11/28-12/4 itinerary....1st timer, please help!

[KelseyLaPerle]

I posted this a while ago but only got one response. I was hoping to get some suggestions, ideas, or other input from some veteran Disney Moms. My one particular question is: we have to eat more times that we'll have credits from the DDP, how do I figure out which meals to pay for out of pocket and which to use DDP credits? Thanks!

Trip 11/28-12/4 with myself (29), my Mom (55), DDalmost 5 and DS almost 2. We are staying 6 nights/7 days with a 10 day park hopper (it was cheaper and we plan to add the no exp. and I'm hoping to take DD for her 5th birthday on those tickets in March), no water parks option. We also have the DDP - 1 table service, 1 counter service and 1 snack per day. I'm going to order groceries (any advice on garden grocer or wego would be greatly appreciated) so some days we can eat breakfast in our room before heading out. We're staying in a family suite at the ASMusic. No car, will use only Disney transportation.

We will return to room every day (or plan to anyway) for naps around 1:00 ish. Bedtime is typically around 8:00 and I don't want kids getting over tired so we'll do our best to stick to that most nights.

Here goes....

Arrive MCO 11:55 on 11/28
check-in, unpack, pool, explore, etc.
6:50 res. at Chef Mickey's

11/29
breakfast in room
9:00 opening ceremony at MK
Harmony barber shop for DS's 1st haircut
11:30 res. at Crystal Palace
afternoon at MK
dinner at counter service in MK

11/30
8:00 AK EMH for Kilimanjaro Safari
9:05 res. at Tusker House
lunch - picnic in the park
afternoon at MK
7:00 pm Spectromagic parade (we really want to see one parade and this is the only one that fits with our ADRs...it was frustrating as I had to book ADRs before park hours/schedules were released)

12/1
breakfast in room
HS for morning
11:35 res. at Hollywood & Vine (Play&Dine)
afternoon is OPEN (return to AK? relax at pool?)

12/2
breakfast in room
MK morning
lunch at either counter service at MK or food court at resort before nap
afternoon at Epcot
1:00-4:00 Disney Visa character greeting
6:35 res. at Garden Grille

12/3
all day open
DTD? more MK? AK? return to favorites?

12/4
breakast in room
11:05 res. at Whispering Canyon
ME leaves at 3:00ish - what last minute things should we do?


update*** I'm planning to cancel Whispering Canyon (heard it may be frightening for DS2 and DD5) and am currently trying to get ADR for Akershus for DD and I.

[3_disprincesses]

If you will go to allears.net you will find menus with pricing for all the restaurants. This should help you decide which ones to pay for and which ones to use your dining credits for.

[lvt]

Looking good. I did note that The Safari and Tusker House are rather close. You may be able to do it. Getting Fastpass for Sarfari for after Tusker House
may be more viable. Your family is not of the ages to sprint. The open times will be appreciated once the family finds out what they want to repeat and you
will have a handle on how long it takes to get around. May you be blessed by
many return trip.

[dzneelvr]

on 12/3, pencil in another MK so you can do ToonTown, the Railroad, get FPs for the rides in Fantasyland and just enjoy all that area has to offer your kids; you can use the first visit to scope out what you want to come back to. Pinochio's CS is wonderful when you can score a table and watch the boats going through Small World. A quiet, often overlooked CS spot is Harbour House, just as you enter into FantasyLand. I'm happy to see that you are leveraging the amenities at your resort for your kids...after all, at that age, lots of pool time and a food court are The Best RElax, enjoy, and be patient.

[KYCruiseCrazy]

pay out of pocket for the lowest cost. as for your all open day plan it for MK if you havent done everything or plan the first part of the day at Epcot to enjoy future world. its a blast for all ages. only 2-3 hrs to do and see/do most of the rides up there. plenty to do. do you like Crush from finding Nemo? your kids will love it. you need to see finding nemo the musical at AK. i hope this helps abit. you could also use your extra day to have fun at HS. if just really depends on how much you want to see and do and if you want to do it all in 1 day or 2.

[Samantha/NC]

I would not cancel Whispering Canyon--we took our children when they were smaller and they loved it!!--they do not have to participate in the activities.

I would also spend any extra time at MK--especially with the younger children!!

Have fun!!!!

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

I wouldn't cancel Whispering Canyon!!!

And I WOULD try to get Akershus, only because I have heard how wonderful it is. :O) (we are doing it on our trip!)

