Arrive Early or Late First Day

[jcf]

I am scheduled to arrive at 6:00pm for 6 night stay at Poly using my points.
I have been thinking kind of a waste of a day but I figured with a seven year old trying to take an early flight in the am to arrive by noon and expect him to wait in lines (April 11-17) might be pushing it.

I also was worried about getting the room I want later in the day. ie good view etc

Anyone find it better to arrive later especially with kids?

 

[DIZBOUND]

We always take an early flight out about 7 am and arrive in WDW about 12 after ME ride. My kids 5 and 1 have had no problems with the travel time and then park time after. They usually sleep during the plane ride

 

[themilesfamily]

I also was worried about getting the room I want later in the day. ie good view etc

I read that rooms are preassigned, so it doesn't matter if you show up at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. -- your room has already been assigned to you prior to your arrival day.

Now if you arrive and don't like your room, and want to switch rooms, arriving late in the day will probably reduce what is available to you.

We are going to Disney in October with 3 adults and 4 kids. We decided on a later flight because we wanted to have a very relaxed departure day. We could have pulled off an early morning flight, I'm sure, but just decided against it.

editing to add: If the view is very important to you, just make sure that the Poly knows in advance what you are hoping for in a view and that it is important to you. There are never any guarantees, but at least they have on record what you want when they go to assign rooms.

 

[Boardwalk Tigger]

I was thinking that it might be better to stay on property at a different hotel for the first night when you come in late and then arrive first thing the next day at your DVC resort and get a better room assignment. What do you experienced DISers think?

 

[Vickibean]

We like to fly in late the night before and stay at the Airport Hyatt. Then in the morning, you can just walk down to ME and start your day fresh. As far as flight times, just find another flight that comes in when you want to catch ME and give them that information for your arrival.

 

[tomandrobin]

We always try to arrive early in the day. In fact, we just changed our April flight from 7pm to 9am.

 

[I'mNoPrince]

We have always arrived before 11:00am and can't wait to hit the parks.

If it's the lines that will be a problem then do some walking around and just explore one of the parks. Let him decide what to do.

I just feel it's a waist of a day when we could be at the World.

 

[alldiz]

We always take the 1st flight out.....I arrive at my hotel around
10:30 am.....Yes it is a Looooong day....but we are just so
excited to be there that it always works out.
Besides DD sleeps like a rock that night
Kerri

 

[Chellymouse]

We always fly out early and are in the parks by 1pm at the latest. I can't imagine arriving in the evening. That would drive us nuts. If the parks are busy, we usually at least get a few of our faves in, have dinner (which for DH consists of a Casey's hot dog!) maybe catch the parade or fireworks and head in.

 

[psu4glory]

generally speaking, we like to take an earlier flight down and make good use of our first day by hitting one of the parks. however - i think that the length of the trip comes into play.

for instance, we are going down for 12 days in JUN, so we didn't have any reservations about booking a little later flight down (arriving at MCO at 230p) and probably just grabbing some dinner and ending up at Epcot for Illuminations or something on the first night. a nice, relaxing first day before we really get into the swing of things on day 2...

 

[DISNEY FIX]

We always take the 1st flight out.....I arrive at my hotel around
10:30 am.....Yes it is a Looooong day....but we are just so
excited to be there that it always works out.
Kerri

Amen.

 

[IggyLans]

In the past we always took a very early flight out on a Friday, so we still had some day left to do a park. It really was a lot, especially last year, when we also had MNSSHP to do that night. This year, we'll leave later in the evening after school's done on a Thursday, so then we can just get to the hotel, and wake up at WDW! I am very much looking forward to that.

 

[Jimdvc]

Arrive as early as you can.

Make it a pool and DTD disney day.

Hit the sack early, and take advantage of the early park hours in the AM the next day.

 

[SSRJen]

We usually take an overnight flight from CA which gets us into Orlando between 5am-6am. We get our rental car and head to the resort. We check in once we get there and usually end up with an available room (pre-DVC). At that point, we would take a nap and hit the parks around lunchtime.

The few times a room wasn't available we hit the parks until a room became available and then went back for a nap/shower. We would then go back into the parks after dinner.

I am thinking getting a room early will be harder at a DVC resort, but doing an overnight flight makes me feel like I am not wasting a day of vacation. I also sleep much better on planes at night.

 

[Aunt Michelle]

We drive down from Atlanta, and since I always either have my Mom or one of my nieces, we have to stop a couple of times. This means we generally arrive mid-afternoon. If we arrive on Saturday, we stay at an alternate location Saturday night. We generally have a nice dinner at one of the resort hotels, then make it an early night. Up early, check in to DVC resort as early as possible, leave bags with bell service and spend Sunday at MK. If we arrive on Sunday, we check into our DVC resort immediately, have an early dinner and then take in one of the evening shows (where depends on in which resort we stay). Wordy, aren't I?

 

[kato0627]

If we fly in the afternoon with an arrival of ~7pm, we stay in a non DVC resort and pay the AP rate. We check out really early and head over to our "home". We stayed at POR in Dec for one night. I packed a seperate suitcase with just PJ's, clothes for the next day etc.. I had Bell Services hold all the other bags. I was happy to save the points and it was not too much of a big deal to move. Flying early in the day has it advantages as well. But.. the kids get really tired early on in the day.
Either way, you will have a blast.