Hotel
To keep this cheap you probably
won’t want to stay at a Disney World Resort Hotel. However, you will want to stay close to Disney World and you will
want to stay at a Hotel that offers a shuttle
bus to and from Disney World. We
stayed in Lake Buena Vista, FL because that is the actual city that Disney
World is located in. I like using www.hotels.com because it lets you choose a
maximum price per night, it displays how many miles the hotel is from Disney
World and when you click on a hotel you can see if it offers shuttle service to
Disney World (you may have to click on Additional Amenities). Here is an example of a maximum price of
$100 per night: http://www.hotels.com/processIndexSearch.do
We stayed
at Comfort Inn – Lake Buena Vista
for about $79 per night. We were able
to purchase our Disney
World Park Hopper Tickets right in the hotel lobby, but you can also
purchase them online.
Saturday
We chose
Saturday because the parks stay open the longest on Saturday. Magic Kingdom usually stays open until
midnight on Saturday. However the Animal
Kingdom and MGM Studios (now called Disney's Hollywood Studios) parks close
earlier so we went to those parks first:
We went to the parks in this order:
- Animal
Kingdom
- Disney’s
Hollywood Studios (MGM)
- Magic
Kingdom
Check the website Disney World
Park Hours Calendar before you go to check all the park hours because they
are different on different dates. Remember, you have to purchase
Disney
World Park Hopper Tickets which more expensive,
but it is the only way to be able to switch parks in one day.
Shuttle
Many hotels
include a shuttle bus to the Walt Disney World resort. Remember, the drivers of those buses often
say they are going to drop you off at the “Magic Kingdom”. What they mean is that they are going to
drop you off at the “Disney Transportation Hub”. Our bus driver said that since Magic Kingdom is closing at midnight
they would have the last bus come to the “Magic Kingdom” parking lot at 12:30
am. We almost missed the bus because we
were looking at the Magic Kingdom parking lot for our Hotel’s shuttle bus. But it was at the “Disney Transportation Hub”.
Just remember to get your last bus at the “Disney Transportation Hub.”
Once you
are inside the Disney World resort you will use Disney’s transportation system
to get to and from the different parks.
You can use any number of transportation means: ferry boat, monorail or
bus for free.
We
recommend that once you are dropped off at the Disney Transportation Hub that you take a Disney bus to Disney’s
Animal Kingdom and get on the ride Kilimanjaro
Safaris before it gets too crowded.
Out first shuttle bus left around 8:00 am and the Disney parks opened at
9:00 am. Make sure you get on that
first shuttle bus if you plan to do all of Disney World in one day.
Once
you have the rides and attractions marked on your maps you will want to number
them according to the order you wish to do them. You will probably want to do the closest or most popular
attractions in the park first. Or you
may want to use a little machine in front of the ride that gives you a Fast
Pass. If on your way to another
attraction you are passing a cool attraction that offers Fastpass,
place your Disney World ticket into the machine and it will spit out your
ticket along with a fast pass ticket
with a time on it like 1:30 to 2:30. If
you go back to that attraction between those times then you can get on the ride
by using the fast lane. In the fast
pass lane you can get on the ride usually in less than 10 minutes, whereas it
might take 45 minutes or more in the regular line for some rides.
You
probably have your list of rides ready, but we also recommend that you look at
the suggestions below and do the rides and parks in an order close to this:
Your hotel’s shuttle bus will
usually drop you off at the Disney Transportation Hub.
Take the Disney
Bus from the Disney Transportation Hub to:
