I've chosen to simplify our trip. Will I regret that? lol

[ChicagoJ]

I have gotten SO caught up in planning ADRs it's become stressful and I feel like I'm setting myself up to be disappointed if things don't go perfectly during our trip. SO, I'm thinking simplifying our trip. I don't want to be too tied to dining reservations because we'll already be tied to fast pass schedules. I kind of like the idea of eating lunch and, frankly, most meals when we're actually hungry as opposed to when we decided 6 months ahead we should eat. We're staying at the poly, so I feel pampered enough with that. We don't NEED fancy dining. It'll be me, my H and our then 6 yo daughter (first time for H and 6 yo and I haven't been since I was a kid). I want this trip to be as magical as possible without too many rules and timelines that could make us feel rushed. I'm posting this here because it's strategy and I want to hear from strategy peeps in case this is a bad move. I do plan to post something similar on the dining board to see if I've chosen the coolest character meals to make the most of our trip without scheduling too much.

How does this look:

1st week of March
5 nights at the Poly, 4 park days

SAT arrival: MK day. check in is 3 so we'll drop off our suitcases and go straight to MK and stay for fireworks (8pm)

SUN: MK Day.

MON: resort day (if weather is nice we'll swim, if it's raining, we may buy tickets and go to another park bc I'm assuming parks are more fun than resorts on rainy days, right?)

TUE: Epcot Day. DD loves frozen so I'm hoping to snag an 8am Akershus so we can jump on FEA and meet Anna and Elsa. If I can get fastpasses, I may cancel Akershus.

WED: MK Day. Hoping to get CRT for lunch or dinner. We'll stay for fireworks and EMH (10pm)

THU: Fly out after breakfast at Chef Mickeys

I'm definitely trying ADR for CRT. Maybes are Chef Mickey, Akershus, BOG, Ohana. I'm just not sure what to do. She's not interested in Pooh and neither are we so CP is out.

There's still a parade right? I'd like to catch that. Any other magical secrets we should know about? I want to make the most and be organized without having to rush here and there all day. I had a crazy, expensive, intense schedule and just dropped it. I feel like it was setting us up for disappointment. WE have a dining plan but now I'm wondering if we would be better off (finance wise) dropping it since we may only do 2 character meals.

 

[elaine amj]

With only 3 days at the parks, I would maximize your time on rides and shows instead of spending so much time and money on meals. You'll already have sooooo much to see.

 

[CAS239]

The only parade is the festival of fantasy parade. There's no night time parade.

You don't need an adr for Akershus to be able to ride Frozen quickly. You can get there at 9/9:30 and head to frozen and ride with around a 20 min wait. Meeting Anna and Elsa is very easy as well.

 

[Capang]

Watch the refurb schedule for Chef Mickeys. It will be relocated for a while and may not be convenient to do that if it is still displaced. That schedule will totally work. Just make sure you call to get that CRT as soon as your window opens. Otherwise your day could be booked. It books very very quickly.

 

[ChicagoJ]

With only 3 days at the parks, I would maximize your time on rides and shows instead of spending so much time and money on meals. You'll already have sooooo much to see.

We'll have 4 days in the park (SAT arrival day, Mon, Tue and Wed)

The only parade is the festival of fantasy parade. There's no night time parade.

You don't need an adr for Akershus to be able to ride Frozen quickly. You can get there at 9/9:30 and head to frozen and ride with around a 20 min wait. Meeting Anna and Elsa is very easy as well.

Ok good to know. I loved the night parade when I was little. Is FOF parade worth it?

Watch the refurb schedule for Chef Mickeys. It will be relocated for a while and may not be convenient to do that if it is still displaced. That schedule will totally work. Just make sure you call to get that CRT as soon as your window opens. Otherwise your day could be booked. It books very very quickly.

I think that'll be done in Dec...we're going at the start of March. Thanks!

 

[disneybirds]

It think about getting a Be Our Guest reservation for Sunday at the MK for lunch. It is a great way to relax in the a/c for a few minutes and we like the food choices.

 

[elaine amj]

FoF is very much worth it. I skipped it for a couple of years because I didn't care much for the old afternoon parade. Then I watched it one day and loved it.

 

[VAfamily1998]

What time do you arrive on your arrival day, and are you taking Magical Express?

