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Never been to Walt Disney World? This overview will help you plan!

Research Before You Go! You're here, so you're doing that already! You will have a MUCH better time at Walt Disney World if you know something about it before you go. Just showing up there your first time with no information is a bad idea. Walt Disney World is a resort that includes 47 square miles. There are 4 major theme parks, 2 waterparks, 2 mini-golf courses, a shopping district, a nightclub district, many regular golf courses (8? I need to confirm that...), and MANY resorts, each with a different price level and theme. All but the Value Resorts have restaurants, some more than one, and some of them are world-class! I've spoken to people who went to "Disney World", but missed 95% of it because they didn't know what was there! They didn't even know what parks they had been to! If you've never been, or don't know much about Walt Disney World, this overview may be helpful.

Get the Park Hopper Ticket Option! Animal Kingdom closes early. Epcot is almost always open until 9:00. If you don't have a ticket that allows park hopping, you'll be done for the day at 5:00 pm or so on your Animal Kingdom day. Get a park hopper and dine in Epcot that night while watching Illuminations! Park Hoppers are great for when the park you planned to see is unexpectedly crowded. (Watch out for Magic Kingdom on weekends in December. They film the Christmas morning parade and it's so crowded you can't walk on main street!) Also, hopping between parks allows a bit of rest time on the bus or monorail. We tend to hop parks nearly every day. I've heard this is especially nice if you have kids - you can do Animal Kingdom in the morning, go back to the resort for an afternoon nap and maybe a swim, then go to Epcot or Magic Kingdom to finish the night with fireworks shows! The extra cost for the hopper option is definitely worth it in most cases.

Get There Early! Try to be at each park 15-20 minutes before it opens. At the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Animal Kingdom you will experience an "opening ceremony" for the park, and at all the parks you will be able to ride the first few rides with much shorter lines than usual. At both Magic Kingdom and Epcot there are also MANY characters out just after the opening. This is a GREAT time to collect autographs and photos if that is your focus, especially if you've already done the major attractions. Arriving early is especially important at Animal Kingdom, which usually closes earlier than the other parks. Also, in my experience, you see many more animals the first few minutes of Kilimanjaro Safaris than later in the morning (when they're finished eating, I suppose). There are some characters on the way to Kilimanjaro Safaris in the mornings, but we have only ever stopped for the fairly hard to find ones like Flik.

Plan Ahead for Meals! Priority seatings for meals and especially character dinners are best made in advance. You may get in at the last minute, but I wouldn't count on it. Menus for almost all meal locations can be found on allearsnet.com. If Cinderella's Royal Table character breakfast (in the Castle) is important to you, you must make priority seatings in advance. We called at 6:59 am (so it would ring through to them exactly at 7:00) 90 days in advance and it was FULL for the day we wanted in early December 2003. We went to the Princess breakfast at Restaurant Akershus (Norway, Epcot) instead and enjoyed it immensely. Update: Jan. 2004 - Cinderella's Royal Table now has extended hours! It may be a bit easier to get priority seatings, especially for the later times. I'd still call 90 days out, though.

Be Prepared for the Weather. In December 2003, the first day in Florida (at Kennedy Space Center) we wore shorts and short sleeves. The whole rest of the week we wore jeans, t-shirts, jackets over the t-shirts, coats over the jackets, gloves, and the parents were smart enough to bring thermal undies to wear under their clothes. The first thing we did was buy warm Disney Santa hats, because it was bright, sunny, and FREEZING with a cold wind blowing. My mom watched Illuminations while wrapped up in a gold foil space blanket bought at NASA. She looked like a burrito, but stayed warm. EVERYONE we saw in every park was wearing something they'd bought at WDW, and a few people were shivering in shorts, because that's all they'd brought! Summer is hot, muggy, and is almost guaranteed to rain a complete downpour each afternoon for 20 minutes or so. The air conditioning indoors is COLD, so I take a light rain-repellent jacket even in summer. In Winter, it might be 80 degrees all week, or it might be 30, or you might get a bit of both. Layers are good! Pretty much all stores at WDW sell ponchos. Disney ponchos are fairly sturdy, so if I knew it was going to pour rain all day most of the week, I'd buy one of theirs even though they are several dollars (not sure how much. $7 maybe?). For the normal afternoon downpours, however, the 88 cent or so ones from Wal-Mart-type stores are fine. They're thin like plastic bags, but they're cheap, very small to carry - they'll even fit in your back pocket - and you can toss them at the end of the day. You may want to carry a sandwich bag or two to stuff them in after they're used, if you think you might need them again later that day. They won't go back in their original bags!

Use Fastpass! Most major attractions have fastpass. You put your park ticket in the machine, and it spits out a piece of paper with the attraction name and a range of time for you to return and ride, or a specific time to return and see a show. Check the rules when you go to see how many fastpasses you can hold at a time--usually just one. You will NOT go to the front of the line with a fastpass. You will enter a separate Fastpass line, which will be shorter than the regular line. If your fastpass says "return between 1:00 and 1:30," I recommend returning at 1:10. Most people will return at 1:00 and there will be a short line. A few minutes later there may be no line at all. At 1:25 there will be a crowd of people waiting for their 1:30 time to open up! Between arriving early and using fastpass, we almost never wait more than 15 minutes in line for anything. This is especially good in attraction-heavy locations like Fantasyland, where you can get a fastpass for Pooh and then see Mickey's Philharmagic or ride other attractions while you wait. It's also great at mealtimes - get a fastpass, have lunch, then go to the attraction with little-to-no line! We have had the fastpass machine give us a special fastpass for a different ride in addition to the one we want--for example Test Track's fastpass machine gave us extra fastpasses for Honey I Shrunk The Audience. We were pleased, but discovered there wasn't a line for Honey I Shrunk The Audience! I think they were trying to redistribute some crowds to the other side of the park.

A Note About Wheelchairs: My mother, on our trip in 2004, was battling plantar fasciitis and complications from treatment of a bone spur in her foot. Everyone who knew about this kept saying "You should get a wheelchair at Disney! You'll get to go to the front of the lines! Lucky!" I got so angry sometimes because I could NOT make people understand: WHEELCHAIRS DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINES!!!!!!!!!** Walt Disney World, especially the newer attractions and parks, are built to be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. She did use a wheelchair a few days of our trip, and we found that you might go in a different door with a wheelchair (through the "servants entrance" on the Haunted Mansion), or get to go in the theater first (and then sit in the very back, usually) or maybe get to go on an elevator you never knew was there (to exit Pirates of the Caribbean). BUT, generally you don't get through any (or at least much) faster than you would in the regular line, and you may miss some of the theming of the attraction. Many (I'd go so far as to say most) attractions are set up so wheelchairs can go right through the line with everyone else. The cast members were very kind, helpful and accomodating, but having the wheelchair didn't speed up getting on attractions any, and in some places slowed us down a bit. If you need a wheelchair, rent or take one (you can rent them at all the parks, and if you're staying in a hotel you may be able to get one there too, just call ahead and ask). Just don't expect to be exempted from waiting in lines. **If you have someone on your trip with special needs of any kind, please check allearsnet.com, passporter.com and call 407-WDISNEY for more information before you go. Disney does have accomodations for many special needs, including autism, hearing impairment, sight issues and dietary needs (allergies, restrictions, etc.). You may need a doctor's note or to call ahead for certain accomodations, though, so "know before you go". You definitely must call ahead for dietary needs at table service restaurants.

More to come later!