Hi Liners,
In 101 days we’ll be off to the world for our very first 2 week holiday staying in AKL. We have 3 girls of 5, 3 & 1. They are huge princess fans so i have BBB booked and a TS at CRT…
We’ll like to see the new frozen ride but me and dear husband also would like to experience Soarin and Test Track. My daughter of 3 would go on anything that see is allowed to. I think she’s about 40 inches long.
Any tips of how to book FPP and do rider swap. And any advice on booking the FPP and where to go at RD.
So far this is our schedule;
day 1; arrival no park
day 2; pick up race bib for me & girls & kids run & a 13.20 Beaches & Cream res
day 3; my race day & breakfast @ Boma at 10.55
day 4; breakfast @ Akershus
day 5; breakfast @ tusker house
day 6; breakfast @ play & dine
day 7; pre rope drope breakfast @ BOG (is it possible to go past the tapstiles for pre rope drope and only my husband we’ll go for the actual breakfast?
day 8; dinner @ teppan edo
day 9; late breakfast @ The garden Grill
day 10; dinner @ Boma
day 11; dinner @ o’hana
day 12; lunch @ rainforest cafe
day 13; breakfast @ CRT
day 14; late breakfast @ Chef Mickey’s & returning home
Any tips/ advice on this schedule…
We’re up early the first week because we’re traveling from The Netherlands… We’ll not do full park days but probably half days. We are early risers at home so i think that will stay that way true our holiday…
Any restaurants we should swap for another?
Thanks so much for your help.
14 days is quite a trip! I only have experience up to 10 days. In my opinion, you have a lot of breakfast ADRs. Breakfast ADRs can impact your touring plan quite significantly depending on the time of your ADR and your touring style. The first couple hours the parks are opened are the least crowded - with the lowest wait times for rides. It would be helpful to edit your post above and include the times of your ADRs.
My DH did Test Track using the single rider lane. It took approx 15-20 minutes. In my opinion, this is just as good as getting a FPP. You are in Epcot at least 2 different days from what I can tell, so getting a FPP one day for Frozen and the other day for Soarin’ won’t be a problem.
What are the dates of your stay? It feels like 101 days will be March (Spring break for us here in the USA).
In regards to FP+ strategy with Rider Swap, I feel like you can do two different scenarios. The most most family friendly method would be for each child to get to ride twice. For example, you would book Mom, DD5 and DD3 a FP+ for Splash. All 3 of you ride together and then Dad rides again with both girls on the swap pass. (It does not need to be right after or even the same day!) This gives you an “orphan” FP+, but since you have DD1, Mom and her could go ride Winnie the Pooh or something with FP+ while Dad goes on Splash. I think that this is the most straight forward. Since you have multiple days, the girls could re-ride on different days.
There is a second option if you want to be more “strategic” with your FP+. I’m writing it here for others who might have fewer days and want to squeeze in more headliners. For instance, Mom and DD5 ride Splash (with FP+). Then Dad and both girls ride with the rider swap pass. Next, Dad and DD3 ride Big Thunder (with FP+) and then Mom and both girls ride Big Thunder. This way you aren’t getting an “orphan” fast pass for a lesser tier ride. This would work best if you knew which ones each girl would like to ride twice. I imagine difficult if they both want to ride twice or would argue about it.
I would be careful if your DD3 is only just quite 40" as there have been multiple experiences of this being hit or miss as to which rides she would be allowed on. There are lots of reports of there being absolutely no consistency between rides and between CMs at the same ride. It really, really is at the discretion of the last CM you encounter in line. Let me know if you have more specific Ride Swap questions!
thank you so much… I will take another look at our breakfast moments… The most are around the latest seating so that we can tour first… But maybe a lunch is better in some cases…
We’re going from the 21 st of april… So i think spring break is over by then… At least i hope it is…
I will take a look at the fast pass rides and hope my daughter can ride at least seven dwarfs because she really wants to go on that one…
Easter is April 16, 2017, and many grade schools will have off some or all of that week. You might have some residual spring breakers.
