We just got back yesterday from Disney- 7 days and 6 nights POR. I don't think it could have been more magical. Our first night there we went to Epcot and figured American food would be the best choice for the kids so we took them to the Libery Inn while the 3 grown ups held out for Mexican food. My two kids got picked to be Junior Chefs of the Day. They made custom Chef Hats for the kids decorated with their names and the date. They dressed them up in chef coats, took us all backstage (behind the counter at the restaurant) and announced them to the crowd as the Jr. Chefs of the day. They took tons of pictures which they said they'll email them to me. They got to make themselves little sundaes and got Magical Moment certificates. They were so tickled, it was the cutest thing. We ended up getting a table on the water at San Angel Inn for dinner and got to see Illuminations from there. Great view! That was our first of 4 visits to Epcot on our trip (my 10 yr old son is a budding scientist and is in his pure glory there - with his happy disposition and love of Disney it wouldn't suprise me if he didn't go to work there some day).
We took advantage of the 7:00 am opening time at MK the following day and I am SO glad we did. We saw Chip and Dale and Mickey and Goofy right as we walked in, got autographs and pictures in under 5 minutes with all of them. We walked right on to Peter Pan - great ride - and It's a Small World - GORGEOUS renovations. We had about a 10 minute wait for the Dumbo ride, one spin before us on the tea cups. We walked right into Philharmagic, fast passed Buzz Light year and had breakfast....all by 9:30am. After Breakfast and Buzz, things got a bit more crowded, our wait for the magic carpets was about 20 mins. We fast passed the Jungle Cruise and got all the rides we wanted to ride at MK before 2:30 pm. After that we ended up taking a monorail to Epcot to do some activities the kids missed out on the first day, boy doing the Kidcot thing around the world was alot of walking that first night. We still didn't finish everything but decided to make it an early night because AK was opening at 7:00 am the next morning and we had a Character Breakfast.
That day, Saturday, just wasn't our day. The bus for AK didn't come until 6:50 am, so we didn't get on the Safari before our Character Breakfast (which had great food, but one kid only ate a Krispy Kreme and we had gotten all the characters who were there at MK the day before except for Donald). It seemed that EVERYONE ran back to the Safari at AK opening, at least at MK some go to the big rides and some go to the Fantasy Land rides. I wouldn't get up early for AK early hours again. Live and learn. We did the breakfast rode on the safari walked through some of the trails, met a cast member who is from our hometown and whose sister I knew, let the kids play in Dinoland Boneyard and BOOM...huge thunderstorm, we got SOAKED to the bone. The line to get back to POR went through the queing and then spanned the length of the bus lines to all other resorts (from the back, all the way back to the front), so we hopped a bus to the Carribean and got a bus to MGM and then to POR from there.
Sunday we skipped all parks, had a delicious breakfast at Boatwrights in POR, then walked to POFQ to see Minnie Mouse in her Easter best dress and go for a swim. We took a boat back after a couple of hours and a non-alcoholic Pina Colada...yummm. Then we took the boat to Downtown Disney to shop and eat before my big surprise for the kids. I asked several times..."any news on the weather". I had heard storms were coming and the next day was to be cool. By the time it was time to head over to WL to catch our Wishes Cruise though, there were no storm clouds to be seen. It was so incredibly perfect and beautiful. We got to see the Electric Water Pagent up close and personal then got to see and hear Wishes from the water in front of MK. I can't even describe how magical it was, breath-taking. It looked like pixie dust floating over the castle we could even see Tink make her flight. (We had seen the Spectromagic and Wishes in the park the night before too and had missed Tink).
On Monday at MGM, we walked right into Indiana Jones show, amazing. We also got to see Lights, Motor, Actions...also amazing. We had a blast at MGM and capped it off with Fantasmic (although the Dragon didn't make an appearance which made my 7 yr old lil girl cry a bit ... could have also been that she was a bit tired too).
The next morning we stopped at MK to meet the Princesses and Stitch...missions accomplished it was getting crowded ealrlier then so we went back for a swim then on to Epcot, dinner at the counter service in France was INCREDIBLE. Best cheese ever! We almost finished up with Epcot that night and saw Illuminations again. Our last day was again at Epcot, got it all done except for the Universe of Energy.
A daily wonderful occurance was our Mousekeeper, every day but one (her day off), the stuffed animals the kids were quickly accumulating with their spending money were arranged in the most creative ways. It made them happy to go back to the room at night. A panda in a towel hammock on the blinds, a husky puppy in a towel boat, a towel Easter basket decorated with stickers and a washcloth bunny, complete with the "blue Easter grass", and finally a concert set up with the various Stiches as the performers, towel stadium seating for the other little animals, and a little note, saying "enjoy the concert" and letting us know she would be off the following day. We saw her cart that time and knocked on the neighbor's door, where we met Zenia, the creative Mousekeeper, the kids took her picture and she signed their books. She said she knows how the kids are tired at the end of the day and how nice it is for them to see the arrangements.
My daughter was sad to leave and picked the fact that her brother had ridden to the room in the front of the luggage carrier cart and she didn't get to as a reason to cry. One of the bell hop girls took pity on her and took her for a ride around the parking lot, even let her drive a bit and gave her stickers, just as our transportation pulled up to take us back to the airport. (By the way we flew into Orlando Sanford and used a company called Orlando Sanford Transportation, great service and they serve MCO airport as well.)
