You’ve finally made the decision to take a trip to Walt Disney World. You’ve followed our Disney Planning 101: How to Start Planning Your Trip guide. The Disney Resort is booked and your tickets are purchased, but now what do you do?
Don’t worry! We have your next steps for Disney Planning 101 focusing on what you do after you book your Walt Disney World vacation. From food to rides, we have what you need to do after you have booked your Walt Disney World trip.
My Disney Experience
After booking your Walt Disney World vacation, you will want to sign up for a My Disney Experience account. This account is going to be where all your vacation information is stored as well as where you will find a variety of important tools for your trip.
We have a whole post on My Disney Experience and what you need to know about it so check that out as well.
Once you create an account, you are going to start by making your friends and family list so everyone that is going with you has a profile.
From there, you can link your Walt Disney World reservation into the system. This will allow you to see that everyone in your party has tickets and is ready to go.
Park Passes
Once you have your My Disney Experience set up, you still have one major step to do and that is to make park pass reservations.
Since reopening, Disney is asking Guests to make a reservation for one of the four Theme Parks (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Animal Kingdom or Disney’s Hollywood Studios) for each ticket day.
This is allowing Disney to control capacity within the Theme Parks as well as staff them accordingly for predicted crowds.
This will be done within My Disney Experience and has its own option in the pull down sections. Just choose a date, your party and the Disney Park of your choice and you are ready to go.
Even though capacity is increasing, we still highly encourage Guests to make these reservations as soon as they can. You can always modify or change your mind later, but knowing you have something locked in is important.
Advance Dining Reservations
Following making your Park Passes, your next major decision will come around dining. Disney offers two major dining options throughout the Walt Disney World Resort: table-service or quick-service meals.
Table-service meals are those that you would need a dining reservation for and can make those 60 days prior to checking in. If you are wanting some of the top dining options such as O’hana, Chef Mickey’s, Steakhouse 71 or Cinderella’s Royal Table, you will want to mark your calendar and set your alarm because they go fast.
If you prefer to do more quick-service meals or on the go, you won’t need to make any plans ahead of time; however, we do suggest looking into mobile ordering. This is out you will be getting your quick service food and being familiar with it ahead of time will be a big help.
Book Extras
Also around the 60 day mark you can start booking “enchanted extras” for your vacation. If there are special experiences such as tours, firework dessert packages, celebrations or photo sessions that you want to add to your trip you can do that around 60 days prior to check in.
There are some amazing tours offered throughout the Walt Disney World Resort from behind the scenes options to animal focused options, there is something for everyone.
Disney is also offering Capture Your Moment sessions throughout all four Theme Parks now. This is a 30-minute photo shoot with a trained Disney photographer. These are amazing, special photos that are great for big and little celebrations you want to capture.
At both Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, Guests can currently enjoy special fireworks experiences. These are fun ways to end the evening at the Parks.
There are lots of unique and special ways to add some additional magic to your vacation so take time to check those out and see if any will work for you.
Transportation
A new decision that Walt Disney World Guests have to think about now is transportation. Disney used to provide transportation through Disney’s Magical Express, but as of January 1st that service was discontinued.
Guests will now have to book their own transportation to get to and from the airport and their Walt Disney World Resort hotel.
There are a few companies such as Mears Connect and Sunshine Flyer that have stepped in, but Guests can also look into private transportation as well.
Think about what service would work the best for your travel party and set that up early on.
Learn Disney
Our final step for planning 101 after booking a trip is to take time to learn about Disney. Walt Disney World is huge and with four Theme Parks, two water parks, Disney Springs and so many amazing Resorts there is a lot to think about.
Take some time to dig into the Walt Disney World universe. We have a post on key words and phrases to know HERE that is super helpful. We also have some planning advice you can ignore HERE.
We spend some time looking at specific rides we wouldn’t skip and some that we would HERE.
There is a lot that goes into a Walt Disney World vacation and taking some time to learn about the Parks, Resorts and Attractions can really help make your trip a lot smoother when you arrive.
We hope that this Disney Planning 101: You Booked a Trip… Now What was helpful as you prepare for a magical vacation to Walt Disney World.
Keep coming back for more helpful tips and tricks so you are a Walt Disney World pro.
