How I Spent My Disney Vacation
And were the indulgences worth it?
I’m working on a more studious Disney World post about immersive environments and stories (because anyone who was watching my IG stories knows that I was ruminating on the topic basically the entire time I was there), but since some people have asked me for advice on their own planning, I thought I’d do a little post on how I spent my Disney vacation — and what I spent on, and whether it was worth it.
This was a trip of indulgence for me, and I will admit that right up front! I booked this back in November when I was desperately in need of a pick-me-up, and I decided right then and there that I was not going to skimp on things I truly wanted. That didn’t mean splashing out insensibly, but it did mean allowing myself a few luxuries I wouldn’t always choose.
So… would I choose them again?
Hotel
I decided to stay in Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, primarily because of its position as the hub of the Skyliner. The Skyliner is my favorite method of Disney transportation. And I admit to having been very skeptical about the idea when they were first building it, but now I just wish they’d extend it all the way to Animal Kingdom! But right now, it connects EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and a few resorts: Riviera, Pop Century, Art of Animation, and Caribbean. Caribbean is the hub, which means if you’re coming from any of the other resorts, you may have to transfer here to get where you’re actually going. And there’s a Joffrey’s stand right by the entrance, so I could grab my caffeine before hopping on (at least, when I wasn’t there so early that the coffee kiosk hadn’t opened yet!).
I also got a good deal! I highly recommend keeping an eye out for these when you’re booking a Disney trip and even afterwards. I initially only had four nights, in a room with a king bed — but when JetBlue screwed up my flights by rewriting their entire spring schedule (don’t get me started) and I was trying to decide whether to stay an extra night or else lose an entire day, I noticed that Disney had released a new deal: If I switched to a different room type, I could get a fifth night for free! Actually, for about $40 less overall than I’d been paying for the king bed room for four nights. Staying an extra night meant I actually saved money! Obviously it might not always work out that way, but Disney’s starting to offer these deals or room-and-ticket packages more frequently than immediately after the reopening, so they’re worth keeping an eye out for.
The room was beautiful and comfortable! I got one of the newly renovated Little Mermaid rooms, and while I actually have a slight aversion to that particular IP, these are done very tastefully, so it’s not in-your-face the way Art of Animation would be. Mostly it just felt like a lovely, light ocean theme.
I got fantastic sleep every night — and that is not always the case for me, especially my first night in a hotel. My anxiety decides to get keyed up when it isn’t in a familiar sleep space, but between just being that worn out at the end of each day and the room being so comfy, I slept like a princess unbothered by peas.
I did have one small problem with my room — not a big deal, but definitely something that needed taking care of — and the front desk not only remedied it extremely swiftly, they also gave me a special little Skyliner pin for my trouble, which was such a lovely surprise! Be nice to cast members, y’all; frustrations and problems can crop up on every vacation, but being patient and understanding gets you so much farther than being a jerk about an issue.
Now, Caribbean has some infamous downsides, mostly related to its size. This resort sprawls. It’s large enough that some of its rooms are actually closer to the Riviera resort than to its own center. This didn’t bother me too much. I’m a good walker, and I clocked the distance from my room to the lobby at about 600 steps, so that’s not too bad. It did feel longer late at night, though, when I wanted to run down there to fill up my mug with Coke Zero for the morning — but even then, it was a pretty short journey. Anyone with mobility issues or small children might find it more difficult, though, or if you just plain don’t like walking as much as I do.
The other thing about the Caribbean’s size is that it can make the buses challenging — and those are the only ways to get to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Because Caribbean is so spread out, it actually has multiple bus stops, and at busy times, that can mean that you’re waiting a really long time to get on or off, or that a bus might already be full by the time it gets to your stop. I actually didn’t encounter too much trouble with this, though! I used the My Disney Experience app to keep an eye on the anticipated arrival times, and my room was just across a little courtyard from the Trinidad bus stop, so it was easy to catch the ones going out. Coming back, it did take a while late at night because the bus had to stop everywhere to let folks off — but coming back midday never felt like it slowed us down much.
