Our First Family Trip to Disney

[Sammy Cat]

Hello everyone! I am just so excited about our first family trip to Disney World that I want to share our plans with everyone. I would appreciate any comments, feedback, or advice from many of you wonderful disboards members.

Here are the basics:

Who: Travelling will be myself (35), my husband (35), my DS (will be 8) and DD (will be 7).
What: A 12 night Disney/Universal vacation!
Where: 9 nights at Port Orleans Riverside (booked with free dining!) and 3 nights at Loews Royal Pacific Resort (not yet confirmed).
When: Arriving Wednesday, June 1 and departing Monday, June 13
Why: Who doesn't love Disney World? Both DH and I had gone as children and now we want to provide the same great memories for our kids. This may be our one and only trip, but I hope not. I have been swept away with all the possibilities and want to come back again and again, but of course that all depends on our circumstances going forward.

This will be our first time ever staying on-site at Disney World. When I heard about the great deal with the free dining plan, I just couldn't pass that up. We booked a standard room at POR with free dining and got the MYW 7 day ticket for each of us with water parks fun and more. We had heard wonderful things about the dining plan and as we would never spend the money to eat at Disney restaurants on a daily basis otherwise, we thought this would be a great way to experience them without going overboard. The cost of the hotel is expensive (at rack rate) but if you factor in the cost of food - which I know we would be spending $100-150 a day on food anyway for our family of four, even with dining off-site, I basically got the hotel room for $50-100 a night - not bad for a moderate!

We are from Canada, and I am a bit concerned about what the heat will be like when we go early June. I am kind of wishing we booked further back in May but then we wouldn't have gotten free dining. May/June was the only choice for us because my DS is CRAZY about Star Wars! Ever since he saw the movies when he was about 3/4 he has been basically obsessed. At Christmas the only thing he wants is Star Wars Lego and he plays with them all the time, so obviously we had to go during Star Wars Weekends! He also happens to love dinosaurs and the Jurassic Park movies. He wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up. This is why we are looking into booking a room at Loews for the last few nights of our trip, in the hopes that we might get a good deal on the Jurassic Park rooms. That would be SUCH a thrill for our little guy.

So, the last few months I have been busy researching hotels, booking our dining and searching for airfare deals, and we found a decent seat sale on a local airline for around $400 each. It was cheaper to fly home on Monday than Sunday, so the kids will be missing one more day of school that originally planned. The school has an inservice day while we are gone so in total they will be missing 7 days of school. I hope the teachers won't be too upset, but we plan on having the kids keep journals and reporting back on their trip to their classmates when they return for the last few weeks of school.

Our Disney Trip Itinerary

With the dining plan, of course, you have to book your ADR 180 days ahead of time, so I've done that and I've planned our days around the extra magic hours, so we could take advantage of them.

Here are our Day-by-Day plans:

Day 1 (arrival day) - Wednesday, June 1
3 a.m. wake up and hop in van to leave for airport (Grandpa is giving us a ride)
5:30 a.m. plane departs
1:00 p.m. plane arrives Orlando
Pick-up rental car and stop for a few grocery items for our breakfasts in the hotel room (ie. milk, cereal, fruit, etc.) (Can anyone recommend a good grocery store?)
3:00 p.m. arrive/check-in Port Orleans Riverside resort! We are hoping for a refurbished room near the main pool (the kids LOVE to swim and we plan on spending lots of time at the pool). We'll unpack, settle in, and explore the resort a little, maybe go for a short swim.
5:00 p.m. Take riverboat to Downtown Disney to make our dinner reservations for T-Rex!
8:00 p.m. - DisneyQuest! I have not heard many people talking about their plans for DisneyQuest, but I am sure our kids will enjoy the unlimited video games as a great way to kick off our holiday!
10:00 p.m. - we'll head back to our hotel room for a good nights sleep to be ready for MK rope drop in the a.m!

Day 2 - Thursday, June 2
Magic Kingdom - 8 a.m. (will be crowded)
Cosmic Rays or Peco Bills for our CS lunch
Back to hotel for swim and nap in afternoon as everyone suggests? Not sure if I'll be able to drag the kids away, but we'll see!
Crystal Palace for ADR
Main St. Parade 9 p.m. and Wishes 10 p.m.

