Help us schedule our trip!

[Mintycake]

Family of 3 for our birthday trip (me turning 50, DH turning 52 and DD turning 14) arriving late January 2024- we plan to fly in on Jan 19 and are staying at Drury in Disney Springs. We have 8 day non park hopper tickets. So it's my understanding that we will have to still make reservations as these are non date tickets.

We plan to stay in Orlando for 2 weeks. Since we arrive on a Friday, we thought we'd spend the weekend unwinding and going to Disney springs, and hit the parks fresh on Monday. So if you had 8 days, how would you allocate them for lowest crowds? We haven't been to WDW since 2016 so I know a lot has changed. My family may grumble about it but I feel like we should rope drop the parks. Planning also to get Genie + and lightning lane when necessary.

Also recommendations on where to eat! Happy to do quick service meals (breakfast is included at the hotel) and my daughter has completely grown out of character meals (sad). Teen is a bit picky but happy with fries, chicken nuggies, pizza, pasta. Hubby and I are more adventurous. I can't base anything on our last trip as I'm guessing restaurants have changed a lot.

Thanks in advance!

 

[disneydreamer1980]

We always do 2 week trips, every year. My 5 kids (ages little to college age) all love Sci Fi restaurant in DHS (and it’s relatively cheap for Disney standards). I know you said your teens outgrown character meals but if you plan to meet characters in the parks at all the meal saves time waiting in line. We like garden grill in Epcot the best. For quick service we like Flametree bbq at AK and Columbia Harbor house at MK. If youre rope dropping a lot it’s nice to do an off day in between park days, which is doable with 14 days. Id split 8 park days as 2 at Epcot, 2 at DHS, 1 at AK and 3 at MK but that’s just me. There are plenty of crowd calendars online but I pretty much just plan my park days around the ADRs I’m able to get for hard to get places. There are a lot of changes from 2016 so I’d keep doing what you’re doing and read up on here about them. Have fun!

 

[miked1978]

I use to be a rope drop guy but now i don't care and rarely do. I'd maybe rope drop once at each park and then sleep in the other 4 days with the expectation that you will close the park down for days you dont rope drop.

As far as dining a lot has changed since 2016 IMO and not for the best as far as table service goes so i can't really help you there. Maybe we are just eating at the wrong places, i dont know. I'm leaning more towards eating a lot more snacks in the park. But it is nice to have a long sit down meal when you're on your feet all day.