Help with WDW itinerary

[123LuckyMom]

We have six days in the parks, Sun.-Fri.
Arrival day: dinner at 1900 Character meal
Day 1: MK all day w/ midday break
Day 2: AK full day with extra morning hour, dinner at ?
Day 3: DHS full day ending with Fantasmic
Day 4: EPCOT all day, midday break, Illuminations
Day 5: EPCOT extra morning hour until midday break. MK for afternoon/evening.
Day 6: MK extra morning hour/hopping afternoon for favorites
Departure day: flight not until early evening

Here are my concerns. The kids are asking for characters. They haven't done well with them in the past, but we have a generous budget, so I'm willing to do character meals if I can get them. On our arrival day, we'll do dinner at the Grand Floridian (1900) and see Cinderella and co. We also have time for Chef Mickey or another resort restaurant on our departure day. The kicker is that the characters the kids REALLY want to see are Pooh and friends. That means Crystal Palace, right? When should we do it? As it is, I'm worried about MK time, because we have our second potential full day at MK scheduled for our LAST day! That's because of the EMH and wanting to wait for EPCOT until the flower show. The most chaotic day will be Thursday, which happens to be my birthday. And the best time for us to do a character/nice meal would be after AK, because it closes at 5pm! If we do three character meals, none of which is on our AK day, I'm not sure I want to do yet another expensive restaurant that day. The kids really like Rainforest Cafe at AK, so we've usually done that for lunch.

What would you do? Would you change around my parks? What character meals would you do and when? Help me tweak, please!!!

[anonomom]

While I like 1900 Park Faire, it isn't the best "bang for your buck" if what you're looking for is characters (unless you have a kid who REALLY wants to meet Prince Charming). The Tremaine Family is available in the Magic Kingdom (Fantasy Land) almost all day long and their lines aren't too bad. So I'd maybe do a counter service dinner on your arrival night.

If you want to knock out a lot of characters in one meal, you might consider Akershus in Epcot. Depending on how expensive it is to add an additional day's ticket onto what you already have, it may be a good choice on your arrival night. You get to meet most of the princesses (five of them, I believe), which may well be worth the extra $50 or so total you'd pay to add an additional park day to your tix (looks like it costs about $10/person to add a 7th park day). Plus, it gives you a little time to cover part of the World Showcase and gives you some breathing room on Day 5.

Depending on which specific Winnie The Pooh characters your kids want, you may not have to do Crystal Palace. Pooh and Tigger met in the England Pavillion in Epcot. It's a cute space that usually doesn't have a long line. This doesn't help you if your kids want to meet Piglet and Eeyore, though. I think CP is the only place to meet them.

Where are you staying? Many of the resort counter service restaurants are quite good and could be good options for your Ak day. Or, since you have hoppers, you could head into whatever park is the closest and grab a CS dinner there (though this only works really well if you're walking distance of a park).

[123LuckyMom]

We're staying at the Contemporary. DS is 7, and DD will be almost 4.

I chose 1900 because it's a resort, so we could do it on our arrival night. Also, I heard the stepsisters are amusing. I'm not attached to it, but I do think it would be nice to have a fun dinner on our arrival day.

Eyeore's my favorite, so I think we might have to do Crystal Palace. Maybe we skip the character meal on our arrival day and do an early breakfast at CP on our first day.

Nobody seems to care too much about the princesses, but DD might be enthralled. I just don't know.

[rkold]

To be honest, your schedule sounds exhausting. We just got back from a week at WDW and DD (just turned 5) would be completely zonked on your schedule. I know this is counter intuitive, but frequently, the parks are most crowded during EMH, because many people on property feel obligated to use EMHs and there are fewer attractions open so the lines can be long.

I find 1900 Park Fare loud. It's completely enclosed and it has no windows so it always feels like a basement to me. I have done it a few times for breakfast to meet Alice and Mary without any lines. The Stepsisters are a hoot and they get long lines, but it's just not my favorite place for character meals.

