Staying on Disney Property: Why it is Worth the Price
Yes, staying on Disney property is expensive, but is it worth it? If you can swing the cost, I would definitely say yes and I will tell you why. It's all about the perks!
Staying on property gives you extra perks, like the ability to take advantage of Disney's Extra Magic Hours, which allows you to either get to the park earlier than opening time or stay after closing if you are a guest staying on Disney property. If morning Extra Magic Hours are available you may be able to get all your rides in before the park starts to get really busy. Which means you could be enjoying a nice swim back at your hotel for the afternoon while everyone else has to wait in longer lines for the rides you already got to see in the morning.
Complimentary transportation to and from the theme parks, water parks, and Downtown Disney (soon to be Disney Springs) is also available in the form the monorail, buses, and boats. It's always nice to let someone else do the driving!
Disney's Complimentary Transportation
The Monorail, Buses, and Boats
If you have a car, it might not be as big of a deal, but you will have to pay for parking if you are not staying on property. If you have a car and are staying on property, you can park for free .
If you are not staying at a Disney resort hotel and are using their transportation system, make sure you take note of when the shuttles runs. Many of the non-Disney resort hotels do not run shuttles as often as Disney does, so you will want to make sure you get back to your shuttle stop in time. Also, the non-Disney resort hotel shuttle stops tend to be far away, which makes sense. Why would they have competitor shuttle stops close to the Disney ones?
On our last trip, one person in the party was staying at a non-Disney resort hotel for the whole trip. The shuttles for their hotel stopped running earlier than Disney's and they didn't run as often. Plus, when it was time to go back to the hotels, our shuttle stop was always so much closer than the non-Disney one. At the end of the trip I think they wished they had taken my advice and stayed at a Disney resort hotel. You don't have to spend a fortune for the hotels, you can stay at one of their value hotels. I have stayed at Pop Century 3 times and it is my value hotel of choice in Disney. The theme throughout the hotel is so much fun! There will be a separate blog on Pop sometime soon.
A (Big) Big Wheel at Pop Century
Also, if you are staying on property the MagicBands are included in your stay. If you are staying off property and want to use a MagicBand, you will have to purchase it separately.
Something else to consider when deciding whether or not to stay on property is if you want to use the dining plan. The dining plan can only be purchased when you are staying at a Disney resort hotel, so if you were considering one of the dining plans then you will have to stay on property to take advantage of it.
The next perk for staying on property involves dining reservations and FastPass+ (FP+) reservations. If you are staying on property you can make dining reservations 180 days from the first day of your trip. If do not have Disney resort hotel reservations, you will not be able to take advantage of this and chances are the more popular (Cinderella's Royal Table, Be Our Guest,etc.) will be booked during your stay. I know, it seems ridiculous to book dining reservations 6 months in advance (and it is), but because of the dining plan it is necessary for the more popular restaurants.
FastPass+ is available to book 60 days from the first day of your trip if you are staying on property and 30 days for those that are not staying on property (angering many locals). It means a lot of planning on your part, because you are going to have to figure out what park you want to go to on what day and hope you can get your FPs for that day. We'll see how this plays out, because this idea is still fairly new. In all honesty I'm hoping it doesn't work out and goes away, but it's here now and if you want to ride the popular rides you have an extra 30 days on the people not staying on property.
Another perk is that you are completely immersed for your entire trip. Staying at a Disney resort hotel means that you never have to leave the "magic". There are some hotels that will give you a little more quiet than others (Animal Kingdom Lodge and Kidani Village), but you are still receiving the Disney treatment. The cast members are wonderful and if there are problems they will take care of them. We had issues with our MagicBands when we stayed at Kidani Village and had to go down to the Concierge 3 nights in a row, because of this they gave us an extra 3 FastPasses per person, per day for the rest of our trip!
Beautiful (and quiet) Kidani
That service doesn't end when you leave the hotel either. I had a not-so-magical experience with a couple of cast members (but that's out of hundreds of great cast members) and I emailed my complaint when we got home. I honestly didn't expect to hear anything, and if I did I figured it would be a general email apology, but to my (happy) surprise I received a phone call a few days later! Her name was Beth and she was wonderful! She listened to me, apologized, and explained to me the steps they would be taking to resolve the situation. It was wonderful to have a company actually care about what you think and to talk to someone who didn't sound like they were rolling their eyes on the other end of the phone. Thank you, Beth!
So, while it can be expensive to stay at Disney (don't forget about the values!), if you can swing the cost, I would definitely recommend staying on property. There are so many different perks to take advantage of! Plus, you feel the magic throughout your entire trip and if you're going to Disney, don't you want to feel as much of the magic as possible? :-)
Thanks for reading!
Liz ⁰O⁰
One of the fun signs found around Pop Century.
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