Thoughts on our "tentative" plan

[JenniKleims]

Looking for some feedback on what we are hoping to do (park and dining wise) while we are in Disney this November.

Day 1:Monday
-Magic Kingdom.
Dinner at Chef Mickeys

Day 2: Tuesday
-Animal Kingdom
Dinner at Tusker House

Day 3: Wednesday
-Epcot
Dinner at Akershus

Day 4: Thursday
-Magic Kingdom (closes early this day)
Lunch at Be Our Guest
Dinner at Ohana
-Animal Kingdom or Epcot after dinner

Day 5: Friday
Hollywood Studios
Dinner at Minnie's Seasonal Dine at Hollywood and Vine

-we haven't hit the 180 days yet (for booking dining) but this is what I am hoping for (The 180 day mark is May 30th! We are getting soooooo close!!)
Based on all the expertise here on the boards - does this look reasonable for a first trip?
Or are there other restaurants that we should try to get? (in case the ones we really want are booked up?)
Just trying to find restaurants that a chicken finger and fries loving 11yr old boy and a princess / mickey mouse loving 7yr old girl would enjoy attending. (we have the dining plan with 1QS/1TS/2Snacks per day)

 

[ottawamom]

Lunch suggestions as you've got dinner pretty much covered. Tuesday do lunch at Flame Tree BBQ (best ribs, pulled pork), Friday go to Backlot express for lunch (Darth Vader waffles and chicken). It's a southern thing but your son will love it. Sunshine Seasons in Epcot is probably the best QS on property. Casey's corner in Magic Kingdom has some really good corn dog nuggets and fries (adult meal is enough to share for lunch) and Casey's has a great view of the Castle. All the restaurants I've mentioned are QS and do not require any advance planning.

I can't comment on your sit down choices as I've never eaten at a sit down restaurant while at Disney. Someday maybe I will.

 

[JenniKleims]

Lunch suggestions as you've got dinner pretty much covered. Tuesday do lunch at Flame Tree BBQ (best ribs, pulled pork), Friday go to Backlot express for lunch (Darth Vader waffles and chicken). It's a southern thing but your son will love it. Sunshine Seasons in Epcot is probably the best QS on property. Casey's corner in Magic Kingdom has some really good corn dog nuggets and fries (adult meal is enough to share for lunch) and Casey's has a great view of the Castle. All the restaurants I've mentioned are QS and do not require any advance planning.
I can't comment on your sit down choices as I've never eaten at a sit down restaurant while at Disney. Someday maybe I will.

Thank you so much for the suggestions (on the quick service)
My son actually loves chicken and waffles so we will defiantly add the Backlot Express for lunch!

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Looks like a great plan. My suggestion for your ADR day would be to make the reservations in order of difficulty to get, rather than chronological order. For example, BOG is the hardest to get so make that one first. Good luck and have a great trip!

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Also, if you're on the dining plan you might consider getting the H&V reservation as a Fantasmic package. It still costs 1 credit but will also include reserved seating for Fantasmic.

 

[JenniKleims]

Looks like a great plan. My suggestion for your ADR day would be to make the reservations in order of difficulty to get, rather than chronological order. For example, BOG is the hardest to get so make that one first. Good luck and have a great trip!

Thank you! I will take that into consideration!

 

[deedubb]

Are you buying park hoppers but only hopping the one day? If so, that seems like an expensive way to do it. I would do one park/day and avoid MK on the day it closes early. Everyone does Disney differently, but we always close out the vacation at MK. To us, Disney=MK and it wouldn't feel the same ending it at another park. We usually start at MK and always end at MK.

 

[quandrea]

I agree about the park hopping. Expensive for only one hop. I would rethink Hollywood and Vine. We went last year and it was overpriced, dirty, chaotic, poor service and lousy food. The characters were cute but that was not enoygh to redeem it. Sci Fi is fun with simple food, same for Prime Time. Even the Brown Derby has a good kids menu.

Otherwise looks good!

 

[JenniKleims]

Are you buying park hoppers but only hopping the one day? If so, that seems like an expensive way to do it. I would do one park/day and avoid MK on the day it closes early. Everyone does Disney differently, but we always close out the vacation at MK. To us, Disney=MK and it wouldn't feel the same ending it at another park. We usually start at MK and always end at MK.

For the FD we had to get park hopper - I'm chatting with my TA to find out what the minimum Park Hopper tickets are in order to still qualify for FD. Then we are going to reduce...and hopefully save more $$

 

[JenniKleims]

I agree about the park hopping. Expensive for only one hop. I would rethink Hollywood and Vine. We went last year and it was overpriced, dirty, chaotic, poor service and lousy food. The characters were cute but that was not enoygh to redeem it. Sci Fi is fun with simple food, same for Prime Time. Even the Brown Derby has a good kids menu.

Otherwise looks good!

I agree that it is expensive (paying for park hopper for one hop) but I don't know what the minimum park hopper ticket required for FD (chatting with our TA about this soon) - we may also decide to hop on different days, depending on how we are feeling with the parks.
(more time at MK is always a plus)
We are also thinking of hopping back to MK on the Friday.

 

[quandrea]

I agree that it is expensive (paying for park hopper for one hop) but I don't know what the minimum park hopper ticket required for FD (chatting with our TA about this soon) - we may also decide to hop on different days, depending on how we are feeling with the parks.
(more time at MK is always a plus)
We are also thinking of hopping back to MK on the Friday.

Sounds good. I personally love hopping.

