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Didier Moutia's Travels
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Location Date North America 
1580342400 Oceania 1500159600 Europe 1374447600 -
Location Date Florida
1580342400 California 1580083200 -
Location Date Orlando
1580342400 Lake Buena Vista 1579392000 Cape Canaveral 1579305600 Tampa 1579132800 -
Here are our tips for any families heading to Orlando intending to visit the theme parks.
- January in Florida was great. Days were sunny and warm with evenings a little cool. Crowd numbers at the parks were great. If you do come in summer be prepared for long waits, we saw the standby queue areas and they looked large. We were told by locals that some waits in summer for rides could be three hours. Our longest wait for a ride for the whole trip was 45 minutes with most being less then 20 minutes, express queues were even shorter.
- Staying inside a Disney Resort is expensive. If you are only going to the hotel to sleep, then a serviced apartment just outside of the Disney World Parks is a good option. We stayed at the Staybridge Suites which was awesome, it had large rooms, free wifi, a heated pool (kids pool also) and spa. Like our apartment many hotels/serviced apartments outside of Disney World offer free shuttles to Disney Parks. Free shuttle times may be restrictive. However local transport companies offer fixed price taxis. Our accomodation had it's own recommended taxis which were cheap with great service.
- You will notice the Disney buses when visiting Disney World. The Disney transport is free between parks. This was useful for us in catching our hotel transport, we were able to move to different parks to rendezvous with our shuttle when we stayed longer then expected.
- Most parks have a photo system where you are given a card and use this to get photos by the professional photographers or the automated ride ones. The photographer takes your shot and adds it to your account. Later you can go online and purchase the shots you want. The Attraction Card at Disney is great as for one good value price you can get your photos from all the rides across the Disney Park and can download them later. Most cards hold the photos for 30 days.
- If you intend visiting Universal Studios, pay a bit extra and get the Queue Express pass. Queue Express let's you take the express lane for attractions. It saves you heaps of time and means you can fit in a lot more in the day. Well worth it.
- Disney has Fast Pass which is like Queue Express at Universal. You can buy a ticket which lets you use fast pass lanes but it is expensive. For normal ticket holders Fast Pass works when you present to the ride and get a Fast Pass using your ticket and the Fast Pass machines. At the Fast Pass station the return times for the Fast Pass lane will be displayed so before getting your Fast Pass you can see what time you will get. The Fast Pass will have the times on it when you can return and use the Fast Pass e.g. 11:55am to 12:55pm. Now popular rides may mean Fast Passes are equally popular. My tip is to get Fast Passes from the area of the park you wish to visit NEXT and return to the part of the park you wish to visit now. Now please note as stated before Fast Pass times are dependent on ride popularity, so for example Fast Pass times for the Rock and Roll rollercoaster may be 11:00am to 12:00pm. However the Tower of Terror next door to the Rock and Roll rollercoaster may be 1:00pm to 2:00pm. This is the challenge!
- If you are doing Seaworld we highly recommend getting the "VIP Feeding the Dolphins and Stringrays" package. This is awesome. You get a tour guide, reserved seating at all the shows as well as special feeding sessions for seals, dolphins and stingrays. You also get priority access to all rides and all day eating at selected restaurants.
- We fortunately had great weather for our stay. However if you expect some rain, the Universal Studios park is a good wet weather day option. Apart from the Rock It roller coaster all attractions are indoors.
- My little boys love Star Wars. When we went to the Disney Studios Park we saw the Jedi Academy interactive attraction. The boys missed out as we got to the park too late. The Jedi Academy is popular. Our suggestion is get to the park at 8:30am or earlier if you do not yet have an entry pass already and go straight to the Jedi Academy to register your child. We did this on the second visit and it worked well.
- When it comes to shows at the parks, if you want decent seats you need to get there 30 minutes before the show starts, especially true for the Fantasmic Show at Disney Studios. For Fantasmic, head to the show 45 minutes earlier.
- When going to Disney Magic Kingdom the park opening show and the end of night show are a MUST. In the morning when lining up to enter the park, make sure to take a middle line so you can easily see the opening of the park show.
- There are lots of parades at the Disney Parks. The one at Animal Kingdom we thought was the best and most entertaining, the rest were OK but nothing special.
- There are HEAPS of shops at all the parks. At all parks they offer the option to send merchandise you purchase up to the front of the park. This is great as you can walk around without carry heaps of bags! Make good use of this service.
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