by Fairy Diva
Vacations to Walt Disney World usually begin with lots and lots of planning. In fact, most of our articles here at Tips from the Disney Divas and Devos offer planning tips and the importance of planning ahead. I consider myself an over-planner. I often plan down to the last detail of the day, penciling in a few spots of free time, but mostly a schedule that we stick to. However, I recently found myself considering a quick trip to Walt Disney World. In fact, it was such last-minute planning that we would leave within a couple of days! Here are some things to consider if you just don’t have time to really plan out a Disney vacation.
Your options are very limited.
First, I had to find a resort for our family. There were very few options for us to choose from. Not to mention we decided to arrive on the end of the Princess Half Marathon weekend. However, with a little searching and pixie dust in the form of a cancellation, we were able to score three consecutive nights at a nicely-priced value resort, All Star Sports. Had this particular room not have worked out, there was one moderate and a couple of deluxe options available, but these were out of our budget for this particular trip. So be aware that last-minute trips will not offer a great selection of rooms options.
You may have to be flexible with dining times and FastPass options.
While at Disney, we also wanted to make a couple of dining reservations. Again, many of the most popular locations had no openings (these should be made 180 days prior to your vacation), but we were able to score a late breakfast at ‘Ohana, a personal favorite of ours for both breakfast and dinner. (You can check out reviews of the breakfast meal here and dinner here.) Though we lost some of our park time dining, it was well worth it! Also, we were able to find one reservation time for the new Rivers of Light dining package, which allows you to enjoy a meal at Tusker House or Tiffins and receive passes for a designated seating for the show. Finding this was opening was pure Disney magic! The timing wasn’t our typical meal time, but again, our options were quite limited.
Another consideration is FastPass options. Most all of the highly recommended FastPass attractions were gone, leaving us with rides that probably would not even require or need a FastPass. Remeber that FastPass opens up for guests staying in a Disney resort at 60 days prior to your trip and for those not staying on property at 30 days. We were able to find a few that worked for us, but again, the most popular rides were no longer an option. We still had an amazing time and got several rides done over our stay!
You can still have a magical vacation!
While planning last-minute is not ideal, it still turned out to be one of our best Disney vacations. The not-so-ideal timing of our dining reservations actually provided us with some great one-on-one time with the characters that we may not have gotten at a more popular dining time. We went into the trip knowing we would have to be flexible and work with what we had, and the lack of planning actually provided a lot of downtime we do not typically experience while at Walt Disney World. While I will not make a habit of taking a Disney vacation without planning, I did find this particular trip refreshing and will not hesitate to take another last-minute trip to Walt Disney World!
