OK, so here it goes. I am just going to do a brain dump, since that is probably easier, so here it goes (sorry for being so random):
I would make up a calendar that I could take with me and put any reservations I made and the confirmation numbers on it.
Hollywood Studios:
On the day you go to Hollywood Studios, make sure you go immediately upon arrival to get Fast Passes for Toy Story Mania. The Fast Passes go quickly, if you don’t have one, expect to wait about 1-2 hours in line. It is a great ride for everyone, so you will definitely want to try it. Head straight back to the hat and it is I believe behind the hat and to the right, but I’m not 100% sure of that, just grab a map.
Another fun thing a HS, is the if you go to the Animation Studio by the Little Mermaid, you can either sit through a short movie about how they design characters, or you don’t have to and you can enter through the store that sells Animation Art and there is a drawing class that they have about every ½ hour. A Disney artist teaches you how to draw one of the characters. After the class, you can have them sign your drawing-it’s really cool and you can do it more than once and you will usually get a different character each time (free souvenir). It is a great place that is air conditioned, so you can cool off. In this same building, there are usually the characters from the Incredibles and Bolt to get autographs from. There are also some computer games the kids can play while they are waiting to go into the class.
Make sure you go to the Muppets Move, it is a lot of fun.
The fireworks are called Fantasmic and they are worth seeing, but make sure to get to the area early to get a seat.
Animal Kingdom:
The other Fast Pass that goes quickly is for the Safari ride at Animal Kingdom, so go get one of those pretty soon after you get into the park too.
At Animal Kingdom there are a lot of walking trails where you can see tons of different animals, they are very shaded and should be pleasant on hot days. It’s kind of like an exotic animal zoo.
The “It’s Tough to be a Bug” movie is great here, but can be a little scary because it’s dark, but it’s not that bad. My daughter didn’t like it at all, but it is worth seeing.
Epcot:
The countries (World Showcase) overall are mostly restaurants and shopping, but there are some activities. The kids can get a mask to decorate at 1 country and then at each one after that, they can get a symbol for that country and a stamp that hang from the mask. At some of the countries like Japan or China, they will write their names in that language. In Japan they have where you can pick an oyster and get a pearl, you might like this as a souvenir. You can usually find some characters in the various countries too, like Beauty & the Beast in France and Mushu and Mulan in China.
When you go to Epcot, try to do the Kim Possible game in the World Showcase (this is the part with the different countries), it’s kind of like an electronic scavenger hunt through the countries. If you go to the first kiosk you see, you get a time for when to be in a specific country and you just show up at the kiosk there to get your machine (it looks like a cell phone).
Also in Epcot, make sure you do Turtle Talk with Crush, it’s in the aquarium by the exit from the Finding Nemo ride. Crush from Finding Nemo interacts with the audience.
If you plan to go on Soarin’, get the Fast Pass pretty quickly when you get there in the park.
One good thing to do if you go to Epcot and need to cool down is take some of the rides or watch the movies in the countries, we went on the one in Mexico for the first time this year it’s a boat ride and it had Donald and the 3 Caballeros in it.
A lot of the places in Epcot are inside and are air conditioned, so they will be nice and cool, like the aquarium.
The Journey to Imagination is also a kind of fun ride and will be a good place to cool off, it lets out into one of the Imaginations areas and there are a lot of things to explore inside.
The fireworks show here is called Illuminations, it's very good.
Magic Kingdom:
A good place to eat for counter service credits at Magic Kingdom is Cosmic Rays Café-there are 3 “docks” with different types of food-sandwiches and soup in one, burgers in another and bar-b-que in one. The bar-b-que gives you enough food with 1 serving for 2 people, so you could reasonably split an adult counter service between 2, especially if you get the rib and chicken combo plate-tons of food and really good.
Another good thing is if you see the hot dog carts, the dogs are huge and can be split between 2 kids easily.
Right outside Cosmic Rays on the way to Tomorrowland, if you are going toward the Buzz Lightyear ride, look for Push the talking trashcan-super funny and the kids love him. He actually interacts with the audience-pretty amazing.
