Help with trip planning

[michellelars]

I need advice on planning our upcoming trip. We are celebrating my sons 6th birthday! It will be me, DH, our 3 boys (6, 4, and 6 months), and my MIL. We are staying at the HoJo. I am having a hard time deciding how to spread out our days.

Friday 9/20- arriving mid-late afternoon. We have reservations for Goofy’s at 8pm (willing to change). Not sure if we should spend that half day/evening mostly at DCA or DL or what we should do. We do want to see Fantasmic, MSEP, fireworks, and WOC all on this trip. So I was thinking we could do fireworks and MSEP on the first night?

Saturday 9/21- DL has EMH/MM, which we could potentially take advantage of IF we purchase the hoppers and then upgrade to Flex. If we do that, we would probably spend most of our day at DL but we would have to park hop to DCA as this is probably the only night we can see WOC.

Sunday 9/22- DCA Oogie Boogie Bash, which we won’t be attending. So we can’t do WOC that night. That day is also an EMH day at DCA so that might affect crowds too. It looks like this would be best night for us to catch Fantasmic.

Monday 9/23- we will be heading home probably between 3-7, depending on how everyone feels. We don’t want to get home too late because kids have school and adults have work the next day. I’m not sure how we should spend this day.

How would you organize these days?

I have the following reservations, all of which I obviously made before I figured out which days we would be where. So I can cancel/reschedule them as needed:

Goofy’s @ 8pm 9/20, Cafe Orleans @ 1:50 9/21, Plaza Inn @ 8:10am 9/23, Goofy’s @ 11:10am 9/23.

I was planning on only doing one character meal, and we always do Goofy’s.. but I haven’t been to Plaza Inn in years and I’ve never taken my kids there. So I am considering still doing the Goofy’s dinner on Friday and Plaza Inn Monday morning. The only thing I’m second guessing is wasting valuable morning park time on our last day. I made the 11:10 Goofy’s reservation thinking maybe if we decide not to do Goofy’s for dinner (I’ve only ever had breakfast there so idk what to expect) and if we skip Plaza, we could just kind of end out trip with that meal. Need opinions on that, please!

I am also trying to decide how to handle tickets. I do want to purchase Flex AP’s, and I want to do monthly payments as we are So Cal residents. But I was thinking about how valuable MM/EMH has been for us in the past, so I thought I would just get park hoppers, use the MM Saturday, then upgrade to flex at some point on Saturday. Anyone have advice on when during our trip I should go to the booths to do this? I’ve heard you can upgrade on the app but will still need to go to the ticket window to get hard passes, is that true? The only thing that sucks about doing this is we won’t get our AP discount the first half of our trip. Do you think it’s worth it?

How will MaxPass work if/when we upgrade to AP’s? I don’t plan on adding it to our AP’s, I would rather pay per ticket per day for that, as needed. Also, does anyone have advice on getting FP’s for Fantasmic? We have always skipped it, but I think my kids are old enough to enjoy it now. Oh and how would you handle Galaxy’s Edge? I’ve heard evenings are best. Please help! Thank you so much!

 

[smartlabelprint]

I’d cancel goofy since you’ve done it before. Is your 8:10 plaza the earliest? I’d do it on a MM day you don’t have a ticket for. Then if you’re done they let you go into the park.

Many find hungry bear fantasmic to be a good deal.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Ask your questions about the Flex Pass here: Flex Pass Superthread: Disneyland Resort Introduces New Annual Passport that Combines Value and Flexibility. Our resident Flex Pass experts can help you there!
Ask all your SWGE questions here: New SWGE Superthread! Now Open to All! (6/24/2019). There's LOTS of great information there from DISers who have the latest updates and strategies.
For F!, I agree with the pp that the HB dining package should work well for your family. It is the most economical and the most flexible since it allows you to order off the dining package or the regular menu (NB you'll still pay the dining package price no matter what you order). The dining package viewing areas are the most centered, right up front by the river, and have the best views with the least wait. All the viewing is seated on the ground, so bring hoodies or something to sit on. (The BB package comes with a souvenir cushion -- but that is a pricier package.) If there are fireworks on the night that you view F! and you see the first show, you'll be invited to stay in your viewing section to see the fireworks. Projections will be shown on the water screens and the music will be played over the speakers.

 

[Sunclytie]

I just visited Disneyland last week with some friends who bought their Flex Pass online and then had to visit the ticket booths to get their hard pass. One parent stayed with us and the kids and did attractions, and the other went to the ticket booths to get their hard passes. I would say it took about 15-20 minutes. When I picked up our hard passes, I went the night before we went to the parks (at about 10:30 PM - there was no one in line at the ticket booths. I think they were glad to have someone to talk to).

We live in Northern California, so we too had to decide when to leave the parks on our last day and drive home. It's so tempting to squeeze a full day out of it! But we decided that we'd leave after lunch. I always try to get all of us to take a break then anyway, so it made a lot of sense with the flow of the day. It worked - my daughter fell asleep in the car and had a 3 hour nap. Win!