***1st Week of December Thread ADR Plans, Park Hours, and dealing with Pop Warner***

[Candycane83]

Hi everyone! I've been reading along but haven't posted much. Everyone's plans look great! I thought I'd share mine. My daughters are 8 and 4.
We are staying at Poly December 4-9 and I recently talked my husband into 1 more night at Port Orleans in a Princess suite on December 9.
My tentative park schedule looks like this.
Sunday-MK until we can check in at Poly and hang out there the rest of evening.

Monday- Epcot in the morning. Lunch at San Angel Inn. The kids are going to spend the evening at Lilo's playhouse. My husband and I will take some time exploring Main Street. We always speed through it and really want to take in the details and shop without the girls.

Tuesday- AK for a few hours in the morning and back to Poly for a rest then MVMCP

Wednesday- Morning at Poly. Head over to Epcot for the afternoon/evening. Dinner at Via Napoli

Thursday-Breakfast at CRT, this is a first for us! Morning at MK and rest and then back for our 2nd MVMCP.

Friday- Hollywood Studios. Lunch at 50's Prime Time. Check in for a surprise night in the Princess Room. Explore the Port Orleans resorts.

Saturday- Tentatively- have breakfast at Garden Grill and get a couple last rides in. Leave by noon for the auto train home.

Welcome! Great plans! So envious you're going to 2 MVMCP parties! Your family will surely have a magical trip!

 

[Mal6586]

Hi everyone! I've been reading along but haven't posted much. Everyone's plans look great! I thought I'd share mine. My daughters are 8 and 4.
We are staying at Poly December 4-9 and I recently talked my husband into 1 more night at Port Orleans in a Princess suite on December 9.
My tentative park schedule looks like this.
Sunday-MK until we can check in at Poly and hang out there the rest of evening.

Monday- Epcot in the morning. Lunch at San Angel Inn. The kids are going to spend the evening at Lilo's playhouse. My husband and I will take some time exploring Main Street. We always speed through it and really want to take in the details and shop without the girls.

Tuesday- AK for a few hours in the morning and back to Poly for a rest then MVMCP

Wednesday- Morning at Poly. Head over to Epcot for the afternoon/evening. Dinner at Via Napoli

Thursday-Breakfast at CRT, this is a first for us! Morning at MK and rest and then back for our 2nd MVMCP.

Friday- Hollywood Studios. Lunch at 50's Prime Time. Check in for a surprise night in the Princess Room. Explore the Port Orleans resorts.

Saturday- Tentatively- have breakfast at Garden Grill and get a couple last rides in. Leave by noon for the auto train home.

Good morning and Welcome!! Great plans! I'm super jealous of the CRT breakfast. That's on my Disney bucket list, but not in the cards for this trip, but one day! We're going to MVMCP Tuesday as well!

 

[Candycane83]

there is an 11:30am Ohana on Dec 4 for at least 3 people. Also 10:30 on Dec 8.

 

[Iowamomof4]

All along we've been kind of back and forth as to whether we would keep our upgraded dining (we're staying at AoA w/ free dining but upgraded to the regular dining plan) or drop the upgrade and just do quick service. Last night dh and I were talking it over and realized that if we only did 4-5 ts meals (9-night trip) we would make up the cost of the upgrade and could just use our ts as qs credits from that point forward if we were tired of running to reservations. Then we talked to the teens about it and they weren't so happy with the idea.

DD16 said she doesn't like the idea of walking past 7dmt and having to skip it because the queue is 45 minutes standby and we have a reservation to get to in 30 minutes. She doesn't want to interrupt park touring to have to run off to a reservation, yet she does like the food at the ts better than the food at qs places. I'm concerned about my picky eaters (the younger two kids) getting tired of cheese pizza, chicken nuggets (that aren't very good), and Uncrustables (I know there are other things on the kids menus, but they won't eat those things). If we could do a few buffets, they might get mashed potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, etc... and feel like they have more variety in their meals. I don't know... it's such a tough call. Maybe I could offer to the teens that they don't have to eat the ts meals with us if they don't feel like it at the time? Of course, that would cut into our dining plan savings... It's so hard to decide!

