Our crazy December itinerary

[marivaid]

What do you think ? Will we survive ? What would you change ?
When I showed it to DM (58) she said it's a good thing she has great life insurance.

I have scheduled breaks during the afternoon for her, not for me.I'm the kind of person who can stay up for a very long time without being tired, but if I take a nap in the afternoon then forget it - I'll be cranky and whiny (alright let's call a spade a spade, I'll be the evil b***h from hell) for the rest of the day, and that's if anyone actually manages to wake me up. So during her "break" time I will probably be checking out resorts or shopping at DTD.

Dec 27th
Arrival day.Depending on flights,check in ASMO between 9pm and 1am.

Dec 28th
Morning : Magic Kingdom - EMH 7am
Fantasyland, Splash and Thunder Mountain
Lunch at Crystal Palace
Leave park after 12.30 parade.
Afternoon : Rest at ASMO.
Evening : MGM
Beauty & the Beast,Fantasmic,Osborne Lights

Dec 29th
Morning : Animal Kingdom - EMH 7am
Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Kali River, Dinosaur
"Brunch" at Donald's
Leave park by 12pm.
Afternoon : Rest at the resort OR Downtown Disney
Evening : Epcot - World Showcase, Illuminations

Dec 30th
Morning : MGM Studios - EMH 7am
ToT, RnR, Backlot Tour, Little Mermaid, Muppets...
Lunch at Sci-Fi
Afternoon : Florida Mall
Evening : Magic Kingdom
Dinner at Liberty Tree
Wishes, Spectro, Fantasy in the Sky EMH -> 2 am??

Dec 31st
Morning : Animal Kingdom 8am
Festival of the Lion King, Nemo, Character greetings...
Lunch at Mara @ AKL, check out the hotel and savannahs
Go back to AK to see the parade.
Rest at ASMO
Evening : Dinner at Yacht Club Galley
Try to get into Epcot to see 11.40 Illuminations

Jan 1st
Check out ASMO & get luggage transferred.
Morning : MGM
Last chance for Rock'n'Roller coaster!!!
Check in POFQ.
Afternoon : Premium Outlets
Evening : Dinner at Kona, watch Wishes from the beach
then take boat to MK for EMH.
Last chance for Splash Mountain!!

Jan 2nd
Morning : Epcot - Future World
Soarin',Test Track, Figment, Soarin',and more Soarin'!
Lunch at Le Cellier
Afternoon : Enjoy the pool at POFQ
Downtown Disney
Evening : Epcot - World Showcase
Illuminations 9pm
If not tired after Illuminations,go to MK that closes at 11pm.

Jan 3rd - DM's Birthday!
Morning : Chef Mickey's
Magic Kingdom
Afternoon : Resort or stay at MK for parade
Evening : MGM only for Fantasmic
DM's birthday dinner at Spoodles (9pm).

Jan 4th - Departure day
Morning : O'Hana with Stitch
Magic Kingdom
Get out of MK by 10.30am
ME pick up around 11.30am

 

[Cass]

The December 30/31 combo looks a little scary.

You might be out until 2am on the 30th - yet you are going to try to be at DAK for 8am and this is new years eve-day so you are going to be up late that night for sure.

Maybe you should sleep in the morning of the 31st?

 

[marivaid]

The December 30/31 combo looks a little scary.

You might be out until 2am on the 30th - yet you are going to try to be at DAK for 8am and this is new years eve-day that you are going to be up late that night. Maybe you should sleep in the morning of the 31st?

Yeah, I have it planned that way but I really really doubt we'll make it to AK by 8am that morning. Only if we decide to leave MK after the midnight fireworks the night before, and even then it's a stretch. I figured AK will be the less crowded of the parks on the 31st, so we'll be ok even if we only show up at 10 or 11, especially if we've done the big rides earlier in the week.

 

[Cass]

You are going to be busy, that's for sure! I find that travel times play havoc with my plans. It sounds great to be there for opening but you have to be out at the bus stop early to get your bus! Things always seem to take longer than you imagine they will.

 

[Amy&Dan]

I think it all looks good except that 30-31 thing. I can tell you that we did EMH at MK on the 30th last year until 4:00 a.m. It was great. The last two hours we just went from ride to ride and walked on. But the next day we slept until about 2:00 p.m. If I had had to get up to get to a park by 8:00 I probably would have dropped in my tracks!

I think your plan overall looks great. You have lots of rest breaks figured in and getting to the parks early during this busy time is a must. I think you'll have a great time!

