First trip advice please

naturegirl

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jun 8, 2010
Messages
33
This will be our first trip to WDW and FW. We will be staying at FW in our TT for 6 nights. We basically will have 5 full days to spend doing whatever we want. My current plan is to visit 4 parks and have 1 day to relax at FW and explore. I don't want to push it and do so much that we're exhausted on our vacation.

So, what do you think, is 4 parks in 5 days too many? Keep in mind that this is our first trip and we'll be going with a 2 year old and a 4 years old.
 
We used to do that. It was okay but pretty exhausting. If I had any recommendation, it would be to do 2 days at parks, take a day off at the fort, and then do 2 more days at parks.
 
First trip, we'd probably push it also. We hate to go home thinking we missed anything. I'd save the last day for some R&R before heading home.
 
Magic Kingdom and Epcot will take 1 1/2 days each to see everything. AK and HS will take one day each. That is if its well planed. Best advise is when you get into each park, grab a map take 5 min. to plan your route and stick to it! Also take advantage of fast passes as much as u can.
 

We did the same thing on our trip to Fort Wilderness that you are - 5 days and all four parks. We found that The Fort was not as fun as it could have been because we spent all day everyday at the parks and left little time to enjoy the daytime Fort Activities. For me, Magic Kingdom and Epcot are 1 day each and Hollywood Studios and Animal Kindgom are 3/4 of a day each. Perhaps you could squeeze Animal Kingdom in one morning and early afternoon and then spend an evening with Extra Magic hours at Hollywood Studios. That will give you an extra day at The Fort.
 
We just got back from 10 days at the Fort and didn't spend nearly as much time there as we thought we would. Our boys are 3 and 6 and want to spend as much time at the parks as possible, and this was our third trip in a year. We always get up early so that we're at the park when it's open, then come back for a nap and swim between 1:00 and 2:00, then back out to the parks after eating dinner at the RV. They're able to stay up late until park closing/fireworks after having their nap. We don't take down days at the Fort, only down afternoons or mornings.

We find that Early Magic Hours at the parks are better than late ones, because the kids usually can't stay out that late anyway, plus it's a lot less busy in the mornings. We're usually leaving the parks when they're starting to get busy just after lunch. We like going to Epcot in the evenings. It's usually not too busy, and the only problem is that the Fastpasses for Soarin' are usually gone by the time we get there and we won't stand in line for an hour.

We found that Hollywood Studios was our least favorite because they don't have as much for younger kids. You can pretty much do it in 3/4 of a day. We never go back there in the evening because it's so busy that we can't get on most of the things we want (Toy Story Mania) and it closes earlier than Epcot and MK. Animal Kingdom is the other park that we go to first thing in the morning because it closes first. You can do most of it in 3/4 of a day as well.

You'll probably want to spend more time (1 1/2-2 days) at Magic Kingdom. There are so many rides there for younger kids and it's our favorite. Again, go first thing in the morning as soon as it opens and head straight to the rides you really want to go on (ie. Dumbo, Peter Pan) because they just get busier and busier as the day goes on.

I highly recommend the book The Unofficial Guide to Disney and read it before you go. It has a lot of great info in it about which rides are the busiest, which order you should do them in, etc. We don't follow their touring plans because we only go to Disney when it's not that busy but I can see that it would be really helpful if you went during the busy season. I would plan which rides you want to go on and in which order before you get to the park. It will save you a lot of time.

Also, don't forget to use Fastpasses and rider switch if there's something your older child wants to go on that your younger one isn't tall enough for. My oldest son loves being able to go on rides twice in a row without having to wait. It's awesome. And another tip we found out on our last trip. If the Fastpass tells you the return time is between 11:00 and 12:00, you can return anytime after 11:00 until the park closes. We never had a castmember turn us away when we did this and it was so nice to return when it fit into our schedule.
 
You've gotten some good advice.

Another thing to consider is whether you'll spend the extra money on a park hopper. If the park you pick for the morning isn't one you would want to go back to after you're mid afternoon break- you can't go to a different park that evening unless you have a park hopper. It adds about 50.00 to the cost of each ticket.

If you chose not to go back to a park you had visited that morning, that could give you some down time to visit the fort or some other resorts. Personally, we just love having a hopper and wouldn't consider going without one. After resting at the camper, swimming, napping or whatever - heading back to a different park for the evening is like a whole new day. But my kids are almost grown!
 
