That's right, you can pre-order your tickets for the Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party, now!  This is an annual favorite with guests to the Walt Disney World Resort.  The event attendance is capped, so you need to get your tickets before the night you want to visit sells out!

During Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, guests of all ages are encouraged to dress up in their favorite Halloween costumes.

In addition to many favorite Disney attractions, Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is filled with special entertainment, including:

• Mickey's "Boo-to-You" Halloween Parade—including Disney Characters and the stars of the Haunted Mansion attraction. The parade begins with a ride by the Headless Horseman.
• Happy HalloWishes—a spectacular fireworks show where the Disney Villains go trick-or-treating in the sky.
• Many favorite Disney Characters and Disney Villians in special Halloween costumes.
• Special lighting, music and theming effects transforms special areas of Magic Kingdom theme park into happy haunted hollows.

The tone of the event is, well, "Not-So-Scary", and is appropriate for children of all ages.

Tickets for this event are valid for the evenings of Sept. 4th, 11th, 15th, 18th, 22nd, 25th and 29th. Oct. 8th, 12th, 15th, and the 20th.

Quick Disney Tip!

Although the party doesn't actually start until a little after 7PM, you can actually get in the park around 4PM in the evening with this special event ticket!!  Since the party continues until midnight, you can get a full 8 hours in the Magic Kingdom for much less than a standard daily ticket!

Get your advance tickets from the Official Ticket Center for $62 per adult including all taxes and fees.  A normal one day, one park Magic Your Way base ticket will run you $89.14 for an adult to enter the Magic Kingdom.  Come to this event early and you save at least $28 per ticket, maybe more!  That's a serious discount on Disney tickets without having to sit through a timeshare sales pitch!

The new Wizarding World of Harry Potter park resides in Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure theme park.  It's the hottest new attraction in the Orlando area and has teems of people wandering Hogsmeade Village and sampling the Butterbeer.

This has Disney travelers wondering, "How do I get from my Disney resort to the new Harry Potter world?"

Well, there are quite a few options, but there's one that stands out: the One Day - Two Park Pass with Shuttle Transfers ticket that gives you a free shuttle from your Disney World resort to the Universal Orlando resort with the purchase of this ticket.

The ticket provides access to both Islands of Adventure (home of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter) and Universal Studios for one day and includes a free shuttle service from the Disney World resorts to Universal Orlando Resort.  Your ticket confirmation will come with vouchers for the shuttle and you just call to arrange the pick-up date and time.  When you arrive at Universal, you pick up your tickets for the parks.

A little hint: Use the electronic kiosks to get your tickets.  They look like an ATM and even on the busiest days of the year, I've never seen a single person in line for the kiosks.

You can also rent a car (starting around $40) from Alamo at the Disney Car Center or grab a taxi (around $75, round trip), but why not save that cash for food or souvenirs?  Get the One Day Two Park Pass with Shuttle Transfers and get your transportation for free!

Many people advise Disney guests to pre-order tickets for their Disney World vacation.  We whole-heartedly endorse this recommendation.  However, ordering the tickets before you get to the parks only provides part of a solution (ease of ordering and a slight discount, usually).  Too often, guests get to the first park and stroll up to get in line at the regular ticket purchasing window to get their tickets.  This defeats one of the prime reasons for buying tickets before your Disney vacation!!

Why should you wait in that ticket purchasing line when you've already bought your tickets?  The answer: You shouldn't!!!

There are a couple different options to avoid these lines, altogether.

1. Pre-purchase discounted Disney tickets from the Official Ticket Center, prior to leaving for your vacation.  The Official Ticket Center is an actual Orlando attraction ticket agency, not a timeshare scam.  We've been dealing with Official Ticket Center for almost 10 years.  They will either deliver your tickets to your resort for a $10 fee or you can pick them up at the Official Ticket Center office (just outside the Disney World Resort) with no wait, usually.
2. You can also purchase tickets from our travel partner, DestinationsInFlorida.com They also provide slightly discounted Disney tickets and you don't have to wait in line at the ticket purchase counter!  If you order Disney tickets from DestinationsInFlorida.com, you will receive an email receipt (with confirmation number) and take that confirmation number/receipt to either a guest services counter or an electronic kiosk.  Either way, the line will be very short or non-existent.  One less thing to worry about on your Disney vacation.

With either of these options, you will not only get cheaper Disney tickets, but you will cut your wait time down, significantly.  The electronic kiosk, especially, since very few people use them!  Plus, if you use the kiosk, you can also reserve and pay for a stroller or wheelchair at the kiosk, thereby avoiding another line!

Or....you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed and make sure you don't miss a single post on the Insider's Guide to Disney by having them sent directly to your email inbox or preferred feed reader.

Also...check us out on Facebook and on Twitter.

Due to this quirk, many people wonder how to maximize their opportunity for FastPass use at the Disney World theme parks.  When the soonest they can get another FastPass?

Photo by: mrkathika

Well, typically, you can get a new one once your within 2 hours of your initial return time.  However, this varies greatly and based on the number of guests at that park, you may have to wait until you have an hour left or even minutes.  You pretty much just have to keep trying.

The beauty of the FastPass is that it allows you to visit the non-FastPass rides while you wait for your return time window.  Hit those rides that are close to your FastPass ride and get them out of the way while you wait.