[Nadjalu]

Not sure where you heard WCC was scary for kids, I think they would love it, especially the 5 yr old. Anytime someone needs ketchup they can run their bottle over to them. Personally I would leave that ressie.
We are going down during that time to and I agree pay for the cheapest meals OOP. You can get all the menus and prices online from here and all ears so plan which ones you want to pay for ahead of time.
What we do a few days is grab a piece of fruit or granola bar for breakfast and have an early lunch that way you can save $ and credits.
Also on your MK day (11/29) consider Comic Rays CS in Tomorrowland. They have huge portions and depending on your family 2 people can split one meal. (CS credit saved there to use elsewhere). Their rib/chicken combo meal is huge. Both DH and myself are very healthy eaters and we can split it. Another thing to do is the double cheeseburgers, they are big enough to split between 2 people (the topping bar is all you can put on your burger, so pile it on!!). Just pay OOP for extra fries and wham saved $ and a CS credit.
You have to be careful not to save to many though, it wouldn't be good to have any left over!

11/30 I see you have a long day, I agree your safari and tusker are too close, hopefully you can adjust that.
Also MK is EMH at night I believe (pretty sure that is our first night at MK and I planned it that way). So you may want to plan a break back at the resort for some R and R or you may exhaust yourself early in your trip.

12/1, I see you have a possible AK day, I would probably forgo something of AK this day and add my resort break to recoop and definitely go to AK this afternoon. I know you want to do the safari early because the animals are active, but I have heard they are active in late afternoon as well. This may be where you can adjust the day before Safari/tusker issue. Do the safari later in this day. Don't know just throwing it out there.

12/3, I see this is an open day. I personally would leave it as such, see what you really want to do, something new like Epcot or DTD or return to get more of what you already did.

12/4 ON this day I am not sure why you say breakfast in room and 11:05 adr at WCC??? Isn't that breakfast? If so then no problem, snack instead of a full bk in room and save $.
WL is a wonderful resort to "look" at, you could spend an hour or so there or head back to your resort and let the kids hang by the pool or the arcade before ME arrives.
There isn't really enough time to get something else in without running and I am sure by this time you will be done with the vacation.

Enjoy! Since we are headed down at the same time I have our itenery pretty clear cut and know what is going on when. (sorry I didn't see your post earlier). Just let me know if you have any questions.
Have fun!!!

[claryche]

First want to say that we will be there the same time as you and staying also in a family suite at ASMu. Maybe we will run into each other. It will be my DH and my DS who turned 3 in March and my DM who will be going for the first time.

Talk about long post...just you wait...until you see mine. I hope this all helps, but take it like all suggestions, just as a suggestion, not the gospel. What works for one, will not work for another. I have learned that the best thing you can do is read read read and plan plan plan and then just let loose and enjoy and if things work different for you, then so be it.

As far as your first day...you will love Chef Mickey's. It is an always must do for us.

2nd day. I suggest you go straight to get your DS's hair cut. As soon as they let you in, don't follow the crowd to the rides, go to the barber shop. Otherwise, you could end up waiting an hour or more. We had my DS's first haircut there and we tried two days and the wait was too long. So we got to the MK first thing one day and went straight there and we were first. And it was worth it. Now don't expect to get that much done between the time after the haircut and your CP reservation. The haircut could take 20-30 minutes and then of course you will want to take some photopass pictures of your DS with his free ears from his first haircut. You might be able to get a few other things worked in, but don't plan too much.

CP is my fav place to eat. But I'm a huge Pooh fan. Tigger is almost always my fav character interaction. Talking about characters. Some people will talk about how kids are scared of them. My DS has never really been scared. But before his first trip at a year and a half, I took him around large such characters in our town. Such as Chuckie Cheese and Red Robin. Just a thought for you.

Since MK closes early that day for the party, I would say try to stick it out the whole day, like you have planned. Some people say to go back to the room for a break. We found that this doesn't work well for our DS, because he won't nap that much at Disney. At home he is still taking 2-3 hour naps, but not at Disney. So we would take all that time to get to the bus, take the bus, go to the room, no nap, then back to the bus...just for him to fall asleep on the bus. So just stay at the park. Maybe ride the train or the monorail, for a rest.

Let me tell you a CS that I love. Actually two. One is Casey's. Love it, but I recently read that they changed their hotdogs, so don't know for sure if I will like them as much. The other is Cosmic Rays. Since you are on the DP, this is a great place for you and your mom or you and even both kids to share a meal. They have huge meals there that count as one CS, then on another day when your kids get hungry and you aren't, they will have their extra CS's to use for them.

3rd day. I think you can do the Safari and then be at Tusker House in time. We had a similar situation, where we had a 9:25, and therefore got in early and were stopped at the Tusker House, where they wouldn't check us in until I think 15 minutes before time. So they suggested riding the safari and then coming back. So we had to wait until the crowd caught up with us and at 9 went on the safari, and made it to our reservation no problem. We loved Tusker House and will be doing it again this trip.

