Arriving at your resort

[cinmell]

Do you prefer to arrive at your resort in the morning or at night? We usually get the 7am flight and arrive at our resort by 11:30 am. Next vacation I was wondering if it would be better to fly out later (my 3 year old was a bit restless on the flight down last time).

When you arrive, do you go straight to your room or hit the parks?

 

[tinawv]

Hi Cindy. We always try to arrange our trips so that we arrive around noon, and yes we hit the parks the same day. On our next visit we are planning on just spending time at our resort and Downtown Disney on our first day. That way we will be all rested to start out strong the next morning.

The only negative thing I have read about arriving late, is that you may not get all your room requests if you made any.

 

[CamColt]

If we drive we like to leave at 10:00am which has us arriving around 10:00am the next morning. In the times we have driven we have never gone to the parks the first day, as we take that day to chill by the pool, have a relaxing dinner and get a good nights sleep so we are ready to go bright and early the next morning.
When we fly, we try to get the earliest flight too. In Dec we had a 7:00am flight, which got us there right after 10:00. We had the same flight booked for July but they changed it to 8:45!
On our Dec trip we went to ESPN for lunch(to catch the Bruins game) then after settling into our room a bit we hit the MK in the evening. So yes, we did go to the parks that time. In July we wont only because we will have my mother with us and she wont have enough days on her pass(we have APs). Instead we will have lunch, then take a drink around the monorail tour.

 

[HANDYMOM]

We are driving to within 1 1/2 hrs from Orlando. After we wake at DS's normal time (7ish) we'll get a quick breakfast and be there by 10 or so. We are planning on dropping our stuff (in our room if available) and heading out to the Animal Kingdom. Yeah.

When you fly, it's almost impossible to get to the resort before lunch. It makes for a hectic and short visit to a park.

 

[paras4ri]

Another New Englander checking in! We drive on most trips and find our travel is easiest if we leave home by 8 a.m. Depending on traffic and road construction (all in the Northeast!) we can arrive in about 24 hours so that allows us to get to our hotel early. Both times we did that our rooms weren't ready because they were fulfilling our room requests. We spent time by the pool and later headed to DTD after we had checked in and cleaned up. I agree with CamColt, that lets us rest up after the long drive and be ready to go in the morning.

 

[cinmell]

For those of you who drive, do mind the ride? I suggested trying it and my husband said no way would he want to spend all that time in the car. How many stops do you make during your trip from MA (New England) to FL?

 

[HamHam]

We too are from the northeast (about an hour north of Portland, Maine) and we wouldn't consider driving to Orlando. Part of the fun of the trip is flying down on SouthWest airlines out of Manchester, NH. That airport is about 2.5 hours away from us so that's enough driving for us before the flight. We usually leave home around 4:00 am and arrive at MCO around 11:00 ish. Once we get checked in and have some lunch we do Magic Kingdom if we have passes to cover the arrival day. If we don't, we hang around the hotel or go use the water mice at WL. Next trip in June we'll be staying at the AKL and there is plenty to do there upon arrival. We're bringing along my 13 year old's best friend and she hasn't been to disney since she was 3 so this trip will be awesome for her and more awesome for us watching the two of them ham it up. Can't wait for June 25

 

[HANDYMOM]

Originally posted by cinmell
For those of you who drive, do mind the ride? I suggested trying it and my husband said no way would he want to spend all that time in the car. How many stops do you make during your trip from MA (New England) to FL?

I am originally from Massachusetts and personally there is no way I would choose to drive from up there (I've been in Alabama for 11 years) but the cost of airfare is a big issue and I'd probably suffer through the ride if it meant going to WDW vs not going because I couldn't afford it...

BTW my parents are still in Mass., they said it's still snowing up there.....y'all need to migrate southward, today will be 73degrees and sunny

 

[TammiMcMan]

After many trips, I've discovered a secret that works great for my family. We leave the night before and stay near the airport. For years we were on that first Delta shuttle out of Logan at about 6am. Nice for getting settled at the resort and into the parks early, but we'd be exhausted. Let's face it, us parents are excited and the kids are bouncing off the walls. No one gets any sleep the night before the flight and we'd have to be up by 4am to catch a taxi to the airport. Now I just book a flight after 6pm for the night before. We don't loose a day at work or school and we're usually settled into our hotel by 10pm. Everyone gets good rest and we can be checking into the resort by 8 or 9am, all refreshed and ready to hit the parks. The only added cost that we've incurred is the extra hotel night, but you can find some very reasonable rates and not having cranky kids and exhausted parents is priceless.

 

[crazywig]

another MA resident here.

we fly early out of pvd. we usually are at the hotel by noon latest. we check in and head for the mk. i MUST go to the mk the first day. it's a ritual. even if we do nothing but walk up main street, i have to do it. call me

 

[CamColt]

Originally posted by cinmell
For those of you who drive, do mind the ride? I suggested trying it and my husband said no way would he want to spend all that time in the car. How many stops do you make during your trip from MA (New England) to FL?

