Nursedaddy
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2013
- Messages
- 16
Hey all! We're gearing up for our first time Disney trip! Our family includes myself, my lovely wife and our three children. We have ten year old twins, brother and sister and their little sister will be six when we go. We're going over August 26 and returning on September 6. Lots of planning in the initial stages and now I'm looking to fine tune things. It's board what's been a great great source of info and I welcome any other feedback or tips I can get!
So the first little setback was realizing that our dates make us miss out in the free dining
. We made the somewhat tactical error of booking our flights early which got us a good price (flying out of Toronto) but to change them so we could get the free dining would only save us about two hundred dollars. Plus we'd have to scramble to change our respective vacations at work whine would be a big hassle so we have to suck it up and pay for the dining plan.... Sigh....
We're booked at the Art of Animation in a Nemo suite. Looking at all the beautiful images of the resort has us all really excited! It looks awesome and we can't wait to get there and explore.
That brings us back to the plan for the trip. Initially we were planning to get the ten day water parks and more hopper option so we could basically do whatever we wanted. Looking back at it now we're thinking we could probably take a couple days off it and do water parks instead of theme parks on the off days. Crunching the numbers dropping to an eight day hopper vs ten saves us about two hundred dollars and would force us to relax a bit for a couple days lol. I'm all for hitting the parks every day but I've heard rumblings from the wife about "relaxing on vacation" so this is probably the better plan lol.
So what are we going to eat? Since we're getting the dining plan and its our first time we wanted to do lots and lots of character meals! This is the ADRs I've booked so far:
Tues 27: Be Our Guest 8:30 pm
Weds 28: Corsl Reef 7:00 pm
Thurs 29: Boma 7:00 pm
Fri 30: Cinderellas royal table 6:55 pm
Sat 31: Crystal Palace 6:30 pm
Sun 1: T-Rex 6:00 pm
Mon 2: Akershus 6:55 pm
Tues 3: Chef Mickeys 7:00 pm
Wed 4: San Angel Inn 7:00 pm
Thurs 5: O'Hanas 9:00 am
So they're pretty much all dinners except of O'Hanas on our last day. I was kind of doing that to get value but now we've been thinking we might want to do a couple breakfasts. Our plan for breakfast was to do porridge or cereal in the room on our way out in the mornings. I plan on getting groceries delivered using Garden Grocer. My only concern is that if we're gonna do breakfasts I'd like to do them early to make it out before rope drop which will make for a very early morning and possibly grumpy children... and me lol. The other thing I was considering was our reservation times, namely working on moving them back a bit. We're thinking a lot of afternoons we'll be going back to the resort to relax and later dining times would make it easier. Any feedback or thoughts on these plans would be great, especially for anyone who has been with kids.
So park wise I planned on doing the four parks in the first four days using touring guides. With fast pass+ looming I'll have to alter them somewhat but that's fine and that will make it a bit easier to plan if its up and running when we go. Hopefully crowds won't be too bad this time of year since the US kids are back at school. I figured on taking a break from the parks over the weekend and sticking with the water parks and Downtown Disney. The last week will be for catching anything we've missed or what everyone wants to go back to. We've never been so I don't really want to over think or over plan since I don't know what's going to grab everyone.
Wow that's a big wall of text lol! Any comments or thoughts are really appreciated! I'll pretty it up with some pictures once I get home and can pull them off the computer. Thanks in advance for all your help,
So the first little setback was realizing that our dates make us miss out in the free dining
. We made the somewhat tactical error of booking our flights early which got us a good price (flying out of Toronto) but to change them so we could get the free dining would only save us about two hundred dollars. Plus we'd have to scramble to change our respective vacations at work whine would be a big hassle so we have to suck it up and pay for the dining plan.... Sigh.... We're booked at the Art of Animation in a Nemo suite. Looking at all the beautiful images of the resort has us all really excited! It looks awesome and we can't wait to get there and explore.
That brings us back to the plan for the trip. Initially we were planning to get the ten day water parks and more hopper option so we could basically do whatever we wanted. Looking back at it now we're thinking we could probably take a couple days off it and do water parks instead of theme parks on the off days. Crunching the numbers dropping to an eight day hopper vs ten saves us about two hundred dollars and would force us to relax a bit for a couple days lol. I'm all for hitting the parks every day but I've heard rumblings from the wife about "relaxing on vacation" so this is probably the better plan lol.
So what are we going to eat? Since we're getting the dining plan and its our first time we wanted to do lots and lots of character meals! This is the ADRs I've booked so far:
Tues 27: Be Our Guest 8:30 pm
Weds 28: Corsl Reef 7:00 pm
Thurs 29: Boma 7:00 pm
Fri 30: Cinderellas royal table 6:55 pm
Sat 31: Crystal Palace 6:30 pm
Sun 1: T-Rex 6:00 pm
Mon 2: Akershus 6:55 pm
Tues 3: Chef Mickeys 7:00 pm
Wed 4: San Angel Inn 7:00 pm
Thurs 5: O'Hanas 9:00 am
So they're pretty much all dinners except of O'Hanas on our last day. I was kind of doing that to get value but now we've been thinking we might want to do a couple breakfasts. Our plan for breakfast was to do porridge or cereal in the room on our way out in the mornings. I plan on getting groceries delivered using Garden Grocer. My only concern is that if we're gonna do breakfasts I'd like to do them early to make it out before rope drop which will make for a very early morning and possibly grumpy children... and me lol. The other thing I was considering was our reservation times, namely working on moving them back a bit. We're thinking a lot of afternoons we'll be going back to the resort to relax and later dining times would make it easier. Any feedback or thoughts on these plans would be great, especially for anyone who has been with kids.
So park wise I planned on doing the four parks in the first four days using touring guides. With fast pass+ looming I'll have to alter them somewhat but that's fine and that will make it a bit easier to plan if its up and running when we go. Hopefully crowds won't be too bad this time of year since the US kids are back at school. I figured on taking a break from the parks over the weekend and sticking with the water parks and Downtown Disney. The last week will be for catching anything we've missed or what everyone wants to go back to. We've never been so I don't really want to over think or over plan since I don't know what's going to grab everyone.
Wow that's a big wall of text lol! Any comments or thoughts are really appreciated! I'll pretty it up with some pictures once I get home and can pull them off the computer. Thanks in advance for all your help,
