1. Don’t forget to book your parks!
Since Disney World has reopened they now REQUIRE park reservations to enter a park. Many people are actually unaware of this and are incredibly disappointed to learn when they arrive on their vacation that they can’t enter the park because it is full. Book your park in advance! Especially during busy school vacation weeks I would recommend booking your park at least 60 days in advance!
2. A park hopper can help you get into booked parks!
If you can’t get into a specific park because it is full the park hopper ticket can actually save you. You can book the open park and then after 2:00 you can hop over to the booked park. I have never heard of park hopping actually being blocked due to capacity issues! Tip: You MUST scan into your first park before you can get into second park.
3. Book your dining 60 days in advance!
Disney dining reservations WILL sell out super quick! Shockingly quick! Especially for character dinners and firework packages. On the 60th day before arrival you can go online at 5:45am or call for reservations at 7:00am Eastern Time. Have your credit card ready to hold a reservation. Don’t hesitate as the most popular reservations will sell out in less than a minute. Tip: If you stay at a Disney resort you can book dining reservations for your ENTIRE stay at the 60 day mark rather than booked each day separately.
4. MouseWatchers is worth it!
If your favorite dining reservations are booked don’t fret! You can pay for a MouseWatcher subscription and they will text you when a dining reservation pops up. This has always proven to be worth it for us and I purchase it every vacation. Lots of reservations will open up the day before.
5. Genie + can be booked in advance or the morning of!
Genie + is the new “fastpass” system that Disney is using. I have so many thoughts and tips on using this system, but that will have to be a whole blog post in and of itself. Genie + can be booked prior to leaving on vacation when you book your tickets. To do it this way it will be booked for your entire stay. It costs $15 dollars per person per day. You can also purchase it after midnight the night before for each individual park day. I actually preferred this option as I didn’t use it at every park.
6. Get organized!
Let’s face it planning a Disney vacation can be more challenging than getting a Master’s Degree. It takes an incredible amount of planning and I wish my family would fully appreciate just how hard I work to make our vacations amazing! I make a Google spreadsheet for the entire vacation. This includes our schedule and reservation numbers. It is so much easier to plan when I have everything listed in one place!
