Skip the ticket—but not the magic.
In this episode of Adventures of a Disney Dad, we’re breaking down ten of the best ways to enjoy a Disney day without stepping foot into a theme park. Whether you’re building in a rest day, looking to stretch your budget, or just want to slow down, these ideas help you experience the best of Walt Disney World without scanning in.
Don’t want to watch or listen? Check out our full list of 10 Amazing Things to Do at Disney World Outside the theme parks!
👉 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app.
What We Cover in This Episode
In this episode, we’re sharing ten of our favorite things to do at Disney World that don’t require a park ticket. We talk about how Disney Springs can easily fill half a day with amazing food, live music, and fun shopping spots. We also dive into how to make the most of your Disney resort. Whether that means hitting the pool, joining in on free activities, or just taking time to slow down and recharge.
We cover what to expect at Disney’s water parks, from Blizzard Beach to Typhoon Lagoon, and why both are a great option for a non-park day. You’ll hear our best tips for monorail and Skyliner resort hopping, including where to find the best snacks, views, and hidden gems along the way. We also talk about the free campfire and s’mores programs at the resorts, plus the movies under the stars that are easy to overlook but totally worth doing.
Dining is a big part of Disney, and we highlight some of the best table-service restaurants outside the parks that are perfect for families looking to slow down and enjoy a good meal. We get into some of the outdoor recreation you might not know about, like bike rentals, fishing, and nature trails. Mini golf also makes the list and it’s a surprisingly fun and affordable way to spend a few hours. And to wrap it up, we share where to watch fireworks without a park ticket, including a few of our favorite resort spots that pipe in the music and give you a front-row view.
📌 Episode Resources:
- Blog Post: 10 Things to Do at Disney World Without a Park Ticket
- Quote Request: Start Planning Your Disney Trip
Episode Transcript
Matt: [00:00:00] Some of the best Disney memories don’t happen in the parks. They happen outside of them, whether it’s riding the skyline or just for fun, catching the fireworks from a resort, or spending a morning on a pool water slide.
There’s a lot of magic to be found without setting foot in a theme park. In today’s episode, we’re gonna share 10 of our favorite things to do outside of the Walt Disney World theme parks and how to build a non-par day that’s still packed with the things that make Disney special. We’re also gonna get a few quick updates on what’s new inside the parks, including some changes to Multipass with.
The opening of Test Track 3.0, a few headline worthy stories that you’ve probably already heard a little bit about on Disney Cruise Line and throughout the parks. And then, uh, we’re gonna get into a little bit of that news and jump right into some of your listener questions. Also, if we have time to get to ’em.
Welcome back to the Adventures of Disney Dad podcast. I’m Matt, a travel agent with the Magic for Less Travel and a dad of three. Joining me as always is my co-host Chip, who is fresh off of a Disney [00:01:00] Resort only trip, which is kind of the inspiration for this episode. And we’re here to help you plan a smarter vacation, worry a little bit less and make the most out of it.
So let’s get right into it. Chip. Before we jump into all things you know, Robinson Family vacation, we’ve gotta talk a little bit about the news because we’ve got a lot of it.
Chip: Yeah. There’s some good news, there’s some listen there, there’s some dad news in there.
Matt: Uh, you, you know, uh, yeah. It doesn’t have a bad ending, but we’re gonna talk about it anyway.
So first the big one is test track 3.0, got its opening date, which is gonna be July 22nd. And for anyone planning a trip especially here at the end of July, it’s, it’s important because it made a big change for Multipass number one. There is gonna be standby lines available. Number two, cast member previews and AP previews are available before it’s open to make sure, uh, you look [00:02:00] up those dates because it is select dates, uh, that those previews are gonna be available.
But the big change is it’s gonna be a tier one lightning lane multi-pass attraction, along with Frozen and Remy’s rati adventure. Sorin is gonna move to a tier two attraction at Epcot, and I feel like this doesn’t change a whole lot for me. Chip, I, I, I still feel like my strategy is you rope drop. Either Remys are frozen.
You pick the other one as your first multipass, and then you hope to get test track as your next multipass selection, just like you used to do with Sorin when it was a tier one. Do you agree with that process? Like what’s your, what’s your thought on this?
