Since my friend and I visited Orlando two months ago to attend EDC Orlando, we had to visit Disney World too to celebrate their 50th anniversary.  I have previously visited both theme parks at Disneyland in Anaheim in 2015 and Tokyo DisneySea back in 2016.  I almost went to Hong Kong Disneyland in 2017, but my friend woke up too late and we couldn’t just go if it was to close within a few hours of us arriving.  We went to Ocean Park instead since it had a later closing time.

Even though we had a limited amount of time in Orlando, my friend and I wanted to visit all 4 theme parks at Disney World: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.  We didn’t bother with the 2 waterparks: Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.  We only got to visit Disney Springs once for a few hours and also skipped ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex.

This blog post will cover the main topics about visiting Disney World as I will cover each theme park in more detail in the coming weeks.  During our entire Disney visit, all public indoor places and rides required us to wear a face mask.  This wasn’t an issue because we alternate with going inside and outside often enough which gives us a break from wearing masks.

Where To Stay?

At first, we were wondering if we should book a hotel near Disney World or stay on site at a Disney hotel.  If we stayed off property, we would have the hassle of trying to find an accessible taxi back and forth for all 4 days we planned on visiting each of the 4 parks.  It would also cost a lot too.

Even though a Disney hotel would be more expensive it has several advantages to it.  All guests have FREE access to any of their public transportation to their theme parks, water parks, other hotels and entertainment districts.

All hotel guests also get Early Theme Park Entry which allows them access to every park, every day, for 30 minutes before the park opens.  This can be a great advantage as select rides/attractions will open early too before the crowd comes in.  We did not go early enough to get use of this perk.

We ended up booking Disney’s Pop Century Resort as it is considered one of Disney’s “value” resorts and also had the new Skyliner gondola transportation to 2 of the theme parks.  It was great to stay at a themed resort and we enjoyed everything our hotel had to offer.  Click on the link to read my review.

MagicBand

MagicBands are colorful, waterproof wristbands that can be used to unlock your Disney Resort hotel room, enter theme parks with valid admission, connect Disney Photo pass images to your account and charge food and shop purchases to your hotel room.  We thought it would a good keepsake to get a MagicBand for those features and to remember our trip by.

We could preorder them online before our stay or buy them at any Disney shop, but the front lady desk gave us both a basic one since there was a problem with our preorder ones.  I still liked my green MagicBand and thought wearing a wristband would be better than getting a Magic Keycard and storing it in my wallet or bag.

The MagicBand also connected with Disability Access Services (explained below) which was quite convenient.  All MagicBand features can also be found using the Magic Keycard.  They are basically a link to your My Disney Experience account which is a mobile app to manage your dining plans, schedules, lightning lanes, park ticket and DAS.

Free Transportation

Staying at Pop Century gave us 2 different types of free transportation choices depending where we needed to go.  The first one we used was the Skyliner which opened September 2019.  This is a gondola that connects Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Pop Century Resort, Art of Animation Resort, Caribbean Beach Resort and Riviera Resort.

Skyliner

The Skyliner station for our hotel is shared and located between Pop Century Resort and Art of Animation Resort on Hourglass Lake.  There is a special line for wheelchairs and strollers because select gondolas goes to the special line and actually fully stops for a minute to allow guests to load in.

Each gondola can hold up to 10 guests or up to 6 if there is a wheelchair.  A gondola ride to Epcot is about 20 minutes, and to Hollywood Studios is about 10 minutes, with both requiring transfers at Caribbean Beach Resort.  We really enjoyed the smooth easy ride and looking out the full size windows at views of Hourglass Lake, forests and swamps and at the theme parks and hotels below.

Bus Service

To get to Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs and the 2 water parks from our hotel resort, we have to rely on buses.  The bus stop is located right in front of Classic Hall and bus schedules are listed there, hotel room TV and on the My Disney Experience app.

There are also designated wheelchair lines at every bus stop.  There are only a limited number of accessible buses that rotate at each bus route throughout the day and they can only accommodate a few wheelchair passengers at a time.  When we were waiting for buses, it seemed like every 2nd or so bus was accessible and the buses run often throughout the day.

Depending on the bus, the fold out ramp was either on the middle side or the front side of the bus.  The bus driver does have to lock and tie down our wheelchairs in the bus hooks before driving the bus.  Our bus rides were never overly full as they only let a limited number of people on the bus.

Bus rides to Magic Kingdom are about 20 minutes and to Animal Kingdom are about 10 minutes.  We do enjoy the bus rides but definitely prefer the Skyliner ride better.  There is still lots of greenery and nature to see on the bus rides.

Magical Express Shuttle

Magical Express is a free shuttle service between Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Disney’s hotel resort for hotel guests only.  This free service operated by Mears Transportation has ended at the end of 2021 and a new paid service begins in 2022.  Since were already in Orlando at the beginning of our Disney resort stay, we only used it at the end of our trip flying back home.

We booked this service prior to being checked in the first day.  Once we did arrive, a front lady staff made sure our shuttle to the airport was wheelchair accessible and booked with enough time to get us to the airport.  We were to get a confirmation letter of our shuttle times and bus number the day before we checked out.

We got a shuttle that was a bit early as we were scheduled to arrive at the airport way in advance.  The shuttle stop was right next to the regular bus stops in the front of Classic Hall.  The driver loaded me on the mechanical wheelchair lift after everyone has already got to their seat.  It was actually a really big coach bus and it was a pretty full bus.

The driver had to secure my wheelchairs with tie downs before leaving.  There were a bunch of small TV screens with a bunch of Disney ads during our bus ride.  We went directly to the airport and I was the last one to get off the bus.  Overall, it was a smooth ride and unfortunately this service is not free anymore starting 2022.

Disability Access Service (DAS)

Disability Access Services (DAS) is a program that assists guests who have difficulty tolerating extended waits in a conventional queue due to a disability.  This means we can put our self in a virtual queue for a ride on the My Disney Experience app and come back for it when it is our time.  This really helped save us a lot of time to do other things while waiting.

We had to go to Guest Services at our first theme park visit to get this added to our MagicBands.  This will be valid for the entire trip and does not need to be added at every theme park visit.  When arriving at a ride when it is our turn, a staff member will scan our wristbands to confirm our DAS return time, then let us in the Lightning Lane line.

Each theme park also has their own disability map guide with a complete list of wheelchair accessible rides and rides that need transfers.  We used this a lot when deciding which rides I should go on.  It also lists accessible routes throughout the theme parks and where the accessible washrooms are located.  It is definitely worth picking up.

4 Theme Parks

As I previously mentioned, there are 4 main theme parks at Disney World: Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.  We spent pretty much a full day ranging from 7 to 9 hours at each of the 4 parks that I will be making a separate blog post for each theme park.  Please follow my page or Instagram as I will update them in the coming weeks.

Disney Springs

We only got to visit Disney Springs once after we finished our visit at Animal Kingdom.  It was only for about 3 hours but I will still make a separate blog post about this experience too in the next few weeks.

Final Thoughts

Visiting Disney World was definitely one of the top bucket list items I finally got to do.  There was just so much to do and see in so little time and so much information to take in that I have to repeat this trip sooner than later.  I have yet to cover how my experiences went at each theme park and which rides were accessible and which rides I went on anyways.  Keep checking back as I will make regular updates in the next few weeks.