 

[DisneyWishes14]

I think your plan looks great. Make ADR's for your "must-do's", like CRT and wing the rest. If you don't care about TS, there is always QS available and you can typically get day-of TS as well (perhaps not at the hard-to-get places, but there is always SOMETHING available).

The only thing I see is that you aren't taking advantage of some of the great dining options at your resort. Both O'hana breakfast and especially dinner, IMHO, are really fun. You don't say what time you are flying out, but I would actually consider O'hana breakfast on your last day instead of going to CR (if you have an early flight).

If you aren't going to make a lot of TS ADR's, I would definitely drop the dining plan and just wing it.

We just came back from a 5 night trip and I had 2 ADR's made - I ended up cancelling one of them. We were able to walk-up to a few TS (no guarantees, but we had success) and had good QS as well. We never went hungry, we were never stressed to get to an ADR and we had a great time.

 

[minniegirl19]

Personally I would ditch the resort day and add another park day. Even if you did studios or AK for half a day then came back and swam and had a dinner at night I think it's worth it. Especially because you might end up with mid day breaks anyway on the other days of DD gets tired

 

[Marshmelo]

Like VAfamily1988 asked, what time does your flight in land? I always use the arrival day as a Disney Springs day. That way you aren't wasting an entire day's ticket on just a few hours. Plus Disney Springs is fun, so you should really see it. I would skip the resort day and go to DS on arrival day and you could also do some exploring of the resort arrival day as well.

 

[OB1]

Personally I would ditch the resort day and add another park day. Even if you did studios or AK for half a day then came back and swam and had a dinner at night I think it's worth it. Especially because you might end up with mid day breaks anyway on the other days of DD gets tired

Totally agree. For the small additional day, play at a park, then at your resort. AK is normally a slower park, except the new rides. Otherwise, easy to chill, take your time, and slow down.

 

[MinnieGi]

The simpler the better, I think!! We make one or two ADR's per trip and that is enough for us! Don't like being too scheduled! Our kids would rather do counter service anyway as they don't like all the time it takes to do a TS!

I agree with DisneyWishes about taking advantage of your resort options for dining. Especially on the last day character meal - so much easier to pack up and do a meal right at the resort than trek to another.

 

[txcorey]

Personally I would ditch the resort day and add another park day. Even if you did studios or AK for half a day then came back and swam and had a dinner at night I think it's worth it. Especially because you might end up with mid day breaks anyway on the other days of DD gets tired

I agree. I would ditch the resort day and take mid-day breaks each day. I'd much rather visit AK or DHS than hang out at the resort. It's not that much more expensive to add a day. When my son was that age he always enjoyed the character meals. The last time we went to Chef Mickey's it was horrible. I was always a big fan and thought it just got a bad wrap, but after our last visit, I said I'd never go again. One of the overlooked character meals is Garden Grill at Epcot. It's less hectic than the buffet style character meals-they serve family style meals, so you don't have to get up and go get food. It's also a really neat restaurant-it rotates and is in the Land area of Epcot. Reservations aren't difficult to get either. Just another suggestion ;0)

 

[North of Mouse]

I have gotten SO caught up in planning ADRs it's become stressful and I feel like I'm setting myself up to be disappointed if things don't go perfectly during our trip. SO, I'm thinking simplifying our trip. I don't want to be too tied to dining reservations because we'll already be tied to fast pass schedules. I kind of like the idea of eating lunch and, frankly, most meals when we're actually hungry as opposed to when we decided 6 months ahead we should eat. We're staying at the poly, so I feel pampered enough with that. We don't NEED fancy dining. It'll be me, my H and our then 6 yo daughter (first time for H and 6 yo and I haven't been since I was a kid). I want this trip to be as magical as possible without too many rules and timelines that could make us feel rushed. I'm posting this here because it's strategy and I want to hear from strategy peeps in case this is a bad move. I do plan to post something similar on the dining board to see if I've chosen the coolest character meals to make the most of our trip without scheduling too much.

How does this look:

1st week of March
5 nights at the Poly, 4 park days

SAT arrival: MK day. check in is 3 so we'll drop off our suitcases and go straight to MK and stay for fireworks (8pm)

SUN: MK Day.

MON: resort day (if weather is nice we'll swim, if it's raining, we may buy tickets and go to another park bc I'm assuming parks are more fun than resorts on rainy days, right?)

TUE: Epcot Day. DD loves frozen so I'm hoping to snag an 8am Akershus so we can jump on FEA and meet Anna and Elsa. If I can get fastpasses, I may cancel Akershus.

