ktlm said:We love both DL and WDW. I do see a few potential issues with your plan, which may be based on a DL mentality.There are a lot of days that you plan to hop from one park to another. You may want to rethink that. Hopping is nothing like DL/CA where you can be out of one park and into the other in 5 minutes. Getting between parks at WDW can wind up taking an hour or more which can really eat up valuable in park time. It is best to stay in one park for the day when you can instead of hopping, although a hop here and there can be good. For example, AK closes early so we almost always hop somewhere else that day, or we plan a 1900 Park Fare dinner that day (that place can take up a big chunk of time -sometimes you can have quite a wait past your ADR time for a table. It is definitely fun though). Also 1/2 a day at Epcot isn't going to cut it. It is a 2 full day park for us. I would say you need at least 1 full day there. For example to walk from one end of World Showcase to the other end is approximately 1.2 miles, and that is just half the park! I will also say that when we go to DL, the one thing my DD (6) always complains that she misses is Epcot. If your girls are Phineas and Ferb fans they can spend the good part of an entire day doing Agent Perry missions in World Showcase. Epcot is one place that just feels entirely different from DL/CA (well except for Soarin!) You may find yourselves really wanting to explore what that park has to offer. Our park schedule is usually 2 days MK, 2 days Epcot, 1 day DHS (sometimes hop to MK or Epcot for the evening), 1 short day AK (sometimes hop to MK or Epcot for the evening. . We usually wind up spending parts of arrival and departure days at MK or Epcot too.
Being DL people, I wouldn't waste my time with dinner at Chef Mickeys- it's no Goofy's Kitchen or Minnie's breakfast. The food is not nearly as good as Goofy's Kitchen, it can be dirty in there, and you won't see nearly as many characters or the variety of characters you see at Goofy's or Minnies. Being used to the great character meals at DL/CA, I think you will be really disappointed. We think Goofy's and Minnies are better than any of the character meals at WDW. It doesn't look like you have any meals planned at Epcot. In our opinion, World Showcase at Epcot has a ton of great places to eat. Too many places to eat at Epcot, too little time in our opinion. You can get on allears.net in the dining section and it lists all the restaurants with menus and prices. We are big Biergarten fans, the food is good and the band and dance floor are fun. There are a bunch of great options around World Showcase.
Yes after years of DL it is very hard to wrap my brain around how much bigger WDW is, I have been years ago (when they were building AK).
After talking to DH this morning we are nixing Chef Mickey and planning something at Epcot, we will look at allears.net...thank you so much for taking the time to help us out!!! Biergarten sounds fun, my girls love live music...thanks again!!
