(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm your host, Chris Hutchins, and I think for all of us, planning a trip to Disney is something that has or will eventually cross our minds at some point.

So I wanted to do an entire episode to help you optimize the full Disney experience. So today we have Leslie Harvey, co-host of the Disney Deciphered podcast, to talk about some of the amazing insider tips and hacks that will help you save time, money, and stress planning your next Disney vacation.

I am so excited, 'cause we're gonna cover how to plan, where to stay, what to see, optimizing your day at the park, and so much more. This is gonna be a goldmine of content for anyone going to Disney, so let's get into it right after this. Give yourself the gift of insane savings this holiday season with Mint Mobile's best wireless deal of the year.

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That's allthehacks.com/M-I-N-T-Mobile. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at allthehacks.com/mintmobile. (upbeat music) - Leslie, thank you for being here. - Thanks so much for having me. - We have so much to cover about Disney. I'm so excited for this episode, but you have an entire brand dedicated to Disney of a podcast.

Why do you love Disney so much? What is it that makes it so magical in your opinion? - Gosh, I mean, I grew up with the films and like so many kids, but I actually really like the challenge of going to Disney. I mean, I travel all around the world, but I like being able to ride rides and then finding ways to do it smarter and faster and better than everybody else.

So for me, it's a little bit of a game. Of course, I mean, I have to love what I'm doing underneath that, but I like the game of doing Disney a little bit. - I think you probably just sold everyone on continuing to listen, because I think what you love is what everyone wants to learn.

And you said around the world. So quick recap, there's two parks in the US and how many around the world? - Four other parks or four other resorts, because there are more parks than that. You've got Shanghai, you've got Tokyo, Hong Kong, and then Paris, and then you have a resort, not a park in Hawaii called Aulani.

- Oh, interesting. Okay. And what do you think is so different about all of these parks and resorts that would help someone think about kind of high level how to pick one? - It's hard. I mean, nobody's sort of picking the international parks purposefully. Like people, I think at least Americans, you know, will go to a Disney park if they happen to want to take a trip to Japan, say.

I mean, unless you're, I guess, a super fan trying to complete the around the world Disney, which, you know, is a different breed of folks, myself included. But I mean, in terms of the U.S. parks, Disney World and Disneyland, those are very different. A lot of people will say Disneyland is like a small city, and Disney World is like a small state or country, maybe even.

So size and scale, that's the biggest difference. People go to Disneyland for one to three days. People go to Disney World for five to 14 days. So very different kinds of vacations. - What is that scale? If we double click for a moment, right? I've been to Disney World in the times that I can remember, which is maybe one as a child.

I want to say it was a day or two. And then I hear you say 14 days, and I'm like, I must've missed a lot of stuff. What makes it so much more than Disneyland? - So Disney World has got four theme parks, two water parks, two dozen plus hotels, all sorts of other shopping districts and things sort of surrounding the park.

So, I mean, there's just so much to do in terms of square footage, acreage. I mean, it's bigger than a lot of cities that you and I will visit. And then within those cities, there's something in every square foot, right? So there's a ride, there's a restaurant. So there's just no way.

I've been going to Disney World since I was a kid. I grew up in Alabama. So that was the park that we drove to. And I still probably haven't eaten in half of the restaurants. And I go there all the time. There's so much to do there. - Just out of curiosity, how many Disney park trips do you have under your belt at this point?

- I can't count them. I could count Disney World because now that I live in California, it's a longer trip. So I may be only going once or twice a year. But I mean, dozens of Disney World trips, dozens and dozens. Disneyland, I've lost count because I will often fly down to Southern California and go to Disneyland for just a day, like a day trip.

I'll take the 6 a.m. flight and be back on the 8 p.m. - So if someone's gonna plan one Disney trip for their family this year, and they live, let's say in Denver and kind of equidistant-ish, how would you pick? Is it more about how much time you have or?

- Yeah, it's more about the time that you have. And I mean, I guess if there's other things that you're interested in doing, a lot of people will do a Southern California vacation and then tack on a day or two at Disneyland. I mean, that's totally doable. If you wanna see California, I don't think as many people wanna see Central Florida, like as a destination.

Even though, of course, I mean, there are other theme parks to go to there, but there's not, I mean, and there's the Space Center and things like that. But people are more, you know, will often go to Disney World, not leave Disney World until they go back to the airport.

So it's less of a destination, you know, other than just Disney. So I would say time. If you only have a couple of days, go to land. I would also say if you have younger kids, Disneyland is easier because that scale is smaller. So if you've got toddlers, something like that, go to Disneyland.

Disney World's gonna be overwhelming. The transportation, you know, needing to get back for a nap in the hotel room, that's gonna be a lot more than I think a lot of families wanna manage. But if it's, you are only going to one Disney destination over the course of your life, I think it's world.

I mean, that's the bigger destination. Even as much as I love Disneyland and that's my happiest place of all of them, I think it's gotta be world, unfortunately. Hate to admit it. - So I think if we're gonna go through this process, I'm just gonna pretend like we're maybe planning a trip per se, you know, like how do we think about the pre-planning stage and go through that.

How early do you even need to start this? If you wanna plan a great trip, you wanna get all the deals and make it as efficient and optimal and low cost as it can be for the experience. And we'll get to that. I don't know if it could ever can be low cost, but when do you start?

- So different timelines, if we're talking about world versus land. So for Florida, you need at least six months. I mean, if you can start thinking about it 12 months in advance, that's helpful. Is it necessary? No, I mean, I can plan a trip to Disney World with, you know, maybe two or three months lead time without really worrying about it.

But for people who are new to it, I'd say six months just to sort of do the research, make sure you can find the hotel availability that you want, you know, all of that good stuff. So I think it's always, the earlier you can do it, the better. I mean, right now we're recording this in late 2023.

There are plenty of packages already out for 2025. So you can plan more than a year in advance if you so desire. - And when you say packages, whenever I plan a trip anywhere, I'm always thinking more like, I'm gonna book a hotel myself. I'm gonna go book everything individually.

Is there an argument when someone's just starting to think of planning that they should be buying an entire package together? - Potentially. I mean, Disney is one place, pretty much the only place. I mean, if you're gonna stay at a Disney Resort Hotel and only do Disney, it's one place I would say use a travel agent.

And I never say use a travel agent. Like I don't use a travel agent for anything myself, but I always use a travel agent when I'm booking a Disney World vacation because it's no additional cost. Disney's paying them a commission out of the packages. So I always use a travel agent unless maybe like I'm doing something, hacking something together myself, like I can grab some discount tickets and that's possible.

But if you're planning like a big week-long family vacation, I don't think there's any downside to using a travel agent. They're gonna have so much more expertise. They're gonna tell you, you know what? You don't wanna stay in this hotel because this is noisy or they have construction this time of year.

I have another one that's better for you. Something like that, so. - And is that a Disney travel agent or is it just any travel agent that specializes in Disney and how do you find them? - So any travel agent that specializes in Disney, and there are a lot of them.

I mean, there are a lot of people who will book you a Disney vacation who you shouldn't use. They are not as knowledgeable as you could be if you were to sit down for, you know, and read a blog post a day for the next month, you would be better than they would be.

So you just need to find word of mouth, I think, through, you know, finding people who are expert. I mean, I'll give a shout out to my co-host on my own podcast, Disney Deciphered, Joe Chung. He's a travel agent now. He didn't start out that way. We podcasted for years together and he loved it so much that he found it was a way to hack his own and his friend's vacation.

And then of course it went from there. So find good people through word of mouth and find somebody that has been to Disney. And if they got good advice from that person, then you can trust that person. - Wait, where do I find that one piece of urgent information?

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Again, that's allthehacks.com/copilot and the code HACKS2 for a free two-month trial of my favorite personal finance app. - And how do you think about when to go, right? Now we're thinking, okay, I gotta plan months in advance, maybe a little bit less in California, it sounds like, but are there, when it comes to crowds and weather, seasons to avoid or target?

- So think about the school calendar first and foremost, when it comes to planning and crowds. So when the kids are out of school, the parks are gonna be busier, more generally. Not always, but that is the case. Summer used to be the busy season at Walt Disney World, but I think a lot of people just can't take the heat anymore, so it's not quite as crazy as it used to be, but the kids are still out of school, so a lot of people will take their vacations then.

The worst week is to go between Christmas and New Year's. That is historically, at both parks, Disneyland and Disney World, everybody's home for the holidays and wants to run over there for a day or something like that. That's the only time I wouldn't go. If that's the only time you can go, then you should, but if you have choices, choose something else, please.

