First time to Disney World since early 90's, need help on new stuff

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8yo

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Boy or girl? Or more specific, princesses or superheros? Or traditional Disney characters?

I find the biggest thing with Disney these days is that, if you want to maximize your time there, you really have to plan ahead.

There are a number of websites that will sell you guides/plans that help maximize the time you are there. You may want to consider buying one. There's a ton of free information out there as well.

You are generally limited to pre-booking 3 fastpasses a day. To prevent you from using them on all the most popular rides, there are tiers. So you can choose one in the top tier and two in the lower, or 3 in the lower and none in the top. However, day of, once you have used all three, you can try to get additional ones, if available, one at a time.

You will need to download "My Disney Experience" app to your phone as this helps with all the planning and whatnot. Also allows you to book these "extra" fastpasses on the day you are there, on the fly.

There is three dining plans, the premium (which is too much IMHO), the regular, and the quick. The regular has one "regular/sit-down" (called "table service" meal a day and one "quick service" meal a day (quick service would be a place where you order at a window, get your food and sit down and eat, regular is more like a restaurant with a waiter), as well as two snacks, and a refillable drink mug that can only be refilled at your home resort. The "quick" plan is the same, except instead of one table service and one quick meal per day, you get two quick meals.

However, you get all your "credits" in bulk on your first day. So you could use 2 table service meals on the first day, and none on the second day, etc. Also, a few of the nicest places require two table service credits.

With an 8 year old, I would definetly do at least one or two character meals - these are "table service" credit - one credit for the majority of them. The vast majority of characters have at least one place available. Depends on what characters your kids like.

Some of the more traditional places that might appeal to a first time visitor are:

Chef Mickey - breakfast is popular here, has Mickey and friends in chef gear

'Ohana - breakfast has great foods served "table style" and Lilo and Stitch, dinner is sort of like Fogo de Chao place with the meats they bring to your table, but it is luau themed with an entertainer.

Hoop Dee Doo - This is a fun musical dinner show that's set back in old west times. This costs two table service credits if you use the meal plan here, when we go we usually just pay cash for this one.

If you give me some more background about what your kid likes, I can reccomend other places.

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One thing that I've been seeing inconsistencies about is the free dining plan. I've seen some sites that give detailed information about booking deadlines, travel dates, and what Disney resorts you can stay in to be eligible in 2020. Others that I've read say that the free dining plan hasn't been released for 2020 yet but, that it typically mirrors the previous year's.

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Anyone can buy the dining plan at any time, as long as you are staying at a Disney resort and buy what is referred to a a "package" (i.e hotel and tickets as one purchase).

The aspect of the dining plan being offered "free" is what is dependent on dates and resorts. They offer "free dining" to drum up business, so if certain dates/resorts are pretty solid booked, it won't be offered.

Traditionally it is true that free dining seems to be offered around the same dates / resorts each year, because the crowds at Disney tend to be fairly cyclical and consistent. However, the opening of Star Wars land has many people questioning if the patterns have changed.

Fall 2019 free dining offers just came out and yeah, it's pretty much the same as past years, even though Star Wars Land will be open.

Personally, I think Disney went overboard with their price increases in anticipation of Star Ward land, and despite that being opening soon, they aren't seeing the increased bookings they expected.

Generally, free dining is offered 3-6 months in advance.

One trick is this: Book your package with dining included. If it turns out that free dining is offered, the morning it is announced, call and have them apply it to your reservation. They will do so as long as their are "spots" available as they are limited. We've done this several times, however, in one instance, we had to change our resort to get it.

Fast pass stuff
Animal kingdom
- Definitly get the flight of passage pandora ride one.
- Expedition Everest bad arse coaster
- Kilimanjaro safari. Fun and best to do early in morning to see animals moving. Later I. The day they chill out to much.
- kali river rapid was fun but may be closed when you go.
- Dinosaur ride if he likes being scared and riding in the dark.
- can pass doing night show here.

Hollywood studios
- Tower of Terror or Rockin roller coaster (depends on your kid if he can handle crazy drops or fast arse coasters) if not....
- Slinky dog ride easy fun coaster that’s not to bad but still fun. Best to do this at night. Line was shorter and toy story land is way cooler at night.
- Toy story midway mania ride. Kids loved this ride and I gotta admit I really enjoyed it playing along with the kids. Don’t think you’ll need a fast pass, but definitely worth doing.
- star tours was pretty cool but get motion sick kinda bad and it was hot as hell in there.
- kids loved doing the fantasmic show that night. Sit and watch thing that wasn’t to bad.

Epcot
- Test track, Soarin, Frozen ride. Your only gonna be able to book one since they are all tier 1. I’d go with test track but I enjoyed the car simulation ride.
- Living with the Land. Educational but actually a decent water ride to take a break in.
- Nemo ride. Kids liked it along with the aquarium after.
- for gods sake don’t go on the journey into imagination ride. That sucked more than anything we did all week.
- Mexico pavilion boat ride ok to get away from park some and meet a character after.

