There Is An Element of Fun

Currently, my family and I are in the process of planning a Walt Disney World vacation. Just around the corner, we will be making Fastpass+ selections and undergoing online check-in, ultimately the final step in an exciting but strenuous road to a fully planned vacation. For me, there is no greater joy than planning a vacation to the place where dreams come true. From the day the resort is first booked to the dining reservations being made to the dealings with the MagicBands, the entire ordeal is a thrill.

However, I can fully understand why people dread planning a Disney World vacation. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just show up and enjoy everything the resort has to offer? Yes, it certainly would be, but the magic would be sorely missing. In my opinion, part of the magic comes from the planning. The memories begin when the planning is not omitted from the must-dos list. Knowing which park to visit on which day is just as vital to the magic as experiencing the Haunted Mansion upon every trip to the Magic Kingdom.

Today, I want to provide some tips that I have gathered over my years of planning Disney World vacations that will eventually make your stay in Central Florida a genuinely magical one. Hopefully, by the end of this post, you will start to look forward to your next planning session.

On most occasions, avoid Extra Magic Hours.

I know that upon first glance this sounds absurd, but hear me out. The first step in the planning process for a lot of vacationers is to look at the operating hours for each park. When they see that a park has Extra Magic Hours added to the schedule, the desire to visit that park on that day grows exponentially for those staying on property. Therefore, if you decide to visit a park with regular operating hours, the crowd has potential to be less crowded. Now, every Disney park is going to be crowded no matter when you go, but by avoiding Extra Magic Hours, you could greatly improve your chances of not feeling overcrowded. There are exceptions to this rule though. For example, the Magic Kingdom is often opened to midnight or beyond due to Extra Magic Hours. If that's the case, take advantage of EMH. However, on most occasions, you would be better suited to visit a park operating with normal hours and take advantage of a reduced crowd.

Be strategic with Fastpass+ selections.

You're going to be walking a bunch while visiting a Disney Park, so don't make your journey longer than it needs to be by booking back-to-back Fastpasses for attractions at polar opposite ends of the park. For instance, if you're at the Magic Kingdom at you have a Fastpass for Space Mountain from 10:00-11:00, it would be wise not to get a FP for Splash Mountain from 11:00-12:00. Inspired by the words of legendary basketball coach John Wooden, you must be quick, but never hurry while at Disney. Sure, you want to experience everything the parks have to offer, but you don't want to unnecessarily tire yourself out because you did not consider an effective strategy for your Fastpasses. Furthermore, some attractions will never require a FP. Most shows (i.e. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor) and continuous attractions (i.e. Under the Sea- The Journey of the Little Mermaid) will get you inside the attraction quickly and without much waiting. There are so many other attractions that do in fact require a FP that there is really no need to waste your FP on an attraction that normally has a short wait time. All in all, ensure that you take some time to strategically plan out your Fastpass selections.

Make dining a priority.

A while ago, I wrote a post about this very idea (read it here: http://insidedisney407.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-delicious-priority.html). Some of the best food on the planet just so happens to be served at Disney, so whether we're talking about table service meals or quick service dining, take some time to plan out where you're going to eat. I encourage you to look online beforehand at the menus that intrigue you the most and make reservations and plans accordingly. Booking a table 180 days in advance of your vacation can be quite an intimidating step in the planning process, but it must be done. You don't want to squander an opportunity to dine with royalty while visiting the Walt Disney World resort. Similar to the Fastpass planning, be strategic with your dining choices.

Prepare for the inevitable disaster.

Regardless of how much planning you do, something will go wrong when visiting a Disney Park. Something will go awry with your MagicBands, a Fastpass selection will be missed, a reservation will be misplaced. It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when. However, if you can anticipate that beforehand and factor that into your planning, it'll make the situation much easier to handle. Don't allow one mistake to ruin an entire vacation. Know in advance that something like that might happen and be prepare for it. By doing this, nothing can stand in your way of enjoying a WDW vacation to the fullest extent.

As Mary Poppins explains to the Banks' children, in every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Planning a Disney vacation must be done. It may not be the most enjoyable thing to do for you, but if you want your trip to be memorable and magical, planning is required. So why not try to make it fun? By planning Fastpasses, dining, park visits, and more as outlined above, those aspects are part of the process that are relatively fun to do. When adding in the inevitable financial and technical planning, the fun and the tiresome balance each other, leading to a immensely less stressful process. Don't be intimidated by planning a vacation to Disney. It can be done. It must be done.

-Cody Fleenor

Third Time's a Charm

I believe that it is imperative to look at Disney animation in different ages to properly understand the context of the films released during those years. For example, if you look at the 1940s, one might wonder why combination films featuring multiple shorts such as The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and Melody Time dominated the studio. That age of Disney animation was defined by some of the best animators going off to fight in World War II, so the money to produce full-length feature films was scarce. Another more modern example is the early 2000s when Disney released films like The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch. This age was significant because coming out of the 1990s when the princess genre was revived, Disney desired to make films to attract a more co-ed audience instead of skewing female. This is why we got movies about talking llamas and blue aliens. 

