First time trip report 3/23-3/28 All days posted here

[ABPlanning]

This was my family’s first trip to WDW, my husband went as a preschooler, but doesn’t remember it, and I had never been. I started planning in October and used the TP website and forum to help with the planning. Traveling with my immediate family DH, DS15 and DD5.

Day 1 - 3/23 Saturday:
Up at 4am, car service picked us up for the airport at 5am, flight at 7:20am. Landed at MCO at 10:05am, went straight to Disney transportation, stood in a long line for the bus, the bus came, they filled it, we had to wait for another bus… It was now that I realized we should have gotten something to eat and drink at the airport. We were tired, thirsty and hungry. Another bus came and we boarded for WL. Made it to WL by about 11:50am. Went straight to Roaring Fork and got some food and cold water to drink. Got changed out of jeans into shorts, left our carry-on with bell services and hopped on the boat for MK.

Made it to our 1pm Peter Pan FP at about 1:40pm it was our first ride ever in WDW and we loved it. We then went to Splash Mtn, for our 2pm FP, DH, DS15 and I loved Splash, but DD5 wasn’t sure if she liked it, it was a little too scary for her. We planned to watch the parade next, but the road was blocked off and we were stuck standing in the sun, we were tired and hot, DH got everyone Mickey ice cream bars, but DD5 was pretty sweaty and said she didn’t care about seeing the parade - I was a little bummed, but no one else cared about seeing it so we moved on.

Used our 3pm FP for jungle Cruise, it was OK, no one ranked it as a must-do for next time. We went to the Tiki room, I thought it was pretty silly, but the rest of my family loved it. DD5 said it was her favorite part of the day. Rode Winnie the Pooh in the standby line, waited about 20 minutes, DD5 and DS15 liked the ride a lot, we all watched a lot of Pooh when they were little. Waited about 10 minutes to ride the carousel, which DD5 also loved.

After this it was time to check-in for dinner at CP. The kids loved the characters, and the food was fine.

We were all exhausted and it was about 6:30pm, so we headed back to WL. We all agreed that we were wiped out and we would try not to do a park on arrival day again.

Tomorrow: Epcot Day!

[PrincipalTinker]

Wow! What a great first day!

[alittlerandr]

Love the pictures. You will have a wonderful week after a good night sleep tonight! We had similar day 1 plans and learned our lesson. Any first timers planning out there, rest on arrival day if your flight is around 7:00 am

Looking forward to the rest of the trip report!

[terp05]

Nice start! Sounds like you got a ton in today. Looking forward to following along!

[DJM1959]

Love your report, I am with you, I could skip Jungle cruise.

[Dreamer]

Sounds like a fun day! But also tiring.

[PrincipalTinker]

Did you stay in a regular WL room or a DVC? How did you like the resort?

[ABPlanning]

We stayed in regular courtyard bunkbed room. I would never stay in a courtyard room again, it was really loud. We wanted to rest in the afternoon and it seemed like there was a cast member on a microphone making announcements and running activities all day, along with music pumping the whole time. The opposite side of the resort was really quiet, so I would definitely book a “nature room” if you want peace and quiet.

The noise was my only complaint, otherwise we loved WL. The 10 minute boat ride to MK was great. We never waited long for any of the busses, all of the food we had at the resort was good and nothing seemed too far away. The pool was really nice too. My family really wants to stay there again.

[ABPlanning]

Day 2 - 3/24 Sunday

I thought if we were at the bus stop by 8:15am, we would be good to get into the park fairly early and head straight to Soarin. I got up before everyone else, showered and went down to Roaring Fork to get everyone some breakfast to go and brought it back to the room. Everyone was still asleep when I got back. It took everyone way longer than I had planned to get ready, they were very pokey for my taste. We finally got out of the room at 8:30!

We made it to Epcot around 9:15am. We went straight to Soarin, TP said it would be 25 minutes. We got in line and after about 15 minutes they started making announcements that one of the theaters was down, and the wait would be “longer than anticipated”. We ended up waiting about 40 minutes. While we were waiting, I struck up a conversation with a couple and their teenage daughters, the dad mentioned that they had been in line for TT, but it went down, so everyone came to Soarin. I asked if he had a FP for TT and he said he wasn’t paying for that. I explained about them each getting 3 FP’s per day. The daughter was looking so upset, the day before she stood in line for 2 hours for Space Mountain, they didn’t understand that FP’s were free. I helped them get the app downloaded and the daughters were looking for FP’s when we got on the ride. What an amazing ride! I loved it, it totally took my breath away, I’ve never experienced anything like it.

