Chef Mickey's, monorail loop, AK afternoon, and POR boat to DTD (so many questions for one day)

So I just got a 10:20 CM ADR for our upcoming trip (13 days!). Our plan was to do AK that morning but DW wanted to do CM for breakfast as much as anything so stuff’s gotta change now that I have the ADR. I’m thinking we can move our AK plans to the afternoon without too many complications. We also have a 8PM ADR in DTD that night. Current thinking is:

  1. Drive to CR from POR
  2. Ride mono rail for the full resort loop from CR and back after breakfast since DS really wants to ride it and we’re unlikely to actually need to ride it during our stay.
  3. Drive to AK to arrive by 1
  4. TP for AK: Animal Kingdom Afternoon
  5. Drive back to POR
  6. Boat to DTD
  7. Dinner / Shopping
  8. Boat back to POR

Questions:
a) How long will a resort monorail ride take to make a full loop?
b) How long will it take by car from CR to AK? (OLP doesn’t list one)
c) How long will it take by car from AK to POR? (Again nothing at OLP)
d) Anything I am missing at AK?
e) Does the above sound reasonable?

Thanks for reading.

I am hoping my answer will move your thread up. The resort monorail time can vary. If it is a busy time of day you may be held on the rail while another monorail unloads or loads, and it takes longer to load and unload a large crowd. I would expect 30-40 minutes would be a reasonable estimate. I am sorry, I cannot help with the driving questions.

Thanks for the monorail answer although I’ll admit I thought it would be 20 - 25. I fear that a 40 minute trip may make getting to AK by 1 impossible.

I figure CR to Poly, Poly to TTC, TTC to MK, MK to CR- five minutes each stop just seems short to me. Others may agree with your 20, I always plan twice what I expect.:smile:

Thanks. That post actually gave me the idea to add the times OLP gives for CR to MK and then MK to CR. They say 27 minutes but that likely doesn’t account for sitting through the MK stop. So looks like 30 - 35 should be about right. Now if I can get an estimate on the driving time I might be able to figure out if the mono ride fits the schedule.

Thanks again.

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So the 2015 unofficial guide lists 20 min avg from Contemporary to Animal Kingdom with 21 min as worst case. AK to POR is listed as 19 min with 20 min worst case. That’s french quarter - add a minute for riverside.

Awesome. Many thanks. So assuming breakfast won’t be more than about 90 minutes (and I assume they’ll be pushing us out to get lunch started), it seems like we should be able to ride the monorail for up to 45 minutes and still come pretty close to making AK by the 1PM I currently have planned for.

Any opinions on the short AK TP?

I am a little concerned about Safari before your FP. Could you move it to after Nemo if needed?

Made a change to put KS before the train ride. That way if the Safari goes long I can eliminate or move the train and still make the shows. Train will just be a fun ride not a must do. Thanks for pointing that out.

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My concern was the train too. Good decision to move I think.

Good idea. Unless you have a “train fanatic” in your group, the train ride is pretty forgettable; very little to see and virtually no animals. It, as well as the exhibits if you get off at Planet Watch were a one-and-done for me.

I would do the monorail ride before breakfast, and, because I like to take advantage of every possible minute, pop into MK before the ADR. Drive to the TTC and arrive before RD, then ride the Resort Monorail from TTC through Poly and GF, getting off at MK. RD MK and tour until about 10, then take the Resort Monorail to CM for your ADR. After the ADR, take the Resort Monorail to TTC and then drive to AK, where you should arrive well before your desired 1 start time

Some other thoughts:
You could ride the monorail on any other MK day by driving to MK. This way you could take the Express Monorail, which should be faster than the Resort one (this can vary - sometimes if the lines are huge it is faster to take the Resort Monorail as there are few people getting on it at TTC). This would give you more options on your CM/AK day - although I would still go to MK before the ADR! You could also do the same thing on your EP day - drive to the TTC, and take the monorail to EP.

Instead of going to MK before your ADR, you could do a Monorail Resort tour. Follow my initial plan outline, but get off at each Monorail Resort and check them out.

Thanks. Not sure my DS5 can handle a 7AM start at MK and then an over-full day without a nap break. Tbh I’m not sure I can either. I will definitely consider riding the monorail before breakfast though if we’re up and motivated in time to accomplish that.

Come on - they don’t call it the "Disney Death March’ for nothing. :wink:

I would definitely do the Monorail before breakfast, though. Arrive at CR about an hour before your ADR, and that should give you plenty of time to do the full loop plus check out the resort.