Final Itinerary Check: Leaving in Two Days! (Warning - Long)

[wareagle57]

At this point I feel like I've planned and over-planned myself to death. I'm going to second guess every decision I make. So I'm going to try and just shut of my brain and let the chips fall where they may. If we miss something, oh well. But I did want to share what my plans are (which I'm sure will fall apart at some point) and see if there are any holes I am missing. We are a group of 5, all adults. 4 of us in our 20s and my mom. Unintentionally we will be there on her birthday. We don't really have any ADRs with a couple exceptions and will mostly be eating QS or our own food.

Thursday - Arrival Night. Check in at Y&B Club. Dessert at Beaches and Cream and activate armed forces salute tickets at Epcot IG. No park this day.

Friday - MK morning. A little unsure of the best way to make sure we are at RD at least 15 minutes early since Mono isn't running that early and apparently buses are unpredictable in the morning.

8:00 - 9:00: Big Thunder, Splash, Pirates, Jungle Cruise
9:00 - 10:00: Buzz and Space. If time: Speedway, TTA, And Astro.
10:00 - 12:30: Mermaid, Dumbo, Barnstormer. If time: Pooh, Small World, Philharmagic. FP1: Peter Pan between 11:30 and 12:30 (aiming for 12:10)
12:30 - 3:00: FP2: Enchanted Tales with Belle between 12:30-1:30(Will be in line at 12:30)
BOG FP Lunch. Arrive between 1 and 1:30 (Hopefully closer to 1)
FP3: 7DMT between 1:45 and 2:45
3:00 - Possibly stay for the parade and ride one or two things we might have missed.

Afternoon break and look at some of the MK Resort Christmas Decorations.

That evening we will hop to Epcot and check out World Showcase for a little while and watch the last Candlelight Processional by standing in the back, and then find a spot for Illuminations. Depending on who we feel, we may stay for EMH and ride Test Track and Soarin.

Saturday - Epcot morning. No FP+ because we could take or leave Epcot and are saving them for MK and DHS all 5 days

9-10: Test Track, (Mission Space, though I'm worried the line at Soarin will build too much) then Soarin'
10-11: Livin' With the Land, Turtle Talk, Nemo
11-1: Spaceship Earth, Ellen if time, Figment
1-? Quick lunch and explore World Showcase. Some of us might hop to DHS.


MK Evening

Fast Passes are Splash 6:35-7:35 (we may skip this one if we need more rest and ride later that night), 7DMT (7:40-8:40) and Space (8:45-9:45)

In addition to those FPs, we would also like to try and woke in Tiki Birds, Country Bears, Monsters Inc, COP and anything we might have missed from the above plans from the day before.

9:30 - Find a spot for Wishes

10:30 - as late as we can stay away: Anything we missed and want to do again. Probably Splash mountain over and over.


Sunday - HS All day. We also change hotels to Pop this day.

Fast Passes:
9:05-10:05 - TSMM
10:05-11:05 - Star Tours (I feel like this is a waste)
12:05-1:05 - Tower of Terror

8:45-10: TSMM at rope drop, then RnR, ToT, and back to TSMM in time for our FP.
10-11:30: Great Movie Ride, Star Tours, Star Tours with FP, Muppets.
11:45 - Beauty and the Beast
12:15 - ToT with FP
12:30-1:45 - Frozen or Art of Animation or Little Mermaid
1:45 - Indiana Jones
2:15 - Pictures at HISTK Playground. (have to recreate childhood pictures.)

Afternoon break if we want. Back at 6:00 for the Osborne Lights
6-7:45 - Lights, Re-ride favorites while lines are short during first fantasmic, possibly see Frozen or Mermaid or AoA if we didn't do it that morning
8:00 - Fantasmic
8:30-10 - Re-ride favorite or back to the lights.

Monday - AK Morning I'm apprehensive about if we should head to Safari or Everest first. I feel like since the Safari is long, then it will eat up more time when the park is empty. Everest is short and we could ride it 4 or 5 times in the same amount of time.


8-9:30 EE/Safari. Not sure of the order
9:30-10:30 - Dino and Primeval Whirl
11:00 - Nemo
12:00 - Lion King
12:30-2: - ITTBAB, Trails, possibly Kali

Evening at DHS again.
FP at 5, 6, and 7 for ST, TSMM, and ToT

Last night with everyone here. We will do our FP's and see any of the Frozen, Mermaid, and AoA shows that we missed. We will see the 8:00 Fantasmic if it get rained out the night before. Otherwise we will ride our favorites until 8 and then head to see the lights one last time.

