If You Dream (Plan) It, You Can Do It
Choosing hotels and park days at WDW
Well friends, we successfully did Walt Disney World with a toddler and newly turned 5 year old. Was it tiring? YES. Was it expensive? YEP. But we saved a ton using some hacks. Was it a good time? 100%.
I spent almost 15 months planning this trip and learned a ton of Disney shortcuts. So now I’m going to share with y’all because chances are, if you’re planning a WDW trip, your head is swimming with questions about how to save money, get dining reservations, utilize Genie+, and what hotels to book.
I’m going to be breaking down WDW into several shorter posts because there’s so much to share. Also, I get joy out of planning. If you’re a regular reader, you know by now that I love logistics. If you’re planning a trip to WDW and want advice, please reach out. I’d love to help!
Where to Stay?
This was my first big question to myself when we decided we were going to celebrate our son’s fifth birthday at WDW. There are so many options and it can get overwhelming: on-site or off-site? Value or Deluxe? Walking distance to a park or not?
The answer is, if you’re staying on-site, there really isn’t a bad option. It just depends on how much you want to spend (Value resorts seem to be on average $200-$300 cheaper than Deluxes) and how close you want to be to the parks. Most Moderate and Deluxe resorts have more transportation options and are closer (even walking distance) to certain parks. There are caveats though. For example, Art of Animation and Pop Century are Value resorts but have Disney Skyliner access, which is a great way to get to Epcot or Hollywood Studios without taking the bus.
There are also a ton of benefits to staying off-site though. If you’re staying at an off-site hotel, you’re probably paying less (unless you’re at the Four Seasons), but may also get certain on-site benefits like early park entry. Be sure to check if your hotel grants on-site benefits. Swan & Dolphin definitely does.
If you choose to stay in an Airbnb/homeshare, while you aren’t getting the perks of staying on-site, you’re probably getting a full kitchen, more space, and maybe your own pool, among other things. Oh, and it probably works out to be cheaper. I have friends that have stayed off-site and loved it, but we wanted to be in the Disney bubble and have easy access to the parks. Remember that if you’re staying off-site, you need to drive to the parks everyday and pay for daily parking.
Pros and Cons of staying on-site vs. off-site
How long to go?
Now, this obviously depends on factors like how far you’re traveling, budget, time of year, and how many parks you want to go to, but I’d say that if you’re planning to go to all four parks, having at least 5 full days is good. That gives you a break day (necessary) in between too. Going to parks back to back four days in a row is doable, but you’ll be dead tired. And doing it with little ones makes it even harder. I wish we built in a true break day our last trip. We opted for going to Epcot around 4pm as our “break,” and we were still exhausted.
If you have more time (and a bigger budget), Building in a couple of break days and adding the Park Hopper option to your tickets gives you even more flexibility.
Generally though, I’d give yourself time for at least one park per day to not feel rushed.
What order to do the parks
I won’t go into much detail on the parks themselves (so much content out there, shoutout to WDW Prep School for THE BEST content). But what I will say though, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom have the most to do for little ones (under 5). Our kids loved the safari at AK. Hollywood Studios, while fun, was geared towards older kids/adults. Our 2 year old could have cared less about anything beyond Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Alien Swirling Saucers in Toy Story Land. Epcot is somewhere in the middle. Both our kids LOVED Space 220 and there are some cute rides for little ones, but World Showcase is probably more fun for teens and adults. Older kids can do scavenger hunts that Disney has set up.
As for touring plans for parks, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. We planned our park days around where we stayed. For reference, we stayed at the Polynesian for the first half of our trip and then moved to the Beach Club. The Poly is on the monorail loop so we were a hop, skip, and jump away from MK and a quick monorail ride to Epcot. Beach Club is walking distance to Epcot and easy to get to Hollywood Studios via Friendship Boats or Skyliner. So we spent most of the first part of our trip at MK and AK and did HS and Epcot the second half. That being said, there’s something truly magical about starting and ending your trip at Magic Kingdom. It’s the OG, after all.
Another option? Planning your park days around whatever restaurant reservations you get. Just make sure you make those park reservations asap, especially during high crowd times of year.
That’s all for this post! Next up, some helpful cost saving tips and Disney “hacks,” including where to take breaks and where to learn more about planning.