Chip: See, I, I’m, I’m, I’m torn. I’m with you on the, the rope dropping idea.
I would probably get test track as my first lightning lane just because my son. Wants to do it. He, he [00:03:00] doesn’t remember doing it a few years ago, so he is like, I want to do it again. I think that’s probably the biggest thing. And then we would try and catch frozen later on in the night which we’ve done in the past.
So I would go, I would rope drop Remys and then test track and obviously go get sorn. But,
Matt: and I, I think that comes from the perspective of someone that’s done them before, right? Yeah. Like you haven’t done the new attraction. So you prioritize it, and I think there’s a lot of people that’ll do that. But if you’re, if you’re planning like your first Disney trip or you’ve never ridden any of those attractions, I think Frozen or Remy’s has to be your top pick.
Chip: I, yes, it, I, you know what, man? I think it depends on who you’re with. If you’re with two boys. Yeah, that’s true. If you’re with two, yeah.
Matt: Oh, sure. Sure. Let, let’s just say, let’s say it would be the optimal pick. Like I, I think those are still gonna be the rides that go first. Maybe outside of the first week of Multipass.
I [00:04:00] think Frozen and Remys will be the ones that are picked before test track.
Chip: I, I think so too. Especially after the first week. I mean, I mean cast, cast at Thursday or Friday, I. I got invited to go Friday. I wasn’t able to do it, but, uh, it, it looked, you’re right. I, I think everybody’s gonna have already ridden it.
It’s gonna turn out, be like.
Matt: Yeah, very, very much so. And Tiana’s is probably the number two pick behind Peter Pan’s flight at Magic Kingdom. And it, our friend Chris, who is a cast member in the Disney College program, I think he wrote it three times, the first day of cast member previews and said he really, really enjoyed it.
So
Chip: he was our, he was, he was our adopted, uh, brother on our vacation. So. I know his mom, his mom sent us a couple, sent my wife some, some funny things about just him being with all those little kids again. And she was, she enjoyed it. But yeah, our, our friend [00:05:00] Chris was awesome down in Florida.
Matt: What, what a great, what a great family.
And then the big news of the week is from the Disney Dream. On the Disney cruise line ship a child fell from the fourth floor deck and into the water. Dad jumped in immediately after rescued the child. I think treaded water for 20 minutes is what I read. There’s been a lot of speculation.
They said there was no like foul play involved, thank, thank God that the child and the dad, you know, survived. Disney said that they got to them within minutes, turned to the ship around, which is no small feat.
They are incredibly lucky to be alive. Chip, like did you have any other thoughts on this? Like I, I, I mean there’s not a whole lot to say, but gosh, what a terrible thing. Actually, you know what Chip, because you love Disney Cruise Line and you’re one of our Disney cruise line experts. Talk a little bit about the safety of these decks.
Chip: So yeah, [00:06:00] that, that’s been the topic of conversation in my household. Uh, my wife and I talked about it yesterday. Is it, we, we were like, there’s glass around there. So how, like, like they show, it looks like there’s, there’s like little like a ladder thing you find or like a, like a, but there’s plexiglas thick Plexiglas behind it.
That’s way so. They either push themselves up and over and it is pretty high, Matt, I’m gonna say it’s at least four, four feet high. It’s not like it’s a three foot and, and four feet might, it might be taller than that.
I know up on the top decks it is a solid five feet ’cause my kids could barely see over it and the rails. Like Axle was completely under it. And so the safety was never a concern. Now, when we would walk that deck four, deck three on the magic, our kids were always inside of us. Just ’cause of that fear.
Matt: I tell people like it’s [00:07:00] almost, it’s almost an irrational fear because it, every parent naturally is scared that their kid is gonna find some way to do something crazy, which, because it’s because we’re parents and kids do find ways to do things that are ridiculous.
