Critique our itinerary!

[Rob Vaccaro]

Who- me (32,m, NYC) and GF (24,f,nj)

What: going to ioA/Disney celebrating variety of things- w magic your way 3 day park hoppers w deluxe dining. Also doing Hhn/bmg/mnsshp

When- October 6th-9th (doing uni studios n hhn sun the 4th, iOA n bmg mon the 5th)

Where: portfino bay /port Orleans French quarter


Hi Y'all long time lurker first time poster here. Making my 42nd trip to universal n Walt Disney World this October from Sunday the fourth to Friday the ninth. I'd like y'all take a look at our itinerary and let us knows if we are cutting things too close timewise or any input or suggestions as far as buses, travel time etc. go. haven't been back to the parks in about four+ years. It's getting pricey... even for this New Yorker....

Anyways- here goes (copy n paste from notepad-- reservation numbers redacted)

sun Oct 4th- leave Atlantic City airport on Spirit flight 311 at 8:30am. ETA 1051. Have Rob pick us up at airport and get luggage. Check luggage at Portofino Bay Hotel. Hit Universal Studios/ioA. Check in anytime after four. (can we e check in? ) Dinner/happy hour at 5 PM at emerils tchoup chop at Royal Pacific resort. Halloween horror nights with express passes till 12.

Mon October 5th- early entry at IoA. Breakfast at Portofino Bay Hotel Trattoria Del Porto. IoA- pool - Dinner at BICE 5:30. Blue man group at 8 PM(show 1 hr 45 min) then Citywalk.

Tuesday Oct 6th- check out of Portofino Bay by eight -830 and head for Port Orleans French quarter. (Transportation suggestion?) Check luggage and take bus to animal kingdom jambo house for 10 AM breakfast at Boma. (Can we online check-in or how do we do it? Magic bands?) Bus from AKL to Animal kingdom til 5:00. Park hop bus to Epcot for 545 dinner at garden grill (enough time?) boat(?) monorail? to Hollywood studios. Use fast pass plus reservations then Fantasmic at 8 PM. Bus back to Port Orleans, change, dinner at California Grill at 935.

Wednesday October 7th- take bus from Port Orleans to Grand Floridian for breakfast at 1900 Parkfair at 8:25. (Travel time?) monorail to Epcot for food and wine fest . lunch at coral reef at 12. dinner 445 le cellier. Illuminations at 9 (Mexico?)boat to downtown Disney? (Morimoto opens 9/17)

Thursday, October 8th- bus from port Orleans to Polynesian for 835 am breakfast at Kona Cafe. (Travel time?) monorail to Magic Kingdom. Bus to Hollywood studios (travel time) for 2:05 lunch at sci fi. Bus back to MK. Break for dinner Boathouse/Morimoto? MK/MNSsHP til 12.

Friday October 9th- pool-resort-check out day. Carriage ride at port orleans (feedback?) can we use leftover meal credits?? DME to airport at 5.

That's it y'all. Any advice tips etc (esp regarding travel times) would be much appreciated.

 

[MataHari22]

from AKL to Animal kingdom til 5:00. Park hop bus to Epcot for 545 dinner at garden grill (enough time?) boat(?) monorail? to Hollywood studios. Use fast pass plus reservations then Fantasmic at 8 PM. Bus back to Port Orleans, change, dinner at California Grill at 935.

Wednesday October 7th- take bus from Port Orleans to Grand Floridian for breakfast at 1900 Parkfair at 8:25. (Travel time?) monorail to Epcot for food and wine fest . lunch at coral reef at 12. dinner 445 le cellier. Illuminations at 9 (Mexico?)boat to downtown Disney? (Morimoto opens 9/17)

Thursday, October 8th- bus from port Orleans to Polynesian for 835 am breakfast at Kona Cafe. (Travel time?) monorail to Magic Kingdom. Bus to Hollywood studios (travel time) for 2:05 lunch at sci fi. Bus back to MK. Break for dinner Boathouse/Morimoto? MK/MNSsHP til 12.

Friday October 9th- pool-resort-check out day. Carriage ride at port orleans (feedback?) can we use leftover meal credits?? DME to airport at 5.

