Tips about Epcot, Food & Beverage, Magic Kingdom and PhotoPass

Epcot - My wife and I went to the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival a couple of weeks ago. Knowing we were going to end our night in the Magic Kingdom we parked there in the morning and took the monorail to Epcot. My tip comes from that ride. When you get to Epcot, the monorail goes into the park so you get a bird's-eye view of the flowers that you can't get otherwise. Now that we have taken this ride we plan to do it more often. - Mike Sikorski

Magic Kingdom - While at Magic Kingdom at night, we tried to take advantage of some busier attractions during the fireworks, in hopes there would be short wait times. We chose Enchanted Tales with Belle, as the wait time stated 20 minutes. Well, there was essentially no line. But the best part was that standing just outside of Maurice's house turned out to be one of the best places to see the fireworks. They appeared to be shot off right behind Beast's Castle and were literally right over our heads. And then when they were done, we were able to walk into the cottage and participate in the Belle experience right away. It was magical! - Megan

Laura shares these PhotoPass tips:

-- Make sure that the picture is always taken with your own camera in addition to the PhotoPass camera. Our Tigger pictures were never uploaded. Everybody can make a mistake and the photographer forgot to scan our PhotoPass. We didn't realize until we got home.

-- Take the kids out of the stroller, but get one picture in the stroller. I absolutely love our picture of the kids in their strollers and my husband and I each pushing one. It shows exactly what the week looked like.

-- If your kids are sick of getting pictures taken, then try to get them to take one making silly faces followed by nicer faces. Or have them wave good-bye to the parks.

-- Absolutely, write down your PhotoPass number. I took a picture of ours with my phone and emailed it to myself.

-- Ask the person taking the pictures for suggestions or alternate spots with every picture. At Animal Kingdom this led us to find a gorilla hiding in a place that we never would have found on our own.

ALL PARKS - It's been said before, but the early bird gets the worm. Each morning we rose with the sun and were at the gates of our chosen park at opening. We literally cruised through on every ride, numerous times. (Expedition Everest five times in 20 minutes!) We were out of the parks by 10:30 each day. Our kids left vacation feeling like we had seen and done everything and we never noticed the crowds. We heard so many complaining about how horrible it was and we shared a private chuckle about our planning. - Michelle K

ALL PARKS - It's been said before, but the early bird gets the worm. Each morning we rose with the sun and were at the gates of our chosen park at opening. We literally cruised through on every ride, numerous times. (Expedition Everest five times in 20 minutes!) We were out of the parks by 10:30 each day. Our kids left vacation feeling like we had seen and done everything and we never noticed the crowds. We heard so many complaining about how horrible it was and we shared a private chuckle about our planning. - Michelle K

Magic Kingdom - We were just at Disney World last week, and we spent two days in the Magic Kingdom. The crowds weren't too bad, but the lines for the Be Our Guest Restaurant were very long. The wait was 45 minutes around 11:30. A helpful cast member told me that many times the line is shorter around 1 or 1:30 p.m. We had a snack to tide us over and went back at 1:20 p.m. Sure enough, we were in the castle in 10 minutes. It was totally worth it! You can research allergies on the touch-screen menu to see what foods are OK to eat. It was wonderful for my gluten-free son. Lunch prices were just slightly more than prices at the Columbia Harbor House, but the ambiance and decorations were priceless. My kids spent half the meal staring at the snow falling outside the giant picture window lining one wall. I really enjoyed the vegetable quiche, and the gluten-free Lemon Raspberry Cream Puff was great, too. Everything about the restaurant is done right. It was a wonderful memory for us. - Ali Sanders

Magic Kingdom - We were just at Disney World last week, and we spent two days in the Magic Kingdom. The crowds weren't too bad, but the lines for the Be Our Guest Restaurant were very long. The wait was 45 minutes around 11:30. A helpful cast member told me that many times the line is shorter around 1 or 1:30 p.m. We had a snack to tide us over and went back at 1:20 p.m. Sure enough, we were in the castle in 10 minutes. It was totally worth it! You can research allergies on the touch-screen menu to see what foods are OK to eat. It was wonderful for my gluten-free son. Lunch prices were just slightly more than prices at the Columbia Harbor House, but the ambiance and decorations were priceless. My kids spent half the meal staring at the snow falling outside the giant picture window lining one wall. I really enjoyed the vegetable quiche, and the gluten-free Lemon Raspberry Cream Puff was great, too. Everything about the restaurant is done right. It was a wonderful memory for us. - Ali Sanders

I like to bring an extra sandwich-sized zipper-top bag to the parks with me. That way if the kids don't finish a meal we can take some of it with us as a snack for later. - Ingrid