The pinnacle of the Disney ages are the two Golden Ages. In my assessment, the First Golden Age of Disney began in 1937 with the historic release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. That is a fairly universally recognized starting point, but when it ends is up for debate, I suppose. I mark the end of this age as 1966 with the death of Walt Disney. Throughout this nearly thirty year period, Disney gave the world such endearing classics as Pinocchio (1940), Cinderella (1950), Peter Pan (1953), Sleeping Beauty (1959), Mary Poppins (1964), and many more including Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), and Lady and the Tramp (1955). These are genre-defining films, and they all came in the First Golden Age of Disney.

The Second Golden Age of Disney began in 1989 and concluded in 1999. This decade of prosperity for Disney was highlighted by some of the best films in cinema history beyond the animation genre. This age was kicked off by The Little Mermaid in 1989 and would go on to feature classic film after classic film as Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Mulan (1998), and many others like Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Hercules (1997). The final film in this age was Tarzan in 1999, which also coincided with the rise of Pixar with releases such as Toy Story 2 (1999) and Monsters Inc. (2001) plus the change in focus for Disney as aforementioned. 

These two ages have not only defined Disney, but they have defined cinema. It is rather difficult for one studio to so dominate an entire genre as Disney did in these respected time frames by producing classic after classic. However, as Pixar continued to ascend in the early 2000s, Disney seemingly continued to descend. As I grew up, on the Disney side of things, we had films like Home on the Range, Chicken Little, and Bolt. Of course, you had your occasional ray of sunshine like the aforementioned The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch, but it seemed as if Disney was suffice to let Pixar run the animation business and ride their coattails to commercial success. Knowing your Disney history, it was a low point for Disney fans worldwide.

That was until 2009, when the sleeping giant awakened.

Disney had a crazy idea in the midst of the technological advancements in computer animation: they wanted to make a movie as if it were being produced in the heart of the Second Golden Age. They wanted to hand-draw a film, but not just any film, but a film about a princess. Now, you must understand the stakes of such a move. Disney hadn't released a princess movie since in 1998 with Mulan, so over a decade later, returning to this strategy was an extremely bold one to say the least. Luckily for Disney's legion of fans, the world was treated to the superb masterpiece The Princess and the Frog. A return to form for the company after an exhaustive stretch of mediocrity, Tiana and company were a breath of fresh air. 

What we didn't know at the time was that this was the start of something magical that continues to this day.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently in the midst of the Third Golden Age of Disney.

Beginning with The Princess and the Frog, Disney has once again began releasing classic after classic. Think about the latest releases from the studio. After we traveled down the bayou, in 2010, we experienced the majesty of Tangled, one of the greatest films ever created by the Mouse House. Following Tangled, we got Wreck-It Ralph in 2012, an incredibly fun ode to all video games and childhood in general. In 2013, the behemoth arrived: Frozen. While a vast number of Disney fanatics cannot stand the utter mentioning of the tale of the Snow Queen, at the time, a majority considered Frozen to be yet another Disney classic. In 2014, Big Hero 6 arrived to praise after praise and an eventual Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Then, we come to 2016 with the recent release of Zootopia, the studio's most well-reviewed film in years from a consensus standpoint. In my opinion, Zootopia instantly deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the best in the studio's history. Beyond the infectious music and hilarious, well-developed characters, the numerous important messages declared during the film are why Zootopia is going to be viewed and studied for generations to come. On the horizon for the studio, we currently await the release of Moana, another Disney princess movie due up in late 2016. Next up, they'll have Gigantic hitting theaters in 2018 about "Jack and the Beanstalk," with Frozen 2 just around the riverbend as well. 

So how has Disney returned to form and entered a Third Golden Age? Primarily, they're telling excellent stories again. The stories of the films mentioned in the previous two paragraphs are so well developed and even thought provoking. The characters within these stories are lovable, relatable, and dynamic. Characters like Pascal, Vanellope Von Schweetz, Olaf, Baymax, and Flash will go down in history as some of the most beloved figures of all-time.

Secondly, they have varied the genres. Instead of sticking to one type of movie, Disney is wisely giving its fan a medley of options. We have had three princess movies, yes, but all three of those films take the genre and flip it upside down, redefining the genre Disney created way back in 1937. Beyond that, we have a movie about video games, one based on a Marvel comic, and most recently, a film set entirely a fictitious animal metropolis. I think Gazelle from Zootopia would be proud of Disney for trying everything!

Finally, Disney is enlisting some legitimate star talent who actually have talent. It's easy for a movie to attract star talent, but it's a whole different matter entirely to choose the right actor to lend their voice to this animated character. Think about the choices Disney has made with these recent films. Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, on paper, are an unlikely pair to bring Rapunzel and Flynn to life, but they do it flawlessly. Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell in Frozen are absolutely sublime and with Zootopia, Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman turn in perhaps career best performances!

Now eventually, this age will end because all good things must end, but I implore you to take a second to step back and realize how fortunate we are to be living in such a time as this for Disney. I never thought an age could rival the 90s in terms of classic timelessness, but today, we just might be living in the age that could do just that. Only time will tell if history will in fact brand today as the Third Golden Age, but for now, the third time's a charm, and it's more charming than Cinderella's prince.

-Cody Fleenor