I have never been to Disney World, Disneyland many times;
our first trip is this December. I
wanted to get all the extra information I could. I have read all the message
boards, listened to podcast one of my favorites
is mighty men of mouse love their pod
cast. I have a pretty good handle on my vacation, so I did not think the
unofficial guide would offer more how wrong I was. The Unofficial Guide to Walt
Disney World 2013 is by Bob Sehlinger, Seth Kubersky, and Len Testa along with
information gathered by many sources and research. The guide is not in any way
affiliated with Disney so they are willing to be honest about what they liked
and do not like about the parks this was a high point of the book.
This is only one book
of many by the same authors they have many guides that are highly recommended
by many, be sure to look into any that may apply to you, the best tool in
planning a vacation is being prepared and planning. This book is big and bulky
in the print version it is 848 pages from title to last page, this is the War
and Peace of Disney guide books and worth every page they do have a kindle format also. I do know the next guide
for 2014 is in Kindle format. I did not
read each and every page I read the chapters that applied to myself and my
family’s upcoming trip.
The handy index is highly useful as the same thing could be
in multiple chapters so while you may want to look up illumination there is a
page for it but it is also talked about in other areas of the book by looking
at the index you can see where other information on it can be. The index can also be daunting because there
is so much in one book the index is large and can be difficult if you kind of
know, but are not sure of what you are looking for.
The section on hotels is nice if you are still deciding
where to stay we have already booked our rooms but it still was nice to see
what they said about our hotel and that it had a good star rating. If you are
just starting you trip planning I suggest looking though this portion and see
what they have to say about the hotels. A lot of family’s try to go on a budget
and this book may help in that area, the cheapest hotel is not always the
cheapest in the long run, so it never hurts to study before you spend your
money.
The restaurant guide came in handy I think any advice should
also be held lightly, you may love the pizza at mama’s that the review was not
a fan of, by all means fallow the advice and try the places with the mist
stares but also try a few of the others as well you just may surprise yourself
and find a gem at the parks. The nice thing about the restaurant portion is
that every eatery in each park and the hotels is listed. I used this portion to
plan ARD’s for the days we are there. They also include tidbits about the eateries
also a nice touch, but as I said never take anyone’s words as gold if it looks
good and sounds good to you try it.
Something that I was not overly impressed with is the Disney
offered tours, we have a large group going on our December trip so I have
decided to bite the bullet and do the Premium VIP Disney tour. Finding
information on this tour is nearly impossible, I have resigned myself to just
having to wait until I get home and do a review myself to find one. I will be
writing a full review of every little thing included with the tour when we
return from our trip. Besides the costly VIP tour there are many other tours offered
by Disney I was disappointed that there was not more information and depth of
these.
The park to park guides where nice and I ready each of them
in full. Each park is described in detail of what each park offers such as; restaurants,
rides, shows, and any information you could want on the park and its entertainment
was included. I found some things in the guide to do I was not aware of beforehand,
I have done a lot of research and I did not think there was anything I had not heard
of I was pleasantly surprised. If you have not been to the park before of have
only been once or twice this will be valuable you will know where to go, what
to do, and the best places to rest.
In the guide to the parks is where you will find the rides
for each park along with the rates by stars for each age group this is an
awesome for someone who has never been to the park. Disney world is not
Disneyland they have some same rides but many different ones as well .It was
nice to see what rides are the most popular and has the most stars. The rating
by ages rocks on our trip we will have my Grandmother and the senior star rates
may come in handy while working out what ride she may not enjoy. Please don’t
get me wrong she is an active senior but she is not into loop’s and crazy
turns, this guide helps insure each age group has an general idea what will
work best for them. I liked that it covered all the rides it gives each of them
stars and full reviews of what it does along with past readers inputs. I found
this helped me decided what we were going to do first, on this note their
option may not be your option so take any advice with a grain of salt, just
because they gave it two stars it may be a four star for you, I always think
you should get the best and top must ride done first, but don’t forget the
others as well. With so many things in Disney World and the other parks you may
miss something you really enjoy because you heard it was a bad ride.
There is also a lot of maps that will help you in your
planning, I did not know where our hotel was compared to the parks before
looking at them, it also has a handy guide to the transit system of Disney
parks along with estimated times from parks to hotels .The Disney transit from
Disney resort hotels to parks can be a pain from what I read, this is one thing
I am not looking forward to but at least with the book I will have a handle on
it before we head to the parks on our first day.
I also enjoyed the
shopping guide I am a fan of shopping on vacation at Disney for things that I
just cannot find in other places. This guide was nice but I would have liked a
full shopping guide, there are so many shops in the parks I would like to know
what ones sell what so I can work out a plan from that. Things like the store
in star tours, is where you will find
star wars items, this may seem obvious but if you have young children that
could no ride it you may skip the area totally. This also helps you to know
where to avoid if your child is princesses happy you may want to know what
stores sell exclusively princess stuff.
All in all I think this book is amazing and useful the 2014
guide is out as of four days ago, I will be getting this book and reviewing it.
After glancing though other Unofficial Guides from previous years I am assuming
that this will be the same so you will not miss much by getting the 2013 guide.
I hope to start on the 2014 in the next few days just to get an idea of any
differences. I found the 2013 guide is ready available at library’s so it may
be your best bet if you are looking to just glance though it for a few ideas and save money, I am
including the link to amazon for anyone who is interested in finding this book.
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