If you can't get an early breakfast at CP, do a later breakfast post 10:00, and you can do fp+ from opening until the reservation. (The first hour the park is open is the best time for doing standby. We got to MK late ~9:20ish on Tuesday and got on AstroOrbiter, Tomorrowland Speedway, Met Ariel, and met Minnie, Daisy, Goofy and Donald, all before 10:30.) One warning, I find CR has one of the slowest character rotations of any characters meal. It usually takes a good 1 1/2 hours. We've never meet Eeyore despite eating there 2x because we leave before he makes it to the table. :/

Are you on the meal plan? We generally avoid it. >>;

I think the QS at Contemp is much better than most of the food in MK, though the Sunshine Seasons in Epcot is our new favorite QS location. The Wave is dark and he food is so-so. The CG is some of the best food on property. If you want an adult night without the kids, Lilo's Playhouse in the Poly is a great option. My DD loves it.

I was so glad, DD announced being over Anna and Elsa this trip so we didn't do the Sing-Along. She is now entranced with Star Tours. The lines were crazy long this past trip and I expect by Spring they will be worse.

My DD likes meeting characters most so....

I don't like Aksherus. The food is mediocre and it feels like it takes forever to get everything. It's an easy way to meet 5 princesses, but I find it easy enough to wait for Aurora, Belle, Ariel and Snow White. I am not fond of Cindy's either, but DD likes it. I will only do it for breakfast before they have no kids vegetarian options. ~.~

It's super loud, but if you have kids who like Disney Jr. We like the Hollywood+Vine Disney Jr. Breakfast. The food is decent (the chocolate kahlua sauce is amazing) and it's perfect for rowdy outgoing children who want to dance around. It's also the shortest wait if your kids want Doc, Sofia, and Jake. They are costume characters not face.

We recently tried Ohana breakfast for the first time. The setting was lovely, we were overlooking the castle and it feels more relaxing. We got Mickey, Pluto, Lilo and Stitch, again all costume.

We did Chef Mickey's, we were on the meal plan for 2 nights, and the dinner there is a great bang for your money since it's ~$50 per adult otherwise. The food is mediocre but DD loved it. Not sure I would go back without the meal plan and definitely not for dinner.

[123LuckyMom]

We don't do the meal plan. We mostly eat counter service or from our stock of groceries. On our last trip we hardly ever bought food for our kids. Mostly they ate peanut butter sandwiches, Greek yogurt, nuts, fruit, and cheese that we had brought with us in a small cooler. We didn't do this to save money, but they just turned out to be happier eating our snacks than the food at the parks. We mostly bought milk and the occasional Mickey bar ;).

Yes, our Disney trips are exhausting! We love it that way! The kids didn't complain at all last time, though they did fall asleep on the way back to the hotel every night. We'll see how it goes this time. The midday nap, frankly, is for us. The kids probably will spend the whole time begging to go back to the park.

I've gotten such different advice on the EMHs that I don't know what to believe. I'm happy not to wake up an hour earlier and to change our parks around so we're not waiting until the last day to have our second full day at MK. The Unofficial Guide suggests taking advantage of EMHs when they are morning hours. I'm trusting them. Maybe I should just not worry about it and tweak the schedule a bit. One of the days we're not at MK is my birthday. I'd much prefer to be at MK for my birthday. Should I really not use the EMHs?

[rkold]

We don't do the meal plan. We mostly eat counter service or from our stock of groceries. On our last trip we hardly ever bought food for our kids. Mostly they ate peanut butter sandwiches, Greek yogurt, nuts, fruit, and cheese that we had brought with us in a small cooler. We didn't do this to save money, but they just turned out to be happier eating our snacks than the food at the parks. We mostly bought milk and the occasional Mickey bar ;).

Yes, our Disney trips are exhausting! We love it that way! The kids didn't complain at all last time, though they did fall asleep on the way back to the hotel every night. We'll see how it goes this time. The midday nap, frankly, is for us. The kids probably will spend the whole time begging to go back to the park.

I've gotten such different advice on the EMHs that I don't know what to believe. I'm happy not to wake up an hour earlier and to change our parks around so we're not waiting until the last day to have our second full day at MK. The Unofficial Guide suggests taking advantage of EMHs when they are morning hours. I'm trusting them. Maybe I should just not worry about it and tweak the schedule a bit. One of the days we're not at MK is my birthday. I'd much prefer to be at MK for my birthday. Should I really not use the EMHs?

