The most complete and comprehensive guidebook
The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World is huge! It contains a lot of information, but will also take you a lot of time to digest it, and it's not a particularly fun read. For fun, I prefer The Complete Guide to Walt Disney World. For better planning and organizational tools, I prefer the Passporter's Walt Disney World. But this book has much more information on touring plans, how to allocate your time, and pretty much everything else. It is very comprehensive.

Excellent Resource
We have been to Disney every year for the past 6 years and have bought the newest edition of this book before each of our trips, and our whole family loves it. There is plenty of information we don't even need, since it covers such a wide array of subjects, but the information we do use is extremely helpful. Some reviews have said this is a negative book, is anti-Disney, or makes the parks sound so crowded that it makes you not want to go at all. I think the book is merely being realistic in trying to offer strategies and the best times to visit to avoid crowds. We were there Easter week a few years ago and the parks were mobbed, but the tips in this book made things less frustrating. We are currently planning our 2009 trip and even though at this point we probably don't even need another new edition of this book, we will be buying it when it comes out next month.

A few examples of how this guide has been helpful in years past:

-On our first visit, I purchased "bounce-back" tickets which were not displayed at the ticket booth....until I asked about them, at which point the ticket booth employee turned over the placemat which had all of the multi-day ticket info on it. On the back was information about the "bounce-back" tickets. Since I knew what to ask for, I saved about $100.

-A couple of years ago, we were getting ready to leave Epcot on our last day when I noticed a sign for Turtle Talk with Crush. I remembered reading in the Guide that this was very funny and was possibly a glimpse into the future of Disney attractions. We stayed to watch, and it turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the whole trip, including our 16 and 14 year olds.

-We had debated going to see the Cirque du Soleil show, but the price had always scared us away. The Guide said that they had never received a single negative review about the show, and talked about how incredible it was. We decided to go on our most recent visit, and we all absolutely loved it.

I highly recommend this book, especially to anyone going to Didney World for the first time.

useful info, but a total downer
If I hadnt been to Disney this book would make me NOT want to go. It continualy talkes about how crowded and overloaded and terrible everyday at disney is. It has some good info but it basiically says everyday is so crowded you shouldnt go. I have been in summer, at Christmas, spring break and during the school year and it was never so crowded it wasnt enjoyable. I would recommend Birnbaums guide.

Must have book
This book is filled with tips that are invaluable for time savings when visiting the Disney Parks. I used the info to plan my family's days and we were able to hit the major rides with little waiting by using the information from the book. We also learned the hard way to follow the information in the book, as we went on one ride that was recommended as not worth our time and my 7 year old daughter was scared the entire time. If we'd followed the book, this would not have happened. I would recommend buying the book well in advance of your trip, as it is thick. The websites listed inside are also wonderful. We used many of them prior to our trip.

Horrible book - too many errors!
Sadly my wife bought this book because it was new, on sale, and she wanted something to read on Disney for our upcoming trip (we're Annual Passholders) while waiting in line to pick up the children.

I have reviewed the Unofficial Guide to WDW with Children version in the past and gave it one star because IMHO it just plain has too many errors. Well, guess what - they did it again. What is it with the lack of accuracy in these books?

Just a few errors I know are things in the book that are wrong as examples. We recently stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort within WDW. Nice Moderate resort. Interesting feature is that all rooms come with a refrigerator as part of the room rate - its NOT an extra at CBR. Oh, but according to this book it is and you have to request one?!?!? Or how about this, every other book rates POP Century as nicer than the All-Star resorts - except this one??

We've become big fans of the PassPorter books on Disney (sold here at Amazon too). They even have a website to back up their books with updates, newsletters, etc. to keep everything up-to-the-minute. Sounds like overkill until you realize that if you have the right Discount Code or Program option you can save 4-5-600 dollars on a 6 night vacation at WDW. They seem to do all the research to keep up-to-date that this book says they do but I see ZERO evidence of for those things with which I have personal knowledge related to WDW.

Pass on this one and the entire series is my best advice.