Next we used our FP for Spaceship Earth, which we all enjoyed. Then we split up.

DD5 and I did a FP for the Nemo ride. Then we went to meet Anna and Elsa - this was DD5’s most anticipated event. I told her she could get 1 dress off of Amazon and she wanted the Elsa dress. When we arrived it showed a 15 minute wait, but just as we entered the line the cast member told us that it would be 40 minutes. I remembered reading that Disney inflates some wait times for crowd control purposes, and I had a hard time believing that it went from 15 to 40 minutes just like that, so we got in line and waited about 18 minutes. I let DD5 put her Elsa dress on over her shorts and T-shirt while we were in line. She loved this meet and greet.

After meeting Anna and Elsa, DD and I used our FP for the Frozen ride. We had some time to kill so we went on the Donald Duck ride in Mexico.

DH and DS15 used FP’s for TT and Mission Space (green).

Then we met DH and DS15 for lunch at Akershus. We met Belle, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Ariel.

It was crazy busy in the WS, we felt like we were getting jostled and bumped everywhere we went, so we left and headed back to WL. Looking at the CL’s that day was a CL of 10/10 and it felt crazy busy.

DD and DS really wanted to swim, so we took a quick nap and headed down to the pool. They swam until it started to get chilly and then we got food from Geyser Point - their food was so delicious! The kids loved the campfire brownies. We were pretty tired so we were all in bed before 9.

Up next… Hollywood Studios

[ABPlanning]

Day 3 - 3/25 Monday

So DD5 spent countless hours looking at the cover of the UG and was so excited to ride the Slinky Dog ride. I had seen that it could be a challenge to get FP’s for SDD, so when HS EMM became available, I decided this would be great, we would for sure get to ride SDD multiple times and then do all of the other fun stuff at HS.

We arrived at HS at 6:50am and were sent to the Backlot Express for breakfast. DH, DS and DD all tried the chicken and donut meal - everyone agreed it was just ok, but no one wanted to try something different. I had the avocado toast, which was ok, but very salty for my taste. People obviously don’t do EMM for the food.

We then made our way to TSL. We came to TSM first and thought we would try that, it was about a 15 minute wait, and we all enjoyed it and thought it was a lot of fun. Then we headed to SDD. We were concerned because as we got closer to the ride we noticed it was running with no one on it. The line was 30 minutes, we waited, and then all rode. DD5 did not like it, it was too intense for her, but DS and I loved it. We got right back in line, but now that the ride was running the wait was only about 15 minutes.

We got our picture taken in front of the big talking Woody statue and then the rope drop crowd started coming, overall I was disappointed with EMM, we had about 1hour and 15 minutes in TSL and spent 1 hour of it in line. I don’t think I would do EMM again, but I would consider an after hours event.

DS, DH and I had FP’s for TOT. I went on it with DS, it was so fun! DH decided that he didn’t want to ride it and DD started complaining of feeling sick to her stomach. DD and DH met Chewbacca, we all met BB-8 and DD got to meet Doc McStuffins. DD really started complaining about her belly and I thought maybe if we went inside and watched the Frozen show, she could relax and maybe feel better. We made it to the Frozen theater and she just wanted to leave the park. I was bummed, because I really wanted to see Frozen, B&B and Indiana Jones, but she needed to go, so I took her back to WL. DH and DS did the rest of what they wanted to do at HS and met us later in the afternoon.

Back at WL DD took an epic 2 hour nap, she was exhausted - I think that contributed to her not feeling well, I regret planning for such an early morning. After her nap DD was feeling better, DH and DS met us at the room and we all went down to the pool. It became apparent that the pool was DD’s favorite part of this trip.

