Our 12 days have come to end at Disney World and I would like to share with you some interesting facts as well as reviews of our experience as guests at Disney’s largest and most visited resort in the world – Walt Disney World.
Disney World Facts
- Opened October 1 1971
- 2016 Magic Kingdom attendance was over 21 million visitors
- Disney World property covers 27,258 acres (110 km2)
- Houses 27 themed Resorts
- 4 Theme Parks (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios)
- 2 Water Parks (Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Lagoon)
- 3 18 Hole Golf Courses
- 1 9 Hole Golf Course
- 4 Mini Golf Courses (one being a miniature version of golf with hazards etc)
- Disney Springs (Dining and Shopping)
- ESPN Wide World of Sports (220 acres sport complex)
Resort
We had the pleasure of staying on site in Disney World at the Art of Animation resort in the Lion King Family Suite, the other 2 choices of themes at this resort were Little Mermaid or Cars. We were very limited to which resorts we could look at due to having 3 adults with more than enough resort rooms accommodating for 2 A & 2 K but only 2 resorts offering accommodation to suit our needs. On entering the resort it was themed in sketches on the wall (YouTube) and lit up in bright colours, the main hall included a gift shop, quick service diner and a games arcade. Onsite the resort included 3 pools, laundry options, bike rental, outside bar as well as daily activities hosted by AoA cast members (employees) like tie dye and an artist demonstrating how to sketch a different character each day (we think). Just outside the gift store was the bus terminal for each park location (inc Disney Springs) where the “Disney Transportation” would take you to your desired location with a bus departing every 20 minutes. Our room consisted of master bedroom with ensuite and living area that had a fold out sofa mattress bed (lounge) as well as the dining table folding out to be another double bed – forgot to get a pic of this, with the smallest kitchen bench, sink, microwave and coffee machine.
TIP: mention to the front desk “It’s your first visit” or you are “Celebrating” something or “Wedding Anniversary” and you will be given a badge for each.
The resort has fantastic facilities with everything you need for our length of stay, the room did what it had to do for us and while the kitchen was small we managed easily to have breakfast each day as housekeeping supplies you with throw away plates, bowls and cutlery. Our Family Review of the resort is a 9/10 and our room review is 8/10.
Transportation
As briefly mentioned above all guests staying onsite can use Disney Transportation Service to travel between resorts, theme parks, water parks and Disney Springs. If you wanted to go and play golf you got taxi vouchers to get you there and back – which was pretty reasonable given the ride is about 10-20 minutes depending on traffic. We used the bus service for majority of our travels but some of the other resorts had options to use the MonoRail and/or Ferry. Most of the time if you were waiting in the line you would get onto the next bus but you might have had to stand but if this was near park closure – forget it… only once did we have to wait and catch the 3rd bus to take us home. On our last night to Magic Kingdom we opted to use all 3 transportation options for the experience, we caught the Bus to EPCOT where we ate dinner, jumped onto the MonoRail which took us too …… allowing you to transfer either by monorail or Ferry – we briskly walked to the dock and boarded the Ferry just at dusk – it was another #collectingmemoriesnotthings moment seeing the magic kingdom from the water. The one thing we were not really ready for was this place is very big and has major roads like freeways in between each park/resort – accidents happen, roadworks are present and traffic can be like peak hour in Melbourne/Sydney as Orlando workers use these roads to get to/fro, this was always highlighted in the afternoon rather than the morning. Another little gotcha is AoA bus stops at the parks are the furthest stop, so be prepared to walk and we also noticed that our buses were not as often as other resorts but still within the 10-20min window, this might have been due to the price of this resort as it did have 95% of guests with younger children (prams etc).
TIP: Most of the drivers/captains will have “transportation” cards, these are collector items for free…. all you need to do is ask, a lot of people are unaware of this as they do not hand them out unless you request them politely of course. In total there is 27 to collect for 2017 but we did not manage to collect them all, it was fun trying to though.
