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“Using the fast pass system is a great way to minimize your time in lines once you get a system. Get a pass for the most new or popular attraction you want to see as early as possible and then work from there. When you are allowed another fast pass, make sure you know which one you are getting next and it is fairly easy to see and do the less “popular at the moment” things and shops in between. We have had very positive experiences and I don’t feel like we stand in line all day. I know this sounds dorky, but sometimes I even have a book or something with me if the line is long and my family has been together all day

I have brought all manner of food and drink into the park and have never had a problem. They search (really a cursory glance) into your bag but have never mentioned it. I’m not sure if there is an actual policy or not.
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One tip with FP’s (Fast Pass); Disney won’t let you on early but they will let you on late. We ended up going to see Nemo which conflicted with our FP return time. We were an hour or so past the time on the ticket and they had no problem with it and admitted us. I have since found out that Disney, as of now, doesn’t enforce that part. They understand that you may be in line for something else or in another part of the park. Just don’t go trying to show up at 7pm for an 11 am fastpass or you might not get in. That means you could technically have more than one fastpass at a time - you can get another when the window for the first one expires. Many times, we got a FP for the ride we were about to ride so we could ride that favorite twice. Even when you get one first thing in the am, the return time is like 45 minutes later.

We took a couple of water bottles that we refilled in the drinking fountains. We also took those portable drink mixes to put in them after we refilled them; Fla water has a funny taste to me and the drink mix covered it. We also took trail mix, granola bars and pb crackers. We wanted protein type snacks and not sugary ones that would mess with our blood sugar and give us highs and lows in energy. It worked really well. We were also at the gate when they opened so we could head back to the resort for an afternoon nap in order to return in the evening.

We also bought the Unofficial Guide to Disney and utilized their touring plans. They give you an order in which to ride in order to minimize your wait time. We have used it three times and never waited in line more than 20 minutes. The down side of this is that you walk on so many rides that you miss the queing that Disney does so well.

Disney asks how many are in each party just before you get on the ride and will put two groups together if needed. There is a seperate standby line, which we didn’t use, that may be the single rider line. I am not sure.
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Here’s a tip - If you’re going to EPCOT and have a particular restaurant in mind, make your reservation ASAP, even if it’s a month or more before you go. Some of those places book up 6 months in advance, and you may not get in if you wait ’til you get there.”

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“Only in a real city will you find, in an art museum, a painting with a title like this: “In the beginning there was borscht, and then came the thought of liver.” Done partly in beet juice.
Here are some of the joys of this city—downtown and in the neighborhoods—that are particularly suited for grown-ups and particularly for grown-ups weary of being blocked by convoys of baby-strollers from getting to, say, Universal’s incomparable “Spider-Man” thrill ride.

Loch Haven Park
Not only a park (and a loch), but home to a bevy of cultural and educational venues, including the Orlando Science Center, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando Repertory Theatre and the Mennello Museum of American Art.

The Science Center is your basic kids museum, so skip that, unless you absolutely must see a dinosaur, need to press buttons or are one of the eight people left in American who hasn’t experienced some variation of “Titanic: The Experience.” The Rep’s rep is primarily “family” shows (”You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” “Go, Dog! Go!”), not that there’s anything wrong with that.

It’s the Big Art Museum that’s the star here. As with many regional museums, the collection isn’t vast—but unlike the others, what’s here is very, very good. Its O’Keeffe (”Datura and Pedernal”) is quintessential Georgia (flower, New Mexico); also here is fine work by John Singer Sargent and landscapists Thomas Moran and Herman Herzog. You just missed a delightful exhibition justly called “Audacity in Art”—the “borscht” work, by a Vietnamese artist, was a highlight—but there’s a Rockwell show on through Memorial Day. Also, an excellent “Ancient Americas” collection, if you’re into that—and, of course, a Chihuly. Not talking the MoMA here, but better than you’d imagine . . .

