Disney Day without a Park Ticket

When we decided to go to Florida, I thought of course we would spend the majority of our time at Disney!  I LOVE all things DISNEY and the last time I went to Orlando in 2015 with my then 5 year old daughter, we stayed 10 Nights at the Art of Animation Resort and only did things Disney.  I was shocked when both my daughters 18 & 7 said they didn’t want to do Disney, but go to Universal instead.  Because both of them had already been to Disney – and more recently even Disneyland in California.  How can we not go to Disney in Orlando??  (Insert Horror Face)!  But I completely understood, and decided a new adventure to the “other” park in Orlando was on our schedule!

Even after I purchased our tickets to Universal, I still wanted to figure out a way to still visit Disney!  I came up with a plan.  First off, the tickets to Universal were expensive, so spending even another $350 on a 1 day pass for the 3 of us was out of the budget, so I came up with a plan to have a Disney Day without paying for a ticket!

My Plan

• Lunch/Brunch Reservations at Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary Resort
• Ride the Monorail and stop at Disney Resorts on the Monorail
• Play Mini Golf at Fantasia Mini Golf at the Dolphin/Swan Resort

How to get to Disney without staying on Property

Since we were staying at the Gaylord and had no car and were not on staying on Disney Property, we needed to get to Disney!  The Gaylord offered a shuttle to the Transporting and Ticketing Center, but we had reservations for lunch at Chef Mickey’s, so we just took an Uber. It cost me $15 plus tip to get from the Gaylord to the Contemporary Resort.   Uber was great!  Our Uber driver picked us up at the Gaylord and took us straight to the Contemporary Resort.  This was about a 15 minute ride.

Chef Mickey’s/Contemporary Resort

This restaurant is one of my favorites!  You get to eat a wonderful buffet meal, and see all the main Disney Characters – Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald and Daisy Duck.  Since we are not breakfast people, we opted for their Bruch that runs from 11:30 am -2:30 pm.  We found it easy to get this reservation time, as most people are most likely in the parks.  Early morning reservations and dinner reservations are much harder to get.  So we decided on 12:30 pm.  This gave us time to sleep in and get to the Contemporary Hotel from the Gaylord.

Once you check-in, you can use the Chef Mickey Photo Op to take your own pictures, or utilize the Disney Photographers.  The Photographers were great and let us take several different pictures.  Even though the Disney Photographers took pictures and gave us a photo pass with our numbers on it, we didn’t use this.  Instead we just used our cameras to have the pictures.

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Because the menu was Brunch, they still had all the traditional breakfast fair, including Mickey Waffles, bacon, eggs, etc plus lunch foods including baked Ham, Salmon, chicken and of course all the desserts and ice cream!  So it truly was the best of both worlds!  Who couldn’t resist a Mickey Waffle and then a salad, some ham and then some of their wonderful desserts!  Chef Mickey’s is great for adults and children.  They offer a good selection of both healthy and not so healthy items for both.  You can fill up on sugary treats or enjoy a salad and a great piece of Salmon.  The kids buffet also has chicken fingers, Mickey Mac & Cheese, and fruit.  Even my youngest daughter who is not much of an eater found several things to try and eat for the afternoon.

Once you get seated and go to the buffet for your food, the characters start coming around.  On this visit once one character started, the rest followed pretty quickly.  We were able to see all 5 characters in about 20 minutes of arriving.  This was great, so we got all the pictures and greetings out of the way, and then could focus on eating our lunch.  This was a very fun lunch and definitely put us in the Disney mood!

MONORAIL

The best part about being at Chef Mickey’s, is that it is on the Monorail line at the Contemporary Hotel!  Riding the Monorail was the fun part of our Disney Day!

Once we were done exploring the Grand Floridian, we decide to just ride the monorail around a couple of times without getting off.  My youngest daughter really liked this.

CONTEMPORARY RESORT

I have always wanted to say at this resort, because you can walk right over to Magic Kingdom, but it just hasn’t worked out.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t still walk around and experience the resort.  I also love this resort, because the monorail comes right into the resort! We enjoyed our time walking around the Contemporary and then hopped on the monorail and went to the Polynesian Resort.

POLYNESIAN RESORT

Welcome to Hawaii!  This resort reminds me of spending time in Hawaii!  The tropical foliage in the lobby to the palm trees around the pool and beach are great!  This resort also has its own Dole Whip counter!  We walked around the hotel and then out to the beach area, then back on the Monorail to the Grand Floridian.

GRAND FLORIDIAN

This hotel has old world charm and elegance.  The lobby and hotel are very grand as well as the shops and outdoor area.  I do like this hotel, and even stayed for a conference several years ago, but it just doesn’t have that super Disney feel to me.  But it is still a fun place to visit, and it has some wonderful restaurants as well.

MAGIC KINGDOM STOP

During our loop around the monorail track, I decided we needed a picture of us outside of Magic Kingdom, another stop on the monorail loop.  So with dark clouds looming, we got out and took our pictures in front of Magic Kingdom.  We then decided since we were outside of Magic Kingdom, we could just hop on a bus and it would take us to the Dolphin/Swan resort.  That is what I love about Disney, all of their transportation is free, and even though we were not staying on property or even had a park ticket, we still rode all their transportation for free!!

DOLPHIN/SWAN RESORT

This was my first experience stopping at these hotels, and I have to say, they were very nice!  Both had great beaches and tons of outdoor activities.  The hotels are across from each other, and you can walk to either one.  They also connect to the Boardwalk area, so when it wasn’t raining, we walked through the shops on the Boardwalk and even ran into Donald Duck!  Because it was raining, we could not play mini golf at Fantasia Mini Golf, so we just hung out at the resort and boardwalk, did some shopping and played in their arcade.  It finally stopped raining, so we walked over to the Fantasia Mini Golf.

FANTASIA MINI GOLF

Located next to the Swan and Dolphin Resort, the entire mini golf course is designed after the movie Fantasia!  How much more Disney could you get out of mini golf!  This was a fun and easy course, and we enjoyed seeing the dancing Hippo, and other Fantasia themes.  Once we were done playing mini golf, we ended our night we a late reservation at Il Mulino, an amazing Italian restaurant at the Dolphin Resort.

IL MULINO

Amazing Italian restaurant!  I had experienced Il Mulino in Las Vegas, and the Orlando location does not disappoint!  After a long day of a walking around and enjoying Disney, having a great Italian dinner was the cherry on top of our Disney Day!

Summary

We had a great day enjoying the “some-what” free items that Disney has to offer!  Riding around the monorail, experiencing some of the Disney hotels, seeing Disney Characters and even playing mini golf on a Disney themed course gave me the Disney fix I needed, without the added cost of a park ticket.  If you find yourself in Orlando and need something Disney, try my tour of the monorail/bus hotels and save your money for something else!