But to Chip’s point, like these decks have, like when you’re on a veranda, it has plexiglass between your child and the bars of the veranda. So it’s not possible for them to climb on the bars themselves because they can’t step on them like you’d be stepping through the plexiglass. So I, I think from a safety perspective, there’s not much more you can ask for to block your children from being able to climb and jump over,
because it’s almost impossible. And when you see photos like a four or 5-year-old, that’s like their head is where the rail is. Um, and the same goes when you’re walking around the public areas of the deck. There’s not areas for children to climb because [00:08:00] Disney has safety standards that they have to follow and things like that.
So it’s a, it’s a really, really unfortunate incident. I, I. It, it blows my mind a little bit,
what a, what a terrible incident. But thankfully, you know, they were rescued and, and the videos are. Are just crazy. I, I can’t imagine treading water in the open ocean for 20 minutes.
Chip: I, and when you said 20 minutes, I don’t think it was that long. If you watch some of the videos, they get out to ’em pretty quick and I had read or seen that they were throwing out something for them to, to hang onto as well.
Matt: Yeah. I, you know, I’d have to go back and look at it. My understanding was that the, the ship is going one direction. The girl falls out, the dad jumps out and they start throwing life vests over as the ship is going the opposite way so that they could grab them and he couldn’t get to the life vest, is my understanding.
Okay. He did not, he did not have a life vest on. And the, what you see in, and the reason why it took 20 minutes is [00:09:00] the ship turns around and as the ship’s turning around, the small, uh, lifeboats go out too. Pick them up. But that whole process, like we’ve only seen the videos of the lifeboats being out there, but the process of them actually getting out there first took a little bit of time.
I know,
Chip: I know. They called it within a minute, I believe is when I
Matt: Yeah. They, they, they call it Mr. MOB, uh, uh, Mr. Mob. Um, so Mr. Man Overboard. Like just a terrible thing to hear if you’re on a Disney cruise, but thankfully it just doesn’t happen that frequently. So it’s not something that should scare people away from cruising, but.
A terrible incident. Nonetheless, let, let’s get into the more fun stuff, chip, uh, because that, that, that’s not a topic I, I really enjoy, but I do feel like we had to, we had to touch on it a little bit here, and that’s like, let’s share 10 of our, our favorite things to do outside of the Walt Disney World Parks.
And you just got done doing [00:10:00] a week long trip where you did not set foot. Into a Walt Disney World theme park, but you were at the resorts. So tell us a little bit about your trip and kind of what inspired you to go with your family and, and go down to Walt Disney World without going into a park.
Chip: So one of the big things was we, my wife and I are both southwest, both have, and they go in up at the end of the end of the year.
So we were sitting there talking back after our crews and we said, oh, we’re not going anywhere. And I finally said, Hey. We’ll stay in our DVC resort and we’ll stay off property a couple nights. She’s like, all right, no parks. I said, well, that’s okay. We can go to the water park and we can enjoy the pool and do all that.
And she’s like, all right, let’s do it. About two weeks later, after we booked it, we decided to buy a house. So that was also in the midst of chaos. But my wife also said it was a blessing in disguise because it took her mind off of it for whole week. And the whole idea was we were just trying to do it on budget [00:11:00] friendly.
Quick service, maybe a sit down meal here or there. But just, just, just enjoy the pools, enjoy the free amenities that our kids consider rides, like the skyliner, like the monorail, like boats and even Axle. Wanted to ride a Disney bus. That’s all he wanted to do. Just saying Disney bus. Disney bus.
Matt: Let’s talk about some of the things that you did outside the parks with your family that you really enjoyed. And one of the ones that I know that both of us love is going to Disney Springs, and I think the misconception out there about Disney Springs is that it’s just a mall.
It’s just a shopping center. What are some of the things that you, aside from you and I love to eat, obviously what are some of the things that you guys like to do or like about. Disney Springs with your kids beyond just shopping?
Chip: I think the biggest thing is they always have something going on. So we were there on Stitch Day and they were having like a stitch scavenger hunt.
So we started it. We didn’t get it finish just because it was kind of hot in that point of the day and we had to get [00:12:00] into piece. So we had, we didn’t want those to melt. But they always have something going on. There’s so much different stuff to do. My kids love taking photos outside of the Lego store.
