Tips about Epcot, My Disney Experience and Planning

A tip "for when you are almost on the ride and it gets stopped for bad weather": This happened on our last visit. We were just about to board Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the ride was stopped due to storms. Although the wait was around an hour, my wife and daughter got chatting to others in the queue, and soon one of the girls opened up a game app on her phone. It kept quite a few people busy and the wait just flew by. It's worth loading a couple of games onto your mobile device for delays like this, especially if you have young children, to keep them occupied. - Tony M.

I read Barbara's dilemma about using MagicBands with less flexible wrists. Even though I have flexible wrists, I have found it much easier to fasten the band so that the Mickey head is on the inside of my wrist. This technique causes much less contortion than having to flip your wrist over for kiosks and other point of sale areas. - Michelle B. (and several others) reply with a tip in response to an item in last week's newsletter

To save battery life on your phone, take a screen shot of your My Disney Experience page that has your FastPass+ times on it and use it as your lock screen. This will help you save time and battery life, since you don't have to keep opening up the app to check your Fast Pass+ times. - Keith K.

I found out during our last trip to WDW that being older can be a disadvantage with the new wristbands. My wrist doesn't bend all that well and I had difficulty using the MagicBand to enter the parks or to open room doors. Each time, the cast member at the park entry would take my arm and force my wrist to bend to make the band work. They didn't want me to take off the wristband, which is what I had to do to open the hotel room door. My advice is be prepared if your joints aren't flexible. - Barbara

EDITOR'S NOTE: For those like Barbara with less flexible wrist joints, or for anyone who would prefer not to use a MagicBand: Disney will provide you with a plastic RF card for admission/room entry instead of a MagicBand. Simply request it at your Disney Resort hotel. Read more on our MagicBands page.

If you love to raise your hands during high-intensity rides (or any that take a photo during the ride) please consider sitting at the back of the ride vehicle. If you sit at the front or even in the middle you block out the faces of the people behind you, ruining their pictures. Keep in mind this may be the once-in-a-lifetime trip for those people and they may only have time to ride that once. - Nicole

In mid-April 2014, my wife and I bought annual passes for Walt Disney World. These were linked to our MagicBands. I had previously linked a 10-day non-expiring hopper pass to my band. We visited WDW several times after that. When trying to enter a park on our most recent trip, I was surprised to find that the nine days left on my park-hopper were gone. A cast member at Guest Relations assured me the hopper was used up, so I bought a one-day hopper. Later in the day it occurred to me that maybe my park-hopper pass had been used before the annual pass. A cast member was able to see every day we were in the parks for the past few years, and yes -- the system had mistakenly used up my hopper before using the annual pass. It took a while to work out a solution. Disney could not replace my nine days remaining on the non-expiring hopper as that option is discontinued. They gave me three, three-day expiring park hopper passes to be activated on future visits. My warning: Be sure to unlink your non-expiring hopper passes if you decide to purchase an annual pass. - Carl

We aren't really big soda drinkers, so the refillable mugs aren't a good investment for us. However, we do like our morning coffee. I found disposable coffee cups with lids at the local dollar store. We make coffee in our room, take it with us on the way to the parks, then throw the cups away when we are finished. It's super-cheap and we aren't carrying around a cup all day! - Laura Briggs

In last week's tips, Gretchen Foster wrote about the difficulty of finding birthday cards on Disney property. The Japan pavilion in Epcot has a wonderful selection of all types of greeting cards. One of my grandsons has a summer birthday and I was able to find the perfect card there and slipped in a Disney gift card. - Carol Trainor

In last week's tips, Gretchen Foster wrote about the difficulty of finding birthday cards on Disney property. The Japan pavilion in Epcot has a wonderful selection of all types of greeting cards. One of my grandsons has a summer birthday and I was able to find the perfect card there and slipped in a Disney gift card. - Carol Trainor

A tip for UK visitors: In shops, kids struggle to work out the cost of something in British pounds, as they have to add the sales tax and then do the currency conversion. When ours were younger I made little conversion charts with the GBP equivalent (with sales tax added) of up to $20. As long as they can add up, they can then work out what things are going to cost from their spending allowance without having to ask Mum or Dad all the time. - Juli Williamson

Something we tried this last time we stayed at the Boardwalk Villas was to bring a water purifier that you connect to the kitchen faucet. This worked amazingly well! We didn't have to haul or buy a whole bunch of water bottles for our trip, you just keep refilling a glass or reusable container. You don't have the waste of the plastic bottles or have to drink the nasty-tasting Orlando water! Just write down a reminder to take your purifier off the faucet before you leave. When you get home, connect the purifier back to your own kitchen faucet! - Tammy

When making dining reservations using the Disney website make sure you log in before you select your reservation time. I lost two reservations to 'Ohana (on two separate occasions) because after I selected the reservation time the system prompted me to log in. Once I logged in, the system did not hold the reservation that I selected. Very disappointing! I sent a message to Disney regarding this problem and their solution was to be sure that you are logged in prior to searching for a dining reservation. - Sarah Kelley

If you have planned multiple trips to Walt Disney World with tickets linked to your My Disney Experience account, be sure when you check in that the CORRECT ticket is linked to that stay. For example, I bought a 1-day ticket to use in November after a Disney cruise, but before that I had booked a 7-night package with tickets in June. Both were linked to my account. (It asks you who the ticket is for when you buy it online at disneyworld.com.) When I went in June, my 1-day ticket was used inadvertently, and then 6 days were used from my ticket that came with my package. I discovered this when I went to use that 1-day ticket in November. Of course, the 7th day from my package ticket had expired, since more than 14 days had passed, so I had to buy ANOTHER 1-day ticket to use for November. WDW told me to make sure when checking in to specify which ticket you want to use for your MagicBand. I guess it's not obvious you would want to use a 7-day ticket for a 7-day stay. If you make multiple trips to WDW a year like me, you may run into this trouble. - Jill Benicewicz

If you want to purchase a limited edition or limited release MagicBand (e.g. Frozen-themed), please note that you must have the ticket or annual pass with you to link it. It cannot be linked at a later date. On a recent weekend trip, my husband and I tried to buy one for our son for Christmas and were told that they cannot link the limited editions/releases later, only solid colors can be linked at another time. I just wanted to let everyone know so they don't make any promises or special trips like we did. - Tami Nutt

We had a great time using the new Disney app on our phones and used it often to book last minute ADRs. Something we noticed halfway through the holiday is that the Disney app and the Disney website often offered different dining options and times to each other. For example we were able to make last-minute Chef Mickey ADRs on the app that were listed as being unavailable on the website. Other times we were offered more convenient times on the website that weren't listed on the app. So if you are after a particular time or a particular place, it's worth checking both the app and the actual Disney webpage to see if what you want is available. By doing this I was able to get all the times we wanted even at difficult places to book like 'Ohana and Tusker House, and even Be our Guest. It's worth not giving up looking for those important ADRs even once you are there. - Sophie Galloway