Has anyone taken a short notice disney trip?

[Disneyfan754321]

We just got back two days ago, my son had a wonderful birthday. He loves all the attention he gets. We are there every year in march for his birthday. I was thinking about taking a surprise trip for my ds8 for his 9th birthday in may.
It would only be a two or three night weekend stay. All the disney value hotels are booked. Do you think one could open up? We are taking a plane so I liked the disney transport. I guess we could stay off site.. I just dont have a car.
And is it still fun if you dont have any fast passes?

 

[BigredNole]

First, FPs are nothing special any more. You can easily do the park without them. Want to hit Avatar? Get there first thing in the morning, go on it, and you are done. No FP necessary. Same goes for Test Track or 7DMT. Just hit them at park opening and spend time on the short wait attractions after. As for staying offsite over a weekend, you are best looking for a hotel. For 3 nights or so, you will not save much staying offsite. Keep an eye out for anything onsite. Between Uber rides and everything, you would spend more. Over the course of a week, you can save a lot of money.

 

[Bethislucy]

Sometimes those last minute trips are a blast and you may not get big ticket fastpasses but you can still pick up some. Plus the memory your DS will have of his surprise birthday trip would be worth it.

 

[disneysteve]

Yes, we've done last minute trips. The shortest planning ever was deciding on Tuesday to go on Saturday.

Can't help with onsite hotels as we always stay offsite. You might want to look at the Disney Springs hotels. Sometimes they run some pretty good specials and they do have transportation to the parks. Otherwise, car rentals are really cheap in Orlando. Stay offsite and rent a car. Just factor in paying for parking.

I agree that FPs aren't such a big deal. We don't usually book any in advance. We don't plan out every second of our trips so we will just go on the app the night before and grab 3 for the next day once we've decided which park we will visit. And then we add more during the day based on availability.

 

[firefly_ris]

We just got back two days ago, my son had a wonderful birthday. He loves all the attention he gets. We are there every year in march for his birthday. I was thinking about taking a surprise trip for my ds8 for his 9th birthday in may.
It would only be a two or three night weekend stay. All the disney value hotels are booked. Do you think one could open up? We are taking a plane so I liked the disney transport. I guess we could stay off site.. I just dont have a car.
And is it still fun if you dont have any fast passes?

Have you tried looking at Values on Orbitz, Priceline, or hotels.com? I just punched in a random May weekend (Fri 17 - Sun 19) and Pop came up as available. I'd also look at Springs hotels. But for a short trip as you describe with a young kid, having MDE and the ability to ditch the Uber costs might help.

And you can always grab FPs while you are there. Stuff pops up all the time.

 

[Upatnoon]

We just got back two days ago, my son had a wonderful birthday. He loves all the attention he gets. We are there every year in march for his birthday. I was thinking about taking a surprise trip for my ds8 for his 9th birthday in may.
It would only be a two or three night weekend stay. All the disney value hotels are booked. Do you think one could open up? We are taking a plane so I liked the disney transport. I guess we could stay off site.. I just dont have a car.
And is it still fun if you dont have any fast passes?

If you're not going until May, you have lots of time to plan.

Manage your expectations. It will be harder to get FPs for Slinky, FOP and Minetrain, but just keep refreshing.

Disney resorts open all the time, just keep looking. As others have said, try the big travel sites as well.

 

[kokomos]

Have u looked at your dates 1 night at a time? Maybe you could get 2 nights at sports and 1 at movies. We booked a trip in mid Jan and went early February. I was able to get SDD that late of notice along with everything except for FOP and passed on 7dmt because it was like 745 pm and I would have missed out on several FP during that time frame.

 

[KidaniZen]

Yes, a few years ago we booked in under a month. Last September planned a week and a half out.

Depending on when you are planning to go in May, probably no for the hotels. It's been booked out for awhile now due to weddings, other events, and dance/gymnastics/cheer meets.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

Have u looked at your dates 1 night at a time? Maybe you could get 2 nights at sports and 1 at movies. We booked a trip in mid Jan and went early February. I was able to get SDD that late of notice along with everything except for FOP and passed on 7dmt because it was like 745 pm and I would have missed out on several FP during that time frame.

We dont mind moving around, is it better to call? I wish they had a calander (or do they) maybe just one of my days is taken. I could adjust the days. I'm guessing I'm not the only friday night-monday morning traveler

 

[kokomos]

I just search Disney site 1 day at a time but yes it would probably be easier to call. The last weekend in May shows ASSp avalible.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

Here is a quick question...
In trying to plan and just for fun I put in disney land.
We have never been there btw... the airfare is the same. The tickets are similar. The hotels are more. I'm just not sure. We love WDW. Overall I think it would cost about the same depending on what kinda of hotels I could get. What do you think? It's only a three day trip.

 

[CyndiLooWho]

My son's gf family decided DAY OF to switch a spring break trip from Myrtle Beach to Disney. They had a BLAST. Said it was one of the best trips they've ever done. They did find a hotel on property, but I don't know what kind. Also, when is the cancellation window for full refund of a WDW trip? I'd start checking to see if ppl have changed their minds and rooms start opening up.

