I'd really appreciate your opinions.......

[kiwitinkerbell]

I'm in the process of planning my friend's and I big trip to celebrate our 50th birthdays. It isn't until the end of the year but I love the planning stage. Anyway, here's the details. We will be travelling from New Zealand and will be away for just over 8 weeks. Part of our trip will include two cruises, a visit to International Drive, Fort Lauderdale and Miami along with WDW.

We will visit WDW twice. Once Dec 18 (or 19th depending on flights) until Dec 23 when we board our cruise. Then revisit Jan 4-14. For our 10 day stay I thought we would stay a Pop (we've stayed here twice before and find it is great for what we need). However for our first 5-6 day visit before Christmas I was wondering about booking French Quarter to try somewhere different. Also we thought we might not visit the parks during our 1st visit as we have done pre Christmas twice before and done all the Christmas parades etc. As it will be busy we thought we might just relax around the pool, take the boat to DTD etc. We would then concentrate on the parks during our 10 day stay.

Do you think this is a good plan? Or do you recommend somewhere else other than French Quarter if we aren't visiting the parks as such? $$$ is a consideration as this is a 8-9 week holiday including two cruises.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts.

 

[DisneyLoverUSA]

I'm not sure if ALL the All Stars do, and maybe even POP does it but when we stayed at All Star Music they have bingo and trivia and games out at the pool every afternoon and it's usually not for little kids. The trivia is for the adults. So is the bingo. So you might want to try some other place besides POP. All Star Music has a fantastic food court.

SO that could occupy some of your time if you want to skip the parks on the first trip. You could also resort hop to eat every day. Pepper Market at Coronado Springs is a good food court and Mara at Animal Kingdom Lodge is a good food court and after you eat there you can go out and view the animals through night vision goggles. You don't have to be a guest there to do it.

You could spend 2 whole days just exploring Downtown Disney. I realized that when we walked from one end to the other in one day AFTER spending 4 hours at Disney Quest when my legs and feet were kind of tired. But you can do DTD Marketplace one day then do DTD West side on another day.

Just some things to think about.

 

[kiwitinkerbell]

I'm not sure if ALL the All Stars do, and maybe even POP does it but when we stayed at All Star Music they have bingo and trivia and games out at the pool every afternoon and it's usually not for little kids. The trivia is for the adults. So is the bingo. So you might want to try some other place besides POP. All Star Music has a fantastic food court.

SO that could occupy some of your time if you want to skip the parks on the first trip. You could also resort hop to eat every day. Pepper Market at Coronado Springs is a good food court and Mara at Animal Kingdom Lodge is a good food court and after you eat there you can go out and view the animals through night vision goggles. You don't have to be a guest there to do it.

You could spend 2 whole days just exploring Downtown Disney. I realized that when we walked from one end to the other in one day AFTER spending 4 hours at Disney Quest when my legs and feet were kind of tired. But you can do DTD Marketplace one day then do DTD West side on another day.

Just some things to think about.

Thanks. I also thought we would spend our time resort hopping for our meals so we can try many different resort restaurants during our first visit and see how gorgeous they are decorated for the holidays. It will take a day or so out of our first trip to recover from our flight (12 hours Auckland to LA or SF and then another 4 1/2 or 5 to Orlando). Seems to take longer now we've got a little older