We are planning to do 2 days (at least one as a partial day) at Epcot. Here’s what I plan to try as far as FPP so that we can do all three big attractions at Epcot:
1st Epcot Day - FPP for Soarin’
2nd Epcot Day - arrive at RD. Head for TT at RD and then have FPP for Frozen around 10 or 10:30.
I expect to use Rider Swap on both Test Track and Soarin’.
Edited to say: I didn’t include RD on 1st day because that is the day of arrival and we won’t be checked in yet by that point.
Thank you so much. For now we have 2 epcot days. We’ve got 14 day tickets and the regular disney dining plan. As we’re going for 2 full weeks we will likely also do a lot of half days so that the kids can nape and swim at the hotel. I have been dreaming about such a holiday since i was little so it really is a dream come true to go for this long. It’s also a lot of searching for what to do and what not to do. So any tips are really welcome.
It is very helpful knowing how to work with fastpass in the most optimal way.
Any dining tips for lunch? Is 50’s nice with children who don’t speak english?
Sounds like you have a wonderful plan! I want to do a two week trip lol!
I loved 50s PT! The CM do make it a lot of fun. They let us get milkshakes with our meal on the DDP so I’m sure the kids would love that! You probably would need to translate for them some… but I do know that some CM are multilingual. I wonder if you could request that? Maybe worth looking into?
BOG was beautiful! We went for dinner and loved it. I’m sure breakfast is great too!
Good luck planning your trip!
Day 7 pre RD breakfast at BOG where only your husband will go for the actual breakfast?
I believe you will run into issues with that if everyone going in pre RD is not on the reservation. I believe that you could have everyone on the reservation, go to BOG, your husband orders breakfast and everyone else just gets a drink or cupcake. I have done something like this in other locations and only had apps or dessert so should work here.
We found the Rider Swap to be very useful when we went 2 years ago with my granddaughter. It was like being able to almost double our FP. We had a party of 5, 4 adults and 1 child. Instead of booking 5 FP for say Space Mountain, we would book 2-3 FP for that ride, and use RS for the others in our party. Then use the saved FP’s for other rides.
We were never asked if all in the party had FP, we only needed to show that we had the child with us who wasn’t going to ride. We were then given RS tickets that were good for the entire day. We can then use those as FP any time we wanted. We were actually able to utilize this on all of the headliners, and did not have to wait in standby for a single ride.
With kids that don’t speak English, I would probably recommend Sci-Fi. But I’m sure they would have fun at either! You could also consider Pizza Rizzo if you don’t need a TS.
sounds like a dream vacation! Before you go further with FP planning, may I suggest measuring your 3 yr old exactly, since Disney is strict on their height requirements. 40 inches is on the tall side for a 3 yr old, but it’s possible. and if she’s borderline, figure out which shoes make her the tallest. They measure kids with shoes on. In any case, height for 7 dwarves is only 38 inches, so sounds like you’re good on that.
yes she is very tall for her age… We measure in cm and the last time was in the summer she was 100 cm at the time…
I’ll look into sic fi & Pizza Rizzo
Jumping on same thread for related question … going to WDW Feb 4-11 with DW, DS9, and DS2. DS2 is at least 38" but probably won’t be 40". Planning to do Rider Switch with FPP on things like Soarin, Test Track, Space Mountain, etc. If DW and DS9 use FPP together, can I use my orphan FPP to ride alone and get rider switch for DW and DS9? Or for me and DS9 to ride again later?
For early magic hours, can/should we get Rider Switch from the regular (non-FPP) line early in the morning when lines are short? Of course, downside is DS2 will have a fit every time he waits in line but can’t ride.
Thanks!
Yes and Yes! It doesn’t hurt to get a rider swap if you think you might use it. You can pass it along to other Liners or Pixie Dust other families if you don’t use them.