We weren’t waiting in the line to get in the Lego store, but we’re gonna take pictures with the Star Wars characters. Ryland wanted one with Ana Nelson the Lochness monster. We we do that. The Stitch shooting water outside of the world of Disney. I mean, they, they, they sat, sat there for five minutes trying, trying to get stitched, whatever.
But obviously one parts. Yeah. And we,
Matt: the, the co the coffee spots, the dessert spots, the restaurants fantastic.
Chip: And we, we ate I’ll, I’ll throw this out because we’re, we went on a budget, I went in on Groupon and I got $200 gift cards and saved 20 bucks for Earl a sandwich and for chicken guy.
Matt: Oh yeah.
That’ll do it. And,
Chip: and I’ll tell you, this chicken [00:13:00] guy is a can’t miss ever again. It was,
Matt: ah, dude. I’ve got a friend locally that loves chicken guy, so, so I can’t miss though, like, would you, it’s, I know, I know your favorite at Disney Springs is, is Chef Arsis. You and I both love polite pig. Do you put it up there with those two?
Chip: I would put it at four. Gideons is up there too. Gideons is the top three. I would put it at four. Interesting. For quick, for quick service. Quick service. I’ve not had Deluxe Burger and there’s one burger I really want from Deluxe Burger.
Matt: The, uh, the Biscuit one.
Chip: Oh yeah.
Matt: Yeah. So there’s, there’s a biscuit cheeseburger that looks fantastic from Deluxe Burger.
Yeah,
Chip: it’s out right now. It came out for the, OR, or the Florida month of July or whatever. They’re doing it. Busy spring. But uh, I would put it up there, Matt, like it was one that my kids aren’t, are kind of picky. A. They had it and they’re like, oh my gosh, [00:14:00] this is really good. The different sauces, they had a mac and cheeseburger or mac and cheese, chicken sandwich, uh, barbecue sandwich.
It was just really good. And Kelly’s like, all right, we, we can come back here. And it was very affordable. Like I, I had a hundred dollars gift card and we would’ve been fine spending 50.
Matt: That, and that’s, and, and for people that don’t know, Chip’s got five kids, so it’s not like he’s a small family going and eating.
So eating for under $50 is a big deal. And the one thing I’ll note too about the, the gift card hack there is that there are a lot of those restaurants that are owned by different restaurant companies. There’s a, a different company that owns the boathouse. And I’ve done the same thing. I bought a $300 gift card to the Boathouse and I, I think I spent, I spent like 200 on it.
It was because it was for that group, I think it was, it might have been Gibson’s. It was one of those groups that is like a restaurant group and you could buy from from Costco. So definitely check that out because [00:15:00] that’s definitely an option. To help save you some money. I like Gideon’s. Gideon’s is, to me, the go-to for Disney Springs.
Obviously that takes a little bit more time, but to Chip’s Point, there’s so many other things that are usually going on there right now. They’ve got, um, the, the taste of Florida going on at Disney Springs, but there’s usually also like the Christmas tree stroll or the stuff they have for Halloween. Like there’s always something fun to do there that doesn’t require you to spend money.
There’s live music. But there are also other things that you can spend money on. Like the cars that go into the water. Yeah. The amphi cars near the boathouse. You can do there. The one thing that I will never, ever do is the fake hot air balloon that’s like tethered down, but you can go up really high.
So there, there’s a lot of fun stuff there and it’s a great place to people watch. Go and hang out in addition to the shopping. So Disney Springs is a must for us for sure.
Chip: I’ll say this, we were walking to Chicken Guy, man, you know where it’s at, and we’re walking [00:16:00] through the little, the tunnel area where you go, you like get your sunglasses or whatnot.
Kelly’s like, we’ve never been this far. And I’m like, yeah, we don’t normally go this, this side of the, the, it’s the west side. It’s the west side of the. Of the spring, but yeah, we, yeah, and she didn’t make, she, she didn’t know there, there’s a movie theater down there. She had no idea.
Matt: There’s a mo, there’s a movie theater that’s got gr I mean, great options.
