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After making plans to go to Walt Disney World, the first thing you'll need is tickets. We chose to buy our tickets at the local Disney store at home instead of standing in line at the park. One advantage to this is that you can buy them whenever you're ready and not have to spend the money the same week you're at the park. We were told to carry our receipt with us in case the tickets were lost or stolen. This would be the only proof we had to get them replaced. There are a lot of discount brokers online, but we were concerned about spending such large amounts of money on something that might not even be legitimate. Last time we went to Disney, we got free tickets for listening to a timeshare presentation, but if your time is limited, you've got to decide if it's worth using up a big chunk of it for the tickets.

Walt Disney World actually includes Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, and Downtown Disney. Although we were only planning to spend three days at the parks we decided to buy six-day passes because the cost per day was so much less. For instance, you can buy a 3-day base ticket for $181 and spend $60 a day, or you can buy a 7-day base ticket for $210 a day and get the cost per day down to about $30. We paid $303.53 with tax for one 6 day ticket that included the park-hopper option and no expiration date. That way, the ticket is good forever, and we can go to more than one park in one day. We didn't end up using the park-hopper option because we never saw all we wanted in the first park. We stayed wherever we went for the full day.

We were told by a travel agent that when you go into the park your fingerprints are assigned to your pass. She said that this helps prevent people from buying the passes at the discount and then re-selling them. If this were true, then if you lost your pass, it would be easy to find the person who stole it. We couldn't imagine any database in the world that was large enough to track the millions of people on Disney properties in one day, so we put it to the test. The first day we entered the park, we were required to put two fingers into a reader as we put our tickets into the machine. The next day, we switched cards to see if any alarms went off. They didn't. If someone approaches you about buying their pass, I'd be careful because you can't tell by looking at it whether or not there are any days available on it. Once inside the park, this pass entitles you to ride every ride and go inside any attraction without paying again. However, this does not mean that you won't need cash or credit card inside the park! Every ride seems to dump you into a gift shop for that particular theme. We decided to spend 51 cents to press our own penny as a memory of that theme or ride. The grandkids had fun putting the two quarters and a penny into the machine and it was small enough that they could carry them in their pockets. Of course there is a book you can buy to save your "souvenir" pennies in, but hey, this is Disney, and they provide everything you need for a price.

There is no need to do any comparison shopping while on the Disney properties. The Mickey Mouse shirt you find at Downtown Disney will be exactly the same price as the same shirt found in any of the gift shops at the Magic Kingdom. So if you find something you can't live without, you might as well buy it when you find it.

If you have kids, bring a stroller. This is as much for convenience as safety reasons. There are such crowds there that it would be easy to lose your child. Two of the days we took our own strollers. The third day we paid $18 to rent a double stroller. Even if the kids don't use the stroller, you can use it to store all of your purchases. Of course, for some of the rides and events you will have to park the stroller outside, so you'll have to carry everything in with you if you don't want to risk having it stolen. Actually, toward the end, we left jackets and food in the strollers and didn't have a problem.

This trip, we discovered the collectable Disney pins and had a good time finding pins that had some meaning to us. I hadn't been inside the Magic Kingdom for more than 10 minutes before I found an Americana Mouse. My daughter had to have the Snow White pin. While I didn't see the pins anywhere except in the parks, remember that people trade these pins, so there's always a possibility that you can find it at home on eBay. Some people are set on buying what they want right then and there, but if it doesn't matter where you buy something to remind you of your trip, that's an option. Then again, once you're home, and not caught up in the magic of Disney, you may not even care about them. We even saw people buying pins and trading them with employees who were wearing their own pins.