WED: MK Day. Hoping to get CRT for lunch or dinner. We'll stay for fireworks and EMH (10pm)

THU: Fly out after breakfast at Chef Mickeys

I'm definitely trying ADR for CRT. Maybes are Chef Mickey, Akershus, BOG, Ohana. I'm just not sure what to do. She's not interested in Pooh and neither are we so CP is out.

There's still a parade right? I'd like to catch that. Any other magical secrets we should know about? I want to make the most and be organized without having to rush here and there all day. I had a crazy, expensive, intense schedule and just dropped it. I feel like it was setting us up for disappointment. WE have a dining plan but now I'm wondering if we would be better off (finance wise) dropping it since we may only do 2 character meals.

We refuse to plan all our meals. It's time consuming, plus we don't want to decide where we want to be at all times. We make 3-4 ADR's for our usual 10 day stay and wing it the rest of the time. Always works for us. The same with FP's. We keep our must do's, then constantly change the rest.

Schedules are not relaxing at all for us. We mostly enjoy going with the flow - has worked for our many trips already. We are not stressed before, nor during our trips.

 

[10CJ]

Since it is such a short trip not sure you need a resort day in the middle. I would consider just enjoying the resort of arrival day though. What time will you start traveling that morning?

I would probably do Ohana or Kona on departure day over Chef Mickey's.

I would also probably want to work in Animal Kingdom.

if you are using the dining plan to save money I would probably drop it. I have never been able to get the calculations to work in my favor. I know some just like the thought of having it paid for and not needing to worry about it.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

I agree with some of the PPs about the resort day, I'd skip it as well and do AK instead. On arrival day, we do a character meal for the kids to get excited about being in DIsney and to knock some character meet and greets out of the way, then we explore the resort or DS on that day. You could keep the park day on arrival and add another park day on your scheduled off day,and for 3 people the price to go up one more park day on the tickets shouldn't be too much. And with your limited time I agree that too many TS meals would be too time consuming, but doing one or two good character meals would allow you to see some characters up close, possibly cutting out some meet and greet wait times in the parks. Any way you do it, you'll have a great trip!

 

[leebee]

I'd skip the resort day. When DD was young, meeting characters was HUGE for her, so we tried to fit them in. One good thing about character meals is that it cuts out the huge time-burner that waiting in line in a park to meet one character takes. I know they are expensive, but balance the # of hours it'd take to stand in the meet&greet lines as opposed to doing several characters in one shot (and you have to spend time eating, anyhow).

On arrival day, I'd make a dinner ADR at 1900 Park Faire so your DD can meet Cinderella and the Prince (also stepsisters and stepmother), then go over to the Poly and watch the fireworks from the beach there (or from the ferry dock at the TTC). The food is WAY better at 1900 than at CRT, and the ADR is easier to get. I'd then plan 4 park days. For my family it'd be one day in each park, but you might want to think about 2 in MK, 1 Epcot, 1 AK. I'd start and finish with MK, then choose the other 2 based on crowd levels, park hours, EMH, etc.

Except for that first night, if you want to do character meals for the M&G factor, I'd try to schedule pre-park-opening breakfasts (if you aren't night owls, that is!). I would look at what characters are where, and go with that. If you can FP+ FEA, you might want to think about a breakfast ADR at Trattoria el Forno (Ariel, Eric, Rapunzel, Flynn), unless you have a Princess-24/7 daughter, in which case Akershus is a great choice. I agree with what others have said about Chef Mickey's- definitely sub-par food, even for a Disney buffet, but I bet your DD would enjoy the interaction, and you meet all those characters! It sure would be easier to do Ohana, right at the Poly, on your check-out day, though. If you aren't into meeting characters, and really want to simplify, I'd skip the ADRs (except the first and last day... just to make the magic happen even on non-park days!).

 

[5DisneyNuts]

As the PP poster pointed out the character meals do save a bunch of time over waiting in line at the parks. I agree with what the others have said about switching out the resort day for AK in the morning and then relax at the resort.

Regarding dropping the dining plan, if you are planning on doing the character meals, check the prices. This is the one time where the dining plan actually offers a value.

Book what you want so you have options, then you can change or drop as you decide.

Have fun!

 

[elaine amj]

You can also order Ohana as room service at the Polynesian. That looks like an incredible (and less expensive) Way to enjoy it!