When my oldest child was graduating high school five years ago, I made a decision to give each of my kids a fun senior trip as a graduation present. I made a promise to all three of my children that when they graduate high school, they can pick anywhere in the Continental United States to vacation with friends. My oldest chose Disney World. Now, my middle child is graduating and he also chose Disney World.
I have planned dozens of Disney World vacations and I have become a guru at getting all the dining reservations and fastpasses that we wanted. There was rarely any disappointment in that regard. The last Disney World Vacation I planned was February 2020, just before Covid-19 hit the United States. Well, since then, things in the world of Disney have changed drastically. NOTHING is the same. Planning a Disney World Vacation is a whole new beast.
No fastpasses exist, so I don’t have to plan that out. Dining cannot be booked until 60 days prior, so I cannot do that yet. So what planning has to be done? Not much… We have made our hotel reservation. We have planned our transportation and purchased park tickets. That is it!
New to the planning table is making Disney Park Pass Reservations. Once you have your tickets, you must go to the Disney website and choose which park you will be visiting each day of your visit. Now that they have reinstated park hopping, it is important to know that you still have to visit the park that you chose in your reservation before you are able to hop to a different park. If you have hopper tickets, you are choosing which park you are going to each morning. After 2:00, you can hop to whichever park you want as long as they haven’t reached capacity.
So, until April, we have done all the planning we can do. I have this feeling like I am missing something, but I have gone over things ten thousand times in my
head and can’t think of what I am forgetting. Part of me likes the fact that there isn’t much planning to do. However, the other part of me misses sitting down to look at all the restaurants to choose which ones to make a reservation, getting up at the crack of dawn to get those fast passes that are hard to get, and continuing to check to see what parks will have Extra Magic Hours in the evening because it’s fun to be at a park at 1:00am!
I am sure it will still be a fantastic trip full of fun. Memorable moments will still happen and we will cherish every moment that we are in the magic. Stay tuned for more planning updates and reviews from this trip!
Cheers to 2021!
The Mouse Traveler 