Just a general over all observation that you have a lot of table service meals planned. Are you on the Deluxe Dining Plan, or something? You are going have more eating time and travel time, than you are going to have time in the parks. If that's what you want, that's cool, but it's just not my way of doing WDW, and it's a ton of food, so I'm just throwing that out there. I will try and answer some specific questions, and maybe if I bump up your post, someone more knowledgeable can help you out.

First, if you leave Animal Kingdom at 5pm, I don't think you will make a Garden Grill ADR by 5:45. It takes maybe 20-25 minutes of just travel time on the bus alone. Then you need to get into the park and walk to The Land. Then, you're saying after that dinner, that you want to get to Hollywood Studios for Fantasmic!? You will be lucky to be getting out of Garden Grill by 7:30. You won't make F! Then you have another dinner at California Grill at 9:35? Why another dinner? I'm totally not understanding this.

For the next day, to go from Port Orleans FQ, to Grand Floridian you could take a taxi or you should allow at least an hour to 1.5 hours of travel time to take the bus from POFQ to the Magic Kingdom and then take the monorail over to the GF. There are no buses that go from resort to resort. On this day, if you want to do Food & Wine at Epcot, I would cancel that lunch at Coral Reef and have a snack or two on my way around World Showcase. If you have dinner so early at 4:45pm, I would not eat a big lunch like that. Or try and get a much later ADR at Le Cellier.

For Thursday, again, either take a cab, or allow 1-1.5 hrs to take the bus and monorail. And on this day are you only going to Hollywood Studios to eat at Sci Fi, or are you spending the day there? I would never leave the park to go to dinner outside the park during a hard ticket event. I would have that late lunch at Hollywood studios and I would just snack during the party. There's too much to see and do rather than sitting down and eating.

 

[ashlyn721]

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert, but my family has done Deluxe Dining quite a few times so I can give you my input from what we learned over the years.

So it looks like you would be staying 3 nights at Disney which gives you 9 credits. Counter service/regular table service takes 1 credit, signature table service takes 2 credits. Keeping all the meals you have now, it would be 10 credits. So you're already over without even getting any meals on departure day. In my experience, I've found its best to either do a breakfast/early lunch and then a later dinner. That way I'm truly hungry for each meal. Three meals a day with that amount of food is just too much and takes away from too much park time.
With that in mind, I'll give you my suggestions. I may be wrong, but my understanding is that online check-in expedites the process, but you still have to check-in to use dining plan. Magic bands can be used for park admission without checking in though.

On Oct 6th, if I were you I would switch Boma for Tusker House so I could already be in the park (Tusker can be breakfast or lunch too). Resort to Resort transportation is insanely annoying and time consuming and I try to keep it to a minimum. I would skip going to Epcot all together that day and go straight to HS from AK. After Fantasmic, I seriously doubt there will be enough time to go back to resort to change so straight to Cali Grill for dinner.

On Oct 7th, I would skip breakfast if you're planning to do any rides so you can be there for rope drop. Last year at F&W, we did an 11AM lunch at Teppan Edo and a 8PM dinner at Le Cellier, but we ate at the food booths in between. In hindsight, I would only have done one of the meals because none of us were really hungry at dinner with all the snacking. At the very least I would move Le Cellier much, much later, but ideally I would probably just do a Le Cellier lunch and snack until Illuminations. After Illuminations, there is no boat directly from Epcot to DTD so you would need to catch the bus.

On Oct 8th, I would suggest sleeping in and moving the Kona breakfast or lunch to departure day. Then bus to HS when you wake up for lunch. OR alternatively I would move Kona to lunch around 2:00ish so you would be ready to get into MK at 4. You only have from 4-12 for MK + all the party festivities so I would seriously suggest cutting dinner plans that night. Just grab a quick counter meal OOP to keep you satisfied.

On Oct 9th, you could plan for breakfast at any resort and then go the Boathouse/Morimoto for lunch (no later than 2) before leaving.

Working the plan this way or similar takes care of all of your meals over the 4 days except for the OOP counter during MNSSHP, but you could even eliminate breakfast the next day if you wanted to have that covered.

Overall my biggest piece of advice would be to minimize the amount of traveling because that time will really eat into touring time. I would always give yourselves AT LEAST 1 hour and 15 min to get anywhere if you don't want to stress about being late. Also I will say, at minimum, each of our signature meals lasted 1hr45min. I love that because its a great break, but doing that 3x a day takes away from too many things I like to do in the parks.

I think it will be a great trip with just a little bit of tweaking. Good luck!

 

[Mambo Junkie]

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert, but my family has done Deluxe Dining quite a few times so I can give you my input from what we learned over the years.

So it looks like you would be staying 3 nights at Disney which gives you 9 credits. Counter service/regular table service takes 1 credit, signature table service takes 2 credits. Keeping all the meals you have now, it would be 10 credits. So you're already over without even getting any meals on departure day. In my experience, I've found its best to either do a breakfast/early lunch and then a later dinner. That way I'm truly hungry for each meal. Three meals a day with that amount of food is just too much and takes away from too much park time.
With that in mind, I'll give you my suggestions. I may be wrong, but my understanding is that online check-in expedites the process, but you still have to check-in to use dining plan. Magic bands can be used for park admission without checking in though.

On Oct 6th, if I were you I would switch Boma for Tusker House so I could already be in the park (Tusker can be breakfast or lunch too). Resort to Resort transportation is insanely annoying and time consuming and I try to keep it to a minimum. I would skip going to Epcot all together that day and go straight to HS from AK. After Fantasmic, I seriously doubt there will be enough time to go back to resort to change so straight to Cali Grill for dinner.

On Oct 7th, I would skip breakfast if you're planning to do any rides so you can be there for rope drop. Last year at F&W, we did an 11AM lunch at Teppan Edo and a 8PM dinner at Le Cellier, but we ate at the food booths in between. In hindsight, I would only have done one of the meals because none of us were really hungry at dinner with all the snacking. At the very least I would move Le Cellier much, much later, but ideally I would probably just do a Le Cellier lunch and snack until Illuminations. After Illuminations, there is no boat directly from Epcot to DTD so you would need to catch the bus.

On Oct 8th, I would suggest sleeping in and moving the Kona breakfast or lunch to departure day. Then bus to HS when you wake up for lunch. OR alternatively I would move Kona to lunch around 2:00ish so you would be ready to get into MK at 4. You only have from 4-12 for MK + all the party festivities so I would seriously suggest cutting dinner plans that night. Just grab a quick counter meal OOP to keep you satisfied.

On Oct 9th, you could plan for breakfast at any resort and then go the Boathouse/Morimoto for lunch (no later than 2) before leaving.

Working the plan this way or similar takes care of all of your meals over the 4 days except for the OOP counter during MNSSHP, but you could even eliminate breakfast the next day if you wanted to have that covered.

Overall my biggest piece of advice would be to minimize the amount of traveling because that time will really eat into touring time. I would always give yourselves AT LEAST 1 hour and 15 min to get anywhere if you don't want to stress about being late. Also I will say, at minimum, each of our signature meals lasted 1hr45min. I love that because its a great break, but doing that 3x a day takes away from too many things I like to do in the parks.

I think it will be a great trip with just a little bit of tweaking. Good luck!

My observations from my last trip: We had reservations at Coral Reef at 2:30, then the 5:00 show for Candlelight Processional, and reservations at Akershus at 7:00. We ended up cancelling the Akershus because none of us were hungry. (They let me do a walk up cancellation with no penalty because, 1. I cancelled rather than did a no show, and 2. there were so many people trying to get in, one lucky standby family was able to be seated right away). Also, it is very crowded at WDW these days, and we felt (I had the dining plan) we spent too much time eating and not enough time to see the attractions. It also puts you on such a tight schedule you don't have time to do any extras you may come across. Next time, we are only going to do 2 or 3 TS for a 7 day trip. I would probably rethink the Sci Fi. I love Liberty Tree Tavern at MK and it is a must do every visit. You can use your leftover credits for travel food if you wish (we did) and what we did on our last day was go to the food court and use our credits we didn't need to buy other people's lunch for them. Pixie dust!

 

[PantherPete]

Sounds like a great DINK couple (Dual Income, No Kids) trip. Get it out of your system now, cause if you ever have kids, that itinerary will go over like the proverbial fart in church.

 

[scrapquitler]

Who- me (32,m, NYC) and GF (24,f,nj)

What: going to ioA/Disney celebrating variety of things- w magic your way 3 day park hoppers w deluxe dining. Also doing Hhn/bmg/mnsshp

When- October 6th-9th (doing uni studios n hhn sun the 4th, iOA n bmg mon the 5th)

Where: portfino bay /port Orleans French quarter


Hi Y'all long time lurker first time poster here. Making my 42nd trip to universal n Walt Disney World this October from Sunday the fourth to Friday the ninth. I'd like y'all take a look at our itinerary and let us knows if we are cutting things too close timewise or any input or suggestions as far as buses, travel time etc. go. haven't been back to the parks in about four+ years. It's getting pricey... even for this New Yorker....

Anyways- here goes (copy n paste from notepad-- reservation numbers redacted)

sun Oct 4th- leave Atlantic City airport on Spirit flight 311 at 8:30am. ETA 1051. Have Rob pick us up at airport and get luggage. Check luggage at Portofino Bay Hotel. Hit Universal Studios/ioA. Check in anytime after four. (can we e check in? ) Dinner/happy hour at 5 PM at emerils tchoup chop at Royal Pacific resort. Halloween horror nights with express passes till 12.

Mon October 5th- early entry at IoA. Breakfast at Portofino Bay Hotel Trattoria Del Porto. IoA- pool - Dinner at BICE 5:30. Blue man group at 8 PM(show 1 hr 45 min) then Citywalk.

Tuesday Oct 6th- check out of Portofino Bay by eight -830 and head for Port Orleans French quarter. (Transportation suggestion?) Check luggage and take bus to animal kingdom jambo house for 10 AM breakfast at Boma. (Can we online check-in or how do we do it? Magic bands?) Bus from AKL to Animal kingdom til 5:00. Park hop bus to Epcot for 545 dinner at garden grill (enough time?) boat(?) monorail? to Hollywood studios. Use fast pass plus reservations then Fantasmic at 8 PM. Bus back to Port Orleans, change, dinner at California Grill at 935.

Wednesday October 7th- take bus from Port Orleans to Grand Floridian for breakfast at 1900 Parkfair at 8:25. (Travel time?) monorail to Epcot for food and wine fest . lunch at coral reef at 12. dinner 445 le cellier. Illuminations at 9 (Mexico?)boat to downtown Disney? (Morimoto opens 9/17)

Thursday, October 8th- bus from port Orleans to Polynesian for 835 am breakfast at Kona Cafe. (Travel time?) monorail to Magic Kingdom. Bus to Hollywood studios (travel time) for 2:05 lunch at sci fi. Bus back to MK. Break for dinner Boathouse/Morimoto? MK/MNSsHP til 12.

Friday October 9th- pool-resort-check out day. Carriage ride at port orleans (feedback?) can we use leftover meal credits?? DME to airport at 5.

That's it y'all. Any advice tips etc (esp regarding travel times) would be much appreciated.

Honestly? I want to curl up in a fetal position and hide under the covers.

Tuesday, especially seems like a ton of running around from place to place and way too much food. You are going to Epcot just to eat and leave, and I don't think you'll have time to make it to Fantasmic, let alone to use FP+ before it starts, and then to go somewhere else for ANOTHER dinner at 9:35, no way, You do realize that you have dinner at 5:45 and then dinner again at 9:45?? Too much food for me, and I like to eat a lot. I'd stay at EPCOT the whole time and do Fantasmic another day

Wednesday doesn't seem too bad, you aren't running around as much as you were on Tuesday, and you are mostly staying in one park.

On Thurday, I'd stay at HS until after the lunch at SciFi before heading over the MNSSHP, then once I got over to MNSSHP, I wouldn't be leaving the park in the middle of the party to go eat somewhere outside of MK.

 

[Mambo Junkie]

As for transportation, check out the transportation board. Everything you need to know plus tips, etc!

http://www.disboards.com/forums/transportation.16/

 

[caroline1851]

Since it's your 42nd trip, I would imagine you know how long it takes to get to each place and how long it takes to eat at each restaurant, etc. For me, this is a trip of just eating and just traveling back and forth, but again, i'm sure it'll be just right for you as it's your 42nd trip and you know what you like.