Best time to plan a Walt Disney World trip

Fall is the best time for Florida vacations each year. But this year, The Orlando Sentinel reports that hotel bookings are soft at Disney World hotels making it a great time to break out those mouse ears!

Disney may not have cut rates yet at its properties, but the real price pressure for them to do so will come from competitors. Most hotel rooms in Central Florida are not Disney hotel rooms. The market is so competitive that I've paid as cheap as $29 for a room in the past. In fact, it's not at all unusual to pay $50 for a really nice place.

This is the time of year that Walt Disney World offers discounts to Florida residents that fill the parks with daytrippers. That creates some traffic, but not as much as you would have encountered over the summer. The real time to book, though, is during the first two weeks of December. Almost nobody goes on vacation at that time.

The parks have pushed up the prices of passes, so you have to do what you can to save on any other feature of your trip. I recommend that you buy The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World as a starting point. They'll tell you all kinds of money and time-saving tips that the parks don't want you to know. That's the key to getting the best value out of a trip.

For example, it's so important to know how to navigate the parks: What order to go to things, where to go first when you arrive, what time of day to arrive. Knowing that makes a trip so much more enjoyable.

For my money, I say make sure you take ponchos from the dollar store with you for afternoon and evening thundershowers instead of buying overpriced ones for $10 at the park. Sure, they won't have cute characters on them, but they'll help you keep more of those other kinds of "characters" in your wallet.