A skinner's trip to Disney World!

My wife and 2 kids went to Disney World. We went with my long time friend Kurt (who developed the original OS/2 version of Object Desktop, his wife and 2 sons.

We had a great time. If you're thinking about going, here are some tips based on what I saw:

It is hot in the summer
Duh. But it's hard to believe just how hot it can be. And how this can affect small children. The best time to go is apparently in October/November. Now, that might mean pulling kids out of school for a few days but I know next time we go, we'll do that. Missing a week of grade school won't kill them.

Fast Past
DW has a really good idea - Fast Pass. Everyone gets them. What you can do is reserve a spot on a ride and then it gives you a time you have to be back there by. You can only use it once every 2 hours. We used this very smartly and saved many hours of waiting in line.

How to avoid lines
Fast pass is part of an overall strategy. If you want to avoid lines, get there early. That means when the park opens. If you wait until 10am, you're going to experience pain. Get there right at 9am and know where you want to go and go there. Then use fast pass to go to your secondary ride choices.

Places of interest
Bear in mind that my oldest child is 5 years old which limits the rides we went on (i.e. no space mountain). Here are some of the cooler places

Magic Kingdom
My kids really loved Aladin's carpet. It's a pretty basic ride but it was a blast for the kids and not too painful for the adults. Magic Kingdom is a little run down these days. Pirates of the Carribean is still really great though. I actually enjoyed Buzz Lightyear's ride, it's part video game, part ride. Fast pass saved us an hour of waiting.

Peter Pan's ride was also pretty neat though not worth waiting in long lines for. The one ride that you have to go on is It's a small world. It's not a good ride but it epitomizes why some non-Americans don't like Americans.

Epcot Center
I liked Epcot center but not necessarily for the right reasons. The entire park is out of The Simpsons. You see, the rides are corporate sponsered which is just hilarious if you look at it the right way.

Monsanto has a really good genetically altered foods show there. It screamed Simpsons satire though "I have a crazy friend who says genetically altered food is bad. Is she crazy?" "No Billy, not crazy, just ignorant.."

Of course, seeing Ellen pimping Exon's Energy ride was both entertaining and hilarious. "Fossil Fuels are cleaner than ever and we're always finding new sources of them to last us as far as the eye can see..." (ironically this is said when the room is pitch black...) I recommend the ride though, it is funny and has cool dinosaurs which have nothing to do with the message.

They did have my beloved Segways there but you coudl only look, not touch! Dammit!

They also have restraunts from around the world there. The muscles in my feet have long since atrophied so I couldn't go to them (need that Segway! I'm not disabled, just LAZY).

As a little offensive side note: FAT PEOPLE, you know who you are. Wheel Chairs are for disabled people. Being obese is not a disability. Freaking fat people running me over all week in their wheel chairs when they aren't even disabled (they manage to get up to get food and drinks constantly!) Until you go to Disney World or some other wildly popular place, the amount of obesity in the United States is just a statistic. But at DW it was pretty clear that the US is full of fat lazy people. I know that it's offensive to say that but freaking nearly lost my foot from being run over so many times by fat people in wheel chairs! And they always allow those wheel chairs but not strollers (a 35 pound kid is a lot to carry around when you're as out of shape as I am -- next time I'm getting a wheel chair or Segway).

Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom was really good but seemed even hotter than the other places. I really didn't want to go to the Lion King thing they had but it is definitely worth it.

Which on a positive note - the people who work at Disney World are incredibly nice and professional. It was unreal actually how people who must have been miserably hot and tired could be incredibly pleasant and kind and enthusiastic. I can't say enough nice things about the people who work at Disney World and the various resorts.

The Safari tour is very good too but you have to make sure you go to it right away in the morning or else you won't see animals and the lines get ridiculously long very quickly. We ran directly to it and still waited about 15 minutes that morning. But it was worth it.

The Dinosaur play area for kids was quite impressive and the 3D Bugs life show can't be missed really liked that.

MGM
This was probably my favorite place there. I wish I had more time to check out more things.

My favorite part was the 3D Muppet show. It was very impressive and funny too. The Indiana Jones show was incredible. It's not only really entertaining but it's funny too. It's hard to believe that they do these shows day in and day out.

That's one of the things that struck me about all the shows I saw, you'd think that they were doing it one time ever and we were the focus of their entire effort. There was a Play House Disney show with Bear in the Big Blue house and the other characters. Live snging and dancing, etc. It's hard to believe they do these things over and over each day because they came across so fresh and enthusiastic.

Lodging
We stayed in the Wilderness Lodge. It's a 7 story lodge that's just huge but incredibly neat. We could take the boat to DW. I do not recommend camping. The people we talked to who camped were most definitely not having as good of a time as us. I can't imagine going to a camp ground after spending the day in 100+ degree (300% humidity!) weather walking the parks. The Wilderness Lodge folks were incredibly friendly and kind. Plus they had a really nice pool.

Other Notes
There are some water parks, Sea World and other things near by that we didn't get to go to this time. That's okay since with a 5 year old and a 1 year old it wouldn't have been terribly fun I suspect for them.

We're planning on going back in a few years when they're a bit older and I can take the older one on the big rides and spend time at the water park.

All in all, I had a really good time, I can't think of anything negative to say (other than the fat people who use wheel chairs because they can't stand walking all day and that's really just nitpicking). Best vacation I can recall ever having.

If you go, do it right though. Don't do it on the cheap. If you're finding you have to drive 2 days to get there or are planning to camp, don't do it unless you consider the drive and camping to be bonus good things to do (I hate driving and not going to camp in hot weather).

Hope this helps!