Hello and welcome to Disney Tourist Blog! We’re Sarah & Tom Bricker, and we founded this website over a decade ago as a place to assemble our reviews, recommendations, tips & tricks, and guide for doing Walt Disney World and Disneyland like pros. We strive to provide informative and unbiased advice to fans and first-timers alike planning trips to the Disney Parks around the globe.
Since being founded in 2011, Disney Tourist Blog has helped hundreds of millions of readers save money, time, and reduce stress in preparing for truly magical vacations. Our site and expertise have been featured by several prominent publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, CNN, Forbes, NBC News, The Hill, Travel & Leisure, Business Insider, USA Today, and more. Our charitable efforts have also been highlighted on several television news outlets, including the Today Show and local broadcasts in Central Florida and Southern California.
We created Disney Tourist Blog after graduating from college and law school initially as a place to share daily photos and trip reports from our visits to the parks. We resided in the Midwest at the time, and this blog was a good outlet in between trips. In the years since, DTB has grown beyond our wildest expectations.
We’ve relocated on multiple occasions to be closer to the parks to gain a fresh perspective as locals. We’ve lived less than 30 minutes from Disneyland (twice!) and under 10 minutes from Walt Disney World (we could see the Magic Kingdom fireworks from our bedroom window) for over 4 years. We’ve made these moves in order to intimately understand the ins and outs of Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
While the primary perspective of this blog remains one of tourists–to help you plan memorable vacations–living near the parks offered invaluable experience as locals. We’re current Annual Passholders on both coasts, as well as Universal’s parks in Orlando and Hollywood. We’re past Annual Passholders at Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Universal Studios Japan.
To that end, we continue to visit Disneyland on a weekly basis and make monthly research trips to Walt Disney World. During those visits, we field test new strategies, put our plans through the paces, conduct hotel stays and restaurant reviews, and more to ensure that our guidance is up-to-date and accurate. On-the-ground field testing to produce planning guides is critically important to us; that along with Disney news & rumors and analysis thereof have become DTB’s primary focus.
You can subscribe to our highly popular and totally-free Disney email newsletter here for regular news, planning posts, and other updates.
Disney Tourist Blog remains owned and operated solely by Sarah & Tom Bricker. While our family has grown in recent years to include our daughter, Megatron (real name not used here for privacy), the team behind the website has not. It’s just us. You will never find a guest post on DTB, because we strive for this blog to have a singular voice and consistent, high-quality research and planning recommendations.
We take seriously being objective and critical, but we still enjoy the parks a lot. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t visit the Disney parks so regularly or have a blog devoted to the subject. Our goal is to present a frank and candid assessment of all things Disney. You will seldom meaningless fluff words like “magical” here, and this blog most certainly is not “sprinkled with pixie dust.” This is written by real people trying to offer unbiased advice based on actual experiences visiting the Disney theme parks.
In addition to Disney Tourist Blog, we also own and operate a sister site, TravelCaffeine.com, that revolves around our non-Disney trips. That mostly focuses on California, U.S. National Parks, Japan, and a handful of international cities (mostly ones with a Disney presence, conveniently enough). In addition to bouncing between residing in Florida and California, we also took two “gap years” (or whatever you call it when you’re already established adults), put our stuff into storage, and spent extensive time living as digital nomads in Tokyo, Kyoto, Paris, etc.
I can’t get the confirmation email to join the email list. I can’t even find the option on my laptop although it shows on my smartphone. We are heading to Orlando in early December a week at Royal Pacific on Universal property then a week at Port Orleans French quarter. We wanted to look at the Xmas ebook but again it says you have to subscribe to the blog and we keep getting stuck.
Hi. My sister just forwarded one of your recent Blog entries to me. It’s great. Please add me to your distribution list. Thanks!
I would lke to receives updates on Disney World
Please add me to email for blogs. Thank you.
Please add my email address to your subscription.
Thank you.
Please add my email address to your regular postings.
hello, love your blog. Great tips and lots of information. My family of five and I have been going to Disney every couple of years. This year we will start on December 19 to December 27. Visiting all 4 parks, is there any perks am I missing out on?? I have an Autistic daughter who turns 21 on December 31. Even though we are leaving before, what things can we take advantage of? thanks
When is your favorite time to visit Disneyland for a Christmas Holiday experience. We live in arizona and visit frequently at all times of the year but would like your thoughts on the “best” time. Thanks
Would like to follow.