It's funny in a bunch of their older books the Unofficial Guide recommended skipping EMH or if you do them leaving the park with EMH by 11 am. I think it depends on the park and how many attractions are open. I think it can also vary by time of year. I use/pay for their app, and sometimes their estimates are on the money and sometimes they are not. For a long time, the app didn't seem to realize Talking Mickey at MK gets super long lines vs Town Square Mickey pre-talking.

WDW is constantly getting more crowded. We've been coming in October for a few years now and each year it is more crowded than the last. The first two weeks of December were completely dead in '97 and '05 and were even pretty quiet in '12, but last year they were so awful, I just won't go back!

My DD wants to go to the park all day, but gets cranky. She also refuses to nap, which means we always have a few nights when we put her to bed by 8 and she misses everything.

I'm not pro-meal plan. It always seems to consist of too much food and lots of dessert. I admit, I generally use my DVC card to get 10% off at some of the restaurants instead. I use to use TiW but they just raised the price to $150 and it's just too high. In general, if paying out of pocket, character breakfasts will save you considerably over the same meal for lunch or dinner and it's harder to mess up breakfast. (Which is why I was asking about the meal plan, on the meal plan, it makes more sense to do character dinners.) I really like scheduling my character meals for a little after 10, it does double duty with lunch then and gives me the first hour the park is open to hit up things with no line. Depending on meal, I start my FP+ for 11ish. We've done the FP+ for the parades (Electrical Light and Festival of Fantasy) and it's wonderful having a special area to see things. I travel without my DH, so holding DD for 20+ minutes as the parade goes by or grabbing a spot 45 minutes in advance is not super fun. I used the old FP+ location for Wishes once, it was disappointing, but the new FP+ area looks a lot nicer. It's more centrally located and seems to have more space.

[klwa]

If they're really wanting Pooh, you could swap out Chef Mickeys for your arrival night and go to 1900 Park Fair for breakfast on your departure day. Pooh & Tigger are there for breakfast, along with Alice, Mary Poppins, and the Mad Hatter.

Or, add an extra day of tickets & go to MK for a late breakfast/early lunch on your departure day.

Or, since you already have hoppers (right?), get a 6:00 reservation for CP on your Animal Kingdom day & hop over after you get done at AK.

Or, if you're looking at moving dates around, we've had great luck using the crowd calendars at easywdw to plan what park to go to which day. http://www.easywdw.com/category/calendar/ Josh is really good at explaining WHY he recommends or doesn't recommend a park on a specific day.

[123LuckyMom]

Okay, ignoring EMHs, we could do this:

Arrival day: We may have a morning flight that gets in to the airport at 10:30am. I would imagine we could get to the resort by 12:30pm and could do a character (or other) lunch or dinner. We could kick things off with Chef Mickey (?) or any resort character (or otherwise) meal. DH and I really want to use the day to see other resorts. If the weather's nice, the kids can swim. This day is a prep day!
Day 1: MK all day w/ midday break
Day 2: AK full day with extra morning hour. Day ends at 5pm
Day 3: DHS full day ending with Fantasmic (or switch the AK and DHS days to avoid AK on EMH day.)
Day 4: EPCOT all day, midday break, Illuminations
Day 5: MK all day with midday break
Day 6: EPCOT until done, MK for fireworks
Departure day: There's definitely time for a character breakfast, but no park ticket today as of yet.

The idea of paying $50 for an extra day is really tempting. We haven't booked our flight yet, so we'd want to wait to decide on that until we knew we'd be able to leave late in the day. We already ordered our park tickets. Is it hard to add an extra day?

With this schedule, we have a bunch of slots for character (or other ADR) meals. We've got arrival and departure days. Either of the MK days could be a Crystal Palace breakfast before the park opens or lunch before our midday break. The AK day is good for a dinner. Since we're staying at the Contemporary, any day with a midday break would work for Chef Mickey's for lunch. I worry about lunch ADRs, though, because I want rides to take priority, and I don't like downtime. If we finish rides too early, we'll be twiddling our thumbs waiting for our reservation, and if we do just one more ride we could miss our reservation. I am NOT a fan of how overly planned WDW has become!!!!!! I remember the days of flitting from ride to ride, encountering characters by surprise just walking around, and popping into a restaurant when hungry and being able to get a table. Sigh.

