Hear Vanessa and Kris' ride tips to make the most out of your next vacation. They will be joined by special guest Elizabeth from DreamFinder Travel. She will give tips for planning your next vacation and will tell how she can help make the process easier for you.
For all the latest news about our episodes follow us on Instagram @dislovewithvanessaandkris.
Hear Vanessa and Kris' ride tips to make the most out of your next vacation. They will be joined by special guest Elizabeth from DreamFinder Travel. She will give tips for planning your next vacation and will tell how she can help make the process easier for you.
For all the latest news about our episodes follow us on Instagram @dislovewithvanessaandkris.
Welcome to the DisLove podcast with Vanessa and Kris. I'm Vanessa Ferguson and I'm Kris Johns. Welcome to today's show. Later on, we will be joined by Elizabeth Atwood with Elizabeth at dream finder travel, a vacation planner in blogger who can help you make plans to tackle your favorite rides on your next Disney trip. This sounds really good. So before we talked to Elizabeth though, we're going to give you some tips that you can use when planning your next Disney vacation. And I think the biggest one is just really single rider. I mean ultimately you go to Disney world, you want to ride the rides, do you have to be next to your family the whole time? I say no. Some of my favorite times has been just writing my favorite ride, everest by myself, you know, I don't. When I'm with at Disney, I'm with Vanessa all day, every day and it's just nice to sometimes just be able to be there by myself and just ride and get on the rides and be on there quicker. And the nice thing with those dedicated single rider ride lines, not only on expedition Everest, but also on test track and rock and roller coaster, as Kris mentioned, you're able to get on it right away and we do stand in the single rider line together. He did feel failed to mention that we've stand in that line together, but you're usually, as you know, you're not always on the same car together, but the nice thing I think we've written every three or four times in a row before, which is great. We will usually have a fast pass to get that nice photo on the ride and then we go on the single rider line to be able to get those extra rides in. Now, one thing, those are the three rides that have the dedicated lines, but some other ways that you can. There's a couple more rides at Disney is apt to call for single riders. So if you are riding Solo, if you're in the line for soaring seven dwarfs, mine train or space mountain, oftentimes the cast members will call for single rider. So you may look out and you may be able to skip part of the line for those as well, especially on space mountain because it's a three person car and if you're there by yourself, you really get in and you can experience it because it's just fun walking up the walkway. You get into space mountain you, it gets dark, you hear the noise, but the big, the best part is to be able to ride it. And especially if you can be the third wheel, um, if there's another couple in front of you, you're in the park, you're riding the ride, you're on space mountain, you're having fun and there's lots of other times that you can get ahead of the line or have shorter lines. And one of the other times that you can do that is at the special events. We had a previous podcast where we spent a lot of time talking about Mickey's not so scary Halloween Party and Mickey's very merry Christmas party I'm in at those rights are at those events. Disney will open up certain rides for you to be able to get on during the party. And typically there's not as long of a wait, so we've done big thunder mountain space mountain, a lot of the different big rides at magic kingdom without maybe a 15, 20 minute wait. Sometimes if you wait until closer to the end of the party, you may not have any weight at all. Correct? I can tell you especially remember thunder. Yes. But yes, big thunder mountain, being able to just get on the ride walkthrough, especially if a little later at night and along with these holiday parties by being there a bit later, you get to experience more of the park. Now. One special event that we've not gotten a chance to do that. It's relatively new at Disney as the Disney after hours at magic kingdom, it's a three hour event and they open up 25 attractions. Now, from what I've heard from other people who have attended this, it's pretty much an empty park. You can get on and off a lot of these rides very quickly. They have date scheduled through March 2019. So again, you get three hours of ride time and they do a few special things like you can get mickey ice creams and they have soft drinks and a few things open, but the focus at the Disney after ours is specifically on the ride, so that is$125 per adult in advance. If you buy them the day of it's$129. So it's a little bit pricey but I think the amount of time you get would be well worth it. So the question does that, the prices you just quoted, does it include your park ticket for that day or is it the ticket plus the amount? It's only for that event. So if you wanted to be in the park all day, you would have to have a park ticket plus that, but you can just skip going to the park that day because you know, you'll get lots of ride time, spend some time at the pool, go to Disney springs and then just go to the Disney after hours. That makes sense. Now, one of the other things that hopefully if you are listening to this podcast, you're probably staying at a Disney resort on your next trip and if you are, you get to participate in extra magic hours, which are definitely one of our favorite perks of being in a Disney resort. Now they have morning and evening hours and those can vary by day and by park and I will have to admit I don't think we've ever made it to the morning. Oh No, we've never done that. We are more the late night people, so we will typically stay for those late night, extra magic hours and there's different rides that participate depending on if it's morning or evening and what park you're at. And we've spent quite a few times where if you're in a busier season, that extra magic hours might be until one or two in the morning. So we've been writing space mountain or seven dwarfs Mine train, be 1:00 in the morning, but it's nice to be able to get the advantage of. And what that is is those are only Disney resort guests. So what is a Disney resort guests? It's not just at a regular Disney hotel. There's a couple more