A newbie that could use some advice where to start.

[SamiGage]

I'm a newbie to DISboard and I've been to Disney a couple times but this is the first trip (anywhere, as a matter of fact) that I have booked all my own travel arrangments and what not so I am a newbie to that too. I was hoping that some board veterans might point me towards the best area of the boards to ask questions about reservations, discounts, and I guess just planning advice.

Here is a slight overview:

Our trip is January 7-14th, and it's just my boyfriend and I going to celebrate my 26th birthday. We are staying in at the Port Orleans French Quarter in a King room I believe it's called? We have a 6 day park hopper pass and we have the dining plan that allows us one sit down meal, one quick meal, and one snack daily. We have made dinner reservations at:

Mon: Boatwright's Dining Hall
Tue: Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
Wed: Coral Reef Restaurant
Thur: Portobello
Fri: The Crystal Palace
Sat: Cinderella's Royal Table
Sun: Paradiso 37, Taste of the Americas

And we will return home Monday.

I'm mostly looking for the best way to map out our days in the park, opinions from veterans on the restaurants we have booked and/or things you think we are missing that we shouldn't, any discounts that I may be missing out on, and any helpful hints on how to navigate Marathon weekend differently (if necessary.) Any advice, or even advice on the best board/area to get advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!
Sami

[Metro West]

Welcome!

[LauraDaveCharlie]

Buy the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World and you get some great touring plans. It's the ideal place to start I think

[loveshak22]

I'd use easywdw.com to plan out your park days. It has crowd calendars and suggested parks to visit each day with reasons why. Your dinner reservations will guide some of your plans of course.

There are all sorts of threads you can find using the search tool at the top of the page or go to each topic from the main disboards.com page...there's a restaurant, reservation, theme park strategies, resort, and budget board, etc. - all of which you could probably read for hours to gain insight.

I think you'll like POFQ...it's easy to navigate, smaller, and I think the rooms are nice sized and comfy!

[loveshak22]

Just to clarify "I'd use easywdw.com to plan out your park days." I mean plan out which days to go to which park. I don't think easywdw.com has plans for where to go once inside the park. At least I've never used the site for that...I've just used it for the crowd calendars and advice on which park to go to on which day

[DisLUV]

WELCOME!!! Welcome to the Dis. Plan well but don't over plan. Leave some moments to be spontaneous. Just a little advice. :-) Enjoy Your Stay!!

[kddisney502]

Originally Posted by SamiGage

Our trip is January 7-14th, and it's just my boyfriend and I going to celebrate my 26th birthday. We are staying in at the Port Orleans French Quarter in a King room I believe it's called? We have a 6 day park hopper pass and we have the dining plan that allows us one sit down meal, one quick meal, and one snack daily. We have made dinner reservations at:

Mon: Boatwright's Dining Hall
Tue: Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
Wed: Coral Reef Restaurant
Thur: Portobello
Fri: The Crystal Palace
Sat: Cinderella's Royal Table
Sun: Paradiso 37, Taste of the Americas

Welcome. Are you aware that you will have to pay out of pocket for one of your sit down meals? You're staying for 7 nights, so you have 7 sit down (table service, TS) meal credits per person. But Cinderella's Royal Table costs 2TS credits per person. You can look at the menus to see which restaurant you'll spend the less money on and pay out of pocket for that one.
There are menus here on DIS: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/disneydining.cfm
But also check out menus here: http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm

Have a great trip

[melissarose]

I am going in February with just my boyfriend also (we're both 25). I had no idea how to plan everything out either because it's just so overwhelming, but I've found a lot of great threads on here to help. It's good that you've made dinner reservations already, that is what I did right away too! We are also eating at Boatwrights and Portobello. Anyways, what I wanted to say was (and some have already suggested this) google a crowd calendar and see which parks are recommended for which days. Also check out the extra magic hours if you want more time in a certain park! For inside the parks, I just planned on doing the things I absolutely have to do early, and then from there I figure I'll just go in one direction all around the park so hopefully I'll get a chance to see everything. I don't know if that's the best strategy but it was the best one I could come up with lol.