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Disney Dork Tom

Disney Tips & Tricks, Planning, News, and History!

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Trip Planning

Disney Cruise Ships and Parks to include EpiPen stations

Earlier this month, Disney announced it would be including EpiPen(TM) stations across its parks and cruise ships. They will also include these stations locations in their park maps so that anyone with severe allergies has quick, easy access to the life saving devices. Even though I don’t suffer from severe food allergies, I think it is really cool that Disney tries to get ahead of things like this and be proactive instead of reactive. Source

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Five great tips to saving money at Disney World

Disney World is expensive and we all know it (not that it stops any of us from going). There are some obvious ways to cut costs during a Disney World trip like staying at a value resort or eating exclusively at quick service restaurants. But, I wanted to share some other cool ways to save money that may not have occurred to people.

#1 – Instead of renting a room, rent DVC points instead

For those of you not familiar with DVC, it stands for Disney Vacation Club and it’s their time share program. Many of the resorts at Disney World have a DVC component. Even better for you, it’s not that hard to rent points from existing DVC members using any number of services. I have never done this before personally, so instead of supporting any particular service, click here to see the best results from Google.

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Resort hopping at Disney World

Nothing would make me happier than to stay at (literally) all the Walt Disney World resort hotels at least once. But, unless I end up taking like 20 trips, this may be kind of a challenge. I live in California, so when I do go to Disney World, it’s usually one 6+ day trip every year or two. Thus, it would take a lot of trips to knock out all the hotels I want to see. For those of us who like to be a little adventurous, though, you can actually stay at different resorts for different parts of your trip! It takes a little coordination but I thought it would be helpful to outline some of the details of resort hopping.

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When is the best time to visit Disneyland or Disney World?

Every Disney vacation starts with that fundamental question: when is the best time to visit Disneyland or Disney World? Now, there are many variables to this question, things like:

  • What kind of weather do you do best in?
  • What kinds of prices do you want to pay for resorts?
  • Do you want to be there during a festival or special event?
  • How crowded or empty do you like the parks to be?
  • Do you like visiting with decorations up?

These are all absolutely crucial questions to ask and sometimes its really hard to find the answer. But, if you do some digging, you’ll find that a few people have put together some pretty helpful resources that help you answer these questions so I’ve decided to try and aggregate a few of them here for you.

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Five Mistakes to Avoid at Animal Kingdom

I’ve come to believe that Animal Kingdom is one of those parks that’s a little misunderstood at Walt Disney World. Often labeled as a “half day park”, mostly due to it’s typically earlier closing time (than other parks) but also sometimes due to the perception that it lacks enough rides to keep you entertained for a full day. While it’s true the park will usually close earlier, it’s completely untrue that there is not enough to keep you busy there all day. I’ve put together these five mistakes that I find are common for people to make at Animal Kingdom (some of which I even made myself). Avoiding these could be the difference between a good half day at Animal Kingdom and a fantastic full day.

Mistake #1 – Arriving Late

Animal Kingdom’s biggest difference is that we’re talking about real life animals here. They have legitimate routines that dictate when they’re active and when they’re ready for a little snooze. The morning, by and large, is when these animals are most active. Thus, it’s important to arrive as soon as you can, usually 9AM on normal days. But, if you’re staying at a Disney Resort, then you are entitled to Extra Magic Hours, which means on certain days you can get in at 8AM. Which actual days this occurs for Animal Kingdom varies a bit, but if you want to synch up your trip, there is a good reference here at wdwinfo.com.

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