Filling up an odd block of time

tripletimestep

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 3, 2018
Messages
6
Working on plans for our late April/early May visit to WDW—the first time for our family of three, including our four-year-old daughter.

We currently have a 9:45 breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare and a 1:00 afternoon tea reservation (also at the Grand Floridian), and I am having a hard time figuring out how to fill the dead time in between. This will be a non-park day for us.

I'm figuring 90 minutes for breakfast. My daughter is a quick eater, and when she is done, she is DONE, but maybe the characters will slow her down a bit. At any rate, I'm looking at needing something to do from 11:15 to 1:00.

We're staying at AOA, so there's not really enough time to go back to the room. How much time could we take up riding the monorail loop?

If we could move our breakfast reservation back to 9:15 or our tea to 2:00, does that open up some more options? We're hoping to be out late at fireworks the night before, so I don't want to move breakfast earlier than 9:00. (Related: What time should we be ready to go in the morning if we want to Uber—with carseat—from AOA to breakfast?)
 
Working on plans for our late April/early May visit to WDW—the first time for our family of three, including our four-year-old daughter.

We currently have a 9:45 breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare and a 1:00 afternoon tea reservation (also at the Grand Floridian), and I am having a hard time figuring out how to fill the dead time in between. This will be a non-park day for us.

I'm figuring 90 minutes for breakfast. My daughter is a quick eater, and when she is done, she is DONE, but maybe the characters will slow her down a bit. At any rate, I'm looking at needing something to do from 11:15 to 1:00.

We're staying at AOA, so there's not really enough time to go back to the room. How much time could we take up riding the monorail loop?

If we could move our breakfast reservation back to 9:15 or our tea to 2:00, does that open up some more options? We're hoping to be out late at fireworks the night before, so I don't want to move breakfast earlier than 9:00. (Related: What time should we be ready to go in the morning if we want to Uber—with carseat—from AOA to breakfast?)

Maybe take a monorail ride to Epcot & back, get off at the MK and catch a boat to Ft Wilderness. It's been a while since I've been there, but there are some things at the Fort (horse corral, etc) to see.
 
I know you (obviously) know your child best, but my kids wouldn't want to sit for two meals like that in one day. I understand the characters are the draw at 1900 Park Fair. I'd do a park or swim that day then, as you only have like a couple hours to kill. I'm not sure if you don't go to a park what you'd do honestly. I'd drop the tea and do a park.

It isn't much to add a day once you're going 4 or 5 days, and I never take a whole day off when we're there (other than the trip a few years ago that I took my kids on, when we were there for 16 days and had 10 day park hoppers plus water fun & more so we did Disneyquest twice and a water park once each and had some resort days where I cooked and we just hung out). I figure I'm AT Disney, so even if we go for 3 hours, we do a park.
 
Working on plans for our late April/early May visit to WDW—the first time for our family of three, including our four-year-old daughter.

We currently have a 9:45 breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare and a 1:00 afternoon tea reservation (also at the Grand Floridian), and I am having a hard time figuring out how to fill the dead time in between. This will be a non-park day for us.

I'm figuring 90 minutes for breakfast. My daughter is a quick eater, and when she is done, she is DONE, but maybe the characters will slow her down a bit. At any rate, I'm looking at needing something to do from 11:15 to 1:00.

We're staying at AOA, so there's not really enough time to go back to the room. How much time could we take up riding the monorail loop?

If we could move our breakfast reservation back to 9:15 or our tea to 2:00, does that open up some more options? We're hoping to be out late at fireworks the night before, so I don't want to move breakfast earlier than 9:00. (Related: What time should we be ready to go in the morning if we want to Uber—with carseat—from AOA to breakfast?)

Do you have to do both on the same day? That's a lot of food in a short amount of time, plus now you are looking for something to do for 1 hour 45 minutes just to bide some time in between eating. I guess I don't really get it, but it's your vacation! My DS would never have sat through both of those in 1 day in such a short amount of time.

You could walk from GF to Poly and look around. Do the monorail loop. Or take the monorail to MK and take the boat over to Ft. W to see the horses at the ranch. Your daughter is probably short enough to do a pony ride and they have a playground there.
 

We're there eight days total, and this is our only rest day. I think my husband will need it more than my daughter will, to be honest!

I don't have concerns about the two sit-down meals. It's the only day we have planned like that, and we're hoping to swim and do Disney Springs that evening.

My original plan was to schedule the breakfast and tea far enough apart that we could swim in between, but I can't seem to get enough time between reservations. Please assume that we're going to keep both of them, and may need to keep them at the times they're currently scheduled.
 
Working on plans for our late April/early May visit to WDW—the first time for our family of three, including our four-year-old daughter.

We currently have a 9:45 breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare and a 1:00 afternoon tea reservation (also at the Grand Floridian), and I am having a hard time figuring out how to fill the dead time in between. This will be a non-park day for us.

