Essential Vacation Planning Tools

Theses are the must go to websites when planning your Disney World vacation. There are tons of Disney blogs out there for you to enjoy (or lose all sense of time in), but these five will get you started:  

• Disney Parks Website:  This should go without saying, but Disney's website is phenomenal and will have most of the information you need.
• undercovertourist.com:  Use this site's crowd calendar so you can plan your trip on the least crowded days as possible.  It is VERY accurate, btw.
• disneyfoodblog.com:   Planning where and when you are going to eat is vital to a successful trip.  I have an entire post dedicated to the food with many more links coming shortly.
• allergyeats.com:   If you, or your loved ones, have special dietary restrictions, prior planning is even more crucial.
• Gluten Free & Dairy Free @ WDW:  If you have one of these two allergies, this is a fabulous website.

​Your other essential digital planning tool is Disney World's app.  From here, you'll be able to make instant changes to FastPasses, download photos from Memory Maker directly to your phone, view wait times, and locate hard to find characters like Peter Pan, Merida, or The Tremaine Sisters. 

I have spent much time on the Disney app during the planning phase of my vacation viewing the wait times throughout the day to get a feel for how the crowd moves and plan the order of our rides accordingly.  I will share my opinions on this in another blog, but my rule of thumb for a great vacation at Disney is to do what everyone else ISN'T doing at the moment.

Lastly, I am designing this blog for the time crunched parents out there that need the Cliff's Notes version of Disney planning.  However, if you love to plan and can never have too much information, get the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World.  Don't waste your time or money on Frommer's guide.  The Unofficial Guide is the best!  And if you are saving up for that vacation, don't forget to check your library to see if they have it before spending money.  The library is a resource we pay taxes for but often forget to utilize.