There’s a Cirque de Soleil, which is there, that’s a great, fun entertainment activity that obviously costs money. You can also go to Splitsville and do bowling there. Uh, and they’ve got great food at Splitsville. So that’s something to keep in mind. And, and that’s a good segue when you talk about sports that are available, you also get, typically with a Disney vacation package.
You get access to the mini golf courses for free. And that is a fun activity also that costs no money. The pain is getting there. Usually if you don’t have a rental car. I like,
Chip: I, I, I found a hack for one of this, man. Let’s hear it. [00:17:00] So the Blizzard Beach is connected to Winter Summerland mini golf. So, yeah.
So
Matt: you take the bus to Blizzard Beach, and then you take a bus over to Winter Summerland, right?
Chip: Yes. Now I don’t know how to get, the other one is, Fantasia Gardens is right next to Swan and Dolphin. I do know that. I just don’t know how to get there. But I will blizzard the, the
Matt: only experience I’ve ever had is people taking an Uber and e, even, even the one, uh, the, the one saw Winter Summerland.
Taking an Uber because it saves you so much more time, is just makes more sense if you can with your family. I
Chip: know for our resort, they were doing a we stayed at copper Creek, which is in the Wilderness Lodge. They were doing a direct line to Blizzard Beach. Nice. Which
Matt: is weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
Well, and that makes sense too because you know, and, and another great segue here, you get the free waterpark day on check-in with your Disney vacation. And Chip, you did a great thing where, which is you stayed, you, you arrived in Orlando, [00:18:00] you stayed at a different hotel, not Disney related for what, one or two nights, right?
Chip: We were, we were off property three total of three nights.
Matt: Three three nights. So then when you checked into your Disney Hotel, you were able to go over there first thing in the morning if you wanted to, and you’ve got an entire day that you can spend at the water parks. Yeah. Which they’re free. Like you can’t beat that while you’re waiting for your room to be ready.
Head over to Biz Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon. Completely free to, to check in. That’s also, we’ve talked about on the show, like a great reason to do a split stay. And if you’re not going to the theme parks, why not do a split stay
Chip: for sure.
Matt: Right? Yeah. Like you, you can get go, go ahead.
Chip: Well, I was just gonna say like that we went and checked in.
I mean, that, that’s one of your hacks is, is you don’t do the pre-check in on the app. I just went and checked in because I was like, well, we’ll, we’ll just take the first room available. We don’t care. And the lady who helped us was phenomenal, and she’s like, uh, yeah, I’ll, I’ll get you in you guys. [00:19:00] Are you around here?
Are you gonna be gone for this? I said, we’re gonna be at the waterpark. And she’s like, okay, it shouldn’t be, you’ll be in before four. And so I’m, we’re sitting there at Blizzard Beach and about one, I don’t know what time did it text you? Like one 30 or two bedroom was ready. Mm-hmm. We’re fine. Let the kids go for another half hour and then we’ll go back.
So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a great hack. I love that. I love that, that feature.
Matt: Yeah. And it, it is really great. Like split stays I think are, are great way like this, this kind of trip is perfect for if you want to do like, uh, two nights at a Savannah view at Animal Kingdom Lodge. So you get two nights where you can hang out, watch the animals, be in your room, enjoy the resort.
Don’t touch the theme parks, and you can go to the waterpark your first day if you want to. But Animal Kingdom Lodge has such a great pool that you can stay there and then you can switch to a different resort in the middle of your vacation. Get a full water park day somewhere else and switch back to save money.
You can switch back to a value [00:20:00] resort like pop century or one of the All stars and you get that taste of a deluxe resort, the beginning or the end of your vacation, whichever one you prefer. You get the huge water park day and then you can, if you decide you’re gonna go into the parks from a value resort, you can do that.
I. That’s such a, like the split stays are such a great value when you’ve got this free waterpark day that I, I don’t think people realize it and take advantage of it.
Chip: And now that we, I have done both, both parks for our family, blizzard Beach is better. We thought we talked about that. That was one of our discussions.
We’ve been to Typhoon Lagoon twice in Blizzard Beach once and for our family. We’ll go back to.
Matt: And why did you like Blizzard Beach better? ’cause I get that question a lot. Why would you like Blizzard Beach over Typhoon Lagoon as a family?
