What to do the first night?

[Livin'4Disney]

We are also planning on the HDDR the first night.

We are doing HDDR at 5pm on the 16th. Looks like we may be there at the same time
I am wondering how long the dinner show is?

 

[jenseib]

These are great ideas. I never thought of not going to a park the first day.
One question I have is, what do you do your last day. since most have to be at the airport at some time. I thought of booking as late as a flight as I could, but still is there time to do anything that day as well? What is checkout time too? How earl ydoes the Magical express take you to the airport.

 

[MomofCKJ]

Our last day we have a 4pm flight.

The plan is to pack up, check out and store our luggage at Pop. Go to MK for a last morning of fun and grab CS lunch. Head back to Pop. We are not using ME but have a pickup from Sunray. I am guessing we'll have a 1:30 ish pick up. Then we'll head home!

Allyson

 

[andysgirl360]

On our last trip (also our 1st!), we arrived at WL at about 2:30. We flew in and had been awake since about 4:30 am. The plan was to check in and go swimming..but the system was down so we hung out in the gorgeous lobby. We did get to go swimming though, just not as long as we would have liked. We planned dinner at WCC so we knew we didn't have to go far. After dinner we went to the campfire sing along at Fort Wilderness....my DD5 loved the marshmallows. We didn't stay for the movie though, because it's not always a cartoon. We ended the day with watching the water parade at 9:35 from the WL beach. It was really nice to take it easy and get to bed at a decent hour.

Our last day, I purposely booked the latest flight (6:00pm). We went to MK for the morning and early afternoon, back to WL for one last CS lunch, and ME picked us up at about 3:00pm.

 

[HeatherC]

Not sure if your little one can stay up late enough, but you could also do Chef Mickey's for dinner then hop on the monorail over to the Poly and walk down to the beach and watch the fireworks from there.

Have a ball!
HeatherC

 

[vandort]

We always have dinner at Chef Mickey's our first night. It really sets the mood for the rest of the trip.

 

[AMaloy314]

We had dinner at Chef Mickey our first night and rode the monorail around the parks. It was great to see Mickey and the castle! The kids had so much fun at dinner and then on the monorail ride. You can board upstairs at the Contemporary and ride around the full circle to see Magic Kingdom, Poly, GF, and then on over to Epcot! A great way to get excited for our vacation.

We did this also on our last trip! It was great. I'm not sure how old your kids are, but it gave my little ones a chance to get used to the characters and how big they are.

We didn't think about it, but if you time it right, you could be riding around MK on the monorail during the fireworks, too.

 

[KikiFan]

I really like to take things easy the first day. We usually have to get up unholy early, so trying to get to the park is pushing it. This trip we'll be arriving at 11:30. I'm really hoping we'll be able to get into our room so we can take our time unpacking and setting up! (we have a christmas tree to set up!!) Then we'll go to Spirit of O'hana. Maybe check out some of the other hotels along the monorail.