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Good afternoon, Tinkers and I hope you are enjoying this lovely weekend!

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Ask Tink: When Can I Book FastPasses?

"I heard that you can now book FastPasses in advance of your trip. When and how can I do that?"

     Good question! Thanks to the Tinker that sent it in! Yes, with the new FastPass+ system, you can actually reserve your FastPasses prior to arriving at Disney, and it is very smart to do so. What's a FastPass? Sort of like having a reservation for an attraction. You'll be given an hour long block of time to visit your selected attraction and you will use a special queue line, turning your wait time into one that is usually about 15 minutes or less. 

     If you are staying on a Disney Vacation Package, which includes a Disney resort stay and park admission, you can reserve your FastPasses 60 days, plus the number of days of your stay, prior to your arrival date. (Confused? Ok, so if you are coming for a 5 days trip, you can book your FastPasses 65 days before your arrival date.) If you are not staying on a package, but you do have park admission in the form of either daily park tickets, or an annual pass, you can reserve your FastPasses 30 days prior to the date you want to book them for. If you do not have park admission, and plan on buying tickets onsite, you will not be able to pre-reserve your FastPasses, but you can still get them at in-park kiosks, or through the My Disney Experience app, once you link your park admission.

     In order to book, you will want to create a DisneyWorld.com, or My Disney Experience log on for yourself. Once you have done that, you will need to add your park ticket to your account. If you are booked on a package, you can usually enter your reservation number, and it will locate and attach your tickets for you. If you have a physical ticket, or wristband, just scan or enter the number on the back of the ticket, or enter the number on the back of the wristband, and you'll be all linked up. Then you will select the option for FastPass+ and then the date and park you want to book. Your available attraction options will appear, and they include character meet and greets, preferred parade viewing, preferred fireworks viewing, and most attractions. You may book up to three attractions per day. Don't worry though. Once you have used your FastPasses for the day, you can get more at the in-park kiosks. You can even switch parks if you have a Park Hopper, and get more FastPasses for the second park at the kiosk. 

     Yes, you will have to do some extra pre-planning and have an idea of what park you want to be in on which days, but it's also going to be hugely helpful when other Guests are waiting 3 hours to meet Anna and Elsa and you sail in and see them in 15 minutes! I recommend that you have a park map pulled up when you book your FastPasses, so that you don't schedule yourself to crisscross all over the park and waste valuable time. 

Tink's Tips: 5 Ways to Get Psyched for Your Disney Trip!

Hey-Howdy-Hey, Tinkers!

     Is anyone familiar with Barney Stinson's "Get Psyched" Mix? Anyone? How I Met your Mother Fans? Ok, great! So you totally get where I'm going with this! If you have no idea what I am talking about, you can watch a clip HERE! Basically, the theory is that no matter what's going on in your life, you can get yourself psyched up and ready for something awesome to happen, all by listening to the right piece of music. Playing off of that theory, I feel that one of the very best things about a Disney trip is actually preparing for it, or getting psyched! You can have a whole bunch of crappy stuff happening in your life at the time, but if you have a Disney trip on the horizon... even if it's 564 days away, you have something to look forward to and enjoy preparing yourself for. In fact, many Disney fans, (myself included), pretty much get from one day to the next by preparing for upcoming trips. You may even book a new trip as soon as you come back from Florida, or get off of the cruise ship. If that sounds like you, OR if you're new to this and you'd like to join our elite ranks of Disney planning enthusiasts, here are five ways that you can get yourself revved up and excited about heading to see The Mouse!