Kim has a very good point that I forgot to mention. The way we do the parks, we have to have a Parkhopper because we never go back to the same park in the evenings. It's very doable without the Parkhopper though, you just have to plan a bit more. :)

Just remember that you won't have time to do everything on this trip. Pick out the most important shows/rides you want to do and be flexible. We found that a lot of the shows we wanted to see at AK and DHS were in the afternoons after we'd already left. We had to wait until our second/third trips to Disney to finally be able to see them all.
 
On our last trip we did not get the park hopper. Although it worked out ok, it would have been nice to have it for the days we did AK & HS. We could have gone back to Epcot to explore as we only spent about 3 hours there on our arrival day.

Although with ones so young.....
 
On our last trip we did not get the park hopper. Although it worked out ok, it would have been nice to have it for the days we did AK & HS. We could have gone back to Epcot to explore as we only spent about 3 hours there on our arrival day.

Although with ones so young.....

Well hello there rebelstand. I believe you have already helped me out once on another forum. I go by WineStream over there. BTW - I got my maps in the mail last week and they're great. Thanks so much for that tip. :thumbsup2
 
I'm rethinking my plan based on the advice I've received. I didn't plan on getting a park hopper because the youngest is good to go from about 8am until 2 or 3pm. I really don't see him dealing well with an evening outing.

I think it might be smart for us to do MK on our first full day.
Day 2 we do AK.
Day 3 we take a break and hang out at FW.
Day 4 we do Epcot.
Day 5 we go back to whichever park the kids want to revisit or we do HS.

We haven't even told the kids we're going and they don't know anything about the parks so skipping one will be no problem at all.
 
Well hello there rebelstand. I believe you have already helped me out once on another forum. I go by WineStream over there. BTW - I got my maps in the mail last week and they're great. Thanks so much for that tip. :thumbsup2

Well hello there! How's is the planning going? I am working on our route to get to Disney, after some help from members here.

I am glad you like the maps. Did you go with the characters on the maps? I am working on getting ours done. Lucky for you, yours are younger!!
Nicki
 
Well hello there! How's is the planning going? I am working on our route to get to Disney, after some help from members here.

I am glad you like the maps. Did you go with the characters on the maps? I am working on getting ours done. Lucky for you, yours are younger!!
Nicki

Well, now that the camping season is over I'm actually starting to think about Disney. We were just looking at the route tonight and deciding where to un-winterize the airstream. It's going to be a first for us to do a major trip in the winter.

I went with the character maps. My 4 year old saw them when I opened them up. He was pretty excited to see Mickey Mouse on one map and wanted to play with them. I quickly hid them and he has forgotten about them.

I'm sure it is much easier to plan when the kids are young. They don't even know that WDW exists let alone which things they want to see and do. It's going to blow their little minds. I'm so excited to see that!
 
I think your plan sounds pretty good. With little ones, I think if you're going to skip a park, then HS is your best bet. It's the least favorite of the four with my boys.

I think you should definitely try to make it to the fireworks one or two nights, either at MK or Epcot. They're not too terribly late on most nights (I don't know when you're going though). I'm always surprised at my kids when we're at Disney. If they get a nap for a few hours each day they can easily stay up until the fireworks. They even made it until midnight for MNSSHP and we had really planned on leaving around 10:00 and they didn't want to. They can always sleep on the way home! ;)
 
Well, now that the camping season is over I'm actually starting to think about Disney. We were just looking at the route tonight and deciding where to un-winterize the airstream. It's going to be a first for us to do a major trip in the winter.

I went with the character maps. My 4 year old saw them when I opened them up. He was pretty excited to see Mickey Mouse on one map and wanted to play with them. I quickly hid them and he has forgotten about them.

I'm sure it is much easier to plan when the kids are young. They don't even know that WDW exists let alone which things they want to see and do. It's going to blow their little minds. I'm so excited to see that!

We are going to be un-winterizing twice before the new year. Thanksgiving & Christmas... for first year owners we may have lost our minds!! As for the planning the route, I have a 145lb dog to think about...

If my kids were younger I would have done the character maps too. My kid's minds were blown away even at 6 & 7. It was the most wonderful thing to watch their reactions. As far as what to do, we are juggling favorites with new activities. The plan is for my husband to be working through part of the trip..so we have to juggle that as well (although, he is thinking about just taking the time off).
 















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