Planning question...HDR or park on first night?

[Robo]

I guess we "live dangerously."
We fly into Orlando every trip, and
we've always made the Hoop our "first night at WDW" activity.
We have done so nearly yearly, sometimes more than once per year, for a very long time.

I won't say the exact year we started this tradition, but...

I think the price per person was about $25.
There were no "categories" of seating.
They still sang the real "Hoop Dee Doo" song.
Sixbits Slocum still had the line "Okey-Dokey-Umm" in the script.
Nobody had ever heard of Disney-MGM Studios
Commuicore was how you made Epcot dining reservations... Day-of!
And, my on-line discussion of Disney was via Compuserve.

 

[Nancyg56]

I guess we "live dangerously."
We fly into Orlando every trip, and
we've always made the Hoop our "first night at WDW" activity.
We have done so nearly yearly, sometimes more than once per year, for a very long time.

I won't say the exact year we started this tradition, but...

I think the price per person was about $25.
There were no "categories" of seating.
They still sang the real "Hoop Dee Doo" song.
Sixbits Slocum still had the line "Okey-Dokey-Umm" in the script.
Nobody had ever heard of Disney-MGM Studios
Commuicore was how you made Epcot dining reservations... Day-of!
And, my on-line discussion of Disney was via Compuserve.

I remember the "day of" reservations! We took the kids over New Years. It was the finale of a ten day trip to Florida, and to be honest by then I was in a haze! There was no WS, FW in EPcot had just opened and The Grand was just being built. Buddy went to the concierge and she booked us for the Luau one night and New Years Eve was HDDR. She also booked breakfast on the Empress Lily, and the one in the CR where the Concourse Steakhouse used to be, as well as Brunch at The Top of The World. Can you imagine that today?

By the end of that trip we were broke, Buddy was positive the the only thing that saved my crew was that we did not know we had qualified for have also three free days on the Big Red Boat (he said by then he would have tossed all four overboard), and I was enchanted with Disney Fireworks. They were not shown daily back then, and I had never seen anything like that extravaganza.

We had the choice of "baskets" in the park. Hot dog or burger, IIRC< and they were a complete meal, with fries and beverage. No breaking them up so if you wanted more than one sandwich you ordered two baskets, or if you were my 17 YO alwasy starving nephew you ordered 4.

Brunch at the Top was $15 per person and there were 6 of us. My children, who had been taking turns getting to choose where we had breakfast every day, should have been in paradise. No cereal and milk in the room because Buddy would not give them what he would not eat.....however when they saw the little boxes of Rice Krispies amidst all the beautifully cut fruit, pancake and waffle stations, omelets made to order, carved meats....that is all they wanted. There we were, 15 stories up and an observation deck just calling Buddy....LOL! He had already had to leap over to catch my youngest before he catapulted over wall as the kid tried to see the monorail run by.

We had saved for over a year to take the family. My husband and I had never been back, but when our precious Kady was 4 we all trooped in, and have been going ever since. It sure has changed!

 

[CarolynFH]

@Robo and @Nancyg56 , thanks for the memories! Ours are different from yours (start a few years later but not many) but it's nice to be reminded of them!

 

[marchingstar]

OP, i think you're getting good advice here but one factor i try to take into account when planning arrival day activities is whether my flight is direct or not. if we've had a layover (or two! we're pretty far from the Mouse), more often than not we've been delayed at some point in our travels. it's common enough an experience that if our flight has one or more stops, we won't book anything for that evening. but on the other hand, if we're flying direct we tend to be fine. i'm sure people will have stories about direct flights being delayed, this is just what's worked for us in the past.

have a good trip!

 

[Cinderella94]

I would not plan on doing the Hoop on arrival night, for the reasons everyone else has mentioned.