Tag Archives: disney

Fireworks at Disney World, Orlando, Florida.

How Disney’s New Ticket Prices Will Impact Your Family Vacation

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Disney made two announcements last week that will affect trips to Disney World and Disneyland. We checked in with Susan Kelly, Wendy’s Trusted Travel Expert for Disney trips, to learn more about how these changes could impact any family vacations you may be planning to the happiest place on earth.

The first news was that annual passholder rates have gone up and benefits have changed. “Now visitors have options between different levels of passes at different price points,” Susan explains. “The most expensive Platinum Pass includes parking, park hopping, a photo pass, and no blackout dates.” Conversely, the least expensive option has blackout dates and excludes the extra perks.

These passes are geared toward visitors who go to Disney a lot, Susan points out, so the change might not affect you at all if you’re planning a one-off family vacation.

The second announcement will have a greater impact if or when it is eventually implemented: surge pricing. When demand for tickets is highest (holidays, school breaks), tickets will be most expensive; when demand is lowest, tickets will be cheaper.

“The current park admission model has everyone paying the same flat rate to enter the parks,” Susan explains. “A four-day pass is the same price, no matter when those four-day visits occur. The new pricing being considered will have different prices for each day, based on what season and what day of the week you visit. A visit to Magic Kingdom on the Saturday of Christmas week will be more expensive than a visit on a Wednesday in early September. You will save by visiting on weekdays and designated off weeks.”

One reason cited by Disney for this potential change—apart from the obvious goal of making more money—is crowd control; the theory is that cheaper tickets offered at low-peak times will help spread out the high peaks and valleys of visitor numbers throughout the year. “Hopefully it will do something to alleviate the crowds,” Susan says. “The number-one question travelers ask us is: ‘When can I go when it is not busy?’”

And how can families still make a Disney vacation affordable? It’s all about planning: “You will save more the longer you visit,” explains Susan. “It’s the family visiting for only one or two days that pays the most per day. There is the opportunity to save up to 45 percent on park admission if you visit for more days. Knowing that, it’s smartest to plan for one big trip. It is better to visit once for eight nights than to do two shorter visits of four nights each.”

Susan also recommends taking advantage of any promotions that Disney runs. “Part of our free service is that we keep our ears to the track on discounts as they are released, and we work to apply them to existing reservations. If there are no discounts available at the resort the traveler booked, we give them the option to move to where there is a savings.”

Your best strategy? Reach out to Susan to book your Disney vacation for the smartest dates. (She knows when they are.) And keep in mind that if the only time your family can travel is during a peak week, and you hate crowds, Disney might not be the right place for your family at that time.

“I think that one hand of Disney is trying to find ways to manage the crowds by providing a financial incentive to visit during ‘off’ times,” Susan says, “but the other hand has over-built and over-promised that ‘magical’ experience. You can’t skip down Main Street with 25,000 people in your way!”

Remember also that Disney can be so expensive on some dates that it might actually be more affordable to take your family overseas! For ideas, check out our list of European Cities that Are Surprisingly Kid-Friendly and contributor Eric Stoen’s guide to a perfect family vacation in Paris.

 

At the Jardin d’Acclimatation in Paris France

How to Save Time and Tantrums in Amusement Parks: A 13-Year-Old’s Advice

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Note from Wendy: The best way to beat lines, crowds, and meltdowns at amusement parks is, in my experience, to choose small, homespun ones and to go when the local children are in school. My family has done this everywhere from Paris to Sonoma, California, to Wildwood, New Jersey. But most families end up at gigantic theme parks—of the Disney, Universal, and Six Flags variety—on peak summer days. I’ve shared advice for how to save money at such places, but my 13-year-old, Charlie, has advice for how to manage your time:

 

The long lines and crowded pathways of large theme parks today mean you need to have a plan. With massive changes at major theme parks, such as the remodeling at Disney’s Magic Kingdom, Universal bringing in Nintendo, and Six Flags’ constant addition of new attractions, it’s important to be a step ahead of the game.

