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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Disney World question
I will be going to Disney World for the first time next month. I am staying at an off-site hotel that requires driving in (there is also a shuttle to and from the hotel). I will have three days in the parks and I want to see as much as I can. I am looking to buy a park-hopper pass for the three days. Is this logical? How easy is it to get from park to park if you are not staying at a Disney hotel? Will I need to get into my car and drive to the next park? Any help or insight would be appreciated.
Re: Disney World question
Personally, I wouldn't waste time driving from park to park. I would park at whatever park is open the latest. Even though you are staying off Disney property, some off property hotels still allow you to take advantage of the extra magic hours, but you'll have to check with your hotel. Buses/monorail run for at least an hour after the park closes {if you are trying to make the most of your time and utilize the parks from open-close}. I would also go to parks on the same day that are easy accessible via each other... for example, Epcot and Magic Kingdom are really easy to get to/from via the monorail {no bus involved}. Or Epcot/MGM {I will always still call it this} is really easy to get to via boat - just go out the back entrance/exit of Epcot near the countries to the Boardwalk and take the boat. For the ones that do have buses, just because you aren't staying on Disney property doesn't mean you can't use them to park hop. The only park that I think is sort of "out of the way" to get to/from is Animal Kingdom.
Have fun!
I've been to Disney several times as a child, teenager and adult and I've never stayed on Disney property.
We always drive to the park first thing in the morning and sometimes hit up a 2nd park later in the afternoon/evening. It's always worked out well and I've never had any problems.
When we went to Disney in '07, we stayed off-property but our hotel also had a free shuttle to all the parks. If your hotel has a shuttle and the parks are all you'll be doing, I would not even use a car. You might have to wait a few minutes for a shuttle to come, but it was so seamless and easy for us and we didn't have a car with us at all!
We were also in Disney for three days and used the Park Hopper. We were able to hit up every park, but our favorite was MK. We went there twice and spent the most amount of time there. We were able to see two parks per day. We'd usually get to one right when it opened, stay until around lunch, sometimes we'd even stop back by the hotel around mid-afternoon and take a nap/hit the pool, and then head to another park until closing time.
I believe the only "off site" hotel that allows extra magic hours is the Hilton at Downtown Disney.
The parking fee is once per day so keep the receipt and show it at the next park, you won't have to pay again. You can use Disney transportation to go from park to park, too. You don't have to be staying at a resort to use it.
You will most likely be better off driving yourself than using a Hotel shuttle. Some of them are not that convenient in terms of pick up/drop off times.
I agree with all of this. Driving around Disney is really easy since they have tons of signs everywhere. We have always had great experience with Disney buses, but when we stayed offsite, the hotel's shuttle bus ran very slow and were often full since they stopped at multiple off site hotels. We will never do that again.
I also agree with PP about trying to do two close parks per day MK and Epcot or Epcot and MGM (I always call it that too
)
Have fun!!
I think the hopper is worth it so you can do 2 parks in one day but you miss out on quite a bit of time transferring from one park to the other.
Thanks for all of the helpful replies! I didn't realize that the Disney transportation inside the park could be used by everyone - I thought it was for those staying on Disney property only. I guess from everything I've read, I thought I was forced to go to the parking lot and drive to the next park. Good to know that there are other options. I'll have to figure out which works best for me, I guess...!
Thanks for the park-hopping tips - I will be keeping it to two parks a day. The first day I go is with a friend and we are doing Epcot/MGM together. Then I am alone the next two (possibly two and a half) days, so I basically can go wherever I want! Seems like it makes sense to hop to parks that are easy to get to - like Epcot/MK and Epcot/HS.
This whole thing is sooo new to me. I've been to Disneyland a zillion times, but it appears to be nothing like Disney World. It'll be a new adventure!