I think my kids would choose the Mickey characters and Pooh characters over princesses, but they've not expressed interest in meeting characters before, so they might be entranced with the face characters. We want to do all meals together. DH is highly opposed to paying huge sums for breakfast, because we're not big breakfast eaters, and we usually just eat something like Greek yogurt and fruit in the room. I could convince him, though.

1900 Park Fare breakfast is definitely a possibility, though I would be super sad to miss Eeyore and Piglet!

[rkold]

Okay, ignoring EMHs, we could do this:

Arrival day: We may have a morning flight that gets in to the airport at 10:30am. I would imagine we could get to the resort by 12:30pm and could do a character (or other) lunch or dinner. We could kick things off with Chef Mickey (?) or any resort character (or otherwise) meal. DH and I really want to use the day to see other resorts. If the weather's nice, the kids can swim. This day is a prep day!
Day 1: MK all day w/ midday break
Day 2: AK full day with extra morning hour. Day ends at 5pm
Day 3: DHS full day ending with Fantasmic (or switch the AK and DHS days to avoid AK on EMH day.)
Day 4: EPCOT all day, midday break, Illuminations
Day 5: MK all day with midday break
Day 6: EPCOT until done, MK for fireworks
Departure day: There's definitely time for a character breakfast, but no park ticket today as of yet.

The idea of paying $50 for an extra day is really tempting. We haven't booked our flight yet, so we'd want to wait to decide on that until we knew we'd be able to leave late in the day. We already ordered our park tickets. Is it hard to add an extra day?

With this schedule, we have a bunch of slots for character (or other ADR) meals. We've got arrival and departure days. Either of the MK days could be a Crystal Palace breakfast before the park opens or lunch before our midday break. The AK day is good for a dinner. Since we're staying at the Contemporary, any day with a midday break would work for Chef Mickey's for lunch. I worry about lunch ADRs, though, because I want rides to take priority, and I don't like downtime. If we finish rides too early, we'll be twiddling our thumbs waiting for our reservation, and if we do just one more ride we could miss our reservation. I am NOT a fan of how overly planned WDW has become!!!!!! I remember the days of flitting from ride to ride, encountering characters by surprise just walking around, and popping into a restaurant when hungry and being able to get a table. Sigh.

I think my kids would choose the Mickey characters and Pooh characters over princesses, but they've not expressed interest in meeting characters before, so they might be entranced with the face characters. We want to do all meals together. DH is highly opposed to paying huge sums for breakfast, because we're not big breakfast eaters, and we usually just eat something like Greek yogurt and fruit in the room. I could convince him, though.

1900 Park Fare breakfast is definitely a possibility, though I would be super sad to miss Eeyore and Piglet!

Here is the problem with tickets, I believe there is a 5 day Park Hopper but no 6 day. You can buy a length of stay direct from Disney since you're staying on property, but they would do your entire trip and then you would be stuck with the Undercover Tourist tickets. If you contact WDW they might be able to turn the Park Hopper into a Length of Stay ticket. I do know that as long as the pass is still valid you can add a day. I did that in DL for me and DD and in WDW for DH.

Normally, we eat light breakfasts too, which is why I like to do a late breakfast since it also covers lunch then and I'm not hungry again until dinner. I find around 10ish is perfect, since the meal will run you until 11ish (aka early lunch). I honestly don't think the dinner at Chef Mickey's is worth ~$50 per adult. The food is very "traditional" and a little on the boring side. You will be paying about $20 more per person for eating dinner with the characters and I don't honestly feel like any of the restaurants are worth that much more.

I've never eaten there, but Tusker House in AK is one of the easier character meals to book and I think has some sort of variation on the Mickey, Donald, Minnie, Daisy, etc.