Day 3 - Friday, June 3
Hollywood Studios - 9 a.m. STAR WARS WEEKEND! We'll have to make a mad dash for Jedi training camp line-up - a must-do for our little Jedi. As this is also a Gay Day planned for this park it will probably be crazy crowded! Good thing it isn't our only day!
Pizza Planet for lunch
Sci-Fi Dine-in Theatre for dinner

Day 4 - Saturday, June 4
Epcot - 9 a.m.
Cantina de San Angel for lunch
Coral Reef for ADR

Day 5 - Sunday, June 5
Blizzard Beach 9 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Hollywood Studios by 3 p.m. for Star Wars parade
ADR at Prime Time Cafe
Fantasmic 9 p.m. (probably need to line up at 7:30 with busy Star Wars weekend crowds).

Day 6 - Monday, June 6
Animal Kingdom - 8 a.m.
Restaurantasaurus for lunch
Yak & Yeti for dinner

Day 7 - Tuesday, June 7
Breakfast at Riverside Mill foodcourt
Typhoon Lagoon 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Spirit of Aloha Luau at the Polynesian 5 p.m.
Monorail to Epcot after dinner for late night EMH to revisit our favourite rides and to see Illuminations again.

Day 8 - Wednesday, June 8
Chef Mickey's Character Breakfast
Monorail / walk to Magic Kingdom (Day 2 at MK, revisit favourites)
Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner or lunch buffet (not sure yet)

Day 9 - Thursday, June 9
Last Day at Port Orleans resort
Anything goes day! Loose plans include:
Resort Day (just be lazy by the pool, do some fishing, cycling) or
Explore Orlando and go shopping, perhaps Ripley's Believe it or Not
or take our rental car to the Kennedy Space Center and go to Coco Beach for the Day or do another theme park, like Busch Gardens. Decisions, decisions. It will depend how we feel but I think one down day would be good!

Day 10 - Friday, June 10
Check-out of POR and have breakfast somewhere (any suggestions? The kids love Spongebob but apparently they don't take outside visitors to their restaurant at the Nick Hotel).
Check-in at Loews Royal Pacific - get Express Pass tickets and take water taxi to Universal Studios for the day to 7 p.m.

Day 11 - Saturday, June 11
8 a.m. - early park entry to Islands of Adventure and head straight to Harry Potter! Spend day to 9 p.m.

Day 12 - Sunday, June 12
Last Day! Will most likely revisit both Universal and Islands to ride our favourite rides once more with our 3 day park-to-park access pass and on-site express pass. Perhaps do some pool-hopping to Loews Portofino Bay for the awesome slide.

Day 13 - Monday, June 13
Departure Day.
A morning swim, check-out, breakfast at the hotel and then head to the airport for our 2 p.m. departure.

I'm sure we'll be sad to leave, but happy to have had such an awesome time and of course exhausted!!

 

[Mrs. Sojourner]

I would defintiely stick with a down day on day 9 because it sounds like you have a busy and fun vacation planned!

There is a Cracker Barrel not far off Disney property and they have wonderful breakfasts.

Have a great trip!

 

[Sammy Cat]

Thanks, Mrs. Sojourner! We don't have Cracker Barrel in Canada. I will add that as an option to our plans.

 

[kalcam]

On your Day 5 instead of getting to fantasmic at 730 you could try to change your adr to either Mama Melrose ,Hollywood and Vine, or The Brown Derby and ask for the Fantasmic Package ,preferred seating.

 

[Headlesshorseman]

This sounds like a DREAM VACATION....GOOD FOR YOU GUYS...

BUT.....I don't see any NAPS built in after day 2...

and THAT'S when you are going to really NEED them...

I guess I'm a wimp..

HH

 

[Sammy Cat]

On your Day 5 instead of getting to fantasmic at 730 you could try to change your adr to either Mama Melrose ,Hollywood and Vine, or The Brown Derby and ask for the Fantasmic Package ,preferred seating.

That's a good suggestion. I just realized my dining reservation will eat up all our time on the rides, and that would save us from having to wait in line forever. I'll look into it. Thanks!

 

[Sammy Cat]

This sounds like a DREAM VACATION....GOOD FOR YOU GUYS...

BUT.....I don't see any NAPS built in after day 2...

and THAT'S when you are going to really NEED them...

I guess I'm a wimp..

HH

Haha, good point. I know we will definitely need a break on Epcot and MK days, as we plan to stay until the closing Fireworks. The other parks seem to close earlier (at 7) so I think we will probably just stay all day in those cases.

 

[Sammy Cat]

Didn't realize it until I downloaded one of those trip countdown thingy's that we have exactly 100 days left until our trip! Woo hoo!