- How different from a cost and/or crowd standpoint would, I don't know, let's say if you went during the middle of week in October when there's no holiday versus peak time, is that 3X the crowd, 3X the cost, or is it narrow enough that it's probably not a huge decision factor?

- Most of the rest of the year, it's narrow enough that it shouldn't be a huge decision factor, and sometimes you can't plan for it, right? Sometimes you think, oh, I'm gonna go midweek in October, and the crowds are going to be what we call a level seven day which is still pretty high.

There's a website called Touring Plans that I really like that has a crowd calendar. So they will rate the days from one to 10, and you would be surprised. There are days that you think would be a two, and they are an eight. So sometimes you can't necessarily plan around that.

I don't try to micromanage it too much other than avoiding sort of those really, really bad times that are always bad, and the rest of the time, just kind of roll with it. I've been on Veterans Day weekend at Disneyland, and it's nuts, but- - That's what all the hacks we're gonna get to are for.

- Right, right. - But I'm guessing spring break is probably another crowded time. - It is, but, you know, spring breaks are spread out enough nationwide that it scatters the crowds. So this year, I think it'll be worse because Easter falls at the very end of March. So a lot more people have the break the week before and the week after Easter, whereas if Easter falls in mid-April, then the breaks get spread out a little bit.

So this year, I feel like spring break will be more of a crunch, but not necessarily. Oftentimes, you know, Southern schools get off in mid-March, and then those New England schools, they don't get off until April. So that does spread people out. - Yeah, I was looking at doing a trip for listeners to Iceland, and we were like, "When is spring break?" And I was so surprised that there's like not a consistent answer anywhere.

And then when you're planning in advance, what are the major milestones and what do you do first? Is it get your hotel first, flights, book park reservations? What are the things that kind of really need to happen in advance? - So hotel and flights for me are usually the things that I'm doing together.

I'm checking flight prices as I'm looking at hotel availability. I mean, now that I have older kids that are in school, so we're tied to a school schedule. So usually the vacation is dictated by the breaks for us. So sometimes we don't really have a lot of choices, but I'm doing those together.

And hotels, I often book early and then switch. So I'm always watching availability. I'm looking for a better room type to open up, or maybe the resort I really wanna stay in is fully booked, but I think it'll come open later. So hotel reservations to me are not as firm as flights.

Flights are something I usually, yeah, I'll still switch those two 'cause I book Southwest a lot. They're more fluid than I think a lot of people might realize and if you're looking and you have to go on a certain date and you can't find your hotel that you are dying to stay in, the game's not over.

Like there's chances to find that hotel later, I think, and a good travel agent, I think, will also help you in that regard as well. But yeah, those are the two things. You mentioned park reservations. At Disney World, at least, those are going away in 2024. So people will not have to make park reservations.

They will have to buy tickets, and tickets are date-based at Disney World. So that is something that you have to do, but you don't have to buy those six, 12 months in advance. You can wait a little bit on those and thank goodness park reservations are gonna be gone.

Not at Disneyland, though, sorry. - Okay, as someone who doesn't know as much, what's that mean? I don't actually know what the difference between a park reservation and a ticket is. - Good point. So tickets at Disney World, let's start there, they cost different amounts based upon what day you're going.

So if you're gonna go Christmas week, they're gonna cost more than if you go on a random midweek date in September. So when you're buying a ticket for Disney World, you're buying a date range, essentially. You can go any day in that range versus a park reservation, which is you're going to this park on this date.

That part is going away. You still have to buy for the date range of your vacation. So say somebody gets sick and you need to spend a day at the hotel, and you can switch your vacation a little bit within the range that you were given on the tickets.

- Okay. And you're talking about days. I think I've always done Disney. I don't even know. I can't remember, to be honest, but I feel like the one or two times we've done, it's been like a one-day experience. I imagine now that we have two children, walking anywhere, bathroom breaks, naps, food, as an adult, you could probably pretty easily run through things quickly.

How many days do you think people need minimum maximum for a Disney trip? And I'm guessing it obviously changes world to land. - Yes. So I'd say for world, a minimum of four days, if you're going with a family. I don't do anything less than that unless I'm going solo just for research purposes for my blog and my podcast.

For Disneyland, I'd say two days, ideally three if it's your first vacation with younger kids especially, but you can do it in two. I just did a trip with my family over our fall break that was two park days and two hotel nights to Disneyland. And we did most everything, not everything.

- And you know, you said you go down for day trips. If someone's in Southern California and they have only one day free, but they've got their kids, like, can you do it in a day? - Yeah. - I mean, it's not going to be the whole thing, but is it worth doing if that's the only opportunity you have on your trip?

- It is. Absolutely. Absolutely. And maybe you just want to do one of the two parks at Disneyland, but you absolutely can do it in a day. And I know tons of people just want to get that taste of Disney while they're doing, you know, something else in Southern California or, or they live there and it's like, we can only budget to go one day a year to Disneyland.

Do it. Absolutely do it. - Okay. Now we haven't talked at all about costs. When people think generally about Disney and budgeting, what do you think people should think about in that regard? When I first thought about Disney, I was like, oh, you know, I've always gone. It's just been me.

We've already been there. And then now that I think about it as a family, it almost feels like a ski trip and that like, it is not going to be a cheap experience. Is there any kind of ballpark guidance you think people should use to budget for their Disney trip?

- Sure. So, I mean, people do have this impression that it's insanely expensive and it can be. I ski and I don't think it's as much as a ski trip. Not that level of stratospherically expensive yet, especially if you know what you're doing. The key is to know what is worth paying for and what isn't, because there are a lot of little additional add-ons that you might need or you might not, or maybe you only need some combination of them on certain days.

So I think that helps to think about. For me, for a family of four, I like to think about a Disney World vacation. It's going to be more than a thousand dollars a night for a family of four when you consider the cheapest hotel and park tickets and basic food and souvenirs.

So I did a quick little price out just to see what things were looking like. And I did a four day, four night vacation for a family of four with just the basics. And you're looking at about 4,000 to $5,000 like for just the bare bones level. Cheapest hotels.

- Including flights or no flights? - No flights, no flights. - Okay. And obviously there's another end to that. It could cost a lot more for the nicest hotels and all the things. - Yes, for sure. I would say that you can do Disneyland a little more cheaply these days.

I mean, the cheapest one day, one park ticket at Disneyland is $104. And then they have right now a 50% off kids deal. So you could take kids. - Is that a normal thing? I almost never hear Disney's on sale. - No, it's going to be just for January through March of 2024.

So PS, it's a slower season. So if you can go during that time period, your kids are like 50 bucks, you're a hundred bucks. You get a cheap hotel across the street that's not a Disney hotel. You can do that on the cheap, but not all the time. - Okay.

And we'll get into some of the in-park optimizations, food and tickets and that kind of stuff. We talk a lot about points and miles. Is that even a factor for Disney? - It is more for land than it is for world because at Disneyland, we haven't mentioned yet, there are only three on-property hotels at Disneyland.

Most guests at Disneyland stay at off-property hotels that are within walking distance of the park. And there are a lot of chains in there, a lot of Marriott's, a lot of Hilton's, Holiday Inn's, things like that. You can use points and miles for your hotel. And I do all the time.

There's a great Fairfield Inn within walking distance of the Disneyland Resort. And I am using my points there because sometimes it's good for those certificates you can get with your Marriott credit cards, the category one through five certificates. You can sometimes use those there. So you can for land, and I do.

You can't really hack the tickets so much anymore. There's not a way to like buy them through portals like there used to be, but for hotels, you can. And then at world, a lot of people will stay. There are a couple of hotels called the Swan and Dolphin, and then the Swan Reserve.

And those are Marriott properties. Those are actually located really close to two of the parks at Disney World, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. So a lot of people will use points and miles to stay at those properties. And they're more in the bigger vicinity. But I think if you're serious about doing Disney and still want to get some points values, it's probably the Swan and Dolphin.

- Okay. And if someone's thinking about budget, just briefly, and money's not the issue, are there any things to consider before we get into the nuance of hotels and tours and that kind of stuff? - I mean, sky's the limit. (laughs) So, I mean, for me, if you have a bigger budget, I think it's worth paying for more conveniences, especially at Walt Disney World.

So we'll talk about it, but like stay at a nicer hotel. It's going to have easier transportation. Pay for the ticket add-ons. There are going to be ways that you can maximize going from park to park or when you start, things like that, if you're willing to pay for it.

- All right, and so we're planning this trip. We've kind of figured out where we want to go. We've booked our flights. We'll get into hotels. So I guess that's the first thing. So let's just jump right in. How do you think about where to stay, whether it's at the park, near the park, Disney property, not Disney property?

