Disney World Trip of a Lifetime - Trip report

Walt Disney World
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This is our plans:

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We have Genie+ and Park Hoppers on the tickets. Also, Memory Maker.

Our general plans every day is to be at the front of the pack for early entry (when we have it), leave at around 11:30am to eat and rest and come back around 4 pm and stay until close. I’ve observed from our Six Flags and Universal trips that 5 hours of go-go-go is about our max at one stretch. We can extend that with dining, but Disney dining now is mostly unappealing to us.

We also drive to Disney. We love my comfortable car, and it is a home-away-from-home. So, we’ll rarely use Disney transportation.

People:
Me - wanted to go since watching the Disney show on Sundays as a kid. I want to do everything, particularly the classic stuff.
DH - wasn’t willing to go until Star Wars opened. He had never taken a non-camping vacation until we were married. He is happy to go along with whatever I plan.
DD - 11-year-old girl. Her best friend has been to DW a few times. Huge Star Wars fan, dislikes Toy Story. She even left the room while DH and I watched the sequels. She HATES the feeling from rides with long drops, but LOVES spinning.

Because of those likes, I’m not going to worry about getting a SDD G+. We’ll do an evening standby or get lucky with a drop since we’ll be at the parks for 10 days. The RocknRoll coaster is also a low priority. We’ll probably get a G+ for all three of us at one point. DH and I will go, and then whoever liked it best will use her G+. EE is down for our trip and Splash Mountain opens out last park day (maybe). I foresee them rides Space: Orange several times while I go Green.

The parks in bold, are the ones that can’t be changed because of a reservation.

Both Tuesdays, we don’t have EA, but all other days we do. I’m happy with the 2/8 park open plans. Not so sure about 2/1. One disadvantage to trying to get a 8am CRT is that the family won’t be hungry or really awake then. So, now leaning toward just keeping the 2/3 CRT.

Also, I’d like to get our AK time in before we go on the WAT, since the Safari will lose its appeal.

I predict our favorite rides at EP will be Frozen and Remi, by far. We will be coming in from the Main Entrance, so even for Early Entry I think we’ll be at enough of a disadvantage for those, that I don’t plan on EP being a morning park. Plus, it opens an hour later. Also, I suspect that the Broadway shows will be a hit with daughter so we might be trying to see all four that are there when we are.

We do plan on staying until park close and getting in a line right at the end. I had accidentally left up on the computer a day’s wait-time chart for FOP. DH saw it and studied it and said, “5 minutes? We need to get in line right before close” With a smug smile I said, “Yes, Yes we will.” He has no clue what FOP is, but he saw the peak wait times.

Our park plans for the first day are fairly firm even though we don’t have an ADR we are keeping. We are starting with MK from the parking lot so that we can get the entrance experience that Walt intended. Then, I think I’ll need the promise of an evening in HS in order to drag the family away before lunch.

Plans for the first day.
Work hard using the boarding group strategy to get an early Peter Pan G+. I picked Peter Pan over Jungle Cruise because it is in the early entry area where we will be there anyway. Early Entry Mine Train, then standby nearby lines, with Pooh being essential. I expect I’ll be Hero Mommy when she sees Pooh.
When we check into Peter Pan, I’ll start stacking HS with Millennium Falcon, Toy Story, Twilight Zone, Alien Swirling Saucers. If Millennium Falcon is too early when I am getting my second G+ and Pooh is very soon, I’ll get a Pooh first. Daughter will be wearing a Jedi Robe and a shoulder Porg at HS. I predict lots of meandering with mouth agape that evening. Ride Rise at park close.

Morning AK and evening MK look like a good combination too. EA Rope Drop FOP, G+ Navi and Safari, meander AK, stack what we can at MK during the break, and then gobble up the near future G+ reservations while in MK.

I haven’t mentioned ILL$$$. I’m not happy about it (as you can tell from the $$$), but I’ve decided to not be churlish and I’ll be OK with us getting some. Particularly for Rise. But, I’m not building that into our plans. Plans are to do those early entry or park close. But we like re-rides.

