What to do with first half day?

[scrapquitler]

It looks like our flight down will be really early. Like 8am take off, arriving around 10:30am. I would guess we could expect to be at POFQ by 12:30 on the MDE. So if we check in and then have lunch....what then? We want our first full day to be at MK, having breakfast at the castle. Do we just relax at the hotel and maybe hit Disney Springs? Or go to EP or HS in the afternoon/evening? Our oldest two (11 and 9) have been to WDW 5 years ago, but our youngest two (3 and 4) have never been and never flown. I'm leaning toward a down day to just settle in, take the boat to the Springs...except that there isn't really anything to do there for the kids. Or should we schedule some FP+ at HS (because it's sounding more and more like a half day park) and hit that as an easy intro to the whole Disney experience?

Edited to add: Or do we schedule HDDR for that first night? Relax a bit in the afternoon and then head over for the show? Hmm...I'm liking that idea... But HS is listed as a crowd level of 1...First world problems, I know.

My family would be in a full revolt if we didn't hit MK for at least a couple hours if our arrival was planned the way yours is.

 

[myhoney]

OP here...

The kids don't know about the trip and won't until that morning. We will be getting everyone up early to be at the airport, so making it an early night would be wise. And I never thought about the flight being delayed. Could I make an ADR and FP+? If the weather looks like it will be bad for our travel day, I can cancel HDDR a few days prior and then we'd use the FP. Otherwise, we could roll the dice that there are no mechanical issues and we'll get there in time. We have 7 day passes. We were only going to get 6 days, but since we are in so early and it's so cheap, we went for 7 day tix instead. We are on DxDDP, so we typically only eat TS, so I'd need an ADR somewhere.. we've got time. Maybe I'll figure out the rest of our week to see where HDDR can fit and backplan into that travel day. Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

[CynBeth]

I would just make it a rest and/or Disney Springs day. Maybe miniature golf. Depending on how tired you can always decide to go to a park without ADRs or FPs. On our last few trips we got either a first or second flight of a day and arrived by 9 am at MCO. By the time we drove in our rental car to the resort and got in our room and had lunch at the CS there it was usually 1 or 2 in the afternoon plus the time it took to get to the park. I don't know when your trip is but these were both crowded times.