Favourite Arrival Day Activities?

[StarCruzer]

I know this is super old, but we were coming from the west coast and arrived later in the evening. We were staying at WL, so our first night we checked in, had dinner at Whispering Canyon and then went outside to watch the light parade on the water. It was a really nice way to kick things off.

We love doing Geyser Point Grill to see the water parade, or sit in front of the fireplace with a book (and headphones, of the lobby is busy). We used to stop at Mizners (RIP) because it was a very chill lounge. Now we're more likely to go to Victoria Falls Lounge at AKL, or grab a rocking chair overlooking the savannah.

For Skyliner fans, we definitely used it to hop over to CBR and grab some hammocks for a few hours (we had time to kill before a dinner at Sebastian's).

Sometimes we'll hit up an arcade at a resort, and so far we've found Pop Century to be on of the best ones--convenient if you're already planning on hitting up the Skyliner.

If you're looking for off property activities, we've killed a few hours at Deezerland's pinball room.

 

[emily nicole]

Disney Springs! The Coca-Cola rooftop bar is a must for us. We get the international soda flight, not sure the actual name of it, but it's like Club Cool only no waiting in lines for each soda fountain, it's all laid out for you on a tray. Worth the extra $$! We love The Daily Poutine loaded fries so we always stop by there. And then World of Disney. This time we have an ADR at City Works, which will be a first for us.

 

[Beer Me]

Another option is to make it a park day. I used to think it wasn’t worth it to use a park ticket on arrival or departure days but adding on day 6+ to a ticket is surprisingly inexpensive. Now I just buy enough days to cover the whole stay. Arrival day might mean hitting a park at 6pm for a dinner reservation and fireworks and squeeze in a couple of rides. Totally worth it imo

 

[ShannyMcB]

We like to familiarize ourselves with the resort layout and explore a bit. Look around the lobby, see what kinds of games are near the pool, grab refillable mugs and find out where to fill them.
We get everything situated for the next day then early dinner. If we can see fireworks from the resort we often get the kids in their pjs and watch those. Then it's off to bed as early as possible.

 

[nlenguyen]

We like to go to Disney Springs.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

We just got back from a trip, and we didn't do a park on the first day for the first time ever. We had a park reservation but decided to not do one because our flight was delayed. We didn't land in Orlando until after noon because of a flight delay (mechanical not weather related).

We had gotten up at 3:30, were set to take off at 6 and land at 9. But we didn't take off until just after 9 and landed a little after noon. Got the resort at 1, and MK closed at 6 for the Christmas party. We didn't want to waste a day at the park for 4 hours. So we did things a little different.

We first took a bus to Disney Springs to get lunch and walk around a bit. Then we took a bus to the Poly to see the Christmas decor. From there we hoped on the monorail and went to the Grand Flo for the same reason. We then got back on the monorail and rode the loop entirely around 2 times before getting off at the Contemporary the second time around. We had dinner there, then we took an Lyft back to our resort at AS Music and turned in early for the night.

 

[Pyxie]

Normally Disney Springs. And while that would make sense for our upcoming trip considering it is at POFQ, I'm thinking of switching it up this time.

It's an adults only trip for my birthday so I'd like to check out Trader Sam's, maybe grab something to eat from Tambu Lounge, and watch the fireworks from the Poly if we can.

This is unless they announce after hours events for May and if a HS option falls on our arrival night (a Wednesday). Then we'll be doing that.

 

[Tammylyne]

We are staying at WL for the first time, I didnt realize you can watch the parade from the resort, can you give me more info (best spot time ect)

 

[Tammylyne]

We are staying at WL for the first time, I didnt realize you can watch the parade from the resort, can you give me more info (best spot time ect)

This was in reply to...

@mouschievous
.lol sorry didnt reply correctly​

 

[mouschievous]

@Tammylyne , here you go! Electrical Water Pageant Info

 

[zokaluse]

We travel from the UK & usually get to the hotel around 5pm. We check in, drop the bags, unpack toiletries, freshen up & then take a wander around the resort before hitting the resort pool.
After pool time we grab a quick service then head to the room, unpack, shower & drop into bed around 9-10pm at the very latest exhausted!

 

[1420Elexismc]

We're offsite and landing around 10am. Probably grab our rental car and run to Target or Walmart for the random stuff we'll need for the week, go to the house to check in, and then most likely Disney springs. Although-I'm tempted to see if I can get a later reservation to Storybook-my husband, son, and I planned on doing that separate from the rest of the group at some point, so maybe we'll start off the trip that way.

 

[LiDa]

Our first day will be a non park day, our flight arrives at 11am and my only "plan" so far is dinner at T-REX at Disney Springs. I'd love to hear about your favourite arrival day activities if you don't hit the parks on day one

We used to arrive around 1:00 p.m. If memory serves (haven't been in years), we dropped off our bags, had lunch, checked into our rooms when they were ready & maybe went to EPCOT that night. Sometimes we took the Sassagoula boat from POR to Downtown Disney (or whatever it's called now). And sometimes we went off-site -- we used to love Church Street Station. Whatever we did, we absolutely took it easy. I know that some folks like to charge out & run around & more power to 'em, but we were take-it-easy kinda people.

 

[LiDa]

@Tammylyne , here you go! Electrical Water Pageant Info

We did this one year -- it was very sweet! After all the extravagant stuff at the parks, this was just a nice, quiet bit of wow.