I'm having an anxiety attack!

[ryan840]

OK, last year was our first trip to WDW, and we went the first week in May. We had such a great experience with crowd levels that we vowed to always return the first week of May... So now I'm sitting here, a week away from my trip and wondering if it was all too good to be true. We pretty much walked on to every single ride our entire trip, and it was a great help because everything else just kept going wrong and knocking us off schedule... I don't have a touring plan this year because we have a two month old (and a two and a half year old) and I didn't want to push it. I can't handle not having a plan now, and I have NO time to come up with a reasonable one. We do have a basic itinerary, but no "arrive at 8:45 and grab a fast pass to x then head to y followed by z before returning to x and the grabbing a fastpass to a" type thing. I'm soo nervous we'll be hit with long waits and not see/do enough between feedings, diaper changes and waiting in line... UGH! And if you read this far, thank you, I know I'm rambling... Any advice? It is only our second trip (that we can remember anything about anyway) and we only had two park days so we're still pretty unfamiliar with the parks. HELP!

 

[michaelsmommy]

ryan840-

Relax!! Don't get so stressed that you can't have fun. I'm going the first week of May also because I had heard that the crowds/weather are great. It seems to me that there are more people going in during the middle and end of May (on these boards at least) and not as many during the first couple of weeks, so let's just keep our fingers crossed, shall we?? I've never been in May and I'm really looking forward to it.

 

[ryan840]

I have to laugh at myself because as I read about you going for the first time in May and wondering about the crowds, my instinct is to say "it's a great time to go, you're gonna love it"! If only I could listen to myself... Thanks for the encouragement, BTW.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

One of the most valuable tips I can give you is if you get to a park after opening time, make your way to the attraction wait times & tips board in each park. We're not the type of travelers who are going to walk into a park and have a list of where to go when; I'm a bit obsessive-compulsive when it comes to planning, but I'm not that far along. If you start your day by looking at what has reasonable wait times and what doesn't, you can save yourself time that way. And if you have a "must see" attraction that has FastPass and a long standy by line, get the Fast Pass first so you're sure to see it/ride it.

Seriously though, even if 99% of everything you try works out poorly, it's WDW and you'll still enjoy yourself. And take heart in this: my very first trip to any WDW park was Magic Kingdom in 1993 when I was almost 10. Magical day (mostly) aside from one small detail... it was Easter Sunday! Hands down the worst, most crowded day I have ever seen anywhere in my entire life. But, I've gone back to WDW 7 times since then and can't wait to go again in 2008. So I always take the position of if I can survive that, I can survive anything these trips can throw at me!

 

[ryan840]

I never knew there were tip boards in the parks, where are they? I highly doubt we will make it to any of the parks at opening, we are night people. A big part of my anxiety is that in order to ride POTC (which is closed all of May) we will have to go to MK on our arrival day, which means we won't get there until about 6 or 6:30pm (yes, POTC is that important to us!). There will be evening EMH that night, and we will have another day at MK but the other day we're able to go they close at 7pm (and getting there before 10 am is highly unlikely) so I'm mostly worried about not getting enough time there. The rest of the parks I'll be fine with timewise... While typing this I came to the realization that I only need to worry about one park, so maybe I can manage to come up with a basic plan for our days there. Thanks, I feel a bit better now! Any tips for getting the most of MK would be greatly appreciated.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

I never knew there were tip boards in the parks, where are they?

Magic Kingdom-- towards the end of Main Street, slightly before you get to the Partners statue (Walt & Mickey). It'll be on your left.

Epcot-- walk into the park, past Spaceship Earth. When you get to the main area where you can branch off to either the Mission: Space, Text Track, and UoE side (left) or the Soarin, Figment, Living Seas side of things (right), it's a very large digital board that lists all attraction wait times and what attractions Fast Pass is still available for.

MGM-- corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd., on the right (wait times here seem to be typically overstated by 5 or 10 minutes).

Animal Kingdom-- not sure as I haven't looked at it in recent trips, but I believe it's in Discovery Island.

As for Magic Kingdom advice, Fantasyland (aside from Peter Pan) seems to be a fairly quick thing to go through during EMH as does much of Tomorrowland. Last year we did Small World, Winnie the Pooh, Philharmagic, and Buzz all within an hour and fifteen minutes (and this was in the middle of June). Not sure about Space Mountain or the other two mountains as I've never ridden them during EMH. But at least with Space Mountain, you could use single riders line and child swap if you both wanted to ride. Even if you get there at 6:30 the first day, there might be Fast Passes left for Jungle Cruise. So you could get those, go on POTC, Tikki Birds, and then back to JC. Personally, I like to get everything done in one land if possible before moving on to the other simply so I don't have to backtrack. And I choose my "land" based on the tip board wait times. Tomorrowland, incidently, always comes last for us. And it works out well because we rarely have to wait long for anything, be it Buzz, Stitch, or TTA. Same thing for Toontown if you want to ride Barnstormer or meet characters (although make sure to check the Times Guide paper for when the characters are there). Hope this helps a bit!

 

[ryan840]

Thanks again!

 

[Quinn222]

If you're really in a panic over this pick up the UG or just join Touring Plans.com or TGM. Both have one or two day itineraries for MK etc. with small children. Just use their plan and you'll be fine. You don't have to follow it to the letter but at least you'll have a basic outline of a plan.