re: Give me your Disney Pro Tips

It's your first trip there, extend it to 5 days of park visits. This gives you the ability to go to them all with an extra day to go back to one or more parks for things you missed.

You need to give each of the 4 parks time to go through without rushing it. The most bad experiences I hear from first timers is they try and cram too much in too fast.

Don't miss AK, it's arguably the best of the parks right now.

Pop Century is a nice resort and reasonably priced. I go through 407WDISNEY for my reservations and something to consider asking (and they will do it) is to request being as close as possible to the bus pick up. Trust me if you ever stay in the Little Mermaid suites at Art of Animation that long walk to get to the bus hub will make you glad I told you. Some of the other resorts are also pretty spread out.

Look at the layout of each park and try and get your fast passes so they don't have you going to Dinosaur and Safari 30 min apart.

Slow down, don't try and do everything at once, leave something for the next trip in a year or 2. Leaving the parks for a few hours at midday to go take a nap is underappreciated until you've done it. Kids wear down and get cranky if they're there all day.

Get the Memory Maker on your package, there are GOOD photographers all over the parks at great places for pictures and you get all the ride photos.

Holding the trigger down is all you need to do as well. No benefit to constantly trying to pull it. And you can hit the same target as often as you want.

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Trust me if you ever stay in the Little Mermaid suites at Art of Animation that long walk to get to the bus hub will make you glad I told you

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It doesnt seem to bad in the mornings when everyone is excited about heading out to the parks, but after a full day, it seems like a 2 mile walk. At AoA I think the suits are located towards the front and the little mermaid rooms are out in BFE, Not sure if they have any that are that close to the buses.
If staying at PoP, it may be worth staying in a preferred room to get near the buses. It possible they will get you close to them in a standard, but its a gamble because every single person is making the same request. (Maybe not every person, but a lot are.)

Idk if anyone has suggested this, but reschedule to the week AFTER Thanksgiving. It’s the best time of year to go. Relatively, empty parks, and all of the Christmas decorations are up.

I wasn't planned, however my wife had everything mapped out. I just guided the double stroller and followed her lead... I have to say if she didn't have a plan we wouldn't have made it through all of the stuff we got to see and do....having Fast Passes at the right rides, going to certain rides at certain times...it was great. Also we did have times where we did some unplanned stuff but that's what made it even more magical and special..... great time! If you are mapped out and planned you can have a great time..if not you are standing around like all the other tards with your thumb up your arse in the middle of walkways getting run the frick over by guys like me with the double stroller! Lol..those things are the shite!

I've been researching Disney tips ever since our first trip and feel like we can manage our days better now with the park hoppers best. Even with young kids it's nice to have the freedom. We like dining options in Epcot best so it's cool to end up there for dinner and walk through the countries. MK food just sucks for the most part. So we avoid eating there except for a chili dog at Caseys for lunch.

I don't find the dining plan to be worth it for us so we bring snacks and food and eat and try to find dinners we like there. Naps in afternoon are good for kids even if you just rest and lay down a bit. You avoid the busy crowds between 1-4 as well.

Our last trip we didn't wait for anything more than 15 minutes by having a great plan so make sure you check crowd predictions on several sites and pick the best park per day and even more if you have a hopper pick the best park during specific times during the day. Magic Kingdom might be great until lunch and then it gets super busy but Epcot is bare. So move over there when it feels right. Once you can start booking 4th fast passes that's a good indication of crowd levels based on what's available. If it's 2 and you can't find any more passes that afternoon in your park start checking other parks. It's not a science but an art. Knowing crowd predictions is key. What path do people take through the park. What area is best for each park. When do people tend to eat.

Another cool thing we like is riding rides during fireworks. Lines are slow and it's cool to see the fireworks while riding Dumbo, Aladdin, Mine Train or Astro Orbiter.

We went the week after Halloween this year and it was awesome.

Nov 2-9th. All the Christmas decorations were up and the Epcot Food and Wine festival was still going on. Weather was good and its before the crazy holiday rush.

Pop has been one of our favorite resorts for many years. Request the 50's building as your first choice. 60's is a tad closer to the food court and buses but it can fill up with a ton of kids quick. Plus the Hippy Dippy pool area can get loud at night. The 50's is just off enough to get a bit of quiet at night and still be close to the food court and buses. You can also go around the side of Classic Hall without going through in the mornings when the mass of humanity is having breakfast. It also helps when you have a little one that is almost at meltdown stage and they let you out at the gift shop. A nice skirt around the building stops the potential nuclear meltdown when you say no to the 15th stuffed Mickey that they just NEED. Just remember, there can be over 6000 guests at that resort at one time so plan accordingly. You will have multiple buses in the mornings and evenings but they can still pack out at times. You are a long way from Magic Kingdom and the bus ride can get long at times as well. All in all, we love the theme there and it will always be our favorite value resort.

Only good thing about Epcot is that they have really good adult beverages.

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How long is the bus ride?

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It can take upwards of 40 minutes on some mornings. Normally about 25-30 minutes though.