 

[JainaAlice]

@SilSprBea Hi! Yes we are in the Northern VA area. We are driving down and taking the train home.

 

[Lisa F]

Hi everyone! I've been reading along but haven't posted much. Everyone's plans look great! I thought I'd share mine. My daughters are 8 and 4.
We are staying at Poly December 4-9 and I recently talked my husband into 1 more night at Port Orleans in a Princess suite on December 9.
My tentative park schedule looks like this.
Sunday-MK until we can check in at Poly and hang out there the rest of evening.

Monday- Epcot in the morning. Lunch at San Angel Inn. The kids are going to spend the evening at Lilo's playhouse. My husband and I will take some time exploring Main Street. We always speed through it and really want to take in the details and shop without the girls.

Tuesday- AK for a few hours in the morning and back to Poly for a rest then MVMCP

Wednesday- Morning at Poly. Head over to Epcot for the afternoon/evening. Dinner at Via Napoli

Thursday-Breakfast at CRT, this is a first for us! Morning at MK and rest and then back for our 2nd MVMCP.

Friday- Hollywood Studios. Lunch at 50's Prime Time. Check in for a surprise night in the Princess Room. Explore the Port Orleans resorts.

Saturday- Tentatively- have breakfast at Garden Grill and get a couple last rides in. Leave by noon for the auto train home.

welcome! your plans look great. super jealous of 2 MVMCPs!!!!

 

[SilSprBea]

@SilSprBea Hi! Yes we are in the Northern VA area. We are driving down and taking the train home.

Hi @JainaAlice We're in Montgomery County, Md! The thought of taking the auto train home never crossed my mind! Is it expensive? It would be a fun treat and save on our level of tiredness. I'll have to check what prices are for our family of 4 and the car!!!

 

[Lisa F]

All along we've been kind of back and forth as to whether we would keep our upgraded dining (we're staying at AoA w/ free dining but upgraded to the regular dining plan) or drop the upgrade and just do quick service. Last night dh and I were talking it over and realized that if we only did 4-5 ts meals (9-night trip) we would make up the cost of the upgrade and could just use our ts as qs credits from that point forward if we were tired of running to reservations. Then we talked to the teens about it and they weren't so happy with the idea.

DD16 said she doesn't like the idea of walking past 7dmt and having to skip it because the queue is 45 minutes standby and we have a reservation to get to in 30 minutes. She doesn't want to interrupt park touring to have to run off to a reservation, yet she does like the food at the ts better than the food at qs places. I'm concerned about my picky eaters (the younger two kids) getting tired of cheese pizza, chicken nuggets (that aren't very good), and Uncrustables (I know there are other things on the kids menus, but they won't eat those things). If we could do a few buffets, they might get mashed potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, etc... and feel like they have more variety in their meals. I don't know... it's such a tough call. Maybe I could offer to the teens that they don't have to eat the ts meals with us if they don't feel like it at the time? Of course, that would cut into our dining plan savings... It's so hard to decide!

I would do this. I would take the difference between the upgraded plan and QS plan and then plan a few TS that you want to do. This way it gives you flexibility to only do what you want to do. Maybe do them as a late lunch/early dinner type of a thing. This is peak crowds in the park, they are not walking past 7DMT with a 45 minute wait, it will be 2 hours at that point if it's a minute. It also seems to me that if you take the difference and put that toward say 4 TS meals (one every other day) that you still get the value of 2QS meals a day... rather than swapping out a QS for a TS. This gives the teens a lot more freedom and you get to have some TS meals if you want to.

or you could do a bunch of 2TS restaurants under the dining plan but they are mostly out of the park.

 

[Lisa F]

Good morning and Welcome!! Great plans! I'm super jealous of the CRT breakfast. That's on my Disney bucket list, but not in the cards for this trip, but one day! We're going to MVMCP Tuesday as well!

I wanted to do CRT but my kiddo will NOT GO NEAR PRINCESSES. He said "please mom, anything but that."

