Help! Haven't been to WDW since 2012. I feel like a complete newbie!!!

Hi folks!

The last time I went to WDW was in 2012 for Intercot's 15 year anniversay! My son and my husband were tired of vacationing there so I stopped following information about Disney World.

Here it is over 7 years later and I have lost all of my knowledge and skills! But my husband and I are booked to go at the end of January 2020, so I need to get up to speed!

Imagine that you were transported from 2012 WDW to 2020 WDW! What is super different? What do I need to do before the trip begins? I have heard that I'm supposed to make a profile on a specific Disney site in order to make dining reservations and get fast passes ahead of time. How do I do that?

I'm excited about our upcoming trip, but I'm feeling very overwhelmed too. Please help me by filling me in on what I should know.

Here's a snapshot of our plans. We arrive on Jan. 25 and are staying at the Contemporary Atrium, Magic Kingdom view until Jan. 29th, at which time we are switching to Universal Studios, Portofino Bay. We fly back home to Denver on February 1st.

Inform me, PLEASE!! :blush:

Amy

P.S. We are traveling with (but not staying with at WDW) my husband's 38 year old son, his wife, and their three kiddos aged 10, 8, and almost 5.

Welcome back to the world!!! Yes there have been so many changes to the parks with the new fast pass system and My Disney Experience. My biggest suggestion to people vacationing after several years break is to buy Steven Burnbaum's guide to WDW. It has tons of information and helpful hints to help you plan your vacation. Have fun!!!

You’ll want to download My Disney Expeeience and set up an account. Link you room reservation and tickets. staying on-site you can make three fast pass reservations per day (they all need to be at the same park for the first three( sixty days out. The most popular ones will book up quickly.

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Originally Posted by NewDVCowner

You’ll want to download My Disney Expeeience and set up an account. Link you room reservation and tickets. staying on-site you can make three fast pass reservations per day (they all need to be at the same park for the first three( sixty days out. The most popular ones will book up quickly.

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Agreed. Sadly, you are already well into your 60-day fast pass window. As long as you have the MDE account, park passes linked in the account, and your CR reservation linked in the account, you can make fast passes now. The sooner, the better, if you wish to do some of the more popular attractions. If the rest of your family is staying at a non-WDW resort, they can only make fast passes 30 days in advance.

You are also well within the 180-day window to make dining reservations at Disney restaurants, if you wish to do that.

It will be a little intimidating at first, but you'll get back in the flow. Always remember to enjoy the time, relax, and have fun. A couple days at Universal will also be a lot of fun. Have a great trip.

When you set up your MyDisneyExperience app, you can invite the other family members you are traveling with to link with you. Keep in mind that you can only make fastpasses via the app if you already have park tickets and you link the ticket within your app. You will also want to link your room reservation in your app as well. With the app, you will be able to do your hotel check-in before your arrive - you won't even need to stop at the front desk as you will get an email or text with your room assignment as soon as your room is ready.

Did you order Magic Bands for your stay? If you don't have Magic Bands, you can use your plastic ticket but bands are easiest and are used to gain entry to the parks, open the door to your room, charge meals and merchandise to your room, and enter the fast pass lines.

There are no longer any paper fastpasses. You need to make fastpass reservations as soon as possible. The parks have different rules about which rides you can get fastpasses for as rides are now tiered. The more popular rides are typically in tier one and you can only select one of those rides for a fastpass on a given day. Your other rides/shows will come from the tier two selections. You can continue to try to tweak and/or modify your fastpasses from the time you originally make them until you actually use them. Once you use your allotted three fastpasses on a given day, you can make additional fastpass reservations - one at a time until used. In practice, I typically do not stay in a park from open to close so, most of the time, I do not find any additional attractions available to make a 4th fastpass from as the ones I want are typically already used up for the day or not available until very late in the day.

There is currently construction going on at every park at Disney. Much of the current construction affects where the buses drop you off, how far you need to walk to the park entrance, and where the bag checks and metal detectors are located.

Good luck and please let us know if you have any specific questions folks here can help you with!!

Thank you, Linda!!! That synopsis helps enormously!

And thanks to everyone who answered me. It's crazy how intimidating it feels to use these new (to me) systems. I booked through Magical Journeys, of course! So my bands are ordered and on the way.

I'm sure I'll have other questions as the time draws near. My enforced hiatus is finally at an end!

Amy

Thank you for asking this question. I’m in a somewhat similar situation. My husband is pooped out on Disney. We were last there exactly 4 years ago this week. I haven’t followed Intercot since then. I just got back on today and saw your post. Intercot members are so helpful.

I haven’t followed anything on Hollywood Studios on Intercot since the expansion. An opportunity for a quick trip in March just arose. I will need lots of tips.