Help us plan quick trip in October for 5yo’s birthday

[mercuryvenus]

We’re surprising our 5 year old with a trip in October for her 6th birthday. We’re big Disney people and are DVC members, so she’s already been 3 times and knows the parks well. We’re taking advantage of a little fall break that her school does, so we’ll be arriving on Thursday, October 6th and leaving on Monday, October 10th.

We have MNSSHP tickets for Friday night. We also want to get her to the Peppa Pig park at Legoland, since she loves Peppa. We‘re planning on just doing quick serve for meals, so we can maximize park time and hit all her favorite rides. We’ll definitely utilize Genie+/ILLs extensively. We’re staying at OKW, since we need to save points for a blowout Aulani trip in May 2023.

Anyway, we’d ideally like to hit at least the following:

Magic Kingdom

Mine Train
Splash Mountain
Meet Mickey at Town Square
Princess Fairytale Hall
Winnie the Pooh
Tiki Room

Epcot

Remy
Test Track
Soarin’

AK

Flight of Passage
Expedition Everest

Hollywood Studios

Tower of Terror
Mickey/Minnie Runaway Railway
Rise of the Resistance
Smuggler’s Run
MuppetVision

Those are her favs. Anything else we manage to do is icing on the cake. We’re thinking of doing:

Friday — Peppa park in the morning (it’s very small and I think we can do it in a half-day from when it opens at 9am until maybe 1pm); MK in the afternoon/evening for the party
Saturday — Hollywood Studios
Sunday — AK in the morning; park hop to Epcot

I *think* we can make everything work with that schedule, but I want to gut check it. Thanks!

 

[Selket]

Sounds like a great trip! When my kids were that age they could handle the late night park hours of the parties for the most part - but we had to sleep in on that morning to make it work. Just thinking your Friday getting an early start to do the Peppa Pig park might call for a nap later. My kids would NEVER nap so that strategy didn't work for us.

The rest of the schedule should work as long as the LL bookings go in your favor. Always possible that you end up with an evening boarding time for a park you planned to only be at in the morning on your Sunday.

I've had the good fortune to avoid tropical weather for my short Fall trips but one trip would have been completely impossible had we traveled the next weekend because one of those hurricanes was expected to pass through Orlando. Since this is a surprise trip perhaps you aren't telling her until closer to the date so if that happened she won't be disappointed!

 

[mercuryvenus]

Sounds like a great trip! When my kids were that age they could handle the late night park hours of the parties for the most part - but we had to sleep in on that morning to make it work. Just thinking your Friday getting an early start to do the Peppa Pig park might call for a nap later. My kids would NEVER nap so that strategy didn't work for us.

The rest of the schedule should work as long as the LL bookings go in your favor. Always possible that you end up with an evening boarding time for a park you planned to only be at in the morning on your Sunday.

I've had the good fortune to avoid tropical weather for my short Fall trips but one trip would have been completely impossible had we traveled the next weekend because one of those hurricanes was expected to pass through Orlando. Since this is a surprise trip perhaps you aren't telling her until closer to the date so if that happened she won't be disappointed!

Thanks! Yeah, I’m sensitive to the fact that doing Peppa and the party on the same day will be tough. To be honest, since kids’ interests shift so quickly at her age, we are going to watch her Peppa interest and, if it wanes before October, we’ll just do MK that day.

Fingers crossed for no hurricane! We’re trying to keep it a secret for as long as we can, so hopefully if we do get unlucky with weather, she won’t have known about the trip anyway.

 

[Selket]

Thanks! Yeah, I’m sensitive to the fact that doing Peppa and the party on the same day will be tough. To be honest, since kids’ interests shift so quickly at her age, we are going to watch her Peppa interest and, if it wanes before October, we’ll just do MK that day.

Fingers crossed for no hurricane! We’re trying to keep it a secret for as long as we can, so hopefully if we do get unlucky with weather, she won’t have known about the trip anyway.

Let's hope that she doesn't develop a Harry Potter interest by then - lol!

I might even leave off AK on the last day and do Epcot but she may really have wanted to see AK as you know best on that. Hopefully your park reservations days will stay "green" so you can adjust as needed. Last time we were there in December my son (young adult) was able to move his park reservation that morning to another park. I'm not sure how hard that is to do generally however! Have a great trip!!

 

[mercuryvenus]

Let's hope that she doesn't develop a Harry Potter interest by then - lol!

I might even leave off AK on the last day and do Epcot but she may really have wanted to see AK as you know best on that. Hopefully your park reservations days will stay "green" so you can adjust as needed. Last time we were there in December my son (young adult) was able to move his park reservation that morning to another park. I'm not sure how hard that is to do generally however! Have a great trip!!

Oh gosh, a Harry Potter interest would be much more difficult to accommodate!

For AK, she really loves FoP and Expedition Everest, so we might just pop over there to do those two.

Thanks for your input!!