What would your Ultimate first night of first visit be for a 5 and 8 year old?

[MissDolewhip]

I am in the beginning stages of planning for our first family trip to Disney World! (My husband and I went once together pre kids, and I have been a handful of times before that.)

I will have an 8 year old girl, and 5 year old boy when we travel in mid May of 2025. We are staying for 8 nights at Fort Wilderness, towing our Airstream from Indiana.

I don’t know what time for sure we will arrive on our first day, but I’m thinking it will be late morning/early afternoon. Im trying to decide what would be a fun first evening for our kids.

Some ideas I have are:

1- Stay at Fort Wilderness, go to the Hoop De Doo for dinner, do some looping in the golf cart, watch MK fireworks from the beach.

2- Go to Chef Mickey’s for dinner, (I suspect my kids will not be big on meeting characters so I thought this could be a good way of getting the main characters out of the way before park days) maybe have a ride on the monorail, watch MK fireworks from the Contemporary viewing platform.

3- Head to Magic Kingdom, ride the rail road around to see the park, then have dinner somewhere (CRT?), wander Main Street, get silhouettes done, and watch Wishes.

I’m open to these and any other fun options you can think of. I would love a first evening that gets everyone into the Disney spirit and that embodies the iconic traditional Magic Kingdom sort of vibes if that makes sense, lol.

Any good suggestions? Pros/cons of options I’ve listed? Thank you!!!

 

[scrappinginontario]

If it were me I would consider your first option and do Hoop Dee Doo. It’s a fun experience for all and you’d be close to where you’re staying so able to get a good rest before starting your Disney trip.

With it being your first visit I’d personally not choose character dining until you see how your children will react to the characters. Some children take a bit up warm up to characters and being in a situation where they get close often, can set the tone of your trip. If they’ve had other character experiences you might be fine but I know with my niece a character meal would have traumatized her. We took it very slow and by day 4 she was fine but definitely not day 1.

 

[glocon]

I agree with option 1.
Embrace what your chosen resort has to offer and settle in there.
Though I’ve never been to FW, I understand there is a lot to do there.

 

[DeeBee3]

Also agree with #1. After a long drive, I'd do something near your campground and then be able to start the next day fresh.

 

[Mouse Tracker]

Based on the thread title, money isn't a factor. If your considering going to MK on arrival day maybe go with a dessert party reservation. Basically guarantees a good seat to view along with treats.

Nothing embodies the Disney spirit more than starting off with scanning into MK and walking down Main Street with the castle in view.

 

[sponica]

Based on my sister's experience towing her camper from MA, build in extra time for the way down and don't make plans for arrival day. They had a dead battery and a cracked windshield and hit storms along the way.

I'd be inclined to just take arrival day easy. Get settled into the campsite, pick up your golf cart rental and take it easy. I'm not even sure I'd add in HDDR.

 

[SG131]

Another vote for option 1. Get a good night sleep so the kids can start their first full day on the right foot. Disney is exhausting enough already. The resort has a lot of nice things to offer. There's a chip and dale campfire sing-a-long you could do after hoop de doo.

 

[HeiHei2018]

I wouldn’t schedule anything and just take the day to explore. When DD was younger, she loved all the resort decor and even the playgrounds. One of my favorite photos of our first trip is her with a random Daisy statue at our resort. She was SO excited (and not at all tired yet). So my vote would be #1 without the HDD reservation.

 

[dcassetta]

Take a dip in the pool, Visit the Tri-Circle D Ranch, bike, walk, or cart some of the loops.

Get some take out from Trail's End

Go to the Campfire and movie

Head down to the beach to watch the Electrical Water Pageant and MK Fireworks.

 

[goofyernmost]

This is what I found over the years. Plan out you stay as to when you want to go to each park. The sequence doesn't matter depending on how many days you are going to be there. If all you have is one day for each park then for a 5 to 8 year old make MK the last. Once they have seen MK you can no longer keep them happily down on the farm. MK is always, always always the most popular place for young kids. I found that if you take them to others first they will enjoy being to the others and seeing whatever is there, but once the go to MK everything else will be boring.

That's my opinion. I found that even though they were aware of MK's existence, they seemed to have fun in just anticipating, but after everything else was usually treated with a whole lot of whiny "can we go back to MK", this place is no fun. Of course, like everything, others mileage may vary.

 

[Marthasor]

I agree with those that recommend not making any plans or reservations for the day. There is so much to do at Ft. W that does not require pre-planning. I would settle in, visit the stables, go to the pool, playground, kayak/canoe, fish, explore the campgrounds, eat at Trail's End, watch the fireworks from the Ft. W beach. If you want to explore further, you could always take the boat to MK and ride the monorail or take the resort boats and visit WL and/CR. I would save the parks, characters and ADRs for your full vacation days.

 

[nighttowll]

Another vote for staying at the campground.

1. Travel days can be unpredictable. I'd hate to use a park day or have not to be missed activities scheduled if something caused a delay. Rescheduling "resort" activities will be much easier if something happens.

2. I'd be done wasting time on traveling all around by that night and tired. Doing activities closer to bed sounds great. Agree with others who say get a good nights sleep and be ready for the next day.

3. The campground is a lot of fun. Enjoy it! The electrical water pageant, the fireworks from beach, the sing-a-long, take advantage of it all.

 

[Upatnoon]

For your first day, I would set up camp, eat at the Fort Wilderness, explore the resort a bit, maybe go to the pool and head to bed early.

No reservations, no pressure, no expectations.

Have fun!

 

[MissDolewhip]

Sounds like the consensus is mostly to stay at the resort! Thanks all, there is some really good ideas and reasoning here. I might still schedule the Hoop Dee Doo for dinner but I think we’ll skip the water parade and fireworks the first night to get to bed early.

 

[GPC0321]

It's so funny, when I saw the thread title, your #2 and #3 choices both came to my mind immediately. But when I started reading your post and saw where you were staying, your #1 choice pushed the other two aside.

I think, as long as you get there early enough, you'd be fine with Hoop Dee Doo for dinner. It's so much fun. You'll have plenty of time to do all the fun things at the campground, so I'd just get set up and settled in, get your golf cart and explore a bit, and maybe hit the pool or the playground, then back to the camper to rest up before dinner. And yeah, skip the late-night entertainment. You'll all be pretty pooped, so early to bed and then early to rise for Magic Kingdom in all its glory!

I'm jealous. I've never stayed at Fort Wilderness or even gotten to spend much time over there...just long enough to do Hoop Dee Doo. I keep swearing we'll make time to go see the horses, but it never seems to happen. We'll be at WDW on Sunday (Grand Floridian) and once again I have aspirations of visiting the horses. Of course, it is silly. I have a horse and see many of them every single day. Kinda goofy to go "see horses" when I see them all the time. But...horse people are crazy like that. LOL

 

[kathy884]

Fort Wilderness is great. I'd hang out there your first night, explore the place. My kids at that age (and older too) would want to play / swim in the pool at Fort Wilderness and maybe if the weather was nice watch one of the evening movies under the stars.

I love the sing a longs and stuff like that too. I'd make it a chill out evening after a long travel day.

 

[cruising spud]

Before we sold our camper this past winter, we spent twenty years camping at Fort Wilderness. Best place in Disney. I would take the kids swimming and do take out at Trails End. Explore the campground a bit, so that you understand the bus service. And then, get to bed early.