Our Family Review for the transportation is 8/10.
Food/Drinks
This was always going to be expensive regardless of how you looked at it, after a cooked buffet breakfast most days in Orlando we decided to shop before entering Disney World to purchase cereal and we are all glad we did as we were certainly over the eggs with crispy bacon (pancetta), waffles and oatmeal. I will break this section into Resort and Theme parks but regardless of all of this the coffee is percolated unless you go to starbucks and then it’s still only around 7/10 for around $6 AUS for a tall which is a small!
- Resort
The resort cafe had 4 quick service options with each offering its own unique flavour – pizza/pasta, burgers, salad/soup/sandwiches or the curry, ribs dishes. There was some good choices to have here and most were pretty flavoursome but after the first 4 nights of eating this it all starts blending in and you soon find yourself looking for something else to eat outside of your resort. You also could purchase a large (300ml) cup that for your stay, fill up with any drink you wanted all day/night – soft drink, water, coffee, milk etc. - Theme Parks
All the theme parks have quick service dining which consists of burgers, hotdogs, fries, waffles and other quick eat stuff as well as table service dining – you will pay substantially more for table service food but not always better food. By far the most interesting place to eat would have been EPCOT “World Showcase” as you could walk around the lake and go and eat or drink and many countries represented here like Germany, Mexico, China, Japan, America, France, Italy, … Outside of the theme parks I mentioned earlier that Disney Springs was the dining and shopping district and by far this was the best place to eat with many cultures represented but full of flavour and served with vegetables at least :-).
TIP: Eating is defined in 3 types Snacks (coffee, cake), Quick Service (burgers, hotdogs) and Table Service (Sit down dining), the table service will always cost more in regards to the menu and you can often share plates due to serving sizes, you do have to be mindful of tax and tipping, for our party of 5 this normally equated to an extra $30 per night.
Soft drinks are bottomless where ever you go.
Shopping
Disney Springs is the shopping district for WDW and had a harbour town feel to it but with the big brand names, there were also lots of boutique shops as well as other collectable item shops (blown glass and artwork) with most being Disney related. Disney Worlds largest retail shop in the world is located here and we often heard our name being called out to enter back in if we happened to be in the area – my mum was a shocker for this. Another great shop to go into was the Christmas shop and we could have spend some serious $$$ in here if we had a way to get it all back, there decorations were not like ours back in AUS at all and you get a real sense of amazement by looking at these decos of what christmas must be like here.
Shopping in the theme parks got very repetitive as 80% of the gifts were all the same regardless of the park, this was a little disappointing as none of the of the parks had smaller gifts directly related to their themed park – no magnets or stickers, plenty of hat pins though.
TIP: When you enter the shops if you go up to the cast members on the registers you can ask them if they have stickers, throughout WDW Parks you can get different stickers and once again they are for free, so even though the shops were repetitive the girls wanted to go in all of them to try and get as many different stickers as they could, this also included the eldest kid – Mumma Bear.
Now there is no supermarket (walgreens) on Disney property so you need to make sure you either shop pre entry or you can get it delivered. We chose to catch an Uber to Florida Mall, both to stock up on some small supplies but mainly for Mumma Bear to purchase another suitcase. It was here that we saw this insane shop called American Girl – if you could imagine Build a bear on steroids for a doll, they had a hair salon and pampering station as well as a dining area where you could have brunch and they would put a table-chair for your doll to sit at the table also. You have to see it to believe it.
Passes (Admission/Memory Maker)
Disney has 4 main parks which all offer many different pass combinations but if you purchase a park ticket it is for that day – we purchased the 10 day, park hopper pass. This allowed us to enter any park or combination of parks at any time during operating hours, including the 2 water parks and as a bonus we got Disney credits which allowed us to use the mini golf facilities and 9 Hole course for free – but we didn’t find this out until the last day before we left.