Tuesday Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party

We have FPs from 4-7 for 7DMT, Peter Pan, and Space Mountain. We will mainly just be trying to hit up the parades and shows this night. My plan for seeing everything right now is to see the 2nd lighting, CTS, The Parade, and Wishes all at the same time.

7:15 - Get spot as close to the stage as possible for CTS and the castle lighting. I know we'll probably end up not that close due to the popularity of the Frozen lighting.
8:15 - Try to move into a better spot for the parade.
9:15 - CTM
9:30 - Holiday Wishes


That's it! Thanks to anyone who actually read all of this. If you see any problems or ways it can be improved please let me know. I'm sure we'll have fun no matter what.

 

[Frozen2014]

Sounds like a lot of fun to go with 5 adults (including yourself).

I've only been to Disney once, so am far from an expert, but looking at your schedule, I'm wondering if its a bit aggressive? Good plan to get through Big Thunder, Splash, POC and Jungle Cruise but can you do all that in 1hr (but I've never been at rope drop so maybe it is)?

Same comment for doing both Test Track and Soarin in 1hr without any FPs

But overall, great plan and your rides/attractions are all organized in a logical order (e.g. rides that are near each other are together)

Have a great time!

 

[SplashMo]

For Epcot do SOARIN and then Test Track Single Rider Line then Mission space.

Good idea to not use FP+ in AK.

 

[SplashMo]

For MK morning if you had FP+ earlier in the day you can gather more and more as the day goes on. You can also move them up as you ride the rides. I would not give up your current FP selections...

The MK morning day does seem a bit crammed...

look at easywdw for a touring plan perhaps? I would rather be overscheduled then under scheduled.

 

[SplashMo]

Sounds like a blast! remember about 4th FP+

If you have used one FP+ and the rest have been used or expired you can obtain a 4th FP+ for a ride in the park you are currently in...

 

[jar]

Temperature is going to be in the 40's on Friday morning between 8-9am. May want to reconsider Splash. [we are going to be there Thursday morning and have a plan that includes Splash twice -- one of our favorite rides in all parks -- but thinking that's doubtful now]

 

[Disnsyncey]

We are going on Thursday too! And changing from the Four Seasons to Pop Century on Sunday too!

I know that when I get to a park, the crowds might be different than I expected, or a line might take longer, so there is no way that I would "schedule" that many rides and plan to do them according to that schedule.....I would say "try adventureland/frontierland" or "try tomorrowland" in a schedule that I have....

When I went in September, we found we either had a lot of extra time than what we expected or a lot less than we expected......it was never that cut and dry....

but see you at MK on Friday!

I would also have a few times of each show that you want to see.....because when we were in AK, we actually hit more shows than we expected and faster because we kept an eye out for the show times when those inevitable "what to do next?" times came about....

 

[Frozen2014]

Just adding to the comments again. Even if your schedule is aggresive, you have a good layout. So I'd keep the general plan to follow from one ride to the next and just know that your times may be off, or you may need to leave off a ride (just don't miss your FP times).

One thing I noticed about your Epcot morning...you have Turtle Talk and Nemo...then heading over to Spaceship Earth and back to Figement. If you are planning on grabbing lunch at say Sunshine Seasons then this works. But if you are planning on grabbing lunch in World Showcase, then it may make sense to visit Figment after Nemo...as it's in the same area.

 

[kaymil]

8-9:30 EE/Safari. Not sure of the order
9:30-10:30 - Dino and Primeval Whirl
11:00 - Nemo
12:00 - Lion King
12:30-2: - ITTBAB, Trails, possibly Kali

Waits for EE don't tend to build until closer to 10 in my experience. I'm not sure what they'd be like at this time of the year, but in the summer we always do the safari at rope drop, then EE, and we have plenty of time to ride it multiple times before waits get to about 10 minutes or so. Plus I think they say the animals are out more often in the morning, but again, maybe that's only true for the summer when they hide from the heat in the afternoons.

Have a great time!