I'm figuring 90 minutes for breakfast. My daughter is a quick eater, and when she is done, she is DONE, but maybe the characters will slow her down a bit. At any rate, I'm looking at needing something to do from 11:15 to 1:00.

We're staying at AOA, so there's not really enough time to go back to the room. How much time could we take up riding the monorail loop?

If we could move our breakfast reservation back to 9:15 or our tea to 2:00, does that open up some more options? We're hoping to be out late at fireworks the night before, so I don't want to move breakfast earlier than 9:00. (Related: What time should we be ready to go in the morning if we want to Uber—with carseat—from AOA to breakfast?)

I'd take the monorail over to CR, then take the small boat to FW. Unless things have changed, they have pony rides for little ones. She'll need to wear a closed toe shoe. You can also visit the horses at the barn. They used to have a small farm animal "zoo". (It's been years since my dd was that little.) Go over to the camping board. They're experts on FW.

You can rent bikes at WL and I think FW. They used to have the surrey type.

You can also ride the monorail. Take it to the TTC, then transfer to the Epcot line.
 
What about some mini golf; Fantasia Gardens is the closest to The Graand Floridian.
 
UPDATE: I was able to move the tea reservation out until 2:35! If I can move the breakfast back a bit as well, I think we'll have time to get back to the hotel as originally hoped. It is a bit of back and forth—and I am the Efficiency Queen, so it makes me shudder a bit, but it is what it is.

I appreciate having these other ideas in my back pocket, though! And thanks for kindly pointing out that the original times really were awkward.
 
UPDATE: I was able to move the tea reservation out until 2:35! If I can move the breakfast back a bit as well, I think we'll have time to get back to the hotel as originally hoped. It is a bit of back and forth—and I am the Efficiency Queen, so it makes me shudder a bit, but it is what it is.

I appreciate having these other ideas in my back pocket, though! And thanks for kindly pointing out that the original times really were awkward.

Glad it worked out for you. Have fun!
 
What about some mini golf; Fantasia Gardens is the closest to The Graand Floridian.

Just for reference, Fantasia Gardens isn't anywhere near the Grand Floridian. It's across the street from the Swan/Dolphin which is in the EP resort area.

UPDATE: I was able to move the tea reservation out until 2:35! If I can move the breakfast back a bit as well, I think we'll have time to get back to the hotel as originally hoped. It is a bit of back and forth—and I am the Efficiency Queen, so it makes me shudder a bit, but it is what it is.

I appreciate having these other ideas in my back pocket, though! And thanks for kindly pointing out that the original times really were awkward.

To make travel quicker, you may want to consider taking a cab/uber/lyft back and forth from AoA. It will cut down on travel time considerably. Unless you have your own car?
 
Just for reference, Fantasia Gardens isn't anywhere near the Grand Floridian. It's across the street from the Swan/Dolphin which is in the EP resort area.

Probably didn't word it clearly. I meant that Fantasia course is closer to The Grand Floridian than Winter Summer course is.
 
Probably didn't word it clearly. I meant that Fantasia course is closer to The Grand Floridian than Winter Summer course is.

True, but unless you are using private transportation, it's really not feasible to go from GF all the way to Fantasia, play mini-golf and then get back to GF in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Fantasia is more than 5 miles from GF and if they are using Disney transportation there is absolutely no way they could do this.
 
Honestly, there's so much to see and do in the area around MK without going to the park... Fort Wilderness, Wilderness Lodge, Contemporary, Polynesian... you could just resort hop and explore and that could fill a whole day, especially if you're going to be there around the holidays (I know that's not the case, just sayin').
 
(Related: What time should we be ready to go in the morning if we want to Uber—with carseat—from AOA to breakfast?)

Answering this question I would be ready to leave by 9am. The uber should be available pretty quickly, and the drive itself sound only be about 15-20 minutes but there is a lot of construction going on heading into MK and GF so that will likely delay you a bit. Plus it's the morning and lots of people are going to be trying to get to MK for opening (usually 9am that time of year).

UPDATE: I was able to move the tea reservation out until 2:35! If I can move the breakfast back a bit as well, I think we'll have time to get back to the hotel as originally hoped. It is a bit of back and forth—and I am the Efficiency Queen, so it makes me shudder a bit, but it is what it is.

I appreciate having these other ideas in my back pocket, though! And thanks for kindly pointing out that the original times really were awkward.
I personally think the monorail hopping idea is great. There are so many exciting things to see at the other monorail hotels. Plus you can take a boat ride to any of them. Once you get closer to the date you can check the activities guide for each resort to see what is planned each day. Pool would be my first choice if your reservations were are your resort but that might be a lot of back and forth. Of course you know your families limitations better than we do.
 
I say shop around GF then take monorail over and do the same at the Poly and CR and if there is still time take the boat over to WL and walk around there, I think that would be plenty of time to do all that and still make it relaxing slow day
 
I'm glad you were able to get a later tea time. When we have tea at 3:30, it is our last meal of the day - we leave full to the gills!
 


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