My First Trip to Walt Disney World
In February 2023 I went on a family vacation with my fiance's family for the first time to Walt DisneyWorld in Orlando Florida. I had no idea what to expect from the trip and spent alot of the lead up time panicking and stressing about silly things that just didn't matter! Spending two weeks at a theme park seemed like a terrible idea when we booked the trip and I would constantly stress that it would be too much for me to handle...I am pleased to say that I was wrong! I had an amazing two weeks and was able to relax very quickly after our first day in the parks. As a first timer at DisneyWorld I wanted to share my experience and some of the helpful things that we did to make our trip as smooth as possible.
Planning Ahead
I will be completely honest...I am a planner. I enjoy planning trips and will spend hours researching a place to fully make sure that I have covered everything that I want to do whilst I am there and have a full itinerary that maps out all of the hot spots...so when I was told that 'there is no plan' for the Disney trip I panicked.
Now...what having no plan actually meant was that it is extremely difficult to predict how the queues for the rides are going to be. You could make a plan that you are going to head straight for Space Mountain at 9am and then onto the Tomorrowland Speedway for 10am but the reality is the line for space mountain could be up to 120 minutes and your plan for the day has crumbled before you have even stepped foot on Main Street USA. The best way I got around this was to create a 'must do' list for each park, this included rides, shows, snacks and photo spots. I then separated my must do items into their relevant lands for each park to ensure I knew exactly where everything was in relation to each other. This worked perfectly for me and I managed to tick off everything on my list during the trip.
Park Reservations
Following the pandemic closures in 2020, Disney introduced a new system for managing crowd levels in the parks, this was done by introducing park reservations, meaning guests would have to pre-book their reservations for a specific day way ahead of their trip. Personally I found this to be a good thing as it meant I knew exactly which park I would be in on what day. Making the park reservations was relatively easy and could all be done using the my Disney experience app.
Depending on who you book your trip with you will be given a code to link your park tickets into the my Disney experience app, you can then link up your entire party on the app (this can be quite tricky but there are plenty of youtube videos online that show you how to do it) and then you simply select your party and pick which park you want to do on which day.
These reservations only apply to the four main parks and don't include the Disney waterparks; Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon as reservations are not currently needed for those. What works really nicely with the park reservation system is that you are still able to park hop providing you have a multi-park pass. Park hopping is allowed after 2pm to any park providing they have not reached capacity for the day.
Disney Transport
Getting to and from the parks each day is key to the success of your trip and can easily make or break your day. Disney offers free transport across its property in multiple forms including a fleet of buses, boats, monorails and the recently installed sky liner. These various modes of transport take guests from all of the Disney hotels to the various parks, waterparks, resorts and to Disney Springs. It is worth noting that buses and other transport modes don't tend to be available from park to park in the morning, these services tend to start at 2pm to coincide with park hopping hours. On my recent trip we actually opted to stay off Disney property to keep the cost down, this meant that we had to either use the free bus provided by our hotel to Hollywood Studios or take an UBER to the nearest hotel and take Disney transport from there. Alternatively there are plenty of UBER and Lyft drivers operating in the area who can drop you off at the designated rideshare areas which tend to be located quite close to the park entrances.
Food Options
The Disney parks have become known for their weird and wonderful snack options over the years and continue to introduce new food options into the park every single day. There are hundreds of food locations across Disney property, all offering completely different menus. To navigate the endless menu changes and options I relied heavily on Disney Food Blog - a youtube channel and online blog that creates video and written updates almost daily on their platforms. They were my complete resource for all things Disney leading up to my trip and so I would highly recommend watching their videos before heading to the parks. In terms of food options, Disney offers way more than your average theme park burger and fries, they have options that will suit the entire family as well as your usual turkey legs, pretzels and pizza. One of the most iconic snacks in the Disney parks is their Dole Whip and it comes in a variety of flavours and forms including cones, floats and sundaes.
Exploring the Parks
I think the thing that surprised me the most on my trip was the size of the parks and how long it can take to get everything done. On average it took us two days to complete each park with an extra day for Magic Kingdom. What worked best for me was to break each park into sections and try to do everything (queue permitting) in that section before moving on to the next. It was amazing to me just how much detail goes into each park and what I loved about my most recent trip was that I really got time to appreciate that detail and didn't spend the whole time running from one ride queue to the next. One of the most amazing things about the parks is the theming.
The theming for each section of the park is brilliant, two lands that particularly stood out for me where Toy Story Land and Galaxy's Edge both in Hollywood Studios. In Toy Story Land you are shrunk down to the size of a toy with larger than life objects like lego bricks and ice lolly sticks creating benches and fence panels to make you feel as though you are walking through Andy's backyard and then within a few short steps you can be transported to the planet Batuu within the Star Wars Universe where Stormtroopers are roaming the streets and cast members speak using phrases from different languages. The entire experience is flawless and is something that has to be appreciated properly whilst visiting, which is why it is so important to build exploring the parks into your day rather than just ride hopping and stopping for the occasional snack.
The Rides
The thought of spending two weeks going on rollercoasters terrified me, I thought I would get bored of the same thing day in day out and as I suffer with motion sickness, was convinced I would just feel ill the whole time. Whilst there were some rides where travel sickness tablets were required (Star Tours and Cosmic Rewind) I can honestly say that the rides completely exceeded any expectations and I absolutely did not get bored! What is amazing about the Disney parks is that no two rides are the same, each ride is themed brilliantly and offers a completely different experience in terms of the actual ride system. The technology that is used on some of the newer installations in phenomenal and it was great to experience a real mix of attractions from fast moving roller coasters like Space Mountain and complete simulation rides like Avatar Flight of Passage to a safari drive on Kilimanjaro Safaris and a sit down animatronics show on the Carousel of Progress.
Shows and Parades
Another element of Disney that caught me by surprise was the amount of shows in each of the parks. Each park has a number of daytime shows that run several times a day and all parks have an evening show that normally ends with a fireworks display with the exception of Animal Kingdom. The shows are so varied and can range from stunt demonstrations and animal demonstrations to short full production musicals.
Some of the shows I really enjoyed were Finding Nemo the Musical in Animal Kingdom, the Indiana Jones Stunt show at Hollywood Studios and the Hall of Presidents at Magic Kingdom. And finally it wouldn't be Disney without a few of our favourite childhood characters making an appearance...the characters at DisneyWorld really make the magic come alive especially for the younger members in your party. Characters tend to be located on or near stages in the parks and usually have designated meet and greet spots that can be seen on the my Disney experience app.
A lot of the characters also make an appearance as part of the Festival of Fantasy parade that runs down Main Street USA in Magic Kingdom, this is a great parade and the music is unbelievably catchy so it is a must do when visiting Walt DisneyWorld.
As a first timer to DisneyWorld I was so impressed, the theming across the entire site is brilliant, the cast members are great, the rides are exhilarating, the food is delicious and I am very much looking forward to planning a future trip with my own children one day in the future to experience the magic.
