Today is the final blog in my 4 part Disney Series!  I hope you have enjoyed them thus far and today I will be sharing with you my most favorite tips to help you have the most perfect Disney Vacation!  Disney World, Magic Kingdom especially, can be downright stressful without a plan and you will leave feeling defeated and disappointed.  The parks get really crowded really fast and lines for rides can be up to 2 hours or more! Insane is what that is!   Wouldn’t it be nice if you could plan out your vacation and choose which park you were going to on what day based on how crowded it was going to be?  Wouldn’t it be great if you knew ahead of time which rides were the most popular and had the longest wait times so that you could hit them very 1st thing in the morning? Wouldn’t it be even better if you could see a list of wait times for all the rides and decide which ride to go on next?  Wouldn’t it be awesome to get into Magic Kingdom before it even opened so that you could get a picture in front of the Cinderella Castle without the crowds on Main Street? If you want to get the most out of your vacation,  I will tell you how you can do just that!  After you get your Resort booked and decide what you want to do on your Magical Disney Vacation, you have to decide what days you want to do it!  I am about to give you the biggest secret on how to do just that!  This is most important and brings me to Tip#1.

Tip #1: How to avoid the crowds!

There is an amazing website with the most fabulous tools for all 4 Disney Parks, Universal Studios, and Islands of Adventure that could ever been invented!  It is called The Undercover Tourist.  Not only is this where you can go to look for discounted tickets, but they have a crowd calendar you can look at which can help you see how crowded each park is going to be on each day so that you can decide which day to go to each park.  If your park is red on a day, it is advised to stay away from it. Green is the best day to visit a part with yellow/ neutral falling in the middle. This is how we planned our days!  We went to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure both on Green days and this worked out fabulous for us!  With the exception of Despicable Me & Harry Potter the Forbidden, we walked right on to pretty much everything and didn’t have to stand in lines.  We went to Magic Kingdom on a neutral day and I will tell you this, I would not want to be there on a red one!  Even on a neutral day, it was extremely crowded by 11:00!

Tip #2: Get into the park before it even opens! 

On most days Magic Kingdom opens at 9:00 a.m. to the general public and 8:00 a.m. to those staying at a resort on Disney Property.  So how did we get into Magic Kingdom at 7:30?  We booked a breakfast inside Magic Kingdom at the Crystal Palace for 8:00 a.m. sharp, which is the 1st available reservation time, and we got to walk ahead of all the lines and enter through a special events gate!  This way we were one of the very 1st people in the park and we were able to get all of our pictures on Main Street in front of the Princess Castle without anyone else in them!  Truly amazing! It was beautiful this time of morning too with a nice crisp breeze and the sunrise hitting the castle!  The best way to experience Magic Kingdom for sure!  Keep in mind it can take up to 30 minutes to get into the park once you park because you have to wait to take a tram from the parking lot to the gates at Magic Kingdom. Once the clock hits 8:00, the canon goes off and the crowds all come running around the corner down main street towards you! It was hilarious to watch and I felt like I was in a scene from the Walking Dead!

Tip #3: Be fast & furious!

We were at Magic Kingdom and finished with our breakfast when it opened to the public at 9:00, so we were able to take advantage before the crowds hit. We had a plan mapped out of what rides we wanted to get out of the way first thing in the morning.  We had mapped out rides in the very back of the park and extremely close to each other and we rode 6 rides within the very 1st hour!  Then come 10:00, ride times were pretty much a minimum of 30 minutes.  By 11:00, a lot of rides were nearing 45 minutes to an hour!  This is when we moved on to special events we had booked and other fun happenings in the park like the parades & shows!

Tip #4: Download the rides app!  

Another great thing that Undercover Tourist has done is the rides app. There is one app for all 4 Disney World Parks and another app available for Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.  This app is the best thing you can have on your phone during your Disney Trip!  You can pull it up during your time at a park and see what the wait times currently are at every single ride in the park at that time.  They were very accurate!   You can also bring up places to eat, show times, parade times, things on your favorites list, and even the park map to see where you are in the park at that time! Simply FABULOUS! Don’t leave home without it!

