Disney World Parks---Any Tips???

OMGosh! You are going to have a BLAST! Yes, you can bring your own food and drinks, as long as they are not in an ice chest. Disney is fine with it with that one exception. There are so many tricks and tips, there is no way I can list them all here. lol
We've only been a couple of times as a family, but my husband worked there (WDW); so, he knows a lot of tricks and tips. But we also have a Disney World book that gives more info. Please, feel free to e-mail me, and I can send you more info or let you know the name of the book. (I don't have it on-hand.)
Have FUN! :D

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Our 6th trip will be during spring break in a couple of weeks.
We have always stayed at the Polynesian which is on the monorail line and very easy to use. A lot of people say don't do the nicer resorts but we see a lot of value with being on the line.
Each day, 1 park opens early for the guests at the resort hotels. That was great when our daughter was interested in character autographs, etc.

I'd say don't miss the daily parade, nightly fireworks at magic kingdom. We enjoy the luau at Polynesion. This time we are going on a semi private safari at animal kingdom.

My daughter is 14 now and she is looking forward to the thriller rides with her best friend that she was always afraid of when she was little. We've been sin e she was 2,4,6,8,10 and now most likely our final trip for a while.

Wear good walking shoes. We rented strollers. Don't rent a car. Cab from airport is around $60 and door to door without having shuttle stops. The monorail is great. I've heard there are dining plans but we never checked that out. We like to go where we want with no limitations.

Chef mickey at the contemporary is fun, O'Hana and the luau at Polynesion are good. There is a breakfast inside MK with pooh characters.

I don't know rules for bringing things into the park. We just hopped on the boat shuttle from MK back to the Polynesian all the time. We do stay at the Concierge level which has food provided all the time. Of course that $$ is in the costs of our room but very handy and worth it to us.

I probably forgot a lot. Feel free to email and ask me questions.

We have tickets that are good from the time we get there unil midnight the day we fly out. All access to any park as many times as you want.

Oh yeah..........you pay everything in advance when you book it.

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There is a website http://allears.net/index.html
that has lots of great info. My advise, watch the fireworks and parade at night. It is so worth the trip alpne. Seriously a memonry of a lifetime. Also, eat bring breakfast bars or other snack to eat, it will save big money. And make your reservation for dine with princess as early as possible. Don't forget to wear a princess dress. Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique is really worth te exspense. I would schedule the boutique the day before for two super grate days and wear the dress to the princess dinner the next day. Or do boutique early the same day for awsome pics. Any questions pm me, have fun!
sorry about the sp baby in hands.lol

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Honestly... We went to Disney World last year and hated it. Well some of us did. Its like the whole experience is geared towards adults with a few hard to find million mile long lines for little kids rides. The stuff for little ones was few & far between and what there was - was overwhelmingly overcrowded bc so many people brought little ones. Then the other things like breakfast with the princesses was around $45-$50 a PERSON!

I have 5 kids (4 then I was pregnant) and my teenagers had a blast but the little ones spent the majority of the time in the strollers bc there just wasnt anything for them ti do. The experience is more "visual" than active.

I have heard Disney LAND is all about little kids so we may try there next.

Just my .02!

I just wanted to add that going in the summer is not recommended. It is VERY hot and humid and extremely crowded. You will spend much of your time in lines if you go in the summer. Another time to avoid is spring break and mid to late December and early January. It sounds like your daughter will be school aged next year, but don't let that deter you from going during the school year. We took our 6 year old out of school for a week in early November. Yeah, I know she should be in school, but to us, if we were going to spend that much money on a vacation, we wanted it to be as perfect as possible. Heat and lines make us miserable, so we went when it was cooler and not at all crowded. She attends school in pisd and we told her teacher about the trip as soon as we booked it. We told her the reason for going during school and she understood. Her words to us were, "Since I am a teacher, I cannot say yes, you should take your child out of school to go to Disney, but it will be a wonderful memory making trip for your family and I understand why you want to do it." She told us we had to write a letter in advance to the school explaining the reason for the absence. Doing that allowed our daughter to make up all her work (the teacher gave us work for her to do on the plane and asked our daughter to write a sentence in her journal each night of the trip explaining her favorite part of the day). The absences were considered unexcused, which is to be expected, but in PISD a child is allowed some unexcused absences. Our kid only misses school for true illness, so she was only absent one other day that school year. I think it was totally worth taking her out of school I would recommend doing it during the early grades rather than later ones, though.

http://www.mousesavers.com/ is a good website. They send out an email once a month with specials. I bought our Disney World tickets through a website they have listed and saved over $90 on our park tickets. We just got back from Disney and stayed at the Hilton Downtown Disney. It is on Disney property so you get all of the same perks as Disney Park hotel except for the free shuttle to and from the airport. It was a nice hotel and we got a good price. The shuttle bus to the parks were always on time and easy to use and we were able to use Magic Hours also. You are allowed to bring snacks and water into the park.