We saw people all over the park who were more experienced pin collectors than we were, and they had lanyards for their pins. The lanyards sell for about $6.95 at the park, but on an evening trip to Wal-Mart, I found the one I wanted for $5. It was licensed by Disney and looked exactly like one I'd seen at the park, so I bought it and saved a couple of dollars by doing it that way. The first day, we didn't bring any food or water with us because we'd been told you couldn't carry it inside. Just the two of us blew about $25 on a burger, fries, chicken wrap and two small bottled waters. In the afternoon, we spent $2.50 each on ice cream sandwiches shaped like Mickey! We saw people eating their own food, so that evening I decided to invest about $5 in bread, peanut butter and jelly, and bring my own lunch the next two days. The next morning, I made my sandwich, filled a baggie with chips, packed a bottled water, and threw in a plum. Employees at the gate do go through any bags you bring in, and they didn't even question the lunch sack. I figure that unless you're marching in with a pizza box or cooler, they don't say anything. There are benefits to bringing food besides trying to save money. The first day I packed a lunch, we walked for 30 minutes while the rest of my family looked for some place that didn't have a long line. The two kids, ages 3 and 6, had fallen asleep in their strollers. We finally found a place and decided to stay there in spite of the line. I opted to find a table and sit with the kids while they slept. I pulled out my lunch and had finished eating it long before they came back to the table. They stood in that line because they wanted Greek salads but came back with the only thing available on the menu -- foot-long chili dogs. I was glad that I'd been able to eat when I was ready, that I'd gotten to eat what I wanted, and that I hadn't had to spend $10 on something that would give me indigestion for the rest of the day!

It's not enough that you've spent a minimum of $30 to get inside the park, but you'll also pay $9 to park. Each parking pass is stamped with a date, and it allows you to hop from park to park on that day. While you might think about packing a lunch in a cooler and leaving it in your car, it's good to know that the trek out to your car is probably close to a mile from the entrance of the park. There is a tram from the front gate that will take you to your car, but if you're at the back of the park when you decide you're hungry, allow about an hour to walk to the front, catch the tram, and get to your car. Be sure you remember where you parked, especially if you have a rental car that you can't identify! The rows have catchy names, like Create 48, or Film 23, but after a day of walking, riding, eating, and emptying your wallet, it would be good if you've either written it down, or all of you have committed your row to memory! Next time maybe I'll take a picture of the row with my digital camera!

If you're on a limited budget, I would sit down with the kids before you go and explain the situation to them. Show them how much the tickets cost and how much it will cost to get there. One mother had an envelope with money for each of her kids, and as they wanted to buy something, she paid for their purchases out of their specific envelope. This took longer at the cash register, but at least it was fair. Maybe you'll decide to give your child $25 or $50 to spend, and offer to give them whatever cash is left at the end of the trip. Our little ones were too young to handle their own money, but they understood that they couldn't have everything. Most of the time they were perfectly happy with the stamped pennies!

There is something magical about Walt Disney World. I love being there in a make-believe world that is larger than life. However, they are in business to make money, and they are geniuses at it. They have something called the Fast Pass. If there's something you want to ride and there's a long wait, you can put your ticket into a machine and get a Fast Pass. This allows you to come back during a designated time and go to the head of the line. We used it a couple of times and it really saved time. We had to smile when we realized that the idea behind the Fast Pass is to keep you out of the line for an hour so that you can spend more money. After all, if you're stuck in the Magic Mountain line for an hour, you aren't buying pins, t-shirts, food, drinks, ice cream, and other memorabilia. So, use the Fast Pass and appreciate it, but realize that the wad in your wallet is shrinking every minute you're out of line!

One thing I wanted to buy was just a plain Mickey Mouse t-shirt. The prices in the park were $12.99 and I didn't even like what they had to offer. My husband said they were going for the grunge look. I thought someone made a huge mistake and decided to just put them out anyway. The ironed on Mickey looked like it had been washed so many times that it was crumbling. At Wal-Mart my daughter found what I wanted for $5. The only difference is that it also says "Orlando," which is fine with me. One day, when my memory starts to fade, I'll be able to remember where I spent my money.

For more details on making your Disney vacation more enjoyable, call 407-WDW-INFO or visit www.disney.com