|
| |
Disney World - Part 3
Disney After 50
Written by: Janet Pope
Our reporter explores Disney World from the perspective of an older generation and finds it's not just for kids.
Epcot Center
Back Tour of the Land: For an extra $6, we took a behind the scenes look at the Epcot Greenhouse with a personal tour guide. If you have any interest in horticulture, this is a fascinating learning experience. We were able to ask questions to our very own knowledgeable guide.
Honey I Shrunk the Audience: This 3Dmovie is cute and well done but if you have an aversion to mice or snakes then you should pass. The concept though is cute.
Dinner at Restaurant Marrakesh : This restaurant featured great Moroccan food and a live belly dancer. After shopping, you can appease your husband with the show.
The World Showcase: Walking through and stopping to shop at all of the different countries is a browser's delight. It's also great to pick up a snack along the way, like a freshly made crepe in France.
Tips
Now that I've shared with you my Disney favorites, I'll let you in on my Disney tips.
The Fast Pass is great! My suggestion is to go immediately to the attraction you most want to see and if the line is too long, get a Fast Pass and come back. There are only two downsides to the pass. You need to coordinate your timing in a more structured way in order to return at the designated time and you can only get one Fast Pass at a time.
A backpack is a great help. We carried water bottles, which we kept refilling at water fountains, a few bags of energy treats like nuts, ponchos, and sweaters for chilly nights.
Parking can be overwhelming in both distance from the gate and cost ($6 per day). We discovered that parking at the Disney Boardwalk puts you in walking distance of EPCOT's French pavilion. In addition, after a breakfast at the Polynesian Hotel we hopped the monorail and arrived easily at the Magic Kingdom.
A car rental is great to have for convenience, but when we tried to rent our car, we had to endure many attempts to talk us into more costly upgrades. We turned down extra insurance, vehicle upgrade and a second driver add-on. All these items could double the price of the original quote. Stick to your guns!
Exploring definitely has its advantages. If you have a rental car, I suggest taking a little side trip to scout out your area. We looked up the nearest Wal-Mart in the yellow pages and checked it out. There I found Disney souvenirs at bargain prices. I picked up a denim Pooh shirt for almost 1/3 the park price! In addition, character printed kitchen towels were almost ½ the park price. While scouting around, we ended up having another fantastic meal at a seafood restaurant called Landry's. Here the food was not only delicious but not that expensive. The clam chowder was the best I've ever had. It was absolutely filled with clams and could have been its own meal.
Fantasmic would have been well worth the hour-long wait, but we did not have to endure it. We read some fine print somewhere that said if we ate at an MGM restaurant for dinner, we would receive a special pass that would allow us to bypass the line and be admitted to reserved seating. We ate at Hollywood and Vine, a buffet, and the price of dinner was worth the Fantasmic Pass alone.
Don't let rain stop you! My advice would be to go to a park that is mostly indoors. On our last day in Florida it absolutely poured. Not wanting to spoil our plans to finish seeing EPCOT, we decided to weather the storm. We thought EPCOT would be empty, but walking everywhere were people in yellow Disney ponchos. The nice part about EPCOT is that once you got there and made it to a building like the "Living Seas" or "Innovations" you could be dry and entertained for literally hours. And best of all - short to no lines!
Go to one of the parks in the evening. One night we went to the Magic Kingdom after dinner so we arrived at about 8 p.m. The park was open until 10 p.m. In less than 2 hours, we saw a parade and went through six rides. As all of the families with young children were leaving, we literally had zero waiting time on some of the most popular attractions.
I hope that some of my tips work well for you, whether you are 50 or 20 with children or without. No matter your age or your family size, Disney will entice and excite you. You'll have a wonderful time.
Read part 1 | Read part 2
|
|
|
|
|
|
