advice for a first timer?

[loki]

these apply to any park on any day of the week.

1) comfortable/broken-in shoes!! you'll be walking 10-30 miles per day
2) be at the gate atleast 45 minutes before rope drop (you can sleep for free at home )
3) understand how the fastpass system works and use it!
4) don't rush, don't stress, have a magical day

[shimmerplanet]

These responses are so helpful. I have been worrying that I'll wear us out trying to see everything. If we don't - it'll be okay...just another reason to save up for another visit. I'm making a short list of things each of us would like to see each day and we'll go from there. We are going to be there during the MVMCP and will be attending that. I'm most excited about that and hope my kids are too. Other than that, I'm hoping to just enjoy the time there and the incredible-ness of Disney.

[Sam]

Everyone has given you some great advice and I'm struggling to think of things, but here are few I hope helps.

-We did read up on some touring plans before hand just to get an idea of how busy the parks would be, some of the best ways to get round and get a rough idea of where everything is on each park. Although we didn't use them as gospel they did give us a few tips.
-We put bottles of water of in the freezer overnight then took them to the park in plastic. They were great for keeping us refreshed as they melted through the day.
-USE FASTPASSES.
-Check out the various threads and advice on this site, it made all the difference to us when we went for the first time.
-Give yourself chance to rest,have days off and go shopping or rest by the pool. On the days the parks were open late we would sometimes have the morning to rest and go later in the day just when you see people who have been there all day starting to flag, or go early in the morning for opening have a few hours off at lunch time then go back later.
-Another thing we would do is keep a polystyrene cool box in the car and fill it with frozen bottles of water and fruit, you can pick up these cool boxes for next to nothing in any of the supermarkets,Walmart, Publix, etc. In the middle of the day we would pop back to the car for a snack break and rest. Of course this is ok if you have parked reasonably close.
-Consider which characters you really want to see, for my son it was Mickey Mouse, Woody and Buzz. You could easily spend your day waiting just to collect autographs.
-When buying gifts to take home consider buying from Walmart, etc. You will find loads of Disney items at half the price to what you pay in the parks. One thing we bought fairly cheaply were the electric water fans to keep you cool. If you buy them in the parks they are double the price.

Sorry gone on a bit.

[Wendy]

Excellent advice Sam, thank you

[thomas.kevin]

Useful and informative post for the first timer!!

Thanks People For Sharing your views here!!