Chip: I think everything was just closer together. Like the hall, all the kids stuff was right there.
We knew where it was. And versus Typhoon Lagoon, it feels like everything revolves around the wave pool. [00:21:00] Where at Blizzard Beach, the Wave Pool was there, but everything, all the ri, all the slides were above it. So everything felt really close together. I think that’s the biggest, biggest reason why.
Matt: Interesting. And so you, you also had a really unique dining experience for the first time, and I know we talked about it. It was, it was you went to hoop do review. Did.
Chip: Yeah. What were,
Matt: what were your thoughts? And, and it’s not the only dining experience that kind of feels like an event. You can, you can do that with pretty much any character meal at Walt Disney World that’s outside the parks 1900 Park Fair comes to mind.
Chef, we talk about Chef Mickey’s at the contemporary storybook dining at Artist Point. There’s a lot of different character dining options outside the parks, but Hoopty do review is a different animal. Tell us a little bit, like for those that don’t know, what is Hoop DDO review and like, tell us a little bit about your experience with that.
Chip: So Hoop Ddo Review, musical review, I guess it is a old time [00:22:00] Western deal show. I believe it’s the longest running dinner theater show in America or the world. I don’t know, one of those two. But it’s an all you care to enjoy. I doubt it’s
Matt: the world chip.
Chip: I no continuously running. I believe it is actually.
Matt: Oh, maybe, maybe
Chip: now we’re, we’re a fact check. I know. In the United States it is. Yep. I don’t know. I don’t know about the world, but I know in the United States it’s and it is, is it all you care to enjoy meal? It’s like fried chicken and ribs and cheese over at wilderness. For those that have never been to Fort Wilderness, it is kind of a haul or kind of a pain to get to.
You gotta go to Magic Kingdom and then catch a bus or a boat over Fort Wilderness. I had been there one other time, I’d never been to Hoop to do, but I was at Mickey’s Backyard Barbecue back in the day. Which to be, which is where they’re building the. The new, new hotel man.
Matt: Mm-hmm. [00:23:00]
Chip: Lake Shore
Matt: Lodge.
Chip: Yes. Which looks beautiful. But it, it’s, it’s one you, you check in, they tell you to get there half hour early, check in, and then you just wait to get set. It’s, it was really cool. I thought it was really cool. I thought it was it really fun. It’s a comedy musical show. Um, they do have What did your
Matt: kids and your wife think?
Chip: My wife said I don’t need to do it again for about five years. No, but like she, she had a, I love Kelly. The lady who does does her nails says we, it’s a we must do it every time. And she’s like,
Matt: yeah, it was cool.
Chip: It was cool. Good. But my older kids liked it. The younger ones, they, I don’t think they really knew.
Um,
Matt: yeah. But, and, and for those that like just to do the fact check here, hoopty do review debuted in 1974 as a summer only event. It became a permanent show on September 5th, 1974, and is one of the longest running dinner shows in the United States. It has been running for over [00:24:00] 50 years with over 41,000 performances.
That’s wild.
Chip: And, and listen, I don’t think they’ve changed it. Like, I, like they’ve, they’ve updated it and whatnot, but it’s all, it was unique. I want to do it again. I think it’d be fun to do with like a group. I will say one of the best perks that I enjoyed was they did have unlimited beer and wine in San Gria for the adults.
So that was nice. That was a, that was a cool perk.
It was about a two hour performance. We, we walked outta there about five. 55.
Matt: Yeah, that’s a like, and that’s a full evening, you know, so you’re, you’re getting your money’s worth, food, drinks, entertainment, all of those things.
And when you, when you talk about going over to Fort Wilderness, were you stay, you were not staying there, right?
Chip: No. We were at Wilderness Lodge. So there’s a lot of So how did you get there? Well, luckily for us there is a bus that runs between the lodges or between Fort Wilderness and Wilderness Lodge. [00:25:00] I think it’s because people get confused and are unsure of which is which.
Mm-hmm. But then you can also take a boat because there’s a boat that goes from the contemporary to Wilderness Lodge to Fort Wilderness and back. It makes,
Matt: yeah. The, and did you do any of the other like unique activities at, for either Fort Wilderness or, uh, wilderness Lodge?
