First trip! October plans. Thoughts? Advice?

[indycindy]

Hi, I've been planning for the last couple of weeks. I have finally decided on a resort and have made my ADRs. I was wondering if you could please look over my plans and let me know if you see any major ( or minor) laws.....

Day 1:arrive in Orlando airport at 5:20
Check in at Coronado Springs
Dinner at 7:30pm Maya Grill
Go to bed right after dinner

Day 2: MK Day
Breakfast Chef Mickey's 7:00am
Lunch at Be Our Guest 1:00pm
Return to resort for rest and swim after lunch (2:30pm??)
Dinner Artist Point 7:05pm (but I will change this to California Grill at
a good time to see Wishes from there (8:00pm ish) if I can get an ADR
after they star taking those again, in which case, I would push back our
Be Our Guest lunch to 2:00)

Day 3 AK Day
Breakfast Boma 7:30am
Return to resort to rest and change at 3:00pm
Dinner Jiko 5:30pm
Early to bed!

Day 4 Epcot Day
Breakfast Akershus 8:10 am
Lunch Coral Reef 1:30pm
Return to resort to rest and swim after lunch
Dinner at Le Chefs de France 7:00pm
IllumiNaions at 9:00pm

Day 5 Magic Kingdom Day
1900 Park Fare 8:10am
Cinderella's Royal Table 2:00pm
Return to resort to rest after lunch
Head back to MK for MNSSHP at 6:00pm
No dinner reservations
HalloWishes 9:00pm

Day 6 Hollywood Studios Day
Cape May Cafe 7:30am
Return to resort to rest at 1:00pm
Sci Fi Drive-in 5:40pm
Fantastic 7:30pm

Day 7 Epcot
Captain's Grill 7:30am
Return to resort to rest & swim 2:00pm
Narcoosee's 7:50pm
Hopefully get a window table to watch HalloWishes with our dessert

Day 8 Magic Kingdom
The Wave 7:30am
Crystal Palace 2:35 pm
Flight hope departs at 7:40pm

We bought the deluxe dining plan, so with four of us, we will have a gazillion snack credits to get us through the days that we only have 2 meals planned (we only have 3 meals planned on two of the days). We also have one leftover meal credit. I'm not sure how we should use that. I was thinking we could just get a counter service meal at MNSSHP so as not to waste too much of that time sitting in a restaurant. Or, do you think we would be better off making ADR at a MK restaurant?

If you have the time and the inclination to scrutinize someone else's trip plans, I would truly appreciate it if you could let me know if you see any major (or minor) flaws in my plans. I am going to try to follow touring plans from touringplans.com for our mornings at the parks.

I REALLY TRULY appreciate any and all thoughts and suggestions as this will probably be my family's one and only BIG Disney trip. This is a BIG splurge for us, so I want to be sure I make it worth it

 

[lesabrowning]

What are the ages in your party? Will you have a rental car or Disney transportation? (How will you be getting to and from airport as well as between parks?)

 

[Pakey]

Like PP, I question the transportation aspect as you are going to eat up a lot of time using Disney transportation with this plan. If you have your own car, it's fine.

Also I would never start my MNSSHP day with an early breakfast ADR. That is going to be one long day.

 

[Donna in NJ]

We stayed at Coronado Springs last October the resort is wonderful. The pool is fabulous. They have a fun marshmallow roast at the pool late every afternoon, last year I think it was around 5.The only tip I have is the Food and Wine festival will be going on when you are there. If it were me I would plan to use some snack credits to sample the food booths. Last year we replaced one lunch with using snack credits to eat at the food and wine festival. They had a great variety and it was a lot of fun to try things we would normally not order.

 

[lauradis]

Day 5 I would change to resort day of relaxing by the pool. Halloween party is craziness and very long for smaller kis

Does your family always get up around 530 to 6am ?

Don't feel like you have to eat everything on your plate!

What dates are you going?

Day 6 I would ditch early breakfast

It takes good hour from your room to adrs for transportation on the buses with kids intow

Last but not least if going with spouse did you show them and do they understand it? Lol

 

[indycindy]

Lauradis.....DH doesn't want ANY part of the planning. He actually won't even order food at restaurants. He HATES making decisions. I do all of the planning. At EVERY restaurant we go to, I always order for us both.....that's how he likes it. If I showed him this plan, he would probably break out in hives.

