I just realized in talking about planning your Disney Trip, I never covered investigating and picking out your Hotel. Disney has made this experience so easy and, in my opinion, fun. When thinking about a trip I've found everyone in my family checking out the Disney Go Website. At this site you can enter the dates of your trip, compare resorts, check out descriptions and pictures of resorts. Add theme Park Tickets, meal plans and other upgrades. to see what the total price of your trip would be. Then you can make your reservations directly from the website. Call a travel agent with the details you've picked out or call Disney.
Let's run through how it works.
The First thing you will do on the opening page, (above) is choose the dates, number in your party and type of resort you might be look at. Deluxe Resorts are the most expensive, Biggest Rooms, Biggest Beds and Close to the parks. They will have transportation that stops closest to the entrance and the best restaurants. Moderate Resorts are Nice but usually very expansive with a lot of rooms and many buildings. Room size is about that of a regular hotel room with Queen Beds. They normally have nice restaurants, plenty of amenities and nice pools. The Size of the resort usually means multiple bus stops for Disney Transportation but some will have other transportation options, boats and soon skyliner available. Value Resorts are the cheapest, rooms are smallest and most have Full size beds rather than Queens. (the Pop Century was just remodeled. Rooms have a queen size bed and a queen size murphy bed that can be pulled down from the wall). The bus stops for these resorts will be farthest from the resort entrance and several of these resorts share busses (Again the Pop Century is different, it is so big that it doesn't share it's bus with any other resort) Pools here are nice and large but no water slides or other theming you might find in other resorts. The Value resorts are some of the most "Disney" themed resorts.
Once you've put in all your information and clicked Find Resorts another screen will open with all the resort choices for you.
The First thing you will do on the opening page, (above) is choose the dates, number in your party and type of resort you might be look at. Deluxe Resorts are the most expensive, Biggest Rooms, Biggest Beds and Close to the parks. They will have transportation that stops closest to the entrance and the best restaurants. Moderate Resorts are Nice but usually very expansive with a lot of rooms and many buildings. Room size is about that of a regular hotel room with Queen Beds. They normally have nice restaurants, plenty of amenities and nice pools. The Size of the resort usually means multiple bus stops for Disney Transportation but some will have other transportation options, boats and soon skyliner available. Value Resorts are the cheapest, rooms are smallest and most have Full size beds rather than Queens. (the Pop Century was just remodeled. Rooms have a queen size bed and a queen size murphy bed that can be pulled down from the wall). The bus stops for these resorts will be farthest from the resort entrance and several of these resorts share busses (Again the Pop Century is different, it is so big that it doesn't share it's bus with any other resort) Pools here are nice and large but no water slides or other theming you might find in other resorts. The Value resorts are some of the most "Disney" themed resorts.
Once you've put in all your information and clicked Find Resorts another screen will open with all the resort choices for you.
Notice that near the top of this screen you can filter your results. Any of these filters you change will change the results you've received so if you'd rather check out different resorts before moving forward just change the resort category. Initially you will see results listing the per night cost of the resort. We'll change that on the next screen. When you see a resort you think might work for you click the forward arrow for that resort.
Once you move forward here the only rooms that will show up on your offers are those that are available during your dates. Here I always switch to package view. With the package view you will see the full price for your stay. At this point it is the price for the room for the dates you have chosen. For the trip we are working through it is a 6 night (Saturday to Saturday) Stay. On this screen you can look at a picture gallery of the resort you have selected and look at more resort and room details. You can also select to change, if you don't like the room choices or what you are seeing and it will take you back to a place where you can resubmit your resort choices. Notice the bottom of the screen has some other suggestions based on what you are currently looking at. If you like one of these rooms click on select.
Once you move forward here the only rooms that will show up on your offers are those that are available during your dates. Here I always switch to package view. With the package view you will see the full price for your stay. At this point it is the price for the room for the dates you have chosen. For the trip we are working through it is a 6 night (Saturday to Saturday) Stay. On this screen you can look at a picture gallery of the resort you have selected and look at more resort and room details. You can also select to change, if you don't like the room choices or what you are seeing and it will take you back to a place where you can resubmit your resort choices. Notice the bottom of the screen has some other suggestions based on what you are currently looking at. If you like one of these rooms click on select.
Once you select your room you are taken to a screen to add your park tickets. Disney will always default to a ticket package that equals the number of days of your stay. For example, with this package the website defaulted to a 7 day base park ticket, 1 park per day. I never stick with that choice and here is why. We know that we will not arrive at Disney until late after noon or early evening on that first day. Why waste a park ticket on a half or a quarter of a day. We can get dinner, explore the resort, do Disney Springs when we arrive. We'll try to rest up for the rest of the week. Also Check out time is 11am so we know that we won't be in the parks on our final day there. Our 7 day default pass becomes a 5 day pass in order to not waste park admission on days we won't go. There are two things you can add at the bottom of the page.
The Park Hopper option allows you to visit multiple parks per day. I highly suggest this option. being able to bounce back and forth between parks makes things so much better than being stuck in one park each day.
The Park Hopper plus option allows you to jump back and forth between parks and do the water parks. I've never been to a Disney Water Park. I figure that there are Water Parks I can go to at home I want to enjoy everything else Disney has to offer. If you or the family loves water parks though, this may be a great option. Your subtotal in the Top Right Corner of the page will change with any choices you make. When you finish picking your Park tickets, Click Continue.
Food decision time now. Do you want to add a Dining plan? The Disney Dining Plan is Disney's way of trying to make your resort stay more all inclusive. A lot of people will ask, Is it worth it? I don't believe it really saves you any money but it may save you some stress and hassle. Instead of pulling out a credit card or cash for each meal your swipe your Disney Magic Band. I did a post here on the Dining plan, what it includes and what to expect. My family has done the Quick service plan because it is the least expensive and I didn't want to be tied to finding a table service reservation at least once a day. Once you choose what you want to do with the Dining plan click continue again.
And there it is: For 2 adults at a value resort, Saturday to Saturday mid June. 5 Day park hopper passes and a quick service dining plan you have a price. There are some things you could add here. The Memory Maker allows you to purchase, in advance, all ride pictures and any pictures you have taken by Disney Photographers in the park. We'll talk about that in a later post. You could let Disney help you find a flight and add the complimentary ground transportation from the airport. You could also go back and start over with different dates and/or resorts to see how the pricing changes. Disney also offers a "comparison" tool here. The comparison tool will save up to 3 vacation offers and list them side by side so you can compare.
Kristy and I have never actually purchased the trip here but you could click check out and reserve with Disney. You could save your details and call Disney. We have a friend who is a travel agent and have done all of our research with Disney's tools then called April and asked her to make the reservations for us.
Hope that helps and if you have any questions please feel free to comment.
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