- All right, so let's start with Disney World, because like I said, there's more than two dozen hotels. And I'm thinking about transportation when I'm thinking about hotels. So there are four parks. There's all these different forms of transportation at Walt Disney World. There's the monorail, which I think a lot of people know, 'cause that's been around for a very, very long time.

There's something new called the Skyliner, which is like a gondola system, like you would see at a ski resort, and that connects different resorts. And then you've got buses and boats. So you have to think about what park are you going to spend the most time in and what has the most convenient transportation to those parks?

I mean, I really like the new Skyliner. I used to be a monorail girl and always liked to stay at the fancy old school hotels on the monorail. But this new Skyliner, it connects Disney's Hollywood Studios and Epcot, and then several of the hotels. And I think that's kind of game-changing for a lot of people.

- Okay, and what about staying off property versus on property? How do you make that decision? - It's different at Disneyland and at Disney World. At Disney World, I'm almost always staying on property. And the reason is both the convenience and the logistics transportation, but it's also the perks, the benefits you get to staying on property.

You will have a better in-park experience because Disney gives preference to its on-property guests. At Disneyland, not as essential to stay on property. I'd say 80% of the time I'm staying off property. There are some perks at Disneyland, but they aren't as essential to making your day seamless. - And what are those perks?

- The biggest perk is early entry. - And for both parks? - So at land, yes. Right now there at Disneyland, you get early entry into both parks each day. That's gonna change in 2024. They're gonna alternate parks. So it's gonna be less valuable in 2024. And for Walt Disney World, you get 30 minutes early entry into any of the four parks each morning.

So you get a jump on everybody else. And that's really important. If you know anything about theme park lines, being early is going to get you the shortest time spent in line. So I think that's super valuable for Disney World. And there's some other little things like about when you can book what we call your lightning lanes.

And we'll talk about that too. So yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to think about. But I think generally speaking, Walt Disney World has an on-property advantage, less essential for me at Disneyland, especially when you consider the hotels are more expensive at Disneyland. - And are there any kind of, I can't remember the name of it, but I was reading someone's post on a blog about Disney, and they were like, "Well, if you wanna stay on property, "don't forget you could stay at this one property "that's still on property and has the perks, "but it's usually a lot cheaper "and maybe actually more convenient, but slightly older." Are there specific places to target if you want on property and you wanna get a deal?

- That might be this one on Dolphin that they're talking about. That's my guess because it's a Marriott. It's on Disney property, but it's not a Disney hotel. It's this weird hybrid. So I think a lot of people choose that. There are also some hotels at an area called Disney Springs that are also kind of in this hybrid category that get some of the benefits of the on-property hotels, but they're operated by third parties.

So look into those, but at Disney World, there is every price range of a hotel. They have value resorts, they have moderate resorts, they have deluxe resorts. So you can stay at a value resort, and sometimes you can find a hotel for $150 to $200 a night. Not a lot more expensive than what you'll find at Holiday Inn.

So for me, is it worth like $20 more to be right there? Yeah. Especially when you consider those off-property hotels might charge you parking or resort fee or some other little nickel and dime that they know how to do. - If you're on property, do you even need a car for the four days you're there?

- No, you don't. I never, never have a car at Walt Disney World. I use only the transportation, and then in a real pinch, I'll take an Uber. - Any particular hotels that stand out for whatever reason from all of your stays? - I love the Polynesian. If only because I love the theming of the South Pacific, and it's just sort of an old school, one of the original hotels at Walt Disney World.

It's on the monorail loop. It has a great location where you're on the monorail loop to go to Magic Kingdom, but you're also within walking distance of the monorail that goes to Epcot at a separate station called the Transportation and Ticket Center. So I love that hotel. I actually really love Caribbean Beach Resort, which is a moderate because it's at the hub of the Skyliner station.

So you can take a quick Skyliner to two different theme parks from Caribbean Beach. The price is right. You know, it's not super fancy, but it's got a fun pool for kids. So that's kind of like my mid-range pick, especially for families. And I also love at the lower level, the value level, Hop Century Resort because it's also on the Skyliner.

So if you really just want a clean place to stay and some easy transportation, that's an easy way to go. - You mentioned for families. And I think about traveling. If you've got five people and you're kind of in that boat where you can't just have one room, is there a particular property where you kind of get a better deal for a suite or something with more space?

- A lot of people like the Art of Animation family suites. Those can sleep up to six, but they are pricier. I mean, they're kind of like the cost of two value resort rooms put together. So that's something to think about. I mean, a family of five at Disney World can stay in most moderate and deluxe resorts.

You can't stay in a value, but a lot of the moderate resorts, like the Caribbean Beach that I just mentioned, they have rooms that sleep five. So you could squeeze in there. And I still am at the stage where with my family of four, we're staying in a single hotel room.

So I'd rather stay in a nice hotel room as a family of four than a cheaper one and splitting up. - Okay, so we got our hotels booked, we got our flights. Now we're talking about parks. And how do you think about all of the parks, right? When I first thought about this, I was like, "Oh, you go to Disney." It's like, "Well, no, no, no." There's four parks, how many days?

How much are you planning out in advance of what you want to do? - I mean, generally speaking, I think you want to spend a day in each park. So like I said, you want to take that four-day vacation to Disney World. Magic Kingdom is the park that everybody recognizes with the castle, right?

And that has the most to do 'cause it's the oldest park. I mean, they've added more to it over the course of its 50-year history. So that's the park you probably want to spend the most time in. But if you have four days, a day in each park, that works.

That gives you the taste of each, you know, different atmosphere and whatnot. If you have a longer trip, I think a lot more people will take that second day in Magic Kingdom or they'll mix and match a little bit. You know, there's something called the park hopper ticket that you can get that allows you to go to multiple parks in a single day.

And a lot of people will start their morning at Magic Kingdom, ride all the rides, and then they'll go to Epcot at night because that's got all the great restaurants and the food festivals, and that's where they want to eat dinner. So think about those kinds of things. I mean, you'll get a sense from very quick research what each park is about.

I mean, Magic Kingdom is the classics. Epcot's got this around the world world showcase, and then lots of futuristic things. Hollywood Studios has got a lot of thrill rides, and it used to be a studio, a real studio park. It isn't anymore. And then Animal Kingdom is like a park unto itself.

It's this outdoor landscape that has full of animals and unique outdoor attractions. So each one has a different vibe, and you'll quickly figure out which one is your vibe. - And then in Disneyland, you just have two options. - Two options. So you have the Castle Park there, Disneyland Park is what we call it, and then Disney's California Adventure, which I'd say its closest cousin in Florida is Hollywood Studios.

I think both of those are worthwhile doing. There's more to do at Disneyland Park. I would usually say for people spending three days at Disneyland, you want to spend two days at Disneyland and one day at California Adventure. - And in Disney World, is there a park that, if you went for five, and you're like, where are you going to spend the fifth day?

Is it more do the four and go back to the one you loved, or is there one that really kind of needs more time? - Yeah, I mean, do the four and go back to the one you love. I think for most people, that's going to be Magic Kingdom, just because there's more to do there.

Especially for families, if you have younger kids, there's more to do for them at that park. I mean, for adults, maybe it's Hollywood Studios or Epcot, I would say, because you've got the food in Epcot, you've got the thrill rides at Hollywood Studios. Animal Kingdom, I would say, is the only one.

I mean, some people love that park, love, love, love that park, but it has less to do, and a lot of people treat that as a half-day park. - And is it easy to get between these parks? I'm thinking right now, and maybe this is just because we have a one and a three-year-old, I'm like, when we plan a weekend day, one activity is enough, you know, one activity.

And then I'm thinking like going to two theme parks in one day seems crazy. - Yeah, don't park up if you have a one and a three-year-old, that's not necessary. But yes, I mean, you've zoned in on the fact that there is significant transportation at Walt Disney World. You've heard me talk about buses and ferries and Skyliners and monorails, and you will take nearly all of those things if you were there for a week in Florida, and it's a lot.

So if you're staying at a hotel that's on the monorail loop, and you're getting up, and you're taking the monorail into Magic Kingdom, and you're headed back at the end of the day, the logistics aren't so bad. But it's when you start moving around the greater resort over the course of a week that you will have more time on the bus that isn't coming, and you're standing at the station, things like that.

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So please consider supporting those who support us. - We kind of have an idea. Let's talk about some of the things you need to do before you get to the park. How do you plan the day? What are those add-ons, Genie+, Lightning Lanes, that make sense to pre-plan ahead?

