How to plan a last minute Disney vacation

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When we plan a last minute Disney vacation, we had less than a month. I guess you can try to plan your trip less than a week out too, but planning with plane tickets and accommodations really close to your travel dates can be tricky.

M and I did not really plan to go on vacation until one day we decided that we should go somewhere. I started doing research on where to go with a really young baby.

One of the places that I found during my research was Disney World.

In this blog post, I will be sharing how we booked our plane tickets, accommodations, theme park tickets, and even get the most difficult dining reservation at “Be Our Guest” restaurant around the time that we will be there.

One of the exciting things is that we saved more than $200 on our theme park tickets. That’s not a small amount! I’ll tell you more about it later.

This is the first blog post of my Disney series:

Contents

Here is how we planned our last minute Disney vacation:

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Timing

One of the first thing that I wanted to check was the best time to go to Disney within the next two months. We wanted to go there soon but had a little flexibility in the dates.

We wanted to go for a week to have the opportunity to visit many of the parks such as the Magic Kingdom and Epcot.

One of the places that many blogs suggested is to check the Undercover Tourist for the crowd calendar. It tells you which dates in the month is less crowded and which park they would recommend you to visit during that day.

After checking the dates and having a few options in mind, we started looking at flights and accommodations.

Since we are talking about timing, it was also around the time of the year where Disney World offered 20% off for Multi-day (4 days) tickets. It was perfect timing really. More details to come.

Flights

We were looking to fly during the day to go and to return. However, due to the last minute planning, it was more expensive to do so. So, we opted to fly there during the afternoon and return at night.

With a young baby or kids, you need to decide what is best even if it is paying a little more for ideal timing.

From Toronto to Orlando, it only takes around 3 to 4 hours so it is not too bad. If you are flying really long hours, there are many mommy blogs out there who can help you with that.

Also, I found that it is cheaper to buy one-way tickets directly from the airline or looking at different online travel agencies for options.

We will see how we do as it is Baby K’s first flight.

Accommodations

We decided to book our accommodations with Costco Travel. They offered a package with the multi-day tickets that I mentioned earlier. Costco did offer the package with the flights, but I found that it was cheaper to book it separately.

The cheapest option available for on-site Disney resort is the All-Star Sports. It is a value resort and only comes with a fridge. Nope, no coffee maker or anything (at least that’s what the reviews said).

However, staying at a Disney resort comes with a huge perk which is the Disney Magical Express. It is basically a free ride from the airport to the resort. You do need to book it separately after you receive your reservation number from Costco. We had to call Disney to figure it out, but it is all good.

Disney Tickets

It was great timing when we bought the package from Costco because we were able to get the Disney Multi-Day Tickets with 20% off for Canadian Residents. Not only that, you can choose to opt out of the Park Hopper option to save even more money on your Costco Package.

When we booked the package, the tickets on the website said that for 4 days, each person will pay (USD) $316 plus tax. Now, when I checked currently (as of writing this post), it is $461 plus tax. It is definitely more than 20% savings.

Side note: My Disney Experience App is super useful. You can link your resort, your tickets, your Fastpass, your dining reservations, and see waiting time here. It’s free and you can preplan a lot easier.

One good thing about staying at a Disney resort is that you can choose your Fastpass (for FREE) earlier than people not staying at a Disney resort. You can choose up to three for one park for one day.

But, since we are booking this trip last minute, it was around the 30-day mark which is the same for people not staying at Disney. You can still get good Fastpasses. We did.

Fastpasses

When booking a last minute Disney vacation, it is so important to get your Fastpasses. Actually, when last minute or not, you should look into Fastpasses.

It will help you get on the rides that are super busy faster and also no one wants to wait 2 hours for a 2-minute ride.

I did not know this until I started looking into Fastpasses, but apparently, it is free. I believe that other theme parks will charge you for their version of Fastpass.

If you have the My Disney Experience App, you can see the times that are available for Fastpass. Get them quickly. It does have an hour range so you can go on other rides with shorter wait times before getting on this ride.

There are so many blogs out there dedicated to Disney that will advise you on which Fastpass to get based on what you like. Some that I looked at were the Undercover Tourist, The Disney Tourist blog, Disney Food Blog, and Couponing to Disney.

Dining Reservations

Before doing research for our trip, I did not know that Disney World had a lot of popular snacks and restaurants. Sorry! I am fairly new to Disney World.

I’ve only been once, but that was many years ago and I did not really plan for that trip.

After watching countless YouTube videos of Disney Food Blog, there were so many tips and food to try at Disney World.

Two of the restaurants that we wanted to try needed a reservation: Be Our Guest and Ohana.

The process of getting those reservations is similar to getting the Fastpasses. Go on My Disney Experience app and click on ‘Reserve Dining’. You enter the number of people, choose the date, and then pick if you want breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

Once you have done that, restaurants with available time slots will pop up and you can choose from one of them.

If you have a restaurant that you definitely want to eat at, you can also search directly for the restaurant and go through a similar process. Sometimes, there is no available time for the restaurant you want. That is perfectly okay.

You are planning a last minute Disney vacation after all. Try to look for it again later the day or the next day. It was how we were able to find the time slot that we wanted. You can always book it first then cancel it if you cannot make it.

Be sure to show up or cancel your booking because they will charge you $10 if you miss your timeslot.

I am so excited about our upcoming trip. This blog post will be the first of the Disney series. Be sure to tune in for more. I will update this post with the links of the other posts as I write them.

Here is a list of my Disney series:

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