Disney Around the World -
An United Kingdom Perspective & Tips

Traveling

First of all Walt Disney World is an awfully long way from the UK! Direct Flights from London are around 9 – 10 hours depending on the wind speeds and if you go indirect (e.g. via Boston) add at least four hours to your journey time. It may be cheaper but it does add to that other problem – Jet Lag.

Don’t plan to be active every second of the day after you arrive as you will be wilting by mid afternoon at the latest. It is not only hot in Florida; it is also very humid which makes the heat feel even worse. For sun protection you can do a lot worse than pick up a bottle of P20 at the airport – an amazing once a day application works in or out of water.

Transportation & Shopping

Most people from the UK hire a car for their trip – because they love to going to shops! As a rule of thumb you will pay in dollars what you would pay in pounds and with the exchange rate hovering around $1.50 to the £ that makes things cheap for us. Bear in mind that there is a fairly small gift allowance (£145) which can get eaten up quickly. Go over that and you will need to go through the red channel on the way home so don’t fill up your suitcases that much!

Take a small amount of currency, lots of US$ Travelers Cheques and a credit card for overspend (you get a very poor exchange rate on most credit cards so only use them if you have to). Travelers Cheques are treated like cash and most places don’t even want to see your ID when you use them.

On the subject of cars; Make sure you get all your insurance paid for before you leave home, it will be much cheaper than paying in the US. They also drive on the right over there (like our European cousins) but the roads are nice and wide.

Some familiar parts of cars will have different names as well (Trunk for Boot for example) so don’t let the differences in our common language confuse you! There are quite a few toll roads that are fairly empty to make life even easier for nervous drivers. One, the Greenway, will take you all the way from Orlando International Airport (or even Sanford!) to Walt Disney World.

Do you need a car for your whole trip?
Maybe not – especially if you stay on site at Walt Disney World and use their great transportation system round their parks. Think about taking a Town car from the airport to the hotel and pick up a car from one of the hotels at Downtown Disney for as long or short a period, as you like. This saves money, stress and lets you have the best of both worlds.

Touring

There are worlds outside Disney and one favorite for UK visitors is Kennedy Space centre - only an hour’s drive from Disney World.

There are other theme parks but we don’t talk about those here; however you can get special tickets for Disney and other places in the UK before you leave.

For Disney there is a special 10 day ticket that is only available from the UK. If you are going for three weeks it may be worth considering an annual. One danger to consider is that if you get an annual pass you may just feel that you will have to go back for another visit before the 12 months runs out!