We are going August 24th - 31st. In general we are avoiding all EMH days. Its not that I don't think the mornings would be worth it but with our kids, 6 & 8, getting up to be at a park before 8:00 would be a bit of a stretch for a marginal value.
We have broken the days up into 6 mornings and 6 evenings with a 2-4 hour hotel break in the middle. (It is August after all and I hear heat stroke really puts a damper on the vacation.) With park hopping they don't have to be the same parks in the morning and evening. We are also not doing any morning character breakfasts. (The thought of the kids chowing down and then going on rides just isn't pretty!) We are also on the meal plan. This time around we are not doing the water parks. Its just not our thing right now. We are also most likely not doing DTD. No offense on people that like to go there and shop but I personally don't like shopping when I am at home let alone vacation. I subscribe to the definition of shoping a friend of mine has: Shopping should be a premeditiated intent to purchase a specific item for a specific purpose or should be research to purchase an item for a specific purpose.
Part of our plan is to take it easy in the parks. We don't have any totally down days but we are not going commando (In any sense of the term) or doing any really late nights or early mornings, at least by our standards. I call our style of touring informed wandering. I have UG and TGM. We do plan to be at the parks at opening. So here is what we have so far.
Wed: Arrival Day. This one is the dilema. We land at 11:47 AM. The kids will have gotten up around 5:30 AM in the morning. With ME I am guessing we will be checked at the hotel no later than 2:00 PM (Barring major issues.) With the new ticket pricing it is only $4 for us to go to a park this day we we are going to head to one. It is the kids first visit to WDW so ideally we would hit the magic kingdom. The only issue is that it will be in the afternoon, peak crowds, on a EMH evening more peak crowds, and we will not be staying up to enjoy the EMH evening. Also I would like the kids first visit to MK be in the morning to see the opening ceramony and really get the whole first visit experience. So my thought is to go to EP this day. Be opportunistic and just go on things with little or no wait or what we can use FP for. Get started on our WS passports and just sort of bop around EP. After dinner take a round about way back to WL via the monorail to TC and then the resort monorail to the contemporary and the boat back to WL.
Thursday: MK morning, CP Early Lunch. MK Evening CRT Dinner See Wishes.
Friday: MGM Morning, Lunch as WCC, MGM Evening, Fantasmic. Dinner not sure, Maybe Melrose.
Saturday: EP Morning. Lunch WS. Dinner Consourse MK Evening (Hopefully Spectro Magic leave before Wishes.)
Sunday: AK Morning. Counter Lunch at AK. EP Evening. Dinner WS. Illuminations.
By now we have hit each park at least once in the morning and once in the evening (Except AK). So now we are looking to hit the highlights or ridng buzz until we break 500,000.
Monday: MGM Morning (Most likely ride Star tours over and over and over... I have some serious Star Wars fanatics as kids. ) Maybe EP afterwards. Afternoon: AK to see parade. Some Quick rides. Dinner at Boma and evening at AKL to check it out for next time. Maybe a quick hop to EP or early night. See Fantasmic or Illuminations if we missed it earlier.
Tuesday: MK Morning. Rest of day up to whatever the kids want to do. Unsure on Dinner. Maybe Chef Mickeys. Last Backup day for seeing evening show if missed earlier.
Wed: Departure Day. We were going to Chef Mickeys for Breakfast (We are staying at WL.) But US Air changed our flight times so that it would be a bit tight to get there and back and to the airport. It could be done but between having to get up early to be there and the hassle of packing up and such I didn't want to end the vacation with a lot of stress running around. Instead we will do Breakfast at WL and enjoy the resort for a bit before leaving the resort at 10:00AM.
We are looking to maximize the meal plan by paying for the kids meals at CRT, Melrose and the two WS meals. That will give us enough credits for 9 sitdown. In turn we will be sharing some counter meals. So with the two additional sit down meals used for lunch and the saved counter credits from sharing we should have enough counter credits to cover a few counter breakfasts. This isn't finallized yet but I have a spreadsheet put together and it looks like we will only have to cover 3 counter breakfasts and the last one at WCC. We should do well with the meal plan. FYI we also will most likely use most of our snack allotment for water in the parks and then just buy whatever we want as snacks. That way we aren't limited on some of the snacks. It will also help control the quantity of snacks eaten if I have to shell out cash each time.
(With the exception of items on the snack list that cost more than water, then we would buy the water and use the snack credit for the item.)
So the dinning plans are:
Dinner: CRT, 2 x WS, Boma, Maybe Melrose, Concourse, Maybe CM.
Lunch: WCC and CP, the rest counter.
Breakfast: WCC on departure day, some counter some in room. (My guess is 3 in room.)
Out of pocket costs beyond dinning plan: Food for room. WCC on departure day, out of pocket snacks, kids meals at CRT, melrose and 2 WS meals and any specialty drinks.
Right now, I am starting to think we will not do MK evening hours, am still not sure about morning EMH for any of the parks. I still have not decided if we should avoid MK on Saturday or try it early in the hopes that many are traveling etc. We also want to do Universal one day and a water park on another day, which means we probably can not stay up late the nights before those days. My dh thinks I am crazy worrying about all this. However, we usually do have great trips and I think atleast some solid planning is important for that to happen.