 

[wareagle57]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I know my schedule is a bit aggressive, especially the MK morning. But we don't have any kids to slow us down and it is a MVMCP morning so the crowds should be as light as we can hope for. I've been tracking the wait times on similar days at the times I want to ride certain things and even looked up distances between rides and calculated walking time. And we've got the 3 AM closing the next night to make up for anything we might miss.

Waits for EE don't tend to build until closer to 10 in my experience. I'm not sure what they'd be like at this time of the year, but in the summer we always do the safari at rope drop, then EE, and we have plenty of time to ride it multiple times before waits get to about 10 minutes or so. Plus I think they say the animals are out more often in the morning, but again, maybe that's only true for the summer when they hide from the heat in the afternoons.

How about waits for Safari? When we went this same time in 2012 we did EE a few times first and by the time we got to the Safari we did have what seemed like a about a 20 minute wait, which would lead me to think we should head here first. But checking wait times, that doesn't seem to be happening. It seems to be the general consensus to do it this way so I'll probably abandon my strategy of EE first. That way I can better judge how many times we can re-ride it before we need to move on to the next thing! haha.

Just adding to the comments again. Even if your schedule is aggresive, you have a good layout. So I'd keep the general plan to follow from one ride to the next and just know that your times may be off, or you may need to leave off a ride (just don't miss your FP times).

One thing I noticed about your Epcot morning...you have Turtle Talk and Nemo...then heading over to Spaceship Earth and back to Figement. If you are planning on grabbing lunch at say Sunshine Seasons then this works. But if you are planning on grabbing lunch in World Showcase, then it may make sense to visit Figment after Nemo...as it's in the same area.

I feel like I know my schedule backwards and forwards and am pretty good at coming up with contingency plans on the fly. I know things won't go as I have them planned, but I like to have a very specific outline so I don't accidentally overlook something.

Epcot is definitely a dilemma with TT, Soarin, and SE being so spread out and being the 3 rides that build waits early. And Mission Space being the next most urgent. and right there next to TT. I really can't decide what order to do them in to keep form zig-zagging so much. If we do EMH the night before and get to ride Soarin we will probably cut that out of our RD strategy and just do Test Track, MS, and SE. Then all the stuff over on the Soarin' side of the park.

We are going on Thursday too! And changing from the Four Seasons to Pop Century on Sunday too!

I know that when I get to a park, the crowds might be different than I expected, or a line might take longer, so there is no way that I would "schedule" that many rides and plan to do them according to that schedule.....I would say "try adventureland/frontierland" or "try tomorrowland" in a schedule that I have....

When I went in September, we found we either had a lot of extra time than what we expected or a lot less than we expected......it was never that cut and dry....

but see you at MK on Friday!

I would also have a few times of each show that you want to see.....because when we were in AK, we actually hit more shows than we expected and faster because we kept an eye out for the show times when those inevitable "what to do next?" times came about....

Hey cool! If you see a guy at Pop with an Auburn hoodie and an Auburn magic band it's probably me. Thanks! I've got all the show times on my planning sheets! DHS is particularly difficult to figure out. I tried to leave it more open ended than the other parks since you have all the scheduled show times, plus things like Mermaid, Muppets, and AoA that you really have no idea how long it will be to the next session.

Temperature is going to be in the 40's on Friday morning between 8-9am. May want to reconsider Splash. [we are going to be there Thursday morning and have a plan that includes Splash twice -- one of our favorite rides in all parks -- but thinking that's doubtful now]

Splash is my favorite ride in all of WDW. I have never got what I consider to be wet on it. My face and hair might get slightly wet but not my shoes or pants. I don't know if I'm just extremely lucky or other people have a completely different definition of wet than I do. But I always scratch my head where I see people talking about getting socked on Splash. But even if I do get wet, it will be worth it.

 

[kathie859]

Whoo-hooo! We fly out on Thurs morning and should be @ WDW by 1:30. Here's hoping our room is ready--but if not, we're off to EPCOT for awhile.

OP, your schedule looks THOROUGH. Mine is bit more loosey-goosey. It is my 3rd trip using FP+ and for us (this trip just 2 adults) I'm glad we don't have to worry about rope drop.

Have a wonderful trip!

 

[Cando86]

I think it looks great! The order of everything flows well; i.e. you won't be running from one end of the park to the other.

HAVE FUN!!!