Current attempt at planning next Fri 3/19 at MK

Last WDW visit was 2014, group of 3 adults and 2 kids ages 12/10, they were 4/5 when we went last…

Arrive at park at 7am for 8am opening (close 9pm)
Thinking about skipping the 7DMT madness and heading the other way
BTMRR
PoC
Jungle Cruise
SM
HM
IaSW
Mickey’s Philharmagic
Praying for a Skipper Canteen res somewhere in here though right now we do have a LTT res just in case…
leave park midday for a couple hours…
5pm - CRT
After CRT - SM, Buzz, Little Mermaid, HM (love it so much), PP and then 7DMT

Would love BOG but we did that last time and have never done CRT. Like the menu and hear great things about Skipper just not sure we will be able to get an ADR…

Any tips?

Looks like a good plan. Skipper is indeed really good, I thought. Three things you can try that I can think of:

  • Use the reservation finder tool and hope someone cancels.

  • See if ADR’s for 2 and 3 people show up at identical or mostly overlapping times and see if they can be combined when you are there.

  • There is a walk-up wait list, so try to get on it early if no ADR, but that list may also quickly be at capacity for the day if it’s even being used at all on a given day.

Good luck!

ETA: Forgot to mention, Frontierland and Adventureland rides, from what I’ve gathered, are not a lock to be running before official opening time, unlike 7DMT, PP, Space, and a few others. Keep an eye on others’ trip reports and submitted wait times in the app for those trends.

Excellent points thank you so much! I’ve tried getting ressies for fewer people but if they are within an hour of each other in the app then MDE will prompt you to cancel one or the other which defeats the purpose of getting two to combine…maybe they are on to people doing this so coded a new rule I don’t know but I was trying that and it was not working so I gave up and went back to trying party of 5. That having been said, if I can get Party of 4 think they will let 5 slide?

This week there has been no wait lists opened at all at the restaurants I’m trying to get so I am assuming next week (even busier) that it will be the same.

I was wondering about the others opening early so like you said maybe we go back to 7DMT, PP, Space and Buzz to start and then see what things look like in Adventureland and do the mountains after dinner…

This is my speculation, but I think that the rides that are open before official open time depends on the expected crowd level for the day. We went the week before Christmas, a very busy week, and 7DMT, PP, BTM, and POC were all open before the park. I’d be surprised if BTM and POC aren’t open early during spring break crowds, based not only on our experience but also other trip reports from more crowded times. We skipped 7DMT because the line was already kind of long, and did the rest in order listed. By the time we got off POC, the park was officially open and we were able to jump in line for JC and wait only 20 minutes for it. We ended up getting in line for 7DMT about 15 minutes before park close and only waited 30 minutes. I’m fairly sure that when we arrived in the morning, the line was already to 60 minutes and we would have missed out on walk-ons to the other rides, making our time waiting in line just more and more.

All this to tell you to be flexible and have multiple plans for that pre-opening time. We had absolutely planned on doing 7DMT first, and weren’t planning on doing PP at all unless we had time in the evening. But you don’t really know what will be open, or what the crowds at each ride will be, or what you’ll be passing and your kids will get excited about seeing that it is a walk on (PP for us!). So have a plan, and another plan, and another plan, and ultimately go with the flow :rofl: I think your plan looks great

:rofl:which plan? I honestly feel like I don’t have a plan, I think that’s what’s making it stressful. Normally we know where to go and what to do. Right now I’ve got far more questions than answers!

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LOL I 100% know what you mean! We ended up splitting what was supposed to be our trip last spring, into two trips- one in December and then one we have coming up in August. I was stressed in December and I’m stressed about the one in August because there are/were too many unknowns to have a solid plan. The order of rides that you have listed in your original post looks good. I also think it’s good that you’ve already thought of alternatives- like going to Tomorrowland if you get there and realize the Frontierland rides aren’t open yet. Having that kind of “if this happens then we’ll do that” plan means you’re already ahead of the people standing in Frontierland scratching their heads about what to do, or those who try to stick to their guns and get in line for rides not open yet!

STRUGGLE BUS! I know, #firstworldproblems. I’m wondering if this whole thing was a mistake. Trying to lower expectations and stay hopeful. :crazy_face:

My life’s approach for probably the last four years has been to lower my expectations. For everything. Then I am pleasantly surprised more often LOL. Once you are there in the magic, it won’t seem like a mistake. When all is said and done, it is still Disney, and your family will have fun

I can tell you our experience via my notes from our trip over Presidents Day weekend which was busy. We did MK on Friday 2/12 and Sunday 2/14 and went different directions. We thought the line for 7D looked too long the first day and moved on, then regretted it. The line stayed even longer all day. This is what we did and how it went.

