More Mouse: The Vacation Kingdom of the World: Travel Essentials

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The Vacation Kingdom of the World: Travel Essentials by Tom Richards

Tom Richards offers some packing advice for your next visit to Walt Disney World.

Read it here!

[Jimbo996]

"Escaping from the world of reality" is not a realistic approach to planning your vacation, any vacation, especially that of a Disney vacation. You do realize that Disney's version of an alternative reality is just dumb-downed approach and served on an expensive silver platter. The fact that you can come out of it and feel disappointed actually means what it means. It means it isn't the best vacation in the world.

I can't believe you're telling people to imagine they are having a great time. Okay, if you're not, then I'm wrong. Then again, LOL!!! Really is that what you're doing?!!!

The Number 3 advice (Realistic Expectations) contradicts the Number 1 advice (Imagination). Its like #3 isn't quite enough. You have to paper over such thoughts by imagining something else like unicorns and rainbows. Blame Disney marketing. Wonderful.

The mistake is not "Packing for vacation can be stressful". It's that being disappointed is stressful. You spent all that money and all you saw was EPCOT even though Disney advertises all 4 theme parks.

There's another bigger problem. It's columns like this that tells you a Disney vacation means sticking with Disney. That was my mistake from visiting Disney fan site. One should not do everything on-site. A one week vacation needs balance by visiting as least one additional outside property like Universal and Sea World. One should take a day off from the parks. One should eat as cheaply as possible. You're not really missing anything if one fails to see everything. If you learned anything, missing out means you can visit again to see what you missed. The minor attractions are really side shows and for crowd mitigation. The casual tourist can avoid the minor attractions.

Yes, relax. That's the best thing.

[tomrichards]

Dear Jimbo996
Thanks for the response. I love your idea about visiting Universal and/or Sea World as well as Disney. Concerning the imagination advise - I didn't mean to suggest you should pretend to be having fun. That's crazy. I am suggesting that vacationers leave cynicism, sarcasm, and world-weariness at home and - as you say - relax and have fun. Sometimes, that means suspending one's disbelief and willingly exercising one's imagination. Pretend you are blasting into space on Space Mountain, or that you're really in the "wild west" aboard a runaway train on Big Thunder. I agree with you that relaxing on vacation is the key. Happy travels.

[Drince88]

A one week vacation needs balance by visiting as least one additional outside property like Universal and Sea World. One should take a day off from the parks. One should eat as cheaply as possible.

See, I don't agree with either of these. You CAN visit outside properties if you like, but that's a huge expense vs either a pool day or adding another day to a 6 day MYW ticket! Especially if you used DME to get from the airport to the resort -- because you're then either going to have to get a bus of some sort (and pay for that) and be on THEIR schedule, or rent a car for the day. PLUS pay for the 1 day of admission to that other location.

And I don't agree that you should eat as cheaply as possible. I enjoy nice meals while I'm on vacation. I enjoy trying new things. I may not enjoy character meals, so I don't do them generally, but for those that do, they're not 'eating cheaply'. Are you saying thta you shouldn't do something you or your family enjoys while on vacation? If I want to eat cheap food at chain restaurants, I can do that at home.

[Barberella]

^ I agree with you Drince88.

When I go to to Walt Disney World (WDW) I want to be onsite - for a block of time - it's an immersive experience for me.

If I go offsite - I go either before or after WDW, never during.