"Santa" surprised my family of four with a trip to WDW in late January. I have two boys, ages 10 and 13, and we are all so excited. We're staying in Port Orleans French Quarter, and spending one day in each park. We have the Deluxe Dining Plan.
I'm trying to read up on all the great tips I can find, so please give advice for my children's ages if you have any similar experiences.
Woo Hoo!
Lauren
Hope you have a great trip. Because this is your first time you won't be able to see everything you want to at all of the parks, so prioritize your rides. You are going at a relatively slow time of year so crowds shouldn't be too bad, though even in January the parks will be busy from 11AM-5PM or so. Here's my thoughts on what you should do with respect to planning.
1. You should IMMEDIATELY figure out which parks you are going to visit on which days and make meal reservations close to or in those parks. Because you only have one day in each park you don't want to spend a lot of time traveling across Disney -- it can take up to an hour of travel time to get from point A to point B. I've heard a lot of people complain about the fact that they made meal reservations without considering which restaurants they would be close to and have had to spend a LOT of time getting to a meal. You don't want to spend the trip waiting for and on Disney buses. I recommend going to easywdw.com and looking at the best park calendar, picking a park based on those recommendations and then making dinner reservations.
2. You also should IMMEDIATELY make FP+ reservations for each day/park. You get three FP+ each day at each park, and once you've used those 3 you can make additional reservations.
3. As others mentioned, with the deluxe dining plan you get 3 table service meals a day plus 2 snacks. That will be PLENTY of food. I would schedule 1 signature meal each day. A signature meal will "cost" two meal credits, meaning you'll have one more meal credit a day (plus the two snacks). A table service meal at Disney is going to take at least an hour and if you do three a day you'll eat up a ton of park time, which is already somewhat limited. I would generally recommend using snack credits for a breakfast item -- here's a list of items that cost one snack credit and as you'll see there are plenty of breakfast items --
http://thewdwguru.com/disney-world-resorts/disney-dining-snack-credit-list/. Here's a couple of recommendations that you can feel free to take or leave:
a. Magic Kingdom day - lots of people like to book a breakfast (1 meal credit) at Crystal Palace PRIOR TO park opening. You can enter the park for breakfast before the park opens and then once it opens head to the rides. This is a popular place for breakfast so might not be available. Book a dinner at either California Grill at the Contemporary or Narcoosee's at Grand Floridian -- both of these are on the monorail loop that you can catch at the front of Magic Kingdom so won't take long to get to. You would have to pay for lunch or use your snack credits for a lunch. If you can't get breakfast at Crystal Palace then book lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern or The Plaza, both of which are in Magic Kingdom.
b. Animal Kingdom day - use snack credits for breakfast, either at your resort or at the park. Book lunch at either Yak & Yeti or Tusker House (1 credit). I'd probably have dinner at Boma (1 credit), a buffet at Animal Kingdom Lodge that we think it is one of the best restaurants at Disney and is a short bus ride from the park. You could also have dinner at Jiko at Animal Kingdom Lodge as that is a signature restaurant that would cost 2 credits.
c. Epcot day - snack credits for breakfast and book lunch at one of the MANY good restaurants at Epcot. I'd choose either Teppan Edo (a hibachi style restaurant) or Chefs de France (both 1 meal credit) but you should look at the menus to see what your family would like. Book dinner at either the Flying Fish (fish/steaks) on the Boardwalk or Yachtsman (a steak house) at Yacht Club. Both of these are signature restaurants that are a short and enjoyable 5-10 minute walk out the back gate of Epcot. The Boardwalk area is worth seeing on its own and this will give you a chance to see an area of Disney you wouldn't otherwise visit.
d. Hollywood Studios day - snack credits for breakfast again. I'd probably book the Fantasmic dining package at Mama Melrose for lunch, an Italian restaurant that is pretty good. That will also get your reserved seating for the Fantasmic show. For dinner you could book Brown Derby, a signature restaurant at Hollywood Studios. Alternatively, you could book a dinner at Downtown Disney and after your return to your resort take the boat from your resort to Downtown Disney. Fulton's Crab House is a signature seafood restaurant at Downtown Disney that is probably a better choice than Brown Derby and there are a lot of 1 table service options. However, if you want to stay for Fantasmic then you should probably stick with Brown Derby.
You will need to make restaurant reservations. If you try to do walk up meals you'll find a lot of places full or long waits.
I would get online asap and see what fp+ you can snag if that hasn't been done yet. Deluxe Dining yup I agree, book signatures or else you will be sitting down 3 times/day which will eat up about 3 hours of park time, when the park hours are shorter to begin with. We just went with regular and I find that we were able to make it work wonderfully with our plans. We're hoping for awesome weather! Enjoy and have fun!