 

[mort1331]

So looks good, Ottawamom suggestions for QS is spot on. Now for our family which is close to ours we prefer 1900park fair at GF to chef mickeys. We think the food and atmosphere is better, and not as rushed. Again everything is subjective, just like PP said the did not like HV, my wife loves it. But if going there for sure get the Fantasmic passes, its included just make sure you sign up for that when you reserve.
For the 4th day with MK closing early, I would RD, and leave the park when your ready, I don't know if I would do Ohana then go to another park. But I would jump on the monorail to Epcot and grab a great dinner at one of the venues there. Biertergarten comes to mind and the kids can get up and dance and enjoy the show.
My 2 cents

 

[DizzyDis]

Another thought on this, although as always, may not apply to your family. We found that our kids (definitely younger than yours) were wrecked and cranky by end of day, so we ended up enjoying our a.m. meals much more, so focused more on breakfasts (my little guy is an early riser anyways) or lunches, which were generally cheaper and meant we could go with the flow for dinner Sometimes we would do big breakfast, midday snack and QS dinner, so we have more character meals in the a.m., but didn't spend a ton or go to bed stuffed.

If you decide that dinenrs are the way to go for you, something else to consider (which could also help with the hopper issue) would be more resort restaurants. We loved Ohana (already on your list), but you could even do Boma or Jiko at AKL instead of Tusker House and that would let you visit the resort as well.

Happy planning and hope this doesn't add too many monkey wrenches!

 

[momof2gr8kids]

How long are you there for? Are you arriving Sunday and leaving Saturday or do you have more days you can spread out? Since you have to get park hoppers, you might want to take advantage of a couple of extra magic hour mornings, if you're morning people, or at AK if they end up having night EMH still for avatar land.
Because Disney doesn't update park hours until very close to when you go, it's hard to decide 6 months in advance where you want to eat and when, so if you're unsure about which park you might want to be at, I'd book a lunch at one and a dinner at another until it gets closer. Also, by about day 3 we can't go full steam ahead at the parks and need breaks so often we'd either leave mid day for a swim or lunch at a resort. Animal Kingdom lodge would be easy to get to if you wanted to eat at BOMA or Sanaa on your AK day.

 

[JenniKleims]

How long are you there for? Are you arriving Sunday and leaving Saturday or do you have more days you can spread out? Since you have to get park hoppers, you might want to take advantage of a couple of extra magic hour mornings, if you're morning people, or at AK if they end up having night EMH still for avatar land.
Because Disney doesn't update park hours until very close to when you go, it's hard to decide 6 months in advance where you want to eat and when, so if you're unsure about which park you might want to be at, I'd book a lunch at one and a dinner at another until it gets closer. Also, by about day 3 we can't go full steam ahead at the parks and need breaks so often we'd either leave mid day for a swim or lunch at a resort. Animal Kingdom lodge would be easy to get to if you wanted to eat at BOMA or Sanaa on your AK day.

We are arriving on the Sunday, but do not have park tickets for that day (as we are arriving mid-afternoon) and leaving on the Saturday (early) so again no park tickets - unfortunately no more room to spread things out.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[JenniKleims]

Another thought on this, although as always, may not apply to your family. We found that our kids (definitely younger than yours) were wrecked and cranky by end of day, so we ended up enjoying our a.m. meals much more, so focused more on breakfasts (my little guy is an early riser anyways) or lunches, which were generally cheaper and meant we could go with the flow for dinner Sometimes we would do big breakfast, midday snack and QS dinner, so we have more character meals in the a.m., but didn't spend a ton or go to bed stuffed.

If you decide that dinenrs are the way to go for you, something else to consider (which could also help with the hopper issue) would be more resort restaurants. We loved Ohana (already on your list), but you could even do Boma or Jiko at AKL instead of Tusker House and that would let you visit the resort as well.

Happy planning and hope this doesn't add too many monkey wrenches!

Thanks for the suggestions
We were lucky and got free dining so we decided to use the TS credit for a nice sit-down dinner. (we are more "dinner people" as our breakfasts are more of a "grab and go" than a sit down meal.)

 

[DisKaren]

I agree that it is expensive (paying for park hopper for one hop) but I don't know what the minimum park hopper ticket required for FD (chatting with our TA about this soon) - we may also decide to hop on different days, depending on how we are feeling with the parks.
(more time at MK is always a plus)
We are also thinking of hopping back to MK on the Friday.

FD requires at least a 2 day Park Hopper ticket. I'm assuming you are getting 5 day tickets? A park hopper is 1 charge for the whole ticket, whether it is for 2 days or 10 days. (You can't get it for 1 day). For 2 to 3 days of hopping it is $63.90. For 4 to 10 days of hopping it is $79.88, so it's only another $15.98 per person per trip for a 4 day or more hopper.

 

[momof2gr8kids]

We are arriving on the Saturday, but do not have park tickets for that day (as we are arriving mid-afternoon) and leaving on the Saturday (early) so again no park tickets - unfortunately no more room to spread things out..

Thanks for the suggestions.

What about adding a day to your tickets and going Sunday to mk? Monday's are typically days most crowd calendars suggest to avoid mk.

 

[JenniKleims]

Oops. Meant arriving on a Sunday
(not Saturday)

 

[JenniKleims]

Phew...so we booked our ADR and everything was obtained - except our TA (right now) was not able to get Minne's seasonal dine at Hollywood and Vine (guess dates are not available for our dates...yet.)
I asked her to try for SIFI as an alternative if she cannot get our first choice.
now on to trying to figure out what rides we want to hit, what FP we want to book and start counting down to our FP booking day (119 days and counting LOL)