Tip #5: Book your fast passes!  

I made a Disney account online in which I purchased our tickets & made all of our event reservations.  Because I did this online and had all of our travelers listed out by name, I was allowed to also prebook up to 3 fast passes a piece for each of us.  A fast pass is a great option given by Disney which allows you to reserve your spot in a line giving you a one hour window.  I chose to reserve our ride times for Peter Pan, Thunder Mountain, and Pirates of the Caribbean because those 3 rides tend to have long wait times. Our spots for these rides were reserved at different times throughout the rest of the day  and we walked right onto them even though they had an hour plus wait times for everyone else in the regular lines! It was AWESOME!

Tip #6: Book at least one character meal!

Now this can be a pricy splurge but it is the optimal way for you kids to get the best experience with characters without you having to chase them all over the park that day and have to wait in long lines to meet them.  We booked a character meal at Chef Mickey’s one night for dinner and the kiddos were able to meet Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie Mouse & Mickey! They loved every minute of it! Best of all, they got all of their autographs and we didn’t have to wait in not one line!  The Breakfast at Crystal Palace that we did was a Pooh and friends Breakfast so they got to meet Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and Winne the Pooh!  This is absolutely the best way to meet the characters and have a great time!

Tip #7: Have a special day for each of your kiddos! 

Kids feel special when a day is all about them!  Even better than that, Disney has some wonderfully special things you can book for your children to make their special day extra special! Carlee is still a little young so she felt special EVERY day anyways, lol.  For Andrew though, and especially since we wanted to celebrate his birthday, we booked something extra special just for him!  Its called the Pirates League!  He got an entire pirate makeover, got sworn in as Captain Edward Seagull, got to participate in a mini pirate parade, and then be in the audience and on stage in Captain Jack Sparrows Pirate Tutorial! It was an amazing afternoon for him and it made him feel extra special!  Definitely worth the $29.99 cost to do it. Another tip is skip the upgrades to buy a costume and bring your own pirates shirt or costume from home.  The next time we go to Disney, probably several years down the road, we will let Carlee have a special day and dress up like a Fairy Princess.

 Too Cool!   His transformation begins!   So serious!!! Lol.   About to put on his finishing touches!   Andrew being sworn in as Captain Edward Seagull  Proud to be a sworn pirate!   Andrew preparing for his pirates parade! : ) 

Tip #8: Be sure and schedule “off” days! 

Remember back in part 1 of the Disney Series when I told you to pick what is really important to you, do those things, and have an off day in between to recoup and enjoy yourselves?  This is one of the most important things that I cannot stress enough! In order to have fun and avoid exhaustion, be sure to have off days to relax and enjoy yourselves!  Our time just hanging out at the pool was some of our favorite memories and best times!

Lastly, I am going to share with you our magical vacation and some of the things we chose to do that we loved!

Universal Studios

Universal Studios was great! My favorite there was Despicable Me, it was a 3D ride and it was fun and hilarious, Andrew LOVED it!  Universal has a lot of 3D rides, movie rides etc. A lot of them are for older children and not as much for younger kiddos.  Shrek wasn’t really my favorite. Twister scared the crap out of Andrew, I think FOREVER!  Et was fun and so was the Simpsons Ride.  And Andrew really loved the Transformers ride as well!  Here are some highlights from our day at Universal Studios!

Legoland

Legoland was simply wonderful! If you have young kids that are into legos (or older ones that you are married too) than this place is for you!  It was a really fun day with some fun rides, and most of all, lots and lots of legos! They had entire city’s almost bigger than us built entirely out of Legos. It really is a cool sight to see! I would love to go back sometime when the waterpark is open because that looks fun as well!  One piece of advise I have for Legoland is to definitely get there when it opens!  It is only open from 10-5 and we got there late at 11:30.  By the time we watched a 1:00 show and stopped for lunch, we felt pretty rushed to get through the entire park and ride all of the rides.  Here are some of our highlights from Legoland…