And how do you start to get into the day? - So Genie+ is the thing that everybody should give a fair look to, especially if you have older kids. I mean, maybe not as much with a toddler, every park, every day. But Genie+ is Disney's replacement to FastPass. I think a lot of people know that the word FastPass, Disney got rid of it after the pandemic.

And it now has something called Genie+. And Genie+ gives you access to the Lightning Lane for quite a few rides. And that's a lane like you might understand has a shorter weight. It doesn't have no weight, but it has a shorter weight. But a lot of theme parks, you buy some sort of astronomical add-on, right?

The Fast Lane, the FastPass, whatever they call it. And you just get to go through the short line whenever you want. Not so at Disney. At Disney, you actually have to book a return time. And this is a very complex system. And this is something that's daunting to a lot of people because it's a whole new system to learn.

But once you learn it, if you're somebody who's into that gamesmanship that I talked about, it is so much fun. Like figuring out how to hack it, figuring out which ride that you're gonna pick first in the morning, that's going to set you up to pick other rides later in the day.

It's a lot. And I have a whole episode on it on my podcast that folks should go listen to if they wanna learn the basics. It's episode 256 of the Disney Deciphered podcast. It's Genie+ 101. And that'll give you the lay of the land for understanding Genie+. But it's an extra add-on.

It costs about 25, 30 bucks a day, depending upon when you're going per person. I think it's worth it, at least for one day of your vacation, whether that's in Florida or in California, because it does allow you to dodge a lot of the lines. - And are there specific rides where the lines really matter versus ones where it's not as big of a deal?

- For sure. I mean, like you think, it's the thrill rides where it's really going to matter. It's things like Space Mountain or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which is a popular coaster in Magic Kingdom. It's Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout, which is the drop right at Disneyland, Disney California Adventure.

So things like that, that's when you're going to really shortcut the lines, because a lot of those thrill rides, I mean, they could have 60 to 90 minute waits on a low crowd day. Forget about what they're going to look like on high crowd day. - And are some people just going to Disney and waiting in line for an hour or two hours?

I mean, I feel like if you did that, you'd get through like four rides and that would be your day. - Yeah. I have a friend who went to Disney World last year during the Christmas holidays. She didn't call me first. She should have called me first. And they went during Christmas week.

They didn't buy the add-ons and they did three rides one day. That was it. That's a lot of money to spend on park tickets to get three rides. - If they had really dialed it in, if they had, maybe they didn't stay on property and go in early. Maybe they didn't do Genie Plus.

Maybe they did the wrong order. How much different do you think that day for them could have been? - I mean, regular people could have done seven or eight. I could have done a dozen, you know, with my level of expertise, even with the Christmas crowds. So, you know, and then there are days like that I've been in the parks without working too hard, just with my family at Disneyland over this busy fall break period.

We did 20 rides at Disneyland one day while still doing a sit down lunch and leaving the parks before the fireworks started at night. - And what's the like, I mean, obviously people should go listen to this episode on Genie Plus, but is it all just optimizing Genie Plus that allowed you to like?

- Yeah, it's mostly just knowing what ride to book first, because what will happen is the Lightning Lane return times will sell out for certain rides as the day goes on. So, you know, you have to pick, for example, in Hollywood Studios, if you don't pick the Slinky Dog Dash coaster as your first pick, it might be gone for the day by the time you're eligible for your second pick.

So it's knowing the sequence of the rides that you need to pick. And then it's knowing what to do if crazy things happen. So for example, if a ride breaks down and you've got a Genie Plus return time for it, what happens is Disney's app will give you this thing called a multiple experience pass, and that's good at other rides.

So it's knowing about where you should use that and then what you should do next, how you should adjust on the fly to these curve balls that happen, because you will plan out a day at Disney and then a ride will go down. And then your whole plan, you have to be able to adjust on the fly.

And that's fun. I mean, sometimes it's frustrating 'cause sometimes three rides in a park will go down. The last time I was at Hollywood Studios that happened in the morning, I had gotten there early and three of the headliners were down within the first hour of park opening. So that's annoying, but you just roll with it and you adjust.

- And do you think the average person could go listen? People that listen to this show love to optimize things. They go listen to that episode. How close to 20 can they get? Or is this something where they should be hiring a Disney expert to help them plan their day?

- If you're interested enough to listen to that episode and do a little research, look at the app before your vacation, you won't do 20 on your first day, but if you're going on a seven day vacation, I bet you can do 20 by your seventh day. - That's awesome.

I'm excited for this challenge. - Yeah. - But not with a one and a three-year-old. I guarantee we cannot do 20 rides. - Yeah, probably not. - Although I imagine there are some rides where using the Genie+ would be a total waste because the lines aren't as bad. Is that fair?

- Yeah, and there's some rides. So this is, again, one of these big differences between Disneyland and Disney World. At Disney World, there's pretty much Genie+ for every ride. I mean, there's a couple that there is not, but pretty much every ride has Genie+. Whereas at Disneyland, only about half the rides, maybe less than that, have Genie+.

So you're in standby lines for the other rides, whether you like it or not. So it's about knowing how to mix and match your standby lines and your Genie+ lines. - Okay, and then when it comes to optimizing the day, so tier one is just wing it, don't do any prep, go on three rides like your friend did, at least during the holidays, you could dial it in, listen to the episode, Genie+.

Are there any other levels of optimization? - I mean, you can just do it casually, especially at Disneyland. I mean, this is one of those things that's like, if you don't wanna learn this as much, go to Disneyland, because you could listen to an intro episode and do it for the first couple of selections of the day and have a fantastic day at Disneyland.

It's gonna be harder at Disney World because the rides run out faster. It's a more complex matrix that you're working in at Disney World. So I'd say, yeah, if you wanna learn this on a casual level, go to California and it's highly, highly usable. - And what about for someone who's like, I'm still going to Disney World, I don't wanna learn this.

Are there options? You know, I know there's the VIP tours. I know there used to be some tour guides you could hire outside and bring in. What are your options if you want a little bit more of like a help make this simple without having to do too much work, but still get a great experience?

- Sure. So, I mean, yes, there are VIP tours. They are many, many thousands and thousands of dollars. I mean, I haven't looked at the pricing at the moment, but like think about like an eight hour day starting at $5,000 for, you know, a group of like up to eight people, something like that, eight or 10.

I can't remember the exact parameters off the top of my head, but yes, so you can do this. And they will take you through the lightning lane of any and every ride that you want. And they will bring you bottles of water while you stand in the heat. And it's lovely.

I have a lot of friends who have done it, but it's not something that even folks who have money to burn can do for a week-long vacation. You still would only do that unless you're Kim Kardashian. You would only do it for one day of a week-long vacation, no matter what.

So yes, you can do that. And I did have a friend do this last year with her family. And I can't remember how many rides they got on, but I think it was about maybe about 15 or 18 over three parks at Disney World over the course of a day, like an eight or 10-hour day.

So pretty solid. But yes, so you can do that. There are also people, I mean, your travel agent can give you a nudge, right? They can give you a list, things like that. There are itineraries that you can buy from people. I mean, there are people who will sell things.

There's, like I said, I already mentioned touring plans. They can give you an optimized list if you subscribe and it's very low cost. That's a possibility. There are some people who will, and this is very like on the edge, the gray hat kind of techniques, who you can tell them what you want to do.

They will book your lightning lanes from home. - Yeah, I've heard about this service. I've also heard about, I don't know, this is definitely probably crossing the line. And we could talk about some of the things that have recently gotten kind of shut down, but somehow someone I know went and had someone at home managing their Disney lightning passes, but somehow they had two different Genie Pluses.

So they could, like they were running two separate systems at the same time. Maybe they had two park passes, I don't know, but somehow they were like queuing up in multiple apps at the same time. Someone else was managing it from remote and they were able to do twice as much, which might sound crazy to consider buying two park passes and two Genie Pluses, but you know, these VIP tours, I want to say there's something, you know, like you said, like $5,000 for 10 people.

So you're going to spend an extra $500 a person at minimum. So it could be less expensive to do that. Is that something you've ever come across? - So there are all sorts of IT loopholes and as fast as people discover them, Disney shuts them down. Some of them, not all of them.

So you can't buy, at least as of right now, you can't buy two Genie Pluses. So if that was a loophole that was a while ago, it may have been shut down, but there are things that happen. There are glitches. There are like things that you can take advantage of.

This is one of those things where, you know, I highly recommend, just like there are with Miles & Points, there are Facebook hacker groups. People will talk about this. So if you're interested in getting into that, you know, reach out to your Disney experts that you know, and there are some folks who will know what's going on, but there were a lot of loopholes, especially when Genie Plus first came out, which was about two years and change ago.