Lesabrowning & Pakey, my girls will be 7 & (almost) 10. We are going Oct 11-18. I am a bit concerned about the early morning breakfasts and the travel time, but EVERYTHING I read says that you want to start early and take a break in the afternoon. We usually get up early every day. DH has to be at work between 3:00am-4:00am most days (he works for UPS part time in the morning, and then has his own business that he works the rest of the day after he gets off from UPS usually around 9:00-10:00 am). I am a teacher, so I have to be at work by 7:30am, and I have to take the girls to their school on the way. So, we ARE early risers......but we also go to bed pretty early 8:00pm-9:00pm.

I am going to look into the cost of renting a car right now. Do you think that it's not feasible to get to these restaurants so early in the morning? Most of the tourning plans I have run have us DONE by 1:00pm(ish) if we start right at park opening. Breakfast is pretty much our favorite meal. We HAVE to have a big breakfast.....eating granola bars or cereal in the resort room won't work for us. DH and I both need about 45 minutes with food and a cup of coffee to get us ready for the day and my (currently) 6-year-old eats probably 65% of her calories for the day at breakfast. SO......I thought, big breakfasts, snacks during the day, and nice, relaxing dinners.

I REALLY DO want advice. Thanks so much for taking the time to consider my plan and for giving me your thoughts.

Donna, it took me a LOOOOONG time to settle on a resort. I am VERY excited about Coronado! Good to know about the marshmallow roast.....my girls will love that!

 

[indycindy]

and ps.....yes, we had PLANNED on doing Disney transportation to and from the airport as well as around the parks.....

 

[Donna in NJ]

You should have no problem from Coronado Springs taking Disney transportation. We went the first week of Oct last year and made an early morning ADR every day. To get to Cape May in time for your ADR you get on the Hollywood Studio bus and tell the driver you have a ADR at the board walk. They will drop you off at the Boardwalk right after the HS drop. When you get to the resort they can tell you about what time to expect the early morning buses to start arriving. After breakfast there is a boat from the board walk to HS. For your Captain Grill ADR you would also take the HS bus. My husband and I think on of the best parts on staying at a Disney resort is not having to drive or find parking.

 

[indycindy]

Donna, did you have reservations as early at 7:00am and 7:30am? That is the ONLY thing I'm worried about.

 

[Donna in NJ]

I can't find last years itinerary but we ate at Captain's Grill and the Grand Floridian Cafe on our water Park days. Both days we took our time eating and took a bus to the Water Park. The water parks opened at 10 am we were shocked we got to both around 9:30. The ADR could not have been any later then 7:30. For Grand Floridian we took a bus to Magic Kingdom and the the monorail to GF and still had plenty of time. On our Magic Kingdom day we had a pre rope drop breakfast Crystal Palace at 7:30. If you keep the early ADR I would advise been at the bust stop as soon as the early morning buses start running.

 

[indycindy]

Well, that is the thing, I worry that the 7:00am might be too early since the busses supposedly start running 2 hours before the parks open. So, that would mean that the busses START at 7:00am. Maybe I will call Coronado Springs and ask if I will be able to make those ADR using their transportation.

 

[Pakey]

Disney transportation is convenient but it is time consuming. Because you booked an early breakfast every day using Disney transportation, you will be getting up by 5:30 every day. I've done MNSSHP 4 years in a row and there is no way anybody in my family would be getting up at 5:30 the morning after going to that party. We don't hit the parks early on the day of MNSSHP and we don't get up early the next morning either.

You say you go to bed early but you have a few later dinners and with transfers needed for transportation (no resort to resort buses) you can plan on 90 minutes to get back to your hotel after these dinners at Artist Point, Narcoosees and Jiko. And since these are signature restaurants and you are on Deluxe Dining, you need to plan on 90 minutes for the meal itself. So you won't be getting to bed at 8 or even 9 on these nights.

Also, I didn't realize you were going during F&W until PP mentioned it. I would definitely build in some flexibility to use those snack credits at the booths there. I would ditch Coral Reef since it's the slowest restaurant at WDW and mediocre food and use snack credits at F&W. Also, I don't know what day of the week this falls on but you do not want to be at Epcot on Saturday during F&W if you can help it.

The most important thing is not to stress. After 25 WDW vacations, I've learned that the best thing is to build in some breathing room and just enjoy being there without worrying about rushing from meal to meal.

