Trip Planning

Booking your trip: First decide on a hotel. For Disney's Central Reservations Office, you can call 1-407-WDISNEY. After booking your hotel, call the airlines. I'd check their website first for prices, and availability. Go to the Air Fare page for some airlines web site addresses. Next decide if you'll attend one of the Disney dinner shows. These can be booked up to 2 years in advance. Use the same phone numbers as above for booking these. Restaurant reservations can be made up to 120 days in advance for Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, Animal Kingdom, and Hotel restaurants, and up to 60 days in advance for Magic Kingdom restaurants. Decide which restaurants you'd like "Priority Seating arrangements" for, and mark your calendar to call back on the appropriate date(s).

Itinerary: For most vacations, it is not necessary to plan an itinerary. After all, you're on vacation, and you just want to take each day as it comes. However, if you don't like waiting in line to sit down at a restaurant, you might want to make arrangements for priority seating. To avoid unnecessary running around, it is helpful to plan what day you will be in each park, and plan your dining accordingly.

Countdown:
Here is a place to download a vacation countdown program onto your desktop: http://pscalculator.net/pswebtools.shtml#t001

Transportation:
If you'll be staying off-site, you will probably need a rental car. If you are staying in a Disney resort, and don't plan to do much outside of Disney World, a transfer from the airport to your hotel is probably the best option. Check out the Airport Transfers page. You do have the options of using Disney's Magical Express if you are staying in an on-site Disney resort. This is a free service Disney provides. It is a bus ride to and from the Orlando International Airport to your Disney resort.

Exclusive ground transportation company of
Disney World Trip Planning Web

Discounted Attraction Tickets:
Here is a web site where you can purchase a variety of discounted attraction tickets, for all the Orlando attractions including but not limited to: Disney World, Disney's EPCOT, Disney MGM, Disney's Animal Kingdom, Universal Studios Florida, (Universal Studios) Islands of Adventure, Sea World Florida, Busch Gardens (Tampa) and many more: http://www.centralfloridatravel.com

Setting the Disney Mood:

Play Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom online.
Visit www.pixiehollow.com and create a Disney fairy.
Use a piece of Disney clip art as your wallpaper on your computer desktop. To do this, right click on any picture, then click Set as Wallpaper. Here is Disney's official website for downloading screensavers, wallpaper, pictures, and sending e-cards: http://disney.go.com/desktopstop/index.html
Mark a calendar and keep a countdown of how many days, weeks, or months are left until you depart for your Walt Disney World vacation.
Ask your family what is on their "Must Do" list, and plan an itinerary.
Buy a Walt Disney World guide book through Amazon.com here: The Unofficial Guide Walt Disney World 2009 (Unofficial Guides)
Watch a Disney movie each week until your trip.
Go to the official Disney website and download wallpaper, and screensavers with Disney themes. Print Mickey Mouse and other characters coloring pages. Also go to the Wallpaper page to download Disney pictures for your desktop. Here are a few other great sites for screensavers and wallpaper: www.disneydesigns.com and www.disneydesktop.com.
See my links page for other Disney-related websites. Join a chat or post questions on one of the Disney boards at these sites, or use the Discussion Board on this site.
Serve home-made pizzas shaped with Mickey Mouse ears.
Cook something using a recipe from Walt Disney World.
Write to the Disney hotel you plan to stay at and ask them to send you some brochures. Stop in at a travel agent and pick up some brochures.
Visit the Disney Store nearest you and buy some Disney Dollars. These make great stocking stuffers, Easter basket stuffers, etc.
Put together a scrap book of your last trip to WDW.
Order the Disney Catalog. Call 1-800-237-5751.
There is a WDW Attraction Merchandise Mail Order number:

(407) 363-6200. It is open Monday through Friday 8:30 - 11:45 and 12:30 - 5:00 (Eastern). If an item is available at the parks, they'll try to track it down and ship to you (you pay for shipping).
Planning a trip to Disney World with others? Have a WDW party! Select a theme, such as Epcot, and have everyone bring a dish representing one of the countries in Epcot. Is it near Halloween? Have everyone dress as their favorite Disney character. That will give everyone going on your trip an opportunity to talk about the things they would like to do and see during the trip, and it will give you an opportunity to plan which priority seating arrangements you need to make.