You’re Going to Disney. Now What?

Congratulations! You’re going to Walt Disney World!

So, you know you’re about to have the time of your life at the Most Magical Place on Earth.

Still, you’re probably wondering what’s next. After all, a Disney vacation requires quite a bit of legwork before you leave.

Basically, you’re going to Disney. Now what? Here are a few next steps you should take.

Download the My Disney Experience App

When Disney first introduced the My Disney Experience app, I don’t think anyone fully understood its future importance.

At this time, the app can do everything from open your hotel room door to order your next meal.

You’ll also utilize My Disney Experience (MDE) repeatedly throughout your park visit.

The mapping software will display the location of attractions and bathrooms.

Meanwhile, the attractions section will show what’s available as well as the estimated wait times.

At this point, you simply cannot maximize your theme park visit without the MDE app.

So, you should download it and familiarize yourself with its intricacies. Thankfully, it’s VERY user-friendly.

Perform Online Check-In

Back in the dark ages of Disney theme park visits, guests had to visit the hotel lobby to check in!

Here, Cast Members working as desk clerks would hand over the Key to the World cards that unlocked hotel room doors.

Now, as I just mentioned, MDE does that for you. So, you can skip the lines and simply head straight to your hotel room.

Disney will email/text you your room number on the date of your visit. Therefore, you never need to check in officially.

However, you should still perform online check-in. And you should do that in case you have specific room requests.

Disney doesn’t always honor them, but you cannot get anything in life unless you ask.

In addition, when you do online check-in, you can add your credit card information.

This step saves you plenty of aggravation when you’re shopping at stores or paying at restaurants.

You can charge stuff to your room. So, performing online check-in helps you in myriad ways and saves you precious time upon arrival.

Choose Your Vacation Extras

Several years ago, Disney decided to split the vacation experience into several segments.

Many of the vacation options come standard as part of a package or even an admission ticket.

Some, such as Lightning Lane, Memory Maker, and MagicBands, are not/no longer included.

So, you must decide which, if any, of these options you desire for your trip.

I recently debated whether anyone still uses MagicBands.

Personally, I’ll probably wear one until the day I die. But I understand why some people may prefer to save that money.

MagicBands typically cost $35 or more for good ones, which makes them a $150 investment for a family of four (after tax).

Meanwhile, Memory Maker costs $185-$210 for a full trip. For that money, Disney captures a lifetime of memories in a week.

Whenever you hop on an attraction with a ride photo/video, you automatically receive it as part of your package.

Similarly, whenever you notice a Cast Member holding a camera, that’s a photographer who will happily take your picture.

These images are of the highest quality, and I’ve populated my walls with many of them.

Still, a $200 investment isn’t for everyone. As for Lightning Lane, that’s a different category.

Plan Your Itinerary

You don’t need to decide on every aspect of your Disney vacation.

Some tourists prefer spontaneity, which is once again possible at Disney.

For a few dark years, the company skewed too far toward the “Follow the Plan!!!” side of tourism.

Thankfully, those days have passed, partially thanks to My Disney Experience.

So, you don’t need to know where you’ll be at 11:15 a.m. on day three of your trip or anything.

However, you should decide which parks you plan to visit on which days.

Also, you should determine whether your traveling party prefers Park Hop or not.

Some people want the option of leaving one park to do something else somewhere else.

Other folks are squarely in the “one park on one day” camp. In fact, I was just talking to an old friend about this yesterday.

She’s traveling with a huge group of people, and the last thing they want is to add the complexity of Park Hopping.

That’s a perfectly valid thought process. So, simply decide which option works best for you.

Similarly, talk to your ‘ohana and decide whether any Disney dining experiences are must-dos for them.

Then, plot your vacation accordingly. In doing so, you’ll help yourself with the other determinations we’re about to discuss.

Debate the Vacation Necessities

The reality is that you’ll eat multiple times a day during your Disney vacation.

Similarly, you’ll ride as much as you can at the parks while you’re visiting Disney.

As such, the Disney Dining Plan and Lightning Lane aren’t quite the same as Memory Maker and MagicBands.

You don’t need the latter items at all. They’re merely options to accentuate your visit.

Meanwhile, since you will eat and stand in line, these behaviors aren’t negotiable

The question becomes whether you’re willing to stretch your vacation budget in exchange for spending less time in line.

That’s what Lightning Lane does. MickeyBlog posts analysis about the value at each park.

Long story short, Lightning Lane makes more sense at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom than the other two parks.

Should you choose to purchase Lightning Lane, you should know that you can buy up to seven days prior to your trip, assuming you’re staying at an official Disney hotel.

You should book at the first possible opportunity, as that gives you the best odds of reserving the Lightning Lanes you want.

The most popular ones book quickly. So, have a plan and execute it the instant your booking window opens!

Plan Your Disney Dining

As for dining, some people are diehard evangelists for the Disney Dining Plan (DDP). I happen to be one of them.

What I’d suggest is that you run the numbers to decide whether you’ll save money in buying the DDP.

To know that, you must decide where you plan to eat during your trip.

Let me be clear that there are tons of differing approaches to this kind of planning.

Some people think, “we’ll eat fast food,” and that’s the end of the conversation.

Other Disney guests, frequently longtime tourists who think they’ve cracked some secret code, go so far as to create spreadsheets.

I…may fall into the latter category. Actually, I’ve gotten a lot more laid back about Disney dining recently.

The introduction of Mobile Ordering has reduced much of the stress of meal planning.

Still, presuming that you plan to dine at some Table Service aka sit-down restaurants, you should do some planning.

Then, when your 60-day Advanced Dining Reservation window opens, you can snag a table at Disney’s best restaurants.

Please understand that you can book reservations for every day of your trip as soon as your window opens.

So, when you’re staying for five days or more, you’ll find that it’s easiest to book Disney’s most popular eateries on days four and five of your trip.

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