Orange County Regional History Center
Look for the statue of the guy wrangling an alligator in the heart of downtown, and you’ll find this museum beside him, fashioned from the former county courthouse. Among the exhibits is a series of photos of a sinkhole that almost swallowed Winter Park in 1981 (and, of course, became a major tourist attraction for a while), much information on the local Seminoles (the real ones, not Bobby Bowden’s Florida State teams), and chilling material on the African-American experience in the area. (The Groveland story will leave you shaking your head.)

Also intriguing: a courtroom, left whole.

“The Bundy trial was here,” said the center’s Sherry Lewis. “We can’t give eye-witness confirmation that he was the one who carved his name into the desk, but . . . ”

In 1980, Ted Bundy was convicted here in the 1978 rape-murder of a 12-year-old Florida girl, Kimberly Leach. She would be his 29th, and last, victim.

Someone left a carving.

Winter Park
The train carrying the cold and wealthy from up north stopped here in winter, they built grand houses, and there you are. The in-town suburb is home to Rollins College, cute restaurants (some open for lunch, with sidewalk seating), the Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art (which, befitting a museum with a name that long, gets its own section later in this essay) and, of course, the Scenic Boat Tour.

The Scenic Boat Tour has been plying the mossy-tree- and mansion-lined lakes and canals of Winter Park since the Great Depression. It’s evidently an “essential” for visitors here, at least in part because it beats walking around in the heat—but the vegetation is lush, the narration is amusing, the price is right ($10, $5 for kids, who will be bored 10 minutes into it) and what better way to see, on the same tour, homes lived in by the likes of Mamie Eisenhower and Horace Grant?”

(via chicagotribune.com )

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“LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Walt Disney World calls its workers, from actors in Goofy outfits to laundry workers, “cast members” to make them feel part of the show. There’s a garbage can every 25 steps, so litter will be tossed not dropped. There’s a polite way to answer one of the park’s most asked questions: “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?”

These nuggets are part of corporate customer service training offered by Disney Institute, a Florida-based unit of the Walt Disney Co. that has coached thousands of executives and front-line workers from other companies and organizations since 1986. Customers have included Delta Air Lines, IBM Corp., General Motors Corp., Chrysler Corp. and even the Internal Revenue Service and cigarette maker Phillip Morris Inc.

Now the Institute has taken another client: Miami International Airport, which many travelers will tell you needs customer service training like an airplane needs wings. Surveys rank its service among the nation’s worst.
The airport’s terminal operations employees are taking classes taught by Institute instructors, learning leadership practices, team building, staff relations and communication skills — many formulated by Walt Disney himself.

“Many organizations think they’re different from Disney, and therefore can’t learn from an entertainment or a parks and resorts business,” said Bruce Jones, programming director for Disney Institute. “But then when they get here and work with us a little bit, they find out … these principles and similarities are transferrable across industries, across cultures, and across different sizes and shapes of organizations.
“Just think of the airport business. The reality is both businesses have millions of people each year waiting in line for a ride.”
Disney World and the airport have more in common, including dealing with ground transportation, parking and retail sales. So, it made sense for the airport to seek out Disney Institute.

“They understand how to minimize the inconvenience and maximize the entertainment value,” airline industry analyst Bob Mann said of Disney. “It’s a reasonably good move” for the airport to hire Disney.
Miami International Airport is a gateway to and from the Caribbean and Latin America. About 32.5 million passengers passed through the airport in 2006, including more than 14 million international passengers. But among 18 U.S. airports with 30 million or more passengers per year, only three airports performed worse in J.D. Power and Associates’ 2007 North America Airport Satisfaction Study.

“The customer service needs to improve,” said Sarah Abate, who oversees commercial services at the airport and took a training class. “Passengers need to understand that Miami is a friendly airport, and we are passenger friendly. Now, people don’t get that, or the perception from the passenger is not the same as what we are trying to convey.”
Disney started the Institute after it realized it was getting questions from other companies about its customer service. After offering some behind-the-scenes educational tours, the Institute developed its first professional development program 21 years ago..” [Via biz.yahoo.com]

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