How NOT to Disney
If hinds’ site was 20/20…
Stay off property:
We stayed in a large house 3 miles or so from Disney World property, which we split with three other families. They were our family, families, (if that makes sense) not some randoms like a hostile. First off…3 miles…as the crow flies…it was more like 20 miles on the maze of roadways. Watch for that, they definitely exaggerated the proximity to us a bit, with that one.
There are also a lot of perks for staying on property, none of which we had staying off property.
- Longer park hours - early in and late out
- Fast passes for guests (which have since gone away with COVID)
- Free transportation with buses
- Early access to virtual ride queues **THIS IS IMPORTANT
- Spas, pools, clean towels and room service every day…
Transportation:
Every time we went to and from the park, we had to use rideshare and the cost of that was ASTRONOMICAL. Sometimes it was upwards of $50 one way. We had a unique negative experience that dealt with this, here is that story…
As you may or may not be aware, Magic Kingdom can only be accessed by the monorail or the ferry if you are not staying on a Disney property (or it was during COVID times). Well, we knew the first day it was supposed to be inclement weather but only later in the day, and it’s not like we were going to just skip because of potentially bad weather…I mean Florida’s weather is volatile on a good day. We ended up going and getting all our fun stuff done before 2 pm, then it started to rain, so we started towards the Ferry to get off the Magic Kingdom island and back to the parking lot, to jump in our ride share. well…it started to violently storm. The monorail stopped running because of the lightening and the ferry boats stopped because of the wind and rain, it was raining so hard there was almost no visibility. The dock was flooding. We were SOAKED to the bone even with our rain ponchos. WE WERE STUCK ON MAGIC KINGDOM FOR SEVERAL HOURS!!!!!! Around 6pm we eventually got on our ferry and made it back to the parking lot where the Uber with surge pricing then cost $150 to get home (you know about the price a limo to go to prom costs).
Food
We did not realize that to eat something other than ice cream and pretzels you had to make a reservation. This also had to be done MANY days in advance. We did not do that and by the time our first day was done in Magic Kingdom, there were NO reservations left at any of the parks we would go to, for the rest of our time there. Most of this was due to COVID and their protocols for them, but it was poorly communicated to the guests.
Clothing
I am going to sound like a 90-year-old women but it is a TON of walking. We walked over 5 miles a day, minimum. I wore $10 sandals from Target, I mean, I looked great, but damn did my feet feel like they were going to fall off by the end of the day.
Line Reservations (maybe just a COVID thing)
We did not realize that for the most popular rides and activities…Star Wars **cough **cough …you have to have a virtual line reservation. If you are not staying on property you essentially do not get a reservation for that day. As we did not have park hopper passes and did not stay on property we missed out on those rides. This was probably the biggest bummer of the whole trip. They treat you like a second class citizen if you did not stay on property, all the on property guests were able to join those queues early, and almost always fill them, without off property guests getting even a chance to join.
Okay there were definitely some positives.
Disney is life.
I LOVED staying in a house especially with my little niece. We had a private pool, which was nice not only because it was a pool, but to not have to share with a bunch of snotty, urinating kids, was WONDERFUL! It was also great being able to eat some home cooked meals, definitely saved my husband some money from not going out to eat every meal.
Animal Kingdom had the BEST “fast” food with so many vegetarian options. This was only second to Epcot, obviously, where you can eat and/or drink around the world even without reservations.
Everything everybody asks about is cost, and there was no realized bottom line cost savings in staying off property vs. staying on property.
