Hi All. Getting ready to book a flight for our long-weekend anniversary trip to the World in January. One option (and right now, the cheapest option) is to fly out at 1:15 AM and arrive at MCO at 7 AM (with one stop in Fort Lauderdale). Part of me - likely the crazy part - loves this idea, because it would basically give us a whole park day on our arrival day. The reasonable alternative is to fly out at 7 AM, with no stops, and arrive around noon (meaning we’d get to the park around 3ish, if everything went smoothly?).
Just wondering if anyone has gone for a super-early arrival on day 1 of a Disney adventure, and whether you loved that or regretted it. This trip will be kid-free, so I’m not worried about the kidlets’ sleep schedule… but I am kind of worried about mine. Day 2 is the only day we’re spending at Universal, and I know DH would be bummed if we were low-energy for Harry Potter.
whenever possible, I try to get the earliest possible flight to MCO. Not only does it allow for more park time, but if there are issues like delays, you have more time on that end as well.
and for short trips, added park time is optimal.
but you might want to schedule in a little bit of resort time mid day to take a nap and recharge so you don’t get sick and run yourself into the ground out the gate.
Wow. That’s pretty crazy. Only worry is that you’d be too tired to enjoy the day or that the first day will cause you to be tired on subsequent days. Is a late arrival the prior night possible?
This summer DD14 and I left the house at 3:00am for a 6:00 am flight. That’s not quite as early as your thinking but we thought it was worth it. Before that day was over we had been up 22 hours which we are not used to. We got very little sleep the four nights we were there and I got sick the day we left for home but I still say it was worth it.
We always do late night before, but because of weather, we’ve had the early am arrival. It’s exhausting, but if you take it easy your first day and don’t do a park til 11 pm. Maybe close out Epcot at the latest.
When will you sleep? With my AP I have been going on three day/ two night trips. I fly out by 7:00am on Saturday and fly home on a 7:00pm flight on Monday. I am up by 4:00 to fly out and I plan crazy things line a La Cava wind down that starts at 10:20 on that night; but I sleep for about a half hour on the plane and I can keep that pace up for the three days. Will you be able to sleep for a couple of hours on the plane? If you can’t I do not think you will really pick up and time if you are asleep by 9:00 that night.
Well, this reminds me of @999HappyHaunts’s trip report, and the comment she made about how starting the first day on very little sleep sort of set a tone of being tired. If I were in your shoes, I might do the early flight only if I planned to take it easy and nap some once there. Otherwise I would crash. If it is go, go, go you’re planning, then I’d choose to arrive at noon and get a better night’s sleep beforehand…
Indeed! Getting up at 4am on day 1 threw us off for the first few days. We were DONE by day four. For a 1-2 days trip I could pull it off… But it took a toll.
Thanks all! We would break midday for a nap, if we could check in early (Villas at WL) but wouldn’t count on being able to do that. I suppose we’d head back to the hotel by 10ish, too, but we aren’t really planning on sleeping in late in the morning.
@DarthD made a great point, too - since we’re flying out of Minnesota in January, the middle-of-the-night flight would give us the most time to recover from a weather delay…
@Sally_Carrera: I speak from experience. I fly out of the northeast. Even in summer, we’ve had delays from thunderstorms. And when we traveled last december, we got delayed on both flights due to the stupid polar vortex pummeling everyone with snow and ice.
Day 2 is the only day we’re spending at Universal, and I know DH would be bummed if we were low-energy for Harry Potter.