1. Get the Kids Psyched

     For those of you traveling with Littles, you probably know that if the kids are excited about something, it's pretty infectious. There are lots of ways to get your kids psyched about a trip to Disney, in fact, I could do a whole separate post on that subject alone! (I'll put a pin in it.) But for right now, I'm just going to mention a couple of little ones that have a big impact.
     Kids who are looking forward to meeting the characters will enjoy making their own personalized autograph books. You can keep it simple by buying a small, spiral bound notebook of unlined paper, and having your kid create a cover for it that represents their own personal style. Or you can get all fancy and create themed pages for various characters to sign. Add polka dots and bows to Minnie's page. Maybe stamp a glass slipper on Cinderella's page. Cover the edges of Donald's pages in nautical stickers. Whatever floats your boat. It's a fun project and the kids will have a really special souvenir when you come back from the trip.
     Use your upcoming trip as a form of bribery for good behavior or extra help around the house, by allowing your kids to earn spending money for the trip. You can pay them in the form of Disney Gift Cards or Disney Dollars. D loved collecting dollar bills for good deeds and putting them into her "Disney Fund"! We then let her use that money however she wanted in the parks. She ended up having enough to buy herself a Belle dress and she was so proud.
     One other idea is to make a visual countdown. This is especially helpful when kids are younger and don't have much of a concept of time. There are several different ways you could do this. You want as simple as possible? Buy a cheap Disney Character calendar at a dollar store and cross off the days as you get closer. In our family, we like to make a paper chain, using stickers and markers and we let the kids pull off a ring each night before bed. The visual of the chain getting shorter makes the concept of the trip getting closer easier for kids to understand AND to get excited about.

2. Use Social Media to Get Psyched

     There are SO many awesome tools online now to use to help you get psyched for your Disney trip! Of course there are some fantastic blogs out there (ahem!) with reviews, pictures and experiences. There are also chat boards filled with fellow Disney fanatics that want to talk about their trip planning adventures. And there are zillions of Disney pictures out there, so why not make a game out of it?  Turn it into a countdown. Each day, as you get closer to your trip, send out an e-mail, a tweet, an Instagram or a Facebook post with a picture of something that you're looking forward to on your upcoming Disney trip. Share it with all of your friends, or privately with those that are traveling with you. It's a fun way to have a little flutter of I-can't-wait excitement, every day counting down to your trip.


3. Get Psyched While Sitting on the Couch (Let's Call It "Research")

     You have a TV, right? Or a computer maybe? Well there are lots of entertaining things to watch all about Disney World, Disneyland and Disney Cruise Line. The Travel Channel often airs specials on the parks and the ships. You can check your local TV listings for those. You Tube is full of Disney videos! Everything from trip planning guides, to videos of full Disney shows and parades. K often requests to watch the "firewooks" on TV before bed. (Just be careful if you're watching with kids, because you may find that some You Tube videos are not made for little eyes.)
     Oh, and if you don't already have them, definitely order the free vacation planning DVDs from Disney! They are an awesome preview of the excitement that is to come. To order the Walt Disney World or Disneyland one, go to www.disneyvacations.com. For the Disney Cruise Line one, click HERE. You can order them as hard copy DVDs, or as digital downloads.

4. Psych Yourself Up With The Disney Film Library

     All around Walt Disney World there are references to Disney films. Some are obvious, like "Toy Story" being the inspiration for Toy Story Midway Mania, and some are more subtle, like Aladdin and Jasmine doing meet and greets in Epcot's Morocco pavilion. As you get ready for your Walt Disney World trip, why not cozy up and watch some Disney films, so that you and your family are more familiar with the characters and the attractions that you might see in the parks? Your pal Tink is putting together a handy guide for you that will give you some ideas of which movies appear in the parks in some way, so you'll know what you want to watch. As soon as I have it completed, I will post it for you here.

5. Tink's Disney Get Psyched Mix

     Of course, the most obvious way to get yourself psyched for a Disney trip is to take Barney Stinson's lead, and have your very own Disney version of a "Get Psyched Mix". I have actually created one that you can feel free to borrow, over at Spotify. Listen in, by clicking HERE!. If Spotify isn't your thing, you can also create Disney stations on both the I Heart Radio and Pandora apps. Live365 has tons of Disney park music stations. I personally love Sorcerer Radio, which you can listen to at SRSounds.com. You can even buy all sorts of Disney and Disney Parks CDs through Amazon.com. I know that for me, nothing gets me more excited about going on a Disney Cruise than jamming out to some A-Teens "Upside Down" or "The Cha-Cha Slide". When I'm away from the parks and missing my Disney time, a little "Festival of the Lion King", or music from Main Street USA takes me right back there.