Worth it?
Honestly, I’m still a little undecided about this. I definitely don’t think I spent enough time at the resort to have gotten the most out of all it has to offer! I only briefly sat by a pool, I didn’t do any of the resort activities, I didn’t even hang out at the pool bar (mostly because I kept getting back so late that it had closed!). It’s just so hard, when I’ve only got a few days, not to spend them all in the parks — but I think if the trip had been even a day longer, I’d have needed to give myself a resort day as a break. Even my ability to run on caffeine and adrenaline has its limits!
The rooms themselves also aren’t wildly different from the ones at Pop Century. Maybe slightly larger, and of course the one I happened to be in is fairly newly renovated, which helps, but they’re the same style and general layout. (I actually think they’re almost identical to another Moderate resort, Port Orleans Riverside — the little bungalow-style buildings might be actual duplicates of each other, just painted different colors with different trimmings!)
But… the location can’t be beat, for my transportation preferences. The room was perfect for me, and everything about this resort is just so beautiful. It just feels relaxing to stroll around, and you get lovely views across the water.
So, ultimately, yes, I’d definitely stay here again, but I’d probably make sure I could get some sort of deal rather than paying full rack rate — and I’d probably plan a trip long enough to warrant a true resort day to lounge about and enjoy the amenities.
Park-Hopping, Genie+, and Individual Lightning Lanes
I grouped these up because they’re all add-ons to your standard admission. Park-hopping lets you visit more than one park in a day; otherwise, if you start in Magic Kingdom, you can only go to Magic Kingdom that day. You can leave and come back, but you can’t bounce over to another park.
Genie+ is Disney’s current and somewhat controversial skip-the-line service. It replaced FastPass+, which replaced the old “run to get it” paper Fastpasses from back in the day! I minded it less before they went to dynamic pricing, because I think dynamic pricing is the devil. Disney says you can use Genie+ to get on “two or three” extra rides in a day — and they are way underestimating, at least if you know what you’re doing and have a good strategy. Which I did! Thanks to many, many hours spent watching All Ears videos.
I did the extra cost Individual Lightning Lanes for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Tron: Lightcycle Run. (Of the other ILL rides, I rope-dropped Flight of Passage and Rise of the Resistance, and I don’t give a damn about Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which is both overrated and inferior to Big Thunder).
Worth it?
To me, absolutely. I love a midday park hop, not least because it helps prompt me to take the midday break that I very much know I need. It also let me take advantage of different parks’ operating hours — for instance, on the day that I started in Animal Kingdom and ended in Magic, it was because AK had the earliest opening, 7:30am for resort guests doing Early Entry (which means you get in half an hour before the park opens to non-resort guests), and MK was open until 11pm. Without Park Hopper, I’d have lost out on some hours of park time, because Animal Kingdom also closes the earliest (6 or 7pm most days this time of year).
Now, I might’ve then used that time to actually hang out at the hotel — but that wasn’t my priority. It also means that if the park I start in is feeling too crowded, I can bounce over to one that looks less densely inhabited. I love the flexibility that Park Hopping gives me, so I’ll pretty much always choose that add-on, and I made use of it every day except May the Fourth, since I was pretty well tethered to Galaxy’s Edge all of that day! But Sunday I went from Magic to AK to EPCOT, Monday from AK to Magic, and Tuesday from EPCOT to AK to Studios. (Yes, I really love Animal Kingdom).
Genie+? Also, to me, absolutely worth it. I probably didn’t need it every day I was there, but it helped me fit in everything I wanted without any stress. I knew I could get on all my priority rides and pretty well everything else, too, and didn’t have to sweat it. Honestly, just taking that weight off of my mind was worth the 20-odd dollars a day.
As for the ILLs: Yes, worth it, at least this time; I really enjoyed both rides (somewhat to my surprise), but I did not want the stress of the virtual queue. Plus, you end up waiting an hour even in the virtual queue. Pass. Would I get the ILLs again? Maybe not every trip — but these aren’t rides I feel like I need to do every trip. They’re worth it once in a while, though. (Just, please, EPCOT gods, next time, can I please do Guardians with something other than “Disco Inferno” as the song?)
