Ok,
I am back at our room at the CBR and finally got the Internet working. We are having a great time here, thought I'd share some tips I have learned since we got here.
1) Guest of Honer Badges are great - My 2 year old DD is getting tons of extra attention everywhere we go. From dinners at the restaraunts to character signing, people call her by first name and make us feel special. I checked around. Only two places here sell them; a store at MGM and the Christmas Store at the Market Place at Downtown Disney. They cost $5/each well worth the money. Custom name engraving is free! and takes about 5 minutes. I highly recommend these. I only knew about them because of this thread. Thanx!
2) I highly recommend renting a car, especially with young kids. If you look around, you can find very cheap car rates and all sorts of offer for free upgrades. I checked all of the Internet sites and got a major rental company rate of under $29/day and found several offers for free car upgrade or free days (ended up using BJ Wholesale free car upgrade, had our choice of vehicles).
My wife and I have been here several times and always used Disney Transportation. It has been much easier with our 2 yr old to have the car. You just go anywhere on property including the parks and parking is free. And the trams are always were they are currently parking cars so we never waited. We now watch as we drive by, people waiting for the correct bus and having to go to other stops, etc. If we were going to Pleasure Island at night we would want to use Disney transportation though
3) Our 2003 guide books said that there were no longer any early entrys into the parks, but we called to get priority seating and my wife asked the operator. They said that Sunday's and Thursday, Disney resort guest can get in an hour early. Something new called Discover Disney. It wasn't posted in any of the material we got or on the TV schedule.
It was funny getting to the TTC and having them stop all the people there except a select few who had resort passes. All of the people who didn't have resort passes were told to step aside. And they were all asking why we got to go in.
4) Rental Cars are great for these early days. People got to the bus stations at 7:30am. We left at 7:45am. Driving by we saw 100s of people jockeying for position try to get on the Disney buses. There was no way they were getting to MK by 8am. We drove to MK, got waived thru to the parking lot and got to park in the front row of cars. In by 8 am and had 3 rides by the time the park opened by 9am.
5) Tip for leaving MK for a break and then coming back later in the day and trying to park. Instead of parking where they point you, drive up to the attentendent and say you came back after leaving about an hour ago and want to check if your space is still open. They said "Be our guest" we ended up driving through 2 filled parking lots and got a space in the very first row of cars of the front parking lot. So many people leave during the day, lots of spaces up front. Just ask.
6) Fast Pass, Fast Pass, Fast Pass. Used it for Buzz Lightyear, 100s of people in line. Walked right through. People in regular line kept asking how we got to go right by them when they were waiting for so long. They also take a lot of stress out of trying to plan what to do.
-jjct
, but I've saved the word document you made & I'll just keep adding to it. Hope you had a wonderful trip!