     There ya have it, Tinkers! Some ways to start getting psyched for all of the excitement that lies ahead of you on your Disney trip! Whether your getting ready to sail the seas on a Disney Cruise, tour the classic Disneyland, or play your way around Walt Disney World, you are getting ready for some of the MOST fun you'll ever have, so make the most of it and enjoy!

Ask Tink: Is a Park Hopper Necessary?

"Is a Park Hopper necessary? It really ups the price of a ticket and I'm  wondering if we could save some money by NOT getting that feature."

                                 

Thank you to the Tinker that submitted the above question! Going to the parks isn't exactly cheap, so saving money where you can is important. Unfortunately, the answer for this one isn't really a simple yes or no. It depends on how much is on your "Must Do" list and how well you plan.      Firstly, regular Disney park tickets allow you to access one park per day. So if you buy a standard Magic Your Way 4 Day ticket, on the first day of your trip, you decide which park you're going into that day and once you enter the gate, that is the ticket your park is good for on that date. You can select a different park each day, and you may leave, and return to the same park on the same day, but you cannot switch parks in the middle of the day. THAT is what a Park Hopper does for you. Adding the Park Hopping feature to your ticket allows you to say, have breakfast at Crystal Palace in The Magic Kingdom, then hop a bus so that the kiddos can sing-a-long with Elsa and Anna at The Studios. You can switch parks, throughout the day, as many times as you want. It's a very convenient and useful feature. Very rarely would you ever NOT find an occasion to use it. But the big question is, can you get by without it?      Park Hoppers are most useful for two scenarios. One, you're only in town for a short visit, (4 days or less), and you want to pack in as much as you can. A Park Hopper will help you because when Animal Kingdom closes as early as 5pm, you'll be able to go over to Epcot or The Magic Kingdom and still get in some rides and fireworks. Two, you're at Disney for more than 4 days and will be repeating parks. Chances are, you're not going to need to go to Animal Kingdom or The Studios for more than one full day, (or maybe you won't even need a full day), but you want the option to go back and ride Everest again, or see Fantasmic! You'll be glad you have the Park Hopper in that case.      "But, Tink," you're thinking, "do I NEED it?" My response to you is this... you can absolutely go without it, but you're going to need to plan very carefully. Do some research in advance on which parks are slowest on which days, and what the projected park attendance is like during your stay. There are several websites that offer this feature. I personally like this one from Undercover Tourist. Of course, this isn't anything that is guaranteed to be accurate, but it can help you in deciding where to go on which days. You may also want to look at DisneyWorld.com so you can also take into consideration things like park hours, special events and if you're staying on property, Extra Magic Hours. Then, once you have decided on where to go on each day, take advantage of the tools that Disney gives you. Book your FastPass+ reservations as early as you can. (60 days out for Disney Resort Guests and 30 days out for regular ticket or Annual Pass Holders.) And when you book your FastPasses, look at a park map and make sure that you aren't crisscrossing all over the park and wasting a bunch of time. Make sure your dining reservations are booked for the park you'll be in on that day. If you know that you aren't going to be able to handle doing open to close in the park, plan to be there for open, leave for a break mid-afternoon, when it is hottest and the most crowded, and then return in the evening, and stay as late as you can. That way you'll maximize the opportunities you have to wait in the shortest lines, and you won't miss out on the awesome nighttime entertainment.      No matter how planned out you are, though, don't rush past things like live entertainment and character appearances. Almost all of my very best Disney memories are spur-of-the-moment things that happened when we stopped to catch our breath. Park Hopper or not, you're in a place where magical things truly happen all the time, where ever you are. So enjoy!    Got a question? E-mail me at tinkinaboutdisney@gmail.com, or leave it in the comments. Thanks!

Tink's Tools: How to Pick the Right Disney Resort for YOU!

