The land of Killer Whales and Dolphins – this park was a bit of a battle of the conscience for me. I love those beautiful little dudes and to watch them is amazing but I don’t agree with them being in captivity and struggled a bit with that. We were last at Sea World 20 years ago and since then a LOT has changed. Sea World now has 2 big Roller Coasters, which are both worth doing and the lines for those were short. Also, the biggest attraction is the Orca Show at Shamu Stadium – it used to be the case that the trainers got in the water with them but after an incident in 2010, they no longer perform with them, however, the Orca’s still put on a spectacular show. My tip here is that during the shows (2-3 times per day depending on the day) everyone heads into the stadium and the short lines become even shorter. So, if you don’t want to go and see the shows you can hit the rides during that time and probably get on 2-3 times without queuing for more than 5 mins! We also pre-planned the route we’d take once inside the park, what times shows were on and where they were, which made the world of difference. When you’re already going to be walking all day long, in the heat, don’t make your life any harder than it is already. If you know where you’re going then there’s no need to double back on yourself or miss anything. As you’d expect the food isn’t cheap in Sea World and there really wasn’t a lot for my 1 year old niece. My tip is: although you can’t take food into Sea World, you can take snacks for small Children – buy some lunchables and save yourself a load of money and have a happy baby!
Animal Kingdom: By far my favourite park! It’s massive and because it’s Disney be prepared for slightly longer lines but you can use Fast Passes. Animal Kingdom was brilliant – great rides and lots to see for both kids and adults. There were official photogarpahers everywhere, so we had some fantastic pics taken. If you want to (and money is no object) then I have been told the Wild Africa Trek is something else! It’s three hours long and costs between $189 and $249 depending on when in the season you do it – price includes lunch. There are Disney characters wandering around the park, which you can have your pic taken with and if you download the Disney app it will tell you which chcarcters are in the park that day. The queues can get quite long and the characters often leave for 10 min breaks every now and then (I was left waiting for Donald Duck as he had to nip for a loo break – totally worth the wait though).
Magic Kingdom: The park we’d all been waiting for……well it was for me and my Sisters (btw we’re 27, 32 and 34 years old but acted like we were 5). This park is a mission!!!!!!!!!! Be prepared for a long day and even longer queues. We went in March and the queues were 60 mins minimum!!!! There are obviously popular rides or shows that everyone wants to do so perhaps get the really popular ones on FastPass. It really is a magical day – there is so much to do and see here but again its very expensive and I would recommend getting to the parks for when they open and then leaving earlier OR head into the parks at about 4pm and stay until closing. If you rock up at lunch time I think you’ll be quite disappointed with how long you have to wait for everything. Probably the best thing about the Magic Kingdom is the Fireworks display they do at 10pm every night. It’s beautiful and magical and so well done. I stood with my family watching, which was quite emotional and something that we all enjoyed together – as you’d expect from Disney, it was SO well done. For a good Fireworks location, that doesn’t require you waiting for hours (a lot of people start waiting for the Fireworks from about 8:30pm to ensure they get a good view) head to Tomorrow Land and stand on the bridge. The Fireworks all take place around Cinderella’s Castle and it’s a good view from there and doesn’t get too crowded. Tip: It takes around 40 mins to get from your car to the actual park as you have to go on a shuttle bus and then either the Monorail or the Ferry – I suggest giving both a go although I preferred the ferry, it was great. Just make sure that if you have Fast Passes booked, you give yourself enough time to park and get in.
Discovery Cove: A Sea World run park which is a water park like no other. It’s not your run of the mill water park with flumes and was a fantastic day. This is where we were swimming with Dolphins – my Mum’s wish for her 60th Birthday. After three consecutive days of walking and Disney madness, this was a welcome break. It’s set up like a beach and we were sat right in front of the lagoon where the Dolphins were swimming – such a nice view. There was a lovely river that you can swim round, with wildlife all around you and the water is beautifully warm. The floor of the river gets deeper in places and then levels out but it’s stoney and rocky and you can snorkel your way around it. There’s plenty of sun beds and the beach is great. The best thing about Discovery Cove is that the price you pay for the ticket also includes food and drink all day long. So you can eat breakfast and lunch there, which is buffet style with something for everyone and unlimited refills – which comes in really handy. To swim with the Dolphins, which is 1 hour, you pay an extra $60 and then if you want the pics and videos taken of your “experience” they are extra again. The Dolphin swim was lovely (despite a small incident where I was ram-raided by a Dolphin but to be honest, I didn’t blame her, I’d have been pissed off with being petted by strangers all day).