Chip: We, we did some of the stuff, wilderness Lodge, Fort Wilderness.
We were gonna go over to the look at the horses, because the horse barn is, I don’t know, Matt, 50 yards from Hoopy do. But it was just being so hot because was like, I don’t wanna go in a celly barn. I grew up in a farm anyways, and horse. But they also had a, a, I mean, we saw the golf carts, we played on the playground over there.
At Wilderness Lodge, I will say we took advantage of the s’mores a couple times.
Matt: Mm-hmm.
Chip: Um, they do the campfire at night. We also took advantage of [00:26:00] characters in the lobby a couple times that.
Off the top of my head
Matt: there, there’s, there’s a lot of, at every resort, there’s usually a lot of activities going on. So there’s usually movies, movie nights in in the, like whatever the common area is at the resort, outside movies under the stars. There’s also usually the campfire with s’mores at a lot of the resorts right now, because of Cool Kids Summer, there’s a lot of characters that are coming to the resorts for different periods of time.
It’s kind of random, but now. They’re actually showing the times available for the characters At most of the resorts. That’s not a permanent thing. That’s supposed to only be for Cool Kids Summer. I really hope that they keep it, but you know, at normally outside of the Cool Kids Summer promotion characters will randomly show up.
Typically, it’s usually just the deluxe resorts. But they’ll show up at different times in a bus and come and say hi to different kids, uh, as they’re walking around. But there’s also other really cool unique activities [00:27:00] at some of the resorts. So you can do horse-drawn carriage rides, you can rent boats, you can rent bikes, you can go fishing, you can rent fishing rods, you can go, uh, horseback riding.
You can check out the horses like the recreation. Options are things that you don’t normally hear about. You can go on segue tours. There’s just a lot of really fun, unique things that you don’t have to do in the parks that you won’t even realize that you’re still at Disney World when you’re doing.
Chip: What’s the, uh, the four seater bicycle? You know what I’m talking about? We were over at Boardwalk and people were doing that. I don’t, there’s a name for it. I.
Matt: I don’t remember the name for it either, but there’s, there’s a lot of different, like bike rental options, Sury bikes, Sur Bikes.
Chip: Yes, yes. Sury
Matt: Bikes.
Yeah. So there’s, there’s a lot of different bike options for rentals and each resort kind of, especially the Deluxe Resorts, has some unique options available that you should check [00:28:00] into, especially if you’re considering a resort only trip like this. And that’s like the biggest key that we want to get across on the show is that so many people book their resort and they don’t think about.
All the things that they can do. They go for the first time and they plan on just being in the parks 24 7. And you’ll have a, a much better, in my opinion, a much better Disney vacation if you plan out some activities to do at your resort, because you don’t have to be in your theme park 24 hours a day at Disney.
It’s a, like, there’s so many other things that you can do at your resorts that your kids are gonna have a blast with. One of the last things that I wanna touch on, chip is. Exploring the monorail and Skyliner resorts because doing a monorail crawl, doing a skyliner crawl, which just means finding a way to get your transportation over to one of those resorts and riding them around and checking out the resorts on those lines is a [00:29:00] blast and it costs no money.
So, you know, one of the things you can do, chip, you’ve, you and I have both done this. You can get bus transportation. If you wanna do the monorail crawl, for example, you get bus transportation over to Magic Kingdom, and then you hop on the monorail and you ride it around to the contemporary. You can get off there Polynesian or Grand Floridian, all of those you can get off and walk around, check out the resorts, check out the dining options.
You can get the cafeteria Quick service style options. Each of those resorts has like shopping and bars and lounges and different things you can go and check out without reservations. You can either take, find a way to get transportation to one of the Skyliner resorts, or you can take a bus or transportation over to Hollywood Studios.
Hop on the Skyliner there and you can go and check out the different value resorts that are on the Skyliner. You can go to Caribbean Beach, get the best coffee at Disney which is the toffee flight, which my boy Chip got on this last trip. You can also go over to Riviera. Check out Riviera and go over there.