hotels that are included within that as well. Just finish and includes the Swan hotel, swan and dolphin shades of green in Disney Springs, resort area, hotels as well. So that means that not only if I'm staying on Disney property, we can also get those perks and one more we forgot to mention is a four seasons resort. So if you're at any of those ones, they get some of those extra perks including the extra magic hours. So what cast members will do when the park is closed to the public, they will go around and when you go to go up to an attraction, if those extra magic hours have started, they're going to want to scan your magic band and if you are not a resort guests at any of those hotels, you will be asked to leave the park. So that's something that's really nice. It really cuts down on the number of people in the park and it lets you enjoy some time just on the rides yourself. Another thing, going back to the early morning that we have not experienced, I don't even remember doing this as a kid, but I have some friends that swear by it is doing the rope drop. What is that? So rope drop is in the morning when the park is getting ready to open. They'll typically open the gates a little bit before the actual start of the rides and people will run to whatever their favorite right is to try to get on. I love Disney, but there is nothing that I would run to get up that early. Correct? Yeah, you're right. I want to get up that early and I would not run for anything. Now. Of course I'm sure the cast members kind of don't let you really run, but with the rope drop, a lot of people have said that they're pretty successful with some of the rides, like flight of passage when seven dwarfs mine train, first open. Some of those rides. If you can't get those hot fast passes, it gives you a chance to try to get on the ride without a three or four hour wait by doing that rope drop and one thing that we have done, unlike the rope drop, we have done the end of the night so when the parks are open a little bit later, like 11 or 12, what we typically will do in particular rides that are towards the back of the park. We will go and do those towards the end. So Kris mentioned earlier, big thunder mountain railroad during extra magic hours, but we've also gone and done that at the end of the night because as everybody's going towards the front of the park, you can go in and try to jump on the ride before the party officially closes to everyone. So that's been something that we've had pretty good success with two. Typically you can track on your app on the Disney App. You can see what the wait times are for those different rides and know if it's worth running back to the back of the park to get on some of those. At the end of the night, now another tip that a lot of people don't realize that they can do is what's called the rider switch program. This is really designed for people with little ones, kids that may not be old enough to ride a ride tall enough or even just are a little apprehensive about that. So what how it works is if you're. If you are two adults and you have a small child or small children with you, you just go up to the fast pass or the main entrance of the attraction and you ask about the rider switch. Now this may even be offered in some rights that don't have fast passes. So it's important to ask. So what you do is you ask a cast member, Sam interested in doing the rider switch and what they will do is they'll give you a special paper ticket and this allows one person to stand in line. So if Kris and I were there with a child, we would. I would stand in line with the paper ticket. I'd go through the ride, he would be out waiting for me and then when I come out I would give him the paper ticket and he'd be able to go up and get on the ride right away so one person can say out with a small child while the other person's riding the ride, and then when that first rider gets off, the person who's been waiting for them can go ahead and go and ride that ride without waiting in line all over again. So everyone has to be there. When you ask about the rider switch program, so one can't be shopping on main street and the other one trying to get in line at seven doors, mind train. You both have to be there when you ask a cast member and there are some rides that they may not allow you to do that. So it's at least one, one child with two responsible adults that have to be a part of that rider switch program. So besides talking about some of the different things that we're looking at with the ride tips today, we're going to talk about how some of our guests can help you when you're making your plans for your vacation. So when we mentioned earlier today that we're going to have Elizabeth Atwood with dreamfinder travel and she's one of the vacation planners who could help you when you're making plans for your next trip. She can help you with fastpasses for those rive, give you some of those tips for rides that maybe we didn't think of. If there's certain rides that you're wanting to know, best strategies for Elizabeth can help you out. And so we're going to be bringing her on here in just a few minutes and hearing about her tips. Not only for your overall Disney travel planning, but as I mentioned, she might be able to give you some insight about how to get on those rides and how to get some of those fast passes. And the great thing to get the most of the Disney is you have to plan. And I've gotten feedback from people who said I Disney is so expensive. I went, I stood in line, you know, especially if they stay off property. I hear that more from people. Vanessa and I have had the best times because Vanessa has planned out. And that's why I'm so excited to have Elizabeth on the show today because my planning your trip out, you're going to get the most for your money and you're gonna have the most fun you can have. So we have Elizabeth at DreamFinder your travel on the phone with us right now. And Elizabeth has been a diehard Disney fan for many, many years. She participated in the college program down at Walt Disney world in 2004. She worked at Pooh corner and at the Disney's tail store we bought. We bought quite a few things there and a lot of time. And when it was downtown Disney we bought quite a few things for our dog at Disney tails. And she was also a Disney bride and she is a diehard Disney fan with lots of Disney travel experience. She works with a lot of clients, but typically she works with families with school aged children, so we wanted to welcome Elizabeth to the show today.
