- Dining Plan: You will hear a lot of opinions about the dining plan. Here is a long blog post about how to figure out if the dining plan is for you. I found two websites that had calculators to help you figure out if the dining plan would save you money or not. There was a very detailed Excel version that did not work great with my computer, {a Mac} but I have lost the link. I thought I found it on the above website but just looked and did not see it there anymore. Click here for a very simple calculator. It's a rough calculator because you are just guessing what you would order, so it's not exact, but us paying cash for meals versus using the dining plan was going to save us a little bit of money, so we initially decided against the dining plan. However, Disney released the Play, Stay, and Dine promotion where we got a discount on our room as well as discounted dining, so we added on that promotion since it would end up saving us several hundred dollars. Since SC was free {being 2 yrs old}, we had the dining plan for John, me, and Curran. I would never pay full price for the dining plan for the four of us. SC and Curran split every meal and it was more than enough food for them. It would have been so wasteful if they both had their own meal credits to use. Also, most meal credits came with a drink and dessert, and we are perfectly happy ordering water to drink and forgoing dessert, and lots of times John and I are fine to split meals. Now if they would count alcohol on the dining plan... j/k :) That being said, if dining is free or discounted, I would ALWAYS get it as it will obviously save you money. But if you are paying full price for it, I would think about not getting it unless you or your kids are really big eaters. We had a lot of table service meals so we ended up paying out of pocket for our last couple of meals anyway. There are a few different dining plans you can choose from {descriptions found here}, but our promotion just came with the Basic Dining Plan {we used more table service credits that were allotted}. We did use all our snack credits by spending them not only in the parks but also in our resort gift shop to get snacks and drinks for the room. Keep in mind that the dining plan does not include tips or alcohol, and not every restaurant accepts dining credits {most do, though}.
- Memory Maker: Memory Maker is the new name for Photo Pass, and for $149 {now it's $169}, we got all the digital files of pictures taken of us at the park. At first I didn't think we would do this, but after John and I talked about it, we decided it would be a good idea. I thought SC was going to be scared of all the characters so we would have to be holding her in the pictures, so I thought Memory Maker would be a nice way for us to get good family pictures without constantly asking someone to take a picture for us, and I wouldn't have to worry if my camera was on the right setting or not. There are Photo Pass photographers scattered throughout the parks, and they will scan your Magic Band after they take your picture, and the files show up in your My Disney Experience account. But supposedly you can ask them to take your picture with your camera even if you don't have Memory Maker. In addition to the Photo Pass photographers around the parks, they are also there to snap pictures at the character meet and greets. Any ride that takes pictures or videos will show up in your account as well, so that's pretty neat. {The photographers are NOT at the character meals, except for Akershus in Norway- you get one photo with Belle- and maybe Cinderella's Royal Table as well}. We ended up with several hundred pictures in our account, and although a lot of my pictures from the indoor character meetings where just as good as the professionals, I'm so glad we got so many good family pictures that we wouldn't have had otherwise, especially all of the outdoor shots. If you are going to be in the parks for 4 or more days, I would say MM is worth it. You have to make sure you get enough pictures taken to justify the cost of it. The nice thing about it though is that only one person in your group has to purchase it, but everyone linked to your account for that trip can use it, so if you are taking a large family trip, I would for sure think it worth getting.
- Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique: I mentioned this in my Magic Kingdom post, but I wasn't sure we were going to do the BBB. I had seen pictures of little girls who had been there and it looked silly and boderline painful {the tight hair and glittler! :) }. But Curran loves nothing more than dressing up and getting glitzy, so I let a friend talk me into letting C do it. :) There are several packages you can choose between, so I just did the cheapest one. This needs to be reserved in advance and can be done at 180 days out like the dining. You have to call (407)939-7895 for this reservation, and it will not show up in your My Disney Experience account online, so be sure to write down your confirmation number when you reserve it. You can either do the BBB at Magic Kingdom {it's in the castle} or at Downtown Disney. We brought our own princess dress from home, but in the more expensive package, you can pick out a dress and one accessory there, but it's $$$$! Girls have to be 3 years old to do it. And they do have a boy option {The Knight Package} but the Pirates League would be much more fun for boys who want to get decked out.
- Bit Belts: I had read that the Magic Bands can sometimes come off {Magic Bands are used for your entrance to the parks, hotel room key, Fast Pass entrances, to charge meals, basically for everything, so the thought of them falling off totally worried me}. So I ordered these things called Bit Belts that I had seen mentioned on Shannon's blog, and she has a 15% code posted on her home page. I ordered one for each of us. They were kind of a pain to put on, but I thought it was totally worth it for the kids' bands and the peace of mind they brought. I only put mine on for one day but then didn't use it again and never felt like my band was going to come off. The Magic bands actually felt pretty secure, but I will continue using the bit belts for the kids in the future. {I do not think they are worth it or needed for adults.} The Magic Bands are water proof and can be left on in the shower and pool, just fyi. {Also FYI, the Magic Bands can be made smaller for the kids by peeling the colored part of the band away from the gray outline. This makes sense once you see them in person. I actually peeled the gray part off mine to make it fit better.}
- Stroller sign: My friend Samantha went to WDW right before we did, and she mentioned making a sign with our name on it for our stroller. I hadn't even thought of that. We rented our stroller from Kingdom Strollers and had a great experience. They deliver it and pick it up from your hotel; you just tell them the date and time. It was very clean, and the girls loved having it. They do put a name tag on it for you, but everyone else in the park has the same {or a very similar} stroller, so having a unique tag was great. You have to leave your stroller in a parking area that is not always right next to the ride you are on, and John, as our resident stroller-getter, was very glad to have the sign. I used my Cricut to make and it was super easy. I could've sworn I took a picture of it, but I can't find it. I used red and white polka dot card stock and cut out black letters in Mickey font that spelled Quinn, and laminated it to protect it from the rain. I punched holes in the top, and tied it to the stroller handle bars so it would hang down from there. And while we are talking about strollers- when we were planning on driving, I was just going to bring one from home. But when we decided to fly, I did not want the hassle of having a stroller for a 1.5 hr direct flight. You can rent strollers from the parks, but they are a hard plastic {like the ones at the zoo}. They do have a little sun shade but they don't recline. And you have to leave them at the park every time you leave. I knew carrying two tired girls to the bus every night {not to mention when we left for naps} would not be fun, and I am SO glad we rented our own considering SC would only nap in it and not the bed. And the park strollers are a lot more expensive than the outside companies. The stroller came with a little bag cooler and a rain cover {that thankfully we didn't need} for free.
- A good thing to do before your trip {recommended to me by a friend} is to show the kids Disney videos of a few rides and shows on You Tube. Curran vaguely knew what Disney World was, but I thought it was good to build up her excitement a bit and make sure she really knew how special it was before we revealed that we were going. She would say things like {deep sigh} "I really wish we could go to Disney World one day." :) I was dying on the inside because I wanted to tell her so badly that she WAS getting to go. She would smile so big when we were watching videos that it just made me even more excited! Sallie Cate really didn't know what Disney World was, so she loved watching the videos, and it definitely was a good way to introduce the idea to her.
- The biggest piece of advice I can give when planning Disney is to read, read, read. I read dozens of blogs trying to glean as much info as I could. Before we started planning, John thought you could just kind of show up and wing it. But with little kids especially, you need to have a plan in order to be efficient and get all your must do's checked off your list. Almost as soon as we got there, John admitted that he was so glad I had spent so much time planning.
Happy planning! :)
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