If you take the train in the Magic Kingdom back to ToonTown, when you get off, look to the right and sometimes there are some of the more obscure characters out there for signatures. Even if you don’t take the train, walk back by the train station to see the area. This is an evaluation area for new Cast Members who they are trying out and there usually isn’t too long of a line.
ToonTown is a great part of the MK, it’s where Mickey and Minnie’s houses are and Donald’s boat which has water squirting up in different places. The smaller roller coaster-Goofy’s Barnstormer-is back there, it’s one of my daughter's favorite rides and good for even little ones or those who may just want to try a roller coaster.
If your kids want to see the Fairies (Tinkerbell and a couple of others), make sure you get in line early, the wait is usually long because it is new. They are also in ToonTown, in the big shop that looks like a giant circus tent. I would say that 45 minutes is the shortest wait we saw when we were there. If you are doing any of the character meals, you probably don’t want to wait in line for the other characters, that is the beauty of the meals, they come right to your table and you don’t have to wait in line.
Make sure to see “Mickey’s Philarmagic” it’s another movie and the Laugh Floor. These are good places to sit down and relax for a little while, while enjoying a show.
Check out some of the shows, there is a Pirate Tutorial right outside of Pirates of the Caribbean that is really good.
One good place to watch the evening parade is back by Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain Railway, there are some stores that look like old west store with a “porch” that never seem to be too crowded. If you are in the park during the parade time and don’t feel like watching, it is a good time to go on some rides, since the lines are usually shorter.
Typhoon Lagoon (water park):
Take your own beach towel (if you are bringing them) and make sure you get there early to get a good spot on the sand.
Also plan to wear water shoes or flip flops, the parts of the park that are not sandy are very rough on the feet.
Watch out in the wave pool, the wave that comes can plow you right over, I think almost everyone we went with had a scrape of some sort on them by the time we left.
The salt water tank where you can swim with the sharks and other fish is really cool, you just float on the top with a snorkel and if you aren’t a good swimmer, they have life jackets.
The water coaster is also very cool, one of my favorite rides.
Photopass:
This is an option to have the Disney photographers take pictures for you, that way you are all in the pictures and they are usually stationed in key places around the parks, like in front of the castle, or the Epcot ball, but you can find them everywhere. They have tan vests on.
The first picture you get they will give you a card about the size of a business card, just give it to the photographer each time you see one and want a picture taken.
Don’t worry if you forget it at the hotel, they will give you a new one and you can combine them later.
Once you get home you can put fun borders on the pictures and if you want, you can just order the CD and then print the pictures on your own, that is probably the cheapest way to do it.
They will take as many shots as you want, so if you want a picture with just your kid, then one with the whole family, then one with just you and your hubby, they will do it. You might want to preorder it if this is something you are interested in, it's a lot cheaper.
Downtown Disney:
If you go and need something to eat, try Earl of Sandwich, which is a counter service credit. The sandwiches are great and it’s a good deal for the $$ even if you pay out of pocket.
Take time to look at all the showcase windows outside of the
Lego store, they are amazing. There is also a place in the front of the store where the kids can play with Legos and race them.
The design your own shirt and ears store is cool, especially if the kids want their names on the shirt or if they like a character that is not one of the main ones. It’s a good way to get them exactly what they want, even though it’s a little bit more expensive.
Hotel Stuff:
When you check in, your ticket to the parks, the dining plan and to your room will all be the same ticket and it will look like a credit card. It is nice because you don’t really have to carry around very much cash. You can just charge everything back to your room and then before you check out you can decide how you want to pay, either cash, credit card or debit card. There will be 1 for each person and it will have their names on them. I usually held on to everyones and then passed them out before we went into the park and collected them back after we entered.
Take a hanging shoe holder (the kind you put on a hanger or over the door) and put it in the bathroom area for hold all the stuff that collects around the sink, it’s a good way to keep things uncluttered. You can usually find these at the Dollar Store or the $1 section at Target.
Also, we found that taking a collapsible hamper was helpful, we used it for our shoes, but you could also use one for dirty clothes, if you wanted. You can also usually find these at the Dollar Store or the $1 section at Target.