2/12 (from Yacht Club)
At Bus stop to MK 7:34, bus arrives 7:49
Arrived 8:08, in park 8:13 (already open)
Bailed on 7D, to BTMRR, waited, line started moving 8:34, off ride 8:47
Splash line not moving yet 8:49
Pirates arrived 8:54, no wait
JC small wait
HM no wait - off at 10:00

2/14 (from AKL)
Bus came 7:29. Arrived MK 7:52, passed cars lined up at gate, tollbooths not open yet
7:59 contemporary walkway was lined up at health screen, not open, opened 8:04
Bus health screen opened 8:06
Taps opened 8:11
8:30 off 7D
Off SM 8:48
Off BTMRR 9:15
Off pirates 9:35
Sleepy Hollow!

I plan to go with the 2/14 plan on spring break as it got us through 3 of the mountains with very little wait. After 10 or so everything had long lines. We did the jump in line just before closing thing for 7D as well both nights which was well worth it, it’s a more awesome ride at night.

We are struggling with ADRs also and looking at some of the same ones as you. I would caution you that LTT and CRT in one day is a LOT of food; if you are doing both in one day try to space them out as much as you can.

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Yep thought the same those are both big meals but all of mine are huge eaters but yes we’d likely leave the park after that for awhile. I didn’t look for LTT it was just the only thing available. Hoping we can get Skipper res and then go earlier/lighter.

I really like your 2/14 plan. SM is my fave so I’d much rather prioritize that than PP. I’m hoping there are still some things we can cross off when lines are long like philharmagic, HM etc.

Thinking maybe after PoC on your second plan try JC then HM, philharmagic maybe iasw…

Our day will also have MK opening at 8am closing 9pm and I’m guessing from your notes it was a 9am opening on your days so I’ve also potentially got more to fit in before lunch. I wonder if the earlier opening will deter anyone (I mean leaving condo at 630am is going to be a beating for my crew and they are all RD zealots).

Moved LTT to 1105am just now and woke up to an alert for Oga’s from MD but wasn’t fast enough. :sob:. Trying not to let that ruin my day.

I reordered things in TP and tried optimizing and it actually wants us to do this:
7DMT
PP
IaSM
Splash
PoC
JC
HM
Lunch

Then come back 4pm and do BTMRR before CRT then after dinner
Philharmagic
Little Mermaid
Pooh
Buzz
Space

I am coming to the realization that we are now in a world where we might want to do IaSW at park opening. :rofl:

So, I stalked MDE and TP this morning, to see if there was a way to know what rides were open. I wasn’t very successful. It looked like TP had 7DMT, PP, and Carousel open early, but nothing else. In fact, even at 9, park open, it still said most rides were closed.
Right at 9, I could see wait times at MDE.
But, I think @DumboRunner and @Dreamer were both on Space early… how early you two?!

Too funny I was doing the same! But I know they just recently released the early touring stuff where you can say park is open on the app and start entering waits but they don’t post them until later when they are sure park is open and on the early waits they are still trying to gather data to verify to build plans (this also makes it hard to create a pre opening TP which is what they are trying to address). Looks like we all are going to be the guinea pigs/data gatherers on this trip!

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about 8:30

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Do you have the option to join walk up list for Skipper right now? It looks like it’s possible but I’m not at park so I can’t tell…

I’ve had ADR alerts come up while I had phone in hand, looking at it and still it was gone when I immediately clicked. There must be some lag between when they search and when they send alerts, or they send alerts in batches and someone else got theirs quicker. Still worth it to me for the times it works!

IASW does build some massive lines, but the thing is it is such a long ride that it eats up a lot of that early AM time if you do it then. My crew isn’t huge on it anyway so we usually save it for later in the day if time allows.

I am totally fine if we skip it entirely (I know, blasphemy)! I think I am going to build an am plan, have a short list of things we can do anytime or miss and then build a pm plan for after dinner and leave it at that. Will make sure the must dos are on am or pm and put the maybes in the middle if there is time…

You don’t have to be at the park to see walk up list status, unless they have info there that doesnt match the app, but I’m able to see this right now: