downtown disney first night

[pawn626]

how long does it take to see dd ? we are going our first night there and wanted to plan enough time. thanks

 

[Micca]

Depends on your shopping/dining interests. If you are interested only in shopping for Disney items, I would think 2 hours would be sufficient. Add 1+ hours for other items. If you are eating there, add 1.5 hours.

 

[jcc0621]

I think it all depends on what you want to do. Are you going planning on going to the West Side too? Disney Quest?

We usually will go here our first night also. We will have a quick bit at a counter service place and just browse the shops and let DS ride the little carosuel and train they have. We don't do shopping this night. We do it to get ourselves hyped up for the 1st day at the parks. Doing this we usually will be there 3 -4 hours. If you are planning on doing DQ, which I have never done, I hear that it takes a 3-4 hours to do that. The west side and pleasure island also have shops, so I would plan more time for this. HTH

 

[NotTooGoofy]

DD is fairly large. You have the Marketplace with many of what I would call traditional Disney shops - toys, clothing and other items with Disney characters plus several restaurants - and then there is DD West Side with other stores (Virgin Records, magic shop, AMC movie theater), restaurants (House of Blues, Planet Hollywood, Bongos) plus DisneyQuest and Cirque du Soleil. Pleasure Island is also right there as well.

If you have never been there before, I'd plan on a couple of hours to check out everything. If you have time, I'd also recommend taking the boat ride from DD to the Port Orleans resorts (Riverside and French Quarter).

 

[Leger13]

My DH and I usually set aside a whole day for DTD since Disney Quest is there and there are so many shops and resturants. it definatley is a good way to sped your first day at WDW to get hyped up for the parks. There is so much to do there. Plus if you run out of things to do in the evening you can always catch a movie @ the AMC theater. It is an awesome theater.

 

[pawn626]

what is there to do at port orleams if we took the boat ride over

 

[Tat2ddisneymom]

what is there to do at port orleams if we took the boat ride over

Eat, shop, horse drawn carriages, fish. I like just taking pictures of the resorts. As for downtown Disney, there's so many shops to look in, Disney Quest could take quite a few hours, eating there would take awhile, then there's Pleasure Island. You could spend the whole day there.

 

[goldneye]

Hi, we did DTD the first night we were there but we had a late flight and only had about 1.5 hours there. We definately needed more time there. It is a really nice big area. Almost another park in itself. The Disney store there is huge and the Lego displays are great too. I was able to get a temporary Mickey tattoo ($5) on my ankle there that first night and it lasted the whole trip. We didn't make time to go back (too tired) so we will definately be back there with at least half a day to see everything and eat dinner too.

Have fun!

 

[1000th happy haunt]

If it's just the two of you (no kids), you may want to visit one of the clubs at Pleasure Island. That will eat up some time.

 

[Cinderaven]

Hi, we usually go the first day just to get the feel and hype of Disney, and that can last 3-4 hrs. no problem.

We then go back to shop and have dinner at Captn' Jacks several times while at WDW. (DW's favorite place to eat)