Speaker 2:Hi. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. Thank you so much for being with us. And we always like to, before we get started, do a quick icebreaker and for us one of our favorite parts of a Disney vacation is whereas the dining. Yeah. Disney dining where we eat. So we're going to ask Elizabeth, what is your favorite restaurant at any Disney park and why?
Speaker 2:You know, that was a really tough question. I was actually even asking some of my family because we go all the time because like this is tough, but after a lot of debate I decided to go with the garden grill at in the land pavilion. I've always loved since we were kids, there's just something about a revolving restaurant, you know, that you never get to experience. Most definitely. And to look at the ride is so much fun and now that they added the characters, it's a really great meal. Especially because it's not as busy. People don't seem to go there as much and there's so much character and action, we seem to get the characters several times while we're eating and my son just eat that up, so
Speaker 1:that's our favorite for us. We were there a few years ago for my mom's birthday. I don't know. Do you remember that? So we went there two years ago in. You're right, the character interaction is awesome and I'm going on a trip with a friend here shortly in her and I are going there for lunch. I've not been there for lunch, so I'm looking forward to that. So thank you so much again for joining us. We wanted to first start off by asking you to tell us a little bit about your business and what products or services you offer that are connected to Disney.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I am a Disney travel specialists with dream finder travel, the. We're a full service travel agency, but we specialize in Disney destination. So Disney world, the Disney cruise line, Disneyland Aulani and adventures by Disney. So Disney world is one of my biggest destinations for my clients. Many go there and I'm in that side of the country. Um, so as a travel specialist I help my clients find their best travel dates. Okay. I actually have some clients going in February. They're from Chile. Oh, they were going to come up president's Day weekend. No, no, no. Tell them how to do that. So, you know, I give advice about timing, you know, I, I pay attention to when there's a marathon going on and those kinds of things that make Disney a little extra busy that you may want to avoid. And then I helped plan are how each family plan their best vacation. My, I feel that my job as a specialist is to help each family plan what's best for them, what might be my favorite, may not be what's their favorite. So I help guide them through my experience of what might be their best resort. Uh, what you know, ride they may want to go to based on who's in their party. I mean if you have a lot of little kids, you may not want to wait for tower terror, you know, kind of guide them into that. And then I help them find the best deals as well. I do the research of what's the best prices and I also pay attention to changes in that sometimes Disney releases later deals and I am able to help my clients switched their reservation to save more money. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I was on recently helping some clients. I'm nab one of those, a dining plan discount vacations. So, um, so that's kind of the stuff we do. And then I also do what they want or don't want. I am as hands on or hands off, some people like to plan more than others. Um, so I kind of let them tell me what they're comfortable with, but I can do as much. I've, I make dining reservations, I'll make fastpass reservations. I've even set up the, my Disney experience for clients and even ordered their magic band. Oh Wow. It just depends on what every client feels they need help with.
Speaker 3:So we were talking about ride tips earlier today, so that means you can be the one that gets up super early and gets those fast passes for them. I do. When I'm at your service alone, because I can remember how many nights Vanessa is up, is it either midnight or six in the morning? When are you up, Vanessa? Yeah, it's the. It's in the morning. I can tell you
Speaker 2:warning for dining and seven in the morning for fast passes.
Speaker 3:Well, that just shows you because I never make these plants. It's always Vanessa. I know. I would rather you know you're going to pay for a service like yours really,
Speaker 2:right? There is no cost.
Speaker 3:I did not know that.
