Walt Disney World

Walt Disney World is in Orlando, Florida. Orlando, Florida is less than a two-hour drive from South Beach and it really would be a shame to be so close and not spend at least one day of your South Beach vacation visiting Walt Disney World. Now, on a one-day trip, you won’t be able to see much of Walt Disney World, that is true, but you can at least hit a couple of the high spots, gather a few souvenirs and take some great pictures. You never know...you might decide to extend your trip to make a second or third visit to the Magic Kingdom!

Unlike South Beach, Orlando is not surrounded by white sandy beaches but rather by Walt Disney World. Actually construction on Walt Disney World didn’t begin until after Walt Disney died but it does embody all of his dreams. The facility originally opened under the name

Walt Disney himself probably explained Walt Disney World best. Disneyland in California had already been built, of course, and Walt said, "Here in Florida, we have something special we never enjoyed at Disneyland... the blessing of size. There's enough land here to hold all the ideas and plans we can possibly imagine."

Ideas have certainly been in abundance! The total acreage is 30,500...that is about the size of the city of San Francisco. Four Thousand of those acres are landscaped. Many thousands of people are hired to do nothing more than make certain that visitors to Walt Disney world have the time of their lives.

Walt Disney World changed its ticket structure in 2005. They introduced what they called the ‘Magic Your Way’ plan. The plan added more options but increased the prices for most selections. With the ‘Magic Your Way’ plan, you may purchase tickets for one day or for up to seven days and you choose a variety of options, all of which are at an additional cost. Your one-day ticket will allow you to visit multiple parks on a single day and there is an option that allows you to use the tickets for a fourteen day period.

If you are traveling with children, you should visit Fantasyland first thing in the morning. Some of the more popular kid’s rides in Fantasyland like Dumbo and Peter Pan don’t seat very many at a time and the lines for these rides can get very long. You will certainly want to see Frontierland, Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain. You will have to double back to take the Jungle Cruise. Crowds do thin a bit in the late evening for Tomorrowland’s Space Mountain.

If you have toddlers, you will not want to miss Pooh’s Playful Spot, a Hundred-Acre Wood-themed play area for toddlers which opened in Fantasyland in Sept. 2005.