FastPass+ this is part of your entry fee into the parks but each day you can reserve a timeslot (1 Hour) to skip the lines for your attraction, timing is everything to get the best out of this. We often had our first fastpass+ attraction mid morning, this meant that when we arrived at the park we would go to the popular rides first while the queues were not as long (some walk straight onto). Once you have finished your last fastpass+ for the day you can start booking 1 by 1 to return to our favourite ride – it can come very tactful. We were conscious of this but did not let it determine our day and this is why we waited 40 minutes for some attractions but this was certainly the minority.
Another purchase we made was the memory maker – all throughout WDW Parks there are photographers that capture the special moments and add flair to your holiday, as well as the ride photos – as you know like everywhere else you can purchase these photos. Well this is what we did using the memory maker option, every photo that was taken of us during our stay we have downloaded but you can also add your own graphics, borders etc to personalise the photos for the single price. To put this is perspective – Mumma Bear purchased a photo package from “SeaWorld” I think and it cost her $40 for 5 photos, for $160 we got 760 photos and it is endless how many more you wish to personalise, but you do only get 30days to download them before they are deleted.
Theme Parks
- Magic Kigdom
- Animal Kingdom
- Hollywood Studios
- EPCOT
Water Parks
- Blizzard Beach (Didn’t Go)
- Typhoon Lagoon
Golf
3 18 hole golf courses to chose from, with one of them being a PGA played course the “Magnolia Golf Course”. If I was being honest I expected a little more given the credibility of this course, don’t get me wrong the course was in very good condition but it was not like playing on the fairways at Kooyonga. The wow factor came from the surroundings with the disney touches, the bunkers were a different sand and the greens were flat but like billiard tables. Every hole has a little history and I have chosen my top 4 to share with you in the photos below but none more better that the 1st Tee – “On October 20, 1996, a 20-year-old Tiger Woods began the final round of the Classic on this hole. Starting a stroke behind four tightly bunched co-leaders, he emerged as the youngest champion in the Classic history. It was a clear glimpse of things to come!”
I was fortunate enough to play this course on one of our down days and enjoyed the day, using the hired clubs I did not hit the driver as well as I could have but enjoyed the day and shot a 81 for a nett 69 – I was pretty happy with this, would have been better to shoot under 80 though :-).
Price I can hear my dedicated golfers saying – it cost me $150 to play but this included Green Fees, Cart Hire, Club Hire, Taxi Transportation and 6 Taylor made golf balls – I thought it was fair for what I got. The most expensive part was in the shop afterwards.
I also enjoyed a day out with Brianna and Emily as we went and played minigolf, they also had a 18 hole more demanding min golf which had a par rating of 72 also, my photo will not give you a sense for this but if we had another day it would have been on the agenda.
Other Bits & Pieces
- Weather – we had very good weather during our time at Disney, it has hot at times but with our park hopper option this allowed us to change plans on the go
- Crowds – post spring break was perfect timing, they did have cheerleading worlds on which you could notice but the most of the attractions we waited for no more than 20 minutes. Of course there were a couple we waited longer for but most of these were either new or really good
- Energy Levels – I am very pleased with the down days we scheduled as you need them, you have to remember that you get to the park around 9:00am and they close between 9:00 – 12:00am depending. They are long days with lots of walking, Mumma Bear finished early a couple of times.
- Free – Transportation Cards, Stickers and Badges, going to other resorts to have a look, using the transport Buses, Mono Rail and Ferries
- Onsite Perks – free transport, magic hours (extended opening hours), fastpass+ planning 60 days in advance (you need to) and magic bands, resort activities
- Magic Bands – this becomes your everything, it is linked to your disney account so the photographers scan it and about 10 minutes later you can view the photo on the app, you use it to enter the parks as well as your fastpass+, you can link it to your credit card to pay for all purchases on the WDW property which is very useful as they are 100% waterproof so you don’t need to take anything to the water parks with you.
#collectingmemoriesnotthings
Our Aussie Family 