Love your blog! My husband and I are taking our whole family to Disney World in November 2018 and I feel the need to plan ahead and be very organized! 🙂 We will have 7 adults, 2 children and 1 infant in our party. I have two questions for you. Is there a way I can subscribe to email updates for your blog posts? Is there a downloadable, printable pdf format available for your itineraries? Thanks in advance for the info!
Have a trip planned for my family in September. I’ve been to Disney several time before but this will be my husband and 3 children’s first trip.
i never got to thank you for your in depth analysis of the disney vacation club. i stumbled upon your site as i was researching about buying into dvc and your site was one of the few that i kept going back and re-reading. Thank you for breaking it down and explaining the process to me. that was back in 2014 so this is a late comment! I still enjoy coming back and reading up on our upcoming trips to disney to get your insight and advice.
You’re welcome–thanks for sharing your experience. You didn’t mention whether you bought into DVC, though!
Oh wow! It just dawned on me that I never thanked you either for your DVC advice! (I am assuming I don’t have you confused with someone else!) I had gotten to the point that I decided it just wasn’t financially feasible. Then I saw your advice on resale. Earlier this year, we closed on a 120-point contract at Animal Kingdom Lodge. It’s been a dream come true! Thank you! (I sure hope I am thanking the right person!)
Thank you for your blog! I love your very detailed methodical blogging style. Your website helped me plan our first trip to Disney World in May. We are also a young childless married couple so your blog appealed to us more than most of the family-oriented ones plus your photos are fantastic.
Thanks to you, my husband and I rode every ride and watched every show in 9 days, including the water parks. We barely stood in any lines thanks to fast passes and lots of advanced planning. We didn’t even have park hopper passes! We also did the same thing at Disneyland 2 years ago.
Now, thanks to your blog, we want to go to Tokyo next!
What a great blog! Became a fan. Great job and continue as it is!
I have tried several times to download the WDW Christmas guide. I’ve even re-subscribed. Please help!
Did you receive an email with a link to confirm your subscription? If not, that might’ve gone to your spam folder. Once you do that, you’ll receive a follow-up “Welcome!” email within 30 minutes, which has the link to download in it.
I’m planning a Disney World trip this fall with my wife and two kids. Your site is an excellent resource! I enjoyed reading your reviews – they’re pragmatic but still enthusiastic about the experience – your love for the place really comes through.
To be honest, as someone who has never been to Disney-anything, I’m curious why two seemingly smart and well-adjusted people can love a theme park so much. I guess I’ll have to finally check it out for myself 🙂
I have never enjoyed a guest comment as much as this one! I’m copying it to share with everyone who thinks I’m too obsessed with all things Disney!
I’ve been to Disney World about 30+ times, but I would love to take my grandchildren with us. When is the most affordable time? Also, I would love it if the meal plan was included.
I just want to say what a gem your website is. Thank you for all your hard work! Although a day of your hard work (walking through a Disney park) sounds like a dream to me! ha ha. As a life long Disney fan, I really appreciate the additional insights and tips you share here. I grew up going to Disneyland as a So Cal resident, interned there in college (in ’99 when they were developing DCA and yes it was an incredible experience) and now my husband and I take our four kids. It truly is a magical place – thank you for helping share the magic. I am already making a list of restaurants to try that I’ve never been to, when we visit next month. Time to branch out!
I am a fairly intermediate-level Disney veteran and DVC member, but I wanted to say thank you so much for your site. It is wonderful to have so many thorough, honest reviews when planning our trip. We only make it every few years, and so much changes, or there are things we’ve just never gotten to do or restaurants we’ve never tried, etc. Your site has been invaluable to us. We leave in 36 hours for this next trip, and I know it’s going to be the best one because I did so much research here on DisneyTouristBlog.com!
You’re welcome–glad you enjoy the blog and hope you have a great trip! 🙂
Why do you say that the water fountains are bad? I have been told that it is filtered water. Also, you can get a glass of water at any concession stand for FREE, with ice!
I’ve been reading your blog since before I went on my last trip and even since then just for fun! I was curious what else you guys do besides writing this wonderful blog? It might be worthwhile to add to the about. Some people love knowing more about who is writing to gauge perspective. (And if you didn’t want to include that on purpose, that would make sense.)