After our swim we went back to the room to change and headed downstairs for our Storybook Dining reservations. The Storybook Dining was my whole family’s favorite character meal. When we were seated, the host asked us if we had an autograph book we wanted signed - we realized that we had left our book in the room. I mentioned that we had Snow White’s autograph from the day before and that I didn’t think DD would mind missing a few autographs. The host must have mentioned to Snow White that we had met her previously (I’m pretty sure it was a different girl), when she came over to our table she looked at DD and said “Oh Princess, it’s so nice to see you again, we’ve met before” I don’t think I’ve ever seen DD smile bigger than the moment Snow White “remembered” her. Snow White is now her favorite Disney princess. Dopey and Grumpy were awesome, Dopey and Snow White played a little game of hide and seek in the dining room, which made all of the kids in our area laugh.

The evil queen was great, and would summon you when it was time to have a picture with her. The food was AMAZING, I would say hands down, the best food of our whole trip. DH and I had the prime rib, and DS had the chicken, I tried some of it and it was really good.

Up next… Animal Kingdom

[ABPlanning]

Day 4 - 3/26 Tuesday

For our day at AK we slept in a little and everyone felt better with the the extra sleep. We entered AK and as we approached the Tree of Life, DD asked when we would be leaving to go to the pool. I felt like my head would explode, but I nicely promised that we would have time later in the day. DH and DS wanted to do It’s Tough to be a Bug, we all went in, it was silly. Some poor kid the row in front of us was terrified and sobbing the whole time, I felt bad for him. When the bugs left the theater, DS jumped so high out of his seat - it was pretty funny.

Then we went looking for some food and coffee, we stopped a Joffrey’s, the kids got muffins and DH and I had Latte’s. We went into Asia to ride EE, I wasn’t sure I wanted to ride it, so we set up rider swap and I sent DH and DS. DD wanted something else to eat and I needed something too, we had our granola bars that we brought while we waited. DH and DS returned, DS didn’t want to ride again, and I was fine with that, so we moved on.

We walked around Asia a bit, but it was very crowded and getting really hot, and all at once everyone got hangry and irritable. I remembered that a lot of people like Satuli, so I decided I would place a mobile order. The app would let me put in the order, but when I tried to place it, it would time out and not take the order. I tried placing it 3 times while we walked towards it, DH was navigating, the kids were whining, it was 1000 degrees and super crowded and then, DH announced that we must have taken a wrong turn. We never did find it, but there was a restaurant in front of me, I saw it was cool inside with tables so I just told them to sit down and I got in line to order. I didn’t even know the name of the restaurant until I got the receipt and realized it was pizzafari and I had been planning to avoid that place. It didn’t matter, everyone sat down, cooled off, ate terrible pizza and drank cool drinks and we all felt better.

Then we used our FP for the Safari, which we all loved and then made our way to Pandora to use our FOP FP’s. DD didn’t want to ride, so we did rider swap and DS got to ride twice, he was thrilled - we all agreed it was a fantastic ride.

We all went back to the hotel to swim and cool off. We headed back to AK around 4pm, I was able to score a 4th fp for FOTLK and we went to the 5pm show and then had reservations at Tusker House, this was my favorite buffet of the trip, I loved the food. The characters were great. Then we headed back to WL for bed, we had an early morning planned for the next day.

Up next MK!

[ABPlanning]

Day 5 - 3/27 Wednesday

We woke up and saw that it was going to be cooler (high of 68 with a chance of rain). We wore pants and sweatshirts and packed our ponchos. We were the only people on the boat at 7:30am, we breezed through security and checked in for our PPO breakfast at BOG.
It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining on the castle and it felt like it was going to be awesome. The plan was to have breakfast, then dash over to BTMR, pirates, maybe HM, then back to fantasy land for LM, then use our FP for ETWB, 7DMR and Space Mtn.

We finished breakfast and as we left BOG we realized that the temperature had dropped significantly and it was pouring rain with thunder and lightning. All of the outdoor rides were closed. We walked onto Peter Pan, then DS and I did HM with no wait, then we all did IASW. Then we did our FP for ETWB - DD got to play Maurice and DH was a knight. It stopped raining and we walked over to Adventure land for a Dole Whip, DD got the Hei Hei cone. The line for BTMR was 80 minutes within a few minutes of the rain stopping, so we skipped it - that’s what next time is for. DD and DH were freezing and their feet were soaking wet, so they headed back to WL. DS and I stayed and used our FP for 7DMR. Somewhere around this time, DH decided he didn’t really want to ride space Mtn, I never wanted to, I am prone to neck spasms if I do anything too jerky. I switched the FP for POC later in the afternoon.

