Hi Mike!
Welcome to planDisney! Our first order of business is to celebrate you booking a resort reservation for a visit to the Walt Disney World Resort!
Since you have some time, you may want to just start by reading. We checked out planning guides from our local library and started reading various blogs online prior to our first trip with our girls. Familiarize yourself with the Walt Disney World resort website if you have not done so already. If you have not created a
My Disney Experience account online, do so and then
link your resort hotel reservation. If there are other folks traveling with you, be sure to list them in your My Family & Friends List in My Disney Experience. Once you do so, you will be able to make and manage plans for them!
The key to planning is to understand the dimensions of a Walt Disney World Resort vacation. In the planning process, you will need to think about the types of
theme park tickets (or Annual Passes) you want, the dining experiences you might prefer, and the activities you would like to do at each park as well as Disney Springs.
Once you purchase your tickets,
link those in My Disney Experience and be sure that you assigned a ticket to each member of your party traveling with you. Although Annual Pass sales are temporarily paused now, I do suggest that you explore the
benefits of being an Annual Passholder - my family loves the merchandise discounts! Once sales resume, you may decide that the annual passes are a better deal for your family.
Next, know that you can make
advanced dining reservations up to 60 days in advance for the length of your stay up to 10 days. Deciding where to eat is especially important because our park visits are so much easier when we plan with geography in mind. On our first trip with our girls, I did not consider geography and I distinctly recall taking almost two hours to get to a dinner reservation one evening because it took time to catch the bus from our resort, to get through the admission gates in EPCOT, and then to get to the restaurant on the other side of World Showcase.
Finally, once your theme park tickets and resort hotel are linked in My Disney Experience, you will need to use the
Disney Park Pass system to make park reservations for the number of days you have valid them park admission. If, by the time of your visit, guests are still limited to one park per day, remember to make your dining reservations in the same park you will be visiting that day because you need valid admission to enter a theme park. Alternatively, you could always dine at restaurants located at the resorts or Disney Springs.
Mike, I hope this helps. As your plans get more detailed, consider organizing them in a chart or table for ease of reference. Please stop by again if you have more questions!
Magic and memories,
Donyell