 

[keishashadow]

Here is a quick question...
In trying to plan and just for fun I put in disney land.
We have never been there btw... the airfare is the same. The tickets are similar. The hotels are more. I'm just not sure. We love WDW. Overall I think it would cost about the same depending on what kinda of hotels I could get. What do you think? It's only a three day trip.

Are you talking 3 nights/4 days or 2 nights/3 days? I’d be hesitant to do DL if just 2 nights as we have to fly across the country. IMO you need at least 2 or 3 days in the park to make it worthwhile on a first trip there.

Earliest am NS flight into LAX wouldn’t get us into the park until mid afternoon. Shuttle or uber in vs driving & hope to miss traffic on the 5.

SNA is closer to DL, but flights arrive later in day for us & usually much higher in price.

Returning home, the time difference works against us. Other than a red eye on Spirit out of LAX, our flight options tend to be early in the am...cutting out the last day.

What hotels are you considering? No need to book ‘onsite’, many on Harbor are closer than DLH & PP. a few others have free shuttles to the parks. check out reviews as majority are retro type motels, some more well-kept than others.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

Are you talking 3 nights/4 days or 2 nights/3 days? I’d be hesitant to do DL if just 2 nights as we have to fly across the country. IMO you need at least 2 or 3 days in the park to make it worthwhile on a first trip there.

Earliest am NS flight into LAX wouldn’t get us into the park until mid afternoon. Shuttle or uber in vs driving & hope to miss traffic on the 5.

SNA is closer to DL, but flights arrive later in day for us & usually much higher in price.

Returning home, the time difference works against us. Other than a red eye on Spirit out of LAX, our flight options tend to be early in the am...cutting out the last day.

What hotels are you considering? No need to book ‘onsite’, many on Harbor are closer than DLH & PP. a few others have free shuttles to the parks. check out reviews as majority are retro type motels, some more well-kept than others.

We are taking Saturday -monday or tuesday

I found flights late on friday, but I'm shooting for early Saturday so I dont have to pay hotel Friday. If I stay at a disney hotel we can go straight to the park.... what I like about California is I make up time if I go to florida I lose an hour.
I know Orlando so well it makes it easy. I have not made hotel reservations yet. I went to wdw but the moderate hotels are sold out, I cant do 400 a night on a weekend trip. I need to do this soon. First figure out what coast to travel to.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I've taken 2 trips that were only booked about 30 days out.
It was only 2 people so I was abel to grap some good FP selections.
Resorts can become available especially at the 30 day ish mark because people have to pay in full or cancel packages.
I've also found some open up at 2 days out as people have to cancel room only.
Twice I've found my parents a last minute (day of) rooms at AS Sports and ASMu as they were already in the area and wanted to stay on property for a couple nights.
I would suggest that you keep checking but also have a backup plan if you are going regardless.
If you do end up staying offsite I'd either rent a car or use Uber/Lyft vs trying to use an offsite shuttle.

 

[kathy884]

We missed a cruise out of Miami in January and instead of flying back home spent a week in Orlando doing three Disney Parks, SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and a day at Disney Springs. When all else fails, what do you do - go to Orlando for some Disney and SeaWorld magic. I made all my reservations and Fast passes in a two day timeframe. We got a car rental in Miami that we turned in at Orlando. We changed our return air flights to be from MCO (Orlando) instead of Fr. Lauderdale. We booked the SeaWorld Residence Inn, which gave us one front of line pass for major SeaWorld rides, not really needed, but it made for a very lovely day there. I could have gotten the POP for the same price (extra magic hours and Disney Magical Express). I let my son choose between those two properties (Sea World Residence Inn and POP), and I was pleased with what he picked (went for the more upscale hotel vs. extra magic hours and the perfectly fine, but not as nice Disney value place). At Busch I spent and extra $30 for my son for front of line passes for coasters, so he could do all of these quickly and join the rest of us for most of the time who were just doing animal exhibits and shows. At Disney we were able to get some good fastpasses, but did skip some popular rides (e.g. didn't do 7DMT or Peter Pan at the MK, but were able to get fastpasses for Splash, Space, and Big Thunder) (e.g. We didn't try to do FOP at Animal Kingdom, rope dropped the other pretty boat ride in the Avatar area. Most fastpasses were gone, but we grabbed ones for Dinosaur and Expedition Everest. We waited in line about 50 minutes for the Safari, but that was our only long line - lovely day there). At Epcot, we got a fastpass for the Frozen ride, then booked another for Test Track nearer to the end of our day, visited countries, stood in a long line (like 50 minutes for Soarin) -- another great day with just one long line for a favorite we chose to do.

I'm sure it helped a lot that we have been to Orlando many times and could very quickly make decisions about what we wanted to do. We did a last minute subscription to Touring Plans too, that helped us pick the rides we wanted to cover and give us an idea of lines and what fastpasses to pick out of the more limited selections available (get the FPs for the longest lines and skip some stuff with a line we didn't want to do for FP not available). We are willing to do one line a day that it between 45 minutes and an hour, but that's it and our only two long lines even on a last minute trip doing five different theme parks were for Soarin at Epcot and the Safari at Animal Kingdom - both over 45 minute wait, but both less than an hour wait.