Sigh, back home where it's chilly and windy...maybe I'll start saving up for a Disney trip in a few years.
We took advantage of the 7:00 am opening time at MK the following day and I am SO glad we did. We saw Chip and Dale and Mickey and Goofy right as we walked in, got autographs and pictures in under 5 minutes with all of them. We walked right on to Peter Pan - great ride - and It's a Small World - GORGEOUS renovations. We had about a 10 minute wait for the Dumbo ride, one spin before us on the tea cups. We walked right into Philharmagic, fast passed Buzz Light year and had breakfast....all by 9:30am. After Breakfast and Buzz, things got a bit more crowded, our wait for the magic carpets was about 20 mins. We fast passed the Jungle Cruise and got all the rides we wanted to ride at MK before 2:30 pm. After that we ended up taking a monorail to Epcot to do some activities the kids missed out on the first day, boy doing the Kidcot thing around the world was alot of walking that first night. We still didn't finish everything but decided to make it an early night because AK was opening at 7:00 am the next morning and we had a Character Breakfast.
That day, Saturday, just wasn't our day. The bus for AK didn't come until 6:50 am, so we didn't get on the Safari before our Character Breakfast (which had great food, but one kid only ate a Krispy Kreme and we had gotten all the characters who were there at MK the day before except for Donald). It seemed that EVERYONE ran back to the Safari at AK opening, at least at MK some go to the big rides and some go to the Fantasy Land rides. I wouldn't get up early for AK early hours again. Live and learn. We did the breakfast rode on the safari walked through some of the trails, met a cast member who is from our hometown and whose sister I knew, let the kids play in Dinoland Boneyard and BOOM...huge thunderstorm, we got SOAKED to the bone. The line to get back to POR went through the queing and then spanned the length of the bus lines to all other resorts (from the back, all the way back to the front), so we hopped a bus to the Carribean and got a bus to MGM and then to POR from there.
Sunday we skipped all parks, had a delicious breakfast at Boatwrights in POR, then walked to POFQ to see Minnie Mouse in her Easter best dress and go for a swim. We took a boat back after a couple of hours and a non-alcoholic Pina Colada...yummm. Then we took the boat to Downtown Disney to shop and eat before my big surprise for the kids. I asked several times..."any news on the weather". I had heard storms were coming and the next day was to be cool. By the time it was time to head over to WL to catch our Wishes Cruise though, there were no storm clouds to be seen. It was so incredibly perfect and beautiful. We got to see the Electric Water Pagent up close and personal then got to see and hear Wishes from the water in front of MK. I can't even describe how magical it was, breath-taking. It looked like pixie dust floating over the castle we could even see Tink make her flight. (We had seen the Spectromagic and Wishes in the park the night before too and had missed Tink).
On Monday at MGM, we walked right into Indiana Jones show, amazing. We also got to see Lights, Motor, Actions...also amazing. We had a blast at MGM and capped it off with Fantasmic (although the Dragon didn't make an appearance which made my 7 yr old lil girl cry a bit ... could have also been that she was a bit tired too).
The next morning we stopped at MK to meet the Princesses and Stitch...missions accomplished it was getting crowded ealrlier then so we went back for a swim then on to Epcot, dinner at the counter service in France was INCREDIBLE. Best cheese ever! We almost finished up with Epcot that night and saw Illuminations again. Our last day was again at Epcot, got it all done except for the Universe of Energy.
A daily wonderful occurance was our Mousekeeper, every day but one (her day off), the stuffed animals the kids were quickly accumulating with their spending money were arranged in the most creative ways. It made them happy to go back to the room at night. A panda in a towel hammock on the blinds, a husky puppy in a towel boat, a towel Easter basket decorated with stickers and a washcloth bunny, complete with the "blue Easter grass", and finally a concert set up with the various Stiches as the performers, towel stadium seating for the other little animals, and a little note, saying "enjoy the concert" and letting us know she would be off the following day. We saw her cart that time and knocked on the neighbor's door, where we met Zenia, the creative Mousekeeper, the kids took her picture and she signed their books. She said she knows how the kids are tired at the end of the day and how nice it is for them to see the arrangements.
My daughter was sad to leave and picked the fact that her brother had ridden to the room in the front of the luggage carrier cart and she didn't get to as a reason to cry. One of the bell hop girls took pity on her and took her for a ride around the parking lot, even let her drive a bit and gave her stickers, just as our transportation pulled up to take us back to the airport. (By the way we flew into Orlando Sanford and used a company called Orlando Sanford Transportation, great service and they serve MCO airport as well.)
Sigh, back home where it's chilly and windy...maybe I'll start saving up for a Disney trip in a few years.
WOW, Sounds like you had a very magical time !! 
. Anyway that was my experience with AK early EMH. I didn't find them necessary at MGM, we got there at regular opening and it was smooth sailing for us all day.
I agree with you about not needing to do EMH at the AK. We've never had a problem getting on to the safari, and we've actually had better luck with animal sightings a little later in the day.
