My family is going to WDW in a few months. We are thinking 5 day tickets, no hoppers.
We initially planned for 7 nights but now I’m thinking we could swing 8 nights.
Plan 1: Leave Saturday morning, arrive at MCO around noon. Get to hotel around 2 after a lunch and grocery stop. Rest/swim.
Sunday & Monday - park
Tuesday - rest
Weds-Fri - park
Saturday - depart MCO at 11am
Plan 2: Leave Friday late afternoon (right after kids get out of school), arrive at MCO at 7:30pm. Get to hotel around 8:30-9pm. Have groceries delivered.
Saturday - park
Sunday - rest/pool
Mon-Tues - park
Weds - rest/pool
Thurs-Fri - park
Saturday - depart MCO at 9am (This option would be about $500 more)
What I don’t like about the second option is that you’re basically paying that $500 to sleep. I hate late arrivals and early departures for that reason.
if you did the second option, would you consider doing a more affordable offsite hotel for your arrival night, still allowing you to arrive early at Disney well rested and ready for a park day without that $500 ticket? That’s my preference when I can’t fly in early.
The other thing to consider is the fact that late day flights are more at risk of not making it out then early flights. So you might pay that $500 and end up stranded anyway.
oh, I missed that detail. I absolutely despise early departures because again I feel like you’ve spent that last night hotel fee just so you could sleep. Once in a while, it can’t be avoided, but it’s definitely far from my preference.
I love a full rest day, which is why I chose 2, but flight delays aren’t something we think about with WDW bc we drive… it is just about 7.5 hr for us and I like to overpack.
This makes total sense, but for whatever reason we didn’t do this for traveling generally when I was growing up and it hasn’t really occurred to me to do it differently! I think for me I really like to get home and still have some decompression time before getting back to work, etc. Maybe though if I had an AP ticket!
I would potentially consider a night at the all-stars
You and @stlouie bring up a good point. I don’t need to take the earlier flight but was trying to compromise with my husband a little.
This is something to consider. We will be contending with winter weather.
Yeah. I wasn’t clear enough. The hotel room is like $325 plus grocery delivery and an extra night on the rental car/airport parking/dining pushes us closer to $500 realistically. But, I could save money and stay elsewhere.
I know you’re a planner extraordinaire - see your Yellowstone trip. However, this Plan may have more points beyond your control than is conducive to a fun vacation.
A: arriving at resort by 9 pm
airlines aren’t doing so great lately, aside from the recent update gone astray
B: resorts are closing down the food sources earlier. If your family is hungry and your flight or traffic was a mess, or hordes of guests are checking in all at once, arriving late could backfire.
C: food delivery could go astray or the order go astray but this is not as likely as A &/or B
D leaving MCO at 9 am means leaving your resort very early
In the above scenario, we did arrive late - airline changed our flight. So we’ve got 10 min before the food closes and we’re grabbing to go and hauling that with luggage to our room.
We also did once have our delivery order get electronically lost. But only once. And we’ve left the resort at 6 am for an early flight. We’ve had the almost too late for food more than once lately.
With this scenario, can you have groceries delivered? Can you eat lunch at your resort? Maybe start a family tradition of first night meal at a favorite restaurant. Beginning your Disney fun early. We used to always go to 1900 Park Fare.
In May we started with a rest day on Saturday because of crowd levels in the parks.
Sunday was our first park day because the crowd levels were so much lower.
Originally I picked Option 2 (because MORE!) but the other posters convinced me, you’re not getting much more for the $500. I revised my choice to Option 1.
I would prefer option 2 because having a max of 2 park days in a row and then relax day is what I’d need. When we did our trips I tended to go hard on park days. I know there’s always the option to take it easier, but knowing oneself is valuable. I also agree that the early morning flight back is gross, but leaving my vote as 2.
I also agree that the early morning flight back is gross, but leaving my vote as 2.