And Disney quickly patched up about 75% of them, which was, it was fun while it lasted. - And, you know, I know one time when we went skiing, it was kind of a similar situation where someone was like, "Oh, I want to do a lesson." But it seems so crazy that the lessons at the resorts were like, you know, a private lesson at a resort could be like a thousand dollars a day or something.

And you meet the instructor and they're like, "Oh, I made like a hundred bucks today." And so they were like, "Maybe I could just find an instructor on Craigslist that could just teach me on the mountain for less." Is there any kind of finding a Disney tour person that could take you around the park and help you figure it all out and optimize it without having to spend $5,000?

Does something like that exist? - There have been a lot of third-party VIP tour services like that over the years. And it's funny that you should mention it right now because just this very week that we're recording this, Disney began cracking down on these third-party services because technically they're against the rules.

I mean, they're doing something commercial on Disney property and that's against the park rules. And Disney actually went up to a bunch of them and issued them trespass notices this week. So the future of those services is highly in doubt. I mean, a lot of them haven't been shut down, but it's a risky approach at the moment, not knowing if Disney's gonna keep doing this crackdown or whether they're gonna just sort of let it go.

But a lot of these guides were abusing certain, not a lot, but some of the guides were abusing things like the Disability Access Service, which Disney rightfully wants to make sure is not being abused. So I think that's to be continued, to know what's gonna happen with these services.

- And are these things like you have to know someone and find a secret website, or were they things that you could search around for and say, you know, Disney tours, and you'd find them? - Oh, this was easy to search for. I mean, these folks were openly advertising these and, you know, you'd hear about them in any Disney planning Facebook group.

People would have recommendations. I mean, this was easy to find almost as a travel agent. - Oh, okay, all right. Those are the kind of options for planning the trip. You mentioned there are some other perks that you get with the hotels and the park beyond getting in the park early.

Are those kind of relevant when it comes to this stage of planning? - Yeah, so I should mention, and when we mentioned Genie+, one thing we didn't mention was something called paid lightning lane. And there are a couple of rides that aren't on Genie+, but they do have lightning lanes, but you have to pay an extra fee for those.

So it's another upsell that you have to consider. And if you're staying on property, you get the right to buy those paid lightning lanes at 7 a.m., and it may not sound like, it sounds like a consolation prize. It's like, here, you're paying more money to stay on site, and then you can pay us more money.

But it gives you the chance to get a ride during a high crowd period that folks who are staying off site might not be able to get a lightning lane for at all. So at 7 a.m., you can make the reservation. Everybody else who's staying off property, they can only make that reservation once the park opens.

So all of the lightning lanes may be sold out for the day for those folks. - Gives me kind of a little anxiety just thinking about, it's like, okay, I'm gonna book the return time to come to this ride. I gotta be back in two hours. What do I do in those two hours?

Oh, I'm gonna go do this ride, and oh, it's taking a little long. Am I gonna miss it? Like, how do you kind of plan your day when you have specific reservations, but you're all over a park? - So the ride reservations at least are an hour-long window. So you have an hour to return to the ride, and practically speaking, you also can scan into the ride five minutes before that hour starts and 15 minutes after.

If something happens, there are lots of cast members, guest relations, who can adjust these on the fly. Like, if you're walking up to a line and you're 20 minutes late for your Lightning Lane window, and a cast member sees that you have an 18-month-old with you, and you're like, "We had a bathroom emergency," or something like that, like, they're gonna let you in.

They're gonna let you use your Lightning Lane. I mean, for everything but maybe, like, the newest of attractions that just opened. But, like, there's flexibility within this, and the Disney cast members are human, and they know that people are dealing with things like kids and, you know, a mealtime that runs longer than we expected.

It's a firm guideline, but it's not a hard rule. - What are some of the rides that you kind of personally think are maybe underappreciated or overhyped? - Ooh, lots of things are going through my mind. I mean, I think a lot of people would say that Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Walt Disney World, at Magic Kingdom.

The line is never justified as a standby. Like, that line can sometimes get, like, 120 minutes long. Don't ever stand in that. It's a great, cute little coaster. I love it, but I'm not gonna stand into a two-hour line to ride it ever. So, you know, definitely look for things that are maybe, like, in the corners of the park.

Like, with young kids, for example, at Disneyland, I love going on Winnie the Pooh. The kids love that ride. It's way back in the back corners of Critter Country, so a lot of people don't make their way over there until, you know, midday. So if you're going to that ride at, like, 11 o'clock in the morning, you probably won't have a wait.

So look for things like Gas Flow. I think it helps to start sometimes, or at least not immediately, but, like, within the first hour of getting into the park, go where other guests aren't going. Go deeper. Look for those little sweet spots. But I think most of the thrill rides, the standby lines, just aren't worth it.

That's why you use Genie+ for it. - And is Disney Publishing kind of in the app all the wait times for all the rides, even the non-Genie+ ones, at any time, so you can kind of look and say, "What's gonna be easy now?" - Yes, they are. Whether those wait times are accurate is another question, but generally speaking, they're a good guideline to work off of.

Touring Plans, that subscription service I mentioned earlier as well, they also keep track of wait times. So that is something you can use kind of in tandem with the official Disney World or Disneyland apps, if you'd like to. And then once you get used to it, actually, you can start to be able to eyeball some of these lines.

I mean, I go to Disneyland all the time, and I can look at it, and if it says, you know, "It's a 60-minute wait," I'm like, "Nah, it's a 20-minute wait." I know. (laughs) - And Touring Plans, do they also publish historical stuff, so you can kind of see what is it gonna be like on a typical day, so you kind of plan ahead, or do you need to just wait 'til you're in the moment?

- Not as much with them. A site that you can look at historical information on is called ThrillData. It's thrill-data.com. I love that site. They track all of the metrics for all the Disney parks, a lot of other theme parks as well. And so you can see things like, they have a Lightning Lane availability map, and you can go onto the map, and you can see in color-coded bars that, "Oh, you know what?

"This time of year, "Space Mountain availability is really good in the morning, "but then starting in the afternoon, "those Lightning Lanes start to run out." So you can see how early in the day, like, "Oh, I've gotta get Space Mountain. "You know what? "I really gotta get it before lunch." Or, "Know what?

"I can wait until 3 or 4 p.m., "and there's still gonna be Space Mountain Lightning Lanes "left for me to ride." - Is there a ride that you're always like, "This is the one due first," or are there a couple hard and fast rules that you're like, "If you're doing Disney, "here's the thing"?

Telling my friend who's already gotten the overview, but just wants to know a couple things, like, "Don't forget to do X." - At Disneyland, I'm always doing Fantasyland rides first. None of those are on Genie+, so this is like little dark rides, like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, and Dumbo and Snow White, those kind of attractions.

I'm doing those first at Rope Drop, which is right when the park opens, or even during early entry, if I have early entry. That's what I'm doing there. At other parks, I'm doing a ride that I would book on Genie+, but that I'm not going to book on Genie+.

So, say I'm going to Hollywood Studios. I mentioned Slinky Dog Dash is a ride that often sells out almost right away on Genie+. Well, maybe I'm booking a Genie+ for something else in that park, and then I'm making a Mad Dash to Slinky Dog Dash to be able to ride that.

- And is this like a Black Friday, doors open Mad Dash, or is this just like a brisk walk? - It depends. (laughing) Depends on who I'm with. You can do a brisk walk with kids. If you're Rope Dropping Peter Pan at Disneyland, there is not time to park the stroller.

Somebody's got the kid on the back, and you're making a Mad Dash, and the other parent is flinging the stroller, and you're getting in the line. This is if you really want to optimize it. If you do park the stroller, maybe you'll have a 15-minute wait. If you don't park the stroller, maybe you'll have a five-minute wait.

- I feel like there's a YouTube video I want to go watch after this of parents Mad Dashing with their children. - It's fun, and you'll hear cast members, "Don't run!" But everybody's power walking like you've never seen them power walk before. - Oh, that's amazing. Okay, we covered rides.

What about food? I feel like this is an area where I actually have no knowledge. I haven't talked to anyone about it, and I feel like you've said you haven't even tried all the restaurants. So how do people even start to think about eating meals while doing a theme park?

- So generally speaking, there are two different types of restaurants that people are gonna be eating their meals at. I mean, there are table service, like the tablecloth waiter kind of restaurants, and then there are quick service restaurants where you're going up to a counter and you're ordering kind of like mall food court.

So some people really treat Disney as a dining destination and want to try all of these fancy restaurants, and some of the restaurants are quite good. I mean, I don't really think of like Central Florida as being like a foodie destination. I mean, California more so, but like people don't think about theme parks as being places where you're gonna eat great food, but you actually can.