Epcot - I was also at Epcot on New Year's Eve 2012 along with Zamgwar and many thousands of others. We had done New Year's Eve twice before, both times at Hollywood Studios. If you want to ensure you get to ride the popular attractions with little wait, you should plan on being at the parks at least a half hour BEFORE the parks open. For special days like New Year's Eve, plan on spending 16 to 18 hours in the park so get plenty of rest the night before. My son and I were the first ones on Mission: Space while my wife and daughter went and got FastPasses for Soarin'. At 8:30 we were allowed to get new FastPasses and got them for Test Track, which was closed for most of the morning due to technical difficulties. Plan on doing attractions you might not normally do and try to rest when you can during the day. I caught some zzz's at the American Adventure. This was the first trip in almost 20 to the World that we walked the entire World Showcase and visited every country and saw all the movies. The only hiccup of the night was IllumiNations was supposed to start at 11:40, but was 10 minutes late starting. That threw off the New Year's fireworks as the "Countdown to New Year's" started at 12:10 a.m. on January 1, 2013. - Rob Ripper

Epcot - I was also at Epcot on New Year's Eve 2012 along with Zamgwar and many thousands of others. We had done New Year's Eve twice before, both times at Hollywood Studios. If you want to ensure you get to ride the popular attractions with little wait, you should plan on being at the parks at least a half hour BEFORE the parks open. For special days like New Year's Eve, plan on spending 16 to 18 hours in the park so get plenty of rest the night before. My son and I were the first ones on Mission: Space while my wife and daughter went and got FastPasses for Soarin'. At 8:30 we were allowed to get new FastPasses and got them for Test Track, which was closed for most of the morning due to technical difficulties. Plan on doing attractions you might not normally do and try to rest when you can during the day. I caught some zzz's at the American Adventure. This was the first trip in almost 20 to the World that we walked the entire World Showcase and visited every country and saw all the movies. The only hiccup of the night was IllumiNations was supposed to start at 11:40, but was 10 minutes late starting. That threw off the New Year's fireworks as the "Countdown to New Year's" started at 12:10 a.m. on January 1, 2013. - Rob Ripper

For all those with peanut and/or tree nut allergies, make sure you have a meal at the Be Our Guest Restaurant (which was breathtaking, by the way). The chef advised us that no nuts are used on premises, and although the bread was made in a facility that may have resulted in cross contamination, ALL of the desserts were safe for those with peanut/tree nut allergies! My son was able to pick his own cupcake for dessert, and I'm not sure who was more excited -- him or me. The chef just had to prepare the cupcake without the garnish, which did not take away from it at all. Not to mention the cupcakes are amazing! I would highly recommend Be Our Guest, as most other sit-down restaurants are only able to offer ice cream without the Mickey sprinkles for dessert! - April Slavin

When our family stays on property we like to have breakfast at our hotel. The last time we went we stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort so our room was pretty far from the food court. We didn't want to walk all the way back to the room to brush our teeth again after we had eaten and then walk again to get on the bus to head to the park. To solve this problem I purchased a few disposable toothbrushes. They are little pre-packaged toothbrushes that have a little bit of toothpaste on them. They are small enough to fit in your bag so you can take them with you to the parks to use after lunch and dinner, too. Just toss them in the garbage when you are done with them! - Nicole Benko

Magic Kingdom - If you are in Magic Kingdom near closing time/sundown, you can sometimes see cast members doing water paintings of the Fab Five and friends. The very few times I've seen this bit of magic have been in early evening on the path from the hub to between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland (runs between Cosmic Ray's and the new Merida meet and greet). They use brooms and water to paint images of Disney characters on the sidewalk. They don't last long, and I don't think it's every day, either. The first time we saw this was truly an added pinch of pixie dust on our vacation. My 4- and 6-year-olds were amazed that it was just water! Now it's tradition to try to be in MK at the right time just to see if we can see them again. - Danielle

The Ghirardelli Soda Fountain at Disney Springs now has soy milk for their coffee drinks. It does not show up on the menu. They do not charge anything extra for it. - A. D. Johnson

Magic Kingdom - It's easy for small children to become over-stimulated by all the input at Disney World, especially Magic Kingdom, and certainly Fantasyland. When taking my granddaughter for her first time, just after her 2nd birthday, we purposely visited Adventureland, doing Aladdin's Magic Carpet first, and then Frontierland on her first morning. On her second morning we visited Fantasyland, riding Dumbo first. She enjoyed the attractions at Fantasyland more, I think, after getting acquainted with the park on her first morning. We have continued the "two mornings" routine at Magic Kingdom, beginning with Adventureland, since that first trip. Our trip when my granddaughter was 5 brought home especially how overwhelming all the sights and sounds of Main Street and Magic Kingdom can be. She thought she remembered, but the reality was something else. She definitely had that deer in the headlights expression on her face, walking down Main Street. Except for our old standby, Aladdin's Magic Carpet -- she greeted that ride enthusiastically. On the trip when she was 7, I thought we would probably do something else first, but she insisted that the Carpets were tradition. And that's what we did first. At rope drop, we're almost the only ones in line. It's like our own private carpet ride. - Kim