March Break at MK

[buyerbrad]

Looking for some thoughts on our March Break touring plans. Will be myself, wife, DD almost 3, DD 7 months and mother and father in law. Current opening time is 9am, but historical opening times indicate an 8am opening time should/could appear in the near future. We are staying offsite, but will be there at park opening (just before 8am, but easily there at 8:30 if it opens at 9am)

First 2 hours (hopefully 8am-10am):
Pooh
Speedway
Teacups
Dumbo
Barnstormer
Pete's 4 Character
Ariel
Mermaid


At this point, we are hoping for a 12 noon parade, with the following in the plans between 10am-12:30pm

Haunted Mansion
Smallworld
Peter Pan FP+ #1
Philharmagic (can do later or skip altogether depending on timing)
Carousel (can do later or skip altogether depending on timing)

The plan between 12:30pm and 4pm depending on the parade is as follows (with some wiggle room depending on show and parade times):
Lunch
Country Bears
Pirates - DDs and in-laws FP+ #2 while wife and I do Splash as FP#2
Tiki Room
Aladdin
3pm Parade if no noon parade
Jungle Cruise FP+ #3 and then use machine at ride exit to book 4th FP+ - likely Buzz
Snack

4pm-6pm
Dream along with Mickey
Move-it Shake-it
4th FP+
Dinner

6pm-8pm (don't plan on staying for night parade or fire works)
Tomorrow Land - Buzz, People Mover, Monsters Inc., Carousel of Progress, 5th-?th Fp+)

 

[soniam]

Looks pretty good. Depending upon how late you get to Haunted Mansion, the wait can get longish (15-20 minutes), even before noon. You could probably do teacups and Dumbo later, but doing them earlier requires less walking. I don't think they will be very busy most of the day. We will be going March too.

 

[g-dad66]

At the risk of saying the same thing in about 6 different threads....I would recommended doing Peter Pan at Rope Drop, because if you FP+ it, you will miss the interactive queue.

Agree with PP that Haunted Mansion wait could be long-ish by the time you get there, so could substitute FP+ for it rather than for Peter Pan.

 

[buyerbrad]

Thanks for the replies so far. We thought about doing Peter Pan at Rope Drop, but decided against it for a few reasons:
- not wanting to be shoulder to shoulder with the masses rushing down Main Street
- being delayed getting to the park even by 15 minutes and missing the chance to do it at rope drop and not having a FP+ time that works for us
-if we do it as a FP+, it should allow us to get to Ariel and Haunted Mansion before those lines build
-we can always call an audible and go to Peter Pan first and use the App to switch to something else (potentially Ariel or Haunted Mansion if we need to)

 

[sharonabe]

Are you going Easter week or another week? If you're going Easter week, there will be early EMH at MK every day at 7 am, and since you're offsite, you'll be behind all those who are there for that first hour. That doesn't mean you won't be able to do what you want, but you will have longer lines than if there isn't that early EMH.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

Does your DD nap? That is a massively long day for a 3 year old.

 

[buyerbrad]

The day we are planning to go, MK is the most reccomended park and has no EMH.

If we are at home she naps most days, but she doesn't need to. We did Busch Gardens for 3 days at Xmas and she was fine.

 

[sharonabe]

The day we are planning to go, MK is the most reccomended park and has no EMH.

If we are at home she naps most days, but she doesn't need to. We did Busch Gardens for 3 days at Xmas and she was fine.

I understand not wanting to advertise the exact week you're going; we don't either. So just in case you are going the weeks before/after Easter, you need to know that even if EMH is not showing for MK right now, it WILL. MK will have early EMH EVERY day the weeks surrounding Easter Sunday.

 

[laughinplace199]

Also, if you're going right around Easter, expect incredibly large crowds and long lines as the day goes on. We were there over Easter a couple of years ago. Like a PP said, the parks opened early (7 AM) every day and we were glad we could take advantage of that. I remember exiting Pirates at about 1:00 and Adventureland was so crowded that you could barely move. As we made our way out of the park, I noticed that the Swiss Family Treehouse had a 40 minute wait! Prior to that trip, I'd never seen any wait for the treehouse.

 

[TPrice]

Thanks for the replies so far. We thought about doing Peter Pan at Rope Drop, but decided against it for a few reasons:
- not wanting to be shoulder to shoulder with the masses rushing down Main Street
- being delayed getting to the park even by 15 minutes and missing the chance to do it at rope drop and not having a FP+ time that works for us
-if we do it as a FP+, it should allow us to get to Ariel and Haunted Mansion before those lines build
-we can always call an audible and go to Peter Pan first and use the App to switch to something else (potentially Ariel or Haunted Mansion if we need to)

I agree that planning your FP+ rather than relying on RD is the smarter approach. But don't be afraid of the masses at RD. We did RD twice a few weeks ago at MK. We were there early enough to get close to the front. The employees do a great job of keeping the walk slow and making sure no one gets in front of them. There were also a few in the "scrum" making sure that the crowds kept slow and orderly. They even announced that it was no use trying to get in front of them since they are the ones who operated the rides!

We were able to do 7DMT and PP in less than 20 minutes as well as several other rides all in the first hour. If you have an early-rising family like I do, it is worth it. Plus we enjoyed the official opening of the park show at the start.

 

[buyerbrad]

Part of the Magic about MK is taking that walk up main street. I'd rather take an extra 3-5 minutes doing that with my family than being part of the cattle drive at the front of the pack.

 

[buyerbrad]

We will be at MK on Tuesday, March 15th. Hopeing they announce any extended hours soon as our FP+ time opens next weekend.

We are now going to meet Ariel after the TeaCups and then do Dumbo, Barnstormer, Pete's.

Also, we now plan to do FP+ #2 from 12:40-1:40, #3 1:40-2:40 and then get 4th FP+s for Tinkerbell and/or Mickey for 3:30-4:30, hopefully. We'll watch the Parade at 3pm in Frontierland, and then ride the Train to the front of the park. I'm guessing I should be able to get an early 5th FP+ for Buzz after that (or even possibly squeeze a Haunted Mansion FP+ in before Buzz if we decide to bypass it earlier in the day).