You eat so much at this though, that I would suggest not doing the picnic in the park. Just my thoughts. Or doing it really late. Also my suggestion would be to stay at AK until after the parade at 3:45. It's a great parade, and I think at that time it might already be the Christmas version. It would add another parade to your schedule. Then leave after that point, because probably by that point you will have done everything you wanted to do at AK and won't have to come back. Then head over to MK for spectromagic and Wishes. I love spectromagic. Remember that this is a Monday at the MK and also EMH, so it will be packed.

4th day at HS. We have also eaten at the Play and Dine. It's okay, but we aren't doing that again. I'm sure you know about the mad dash to TSM, so make sure you do that. My DS loves it. And I know you mention going back to AK or the pool. I would suggest plan on HS maybe longer than you had thought, because there are alot of things for kids. With Little Mermaid show, Playhouse Disney show, Beauty and the Beast show. Then there are tons of characters and a few rides for them. And then when you get done, go to the pool or DTD.

5th day. A suggestion for breakfast would me the mainstreet bakery at MK. Their cinnamon rolls are to die for and they count as a snack credit, I'm pretty sure. As far as the Visa picture. Try to get there early. It takes awhile. Last time we waited in line for probably 45 minutes or more.

6th day I say go to MK. We are going there that day. But that isn't the reason. It's EMH in the morning, so you could get some things done quickly. I think you will have found that MK is your kids fav park by this point and will want to spend the whole day there. DHS and AK are always 1 day parks for us. Epcot we do a full day, unlike you, but I would go for MK over Epcot any day with kids. Another CS place, which we plan on trying out is Pinocchio's place, where you can get tables that overlook IASW and you can wave to the people on the boats.

7th day. As far as Whispering Canyon. We went there when my DS was 18 months old and also again when he was 2.5 and might go again. We love it. I don't really know what is scary, except maybe it being so loud. But dinner is completely different from lunch, at least with our past experience, of course maybe it wasn't free dining. But still, if you can't get it changed, I say go for it anyway. Also one thing you might want to do, to get there, is take the bus to MK and take the boat to the Wilderness Lodge. My DS loved the boat ride last time. As far as Askerhus, we are going there for breakfast one day, with my DS. He knows the princesses and I think they get a kick out of little boys. I have great pictures of when he was 18 months and we went and got pictures with the princesses and Princess Aurora planted a huge kiss on his face. Another suggestion is Ohana breakfast at the Poly. First it is a great resort to explore, and also great food and great character interaction.

Now that your eyes are tired from reading, or maybe you got bored half way through it, I'll end with this last few things. Take tons of pictures, let your kids set the pace, and have fun, which I know you will.

[cbg1027]

It's a bit time consuming, but like another poster suggested, check out the menus on www.allears.net.
Make an "order" of what your family might eat at each restaurant and see what places will be the cheapest meals. Then you know which ones to pay OOP for.

Here are my suggestions regarding your itinerary:

Arrive MCO 11:55 on 11/28
check-in, unpack, pool, explore, etc.
6:50 res. at Chef Mickey's

11/29
breakfast in room
9:00 opening ceremony at MK
Harmony barber shop for DS's 1st haircut
11:30 res. at Crystal Palace
afternoon at MK
dinner at counter service in MK

11/30
8:00 AK EMH for Kilimanjaro Safari
9:05 res. at Tusker House
lunch - picnic in the park
afternoon at MK
7:00 pm Spectromagic parade (we really want to see one parade and this is the only one that fits with our ADRs...it was frustrating as I had to book ADRs before park hours/schedules were released)

12/1
breakfast in room
HS for morning
11:35 res. at Hollywood & Vine (Play&Dine)
afternoon is OPEN (return to AK? relax at pool?)
If you want to see another parade, you could catch Mickey's Jingle Jungle Parade at AK at 3:45

12/2
breakfast in room
MK morning
lunch at either counter service at MK or food court at resort before nap
afternoon at Epcot
1:00-4:00 Disney Visa character greeting
6:35 res. at Garden Grille

12/3
all day open
DTD? more MK? AK? return to favorites?
You didn't figure in much time for Epcot - I would go back there on this day.

12/4
breakast in room
11:05 res. at Whispering Canyon
ME leaves at 3:00ish - what last minute things should we do?

Have a great trip!

[linda19]

You asked about Garden Grocer - I highly recommend them. Ordering online is easy and their prices are reasonable. There is a $40.00 minimum and a $12 delivery charge. Just remember that the refrigerators at some resorts are small. We had a cabin at Ft. Wilderness with a full kitchen which was great. GG called the day before we left to confirm our landing time and said our groceries would be there when we arrived. They were with all of the perishables in the fridge! Great service!

Another suggestion - pack little cereal boxes, granola bars, crackers etc. When you've eaten those there's room in that suitcase to pack souvenirs