Can you review my itinerary, please?

[Indianamom2]

By wrong crowds, do you mean just time of year, or parks during your stay? Like if it said MK was the best park and Epcot the worst, you thought it was backwards?

We definitely went at a much lower crowd time than summer or a holiday, but as to which park was the most/least crowded that day, I felt like it was probably off. Of course, I also expected even lower overall crowds since we were there at the lowest crowds of the year time, but still we often waited 15-20 min. for bigger attractions and without fast passes, the waits for some things were easily 40-60 min., which is not low IMO. When we went years ago the first week of November, we literally walked on almost everything. I think we were expecting that again, but we were a bit disappointed.

[jent]

OK, I'm not the most experienced Disney goer, so I'll leave the fine-tuning of your itinerary to others, but we stayed at POR at our last visit, so thought I'd chime in! We also arrived in the afternoon and didn't go to the parks that day. We checked in, explored the pool/play area, and then took the boat to Downtown Disney-- I made ADRs for Raglan Road that night. We had a blast-- I don't think that we waited long at all for the boat, and the ride itself didn't seem excessively long and was in fact a lot of fun. My dad loved Raglan Road-- he kept raving about the food, b/c he'd been to Disney the previous year with my sis and had less-than-stellar memories of Disney food. DD was enthralled by the Irish step dancers.

We used the buses every day to get to the parks and had a good experience. Usually we didn't wait long for a bus on either end. IIRC during busy times they will send different buses to POR and POFQ, so I don't remember a lot of stops in between. The one exception was coming home from AK one day, our bus also stopped at a water park. I had gotten a massive headache during the day so that particular ride was excruciating.

We went during a crowded time (our only option as we went during DH's spring break) so there wasn't much we could do with avoiding crowds & we just accepted that. I think getting there at rope drop helps- definitely seemed less crowded early morning. Also, having an ADR at Crystal Palace before rope drop was the best-- walking down a nearly-empty main street was amazing. I couldn't tell you if the crowd calendars worked (I wouldn't know the difference between an "8" and a "9") but the lines app for rides seemed pretty accurate.

Have fun-- and enjoy POR! Yes, it's spread out, but I thought the design was just beautiful. Loved all the greenery and porches on the buildings. Plus we liked being able to take an 'excursion' to POFQ and sample some beignets!

[inmypjs]

We just got back. My kids did not care when we went to what park - we went to MK on the 3rd day. We also followed the crowd calendar and it went well for us. My kids are the ages of yours and my only comment on your itinerary is that I think rope drop is hard when you have been out late for the fireworks/shows the night before. We only did one late night and were at rope drop every day but the day after our late night. That's just what worked best for us.

[KrisM]

We just got back. My kids did not care when we went to what park - we went to MK on the 3rd day. We also followed the crowd calendar and it went well for us. My kids are the ages of yours and my only comment on your itinerary is that I think rope drop is hard when you have been out late for the fireworks/shows the night before. We only did one late night and were at rope drop every day but the day after our late night. That's just what worked best for us.

Thanks for the input. I do worry about the rope drop after late nights. I think we'll give it a try and if we have to miss a rope drop, we can probably rearrange things as we go. I don't want to feel like I need to 100% stick to the plan, but want to have a plan so we don't get to Friday and have huge list of things we still want to see!

[hellokitty]

We did rope drop every day, except the day after we stayed late for Wishes at MK. That day, I think we got to the park an hr and half late the next day. So, definitely keep that in mind, if you have a late night, the next day may be a later start than usual. FWIW, my kids are usually up by 6-6:30am (yes, even on wknds and vacation), so I was surprised that they slept in, but it was a late night for them. I would say that most days, they were in bed btwn 9-9:30 if we could help it.