My family and I are going to Disney nov 27th -dec6. Originally I thought that this would be one of the "less crowded " holiday times. HOWEVER, maybe due to free dining it doesn’t seem it will be the case. Ideas on how to possibly still have a good time? I’m going to try to use touring plans to help, have a day to visit Disney springs and rent a car to avoid the buses for my husband who needs an ecv . He’s the one I really worry about. Any tricks or ideas would be nice . Thank u everyone
It’s entirely about the attitude that you bring with you and how you define “have a good time”. In my younger days I would “commando” tour from RD to closing and judge the “success” of my day by how many rides and re-rides that I did. Now, in my late 50s, with dozens of days in the parks, things are different.
I’ve been enough times that I no longer feel the need to ride everything every day. I can have “a good time” taking in the atmosphere and enjoying some unique meals. Between what I can get done at RD (especially if it’s EMH) and with my FPPs, that typically covers 6 or 7 of my favorite attractions, and other than at MK, that’s a good percentage of what the park has to offer. I hustle around in the AM, but after lunch (almost always a TS) it’s kick back, look around in shops, catch some of the live entertainment, grab a couple of rides or shows if the lines aren’t too bad (or I can get an extra FPP), take lots of pictures, and just enjoy the experience of being there.
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My last trip I went President’s week. If you ask the people I went with they will tell you it was a great, relaxing trip. I did not try to be in a park before opening every day. I planned on enjoying the resort and scheduled resort time every day. I watched every nighttime show I wanted to see, but I planned on leaving before park closed or I walked from a park ( HS to the BW area) and then grabbed Uber (sometimes avoiding bus lines can make such a difference). I think what was most important was that I was willing to throw all my plans out the window because someone really wanted to do something one more time. Enjoy!
I don’t try to be a salmon swimming upstream. Rule one. DH moves slower than me and rope drop is not possible unless we have a dining reservation. Rule two is to pick new things to see and if not possible to realize that I can probably go back. Rule three. Since I wake earlier, it is a good time to explore resorts. I have walked the boardwalk as the sun was coming up. Resorts are also good late in the day. Rule four. Use the air conditioning and nap stops which are also good for rain relief: Tiki birds, Country Bears, Carousel of Progress. Hall of Presidents, and there are many more. Many have little or no wait. My husband goes to Disney. He says he would like to see other things but he has never had a bad time.
Be careful about too many dining reservations too close together. We couldn’t really help it because our trip was a last minute decision and we only had about 4 weeks to plan, and the places we wanted to go only had certain hours available. The fact that dining took up so much of our time made us feel like we were at the mercy of our ADRs (we had the Deluxe Dining Plan). Our meals always took so much longer than we had anticipated, and probably longer than most people’s due to my husband’s very unique and diverse dietary restrictions.
Our best day of relaxing was our mostly no park day. I would definitely plan more of those if staying enough days. We had an early breakfast at Boma, enjoyed walking around Animal Kingdom Lodge (not rushing), and then went to Blizzard Beach. DH and I went around the lazy river twice while our more adventurous daughter did all the fun stuff. Left after about 3 hours and went back to the resort to shower and change before heading over to a nice evening at Disney Springs and our Raglan Road ADR. Afterwards, DH went back to the resort and DD and I went to MK for a bit while she road all the really adventurous rides and I just vegged. Definitely our most relaxed day.
We have done the trip at the exact same time with three kids in tow. Don’t stress yourself out by the crowds…they weren’t bad at all. Make sure you take the time before you go to figure out your park days (based on the crowd calendar), line up all you FP+ and do your touring plan. The plan works–we just used it over spring break and had no waits. Stayed just ahead of all the long lines.
I know it may seem like you are losing your spontaneity of the trip, but getting in there with a “plan of the day” that was planned in advance really will help. We always ask our kids what are your MUST do things for this trip. It is funny what they think is important versus what you think they think is important. We work around their must dos and if we get them all done they think they trip was a success!
Good luck, you will have a great time!