I agree with making reservations for dinner, etc. Especailly at the rainforest cafe. At times that wait can be up to 2 1/2 hours. Not a fun thing to wait for. Many people tend to eat around 6-7:30, that is when everyone eats, so I would go a bit earlier maybe around 4:30- 5pm. That way you will not lose your entire night to one place. There are two rainforest cafes. One at Animal Kingdom and one at Downtown Disney.
Rain ponchos would be good, but our rainy season in Florida is mostly in July-August-Sept. (Hurricane season is over on Oct. 1st, but it very over rated, nothing to worry about!)
Planning each day is great. Keep a few open days to maybe resort hop and take in all of the Disney grounds. Boardwalk has a great night life and activities in the dy time. You can rent surrey bikes, face painting, shop, hair wraps, etc. There are activities on the boardwalk at night and they have an ESPN club for all of the sports buffs! You could use the disney transportation system to visit the resorts. (Visit the AKL!) This place is awesome!
Wishes is a great display of fireworks, best I have ever seen. The parade is great too! Fantasmic is great, get there about an hour in advance to get a good seat. Check the times, they may have two shows. One at 8pm and one at 10pm.
My advice, go to the earlier one. Why you ask...well, when you go to the first show you just walk on up, find a seat wait for the show to start, then leave when it is done.
If you go to the second show you will be waiting in a crowd outside with everyone else wanting to see the second show!Then when the first show ends, you will have to deal with the mass crowd exiting the first show and the second show crowd trying to get in! (Not my idea of fun!)
When you go to the MK, utilize the fast passes for rides with extra long lines. Keep in mind that you can only have one fast pass at a time, until the time shown on your pass has been met. If you are not familir with the fast passes, allow me to explain...
Disney was smart with this one! Say you want to ride Winnie the Pooh, but the approx. wait time is 45 min. That is a lot of time to waste standing in one line, especially if you are on a time schedule. So you would go to the fast pass boxes insert your ticket and a fast pass will print out with a time frame on it! And your ticket will be returned to you. Now let's say the current time is 10:30 am, but the time frame on your fast pass is 11:30am-11:50am. What that means is you can leave go do another attraction, and you will be able to come back to the Winnie the Pooh ride between the times of 11:30 an 11:50am and enter the fast pass line. This line by-passes the line that you would of been standing in for that 45min. And you will be on the ride within 5 min! So in all actuality you did wait for about 45 min to a hour to ride the ride, but you "waited" while doing something else! When we go we get our fast pass for Pooh, go ride the carousel, and maybe a ride with only a 20 min wait, then return to Pooh with our fast pass. So while we "waited" for Pooh, we rode two other rides! This system is great for time schedules. Not all rides have fast psses, but many of the popular ones do! Check it out! Make sure everyone gets a fast pass, it is kind of like yor ticket to get on the ride. Everyone must have thier own fast pass.
If you eat lunch at the MK, or anywhere timing is everything! Eat lunch a little bit before noon. I am telling you the plasces to eat fill up so fast around lunch time! I would say the best time to eat would be around 11:15 -11:30. Once noon rolls around it seems like the entire parks turns hungry. At that point you will have to deal with lines to order, then finding a seat, etc. And who wants to wait in lines!
At the MK they have a 3pm parade. Usually right after the parade a good deal of people leave, go back to thier hotels, regroup then head back out later! Not sure if you want to see this parade of not, but when this is going on it takes a a good chunk of people away from the attractions and those lines! So this may be an opportune time to do some of the more popualr attractions. The Afternoon Parade starts in frontier land by splash mountain and ends up on mainstreet. Then at night the parade runs two times. The first time it runs from mainstreet to frontier land, then the second time it runs it starts in Frontier land and ends on mainstreet. I guess at that point they are hearding everyone towards the exits! When I have been there the first parade started at maybe 9pm, then WISHES at 10pm, the the second parde at 11pm.
Be sure to check out the park hours before yo go! Log on to Disney.com and look at the park hours. Sometimes they may close early at 7pm, 9pm and sometimes they stay open until 11pm! That will impact your day if the parks close early. I don't think Animal Knigdom ever stays open late. Not sure about Epcot or MGM. I do know that Epcot opens at 9am but the world showcase does not opn until 11am.
Oh, one thing about the world showcase for the kids. It is fun to do! When you visit each country they will have an area for them called "Kids Cot" (I think that was it?) Anyway, They have activites in which they can color or paint somethng and each country they visit they can get it stamped with that country's stamp and a trinket put on it. When we were there in April they were havng the kids color masks attched to a stick that they could hold up to thier faces. (They many still have these.) Each time they visted a country, the representative in the kids area would sign it, stamp it , and attach a cut out of an animal, items, etc. that represents that country. For example in Norway the reprentative attached a viking ship! Every country had something so be sure to hit them all. That will keep the kiddie's entertained while you and teh adults will be enjoying the food and wine festival. That will make them WANT to see teh countries! (Disney is genious!)
When you go to Animal Kingdom, go on the safari ride first in the morning! We arrived at the Animal Kingdom when it opened it's gates , give or take a half hour, and we headed straight back to the safari ride. We saw so many animals! There was no line, we pretty much walked right on, and once on we saw so many animals. They tend to be all out and about in the morning so go then. Florida weather gets hot early, so the animals hide in the shade to cool off as the day goes on! While at the Animal Kingdom, you must go on the Dinosaure ride! (The 4 year old may get scared, but it is a great ride. ) I think the adults would love it! You must see "It's tough to be a bug!" It is an interactive 3-D show in the Large Tree of Life at the heart of the Animal Kingdom! I heard the Tarzan Rocks show is good, lots of action on rollerblades, flips etc. Kids would probably like that!
At Epcot also they will be having the food and wine festival. That should be interesting. I have never been, but I have a reservation at the Boardwalk for October 25th through the 27th. I have heard a lit of grea thing about it! Also at Epcot they have the living seas in which they have a whole area dedicated to Finding Nemo. Your kids will probably love it. Adults will too. Be sure to ride Journey into Imagination. When you get off of the ride there is aninteractive area where you can send e-mails and Kodak photo of yourself to a friend back home! The Mission to Mars is excellent! Must try that, then once off of that ride there is another interative area. Epcot is all about education through fun!
I hope I have helped out with some tips on attractions and the parks. If you have any other questions, PM me! I Live in Florida, Tampa area on the west coast, and we have seasonal passes to WDW. We go up there all of the time for a long weekend or for the day so I may be able to help you out with your specific questions!
Have fun!
Jaime
i am writing all this down