If you want to have some food or a case of water delivered to your hotel either while you are there or to have it waiting when you arrive, we used gardengrocer.com. It was much less expensive to buy a case of water from them than to keep buying bottles of it at the parks. I would stick a few bottles in the freezer the night before and let them thaw out while we were at the park, so they were still pretty cold when we were ready to drink them. I also got some fruit, and snacks delivered, which was nice to have in our room for when we would get back there and our daughter would need something little to eat or for first thing in the morning when she would wake up starving and we had breakfast reservations that were later.
I would recommend getting the refillable cups, I think they are $12.99 each and you can refill them at the hotel as much as you want during your stay. They also make nice souvenirs. You can share them, so you may not need one for each person. If you are going to get them, do so as soon as you get there, so you can start getting your money’s worth right away.
Pin Trading
This is a fun thing to do, it’s where the kids trade pins with the Cast Members. Each Cast Member will have a lanyard on with various pins on them.
If you order pins on e-Bay, it is a cheap way to get souvenirs and something different to do too. Be careful who you order from on e-Bay, I have included a couple of sellers that I have bought them from before and they were good (52jcmdisneypins and mubunny).
When you get there, get the kids each their own lanyard and maybe give them 5 pins or so each day to trade. They just go up to the Cast Members and ask them. They have to trade with you, and you can trade up to 2 per Cast Member. There are Cast Members that have certain color lanyards (I think they are green) and they can only trade with kids.
FastPasses
These are passes you can get for some of the more popular rides (the rides that have them are indicated on the maps).
You will be able to see the FP return time on a display board, so you need to decide if that is a good time for you to come back and ride the ride. You can also see the current wait time for the ride, if it is less than 30 minutes, you are probably better off just standing in line. We have found that the wait times are usually showing as longer than you actually have to wait.
The way the FP works is that you go to the ride and there is a line to get your FastPass. You put your ticket in the FP machine and it will spit out a ticket with the return time, but you will need to put each person’s ticket in and get them a FP. You can only have 1 FP per person at a time and it will say on the FP ticket what time you will have another one available at.
When it is your FP time to ride, you go back to the attraction and get in the FP line, this is a much faster line and basically puts you to the front of the ride queue. They will collect your FP ticket. Even if your time has passed, they will usually let you still go into the line.
General:
If you want to figure out the times for different shows, go to this website before you leave.
http://pages.prodigy.net/stevesoares/ It is updated weekly with the show times at each park.
When you buy anything at the parks or Downtown Disney, you can have it sent back to your hotel, so that you don’t have to carry it around with you. It takes a day to get back there, but if it’s nothing you need right away, definitely use this option. This is available up to 2 days before you are scheduled to leave, the people who work at the stores can tell you when the cutoff is for you based on when you are leaving. You can also have stuff sent to the front of the park for you to pick up on your way out, this can get a little crowded if you are leaving the same time as everyone else.
Before you go, go to CVS or another drug store and get tubes of mini M&Ms. After the kids eat the M&Ms, save the tube. If you plan to do the pressed pennies, take a bunch of quarters and pennies with you. You can then layer in the tube with 2 quarters and 1 penny, so you are always supplied when you see the machines and don’t have to dig around in your pockets.
If you are celebrating birthdays, go to guest services at one of the parks and ask for a pin. Make sure the kids wear them and the Cast Members will say hi to them and sometimes they can go to the front of the lines. This is another free souvenir.
If you haven’t already checked it out, go to disboards.com and there is a ton of info about DW, including info about the hotels, restaurants, tips, etc.
For the menus of restaurants, even the counter service, go to allearsnet.com, it will help you plan where you might want to eat.
At the front desk they will have park maps, pick them up for each park when you check in, it will help you plan your route based on the things you want to do, that way you are not wandering all over the place. They also have them at the parks, so they aren’t hard to find. You will want to get a schedule of events for each park too, that will show the times for the parades and the fireworks and any other show or character stuff they have going on.
Most of all, have fun and enjoy your time together as a family. Although this seems like a lot, be flexible where you can.
or the entertainment. I know this. We are not planning on doing any ADR's as we have the quick service plan. I was really really torn between table service and quick service but I figured this way we would be able to eat and go rather than spend time at sit down meals. 
We are not doing character meals (as of right now). 
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