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Chapter 3 of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit covers “How Long to Stay.”

(I’ve previously published an introduction to the easy Guide, and discussed Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.)

It provides advice for fun trips of almost any length–while noting that if it’s an only visit, eight or nine days in Orlando remains the minimum time needed to see all the best of the Disney World theme parks while also providing for some needed down time.

The chapter overlaps a bit with the one that precedes it, “Why Age and Height Matter,” as shorter trips–while of course possible for everyone–make much more sense the younger the kids are.

There’s so many different things that surprise first timers about Disney World that it’s hard to say what’s the biggest.

The importance of dining, and the need to book it way in advance, is near the top of surprises, but a close second is just how much time it takes to see the best of everything, and a near third is how much those park visits will wear you and yours out.  Six days in the parks is right to see just about everything, and you also need a couple of days off, and some time for traveling to and from Orlando.

Of course you can divide this over multiple trips, and if you do so, you’ll get to see your kids experiencing Disney World in different ways as they grow up:

• Thinking that Mickey is real (and I’m not saying he isn’t…) and being afraid of the Great Movie Ride
• Wanting to re-ride Expedition Everest again and again and seeing the character playing Mickey (but I’m not saying he isn’t real) as simply as a co-creator, along with your kid, of the overall playful and joyful ambience of the setting

But multiple trips also cost more.  You have to pay for transport multiple times, and that, combined with the way Disney prices tickets–with ticket days after the fourth almost free, but the first three days costing the moon–means that two shorter trips can cost almost twice what one longer trip will set you back.

Chapter 3 covers all this, and more–and you can buy it, and all the rest of our book too, on Amazon by clicking the link: The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit.

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Chapter 2 of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit covers “Why Age and Height Matter.” (For the introduction to the easy Guide, see this, and Chapter 1, see this.)

It provides advice for fun trips for kids of any age–while noting that if it’s an only visit, waiting til the kids are old and tall enough to enjoy all the best of Disney World makes sense.

That makes it much different than this site, which really focuses only on kids old enough to enjoy everything.

Although it’s a short chapter, this was one of the ones we struggled the most with. My mindset, out of habit, is always to write for “first timers who may never return,” and Josh’s mindset, out of habit, is always to write for everyone–those on their first and those on their one-hundredth visit.

One day when I was on maybe the 5th re-draft he said something like “you keep focusing on the problems with taking younger kids.  Why don’t you lead with solutions to those problems instead”?

Oh…good point, and good advice.  So that’s what we did in Chapter 2!

In it you’ll find how to have a fun trip with kids of any age! 

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I’d noted in yesterday’s post why the new Disney World guidebook I co-authored with Josh, The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, is different from this site:

• It’s meant for all first-timers, not just those with kids 8ish or so who may never return
• While inspired by this site, it represents the best of our joint thinking, so is different than either of our sites

You can see this immediately in Chapter 1.

Chapter 1 plays two roles in the book: it introduces all the other chapters that follow it, and it summarizes our key recommendations in one place–kinda like the home page of this site. That lets those who wish to plan their Disney World vacation very quickly!

But, because the book as noted is meant for a wider audience and comes from both of us, the recommendations are different.

See the excerpt:

What’s on the right is from the first chapter, page 3.

Note the recommended dates. On this site I shy away from recommending to first timers who may never return later January and early February because of ride closures, and September because it’s in the peak of the hurricane season.

But if you can return, those are great dates to visit, combining low crowds and low prices!

So that’s what you’ll find in the first chapter–a combined introduction to the rest of the book and the summary of our recommendations!

Thousands have already bought the book–it’s been one of the top three best selling theme park guidebooks on Amazon pretty much since we released it.  Shouldn’t you, too? Click the link:  The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit!!

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I woke up this morning to discover that the guidebook to Walt Disney World that I co-authored with Josh of easyWDW that was released earlier this week, The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, is now #1 in Amazon’s “Theme Park Travel Guides” category!

See the image:

The book is a short and sweet guide for first-timers to Disney World, but is also handy for returning visitors.  It covers the basics, and nothing more, and packs what we’ve learned serving millions of people into 290 pages of advice, instructions, and reviews.

I’m gonna put up some lousy screenshots of the table of contents, and then comment some more about what you’ll find!

If you look at the chapter titles, you’ll see the book follows the same concept as this site: to pose, and then help answer, the key questions of a Disney World vacation.

The first chapter (and the beginnings of each chapter that follow it) also includes as this site does precise suggestions to speed up planning for those who don’t want to read a lot!

But the book is also wildly different than this site.

First, much of the basic material of this site is for first timers who may never return whose kids are 8ish or older.

The book, however, is designed for a broader audience of first-timers: first timers who may or may not return, first timers with kids of any ages, and first timers without kids at all!!

Mainly because of that, you’ll find in the book many more reviews–not just the hotel reviews this site is famous for, but also comprehensive ride reviews and table service reviews.

And that, in turn, makes it even more helpful for returning visitors, who might want to know if their kids are finally mature enough for a scary ride, or who want to try out some other restaurants!

Second, this book is a true collaboration.  While those who know our sites will find some familiar material, we basically wrote the book from scratch, and hotly debated a number of key points.

As a result, it’s different than either of our sites, and it’s different than any book either of us would have written alone. The book distills the best of our joint thinking and of our mutual years of experience and writing into a new thing, and, I think, a really great guidebook for both first-timers and returning visitors!

Buy it and see if you agree!  Just click the link: The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit!!

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The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit is now available again on Amazon!

As noted here, Disney World changed a couple of key things the day after we published. Our publisher Theme Park Press let us take the book off Amazon, revise it, and add it back.  It takes a bit for that to work its way through Amazon, so we were unavailable for about 18 hours.

But not any more!  Got yours yet?  Click here to buy!

The Kindle and other editions should be out soon!

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UPDATE:  The revised book is now available on Amazon!!

The day after we released our book, Disney changed FastPass+ tiering at Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Our publisher, Theme Park Press, was kind enough to let us change the book to reflect the new tiering. We did that last night, and pulled, updated, and re-submitted the book with the revisions.

So, this second, it’s unavailable on Amazon. As Jane Austen would say, our new files are propagating through Amazon’s distribution queue. This can take anywhere from 12 hours to 4 days–most likely on the shorter end of the time frame–so it will be available again soon!

Those who ordered before the changes will get a collector’s edition–the very rare first printing of the first-ever easy Guide. Those who order after–and those who get the Kindle version, when it’s released–will get the version with the new FastPass+ at Epcot and HS.

Things change all the time at Disney World, so we expected changes, and will be posting them here on this site and here on co-author Josh’s site. The FastPass+ related changes will get posted on those links soon, so that those with the soon-to-be rare book will be able to get the same info as those who get the new printing!!