 

[wdwdancerwannabe]

we found out that it's hard to try to catch EMH's in am and PM back to back.

you're better off doing all am emh's or all pm emh's.

Trust me - it will be very hard to be at Fantasmic late at night and try to be up the next morning in time for an opening of a park.

We went non-stop for 10 days - didn't stop to swim or relax ONCE. Wish we would have taken the time to stop and enjoy - even though we had a blast.

Personally, I think am EMH's are better - there's nothing better than being one of few in the park when you first walk in!! But, then again, you don't want to miss Fantasmic, Spectromagic/etc.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[marivaid]

You are going to be busy, that's for sure! I find that travel times play havoc with my plans. It sounds great to be there for opening but you have to be out at the bus stop early to get your bus! Things always seem to take longer than you imagine they will.

Oh yeah waking up at 6am is definitely not going to be that easy. I can already hear myself answering the wakeup calls. Gosh, CMs cant listen to these can they ?! I hope not 'cause it aint gonna be pretty.
Like so many said on the boards, that time of year you better show up early or be prepared to wait in line a lot.DM has a hugggge thing for french toast, so I plan to go fetch it for her at the food court as soon as possible and then use it as bait to get her out of bed

 

[marivaid]

I think it all looks good except that 30-31 thing. I can tell you that we did EMH at MK on the 30th last year until 4:00 a.m. It was great. The last two hours we just went from ride to ride and walked on. But the next day we slept until about 2:00 p.m. If I had had to get up to get to a park by 8:00 I probably would have dropped in my tracks!

I think your plan overall looks great. You have lots of rest breaks figured in and getting to the parks early during this busy time is a must. I think you'll have a great time!

Thank you !! I am soooo excited about it.

I forgot to say that our ADR for Liberty Tree is at 9.25pm - the latest I could get. That will leave us with 3-4 hours to rest after coming back from the mall before going off to MK.

 

[marivaid]

we found out that it's hard to try to catch EMH's in am and PM back to back.

you're better off doing all am emh's or all pm emh's.

Trust me - it will be very hard to be at Fantasmic late at night and try to be up the next morning in time for an opening of a park.

We went non-stop for 10 days - didn't stop to swim or relax ONCE. Wish we would have taken the time to stop and enjoy - even though we had a blast.

Personally, I think am EMH's are better - there's nothing better than being one of few in the park when you first walk in!! But, then again, you don't want to miss Fantasmic, Spectromagic/etc.

Good luck and have fun!

I read some not-so-good things about evening EMH on the DIS so we'll only be doing 2 of them, both at MK, and I think if the first one turns out to be a zoo we'll probably skip the second one.
If we went non-stop without breaks for the whole week we'd need another week just to get over our vacation LOL

Thanks everyone for your comments & good luck wishes I'm so glad I found the DIS to help me put this thing together.

 

[Cass]

French toast would lure me out of bed too!

 

[mickeysgirl17]

If you can get through that itinerary, I think you can get through anything!! That looks tough. If I can make a suggestion, I wouldn't park hop so much.....maybe you can do all of AK in one day. (The park doesn't have enough attractions for more than a day). Some days it looks like you have too much....for example on Jan 3rd your going from where your staying to the contemporary to MK, then to MGM and then to Spoodles......Whew! Try to go over it again and maybe stay in each park for the whole day instead of switching so much. It just takes so much time to travel in between and you should try to eat at places close to where you'll be that day. I'm not trying to put your itinerary down in any way, it just looks impossible to do all that each day and there's too much EMH. Almost every EMH day is crowded in that park, I just don't see how you'll be able to stay awake for all of it. I know my family wouldn't be able to do it. Let us know how it went.

 

[Amy&Dan]

