Mouse Extra

Perhaps the best advice I can give to people going to Walt Disney World for a short trip, and by that I mean less then 4 days, is to know what you want to do.  If it is your first time, read the guide books.  But if you are a Mouse veteran like me, all you need to do is think it out and make a short list.  You don’t have to make a list of everything you plan to do and turn it into a color-coded spreadsheet for your entire party to follow or risk the punishment.  You just need to know what you want to make sure you don’t go home wishing you had more time.

My list may be a bit different from the average guest, but here’s what I want to be sure I do before I leave…

1. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor because it’s new
2. Gran Fiesta Tour for the same reason
3. Turtle Talk so I can see the new theater
4. Spaceship Earth so I can see it before it changes
5. Eat at Alfredo’s so I can see it before it closes
6. Nemo Musical because it stopped in mid-show due to technical problems the last time I attempted to see it.
7.  Kali River Rapids because it will probably be hot

Those are the main objectives, everything else is gravy.  I do plan on doing a lot more than just that, but these are the things that will leave me disappointed if I don’t get them done.

Just from this short list, you can make a plan.  For instance, we know the Laugh Floor, Turtle Talk, and the Nemo musical are all fairly popular, and therefore could have some lengthy lines.  So that means we want to go to those parks in the morning as much as we can.  In order to free up time to do the other things, the gravy, we need to make sure we don’t get caught on a 70 minute line for the stuff we’re really trying to accomplish.  Also, a 70 minute line is often how start talking yourself out of doing something you really want to do.  How many times have you walked up to an e-ticket, saw the wait time and walked away?  Fastpass can help, but remember the trip is short.  Some of the most popular attractions often have return times that are hours out.  If we are planning on doing more than one theme park each day, that could be tough.

As you can see from my list, the Disney-MGM Studios is expendable.  Though I love the Tower of Terror and my wife was very disappointed we didn’t get on the Rock n’ Rollercoaster last time while it was getting a facelift, there is nothing new.  I can’t imagine we’ll skip it altogether.  If we get the list done, we should have plenty of time.