 

[Phil'sFrontier]

Remember to take lots of fluids in during the day. As well as after you are done, rehydrate as much as possible. Good hats are a must too imo.
Other than that remember to slow down and just take it in. I regret not doing this as much on our first trip. One thing I am happy about was having my dslr with 18-200mm zoom. From great action shots to dramatic fireworks shots I think I did pretty good for my first time. I hit a home run at AK where I got tonnes and tonnes of very high quality animal shots. I could hear all the other riders commenting on how they need a camera like mine as they were not getting good shots due to the shaking of the vehicle.

 

[melissac]

We are contemplating at trip during that same time and my question is are the parks busier because it is Gay Days? I have no problem with homosexuals I'm concerened with the crowd levels. I see there is Gay Days at certain parks on certain days. I'm sure those parks will be larger crowds but if you go to one of the other parks will the crowd levels be ok. Thanks

 

[sernarama]

Sounds great Sammy. I am just planning my second trip in 10 years. My kids were 13, 9 and 3 the last time we were there, pre- 09/11/01 and it seems everything has changed. We were there around the same week (last week of May/ first week of June) that you will be going this year. The weather wasn't so hot, the only shocker was the spontaneous rain. It seemed to only rain when we went out without our ponchos. When we remembered to pack the ponchos, we were safe! Also, I pulled my kids from school for the trip (and other vacations since then), and in the grand scheme of things, it made no difference. In fact, this year's trip is to celebrate my son's graduation from the University! Thanks for posting, I'm so overwhelmed with planning, I will using your plan as a guide....

 

[Sammy Cat]

Remember to take lots of fluids in during the day. As well as after you are done, rehydrate as much as possible. Good hats are a must too imo.
Other than that remember to slow down and just take it in. I regret not doing this as much on our first trip. One thing I am happy about was having my dslr with 18-200mm zoom. From great action shots to dramatic fireworks shots I think I did pretty good for my first time. I hit a home run at AK where I got tonnes and tonnes of very high quality animal shots. I could hear all the other riders commenting on how they need a camera like mine as they were not getting good shots due to the shaking of the vehicle.

Thanks. Great suggestions! I wish I had a camera as nice as yours. We just have a little one that we'll put in a plastic baggie so it doesn't get wet on the rides. Definitely hats and water and sun block are at the top of my priority list. In fact, I already bought the sun block!! It's February and -20 below...is that crazy?

 

[Sammy Cat]

We are contemplating at trip during that same time and my question is are the parks busier because it is Gay Days? I have no problem with homosexuals I'm concerened with the crowd levels. I see there is Gay Days at certain parks on certain days. I'm sure those parks will be larger crowds but if you go to one of the other parks will the crowd levels be ok. Thanks

I heard that the parks can be busier during the scheduled Gay Days, but our travel agent said that the other days at the parks should be okay and not as busy so I wouldn't avoid a vacation during that time on the count of that. Just find out which park they are scheduled to attend and go to a different park.

Our schedule worked out well so that we could avoid their days most of the time, but one day (on Friday) we will be with them, and if you combine that event with the Star Wars weekend event, well...it is going to be CRAZY BUSY!!! But at least it will be a Friday, which is apparently not as busy as Sat or Sun during special events like that.

Here is the link to the Gay Days calendar of events: http://www.gaydays.com/Gay-Days-Calendar/

 

[Sammy Cat]

Sounds great Sammy. I am just planning my second trip in 10 years. My kids were 13, 9 and 3 the last time we were there, pre- 09/11/01 and it seems everything has changed. We were there around the same week (last week of May/ first week of June) that you will be going this year. The weather wasn't so hot, the only shocker was the spontaneous rain. It seemed to only rain when we went out without our ponchos. When we remembered to pack the ponchos, we were safe! Also, I pulled my kids from school for the trip (and other vacations since then), and in the grand scheme of things, it made no difference. In fact, this year's trip is to celebrate my son's graduation from the University! Thanks for posting, I'm so overwhelmed with planning, I will using your plan as a guide....

Thank you! I am glad to hear you had a good time at this time of year. I was worried about the heat most of all. We will definitely *try* to be prepared with ponchos. I don't mind the rain, it can be nice to cool off with, as long as it doesn't last too long and interfere with the rides. And please feel free to use my plans as a guide. I am sincerely touched by your remark!

 

[Disneypolyprincess]

I love your PTR so far. We are going around the same time as you. As for a grocery store we use garden grocer and goodings. They both deliver to the room if that would be easier and you don't have to be in the room. As for the breaks during the days although some parks close earlier it's still a good idea to take a break to cool down and refresh. We didnt take breaks one year and ended up fighting part of the trip because we were cranky and tired. Looks like your having a fun time planning!