 

At Legoland in Florida when he was 11.

At Legoland in Florida when he was 11.

 

Start with a ride at the back of the amusement park.

When you enter the park, your child will want to run to the first attraction he sees. But the ride at the entrance to the park always has a much longer wait than it’s worth. At Universal Studios, the “Despicable Me Minion Mayhem” ride is the first one, resulting in a wait time of 80 minutes, when it should really only be 30. It’s better to start with a ride toward the back of the amusement park and work your way around in a circle or the closest you can get to one.

 

Sleep in and stay up late.

Most families have a strategy of waking up early to be at the park within an hour of opening time, and that gives them a parking advantage. But those families go home well before the park closes because the parents are tired, because it’s late, or because the parents say it’s too late as an excuse for being tired. When those families leave, the number of people in the park is cut by about 65%, leaving 35% to enjoy short waits during the last three or four hours the park is open. If you arrive at the park later and depart later, you’ll get more bang for your buck. (Here’s an example: When our family went on the Disney Dream cruise ship, there was a 45-minute wait for the Aquaduck water slide during the day but no wait at all at 11:30 pm; I managed about ten rides between 11:30 pm and midnight.) In addition, some theme parks can be very pretty at night, so try to stay almost until the park closes.

 

Make breakfast or dinner reservations, but not lunch.

Theme parks often consist of one to three fine-dining establishments, and the rest of them casual dining or just small stands. Unless you make plans at the fine-dining places for breakfast (before you explore the park) or dinner (when you’re done), you shouldn’t try to get to a certain restaurant at a certain time because it may require that you traverse the entire park to get there, or require you to leave the park and re-enter when you are done. This could reduce your time in the park by a lot more than you think, and it could also throw off your system of traveling through the park. At lunchtime it’s best to just go with the place that’s closest, especially since many of the places serve the same food anyway.

 

Give your kids a five- or ten-minute time limit in the gift shop.

Gift shops in theme parks contain tons and tons of kids’ favorite characters, so your kids likely will drag you into them. You can give them a dollar amount they’re allowed to spend, but they will take forever deciding what to buy, since they will want something that does not deliver too much change back to their parents. I recommend giving them a five- or ten-minute time limit, depending on the store size. If you see a gift shop with a line, you should just avoid it altogether.

 

Doug and Charlie loved The Great Nor’easter thrill ride at Morey’s Piers.

At Morey’s Piers in Wildwood, NJ, at the age of 13.

 

To avoid gift shops completely, make that a condition of going to the amusement park in the first place.

If you want to spend absolutely no time in gift shops, which is in no way a bad idea, tell your kids this at the same time that you announce that you’re going to the amusement park, to save them complaining when you get there.

Disney Wonder cruise ship

Why My Most Relaxing Vacation Was a Disney Cruise

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I needed a vacation. A real one where I didn’t spend the entire trip checking email or racing around with a giant sightseeing to-do list.  I needed to relax. Clear my mind. Soothe my soul. Do nothing but stare at the sea and read novels for a week.

Disney Wonder

A docked Disney Wonder

When your occupation is travel journalist, there’s really no such thing as vacation unless you stay home. So the fact that I managed to achieve my goal of relaxation surprises everyone who knows me. Even more surprising is where I achieved it: on a Disney cruise. Yes, I admit it: I chose a 2,700-passenger floating Romper Room plying a pedestrian itinerary from Los Angeles to Mexico as the setting for the restoration of my soul. And I chose it precisely because I had zero interest in any of the ports or anything Disney. This ensured nothing would tempt me from my cabin balcony. Nothing. I could hide from the world for a week with an endless expanse of ocean and sky and a stack of books by my side.

