ALLOCATING MONEY

Did Walt really intend for it to be so expensive that the average family couldn't afford it?

-Unofficial Guide reader and mother of one from Amarillo, Texas

How much you spend depends on how long you stay at Walt Disney World. But even if you stop for only an afternoon, be prepared to drop a bundle. This section will give some sense of what admission will cost, as well as which admission will best meet your needs.

WALT DISNEY WORLD ADMISSION OPTIONS
In an effort to accommodate vacations of various durations and activities, Disney offers a number of different options to its theme parks. These

Admission to Disney's theme parks and water parks is offered through an a la carte ticket plan called Magic Your Way. (Click here for details on the plan). Our explanation includes links to Disney's official site, for the latest ticket prices, as well as links to third-party ticket wholesalers, who can offer savings of around 5% for certain types of tickets.

LEAST EXPENSIVE TICKET OPTIONS
Tell us what you want to see, and we'll show you the least expensive tickets to buy to do it all. Our free computer analysis is available here.

AIRPORT AND OFF-SITE CAR RENTAL COST COMPARISION
Most airports charge hefty fees for renting cars on their property. Can you save money by renting your next vehicle from a company outside the airport, or does airport competition provide the lowest prices available. Click here to find out.

ALLOCATING TIME

CROWD CONDITIONS AND THE BEST AND WORST PARKS TO VISIT FOR EACH DAY OF THE YEAR
Each year we receive more than 1,000 e-mails and letters inquiring about crowd conditions on specific dates throughout the year. Readers also want to know which park is best to visit on each day of their stay. To make things easier for you (and us!), we've created a calendar covering the next twelve months. For each date, we offer a crowd-level index based on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being least crowded and 10 being most crowded. Our calendar takes into account all holidays, special events, and more. Click here to see the calendar and read more about how we make our predictions.

EXTRA MAGIC HOURS
"Extra Magic Hours" are a perk for families staying at a Walt Disney World resort, including the Swan, Dolphin, Shades of Green, and the Hilton in the Downtown Disney resort area. During selected days of the week, Disney resort guests will be able to enter a Disney theme park one hour earlier, or stay in a selected theme park up to three hours later than the official park operating hours. (Water parks may also offer Extra Magic Hours.) Theme park visitors not staying at a Disney resort may stay in the park for Extra Magic Hour evenings, but can not experience any rides, attractions or shows. Click here for more details, including the latest Extra Magic Hours schedule, and list of attractions open at each theme park.

FASTPASS
FASTPASS is a free ride reservation system designed to reduce the amount of time you have to wait at some of Walt Disney World's most popular attractions. In short, Disney offers you the opportunity to skip a long wait at an attraction you want to ride right now, in exchange for a much shorter wait later in the day. Many of our touring plans use FASTPASS to significantly reduce the time spent waiting in lines. Click here for a complete description of what FASTPASS does, and how and why it works.

TOURING PLANS
Helping you avoid bottlenecks is what our book (and this website) is about. Bottlenecks are caused by crowd concentrations and/or faulty crowd management. Avoiding bottlenecks involves being able to predict where, when, and why they occur. Concentrations of hungry people create bottlenecks at restaurants during lunch and dinner; concentrations of people moving toward the exit near closing time create bottlenecks in gift shops en route; concentrations of visitors at new and popular rides, and at rides slow to load and unload, create bottlenecks and long lines.

On our website, we provide more than 85 touring plans for the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Disney Hollywood Studios. There are specific plans for adults, parents with small children, seniors, "'tweens," multi-generational families, and Disney Cruise guests. A variety of one- and two-day plans are available for the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, including variations for boys ages 4-8 and girls ages 4-8. We also have morning and afternoon plans for each park that are great for touring a park on travel days.

WALT DISNEY WORLD ON THE WEB
You could explore the Web for weeks on end. Here are our picks for the best Disney-related sites available.