Help! How do we start planning?

[steandtrish]

It’s looking like we are going back to Disneyworld in 2022 after a few years away. Here are the plans so far
1. 6 or 7 of us
2. Almost certainly a villa
3. Mostly DisneyWorld but some of the group want to go to Universal as well

Last time we went it was on site with Fastpass. I know loads has changed. Where do we start?

Thanks!

[kk20]

flights. car hire. after shock of price find villa

[Claudette]

That is a very open question and I am not really sure what you would like to be covered. Whilst I do (or used to do) quite a bit of detailed planning (restaurants and fast passes) for WDW, the essential planning is really very straightforward. For me involves two things, booking flights and booking a resort. You will presumably have a third essential, booking a car.

In due course you will need to make park reservations for WDW, but they have only been unavailable on a couple of days since they were introduced so no rush over that.

[mouskevik]

Are you one family or mixed family groups/friends?

It may be that you've been away before and got on fine, but I find sharing a villa with other people for 2 weeks leads to tension 😬.

Might be worth having own cars and plans each day so you get breaks from each other?

Or apartments in an aparthotel?

But as others have said, flights, accommodation, car(s), park tickets. Do you want any time in a Universal luxury hotel for the Express passes?

I haven't investigated the Disney changes yet. We have decided to be relaxed about Disney rides and only pay for the Star Wars ride (if need be) as we all really want to do it!

What time of year are you planning? In case you need to factor in cost and weather?

[steandtrish]

Thanks. We have been before in the days of Fast Pass and have stayed in villa's and on site. We are 1 family so we are looking at one big mini van.

I think what I'm most unsure about is all the Genie, Genie+ and Lightning Lane stuff.

If we are going in August 2022 and staying off site when do we start booking rides and restaurants?

[VS075]

Originally Posted by steandtrish

Thanks. We have been before in the days of Fast Pass and have stayed in villa's and on site. We are 1 family so we are looking at one big mini van.

I think what I'm most unsure about is all the Genie, Genie+ and Lightning Lane stuff.

If we are going in August 2022 and staying off site when do we start booking rides and restaurants?

See more...

I’d say you’re best YouTube each thing and you’ll quickly get up to speed with the changes.

Lightning Lane - The ‘top’ 2 attractions in each park - you may a set fee - usually $9-15pp to ride ones. You enter via the old FP queue. You don’t walk on the ride, there is still a queue, but smaller wait than the normal line.

Genie+ - Like fastpass, however it’s now $15pp per day and you can access all the old fast pass queues apart from the the 2 rides in each park that are for the lightning lane.

Genie - Free and supposed to tell you what rides have the best queues and therefore help you plan your day, but from what I can see, it doesn’t work very well.

Rides are now done on the day - no 30 or 60 days before. I can’t comment on restaurants as we don’t eat at Disney (other than quick service in the parks) and nowhere else in Orlando requires reservations in advance. Another reason why we’re annual pass holders at Universal!

Having been to a villa with a lot of people before, we were so glad we had our own car and it was so frustrating waiting for them when we agreed to leave the villa at a certain time each day and nobody was ever ready.

[loldis]

Disney restaurants are now only 60 days in advance. And as said above, Genie+ (FP replacement) are booked on the day. And with the change in EMH (now half an hour early entry, but in every park every day) changing the established crowd patterns, planning the best day for each park is somewhat redundant.

So there's no longer that much need to plan too far in advance. I go in four weeks and don't have a confirmed schedule because they still haven't announced some aspects of the holiday events yet.

Focus on flights, car and villa for now.

[steandtrish]

Thanks that very useful!

[moosha]

Just to add to what others have said, you currently have to book park passes at Disney for admission into whichever park you wish to go to.

They are available months in advance but don’t really sell out as Claudette said. However, you can’t book your park until you have a valid Disney ticket linked to your MDE account.

Park passes were introduced when the parks reopened after covid closure and capacity was reduced so they may or may not still be a thing by next summer.

For us travelling at a busy time (Christmas) when Magic Kingdom sold out for Christmas Day a few weeks ago, I made sure I had my park pass reservations by 60 days so I knew we we could get into the necessary park for any ADRs. But that’s unlikely to be a problem by next summer.

[PopAlways]

Definitely try for a villa where you can pick the area. You don’t want to start and end every day with a long drive imo.
Get a villa with plenty of space. It’s usually just the two of us staying on Lindfields but for our big family trip (me, DH, my Dad, my brother, SIL and their two girls) we had a fantastic 6 bed on Emerald Island.
Consider more than one vehicle or using Lyft/Uber if some of your group want to do different things. We flew in a day before my brother and picked up a Town and Country minivan, big enough to carry us all to the parks He was supposed to be getting a car but was upgraded and ended up with a Town and Country. So mostly when we went local like Disney parks we travelled together, when we went to Legoland we took both.