So, you have decided to stay in the heart of the vacation kingdom, right on Disney Property. Good choice! Here you can be surrounded by magic from the moment you check in, wide eyed, bursting with excitement, and dying to snap a photo with the Mouse…. until the very last, sad moments, when you pack up your Mickey ears, your digital camera with the memory card maxed out, and your glum little pirates and princesses, to head back to reality. Looking at the overwhelming list of Disney resort options, you may start to feel as confused and puzzled as a little blue fish named Dory. Don’t worry…. There are some easy steps to deciding which resort is right for you and your family.  

The first step is deciding what your budget is, what room size you need, and what amenities are at the top of your list. This will help you pick the category of resort that is right for you. The Disney resorts are often grouped into five categories: The Values, The Moderates, The Deluxes, The Deluxe Villas and the Home Away From Homes. Each category varies in price range and the number of guests that the rooms will accommodate, but they also vary in other, important ways.  For those on a budget, or those simply not planning on spending a lot of time at the resorts, The Values might be a good choice for you. If you are looking to be surrounded by the comforts of home, in a luxurious setting, The Deluxe Villas or The Home Away From Homes would best suit you. If you want to be pampered and have five star restaurants and maybe even a monorail just outside your door, then The Deluxes will be more your speed. No matter what your wants and needs are from your Disney resort, there is a perfect match for you here. Just keep in mind that you aren’t dealing with Motel 6’s and Holiday Inn’s here. This is Disney. The Values are still nicer than most non-Disney chain hotels. The Moderates are pretty spectacular. And in case you haven’t noticed, you're talking 47 square miles of vacation fun surrounding whichever resort you select. In all reality, you probably are not going to be spending much time at the resort, let alone, in the room. There’s no need to break the bank here, especially because what you save on the room, you can spend on special meals, experiences, souvenirs and Dole Whips and Churros. Pick the resort category which suits your needs the most, not the one above it. You’ll be thrilled with all that your Disney resort has to offer, no matter what!

After you have chosen your category, you have several, similarly priced resorts to pick from. Next you’re going to choose your resort… but how do you decide??? Knowing which of these is right for you, has a lot to do with your taste and one thing Disney is well known for: theming! Every detail of each resort is matched perfectly to its theme. Whether you’re noticing the old fashioned, pull chain toilets in the food court restrooms at Port Orleans Riverside, or the salt water taffy on your pillow, in place of a mint, on The Boardwalk’s Concierge level, themed details are everywhere. Even the service is themed! While you may be greeted with a, “Howdy, Folks!”, at The Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, you’ll be welcomed home to the Deluxe Villas, and told to have, (what else?), a “grand day”, at The Grand Floridian!

Once you have your resort picked out, you can then narrow down your room category, and any special requests that you have, to complete your reservation.  

Yes, the number of resort options is overwhelming, (roughly 25 different resort accommodations), but some discussions with your family about what their expectations are, what your budgets is, and what your likes and dislikes are, should make the process fun. Again, pick what suits your needs. They are ALL great and if you find yourself wishing you could try The Grand Floridian, or Coronado Springs, too…. well, that’s another reason to come back, don’t you agree??? Mickey knows you’ll be back to stay in more resorts. Why else do you think he always says, “See ya real soon!”?

Need some guidance? Have no fear! Tink is here! (Cue the theme song!) In my upcoming "Tink's Tools" posts, I will review with you the various categories, and the resort choices that are available to you, so stay tuned!

Tink's Tools: Height Restrictions, Motion Sickness Concerns and Scare Factors

 

Good evening, Tinkers!

      Tonight I bring you another trip planning tool. Whether you're deciding on which attractions to get Fastpasses for, getting your kids psyched up for what lies ahead, or just wanting to know what you need to avoid once you're onsite, this tool will come in handy. Here is a list of all of the attractions in each park, and a break down of the height restrictions, motion sickness concerns and scare factors. Please keep in mind, I did this with the most sensitive of Guests in mind. Most "dark" attractions do not scare children, but I wanted this to be useful to all, especially those who have never experienced Disney World before.

     To view the list, click HERE!

     I hope you find this to be a useful tool and feel free to post any questions that arise! Enjoy and have a magical evening!