Magic kingdom
- any of the 3 mountain rides are a sure bet. Can’t go wrong on any of them
- 7 dwarfs mine train is the one your gonna need a fast pass on. Busiest ride in the park and your gonna want to do it.
- Nostalgia rides like Peter Pan flight, haunted mansion, pirates of the Caribbean.
- Gotta hit up the nighttime firework show here. Kid is gonna love it. Get in a good spot in front of magic kingdom an 45 minutes to a hour early.

Eats
- Ohana dinner
- Crystal Palace breakfast before park opens if your kid likes Pooh
- Tusker House. Did lunch and we all thought it was delicious and it’s got the characters to see.
- Tutto Italia in Epcot. My wife booked this place a few trips ago and you would think Olive Garden quality. Food, service, comfortable chairs, Air conditioned well. All were fantastic and that’s been 3 trips in a row. My take and nothing Disney about it.

Disney Springs
- Homecomin restaurant. Place was just flat out good. Drinks, food, service were all legit.
- Ghirardelli ice cream shop. Best place to get your kid & wife ice cream period.
- TRex. We were at this place a few years back and the kids had a ball. If your a kid the place is great. If your an adult, makes you feel like your having a seizure. To each his own.

Avoid restaraunts
Coral reef - food sucked
Grand Floridian cafe - food double sucked from above.
Chef mickeys - think Golden Corral or Ryan’s with more chaos.
Teppan Edo - Hibachi place that is nowhere near as good as your favorite local hibachi. Waste of time.

If you’ve booked your trip great. If not, I’d hit up a company like Dreams Unlimited travel who my wife uses and they do a great job setting up the trip with making fast passes and dining reservations so you don’t have to sit by a computer or on the phone.

Pop Century with a preferred room. Resort is big and preferred room is closer to the lobby, bus station, and food. Place also has queen beds and not double beds like other value reoprts. Also will have a sky gondola system up in time for y'all probably that goes to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. Other cheaper resorts are not worth it. Not sure on free dining, but you might find a room discount to save some money. I think free dining is only during the fall but I could be wrong.

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Superheros for my 8yo son,

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Absolutely do Jedi Training at the Studios. I'm not sure how it will change with Star Wars Land but he will get a blast out of this. Honestly plan on spending a lot of time doing Star Wars stuff.

In Epcot, you can often find Baymax for pictures with little to no line.

Also in Epcot, if you have a Chase card, you can get access to a special picture line with the main characters (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, etc).

He will probably love Big Thunder Mountain.

Really, at that age, he can do most any ride they have.

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Which one is better out of Pop Century, All-Star Music, Sports, Movies?

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Pop, if you can get a refurbished room, is the best value option in my mind. One, because it's a nicer room, and two, because of the bus situation. Often, the All-Stars will share buses, which can become a nightmare. Pop, 95% of the time, will have a dedicated bus (very rarely will they share with Art of Animation, and only mid-day with no crowd).

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When do they come out with the Spring free dining dates?

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They haven't had spring free dining in a while, but this page gives a good historical reference of the deals and release dates.

LINK

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Should I wait to book because of that?

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As I said, if a deal comes out after you book, you can always change to it.

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If you want to eat a sit down meal for all 3 meals of the day, for every day you are there, the dining plan works out.

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Traditionally we have always gotten the dining plan, because we traditionally have done a LOT of character dining. The regular dining plan is all about using the table service credits at the most expensive one-credit places, which are usually character dinners. We have never, ever used a meal plan credit for a character breakfast, we always pay cash for those, and generally, the same for lunch (but we rarely do character lunches).

As my kids get older, though we've done pretty much all of the character meals we want to do and I think all of us, kids included are tired of them. They want to spend more time on rides, etc. So yesterday, we booked a fall trip, and just stayed with the quick service free dining and didn't upgrade. The room discount they were offering was weak - 10 percent. Not even worth it, so we just took free quick service dining.

Also, an interesting trick about the dining plan -

The table service meals are age-specific, so for each day, you will get 2 adult credits (assuming you and a spouse) and one child credit. At the table service restaurants, adults use adult credits and children use child credits.

But, the quick service credits are NOT age specific. So on the regular plan, you get 3 a day (1 per person) and on the quick plan, 6 per day (2 per person).

But you don't have to buy a kids meal for your kid! If your kid will eat regular food, you can use all the credits on regular (adult) quick service meals.

The quick service meals have a lot of food. So, for the four of us when we go, when the kids were younger, we would buy 3 quick service meals, and just add an extra drink (you can pay for that). Plenty enough food for the 4 of us to split 3 meals. So, you can stretch your meal credits out that way. My kids are getting older now so that may no longer be possible for us to share like that!

Also, one of the best things you can do on day 1 is buy a popcorn container. Keep it your entire trip and refills are stupid cheap.

You will also notice that the snack credits can be used on many things, some of which are more expensive than others.

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