Or you can [00:30:00] take it all the way through. Get off at Epcot. And once you get off at Epcot, you can go and explore the boardwalk, the Dolphin Beach Club Yacht Club. Like there’s so much you can do. And when you get over to the boardwalk, there’s ab dabar, you can get a drink, you can get some wine, all kinds of different stuff you can check out.
The corn dogs there are. Fantastic. Did you guys get to spend any time at the boardwalk chip or did you Uh, mostly stick with uh, Riviera?
Chip: No. We spent probably about an hour at Boardwalk. We, that was kind of one of our things. We wanted to tour future resorts for us to stay at. And the Boardwalk was one of them, and I’ve never walked really through it.
So we went to the boardwalk. We actually stopped at the Corn dog spot, blue Ribbon Corn Dogs, I believe. We didn’t get one, but the guy was like, here’s what they look like and.
But no, we spent a lot of time at the Boardwalk. Great shop. You told me to go check out their shop because that was one of the things we were doing. Everybody in my family except myself, has a spirit jersey. Thanks Matt. [00:31:00] But that was, we just spent some time just, just kind of looking at the pools, because that’s one of the big things is, is are the pools good for our kids for that vacation?
Now, I’ll say this, man, one of the biggest things is we didn’t go to. And this was the first time my wife said, we need more DVC.
Matt: Ah, have you bought ’em yet?
Chip: We do not buy ’em. We gotta buy windows for this house. And then we.
Matt: Ah, there you go. And like, and people ask me about DVC all the time and, uh, you know, we talked a little bit about that promotion that they have for the gift card opportunity.
Like, if you’re interested in D vvc, you should really spend don’t, don’t spend as much time on the internet trying to learn about it. Because it’s a really complicated subject. It’s a timeshare, and whether or not you’re gonna get your money worth or whatever is a, is kind of a different debate. But you should go and spend the time with Disney so that they can answer your questions and they’re not salesy and pushy the way, like other timeshare presentations, maybe.
I [00:32:00] never felt uncomfortable. I never felt like they were trying to push me to buy points or anything like that. For me, DDC doesn’t make sense, um, because I’m a travel agent. If, if DV C’s right for you, you should consider it. If you go to Disney frequently
Chip: talking about that. So we went on a tour, said I wanted to get some numbers and get ’em.
So then I just walked down to the, the person at the Copper Creek and I was like, Hey, can I meet with somebody? I just wanna get numbers. And the guy I met with Todd, he was phenomenal. He’s like, yeah, here are the numbers.
I said, Hey, Todd, I, I’m, I really appreciate it, but we’re just not at the, not gonna buy any at this time.
So it was very nonchalant. Like he, I left with the number. So like I, on my email, I can tell you how much, if I wanna buy certain points. No other timeshares thing gonna do that. No negotiating.
Matt: Yeah. And, and I will say like people DV Cs write for a very specific subset of people and it’s, it’s pretty rare.
Like there’s not a lot of people that it’s a good fit for, but the ones that [00:33:00] it is, it’s a really good opportunity. So definitely check it out if you’re, if you’re that into going to Walt Disney World, you know you’re going once a year plus that kind of thing. But that’s gonna wrap it up for us. And I would love if you have other things that you love to do at the parks.
Other things you like to do at the resorts or outside of the parks, let us know. Leave a comment or send us an email. We’d love to hear about it. If you think we missed anything, make sure that you keep us in check. Uh, but that’s gonna wrap up today’s episode. Hopefully it gives you some fresh ideas on how to slow things down and experience some Disney magic when you’re not in the parks.
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Hit that subscribe button. Leave a review on Apple or Spotify, and share this episode with a friend who’s planning their next Disney vacation. And hey, if you are, uh, wanting help. Building your park day strategy, booking your dining, booking bi Boppy boutique, figuring out the best way to use Multipass. I’d love to help you.
My travel planning services are 100% free. You can grab a quote at the link in the show notes. Uh, you’ll also find planning [00:34:00] guides, free tools, and our latest blog posts on adventures of a Disney dad.com. Thanks for listening, and we will see you in the parks
