Trip Planning Help! February 2019

[OHVolunteer]

I need some advice! We are planning our first family trip (we've been several times before kids), we arrive on 2/23 and depart on 3/1. We currently have reservations at Port Orleans - but that may change once the Winter promotions are released if we can get a deal at a deluxe. We plan to visit the parks 2/24-2/28. Traveling is myself, my husband, and our daughters (4.5 and 2.5 when we go). Our plan is to visit MK twice and EP, HS and AK once. I'm struggling on deciding which park to visit each day.

I subscribed to Touring Plans and they have Sunday 2/24 at an 8/10 overall crowd level with each of the parks at a 10 or a 9 - so i'm starting to get nervous as I thought we were going at a somewhat slower time of year.

So I'm looking for some expert advice, especially for which park we should visit Sunday 2/24 (Its the princess half marathon so not sure which parks get affected the most).

I do know that we want to do one of our MK days our last day 2/28.

We plan to do the standard dining plan and so far I've narrowed down the following ADRs we hope to get. Looking for other suggestions as well!

Arrival Day 2/23 - Dinner @ Chef Mickey's
Akershaus Breakfast or early lunch
BOG - Breakfast or Lunch
HS - Sci-Fi Diner Lunch or other suggestions welcome
AK - Tusker House Breakfast ?

We do not want to do CRT as I've read its not a good value on the dining plan, since its two credits and same with dinner at BOG since its two credits. So looking for suggestions on another sit-down ADR at MK for our second day. We are doing a lot of buffets so I'm not sure we want to do Crystal Palace. Thanks!

 

[YesterDark]

Your ADRs will most likely reflect where you go than anything else. Touringplans helps with this though. I also wouldn't really worry about crowd levels, those things are so tricky and often wrong. You can't control it so don't even let it make you nervous.

I would schedule the park days the way you want them and try to fit your ADRs to that schedule and only change them if you couldn't get what you want. If you want a personal preference, I always do MK the first day and last day since you get that Disney magic going day 1 and end on it.

With kids those ages (my kids last year were 4.5 and 2.5 too) you will need breaks if you go all day to the parks. I would plan all your sit down meals/character meals for dinner or mid day. Great way to get off your feet for a few hours, it was a god send for us last year.

I did BOG lunch and Crystal Palace dinner for one of my MK days. Kids love the Pooh characters. The food is actually pretty good for a buffet. Outside Crystal Palace/BOG/CRT at MK there really isn't any other young kid experiences that are must dos in my opinion. If you don't want to do a buffet, select a restaurant whose menu seems most appetizing.

As an aside, I did Chef Mickey's for brunch one of my MK days. It's a short 10 minute walk to get there from the Magic Kingdom. I'd do Chef Mickeys for lunch or dinner one day and pick somewhere else to go they night of your arrival. Maybe Trails End at Fort Wilderness? Or if you want to splurg, Hoop Dee Doo Review?

For HS you can try Hollywood and Vine; it had crap food but the kids will like the Mickey characters (I went for dinner, I think there are different characters at breakfast).

I've heard Tusker House is great for breakfast. That's on my list next time I go.

 

[Sha259]

We are also headed to the Mouse that Sunday Feb 24th and heading home Sunday Mar 3rd, with a 2.5 year old, staying offsite. We also figured that because of the marathon the parks and MK in particular would be packed that weekend, so we anticipated not visiting any parks until Monday. However, it's showing that MK will be crowded on Monday too. Our current plan on the 5 day hopper is to visit MK/HS on Monday, Break Day Tuesday, AK/Epcot Wednesday, MK/Epcot Thursday, Epcot/HS Friday, and AK/Epcot Saturday, with the hopes that we will catch the beginning of the Flower & Garden Festival. As you can see DH and I really like Epcot. We may swap a MK day to Friday depending on when the Festival begins. And most Epcot evenings will be very lowkey strolling after dinner type visits.

Depending on your expectations for the parks on Sunday, it might not be too bad. Like if you don't plan to do too many popular rides. The rest of the week looks good crowd wise, so you might want to look into shifting your plans a bit to have park days during the middle of the week.

 

[Sha259]

Are you planning to head to AK or AKL at all? Since we have a break day mid week we are planning to do lunch/early dinner at Sanaa or BOMA and some animal watching at AKL. Our townhome community will be very close to AKL. We are doing breakfast at the Wave on our first MK day, and we are doing Garden Grove (dinner) or Garden Grill (Breakfast) on one of our many Epcot days. Both are character meals and get good reviews (especially Garden Grill), but DS being so small I don't think he will really care which characters he sees.

 

[OHVolunteer]

Thanks for the advice. I know I shouldn't worry too much about the crowd calendars and the only day I'm really worried about is that Sunday. Maybe we'll just do Animal Kingdom that day since my kids won't be interested in the big rides - we'll probably try and Fastpass N'avi River Journey and then do the safari and some of the littler things and kind of ease into the trip. For the Princess Half Marathon is MK and Epcot typically the most affected?

