By Pixie Hollow Diva
Normally people book a Disney vacation far in advance. This happens for many reasons. You are usually guaranteed any dining restaurant of your choice. You’re also able to fast pass early and get those important rides done! Sometimes even by booking early you still cannot get certain things you want on certain days or times. This is OK and you are still guaranteed a great and fun Disney World vacation! Some people decide to go to Disney World last minute meeting possibly a couple months before their trip or even a couple weeks. Even with such short notice, it is still possible to have a great time and enjoy great rides, restaurants and fun!
Now, when booking a last-minute trip try not to fully get your hopes up if certain things you have planned to do cannot happen. For many of the most popular rides like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Soarin, Frozen Ever After, and Flight of Passage or just among the few popular rides. Sometimes it’s very hard to get a fast pass if you are not at the 180-day mark. You never know, you may get lucky. Even if you plan on traveling a couple weeks before your trip try to book it anyway. And if not, sometimes things change and people move their fast passes around and you may get lucky! If some popular rides that you have your heart set on or not available for fast passes you can always wait on line. The wait might be long but if you do not have young children with you it’s not too bad standing around waiting. If you do have young children with you and you do not think they can stand the wait I would go onto something with a shorter line and something more child friendly.
Dining is one of the things most people look forward to. Character dining is extremely fun! I know many people love to do at least one or two meals during their vacation in Disney World. Many of these places that have character dining are hard to get if you’re not at the 180-day mark. Many places like Chef Mickey’s, ‘OHana breakfast, and Cinderella’s Royal Table are among the few that are extremely hard to get last minute. However, do not get disappointed, once people arrive in Disney World sometimes they start changing some reservations and cancel things that have been booked in advance. My tip is to periodically check every day up to your vacation or even while you are there! This happened to my family two years ago. We decide to book a last-minute trip in August for the first week of October. We were able to fast pass a few things, nothing major because my children were extremely young at the time so that did not bother us. When it did come to dining, we were kind of limited with character meals or some popular restaurants that we really enjoy when we vacation in Disney World. However, we made the best of it we did more quick service options than usual. This worked out fine since my children were so young. One night we decided to check for a character meal. We happened to get 1900 Park Fare located inside the Grand Floridian for their character breakfast.
I believe we were lucky because they only had one time available for that day so we obviously caught it at the right time when someone recently had probably canceled their reservation. Many plans change once they are there so it never hurts to periodically try every day or several times a day to see if anything opens up that you are interested in. Now that Disney offers the My Disney Experience App for your phone it makes checking dining so much easier.
Disney has so much to offer outside of the parks. Don’t think just because you’re traveling to Disney World that you need to spend all day and all night in the parks. You can have a great and memorable vacation without going on all those popular rides or booking those perfect character dining meals even if you do have your heart set on a lot of them.
All hotels on Disney World property offer movies at night and activities throughout the day for children. All of this is free of charge. By taking advantage of some of the free activities, along with the pool at your hotel you could have an awesome time! You can also look into spending time at Disney Springs. They have many great restaurants along with many quick service options. There are tons of new shops and a huge Disney Store, World of Disney which is worth checking out! At Disney Springs there is a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique where you can transform your little girl into a princess or your little boy as a knight. It would probably be easier to get a reservation at Disney Springs rather than inside the Disney World hotels or theme parks. If you are at under 180 days that’s a Nether option for you to look into especially when it comes to dining. Fort Wilderness located behind the Wilderness Lodge also does a campfire and Smore’s night with Chip and Dale. This is also something different and fun for the kids which does not require any type of reservations. Diva Tip: Hit a water park! Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon. This is something you can do anytime you would like and does not require advance notice!
Thinking of booking that last minute trip? Call Patricia at All for Dreams Travel, the OFFICIAL travel agent of Tips from the Disney Divas & Devos!
hi! yes fast pass is 60 days but dining is 180 along with other activities such as the boutique.