Travel Tip of the Week

Disney Dining Options Explained

Dining at Walt Disney World is really broken down into 2 categories; Table Service (TS) and Counter Service (CS).
There are CS venues in every park and resort. Your Disney resort will have a very nice CS area where you can get breakfast, lunch, dinner and a variety of snacks. CS meals are also not to be confused with fast food. You will have a variety of eating choices at your resort from pancakes and omelets in the morning to chicken, pizza, fish etc in the evenings. The CS venues are the most budget friendly places to eat at inside of Walt Disney World and will run anywhere from $10 to $15 per person for all 3 meals. Those prices are consistent to what you will see at the different CS restaurants inside the 4 parks as well. In each park, there will be a place to get a cold sandwich, chicken, hamburger, pizza, fish etc. Plenty of CS choices.

Epcot has the best CS choices out of all the 4 parks. They have a place called Sunshine Seasons which will have everything from grilled chicken or salmon to Asian stir fry and is all made there fresh everyday and is our favorite lunch spot. Then for dinner, you can walk around the World Showcase and eat a CS meal in Mexico and have some authentic Mexican food, have fish and chips in England, enjoy some Chinese food in China etc.

But if you prefer to have a couple nicer meals while you are there, we need to look into finding you a TS restaurant to try. TS venues will most likely require what Disney calls an Advance Dining Reservation or ADR as they are called. Resort guests have the ability to make their ADR’s 90 days in advance of their trip. The most popular venues like Cinderella’s Round Table and Chef Mickey fill up quickly and are usually full at the 90 day mark. You can figure that a TS meal for 4 will cost close to $100 plus tip. Some will be a little more than that depending on if you get dessert etc.

Some of our favorites TS options are:

Yak & Yeti (Disney’s Animal Kingdom)
The Coral Reef (Epcot)
50’s Prime Time Café (Disney’s Hollywood Studios) *this will be one of the less expensive
Donald’s Safari Breakfast (Disney’s Animal Kingdom) *Character buffet breakfast

Last but not least...Disney will have snack vendors and areas. These are places where you can get the infamous Mickey Ice Cream Bar or the huge Turkey Leg that so many people rave about or just get a bottle of water or soda. You can expect to pay $3.00 for a bottle of water and just figure the same for soda. Our favorite snacks are the Dole Whips in the Magic Kingdom (in Adventureland) and the little French pastry shop in the back of France in Epcot (this is a must do).

This is meant to be a brief intro into the terms used at Disney for dining. Please add comments or suggestions of your own.

Go Where the Locals Go

I know you hear that a lot from travel guides, blogs etc., but if you are one who ends up going to the same restaurants all the time, even on vacation, then this blog is for you.

Part of the whole vacation experience is getting out of the normal routine and away from the troubles back at home. If that is the case, then why would you want to only stick with the same eating places that may make you think about things back at home? I am always shocked to see travelers who will go wait in line to be seated at places like Cracker Barrel or Chili's when they have those same restaurants back at home.

Are you afraid to branch out? There are a lot of resources that you can draw from like your travel agent (me) or sites like www.cityspur.com where you can find great eating choices at your vacation destination that are not chain restaurants.

For example...some of my greatest memories of our travels are some of the "off the beaten path" restaurants that we found simply by talking to store clerks, taxis drivers etc who then recommended some of their favorites in town. Some of those "honey holes" are places like "The Cottage" in La Jolla California. It is such a small quaint eatery and their food was out of this world. Another local favorite in La Jolla was "The Coffee Cup." This again was a small local establishment off of the main drive that runs through La Jolla's tourist area. It was actually a place we would have never found had it not been for a store employee who said..."you have to go to the "Coffee Cup." It is open for breakfast and dinner and can get busy with the locals on the weekend. But this brings up an advantage for you as the tourist. You can visit these local places during the week when the locals are at work and while the other tourists are still lined up to get into the IHOP.

Those are just two ideas to get you to see that the real experience when traveling and the true escape comes when you leave what you know to go try something new and different. Traveling should be a cultural adventure even here in the U.S. You can learn a lot about the different cultures of a State and city when you get out of the tourist filled areas and go sit among the locals and just take it all in.

If you never try to branch out...promise me that you will on your next vacation. I will then promise that it will add so much more enjoyment and great memories to your vacation getaway.

Top 10 Reasons to Use a Travel Agent

It is one of the questions I get asked from time to time, "why should I or would I use a travel agent?" Well...here 10 reasons you might want to consider it:

1. You've Googled "Mexico vacation," and come up with 17.8 million responses. Need a little help editing those choices?

2. Remember when you used that obscure website to book your hotel, and when you got there you spent your beach vacation overlooking a parking lot?

3. How many hours were you on hold with the airline when your flight was canceled because of a snowstorm?

4. Did you really mean to spend your honeymoon at that resort whose one tiny pool was filled all day with 12 screaming children?

5. Who knew that when you booked that "villa" in Tuscany, it would be a small room with a kitchenette and no air conditioning? Funny, it looked much better on your computer screen.

6. No one explained to you that in July, it's winter time in Rio, and so you showed up there with nothing but five Hawaiian shirts and three pairs of swimming trunks.

7. How about the time you really needed a restful vacation, and you ended up in New Orleans during Mardi Gras and someone threw up on your shoes?

8. Yes, I guess that hotel must have used a telephoto lens when they took a picture of those guest rooms that you saw on their website.

9. I suppose contacting the Attorney General to resolve the fact that that Internet site has billed your credit card three times instead of once is the only route to take at this point.

10. It was definitely odd that there were no cab drivers at the airport at 3 o'clock in the morning when you finally landed in Costa Rica, but booking a transfer to your very remote hotel would have been a good thing to remember when you purchased your airline ticket and hotel online.