I agree that the AK day is a good day to do CP for dinner. You can take a bus directly to MK and then walk back to your hotel post dinner or even see if you can get in an extra ride or two. Personally, I find booking ADRs before the park opens can be a challenge because they're super popular. Heck, in 2014, people were getting them in Norway at Aksherus and then taking the $10 cancellation fee to get in line earlier for Anna and Elsa. ADRs can be a bit tricky, because someone arriving before you and staying through your entire vacation can book that entire week as ADRs and block you out. It's a little frustrating, though not as frustrating as having to wait on your ADR for the restaurant to take you.

Do your kids like playgrounds? Rather than having actual downtime with nothing to do, you could take them to: The Boneyard in AK while waiting for an ADR, Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground in the Studios, or there is a small indoor play area attached to Dumbo now. (I've heard Tom Sawyers Island is a good place to run around, but you also spend a lot of time trying to get off the Island.) The Boneyard is really well done and my DD likes the Dumbo play area more than the Dumbo ride. Another good activity, is Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom in MK. Everyone in your party with paid admission gets some cards for free and you go from portal to portal trying to defeat Disney villains. You can start and stop it at will. If you don't go that often and the kids get into it, you will need to keep track of how far you've gotten so that you don't need to re-do levels. It takes about 6-8 hours to win on easy. The cards are beautiful and make a nice free souvenir. People get really into it and trade cards to complete their sets. Epcot also has an interactive game, I think it's Phineas and Ferb based now (use to be Kim Possible) and that is another activity that you do at your own pace and can stop and start at will.

[123LuckyMom]

Those are some good ideas! We'd be adding a day into a six day hopper, so we'd be changing a six to a seven. I may look into that and see whether it's possible once I seize on a flight.

I think dinner at Crystal Palace on our AK day is a good idea. I was reluctant to go to CP in the dark since it's so glorious in the day, and it's annoying to pay for dinner when it's the same food as lunch, but that would avoid ride time interference. If I could get an early breakfast, though, should I do that instead?

Thanks for all the ride alternative suggestions! I need to research this, because DS is tall enough for almost all the thrill rides and loves them, but, unless she has a 3" growth spurt, DD can't go on anything but barnstormer! She's only 36"-37" now. I may post another thread going forward about how to manage that best.

Maybe the best plan is to do nothing character related on arrival day but do CP for dinner on AK day and Chef Mickey's for late breakfast on departure day.

[anonomom]

Adding days to tickets is very easy once you're on property. Once you've used at least one day on your tickets but not all of the days, bring the tickets to the window at any park to add a day. They may possibly be able to do it at the resort, but I'm not sure about that.

The good thing is you have until your second-to-last day to decide if you want to add another park day. You may find you're tired of the parks by day 7, at which point you can cancel your adr (24 hours in advance) and skip upgrading.

[rkold]

Those are some good ideas! We'd be adding a day into a six day hopper, so we'd be changing a six to a seven. I may look into that and see whether it's possible once I seize on a flight.

I think dinner at Crystal Palace on our AK day is a good idea. I was reluctant to go to CP in the dark since it's so glorious in the day, and it's annoying to pay for dinner when it's the same food as lunch, but that would avoid ride time interference. If I could get an early breakfast, though, should I do that instead?

Thanks for all the ride alternative suggestions! I need to research this, because DS is tall enough for almost all the thrill rides and loves them, but, unless she has a 3" growth spurt, DD can't go on anything but barnstormer! She's only 36"-37" now. I may post another thread going forward about how to manage that best.

Maybe the best plan is to do nothing character related on arrival day but do CP for dinner on AK day and Chef Mickey's for late breakfast on departure day.

It's hard having a smaller child. If she makes 38 inches, she can ride Kali River Rapids in AK and 7 Dwarves.

Personally, I wouldn't want to get pre-opening ADR at CP just because I find you can accomplish more in the park from opening until around 10:30 and I find the full rotation at CP takes about 90 minutes, which means if you have an ADR at 8 am, you're not done until 9:30. I guess if you can get one at 7:30 am, but not unless you can get that early on a non-EHM morning. I think CP, Chef Mickey's and Aksherus, take the longest. CP is just really large, so the 2x we were there it easily took 90+ minutes for the characters to do the full rotation. When we ate in Chef Mickey's on Sat, I want to say it took 70+ minutes once we were seated. And we were very alert for characters and watched the rotation so we didn't miss anyone. (That is one disadvantage of the buffets, someone needs to watch the characters so you don't miss them because if you do, you have to wait additional.) Aksherus the waitstaff are just slow. Cindy's I find gets you in and out the fastest, it's usually really just 1 hour and we've met all the characters and eaten at H+V in 1 hour. I can't remember how long we spent in 'Ohana but I think it was also about 1 hour also. However if your DD gets into the princesses, doing an ADR pre-opening at Cindy's would finish by 9 if you had one at 8.