DS and I returned to WL to dry off and warm up. We all took a nap because we had the terrace dessert party that evening and we wanted to be rested.

We headed back to MK around 5pm, by this time it was freezing, I’m from Michigan and used to being cold 8 months of the year. There was a strong wind and it was about 50 degrees, but it felt much cooler and it was sort of misty and damp. DS and DH went on POC, DD and I stayed on Mainstreet and watched some sort of musical dancing parade with goofy, donald, mickey and minnie on floats. DD and I went into a gift shop and bought sweatshirts to go over our sweatshirts, we also bought some warm, fuzzy throw blankets - I decided the souvenirs we were getting from this trip would be the blankets that kept us alive during HEA.

We met up with DS and DH and went to the country bear jamboree, my family loved it, I’m now convinced that we need to try HDDR, the cheesier something is, the more they love it.

We bought some Mickey pretzels and walked around a bit, then we checked into the Tomorrowland Terrace for the dessert party. We really appreciated the hot chocolate. HEA was amazing, DD had never stayed up late enough to see fireworks before, so it was extra special. We were seated right at the railing with an amazing view.

After the fireworks we were so cold, we booked it for the boat dock and somehow, managed to get on the first boat back to WL. We were in our room by 10:05pm. We were so cold, we all slept with our new blankets on us, it took us half the night to warm up, but it was a great experience and I would do the dessert party again in a heartbeat, I would just hope for warmer weather, next time we are bringing our winter coats, no matter what the weather forecast says.

[PrincipalTinker]

We were the only people on the boat at 7:30am,

Was this the breakfast boat? Did it go to MK?

[Pod]

While we were waiting, I struck up a conversation with a couple and their teenage daughters, the dad mentioned that they had been in line for TT, but it went down, so everyone came to Soarin. I asked if he had a FP for TT and he said he wasn’t paying for that. I explained about them each getting 3 FP’s per day. The daughter was looking so upset, the day before she stood in line for 2 hours for Space Mountain, they didn’t understand that FP’s were free. I helped them get the app downloaded and the daughters were looking for FP’s when we got on the ride

You may well have saved their vacation. Seriously, that is some major pixie dust.
Which just goes to show a little kindness can go a long way, and sometimes we don’t even know it.
(And, I still can’t believe people don’t know about FP but there you have it).

[ABPlanning]

Was this the breakfast boat? Did it go to MK?

Yes! The boat starts running at 7am and we were the only ones on it

[ABPlanning]

(And, I still can’t believe people don’t know about FP but there you have it).

I think part of it is the name, Fast Pass Plus, Plus makes it sound like an added cost, and people feel like they’ve spent so much for the trip, they don’t investigate something that they think costs extra. If Disney called it CFP Complimentary Fast Pass, or FFP, Free Fast Pass people would look into it more. I still see people on the FB pages asking how much the FP costs.

[Flutegarden]

Let’s keep it a secret. The more people who know the harder they’ll be to get.

[dcdj]

Well that because on the west coast (Disneyland) they have a FP you pay for. I think it get confusing for guest coming from the west coast. Disneyland being much small you can still go without all the planning.Being from CA, I do find going to WDW is very stressful with all the ADRs, only 3 FPs per park, Tier 1 & 2, touring plans. My trip coming up in Sept was suppose to be more of a relaxing trip then prior trips. We went with free dining only QS so I did not have to get up at 3 in morning to make ADRs on Eastern Standard Time. We are only eating at 2TS restaurants at DS, Our arrival day and the night before we fly out. Then Disney threw a wrench in our trip by opening SWGE early so now I back to planning with all the stress hahaha. All I can say is I am happy for websites like this and another Disney lovers that are always so helpful sharing their tips and tricks.

[Ms.BarbsWildRide]

because on the west coast (Disneyland) they have a FP you pay for.

Sure this may be a small part of the confusion, but MaxPass (the paid version of FP at DLR) hasn’t been around that long (less than 2 years) and people have thought it was an additional cost a lot longer than the inception of MaxPass.

do find going to WDW is very stressful with all the ADRs, only 3 FPs per park, Tier 1 & 2, touring plans

I agree. I am looking forward to my first trip to WDW in May, however I feel spoiled by the simplicity and ease of touring DLR. I didn’t even bother with ADRs. I think we have two, the rest will be snacks and QS.

[Pod]

That is a very good point.