So some people really make this a big part of the vacation, and then Disney has what we call character meals as well. So you can go to a meal and see all of your favorite Disney characters. So you can kind of check some boxes for kids, like get them fed and get them to see something Disney at the same time.

So this is something that a lot of people do. The basic thing is to not overdo it on the food. Some people, you don't want to eat two or three table service meals a day. You're gonna just be stuffed, especially if you're going like to Florida in the summertime.

That's not fun. That's not, doesn't make for a good vacation, riding roller coasters afterwards. But I tend to plan one table service meal a day for my family. So I'll pre-book reservations. Reservations open 60 days in advance. It used to be like 180 days, which that was ridiculous to have to plan that far in advance.

So book one reservation a day and then go with the flow for the rest of it. I mean, these counter service restaurants, you could just walk up on the fly. You can also do something called mobile ordering in the app where you place an order and you pick a time window to return, just like you pick a time window to return to a ride and you can go and your food's ready quicker.

I love doing that with kids, especially, so they don't have to wait in line. - When it comes to the table service, any highlights of kind of best meals? - In Florida, I love Skipper Canteen, which is a restaurant in Magic Kingdom. It's, if you know the Jungle Cruise, where they tell the corny jokes, the waiters do the same kind of thing at Skipper Canteen.

So you get a little bit of entertainment, you get really good food. Like the food is kind of a little bit like Asian, a little bit, I don't even really know how to explain it. It's exotic enough, but still familiar enough that your kids can eat like chicken fingers.

So good for the adults. You got like Bao Buns, things like that, which I love Skipper Canteen. I mean, everybody sort of likes to eat it, like the character meals. The big ones are Ohana in the Polynesian Resort. Chef Mickey's is another popular one. Cinderella's Royal Table, which is the expensive one in the castle at Disney World.

So lots and lots of choices for meals, from the low end to the high end. - And so you mentioned in the Polynesian Resort, does that mean that some of these kind of nicer dinners or lunches are not actually in the park, that you can kind of, maybe if you have young kids, go back, relax a few hours, and then have one of these without having to trek all the way back in?

- Yes, every deluxe resort that I can think of, I think all of them, have a table service restaurant in them. Every hotel has at least a quick service restaurant in them. So if you're staying at one of the value resorts, you at least have a food court that you can go to and feed the kids.

So, I mean, most families are going to eat some, if not many of their meals in the hotel restaurants. And some of the best ones are there, like Animal Kingdom Lodge, that has got two great restaurants, Sanaa and Boma. Those are some of the most highly rated restaurants so even if you're not staying in that hotel, you might be traveling to that hotel to eat a meal there.

- And when you say most highly rated, what source of ratings would you tell someone to use? - Touring Plans has actually got some ratings. Some of these restaurants will make the usual food zagged or whatever, those kind of ratings as well. I'm not much of a foodie, so I'm not paying as much attention to this.

I just know the types of food that I like. But yes, I mean, you will see, there's generally an accepted convention among Disney fans. This restaurant is one of the better ones. The chef is good, it's been consistent over the years. These are the ones that you don't wanna eat at as much because it's just gonna be like overcooked hamburgers and chicken fingers.

- And if you were going with no kids and it was just adults, is there a place you're like, this is where we'd go? - There's a lot of places. (laughs) At Disneyland, 'cause I haven't mentioned any restaurants there, Napa Rose is a great restaurant and that's in the Grand Californian Hotel, so you don't have to have a park ticket to go eat there.

Gosh, Lamplight Lounge, that's an in-the-park restaurant at California Adventure. I mean, there's some really fancy ones. There's one called Victoria and Albert's that is impossible to get a reservation to and it's going to be several hundred dollars per person. It's in the Grand Floridian Resort in Florida. So that's like a super sought after one if you're like a real foodie who loves, like say you would go to like French Laundry, something like that, it would be that kind of experience.

- And you say impossible to get a reservation, you have to book 60 days out. Are there any ways to find last minute reservations? I'm sure people are canceling. Any way to optimize that if you didn't plan well? - Yes, I love a service called Mouse Dining. What you do is you put in the restaurant that you wanna eat at and the time of day and it automatically checks for you.

They have a free version that will then send you email alerts and then you can just go in and book it as soon as you get the email. But if you really are trying to get something competitive, I think it's worth it to pay like a small nominal amount per month to get the paid version.

I think it's maybe like seven or $10, it's not much money. And then they'll send you text alerts and then you can immediately jump in and book that reservation. I actually used it recently to get a reservation at Blue Bayou, which is a very sought after restaurant in Disneyland that is in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

So a lot of people really enjoy eating there. - Okay, I love that. Can you bring your own food? - Yeah, you can bring your own food. Disney doesn't disallow it like a lot of theme parks do. A lot of people will do that for breakfast, like pack in granola bars or things like that just so you can eat on the run and get the rides in when the lines are short.

But I mean, you also can just do very easygoing, quick service food. I mean, you can share like chicken fingers or there's a lot of things that you can grab and go and it's expensive, it's theme park food, but it's not like game changingly expensive. I mean, my family often will share meals, especially when our kids were younger.

You know, we'd order two adult entrees and then, you know, share with the kids or even like as an adult, you can always order at the quick service restaurants. You can order a kid's meal and that's a whole lot cheaper than ordering an adult entree and say that way.

- I like it. Any other tips when it comes to food and drink? You know, can you bring a water bottle, refill it places easily? - Yeah, that's not a problem. Water fountains and things like that. And ice water is free at like quick service locations. You can get that included as well.

So yeah, I mean, Disney's very generous. So if you're used to like the rules of your local Six Flags or something like that, Disney's not gonna be that strict about those kinds of things. And I'd say pack in the baby food. That's one thing that if you have young kids, that's a little harder to like figure out.

And like, if you need like a kid who needs whole milk, pack that, that's gonna be harder to find than like 2%. - And then what about Club 33? (laughs) - You know, you gotta be a member or know a member. So yeah, there's this club that Walt Disney founded to entertain VIPs.

And the original one is in Disneyland Park. They actually now have one in Disney World as well, but they're different memberships. But it's a club above Pirates of the Caribbean in New Orleans Square at Disneyland. And you have to be a member to be able to eat there or a member can like sponsor you to take you in.

I've eaten there once and it's lovely. It's a great experience. And you get to like kind of behind the scenes experience, but it's hard to guarantee that there's a way to do it unless you know somebody. - I have heard that it is one of the more, if not the most sought after Disney experience.

It is very difficult to track down. I have heard some high-end travel agents have ways to make it happen, but it starts at like a thousand dollars a person in terms of getting in. So just to set some expectations, if you don't find the organic way of a person who's actually a member who can hook you up, we're talking thousands of dollars.

- Yeah. Those kinds of things, those are still like very gray hat. Disney can and will shut that down at some point. If you're gonna do something like that, you be aware that it may blow up in your face. Like it may not work out. - But there's no sanctioned way, like a Disney VIP tour, just to be clear, we talked about earlier, that is through Disney.

That's, you know, something sanctioned, a travel agent can book it for you, all of that stuff. But there's no kind of way to do Club 33 legitimately without knowing the right person. - No, unfortunately not. I mean, I guess you could get yourself on the list to join and be on the wait list and pay many, many thousands and thousands of dollars.

I guess that's the way in. You can always buy your way in. In fact, I should mention that we were actually on the list to join back in the day, like before people knew about it, 20 years ago when I was in law school, my husband, he put ourselves on the list and it cost a lot less then.

But by the time we came up for membership, the cost had about quadrupled. So we said no. - Any other kind of unique VIP experiences? You talked about character meals. We talked about the VIP tours. - Ooh, I mean, those are the big ones. I'm trying to think if there's anything else.

I mean, there are something called after hours events that they aren't really VIP, but this is when Disney closes the park early and then sells tickets to that same park to other people. But there are much fewer people that go to these after hours events. So the lines are shorter.

So a lot of people will actually do that as a way to just get in. Like there used to be an after hours event in Animal Kingdom where you could probably ride Flight of Passage, which is the big ride there, three and four times if that's what you wanted to do.

And you just can't really do that on a regular park day. - Okay, I've heard about some behind the scenes tours, that kind of stuff. - Oh yeah, there are other tours. I mean, those are kind of cousins of VIP tours. So there's something called like in Disneyland, a walk in Walt's footsteps, where it's a short tour, like two hours, and they'll take you to a couple of special spots.

Like that's when you might get to see, like there's an apartment that Walt had over Main Street USA at Disneyland. So you could get to go and like see that apartment in one of the tours, but you're not getting to ride a lot of rides necessarily. Maybe you're getting like one fast pass, depending upon what the tour is.