They got me on a roller coaster! I promise, it wasn’t as bad as it looks, lol, and I braced myself extremely well in order to not hurt my back!  It was a   small little coaster but it sure was fun! Andrew rode it 3 times! Lol.  Ha ha! Love my mom in the far right here! And miss Carlee was checking out the seats 🙂  The Water Ski Show! Exremely fun and entertaining for the kiddos and a must see if you go!  Ha ha, while Andrew was at driving school, Carlee was trying to get this car to move so that she could participate as well! She didn’t quite make the 3 yr old mark. She was making a friend : )
They got Andrew on a big coaster and he LOVED it! Hey look! Daddy can take pictures too! Not to shabby there Tim Page! I had to sit the fast ones out! This one sure does look like fun! : ) 

Islands of Adventure

Islands of Adventure was an absolute blast and was one of my favorite days! Of course, its hard to compete with Harry Potter!  I really loved everything about it.  It has a wonderful mixture of roller coasters, 3d rides, and even rides for the little ones in Dr. Suess Ville!  It also has all the super heroes that you can meet which Andrew loved seeing!  Here are our highlights from Islands of Adventure…

 Can it get much cooler than this!? We ate here at the three broomsticks which was AWESOME and so is the Butterbeer! I got mine frozen, twice lol,  and it was delish! Shopping at Honeydukes is fun!  I got the chocolate covered fly’s, however, and those are not too tasty! My husband got an array of other tasty hard candies  and treats that were very yummy! Candy rush! : )  Jurassic Park was fun!  Andrew is obsessed with dinosaurs though and can even name them all so he got a big kick out of every single bit of the dinosaur museum and exhibit area.  Then we road the Jurassic Park Jungle Boat ride where you ride through the jungle and then dropped 100’s of feet into the water and get soaking wet! Andrew loved that part, the rest of us not so much. Lol.  The superhero mini parade after signing autographs. The Incredible Hulk Coaster! Tim was on this one right here!!! He said it was fabulous and the best roller coaster he had ever been on!  Gorgeous day and gorgeous weather the entire week!  My little surfer dude! Lol. 

The Crystal Palace Buffet Breakfast

Like I said before, at least one character meal is a must!  This character meal even gets you into the park early so what could be better?  The food was great and it was definitely a great place to have breakfast.  An added bonus to getting into the park early was that the kiddos got to meat their favorite characters from Winnie the Pooh! Carlee was sooooo excited! : )

Disney World’s Magic Kingdom! 

Of course I have to say Magic Kingdom was amazing! But do I really? Because it wasn’t my favorite day.  It was great to be there, it was!  I mean, its Magic Kingdom!  And it was wonderful to take the kiddos! However, it is sooooo crowded! It was 10 times more crowded than any of the other parks that we went to.  The middle of the day just was not a fun time to be there riding rides so I am glad that we got our fare share in early and then had the remaining 3 fast passes to use the rest of the day.  We definitely did that right and I definitely recommend doing that!  I then had Andrew’s pirates league appointment so we did that and that was fun and we got away from the crowds! Then we got to see the fun move it shake it celebrate it street party and Andrew had an absolute blast!  I am bummed that we missed the electrical parade and the fireworks but there were just a ton of people (and remember, this was a neutral day, not red). By the time we got to Main Street at 8:15 there was hardly anywhere to walk, let alone sit for the parade.  It was a nightmare! I can’t imagine how long it takes to get out of there on a tram back to the parking lot afterwards. We were so exhausted since we had been there since 7am that we just decided to call it a night and head home before the parade and before all the crowds and we were glad that we did.  I did google the electrical parade when I got home so I got to see it! : )

Hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I have enjoyed sharing all that I learned with you!  I hope that my advice will help you in planning the most magical vacation to Disney with your family!  Here are some fun Instagram’s we took during our magical time!  If you don’t follow me on Instagram, you can follow me here.   Thanks for following!

If you missed the first three parts to this series you can read them here…

Part 1: 5 things to remember when planning, you can read here.

Part 2: The not so magical beginning, you can read here.

Part 3: How to plan an affordable Disney vacation, you can read here.