By the co-author of The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit 2020, the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook series ever.

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The Most Comfortable Way to Tour the Theme Parks at Walt Disney World: 1. Minimizing Planning Time



By Dave Shute

This is part of The Comfortable Guide to Walt Disney World

OVERVIEW: THE MOST COMFORTABLE WAY TO TOUR THE THEME PARKS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

This site provides precise instructions elsewhere , including how to tour the parks at Walt Disney World. These instructions are designed for typical first time family visitors who are not sure whether or not they will ever return.

This page is one of several onhow to tour the theme parks at Walt Disney World for a subset of first time visitors: those seeking the most comfortable visit.

It is part of a series about the most comfortable way to visit Walt Disney World.  Its companion series is about the most inexpensive way to visit Walt Disney World,

I am publishing both series at the same time so that they also help those who are looking for bargains and deals on some things, so that they can spend more on others!!  Links to everything in these two series are at the bottom of the page.

MORE ON THE MOST COMFORTABLE WAY TO TOUR THE THEME PARKS AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

The most comfortable way to tour the theme parks would resolve four goals: it would

The material on the rest of this page focuses on minimizing the time you have to spend planning.

MINIMIZING THE TIME YOU HAVE TO SPEND PLANNING YOUR WALT DISNEY WORLD TRIP

Can you just get a hotel reservation and show up at Walt Disney World? Of course you can, and plenty of people do.

  • Some first time visitors are just opposed by temperament or policy to planning a vacation. Part of the value to them of a vacation is unmediated discovery; others in this group take vacations to get away from planning!
  • Some believe they don’t have the time to plan, and—since they have the resources to come back another time—aren’t so worried about doing the planning needed to assure having the best possible trip on their first visit.
  • A third group—by far the largest—is not aware of the value of planning, nor of the negatives of not planning. A first family visit to Walt Disney World is more like a backpacking trip than it is like a week at the beach. The payoff—to push the analogy a little too far–of having at least a general sense of your trails, vistas and landmarks, water sources, potential campsites, menus, and weather, is a much better trip, with a much lighter load.

So I am not gonna back off on planning your trip. What you can do, however, if you have the resources, is to minimize the time you spend planning by paying somebody else to plan for you.

All kinds of people are available to help–typically for a fee, or a fee and a commission. (By the way, you can’t afford me.)

These range from travel agents who specialize in Walt Disney World to purely fee-based advisors. These people can generally not only plan for you, but also take care of many of the details —e.g. make your flight, hotel, and dining reservations.

(If you use Destinations Florida as your travel agent through a link for this site–like this one–then they share a bit of the pixie dust they get from Disney with me.)

You—and your family—likely will still need to spend a little time talking about when you want to go, where you want to stay, and for how long you want to visit, how you want to balance your time between the parks and off time, and how many early mornings you are willing to put up with.

The pages on this site can be a great help to these family discussions. Your planner will also have their own thoughts to share with you.

As in most things, the best source for you of such planners is the past experience of people you trust. Ask around.

If that doesn’t yield much, then you have a couple of options.

  • Check out the travel agent partner of this site, Destinations in Florida
  • Many of the encyclopedic Walt Disney World sites are sponsored by travel agents or travel planners. These sponsors have a reputation to protect, and thus make a good place to start. They may not be able to provide the extensive fee-based service you are seeking—but if not, will be able to refer you to someone who can.
  • Places to look for such include MousePlanet.com, AllEarsnet.com, and DISboards.com.
  • In addition, TourGuideMike.com has a VIP planning service, Michael’s VIPs, which you can access here. (You can’t afford me.)
  • John Schunk’s Leave it to Genie presents a less expensive option

So planning really helps…but the planner does not have to be you!

PUBLISHED SO FAR IN THE COMFORTABLE GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

PUBLISHED SO FAR IN THE TIGHTWAD’S GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

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My response to questions and comments will be on the same page as the original comment, likely within 24-36 hours . . . I reserve the right to edit and delete comments as I choose . . . All rights reserved. Copyright 2008-2024 . . . Unless otherwise noted, all photos are by me--even the ones in focus--except for half a dozen from my niecelets . . . This site is entirely unofficial and not authorized by any organizations written about in it . . . All references to Disney and other copyrighted characters, trademarks, marks, etc., are made solely for editorial purposes. The author makes no commercial claim to their use . . . Nobody's perfect, so follow any advice here at your own risk.