And some of these are like more within reach, like a couple hundred dollars a person, but you're not going to like be able to use those tours to like maximize as an entire vacation. They're just kind of an extra add on for people who are like interested maybe in the history, or maybe want some sort of a specialty experience for something they're super interested in.

Like there's a tour at Halloween time, if they wanna focus on the Halloween details of Disneyland. - So we talked about rides and food and tours, but what about all the other stuff in Disney? I know there's kind of meeting the characters, seeing the fireworks. What are other things people should be thinking about or maybe need to plan?

- There's all of that. There are a lot of like live shows as well, where you can like a stage show, where you can see characters or sing alongs, things like that. So you'll quickly figure out what your family likes to do. Like my family is a ride family.

We're riding and we will skip the fireworks. We will skip the stage shows. I mean, we'll see them. I mean, and there are parades, things like that as well. So figure out what you wanna do. I think with younger kids, they're gonna get more utility out of seeing maybe their favorite princess or their favorite character in a parade than your teenager will.

Your teenager's gonna wanna ride all of the roller coasters as much as possible. So adjust your vacation based upon who you're with and don't be afraid to split up. My family actually does this because we have a 14-year-old who loves thrill rides and we have a 10-year-old who is very cautious.

So there will be times where I will take the 10-year-old on the slow rides and my husband will take the 14-year-old on every coaster. - I wanna come back to kids, but I just, something popped in my head. One of my memories as a kid was in Epcot and eating at all these different countries.

We didn't really talk about that when we came to food. How do you think about that experience? Is Epcot more of a place to walk around and eat or is it a theme park with lots of rides? I kind of have a vague memory of visiting as a child.

- It's a hybrid and it's changed and it's changing right now. We're kind of in the middle of the Epcot 2.0 re-imagining. There's a lot of construction still being finished up there. There is the half of Epcot that is World Showcase, that has got all of these different country pavilions, each with a lot of great restaurants and there are food festivals most of the year happening in that part of the park as well, where they have booths outside of the countries as well.

So that's gonna be like a big, big foodie destination. I often will eat dinner like every meal on a trip at Epcot just because there's so much choice and there's so many different flavors there because of it being around the world. And then there's the whole other front half of Epcot that's being transformed right now, a lot of construction.

When I was a kid, it was like the super geeky '80s, like let's learn something. Now, like more of the Disney IP is being brought in and Disney's trying to sort of figure out what that is and what that's gonna be. But yeah, I mean, I guess the safest thing is it's kind of the futuristic Disney and there's some rides there as well that are worth doing, but the per capita rides, not as high as what you'd find in Hollywood Studios or in Magic Kingdom.

- And going back to kids, I guess first, what age do you think it makes sense to actually start considering bringing kids to Disney? And what do parents need to know about a Disney trip with children? - So I always say the best age to take a kid for their first trip to Disney is when they are two years and 364 days old.

And that's because when they turn three, you have to get a ticket for them. So the best time to go is right before they turn three for your first vacation. I'm assuming you're taking more than one vacation over the course of their lives because they're not gonna remember the one that they take when they're almost three.

But at that age, a lot of kids know Disney characters, they have their favorites, they believe that they are real. And you as a parent seeing that is absolutely priceless in my opinion. So I think it's really worth it if you can afford to take more than one vacation to do it.

And I think if you're deciding between land and world, land is the place to do it. It's much more manageable at that age 'cause they're still napping when they're almost three. If you're not doing that, then I'd say wait until their grade school, like six or seven. You're gonna miss that magical age a little bit, but you're just gonna be able to do much more.

They're gonna be tall enough to ride more of the rides. So like, I'd say aim for that if it's like a trip once in a lifetime. I mean, maybe seven, eight, nine, somewhere in that range. So with younger kids, pay for convenience, pay for ones that have the transportation connections or the proximity, it's worth it.

It's really worth it, especially if you have to go back for a midday nap. My firstborn would not nap in the stroller. We had to go back for a midday nap every day when she was younger. Second kid, eh, nap in the stroller. I think it's worth it for that.

But I mean, don't try to do too much. Be realistic about, you can't start early every morning and then close down every park with fireworks every night. I think it's really important, especially on a longer vacation, to plan in a break day. Like I took a five-day trip with my son last summer to Disney World.

And he's older, I mean, he's 10 now. And we took a one day in the middle of a trip where we just didn't go to a park. Instead, we swam in the hotel pool. We went to a character meal at one of the hotels, but we didn't go to a park and we didn't wake up early and we didn't go to bed late.

And that's a great way to reset. - And you talked about character meals at hotels. Do you need to plan your day if your kid really wants to meet, I don't know, Mickey or someone? Like, is that just gonna happen? Like, can you just assume that whatever character you wanna find, you're gonna see at some point or is that something to plan?

- You need to plan it. And some of the character meet and greets are actually attractions that are on Genie+. So you can book them using Genie+. Like there's a princess meet and greet in Disney Magic Kingdom that you can book several different princess options. So some of those you want to just book to make sure they happen.

And then otherwise you can look on the Disneyland app. You can see where certain characters tend to have their meet and greets if they're ones that are a little bit less formal, but there will be cues for some of these characters. I mean, the popular ones, especially like a new movie has just come out, there will be a long line for that.

So be prepared. - What about just things to bring, not to bring? Obviously we talked about strollers. Is that always the move over like a carrier or a backpack or something like that? - I mean, I'd say if you have a young infant, then a carrier makes sense. But if you're at the sort of toddler stage, then you're gonna wanna have a stroller.

I mean, people are using strollers at Disney far longer than they're using strollers anywhere else. I'd say for me, like up until about age five, we would sometimes use a stroller in Disney parks. And I've even seen friends use them at like six and seven year olds. I made my kids walk at that age, tough mom.

But especially if you're planning to stay out late, like you'll need somewhere for the kid to pass out. So even when my son was about to enter kindergarten, we wouldn't use a stroller most of the time. But if we went to a nighttime event, we'd have a stroller for that.

So yeah, you need that. And just be realistic about the number of steps they can take. I mean, I have done 30,000 steps on a Disney day by myself. And I don't think most kids can do that. Certainly not day after day. - I know my kids definitely could not.

Any tips if you have a large group, but not a family? - Try not to micromanage that group too much. Like make your hotel reservation together, like make a dining reservation for a couple of meals together, but then let people do their own thing. Because even my family of four, like I'm telling you, we're splitting up because we have different interests some of the time.

If you're trying to move a group of like 12 or 15 people, you are going to be so slow moving. And it's going to mean that you sacrifice getting a lot of rides in that you might want to do or experiences you might want to do. So like pick a couple of different point people for that group and make sure like two or three of you know how to use GeniePlus.

And then let people plan their own day at that point. - You mentioned experiences. And it just reminded me that about six months ago, a bunch of friends of mine went down to Disneyland and they went and like made lightsabers. Any other kind of experiences that people may not realize both exist or that you need to plan in advance?

- There are a lot of little things like that, you know, based upon your interest. I mean, Star Wars definitely took those experiences up a level. You can make a droid as well, but that you don't really have to pre-book in advance. You can just walk in and build your own BB-8 or something like that, which is really cool.

All those tours that I mentioned, the walk in Walt's footsteps or the character meals, all of those you should book in advance. You might find openings last minute, but you might not. So I think it's important to think about those experiences. I'm trying to think if there's, I mean, there are plenty of other little experiences that you can do on the fly.

Like one of the things I love to do in Disneyland, there's a little silhouette studio on Main Street USA where there's an artist who will cut a silhouette of you or your child, a profile. And you can just queue up there and stand in line. And we did that on our last trip.

And we've done that every few years with my kids. We have a wall full of silhouettes of them at different ages and stages, and it's very inexpensive. So look for like little things like that. Those are what I think make the trip magical. And there's so many of those, even that I'm still discovering, right?

I mean, there's so many little things that Disney tucks in the nooks and crannies because it's such a big resort. I mean, both of them are such big resorts that if you see something that looks interesting to you, dive in and do it. Forget about that Genie+, maybe once in a while.

- My wife worked at Lyft for 10 years and she led the partnership with Disney. Her biggest takeaway is that Disney just cares so much about the experience and hospitality. And like, you might see something small and think, "Oh, that's not worth it." Her perspective was like, if it's there, someone at Disney intentionally wanted it to be there.