 

[Lisa F]

there is an 11:30am Ohana on Dec 4 for at least 3 people. Also 10:30 on Dec 8.

it was 10:50 and it was available for 2 also. I grabbed it. I had the search set up this morning and i saw the text when i woke up but i balked when it wanted to make me cancel boma and when i went back for it it was gone. Maybe it was just frozen because I was screwing with it and now released again.

Now I need everyone's advice lol. This is the morning of the christmas party for me. I am staying at the poly so it's easy to go down for breakfast (can probably even check in early). I have Ohana dinner planned at 3:30 and that is set in stone. It's AYCTE but it's not a buffet so we could potentially not pig out on this breakfast. maybe.

the reason I set up the search is because I have this breakfast booked for Tuesday, which is one of the early morning magic days at the MK. That was our "break day" but if we just did EMM and left by say 10am, it could still be a bit of a break, right? or am I packing too much in and need to let it go?

 

[areno79]

I wanted to do CRT but my kiddo will NOT GO NEAR PRINCESSES. He said "please mom, anything but that."

I asked DH about CRT, and he asked for no princesses either. Boys!!

 

[Lisa F]

I asked DH about CRT, and he asked for no princesses either. Boys!!

let's go and leave the boys together, lol.

 

[Lisa F]

Hi @JainaAlice We're in Montgomery County, Md! The thought of taking the auto train home never crossed my mind! Is it expensive? It would be a fun treat and save on our level of tiredness. I'll have to check what prices are for our family of 4 and the car!!!

I am from there and did the autotrain once, when I was driving (moving) from Houston to MD. We had APs and we had DVC points and so we decided to go via orlando. Because... I don't know, lol.

It was nice but it was not cheap. It is pretty much a day for travel (I think we traveled most of it overnight though?) but taking the train is nice. The autotrain is VERY VERY VERY often late though so I would not plan tightly around it. We had a sleeper room (bunk beds) and it got really warm on the top bunk. The food was decent and it was a great experience and it did cut out a bunch of driving. But I'm not sure I would do it regularly over flying.

 

[Talby]

it was 10:50 and it was available for 2 also. I grabbed it. I had the search set up this morning and i saw the text when i woke up but i balked when it wanted to make me cancel boma and when i went back for it it was gone. Maybe it was just frozen because I was screwing with it and now released again.

Now I need everyone's advice lol. This is the morning of the christmas party for me. I am staying at the poly so it's easy to go down for breakfast (can probably even check in early). I have Ohana dinner planned at 3:30 and that is set in stone. It's AYCTE but it's not a buffet so we could potentially not pig out on this breakfast. maybe.

the reason I set up the search is because I have this breakfast booked for Tuesday, which is one of the early morning magic days at the MK. That was our "break day" but if we just did EMM and left by say 10am, it could still be a bit of a break, right? or am I packing too much in and need to let it go?

Right---that totally qualifies as a bit of a break! I'm ultra excited about EMM so I am admittedly completely biased toward that! I do think that since you are staying so close at the Poly, you could have an amazing time at EMM and then go back to enjoy break time after. EMM seems like such a great opportunity to experience MK in quite a unique way. You can take naps after and have super sweet dreams about what a great time you just had.

 

[areno79]

Darn, @Candycane83 I wish I had seen that Ohana on the 8th. I had to remove and re-download MDE to my phone because it was timing out and being wonky. All is good now though.
DH and I are not big breakfast people. However, I've been considering it at the end of our trip...either the day of our MVMCP (the 8th), or the day after so we can sleep in, or even day of departure on the 10th. Just because we've never done a TS breakfast, you know? I'm really struggling to make sure we have some down time in this trip, since it's our first solo trip with no family or kids since 2003! And typically by end of the week we're exhausted and grumpy. Trying to avoid that if I can!

 

[areno79]

let's go and leave the boys together, lol.

For reals! I saw a bunch of 10:40pm CRT dinners on party nights last night LOL

 

[Candycane83]

it was 10:50 and it was available for 2 also. I grabbed it. I had the search set up this morning and i saw the text when i woke up but i balked when it wanted to make me cancel boma and when i went back for it it was gone. Maybe it was just frozen because I was screwing with it and now released again.