Speaker 2:Everything I do is free to my clients. I get paid by Disney, so everything I do for them is it doesn't cost them any more than if they went through Disney site and booked on their own.
Speaker 3:I think just your expertise alone. That's a wonderful feature and again, we're Elizabeth Atwood and you can find her on Instagram,@magicaltravelplanning. Just so you can see these tips, we want to ask you a question. What led you to start your business?
Speaker 2:You know, I've, like I had told you guys, and you said earlier, I'm a diehard fans, I've always loved it, but people have always come to me and then um, several years back I started a parenting blog which I still run, which is rock-a-bye parents.com and one of the things I talk about there is family travel and I do a lot of Disney travel posts with tips and information and stuff there. And I started having a lot of friends and family, you know, coming in and asking me tips because they'd see it and then you know, wanted more advice and wanting more helps. I kind of thought about, you know, this might be a good fit for me, but at the time it just didn't work. And then, um, I went to do my blog and work at home full time. So that made it really easy to kind of step into that role because I am home unable to get up to get reservations at 6:00 AM, 7:00 AM. You know, when[inaudible], when Disney releases new discounts, they go live at about seven and sometimes you have no warranty. It's like, oh, oh, get on it. Right and be on the phone, you know, I've had to call Disney with problems that our clients had, you know, they're, my Disney experience isn't working and I've been the one to call Disney and get on the phone and wait and get that all taken care of and fixed for them. So I'm able to have the time I need to be able to help my clients with whatever they need.
Speaker 3:That's wonderful. And our next question is just in comparison to a, maybe a parent or a mom who wants to do it herself, how can your service help add additional Disney magic to that trip?
Speaker 2:Well, for me, I like to think I'm planning trips to Disney world. Planning in general can be a lot of research, a lot of stress. It's a lot of time, a lot of time that parents don't always have, especially if you don't know what you're doing. And that's a lot of research time that I don't even have to hardly do because I've done it and I know it and I even actually soon when we're done with our call, I have getting on with a training call with Disney world about all the new stuff coming out. So I am all the time doing the research and I can share that so the parents don't have to spend forever looking everything up, deciding what's best, you know, if they don't know what hotel to stay at, someone might have five people in their family. I choose to have that ally get people with three kids. So I'm able to say, you know, Port Orleans Riverside is one that I recommend a lot, especially with younger kids because there's an extra bed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's our front door. Yes. It's my favorite.
Speaker 2:I put a lot of people there so I'm able to take that stress and that extra time away so that people are able to enjoy their trip without having to deal with that. And I am always on call for my clients when I book their trip. I don't feel that what I do for them at all, I'm here for whatever they need and through their trip I am on call while they are at Walt Disney world. Should they need anything they can call me at anytime for any help, snag or even questions they have.
Speaker 1:So what are some of those common mistakes that you see that people would typically make when they're planning on their own that you're able to help them navigate through?
Speaker 2:I, especially with kids, I see people, a lot of people kind of feel like it's a once a once in a lifetime thing. You see a lot of people have that philosophy is when they go and they try and do everything, you know, there were going one time and that's when you see those kids having meltdowns in the park. Just push and push. So I'm always telling my clients, you know, finding, you know, go through, decide what you want to do, make your priority list and do that. Make sure you know, we want to see the princesses. Go see the princesses, you know, do what's really important to you. And then if you have more time and everyone's good, do more, but you don't want to push you to, you know, when you have little kids to go from open to close. Sure. Especially in the summer when it's really hot, doesn't work real well. And that's when people have a bad experience in a bad trip because then everyone's overheated, overtired, overdone. And then they come home and they're like, oh, we did not have a good time at Disney and I don't want to see that because it's been fun and magical. So if you do it without the stress and all that procedure, you can have a really great time and experience that magic fully.
Speaker 1:Oh most definitely. So what would you say is your top tip that you would tell clients or people that are just planning a Disney trip right now?
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. My top trip. Oh Wow. There's a lot of them. I actually every Tuesday and is Tuesdays, so every Tuesday actually on my instagram and my facebook page, I give a Tuesday tip. Oh awesome. I'm going to bomb it. And um, today I'll just go with that one because I have so many, one of my favorite things and it kind of goes back way said earlier, I tell clients to do character meals, okay. Most people want to see the characters and I feel, you know, those lines on an alliance, they get really long, that's for sure. And I, I think it's worth the cost of the character meal because instead of wasting your vacation time standing in line and waiting and waiting and waiting to get to see whatever characters you want, you can sit and enjoy your meal at that time. You wait and the characters will come to you and sometimes it's even better interaction and when you're trying to rush through to see the character. So that's one thing I think it's worth looking into.