Also, big tip, don't rush to get back to the FastPass ride at the first available return time -- you'll only be competing with the other people that get the same return window.  This means you may end up waiting in line, anyway.  Best to return sometime in the middle of the return time window (you can actually use the FastPass after the window has expired), so you let the people that are returning at the first opportunity work through the ride.  Then, you just walk on like a VIP!

Disney offers a "no-expiration" option for all of their tickets.  This means, if you have unused days on your tickets (you bought 7 days, but only used 4), those remaining days on the ticket will not expire.  Otherwise, you would just lose those unused days on your tickets, resulting in a loss of money.  The no-expiration option allows you to "lock in" your ticket price.

Usually, getting the no-expiration option on a Disney ticket does not make sense.  You plan your vacation for 4 days, you get a 4 day base ticket, and use all 4 days.

However, sometimes it makes sense to get the no-expiration option.  As I noted, it allows you to "lock in" your ticket price.  As you may know, Disney often raises the price of their tickets over the course of just one year, so you may choose to add the no-expiration option to a Disney ticket that includes more days than you'll need on your single vacation.  This way, on your next Disney vacation, you've already paid for your tickets (using those un-used days from the non-expiring tickets) and can save hundreds of dollars on the vacation.

Our Disney ticket partner, the Official Ticket Center, is featuring a deal on 3-Day Disney tickets, right now.

When you buy a 3-Day base ticket (base means you can only go to one park per day) or a 3-Day Hopper ticket (Hopper means you can "hop" from park-to-park on the same day), the Official Ticket Center will give you the 4th and 5th days free.

Nearly a buy one get one free deal, you pay for 3 days and get 2 days free!

These are not the non-expiring tickets, however.  It only applies to the 14-day expiration ticket, so if you want to use all 5 days, be sure to plan for using them within the 14-day expiration.

What does the 14-day expiration mean?  These tickets will expire 14 days after the first time you enter your first park.  It's kind of like breaking the seal.  They're good until you break that seal, then you have 14 days to use them up.

The 3-day Park Hopper ticket is a great ticket for the Disney parks -- there are four parks, but you can probably get through Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios together in one day.  This leaves you one day, each for Magic Kingdom and Epcot.

With this promotion from the Official Ticket Center, you get two extra days for free to go back and check out the stuff you missed at any of the parks.  Also, because of the free days, you can save a little more money by getting the base ticket, visiting one park per day and having a clean-up day left over!

Run over to the Official Ticket Center and check out this deal.  It's about half way down the page under Disney Ticket Special.

Are there any discounts on Disney World One-Day passes?

The short answer is no.

Disney World does not offer any discounts on a One-Day pass.  The only possible option for receiving a discounted One-Day pass would be to wait until your arrival in the Orlando area and go through a timeshare tour and sales presentation.

BE WARNED: If you do decide to go through the tour and presentation, you will spend about twice as much time with the timeshare group as they estimate, i.e. if they say the tour and presentation will take two hours, expect it to take four.  Additionally, the salespeople for timeshares are very high pressure salespeople that are very good at what they do.  This is not a "dig" on timeshares or anything -- you can make up your own mind -- however, you should be prepared to stand up to some very high pressure sales, if you choose to go the timeshare tour route for your discounted tickets.

Rather than trying to get a discount on your tickets, it's much easier to find discounts on dining and lodging throughout the Orlando and Disney World area.  Spend your vacation planning finding these discounts and avoid spending your valuable vacation time in a timeshare tour and sales presentation -- unless that's what you want to do during your vacation.

If you need help finding any discounts on your Disney, Orlando, or cruise vacations, please contact our travel partner, DestinationsInFlorida.com.

Universal Studios?  On the Insider's Guide to Disney?  Yes.

We get this question on an almost daily basis.

How do I get from Disney World to Universal Studios? And, it's corollary, How far is Universal Studios Orlando from Disney World?

We'll answer the questions in reverse order, since it's easier that way.

Universal Studios is about a fifteen to twenty minute drive from Disney World to the Universal Studios parking lot, depending on traffic and which part of Disney World.

Now, for how do you get to Universal Studios.  This can be much more difficult, unless you have your own vehicle at Disney World.

There are no Disney World shuttle busses to Universal Studios -- shocker, I know.

You can take a cab from Disney World to Universal Studios Orlando at a cost of approximately $45 -- each way!

You could also rent an Alamo car for a day at a cost of about $45 up to $100, depending on the season, the car, and so on.  Alamo is the only car rental company on Disney property and that will pick you up at your Disney World resort.

One of the best options, especially if you're planning to actually go into Universal Studios once you find your way to the park, is a shuttle service that Universal Studios offers.

You do have to purchase a park ticket to get a ride on the shuttle and the cost for the shuttle depends on the ticket you purchase.  If you buy a 1 day, 2 park ticket and wish to add the shuttle service, you will pay about $1 more, per ticket.  Yes, that's $1 per ticket for the shuttle service.  This is the best deal among all the ticket options available from Universal Studios.  The shuttle can cost as much as $16 per ticket purchased.

The shuttle service will pick you up at your Disney resort and drop you off near CityWalk at Universal Studios.  This is really the best option, if you're planning on visiting the parks at Universal.  If you want to do some Orlando sight-seeing, you would be better off renting a car from Alamo for the day.