Posts from — April 2008

Stay in Disney’s Polynesian Resort if you can afford it, or at Disney’s Pop Century Resort if you are on a tight budget.

(Note: only 5 people can stay in one room at the Polynesian, and only 4 at Pop Century. If your family is too large for a single room, see Special Circumstances.)

STAY AT A WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

You should stay at an official Walt Disney World Resort, as doing gives you special privileges that your itinerary takes advantage of.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

WALT DISNEY WORLD CROWD CALENDAR

The thumbnail (click on it to open it) presents predictions for crowds at Walt Disney World over the year.

(Last updated July 2010.)

The thumbnail shows colored bars by Saturday arrival date.

The higher the bar, the more crowded the parks at Walt Disney World will be that week.

[Read more →]

This chart (click thumbnail to open; when open, click one or two times again to enlarge) groups all rides at Walt Disney World based on two points of view:

• Vertically from the eyes of pre-school kids: best loved, to be avoided, or neither;
• Horizontally from the eyes of kids in the third grade or older, and their parents: skippable, favorites, or neither.

Groupings are based on ratings by age from a number of sources, on height restrictions, and on “scariness.”

To read the rest of this article, click here.

OVERVIEW

Every ride at Walt Disney World is worth trying.

But not at the cost of your sanity.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

OVERVIEW

This site recommends waiting to go until your kids are at least 48 inches tall and in the third grade or older. If you do, all of the best of Disney World is open to them.

Of course, as noted several times before, kids of all ages can have a great time at Disney World. So you may be ignoring this instruction…

The problem with younger kids is that

• Younger kids enjoy attractions that older ones and their parents would view as skippable
• Older kids and their parents enjoy things that younger kids can’t or shouldn’t ride
• Moreover, little kids also slow everyone else down, as they can’t keep up at the same pace as the rest of the family

The result is that it is very hard to keep everyone happy on a single Disney World trip, and the family overall does not have the best possible trip.

To read the rest of this article, click here.