Quick Service Dining Plan
Disney just reintroduced dining plans in January, and they’re both more limited and more expensive than they were pre-pandemic. Since I rarely have a burning desire to do a table service restaurant, I decided to give the less costly Quick Service plan a try this trip. With that, you get two Quick Service meals and one Snack credit per night that you’re staying, which meant I had 10 meals and 5 snacks.
I think it’s easier to make this plan financially sensible than the full dining plan, especially since the meal credits include an alcoholic beverage. You need the meals to roll out to about $20 each for the plan to save you money, but if you’re getting cocktails, you can easily hit what would be $30+. Since it racks up by the night, I was able to stretch it out some — I used my first meal right when I got in Friday night, and my last two on Wednesday for breakfast and lunch, with the others scattered in-between.
Worth it?
Financially, yes. Technically, at least. I’m pretty sure I beat Disney by consuming food and drink of more value than what I spent on the meal plan. On the other hand, I also ate more food than I really wanted to eat, and there were a few times I passed on a snack I would’ve rather had in order to maximize the dining plan value. I don’t think I’d do this again unless they reinstate the ability to trade in one Quick Service credit for three snacks, the way you used to be able to. I did enjoy not having to think about it, though.
(I also discovered that if you get a glass of wine to-go from a resort restaurant, they give it to you in a sealed container. I didn’t really want that glass of wine at 3pm when I was about to head back out, but I super appreciated having it in my beverage cooler when I got back in at midnight!)
Memory Maker
So, anyone can get a picture taken by Disney PhotoPass photographers for free — but if you want to keep unwatermarked versions of those photos, that costs money. You can buy them individually, but that’s pretty cost-inefficient if you want multiple pictures.
Memory Maker gets you access to all your PhotoPass photos from a trip (technically, for a 30-day period) for one bundled price. And there are a lot of PhotoPass opportunities in the parks. Many are at character meet-and-greets, but some of my favorites were actually just scenic ones. They almost never had any line! And I got some fantastic shots. Plus, you can get the Magic Shots that add in some fun digital element. They’re silly, but fun!
Btw, my pro tip for getting a castle shot (whether you’re doing a PhotoPass shot or not): Go on one side or the other of the castle, rather than trying to get the iconic shot down Main Street. Unless you’re there when the park is deserted, that iconic shot will have all sorts of randos wandering through the background. But the side view shots have no one in the background! This is true for EPCOT’s geodesic sphere and the Tree of Life in Animal Kingdom, too; you can generally find some better, less-crowded spot to get an amazing picture without strangers cluttering the view.
There are also special PhotoPass locations in each park for Disney Visa cardholders, which I am, but those actually did have long lines each time I found them, so I didn’t avail myself of them on this trip.
Worth it?
Absolutely. I got so many amazing photos that I would never have gotten on my own! I feel like 95% of the pictures of me from the past decade are selfies taken from the exact same angle. It’s nice to have some variety for a change, and to be able to show off my Batuubounding and Disneybounding in something other than mirror shots. And that’s why I decided on this splurge: I wanted pictures of myself that aren’t selfies, and this way, I got them taken by pros!
I do want to say, though: Disney? Stop replacing PhotoPass photographers with auto-cameras. They do not do anywhere near as good a job. They don’t even do as good a job as handing my cell phone to the character attendant. And they’re not fun in the way that the photographers are. I really love that moment of interaction, especially when I found photographers with no lines who wanted to play around a little bit. (Without fail, every time a photographer noticed I had a fan, they wanted me to do something fun with it). Pay humans for quality work!
Overall
So, overall, yes, this trip was a little more expensive than I’d generally allow myself -- but that was by design and intent, and with the possible exception of the dining plan, it was all totally worth the indulgence. I had a fabulous time with, truly, just about zero stress. That alone is such a rarety for me that it’s worth quite a lot.