Hollywood Studios: This is the renamed MGM Studios and is probably the least good of all of the parks. I say least good because it wasn’t crap but there isn’t a great deal to do there. Saying that, in typical British style, we had paid for it, therefore we stayed all day and managed to be there for about 9 hours! Really long queues for the three biggest rides (Aerosmith’s Rock n Roller-Coaster, Tower of Terror & Star Tours) but since you can use 3 Fast Passes per day, if you book them early enough you could get them on those rides. We got to the park when it opened and headed straight to the Aerosmith ride – unfortunately after queueing for 90 mins we were told that it had broken down, so we had to leave. It was a bit gutting as we weren’t offered a FastPass by way of compensation to come back later, so I didn’t get to go on it. Tower of Terror was great and Star Tours was brilliant. Also, we didn’t do it on this trip but the Indiana Jones stage show is still there and is very much worth going to see!
Aquatica: Quite possibly the BEST water park I’ve ever been to! Loads of slides, a great set up and a fantastic day. Unlike Discovery Cove where there’s a 1500 person limit to the park, Aquatica is HUGE and gets very busy. However, you don’t spend very long queueing for the slides. There’s speed slides for the more daring, slides that go through a tank where Dolphins swim, a lazy river, rapids, slides for you to race your friends & family, a wave machine and a kids play area. Again, it’s set up like a beach, so lots of loungers (although I would say definitely get there for 10am when it opens to make sure you get some shade). They also do a deal, which is extra to your ticket, but for $14 you can eat/drink all day.
Universal Studios & Universal Islands of Adventure: Unlike Disney the queue times at Universal are great! Nothing more than 30 mins (note that we went in March so I imagine its busier at peak times). All round these were the parks that we all enjoyed doing the most. It’s much more adult, with LOTS of roller coasters and each ride is more of an experience. Something that America does really well, and in particular Universal, is how each ride gives you something to do while your queuing, which you do rather a lot of. It takes you on a little journey and theres a lot of build up to the main event, which is the ride itself. If you’ve got kids then its good because you don’t get bored in the lines, there’s always something to look at! We spent 13 hours at these two parks and did them in one day but came back again to do the rides at Islands of Adventure again one evening. Since these parks are on the same complex you can easily switch between them. I think the best part was the Harry Potter experience. In Universal Studios they have it set up like London, with Diagon Alley to one side (it was awesome) then they have the train station complete with Platform 9 3/4 (and yes, you do walk through the wall) where you jump on the Hogwarts Express *THIS WAS OUT OF THIS WORLD* and then you head to Islands of Adventure and it brings you out opposite a TO SCALE Hogwarts – absolutely stunning! All of the rides were great but I think my two personal favourites were the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit (I have to admit I nearly had an embolism in the line waiting because it’s an immense looking thing) and also The Hulk ride which I could have happily gone on over and over again! if you’re not much of a roller coaster fan then Universal is great because there are lots of simulators and shows that you can go to. You can’t use your Disney FastPass at Universal but they have their own version which you can pre-order online or buy once you are there. I have to say though, we didn’t need them, the queues really weren’t that bad. We then ate dinner on the famous City Walk which was open until 2am and has a whole host of places to choose from – we headed for Bubba Gumps, not cheap but great food.
Blizzard Beach: Had we gone to Blizzard Beach before Aquatica I think I would have thought it was great but I was a bit underwhelmed by it. I’d seen on a forum that the best place to go for a sun bed and shade was quite far into the park, by the main pool and this information was great – we had a really nice set up. The flumes were OK but not as good as Aquatica and the lazy river was OK but long – it goes round the whole park. The best ride was Teamboat Springs where up to 6 of you could get in a ring which threw you down the long and fast flume – really funny. We also made our way up to the flumes on their Ski Lift, which was fun but no good if you don’t like heights. Lunch was all extra here and I didn’t see any deals for an “all in” option.