One more idea: Since you have a leftover meal credit, I would change Chefs de France to Monsieur Paul which is upstairs and a 2 credit meal. It's much better food than Chefs and it would use up your extra credit.

 

[indycindy]

Pakey, I have never even heard of Monsieur Paul. I will change that reservation and I will cancel Coral Reef. I wanted to eat there because of the novelty of the tanks. But if it takes forever, then I don't want to.

See, I thought that since we were going to be coming back to the resort and resting for 2-3 hours each evening, that we would be able to stay up later at night. Maybe this is flawed thinking and I need to re-evaluate.

We are NOT going to Epcot on a Saturday, and I am excited about using some of the snack credits at F&W.

I talked to a CM at Coronado Springs and he told me that the consierge can arrange for early-morning transportation to character breakfasts and they I just need to check with him/her the night before to find out where and when to meet that bus.

The problem with the Signature restaurants is that many don't open until after 7pm.

Maybe I need to revamp my schedule to NOT return most days to the resort until AFTER dinner. The problem is that I wanted to see IllumiNations once, Wishes once, Fantasmic once, and HalloWishes once.....that makes for late nights!

Hmmmmmm, lots to think about.....

 

[rainynight]

Lauradis.....DH doesn't want ANY part of the planning. He actually won't even order food at restaurants. He HATES making decisions. I do all of the planning. At EVERY restaurant we go to, I always order for us both.....that's how he likes it. If I showed him this plan, he would probably break out in hives.

Lesabrowning & Pakey, my girls will be 7 & (almost) 10. We are going Oct 11-18. I am a bit concerned about the early morning breakfasts and the travel time, but EVERYTHING I read says that you want to start early and take a break in the afternoon. We usually get up early every day. DH has to be at work between 3:00am-4:00am most days (he works for UPS part time in the morning, and then has his own business that he works the rest of the day after he gets off from UPS usually around 9:00-10:00 am). I am a teacher, so I have to be at work by 7:30am, and I have to take the girls to their school on the way. So, we ARE early risers......but we also go to bed pretty early 8:00pm-9:00pm.

I am going to look into the cost of renting a car right now. Do you think that it's not feasible to get to these restaurants so early in the morning? Most of the tourning plans I have run have us DONE by 1:00pm(ish) if we start right at park opening. Breakfast is pretty much our favorite meal. We HAVE to have a big breakfast.....eating granola bars or cereal in the resort room won't work for us. DH and I both need about 45 minutes with food and a cup of coffee to get us ready for the day and my (currently) 6-year-old eats probably 65% of her calories for the day at breakfast. SO......I thought, big breakfasts, snacks during the day, and nice, relaxing dinners.

I REALLY DO want advice. Thanks so much for taking the time to consider my plan and for giving me your thoughts.

Donna, it took me a LOOOOONG time to settle on a resort. I am VERY excited about Coronado! Good to know about the marshmallow roast.....my girls will love that!

We are early risers too and found that early character breakfasts are a great way to start the day. Otherwise we are up pacing around the room waiting for the parks to open. So if you're up anyways then I say go for it

I wouldn't plan too much at night however and then plan on an early morning. My biggest advice is to not underestimate how exhausting Disney World is, especially if you go during a hot time with children. Our son never sleeps. Seriously I took him to multiple doctors as a newborn asking what was wrong with him. Now at 4 if he sleeps 7 hours a day that's considered amazing for him. Last September he crashed midway through the trip in the early afternoon (2ish I think?) And daddy carried him out the park and DS slept through the bus back to the resort and we laid him down in bed and he slept until midnight. Even as a baby he never slept that long in his life! And we are in no way the commando types and left the parks around 4pm every day for an early dinner and relaxing/pool time. The little guy was wore out. It got the best of my hubbie and I as well. So I would personally plan early breakfast and dinners and use snacks during the day as needed so you're not tied to later reservations or plans in case the kids are tired and just want to rest.

Hope you have a great time!

 

[jhryb]

My biggest concern is that your girls are going to be frustrated spending so much time in restaurants and not enough time in the parks. A TS restaurant can easily take 1.5 to 2 hours. When you have 3 TS's on the same day you may be spending a minimum of 4.5 hours of the day in restaurants.
I usually suggest the regular Dining plan for first time visitors so they can quickly have lunch at a Counter service location while still getting the best value out of the dining plan.