One advantage of G+ over FPP that I haven’t seen anywhere, but which hit me just now. With FPP, we’d have been locked tight into our morning park long ago. As it is, we can still change them.

One thing that threw me recently is the later close for MK. It had been 8 pm for our trip and is now 9 or 10 most days. Not complaining just not sure what to do with that. I wonder if it is feasible to park close AK, drive to MK and park close that too when it closes two hours later.

Here are some rest day activity ideas. Are there any I should add? Note, we aren’t big shoppers.

  • Hoop-Dee-Doo if it opens
  • Watch a movie at the theater. Enchanto?
  • Off-site Sushi.
  • Spend day at the pool
  • Resort skyliner loop. Parking at DS and ending at Poly. For Electric Pageant.
  • Do a resort loop for scavenger hunts.
  • Museum of Illusions https://moiorlando.com/
  • Disney Springs photoplace
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I was going to upload my excel file with my Genie Return Times tables. But it doesn’t like Excel. I know I’ve downloaded excel files. How do I upload that?

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Simply copy and paste. It works.

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Doing that gives me this message.

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When you highlight parts of excel, copy and paste? Hmmm

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I’ve got 12 worksheets (3 days for all four parks) But, maybe others aren’t interested so I won’t worry.

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I’m surprised you can’t upload an excel file. I know many Google sheets have been.

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Maybe save a copy as a pdf. Then, try to upload.

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Genie Return Time - google.pdf (71.4 KB)

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Yep, I see 4 pages

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I combined them by park. :slight_smile:
I am soooo stinkin’ excited!

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Let me know how the Wild Africa Trek goes for you. I’m considering for a future trip. Looks like you can take a slow pace with that schedule. Will be looking for some trip reporting!

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It is one of the things I am most looking forward to. Others are when DD realizes that there is a Pooh ride, and the Jungle Cruise for me. I had a book on the Jungle Cruise when I was a kid.

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Plans look great! A few comments to think about:

  1. With the recent reports of very high crowd levels, I would reconsider the Wednesday rest days. Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursday tend to have lower crowds on average than the other days of the week so I prefer to schedule rest days on other days of the week. Or … would it be worth it to add on 2 more days of tickets/G+ and stack some rides in the afternoon for one or both of those days and do rest mornings with a few rides (led by a couple headliners) in the afternoon?

  2. WAT is awesome! I had been on KS many times before I did WAT, and I didn’t find that it took anything away from the WAT experience. I don’t think the order matters much in terms of both experiences.

  3. It looks like one day you are hoping to get LL for MFSR 2 hours after park open. From what I have read, that can be iffy and depends on the day and crowd level.

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Your plan looks like a lot of fun! Have a great time! If you have park hoppers do you get the water park option? Might be fun on a nonpark day.

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I wish! 10 days are the max number of park days allowed, and that comes with 14 days to use it. I’d have gladly spent the same amount on a ticket with 10 park days over 21 days and weekends not allowed. That pass just for FL residents for $300 and no weekends or holidays would be dreamy. But, as it is, I picked Saturday as rest days, that left two other rest days so I just picked the middle-ish.

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My worry is that it will be more crowded than predicted (based on this week so far being much more crowded) But, based on table with return times from 1/19 - 1/21 (CL5-6), I should be good on that. The return times given in the morning are all in the afternoon, but that is HS.

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Nope, no waterpark. That is the one thing I didn’t add to the tickets. But we are spending some of the trip in Windsor Hills Resort and they have a couple of big slides.

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We didn’t do them until this year and my kiddo is 13! Definitely not a must do but I was surprised by how much we liked it.

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We really enjoyed Universal’s waterpark. Daughter is a bit of a wimp as far as rides. She could have spent hours on the Fierce River, though. It looks like it would take both Disney’s waterparks to equal Universal’s. We also live in Texas and can go frequently.

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