What I learned at Disney World, Orlando, Florida

We visited the park in the last week of December 2008.

The flight tickets were expensive, the rental car was expensive, the park tickets…exorbitant, the lines long!

We learnt an expensive lesson that you can all benefit from. After all why be the fool when I am one already!

Immediately obvious were the huge crowds everywhere. You had to stand in line for 25 minutes just to grab a vegetable roll at a food stand!

But there was something more subtle that I noticed, Disney runs an efficient organization. I noticed a lot of Disney employees picking up trash and keeping the park spick and span despite the huge crowds.

Also impressive was how everything kept humming. Once you go on the various rides and attend the various shows you begin to appreciate the enormous number of moving parts in the form of toys and other gadgets. However not one of them was malfunctioning. Keep in mind that the parks operate long hours sometimes up to 1 AM into the morning and then reopen at 8 AM .There is very little recovery time for the moving parts.

Crowd control was another great Disney trait. We had to wait 2.5 hours for some of the rides, but the wait was bearable because the line kept moving, in myriad serpentine forms. The movement created an illusion of progress and helped us keep our sanity. We had two kids in tow, one 3 years and the other 2 and they lasted the entire length of the queue. For one of the attractions, the fireworks show called ‘Fantasmic’ the crowds were so large, it was a 6000 people stadium, and we were so far back in the queue that we never expected to make it to the show in time. But turns out not only did we make it, we got to park our strollers in the designated spot and find good seats all before the show started.

But please try to minimize your interaction with Disney employees if you can. I had an encounter with a rude employee at the City Hall in Magic Kingdom that ruined a part of our park experience.

Aah...Disney world…great operations but rude people. Why can’t they just fire the rude ones? Are they in business for their employees or for the customers?

Do not visit Disney in the week between Christmas and New Years. It is not worth the hype about special holiday decorations. And do not bring kids around the age of 3 to the park. Of the four days that we visited the various parks the most fun my 3 year old son had was when he played with my friend’s son at their house!Kids that age just do not get it. They miss out most of the fun. And the long lines mean we the parents do not have a chance either.

Do not plan 4 consecutive days at the parks. You end up spending atleast 8 to 10 hours daily at the park. While the rush will keep you going it will eventually make for a very tiring vacation. Plan a break between the park visits. There are many great beaches not too far from Orlando which will make for a nice departure.

If you only to plan to visit the Disney parks in the Orlando area then consider booking into a hotel with free shuttle services to the parks. The car rentals plus the 12 dollar daily parking fee quickly add up to a tidy sum.

Of all the parks Magic Kingdom was the best, it was truly magical. Of course this is a purely personal and subjective assessment. Animal Kingdom was more like a zoo plus it closes early because the animals chose not stay up late for our convenience. So plan on getting there early if you still wish to visit it. Disney studios is not bad but it is more for bigger kids and adults.

Also if this is your first visit with the family and if you are there only for a few days then it is not worth spending 50 dollars more for the ‘hopper’ option. You have enough to keep yourself more than busy in each park.