I am not a big fan of EMH. Mornings don't happen for my family, esp. given that we are from the Mountain Time Zone so 7:00 a.m. is 5:00 a.m. for us. Nuff said! But there is one park I will do EMH if its nighttime and going past midnight and thats MK. Last year on the 30th, as I said we stayed until 4:00 a.m. and it was one of our most wonderful, Disney nights and we've had many. Here is my advice for that one: Start out in Frontierland. Do Splash (its night, its cold but its still fun, just take jackets that repel water). Also Adventureland is not bad and Hall of Presidents was open until something like 1:00 a.m. last December 30 (well 31st technically by that point). Don't head into Fantasyland until a bit later and ditto with Tomorrowland. Thats where everybody else goes and the little ones will conk out early leaving the park open for the nightowls. As I recall we started our evening doing Hall of Pres., Splash, Country Bear Jamboree, Pirates, Jungle Cruise and Magic Carpets, and then got into Fantasyland much later and it was deserted! I remmber speed walking by Snow White and having some CM jokingly calling out to us, begging us to come ride, he was so lonely! I will never forget riding Space Mountain at 3:58 a.m.. The bus que was deserted too when we left at 4:00, it was us and one other family on the ride back to POFQ. If you can hold out, stay as late as possible, then the next day, sleep in, swim and rest at your resort and then head into a park for NYE. We did Epcot and got there around 8:30 (after having dinner at RFC in DTD). We didn't ride a thing but we people watched, enjoyed the fireworks and saw the movie in France. Incidentally, we had no problem getting into Epcot at that time. I did notice that they had cars stopped, not letting them into the parking lot but the resort buses got in fine. If you can, see Illuminations sort of near America, you can see Wishes far off in the distance which was very cool.

 

[marivaid]

I am not a big fan of EMH. Mornings don't happen for my family, esp. given that we are from the Mountain Time Zone so 7:00 a.m. is 5:00 a.m. for us. Nuff said! But there is one park I will do EMH if its nighttime and going past midnight and thats MK. Last year on the 30th, as I said we stayed until 4:00 a.m. and it was one of our most wonderful, Disney nights and we've had many. Here is my advice for that one: Start out in Frontierland. Do Splash (its night, its cold but its still fun, just take jackets that repel water). Also Adventureland is not bad and Hall of Presidents was open until something like 1:00 a.m. last December 30 (well 31st technically by that point). Don't head into Fantasyland until a bit later and ditto with Tomorrowland. Thats where everybody else goes and the little ones will conk out early leaving the park open for the nightowls. As I recall we started our evening doing Hall of Pres., Splash, Country Bear Jamboree, Pirates, Jungle Cruise and Magic Carpets, and then got into Fantasyland much later and it was deserted! I remmber speed walking by Snow White and having some CM jokingly calling out to us, begging us to come ride, he was so lonely! I will never forget riding Space Mountain at 3:58 a.m.. The bus que was deserted too when we left at 4:00, it was us and one other family on the ride back to POFQ. If you can hold out, stay as late as possible, then the next day, sleep in, swim and rest at your resort and then head into a park for NYE. We did Epcot and got there around 8:30 (after having dinner at RFC in DTD). We didn't ride a thing but we people watched, enjoyed the fireworks and saw the movie in France. Incidentally, we had no problem getting into Epcot at that time. I did notice that they had cars stopped, not letting them into the parking lot but the resort buses got in fine. If you can, see Illuminations sort of near America, you can see Wishes far off in the distance which was very cool.

Wow, that sounds really cool. We will try and do that, maybe not stay as late as you did but 'til 2am or so and then the next day relax in the morning and wait until early afternoon to hit AK. Then we can go from AK directly to YC without stopping again by the resort. I did want to check out AKL and go to Mara for zebra domes but I'm not sure how we can work that in. Also if we get up at 6 to do the morning EMH at MGM, then go to Florida Mall, on the 30th, I dont know if we'll be able to stay up that late. I'd need to move Florida Mall but I have no clue where

 

[marivaid]

How about this.. better ?

Dec 29th
Morning : Animal Kingdom - EMH 7am
Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Kali River, Dinosaur
"Brunch" at Donald's
Leave park by 12pm.
Afternoon : Florida Mall
Going straight from AK & coming back directly to Epcot.
Evening : Epcot - World Showcase, Illuminations

Dec 30th
Morning : MGM Studios - EMH 7am
ToT, RnR, Backlot Tour, Little Mermaid, Muppets...
Lunch at Sci-Fi
Afternoon : Resort / Downtown Disney
Evening : Magic Kingdom
Dinner at Liberty Tree
Wishes, Spectro, Fantasy in the Sky EMH -> 3 am??

Dec 31st
Morning : Resort
Afternoon : Cab to AKL. Lunch at Mara & check out hotel.
Animal Kingdom then bus to YC
Evening : Dinner at Yacht Club Galley
Try to get into Epcot to see 11.40 Illuminations

 

[KittyKitty]

This may have been said before, but the week between Christmas and New Years is the busiest of the whole year. I have seen parks close early because they hit capacity.

And if you leave a park, you may not be able to get into the park you want later on. Disney does not guarantee that.I don't know if even dinner ADRS will let you in.

Have fun. You and 200,000 of your closest friends!