Despite being nearly 37 years old, I still found Disney World to be a truly magical place. I have been to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot before, but I was a child and don’t remember a whole lot other than the shooting water fountains at Epcot and the Tomorrowland Speedway at Magic Kingdom being VERY loud to my young ears. I knew this trip would be amazing for our two boys, but I had no idea how much fun it would be for us parents as well. Over the next few days (or weeks, given my procrastinating tendencies) I’ll post a recap of our trip, detailing the fun we had and offering some advice based on our experience. In this first post, I’ll discuss our first day, as well as give my thoughts on staying on-site vs off-site. So, fasten your seat belt and keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times, and off we go!
Day One
I had been thoroughly warned about the large sums of money that would “magically” disappear from our bank account at Disney, and our trip didn’t get off to great financial start when we landed at the airport and found that our rather large double stroller would not fit in the trunk of our full size rental car. We were out $150 right off the top for an upgrade to an SUV. We arrived in the Kissimmee area around noon, and had no plans to visit any of the parks on that first day, which was good cause it was rainy. We ate lunch and then drove over to Disney just to drive around, get our bearings and check out some of the on-site resorts (we opted to stay off site for this trip). We walked around the Polynesian and Grand Floridian, and then headed over to the Art of Animation resort. There’s no real Cars (the movie) ride or exhibit at Disney World, so we wanted to see the Cars displays at Art of Animation since Charlie is obsessed with Lightning McQueen and all his buddies. I knew the week was going to be worth it as soon as we walked onto the resort premises. The recreation of Radiator Springs and the Cars characters was unbelievable, and we weren’t even at one of the parks! I think Charlie was a bit overwhelmed by it all. Our trip was certainly off to a good start.
Thoughts on staying on-site vs off-site
We stayed at an off-site condo for this first trip to Disney. Obviously I can’t comment on everything that staying on-site has to offer. But I can tell you about our experience as well as what we noticed when touring some of the on-site resorts. We stayed at the Fantasy World Resort, about an 8 minute drive from Disney World. It saved us about $500 on our trip, and instead of a standard hotel room layout, we had a two-story town home with two bedrooms, two baths, and a full kitchen. It was great being able to put the boys to bed upstairs and then watch some TV downstairs. As for getting to/from Disney, it was no problem at all. As I said it was about an 8 minute drive, and the Disney property is easy to navigate with signs everywhere. When going to the Magic Kingdom, staying on-site can definitely save you some time (if you stay at the right resort), but for all the other parks, I can’t imagine staying off-site cost us very much time at all. By the time an on-site guest caught a bus and got from their resort to a given park, it probably took them just as long as it took me to drive 8 minutes from our condo. Some people will argue that you still have to park far away, but we never did. One of the key’s to Disney is to GET THERE EARLY. We got there early every day and parked right up front. We never had a long walk to the Park. We literally had NO problems staying off-site, and it wouldn’t bother me in the least to do it again. That said, I can see some advantages to staying on-site, and would like to try it sometime. First off, I would only want to stay in one of the three resorts on the monorail near Magic Kingdom. Those are the Contemporary, the Polynesian, and the Grand Floridian. The reason being is that staying at one of those three resorts makes getting to/from the Magic Kingdom a breeze. You can walk out your door and be in the Magic Kingdom in less than 10 minutes. When staying off-site, you have to take a monorail or boat ride from the parking lot (to me that fact adds to the Magic), so those three resorts are a definite time saver for the Magic Kingdom. Some of the other Disney resorts are actually quite far from any of the parks, and as I mentioned, the bus ride from the resort is probably just as long as the drive time from an off-site resort. For me, the Polynesian would be the clear choice to stay. It’s on the monorail just one stop from the Magic Kingdom, and it’s Polynesian theme adds to the feeling that you are in a different time and place. The Grand Floridian is REALLY nice, but also REALLY expensive. Also, to me it just seemed like a really nice resort that could be anywhere. There wasn’t anything “magical” about it. Same goes for the Contemporary. It’s just your standard resort, and it’s quite old and doesn’t have any special qualities other than the monorail goes through the lobby. The Polynesian on the other hand is more like an experience itself, and to me adds to the “magic” of Disney. Finally, if you stay on-site, you get a “magic band”, which is a bracelet that each person gets, and it has EVERYTHING on it. Your tickets, fastpasses, everything. It also functions as your room key. It’s even linked to your credit card so you can buy food and merchandise in the parks just by tapping your band at the counter. It’s nice, but we had basically the same thing. Our tickets came in the form a gift card, and had all the same features. Our fastpasses were linked to it. We had the option of linking our credit card to it. Everything people were doing with their magic bands, we did as well by tapping our cards. I guess I did have to pull it out of my pocket, but I can’t really call that a hassle. One thing about staying off-site is that you have to pay for parking each day, which is $17. Ouch. Over the course of a week, that adds up. They do at least let you leave and return on the same day without having to pay again. I’m sure there are some people thinking that once you factor in the cost for a rental car and $17/day for parking, staying off-site might not be any cheaper. In our case, staying off-site was still a little bit cheaper. And as I mentioned, we had a MUCH bigger town-home than the hotel room that we would’ve had if we had stayed on site. On top of that, since we were off-site and with a full kitchen, we were able to go to the grocery and eat most of our meals at the town home, which saved us a lot of money as food in Disney World is pretty expensive. But if you want to game the system, there is a parking loophole. When we toured the resorts on the first day, we parked at the Polynesian, which is inside the parking area for Magic Kingdom. When I pulled up to the window where they were asking for my $17, I simply told them that I was touring the resorts to see if I might want to stay at one next time, and they waved me right through. On another day we had a dining reservation at a restaurant in one of the resorts, and they waived me through then as well. When I got to the resort, I told the gate attendant that I was just looking around (or that I had a dining reservation), and he again waived me through. Once we were parked at the Polynesian, we could have hopped on the monorail straight to the Magic Kingdom or hopped a bus to the other Parks. I’m not condoning it, but if you wanted to game the system to avoid paying for parking, you could.
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