The ultimate lesson for any Disney visitor is this: get there early. No matter the crowd levels (which are estimated and arent dead accurate, as youll see from others who have complained about this in many posts), I think its simply best to get there bright and early. I love to sleep in
Love it
I say its vacation, why should I wake up early. Then I show up an hour after the park opens and kick myself while my wife just grins with the I told you look.
While it's generally a good idea to arrive at the parks early, I have said before and will say again - the RD mania on the DIS is sometimes a bit overblown. (not trying to pick on your post, it's just the first I saw commenting onthe subject. I actually agree with most of what you say.)
I don't think that if this family arrives after rd their FIRST day, and aims for RD the rest of their trip - their trip will hardly be ruined. (we've ha a number of trips where we arrived well after RD, and STILL did plenty with minimal waiting!)
There is SO much to do at WDW, they could easily spend a FULL day in MK, and not do a single FP attraction. (though avoiding ALL lines is nearly impossible; there's often lines for the restrooms! )We often spend half days in the parks and we simply do fewer e-rides. Then on days when we'll have a full day, we do more e-rides. Even if you arrive at noon, you can still usually gather multimple fastpasses in MK. And we typically skip the castle shows and parades! Often at AK, late in the afternoon, the park clears out. On our most recent visit (granted it was during the FLower Festival) we spent an entire day inthe park and I think we only rode one Fp attraction: Maelstrom. Any you rarely need a fp for that. We saw some festival attractions, we walked the WS, walked on SE, and did some of the things we rarely do - like walk through Innoventions, see teh Canad movie, and hit the Cola sampling room. I can't say we waited in any real lines all day either. (Our longest wait of the day was waiting for our table at Le Cellier. The waits there are always crazy - And that's WITH the required ADR!)
Seriously, on our arrival day, sometimes it's just fun to grab a table, a bite to eat, and just sit and take in the idea that you have arrived - and I'm not one to spend much of the trip sitting. (a great spot for this is sitting outdoors at the GF's quick serve place!)
I do agree withthe rest of your post however. I think it's tough to do WDW if you are poorly rested. Driving long distance tires me out. Even without heavy traffic, just the stress of having to pay close attention the whole way to road conditions, other crazy drivers, and sometimes navigation is tiring.
If you are concerned about spending much $$ to be at WDW, and can afford the time - it would be worth driving 95% of the distance, then staying some place inexpensive that's say - within an hour of WDW, and arriving rested.
The other consideration - at least for me - is that as soon as I arrive - I NEED to get my bags out of the hot car and into the room at a bare minimum. Heat will ruin many medicines, will ruin make up and other toiletries, will melt many foods. It may even cause bottles to explode. Oh - and lets not forget that other item so ubiquitous when traveling with small kids - CRAYONS! A crayon left ina hot car will make a HUGE mess in a matter of seconds...just ask my dad. (Sometiems inthe 70's we made a HUGE mess one road trip by leaving crayons inthe car!)
But the real reason I came to this thread was that we are thinking of driving ourselves. I have driven before - and my concern is this - finding quick roadside dining along the way that isn't complete garbage. I rarely eat McD's and often feel ill when I do. Too many times I've had stale, flat-been-in-a-paper-cup-too-long diet soda...it's not yummy. Does anyone have suggestions for places (dare I say -chains?) that are little above the Shoney's-Perkins-Applebee's level of quality, but in that same price range and QUICK. I'd LOVE to find a quick serve/fast food place that had excellent fresh healthy food.
DH want to go down there to fish.
)
Anyway, we usually leave about 5 a.m. bring breakfast to eat in the car and with 1 stop for lunch and a stop for gas/bathroom break we usually make it there no later than 5:30 p.m. and that's with loosing the hour. We usually check in to one of the hotels on 192 and grab some dinner then we get up early the next morning and usually check in at our Disney resort (usually POR) around 7:30 a.m. We have them hold our bags since the room isn't ever ready that early, we grab some breakfast at the food court and then head out for a full day. I find this has always worked great as we are not paying for an extra night at POR and we are able to get well rested up after the drive for our first full day. I don't think I'd function too well at the park my 1st day trying to sleep in a car all night or have to wake up in the middle of the night to drive.
ay 1: $84.14, Day 2: add $82, Day 3: add $67 to the 2day ticket, Day 4: add $6 to the 3day ticket. Day 5: add $3.2...and it stays at that rate for days 6-10.