I used to say NO WAY to the drive, but then we were scheduled to fly out 9/24/01 and that all changed. After much debate over what to do about that trip, we chose to drive...with a then 4yo, 20 month old, and my mom(DH &I too,of course). I was pleasantly surprised. We didnt mind the ride at all. So much so that weve done it 2 more times (8/02 & 8/03).
It takes about 24 hours and we like to go 10:00am-10:00am. We left at 3:00pm once, but much prefer the 10:00. We like to get in a few hours(3-4) at a time between bathroom breaks at first, but when we get to the overnight hours, DH will usually stop every 2 hours. We stop for 1 fast food meal(dinner) and the other stops are usually about 5-10 minutes long. We bring the tv/vcr for the kids and that is a huge help.
The kids love doing the ride. We flew in Dec and are flying again in July and Im already getting complaints from my 7 yo that he wants to drive.

 

[WDW LifeLong Fan]

We usually drive down the night before and stay at a DTD hotel, spend the evening at DTD, and check in early the next morning at our Resort.

We have had great success in obtaining our room requests by arriving early. Even if our room is not ready, they assign us a room, we check our bags and we either swim or go to a park and come back around 3:00 to check in.

Some trips we go to a Universal resort for 2-3 nights to get the front of the line access and then go to WDW for 7-10 nights.

Enjoy!

 

[denman007]

Early!

Why waste a whole day traveling?

Departure flight 7:00am (Sat.)
Checkin by noon (3 for 3 room is ready)

Chill out for a while - maybe nap, checkout the resort. Head to MK for the evening. Watch parade. Watch fireworks from the Poly beach.

 

[HANDYMOM]

There's a really good reason that many choose to spend a whole day travelling, our time and aggravation is cheaper than airfare when there are more than just 2 people in a family

 

[karemore]

DH and I are driving down from NY in 11 days.

The drive there isn't bad....we'll be all excited.

It's the drive HOME that is a killer.

But it gives us a chance to make the transition back into the real world.

We plan to arrive in Florida on Sunday and won't hit the parks until monday after a good nights rest.

Karen

 

[KerriL]

Another New Englander here...

Drove only once and that was when I was a kid. Stuck in the back seat with my two younger sisters and a box of my parents 8 track tapes...Wow what fun! This of course was before portable DVD players, CD players and Game Boys...
With my kids, we've always flown and I had to be on the first flight out early in the AM and arrived at the resort by 11am. Could not waste a minute!
It always worked well for us as the kids were 5, 7 and 9 the first trip down in 1996.
In May, I will be taking my 2 1/2 year old foster baby and I am going to leave PVD at 7pm and stay at the Hyatt at the airport in Orlando.
I'm hoping she'll sleep thru most of the flight. Plan on heading over to the Poly for about 8am.
Then hop on the monorail to MK for her first haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop.
Kerri

 

[SpeechGuy]

We will be staying at WL this December. We will be driving from Michigan, which will take about two full days. Our plan is to leave Michigan on Friday and arrive at WL around noon on Sunday. Since everyone will have been held captive in our Tahoe for two plus days, we will spend the remainder of Sunday, as well as Monday just relaxing at the Lodge.......pool, restuarants, maybe do DTD. We have Hoop Dee Doo ressies for Monday night. We will hit the parks on Tuesday morning. Hopefully, Tuesday morning will find everyone rested and ready to go.

 

[welovedisneyx4]

We stay offsite in our condo and arrive around 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening. That gives us time to unpack and have a simple dinner (pizza or Bob Evans), hit Wal-Mart for milk, etc. and get ready to start at the parks the next day. It is about a 12 hour drive for us and now that DD is in school we leave at 2:00 when she gets out, drive for about 6 hours and stay in S.C. somewhere and then sleep in (somewhat) the next morning and drive the remaining 6 hours.

This actually leads to another question I will post somewhere else. We always get into the worst traffic on I-4 when we come into Orlando!! I think next trip we are going to have to change something to avoid that!!

 

[DisneyMomx7]

I was glad to hear so many of you don't mind the drive down. We're trying driving down for the first time in July. We really can only afford the affair every two years since there are five of us, so it was drive or don't go until 2005. Naturally we're driving. We're planning on driving straight through until Jacksonville, FLorida, stopping for the night and to be in Orlando early the next morning. We're going to Universal first HRH for 5 days. Were going to check out of there super early and head over to GF so we get the full day at the parks. We have a van and we're buying a DVD player for the car so hopefully the ride down won't be too bad. By the way the kids will be 6, 5, and 4 then so if anyone has some tips for kids that age please let me know.


100 more days and counting (I can never figure out how to do the countdown timer)

 

[SpeechGuy]

Hi Robyn........Our kids are now pre-teen. We took a car trip to Disney when they were about the ages of your children. We found the trip to be very enjoyable. What really helped a great deal was getting books on tape and playing them in our van. The kids really loved the Boxcar Children tapes by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Each book took about 2 hours to complete. The kids were very quiet as they listened intently to the stories. Mom and I also enjoyed the stories, as well. What was nice about the stories was the fact that if my DW and I wanted to talk and catch up on life's little happenings, we would turn the volume up on the speakers in the back of the van and we could spend quality time in conversation together. I am quite confident that everyone will enjoy these stories. Have fun and enjoy!!!!!