Now I need everyone's advice lol. This is the morning of the christmas party for me. I am staying at the poly so it's easy to go down for breakfast (can probably even check in early). I have Ohana dinner planned at 3:30 and that is set in stone. It's AYCTE but it's not a buffet so we could potentially not pig out on this breakfast. maybe.

the reason I set up the search is because I have this breakfast booked for Tuesday, which is one of the early morning magic days at the MK. That was our "break day" but if we just did EMM and left by say 10am, it could still be a bit of a break, right? or am I packing too much in and need to let it go?

LOL, I was thinking about that and since MVMCP is not much more than EMM, I'm going with a second MVMCP if ever... maybe... EMM still does sound nice though... I don't know Lisa, I'm also undecided but since it's not available yet, I'll wait...

EDIT: Just to add, I think breakfast comes with EMM so not sure Ohana breakfast would be a good idea.

 

[Candycane83]

Darn, @Candycane83 I wish I had seen that Ohana on the 8th. I had to remove and re-download MDE to my phone because it was timing out and being wonky. All is good now though.
DH and I are not big breakfast people. However, I've been considering it at the end of our trip...either the day of our MVMCP (the 8th), or the day after so we can sleep in, or even day of departure on the 10th. Just because we've never done a TS breakfast, you know? I'm really struggling to make sure we have some down time in this trip, since it's our first solo trip with no family or kids since 2003! And typically by end of the week we're exhausted and grumpy. Trying to avoid that if I can!

I'm sure you'll find it again! we're doing MVMCP on the 8th too. It will be a nice relaxing day and you can do some resort hopping?? That was what I initially intended to do except have TS breakfast at Kona instead of Ohana. My most recent plan (and this changes almost everyday, lol) is to do a BOG PPO breakfast and just get some coffee and take pictures, come back to CR by 9:30am to have breakfast at the Wave, nap until 2pm and head for dinner!

 

[Wood Nymph]

DD16 said she doesn't like the idea of walking past 7dmt and having to skip it because the queue is 45 minutes standby and we have a reservation to get to in 30 minutes. She doesn't want to interrupt park touring to have to run off to a reservation, yet she does like the food at the ts better than the food at qs places. I'm concerned about my picky eaters (the younger two kids) getting tired of cheese pizza, chicken nuggets (that aren't very good), and Uncrustables (I know there are other things on the kids menus, but they won't eat those things). If we could do a few buffets, they might get mashed potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, etc... and feel like they have more variety in their meals. I don't know... it's such a tough call. Maybe I could offer to the teens that they don't have to eat the ts meals with us if they don't feel like it at the time? Of course, that would cut into our dining plan savings... It's so hard to decide!

What I have found from traveling to Disney with teenagers and older kids is that they get tired of quick service and they get tired of rides as we get later in the trip. So a nice buffet, like our favorite Cape May Buffet, turns out to be very welcome by day four or five or six. Cape May is nice because it is right next to Epcot or a short boat ride to DHS. We took our pre-teen grandsons to Cape May on a night that Epcot had late hours. After they ate they went first to DHS then to Epcot for some late night fun. In fact, on the trip we took with them this summer they didn't do any table service restaurants until the third day when we ate dinner at Ohana then they raced into MK for more night time rides. They loved the food and did not complain at all about eating a table service meal. The number one thing to never do with older kids and teens is to plan table service breakfast. They will just whine and refuse to eat anything.

 

[areno79]

I'm sure you'll find it again! we're doing MVMCP on the 8th too. It will be a nice relaxing day and you can do some resort hopping?? That was what I initially intended to do except have TS breakfast at Kona instead of Ohana. My most recent plan (and this changes almost everyday, lol) is to do a BOG PPO breakfast and just get some coffee and take pictures, come back to CR by 9:30am to have breakfast at the Wave, nap until 2pm and head for dinner!

Yeah, it's not a make or break thing, just thought it might be a nice way to force us to relax. LOL