And so there's probably something interesting to see. - Yeah, and it's funny you should mention Lyft because Disney has partnered with Lyft at Disney World to offer something called minivans. It's basically like Uber, but it's driven by Disney cast members and it operates on the Lyft platform. Those are some of my best experiences are riding in a minivan because the cast members who drive them are some of the absolute best that Disney has.

And they will play games with your kids and they will tell you cool trivia. Look for moments like that. Yeah, my kids' minivans are one of their best Disney memories in recent years. - My wife will love hearing this because I believe that that was one of the things that came out of the partnership she worked on.

So that is so cool to hear. - Yeah, awesome. - And the last thing we didn't talk about, but you briefly said the word souvenirs earlier. I think that's something that kind of comes up all the time. I feel like it's like souvenirs are really expensive, but kids always want them.

Any thoughts on either optimizing or saving in the souvenir department? - For younger kids, buy them in advance at Target. (laughing) You know, one thing that we used to do actually when our kids were very young is Tinkerbell would come and visit our hotel room every night. Just like Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, Tinkerbell would drop off something each morning of a Disney vacation.

So think about that. Think about whether Tinkerbell is something that you wanna tap for your Disney vacations. And then they have something special that they don't need to buy everything in the souvenir stores and the parks. But just set a budget in advance. You can buy discount Disney gift cards in advance of your trip.

Even just if you have like a Target red card, go to Target, they're 5% off. You're saving a little bit here and there. There are other ways that you can hack Disney gift cards to a greater amount. So you can at least be saving that amount on your souvenirs when you spend a Disney gift card in a souvenir shop.

So there's some ways around the margins. I mean, there are like some discount stores. There's one in Orlando where souvenirs that didn't sell go to die, but there's some really great stuff there. But that car is going off site. Unless you're a real Disney super fan or have a longer vacation, it's not worth it.

- Okay. And you mentioned the discount gift cards. I know someone's listening is like, Chris better follow up because you said there are other ways to hack that even better. So I'm gonna just push on that to see what they are. - Okay. Well, they change a lot. I actually have a blog post on my site and we can hopefully leave a link in the show notes that has all the current ways to hack Disney gift cards, ways to get them on the cheap, but it's part of travel hacking.

I mean, there are ways you can get them at Sam's Club at a discount and you're using the right credit card that gives you a certain point at Sam's Club. So things like that. It's combining different reward systems together where maybe you're getting like a cashback or points in another way and then you're getting them at a discount as well.

- We will absolutely link to that in the show notes. Is that something you can use to buy your park passes, your Genie Plus also, or only in the park? - Yeah, you can use them for any Disney purchase, but most people for the tickets at least, a lot of people will buy from the discount resellers.

There's some companies like Getaway Today, Undercover Tourist, a couple of other ones where you can buy discount tickets. And sometimes the savings from them are more than you could get from a Disney gift card, depending upon what the percentage savings you can get on that gift card are. - So you're not buying your Disney park tickets at the Disneyland website or the Disney World website?

- Not usually, unless I'm using a travel agent to book a whole package. So the trade-off is you pay the rack rate if you have from Disney, but you get the guidance of a travel agent booking your whole package or you DIY it yourself. You're not getting that guidance and you're booking through Getaway Today or Undercover Tourist.

Depends on what the savings are. And sometimes the savings for like a short vacation are only like five or 10 bucks a ticket, maybe not worth it for you. But if you're going for a longer vacation, then they could be, or you have a bigger family, they really can add up, especially if you can buy them during a sale.

- Any other cost-saving optimizations that we missed that you're just kind of like, "Oh, we can't believe we forgot that one." - Oh gosh. - Let me say, I know you have a whole podcast to cover them, so we can leave people there. - For sure, for sure. So we regularly are covering new ways.

I mean, I mentioned like, just check for these kinds of deals. I mentioned that 50% off kids deal right now that they have going for early 2024 at Disneyland. So look at those kinds of things. I mean, often Disney will have hotel sales, 25% off rooms at deluxe resorts if you go during a slower time of year.

So look for those things and a good travel agent will let you know when a sale like that is released and apply it to your room, even if you've already booked it with them. - Are you publishing all of these on your blog, mentioning them in the podcast? Where can people make sure they're not missing out?

- I'm covering more of these in the podcast because they're changing in real time. But sometimes it's easy as just running the search on Disney's website and seeing there's a big banner that there's a sale going on or something like that. But yeah, definitely on the podcast, we're covering the big ones that when they come out and not as much on the blog because these things are changing too much to be able to like cover them in real time there.

- We talked almost exclusively about Disneyland and Disney World. I know there's four parks around the world. The only park that I remember recent past was in Paris. How do you think about the international park and are they a letdown if you've been to the ones here or are they amazing?

Are they go out of your way while traveling to check them out? - So thus far, I've only been to half of the international parks. I've been to Disneyland Paris and I've been to Hong Kong Disneyland. I am planning a trip right now to Tokyo Disneyland for spring break next year.

So I'll at least get three of the four very, very soon. But to me, they haven't been a letdown because I love seeing how Disney is translated around the world. Hong Kong Disneyland, I went there in 2014 when my daughter was five years old. And that was an amazing experience.

It's the smallest of all the parks around the world. And at that point it was much smaller than it even is now. They're adding a lot more right now, but it was so memorable to see. Jungle Cruise was available in three different languages. Like you would get in a line as to whether you were gonna do English or Cantonese or Mandarin.

And that was just such a unique... And all the skippers could speak all three languages. So seeing things like that, I mean, it's just part of travel. It's a smaller part of world travel. And I never would take a trip just to go to a Disney park. I mean, we went to Paris and we did Paris and we did London, the same trip, but we spent a day and a half, two days at Disneyland Paris.

So it's an add-on to enrich those international experiences, I think. - I love it. I feel like a whole new world is about to unlock with two young daughters who are gonna get to experience these things. And on your trip to Japan, I'm gonna send you a link to the episode and post we did with so much information.

Hopefully that could be helpful. I'm obviously a resource if you need it. - Yeah, I saw that post. I saw that podcast in the list and I was like, I've already queued it up. The planning just started. We just decided this week to make Japan our spring break destination.

- Oh, you're gonna have so much fun. You mentioned a sale in 2024. Are there any other big changes you think are coming to Disney on the horizon? - So we've mentioned Genie Plus and Disney has told us in 2024, they're gonna change it. So everything that I've told you so far may be a mood.

I don't think they're gonna change it that drastically, but they are making changes. And I think 2024 is going to be a transition year, especially for the US parks because there's not a lot new coming. There's not like a big headliner attraction really that's coming. I guess there's maybe Tiana's Bayou Adventure, which is a redo of Splash Mountain.

But demand has been soft, especially for Walt Disney World right now. And Disney's doing things to try to tweak the guest experience. So I think you're gonna see a lot of little changes that may offer some possibilities for deals or offer some possibilities for hacking the parks or making them more efficient.

So it's not really a banner year for the US parks in terms of big openings. Now, the foreign parks, there are a lot of things coming. So there's a new land opening in Tokyo in summer. Right now, as we're recording, they're about to open a new land in Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai is getting a Zootopia land very soon as well.

So a lot happening at the international parks very, very soon. So maybe this is the year, if you've done Disneyland or Disney World, make your way to an international park. - That sounds awesome. I forgot one thing I didn't ask earlier. Does it ever make sense to consider a season ticket?

I know every time I go to a theme park, they're like, "Just for the cost of one more day, you can get an annual pass." - Not unless you're gonna go many days at Disneyland or Disney World. Most people I know who have annual passes either are locals or they're going two weeks a year.

Probably not worth it. It's not the same as Six Flags, definitely not. - That's great. Some of those international parks sound amazing. I know you did an episode on 2023. Can we expect that if any of these changes come out, you'll do an episode on 2024? If Genie+ changes, you'll do another episode there.

So can we just tell everyone that if they wanna stay on top of more and more Disney, it's just to go subscribe to Disney Deciphered? - Yes, please go to Disney Deciphered, subscribe. We will have in early 2024 an episode about what's coming, what's new, what are the changes, because there are lots of little incremental changes that I mentioned.

So go there and subscribe and we will redo our Genie+ episode again. We have had to redo that thing. I can't even tell you how many times. So we're waiting. We're standing by, ready to do that. - Amazing. I will link to that in the show notes. People are already in a podcast app.

Leslie, thank you for being here. - Thanks for having me. - That is so awesome. It makes me so excited to take my girls to Disney one day. I really hope you all got a lot out of this. If there's any Disney hacks, tips, or tricks you have that weren't covered here, please send them to podcast@allthehacks.com.

I hope you guys have a happy holiday. Merry Christmas. Enjoy time with your family. And thank you all so much for all your support. I will see you next week. (upbeat music)