Disney Wonder cruise ship cabin

Our cabin for four

Relaxing Disney Cruise 4

The view from my balcony

Key to the attainment of my goal was the fact that my travel companions were obsessed with everything Disney. This guaranteed me plenty of alone time on my balcony with no pangs of parental remorse: My kids (then seven and nine) would be kept occupied by the supervised children’s programs all day long. Disney counselors would even feed them lunch and dinner in the kids’ club. I wouldn’t even have to leave my balcony for my own meals; I could order room service. The only thing that might pry me from my veranda? The opportunity for moonlit deck strolls with my husband. We could have seven “date nights” if we wanted—one for every night of the cruise. All for $3,335 for my family of four (including the aforementioned room service and supervised kids’ club).

For the first few days of the cruise, all went according to plan. I sank into my deck chair, allowing the vast emptiness of the landscape to seep into the thicket of my mind and start clearing a path toward that hard-to-reach place called Relaxation. It helps that the ocean as viewed from a moving ship tends to mesmerize. The sea stretching to the horizon line is always the same yet always changing: You never know where the next white cap, leaping dolphin, or passing ship is going to pop up. The continual forward movement through the water aids the flow and fruitfulness of my internal reflections. Whatever work-related anxieties I’ve brought with me on vacation, the sheer overpowering force of the ocean makes them seem small by comparison. Yes, the ocean tends to push my worries away. Okay, the ocean and the kids’ club.

Disney Wonder

Kids collect characters’ signatures

I managed to read four books on my balcony and achieve more serenity than I had in years. But then on Day 5 something happened that I hadn’t planned on: My kids, jazzed from all the excitement whipped up by the giant floating Disney infomercial outside our cabin door, wanted to share their favorite finds with me. How could I say no? And that’s how I was suddenly yanked off my balcony and sucked into the shipboard vortex of at least one hundred daily activities—from Ratatouille Cooking School to Glitter Mania to Marshmallow Olympics—that, to my mind, negated the entire purpose of being on the ocean but, for my kids, constituted Nirvana. I was dragged to a “character breakfast” where we posed for photos with Mickey, Minnie, et al. I was pulled into Goofy’s Pool for outdoor movies like Swiss Family Robinson shown on a jumbotron the size of our house. Pretty soon I found myself succumbing to the Disney spell in spite of myself. Once I’d seen one of the technologically astonishing stage shows—namely, “The Golden Mickeys,” perhaps best described as an Oscars ceremony for six-year-olds—it became impossible to skip the rest. By the end of the cruise, I was cheering on my older son in the “Who Wants To Be A Mouseketeer?” game show and scouring the ship on a mission to snag Daisy Duck’s autograph for my youngest.

Disney Wonder cruise ship shuffleboard

Kids get to play shuffleboard.

Disney Wonder cruise ship kids activities

Kids get to be in performances.

Disney Wonder

Kids get to be in game shows.

Disney Wonder cruise ship party

The “Pirates in the Caribbean Night” was a deafening pool-deck dance party.

Disney Wonder cruise ship party

Pandemonium in the atrium

Disney Wonder cruise ship party

It was like New Year’s Eve in Times Square—for six-year-olds.

The insanity culminated in “Pirates in the Caribbean Night,” a deafening pool-deck dance party—this time it was New Year’s Eve in Times Square for six-year-olds—where the emcee whipped the crowd into a frenzy with shouts of “Make some noise!” and “Let’s go crazy!” The multitude attempted to boogie with giant chipmunks Chip and Dale while Mickey zip-lined from one smokestack to another to rescue the ship from the clutches of Captain Hook. A colossal fireworks display (leave it to Disney to land permission to launch fireworks from a ship) was then followed by a buffet featuring 27 different types of dessert. At 10:30 pm. For a thousand kids under age 12. Insanity.

Any time I needed to escape the vortex, though, all I had to do was return to my cabin balcony for instant serenity and solitude. In the end, my vacation was more high-energy than I had planned but, given my need to balance the conflicting desires of a family of four, it was about as therapeutic as I could have hoped for. I might just do it again.

 

Seeking the right family cruise?

Other cruise ships that I have road-tested with my family include:

Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Dream

Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Star

Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas

Be a smarter traveler: Use Wendy’s WOW List to plan your next trip. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter @wendyperrin, and sign up for her weekly newsletter to stay in the know.