We did Citricos for our arrival day, not sure what we will do in February. It's counterintuitive, but sometimes more crowded times === easier to get ADRs. I find when Disney offers the free meal plan, it's hardest to get ADRs.

Again, I want to stress how fun the Sorcerer's Game is, it's fun trying to collect and trade the cards and you don't need any of the special (i.e. cost money) cards to successfully win the game.

[jenmcadams]

Maybe the best plan is to do nothing character related on arrival day but do CP for dinner on AK day and Chef Mickey's for late breakfast on departure day.

One other thought on characters - we just got back last night and did 3 days at Disneyworld last week (and followed up with 2 1/2 days at Universal). We used the My Disney Experience app to track when characters would be at official meet and greets and for the two (Winnie the Pooh Characters and Goofy/Pluto) that were super important to my kiddos, I got in line early (15-30 min ahead of time) and we were in and out (with memory maker pics which are always better than mine that I get at character meals) in about 15 min once the characters showed up. With the exception of Cinderella's Royal Palace, I never think that the character meal experiences are that much better than the meet and greets. We did Tusker House for lunch at AK and characters were ok and we also did Be Our Guest and did the Beast meet and greet afterwards.

[rkold]

One other thought on characters - we just got back last night and did 3 days at Disneyworld last week (and followed up with 2 1/2 days at Universal). We used the My Disney Experience app to track when characters would be at official meet and greets and for the two (Winnie the Pooh Characters and Goofy/Pluto) that were super important to my kiddos, I got in line early (15-30 min ahead of time) and we were in and out (with memory maker pics which are always better than mine that I get at character meals) in about 15 min once the characters showed up. With the exception of Cinderella's Royal Palace, I never think that the character meal experiences are that much better than the meet and greets. We did Tusker House for lunch at AK and characters were ok and we also did Be Our Guest and did the Beast meet and greet afterwards.

Unfortunately, the MDE doesn't always work. It refused to tell me when Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were coming out and I had to ask cast members working in their meet-n-greet areas in MK. Sometimes the app is great and other times...

In terms of meeting characters, it also depends on which characters you want to meet, some only do character meals. You can not meet and get autographs from: Lilo, Belle in her yellow dress (she takes pictures at Enchanted Tales but doesn't sign), Ariel as a human princess (you can meet her as a mermaid), Eeyore, Piglet (except at the Halloween and maybe Christmas Parties where they do meet), Cinderella's Prince (He comes out for Christmas and some of the races) and Handy Mandy outside of meals. I am unsure if Stitch is also meeting outside his character meal. He use to meet in MK and the Studios, but that might have stopped. If you're not obsessive about characters it doesn't matter, but for some people it does matter who you meet. Doc only just started meeting outside of the Disney Jr meals.

I think Cindy's is skippable and have gotten just as good interactions at meet-n-greets, but I really like the Disney Jr. breakfast and now 'Ohana. If you don't want to split up or can't split up, I find waiting in line 30-45 minutes to meet a character unpleasant. Sure I could spend 1 1/2 or more hours standing in 3 boring outdoors lines to meet Doc, Sofia, and Jake, but I'd rather spend ~$40 and get a decent breakfast, A/C and a meal that takes only 1 hour. It's really about what your family's priorities and interests are. Stitch has a Photopass photographer with him.

If you do decide you want to meet Princesses, I'd try Aurora, Snow White and Tiana in MK. As of right now, they're three of the easier ones to meet and if you get to their lines ~10 minutes before opening you will meet them within minutes of their opening. Tiana is currently meeting inside while the area around her gazebo is being worked on. If you meet her post the parade she will have Naveem.