Always remember...a travel agent's services are free to the consumer unless a specific fee has been agreed to up front for some special services to be rendered.

Adopted from an article written by Ruthanne Terrero. Please visit the following link to read her article in its entirety. Travel Agent Central

Disney Lingo 101

In today's internet focused world, there seems to be an entire language that has been created for anyone who blogs or texts or even sends e-mails these days. It took me a long time to figure out what "LOL" meant or TTYL. I didn't want to seem out of touch with the ways of the world so I just played along and tried to ignore the short-hand for while. Then one day I was texting a friend who wrote something back followed up with an "LOL." Since this was a close friend, I decided it would be safe to finally ask, "what in the world does 'LOL' mean?" This friend then sent me a list of acronyms and their meanings so I would be safe from any embarrassment in the future.

Well it wasn't long after becoming a Disney Travel Specialist that I then learned there was an entire new set of acronyms and sayings that are only relevant and useful within the world of Disney. Once I too became savvy of their meanings and could use them all properly in a sentence, I also realized there were people that are still new to this phenomenon and may not know what I am saying when I start throwing this new lingo around in my letters, texts, or e-mails.

So I wanted to devote this post to familiarizing everyone with the Disney vernacular.

Let's start with the list below. You will see these on Disney discussion boards and chat sites.

1. MK=Magic Kingdom
2. AK=Animal Kingdom
3. DHS=Disney's Hollywood Studios
4. EP=Epcot
5. TSM=Toy Story Mania
6. FL=Fantasyland
7. WS=World Showcase
8. FW=Future World
9. ToT=Tower of Terror
10. RnR=Rock n Roller Coaster
11. TT=Test Track
12. SpM=Space Mountain
13. SM=Splash Mountain
14. EE=Expedition Everest
15. ITTBAB=Its Tough to be a Bug
16. KS=Kilimanjaro Safari
17. KRR=Kali River Rapids
18. FP=Fast Pass (see photo)
19. KTTWC=Key to the World Card (see photo)
20. WT=Wait Times
21. DME=Disney's Magical Express
22. ASsp=Allstar Sports Resort
    
23. ASMo=Allstar Movies Resort
    
24. ASM=Allstar Music Resort
    
25. Pop=Pop Century Resort
    
26. OKW=Old Key West Resort
    
27. Poly=Polynesian Resort
28. GF=Grand Floridian Resort
29. CBR=Caribbean Beach Resort
30. CSR=Coronado Springs Resort
31. CR=Contemporary Resort
32. POR=Port Orleans Riverside Resort
33. POF=Port Orleans French Quarter
34. AKL=Animal Kingdom Lodge
35. WL=Wilderness Lodge
36. YC=Yacht Club Resort
37. BC=Beach Club Resort
38. BW=Boardwalk Resort
39. FW=Fort Wilderness
40. CRT=Cinderella's Round Table

This should be a good start to getting your eyes and head used to seeing all of these terms as you do your own perusing of the internet to learn and discover all that is "The World of Disney." Naturally I am here as well to answer questions and offer tips and advice for making your next Disney vacation the best it can be.

A Day at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom

I remember when my wife and I were planning our very first trip to Walt Disney World. I watched every video I could find online trying to see the parks, the rides, the resorts etc. I wanted to see and learn about it all. I keep that in mind now as I visit the "Happiest Place on Earth" and I try to record things of interest so the next person can see and learn and get as excited about their trip as we were.

If there is a park at Walt Disney World that is somewhat misunderstood, it is The Animal Kingdom. We actually overheard someone telling a first time visitor that it is really just a big zoo. I so wanted to jump in on that conversation and make sure the new visitor knew that she was being given wrong information. I have been to a lot of zoos including the world famous San Diego Zoo and, trust me, Animal Kingdom is WAY more than a place to just go and see animals.

Disney's Animal Kingdom has at least 5 major rides and 2 of the best shows in all of Walt Disney World. Some would now say that one of the rides (Expedition Everest) is now probably the best thrill ride out of all the parks. It is the largest park out of the 4 and some would also say the most scenic. So go with an open mind. Take a walk through by watching this short video of ours and see what fun lies ahead at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Walt Disney World Pop Century Resort

Here is a little video walk-through of the Pop Century Resort at Walt Disney World. This resort gets a huge thumbs up from me. In fact, if we were trying to decide to stay at either a "Value" resort or a "Moderate" one, we would choose the Pop Century over any of the higher priced Moderate resorts on Disney property. The food court had a great variety and the 3 pools were never overly crowded. The bus system was a quick as it would be at any of the Moderates. The only negative is the room size. The rooms are smaller than the Moderates which we for sure noticed as soon as we entered the room. If you have a party size of 3 or 4, you will need to be prepared for the tight quarters. But I will say that I am not sure the slightly larger rooms at the Moderates are worth the higher price. The only other thing that you get at a Moderate resort, that is noticeable, is at least one table service restaurant option. But reviews have shown that they are not the most desirable when considering all of the other table service choices throughout Walt Disney World.

The Pop Century is divided up into decade sections which is where the resort gets its name. The theme of the resort is pop culture. You can stay in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's or 90's building. Each building is then themed for that particular decade. For example, the 70's building has a huge "8-Track Tape" at the end of each building. The 80's building has a huge "Rubik's Cube." Music from each decade plays throughout the resort's common areas like the pools and "Everything Pop" which is the shopping and eatery area in the main building.

If you are on Facebook...stop by and become a fan of my travel page and you can see more resort pictures posted showing some of the detail that Disney has put into the grounds, the buildings and the rooms... "Operation Destination Vacations."