Customer Reviews

Birnbaum's Walt Disney World: The Official Guide (Serial)

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Your initial reaction to Birnbaum's Guide to Walt Disney World may be, "This is more than I ever wanted to know about the place!" While the book is dense (in the sense of being information-filled, not in the sense of being a Herman Melville novel), it is also an easy-to-use and comprehensive guide to the Walt Disney World experience.

Do not attempt to absorb all the information in one sitting, the night before you leave for Florida. Rather, you will find it most useful as a planning guide which you consult well in advance of your trip. In fact, if you are unsure about the bare bones (when to go and how to get there), this book should become your immediate companion. Among its many useful tips is the name and location of a motel which is five minutes from the Main Gate, with rooms at $23-47 per night.

Birnbaum's guide is organized in color-coded sections, starting with "Getting Ready to Go" and "Transportation and Accommodations." There is a thorough guide to each of the three parks, and a brief preview of the new Animal Kingdom. Birnbaum then devotes a chapter to "Everything Else in the World," with information on the Disney Institute, Downtown Disney (an ever-growing part of the WDW experience), and the various water parks which add to the family-fun experience. The "Sports" chapter lists opportunities for tennis, golf, fishing, horseback riding, etc. The final section ("Good Meals, Great Times") is an extremely useful list of what might otherwise be a bewildering quantity of eating establishments. Restaurants are organized alphabetically by area, with price guidelines to help you avoid any nasty surprises.

While any book of this nature will have some inaccuracies (price changes, time changes, etc.), we found them to be minimal. In fact, we were surprised by the frequency with which we referred to this guide during the duration of our stay.

The book does have a few disadvantages. Its size makes it portable only in the sense that it fits in a capacious purse or back-pack (fortunately, I have the former). And its dismissal of vacation packages in a four-paragraph aside is neglecting an area which we felt was very important.

Birnbaum's logic (that there are too many packages to allow for thorough coverage)is a bit specious - there are nearly two hundred eating and drinking locations in Walt Disney World, but the guidebook gave at least minimal information on all of them. In our experience (four vacations at WDW to date), the right package can make the difference between an affordable vacation and a credit card nightmare. Also, more emphasis should have been placed on the eating plans available as part of packages, since the food is one of the most expensive parts of a Walt Disney World vacation.

In spite of these caveats, I would certainly recommend that you buy this guidebook. If you are a devoted "book person," it goes against your grain to highlight passages or dog-ear pages - but these activities are mandatory to getting the maximum use out of this book.

Used carefully, and with a willingness to improvise in minor matters, Birnbaum's Guide to Walt Disney World will allow you to maximize the pleasure of your visit, while minimizing its cost.

What more could a guidebook provide?

Working for Disney, I can tell you first hand that this guide to WDW was out of date the second it was published. WDW changes so frequently that prices and attractions listed in Birnbaum are already out of date. Also, a very scary fact about reading this "guide" is that a lot of the people who are at WDW read the same book you read, so those insider facts are no longer insider facts. For example, everyone goes to WDW when Birnbaum says the lines are shortest, hence the lines are not short. I believe this is one of the reasons Birnbaum is out of date when it hits the stands. The book does offer good descriptions of the parks and resorts with great pictures, but I wouldn't suggest hanging on to every word like it is scripture.

I can honestley say that this guide is a must for those who are not familiar with the World, and those who have maps in their head. Although my family knew much about WDW, we still found the guide great for quick reference, and detailed information about some attractions, which can often help you decide whether or not you'd be interested.

There is an entire cavalcade of tips, and there are lots of information for those obsessed with Walt Disney World.

I would defineltely reccomend this book to anyone planning to spend a good deal of time at the parks, as it can be very useful.

This is the most informative book on the market for persons about to journey to Walt Disney World. It is absolutely essential if you want to approach your WDW vacation with knowledge enough to make the most of it. My advice is to purchase the most recent edition, as it is updated each year to include new attractions, and there are always new attractions. The book is filled with information about hotels, restaurants, amusement parks, and attractions throughout the entire Disney property. I have made about 25 trips to WDW, and I buy a new one each year I go so that my information is current. Well worth the reasonable price.

As a member of a family that goes to Walt Disney World almost every year, I love this book. On the vacations before we got this book, we would just stumble around the different parks only visiting the attractions that looked neat and had short lines.But then we got this book and discovered that there were lots of fun attractions and things to do then we had ever realized! Plus, the book included tips for getting the most out of our trip. When we went back to Walt Disney World the next summer, I had the best time I could ever remember having. I may be just a stupid seventh grader compared to all of the adults out there, but I think that one of the major reasons that parents take their kids here is to let them have lots of fun, and they can't truly do that until you take the advice of this book.

The Birnbaum Guide is the official view of WDW, and therefore tends to leave out some helpful information which it deems is not in Disney's best interest to distribute. In this way, the Unofficial Guide is better. However, since a WDW vacation is so expensive, it is probably best to go the extra mile and get both, to ensure you have the full picture. (For that matter, the best and most up-to-date info is available through the members of online services such as Compuserve's FLORIDA forum or USENET's rec.arts.disney.parks.) One note about packages. I too wish Birnbaum went into more detail. However, I think their conclusion is completely accurate. This is our eight trip in six years to a Disney resort and there is no question that, with the exception of some of the off-season packages (including Fall Fantasy [late August and September], and Jolly Holidays [early December]) you're always better purchasing your hotel room, your admission and your meals separately and a la carte.

It helped me learn more about Disney World!

This book was very good as far as telling you when to hit what attractions. The problem that I had with it was it praised every ride and attraction as though they were all great. Things like the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Enchanted Tiki Hut should be skipped, and should be noted in any Disney guide book.

Without this book to help a first time visitor, I would have stood in the middle of Mainstreet, USA, Magic Kingdom not knowing what to do or where to go. I felt, after reading this book, that I was an expert Disney tourist. I recommend everyone traveling to DisneyWorld to read this book and become an expert in FANTASY!!!