Epcot: We did this on our last full day and decided to go in the evening (arrived at 4:30 and left at 10 when it closed after the fireworks) I wish we’d spent longer. It was great – lots of rides and fun stuff, plus characters and probably the best fireworks display you have ever seen. If you decide to only see one set of Fireworks then make it the Epcot ones. The set up at there is great (to put it into perspective it’s 3 times the size of Magic Kingdom). At one end of the park they have set it up so that you walk through every country – there are shops and country specific restaurants in each country zone. Brilliant.
So that’s all of the major parks but other things we did were Kennedy Space Centre, which was different, although a bit of a drive. For me personally I thought it was nice and some parts were really interesting, but the entrance fee was $50 and I didn’t feel like that was value for money – I guess it was more about the history. The only thing that stopped me moaning about the entrance fee was that we got to see a launch that day, which is probably something i’ll never see again and was well worth it. We also spent a day shopping (not my idea of fun) and on the recommendation of some friends went to some outlets and then on to Millennium Mall. It was hard work and a LOT of walking (we did 10 miles that day) but we came away with more trainers, clothes and perfume than you could shake a stick at. We also took a drive in the second week and went to Clearwater Beach – it was lovely. Hot weather, cool sea and really pretty. We then jumped in the car and headed down the road a bit to John’s Pass which was really nice, strolled round the shops, ate and then headed home. It took up a whole day but after SO much Disney and a lot of walking, it was nice to have a relaxing day.
Tip 5 – What time to head to the parks
We were staying 30-40 mins from the parks in a villa, so were getting up at 7:30am, out of the house by 8:30am, in the parks by 9-9:30am and staying until around 6pm. Only on a couple of occasions did we head to the parks around 4pm and stay until they closed and at Universal we did a 13 hour day. It depends on how your group works but we had a 1 year old with us and it was better for us to do longer days and have her home ready for bath (or in her case Swimming Pool) and bed. At some point you are going to have to queue but we did find that going later and staying until closing was when it was least busy (apart from the Magic Kingdom which was ALWAYS busy).
Tip 6 – How to handle the day you come home
Going home is never nice and you quite quickly get into the “I just want to be home” mindset. Since we were staying in a Villa we had to be out at 10am and our flight home wasn’t until 9pm. We decided the best thing to do was to rent a motel room for the day. We were able to dump our luggage and have somewhere to swim for the day and then shower, re-pack cases for the 100th time before the short drive to the airport. It worked out really well and only about $20 each. Motel’s will often do you a deal since you’re only going to be there for about 5 hours.
Tip 7 – Where to eat
Obviously we had a villa, so there were times where we ate in, we even BBQ’d a couple of times but since we weren’t near the parks (or anything else for that matter) we had to drive about 10-15 mins to find any restaurants. If you’re in Orlando, head towards Old Town and International Drive and you’ll see some great diners to eat in, including the American favourites; IHOP, Waffle House, Denny’s, Golden Coral and Cracker Barrel.
Tip 8 – Currency
After a bit of research we decided the best way to take dollars to the US was by using a Fair FX credit card. You apply for a card, put the money on before you leave and then spend like its a credit card. All the parks take it and the convenience stores and you can top up really easily by logging into the app. It updates your spending live, so you always know how much you’ve got on there and we found it to be the best conversion rate. Also, because it’s set up for $$ you don’t get charged every time you use it, like you would if you just used your UK debit card. We did take some currency as we needed to tip and needed change for tolls as well as having cash to put into the house kitty but for the most part the card was what we used.
So there you have it – everything I can think of that you will need to know for your trip but if you have anything you want to ask just shout! Just one last piece of advice – make sure you have another holiday booked to recover from 2 weeks in Florida, it’s bloody hard work but SO much fun!!
nicolehelenarose 