EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival Starts Soon

One of Disney’s best annual events: the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival begins this Friday at the Epcot theme park in Walt Disney World. If you like food (and who doesn’t), this is worth checking out. From September 30 to November 13, 2011 there will be booths representing different countries with foods and drinks to sample. You can explore the booths and go to the concerts in Epcot for no extra charge unless you wish to buy food and drinks.

The regular kiosks representing and selling foods of other countries are open to anyone visiting Epcot. In addition to these booths, the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival has a wide variety of special food event parties, wine tastings, mixology classes and so much more. Some of these events are actually very inexpensive with some tastings and classes starting at just around $10! Check out our full listing of Epcot Food and Wine Festival events and when you book your Disney Orlando vacation with us, be sure to mention any events you want to attend and we’ll book them for you. You’ll have to act quickly because these events do book up fast.

Click for more information on the the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival on our blog

EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival is included in the general admission ticket; call toll free 1-866-882.4720 to speak with a Walt Disney World Vacation Specialist.

AVATAR Experience Coming to Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World

Disney has announced the latest new development coming to Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida will be based on the very popular movie, Avatar. A new area will be added to the Animal Kingdom theme park based on the world of Pandora from the movie Avatar. This exciting news was just released last week and even more information has been released about this expansion that will be happening in the Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World.

Avatar was a worldwide hit in movie theaters and topped box office charts. The new land in Animal Kingdom will be designed so that guests feel as though they are exploring the planet of Pandora that they saw in the movie. According to Disney, this land will feature new attractions, entertainment, merchandise and restaurants. It sounds as though they are designing this to be a truly detailed environment for guests to be submerged in.

Halloween Horror Nights Comes to Life this year with an Amazing Event!

We have a brand new review of this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida posted on our blog. We’ve listed our top choices of haunted houses and scare zones that you can’t miss at this year’s event and why. Don’t worry, we won’t give away the scares, you’ll have to actually go through the houses for those. But, for our take on this year’s event and to know which houses you need to be sure not to miss, check out our review and all blogs about previous years here.

Selecting the Right Disney Ticket for Your Vacation

Picking the right Disney ticket for your vacation can be confusing with all of the different terms and ticket types that Disney uses. To help you pick the right ticket type, we created a “Guide to Walt Disney World Tickets” to help you select the right ticket for your family’s vacation.

Guide to Understanding Disney Tickets

Disney Base Tickets

Disney World’s Magic Your Way Base Ticket is the standard ticket type for Disney theme park admission. These tickets get you into 1 Disney theme park each day. Walt Disney World tickets are sold to use for a certain number of days, you can purchase a ticket for just 1 day or all the way up to 10 days of admission. No matter how many days of Disney theme park admission you buy, you use the same ticket for every single day you go to the parks.

For example, if you buy 5 day Base Tickets for you and your family, every person age 3 years and older gets his or her own ticket and uses their same ticket for all 5 days that you go to the Walt Disney World parks. So that ticket you used your first day? You got it; you use it again for days 2, 3, 4 and 5.

It’s also important for you to know that with the Disney World Base Ticket, you only get admission to one major theme park per day for each day on your ticket. That 5 day Base Ticket could get you admission to Magic Kingdom your first day, Epcot the second day, Hollywood Studios on the third day, and Animal Kingdom on the fourth day. You then have a fifth day left on your ticket to spend at any 1 of those four main Walt Disney World theme parks. Also, you can leave and re-enter the same park on the day, but you can still just visit that one park on that day.

Another example: With a 5 day ticket you can got to Hollywood Studios on the first day, Magic Kingdom your second day, Animal Kingdom on the third day, repeat Magic Kingdom on the fourth day and use your last day for EPCOT.

So, as you can already guess, there is no specific order to the parks, you do not need to visit all of 4 of them (you can go all days to Magic Kingdom or any other park if you wish) and you do not need to visit the parks on consecutive days. The ticket will expire 14 days after the first use (more on that later).

Park Hopper Ticket Add-On

One of the great things about Disney World tickets is the ability to customize them to fit your vacation needs. The Park Hopper add-on is a feature you can add to your regular Walt Disney World Magic Your Way theme park tickets. Having the Park Hopper option on your Disney theme park tickets means you can enter two, three or even all four main Disney theme parks each day. And it works for park hopping every day that your ticket is valid.

Park Hopper is an add-on of just $55 to your Base ticket, whether adult or child, or whether 2 days or 10 days, it’s the same price. To add this option to a 1 day ticket, the price is $35. Just remember, this only gets you park hopping access to the four major Disney World theme parks: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.

Let’s show how the Park Hopper option works with Disney tickets and say that you added the Park Hopper option to your 5 day Disney Base tickets. Now, these tickets are called 5 Day Park Hoppers. Now you could spend your first day at Magic Kingdom to have breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and explore that park then “park hop” over to Epcot for the afternoon for rides in that park and dinner at one of the great restaurants there. With the Park Hopper option, you can go to the four major parks on one day if you wanted to and do that every day for your 5 days on your ticket.

Water Park Fun & More (WPF&M)

This is another option that you can add to your Disney base ticket for $55, adult or child, whether for 1 day or 10 days. This add-on adds entries to the minor parks to your ticket. The minor parks include: Blizzard Beach water park, Typhoon Lagoon water park, Oak Trail golf course, Wide World of Sports, and Disney Quest. For 1 or 2 day tickets, you get two entries to the minor parks and for more days you get a number of minor park entries equal to the number of days on your ticket. On a 5 day ticket, this would mean 5 entries.

With the WPF&M option, you could choose to do Typhoon Lagoon in the morning, Oak Trail golf in the afternoon and finish the night at Disney Quest. This would use 3 entries from your total amount you got on your ticket. Or you could space it out and use one per day, any way you like. Because the minor park admission is separate from regular, main theme park admission, any day that you visit a minor park and do not go to a main theme park, will not use up any of your regular Disney theme park days, only a WPF&M admission. Another reminder, each initial entry to one of those minor parks uses a WPF&M admission. So if you visit 3 on one day, it will use 3 of those admissions. However, you can return to the same minor park on the same day and it will still only use that first admission.

*The base ticket can be used by itself, with just the Park Hopper option, just the Water Park Fun & More option, or both options added on.*

Ticket Expiration

All ticket admissions, including the Park Hopper and Water Park Fun & More options expire 14 days after any part of the ticket is first used, whether at one of the main Disney theme parks or at one of the minor parks. The 14 day period to use the remainder of the ticket starts when the ticket is first used for admission.

As long as the ticket has not been used through any turnstile it is considered unused and has no expiration date. Disney tickets never have an expiration date until you start using them.

For example, if you use your 5 day ticket for the first time on October 1st, you have 4 days of admission left and your last day to use those 4 days is October 14th (meaning you can use them on the 14th). However, there is a No Expire option you can add to your Disney tickets. The price ranges starting at $25 for 2 day tickets and depends on how many days of admission are on the ticket. The No Expiration works for all parts of the ticket including Park Hopping and the Water Park Fun & More options. Any unused admissions will never expire (really, never).