Speaker 3:Can I tell you something? Yes. I get my favorite character. So unfortunately he's not at any of the character meals, but that's not all he know. Oh, well I got my photo regardless. So that's up on the wall. You, Elizabeth. Thank you so much. Where can listeners find out more about you? Please let us know your instagram, twitter website, facebook, tell us where you're at. Yes.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm on instagram@magicaltravelplanning. Um, and you can find me on facebook. It's kind of long. It's dream plan. Go with Elizabeth with dreamfinder travel, um, and my website for booking is dreamfindertravel.net. And if you would like to choose me, if you just want to go in and put a quote, you can always do that. And just in the dropdown there's a little spot with all of my fellow travel agents and just to Elizabeth A. I'm on the only Elizabeth at currently,
Speaker 1:so that makes it either.
Speaker 2:And then if you want to get more trips to, um, like I said, my parents, my blog has racket by parents that come and under travel there's just, there's a ton of Disney information. They're awesome. So
Speaker 1:and we will make sure to put links to all of these in our show posts and make sure that our, all of our listeners are able to find out how to connect with you. We just want to thank you so much, Elizabeth, for joining us today and make sure to check out Elizabeth at dream finder travel. Not only can she help you with those fast passes and those ride tips like we were talking about earlier, but she can really help you with all of your Disney planning and as she touched on, I know you've heard us mention the best way to have a good Disney vacation is they have a well planned and Elizabeth can take out a lot of that stress where you're not having to do that. You could just go and enjoy your trip and everything's already all planned out for you. Sounds like a deal. Thank you again for joining us, Elizabeth, and we really appreciate you taking time out of your day to be on the show. As we mentioned, we are going to make sure to connect to all of you with Elizabeth and make sure that you can have her help you on your next Disney vacation, whether it be to Disney world, Disneyland, Aulani or some of those Disney adventure vacation. So we thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thanks guys.
Speaker 3:So we want to wrap up today's show with a couple of our regular segments. We're gonna do our two minute trivia and then we'll end with our wisdom from walt quote. Wonderful Wilson's. Today's the focus. Today's podcasts was about rides and you know, write tips. We're going to have some questions about right, so these aren't, you're not gonna get three clues like we've been in previous shows. I'm going to ask you a question you're going to have to guess, but you're going to have three different questions. Okay? Okay. So the longest ride at Walt Disney world is this, which clocks in at 20 minutes and 45 seconds. What is the longest ride at Disney world? Maybe splash mountain? No, no more guess. Carousel of progress. You got it. Care. So progress. And that's one of my favorites is a ride. It concepts are right. That's good. This next one is about wait times and Vanessa, what's the longest time you've ever waited for a ride? Probably around two hours is my limit. Okay, well on December 16th in 2007 at 6:00 PM, this ride hit or a six and a half hour wait. The highest it was ever recorded. What ride was it? Maybe expedition Everest. One more guess. Star tours soaring over California. Oh Wow. Is there any ride that you would have you ever waited six hours in line for anything? No, I don't think I have. I don't think I would. And then this last one. This is the longest, right? In terms of linear feet, the longest ride at Disney world and it's in any park, like there's not a. you're not giving me any tips, correct. Maybe Kilimanjaro Safari. One more guest. And you're going to kick yourself when you hear the answer. I mean this is technically a ride. Oh, that, that's not fair. It's a small world. The Walt Disney world monorail. Oh, that I don't have internet. And the internet said it was a ride. So it counts. 14 point seven miles and it travels all across the park every day in over 50 million guests. Use it a year. Wow, sounds amazing. And now with that, Vanessa, were you close with our quote from Walt? Yes. So we always like to end every show with wisdom from Walt and today's quote is the more I go to other amusement parks in all parts of the world, the more I am convinced of the wisdom of the original concepts of Disneyland and I think those ideas about having families to be able to enjoy things together, attractions that are going to not only entertain, but also bring joy to families as well as just the overall design and the ease to be able to go through the parks. I think walt had hit it right on the nail there. It's definitely Disney parks are unlike anything else that you'll experience anywhere else in the world. Wonderful. On half the beauty. I am the beast and thank you for listening. This podcast is not affiliated with the Walt Disney company or its holdings and it is intended for entertainment purposes only.