We won't have a car we are flying in and planning on using disney transportation the entire time so I'm hesitant to book too many resort dinner reservations. But good point on maybe doing Chef Mickey's on one of our MK days I hadn't thought about that.

 

[YesterDark]

 

[OHVolunteer]

Just wanted to thank everyone for your insight! We decided to go to Magic Kingdom our first day (that Sunday) and got all of our ADR's booked this morning. All of the restaurants (besides Tony's) will be first times for us, so I hope we've picked some good ones for character interactions and food. Here's our plan so far:

Saturday 2/23 (Arrival Day) - 6:20 Dinner @ Chef Mickey's - our flight lands around 930 a.m. at MCO so plan to either go to Disney Springs for a bit in the afternoon or hang around the resort.
Sunday 2/24 (MK) - 11:45 Lunch @ Tony's Town Square - Festival of Fantasy Package
Monday 2/25 (AK) - 10:30 Breakfast @ Tusker House - River of Lights package - this is an EMH Morning at AK so figure we'll hit up some rides before breakfast and then leave for an afternoon break and come back for a bit in the evening.
Tuesday 2/26 (HS) - 12:05 lunch @ Mama Melrose -Fantasmic seating package - depending on our FPs and what we get done will probably take an afternoon break after lunch and come back in the evening
Wednesday 2/27 (EP) - PPO 8:00 Breakfast at Akershus
Thursday 2/28 (MK) - PPO 8:05 Breakfast at BoG & 4:45 dinner @ Skipper Canteen

Friday our flight leaves at 4 p.m. so we may head to Disney Springs for an early lunch and some shopping or just hang at the resort.

 

[YesterDark]

That looks amazing. Seems like you're a breakfast family.

 

[mjkacmom]

The 23rd/24th are the last days of presidents week in the northeast, it should quiet down by Monday.

 

[KayaWildfire]

It seems like I'm a little late to the party, but I might suggest moving up your Chef Mickey's reservation. We did a similar thing our last trip and we were exhausted by the time we spent 1.5 hours roughly getting to the Contemporary and then eating and spending an hour plus getting back. I assume you have to get up very early to be arriving that early. So maybe have a brunch reservation around 1(if that exists) and by the time you back your room will be ready. Because you might be without a place to let the kids sleep all day and that will be a late night.

 

[OHVolunteer]

It seems like I'm a little late to the party, but I might suggest moving up your Chef Mickey's reservation. We did a similar thing our last trip and we were exhausted by the time we spent 1.5 hours roughly getting to the Contemporary and then eating and spending an hour plus getting back. I assume you have to get up very early to be arriving that early. So maybe have a brunch reservation around 1(if that exists) and by the time you back your room will be ready. Because you might be without a place to let the kids sleep all day and that will be a late night.

That's a good point on Chef Mickey's - I looked this morning and didn't see any dinner reservations earlier than our current time, but I'll keep checking back for a late lunch/early dinner time. I didn't want to do earlier than dinner just in case we have any travel delays. We have direct flights, but we will be flying out of Ohio in February so you never know if we'll have inclement weather that could delay our flight.

 

[YesterDark]

I think the 6:20 time is just fine. Gives you plenty of time to relax and get into the mood of Disney. If it were me, anything earlier would start making me feel rushed. You land at 9:30, you'll be hitting your resort at around lunch time. You'll spend an hour or two waiting to either check in or wait for your room to become available and eating lunch. It's 2-3 oclock all the sudden. You'll then have 3-4 hours to explore the resort, settle in, and head of to Chef Mickeys.

I would not want to shove in things earlier. It's vacation, take it easy. The stressful part should be setting things up, not executing them!

 

[OHVolunteer]

I think the 6:20 time is just fine. Gives you plenty of time to relax and get into the mood of Disney. If it were me, anything earlier would start making me feel rushed. You land at 9:30, you'll be hitting your resort at around lunch time. You'll spend an hour or two waiting to either check in or wait for your room to become available and eating lunch. It's 2-3 oclock all the sudden. You'll then have 3-4 hours to explore the resort, settle in, and head of to Chef Mickeys.

I would not want to shove in things earlier. It's vacation, take it easy. The stressful part should be setting things up, not executing them!

Thank you! This is the timeline I was envisioning for our first day. So I think we will just stick with what we have. I didn't realize Chef Mickey's didn't offer lunch (just breakfast, brunch and dinner) so the earliest dinner reservation we would be able to get would be 5 anyway so doesn't seem like its worth the stress of trying to get the reservation moved.

 

[Lease257]

This is the week we are going too but not arriving till Sunday. I booked 1900 for that evening.

I have nothing really to add to the topic except I’m eagerly awaiting each day to see the park hours. Why are they released AFTER our day to schedule ADRs?? I already moved my tusker House to Monday since I saw AK has eMH that day. And then today just moved my Askershus to Tuesday since that became Epcot’s EMH. I’m assuming tomorrow I’ll see what the hours are for Wednesday of that week