My MK 2 day touring plan- please bring your wisdom!

Walt Disney World
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https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=4082930
https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=4071759

BG: Myself, DH, MIL, DS1 (2 year old), DS2 (4 month old). My husband and I last went in May 2016. Had a blast. And are now bringing our family along for the fun. Mother in law is mostly here to help with the 2 year old, but of course we want her to have a bunch of fun too.

This is how the plan “optimizes.” Any thoughts on how i could arrange thing in a way that makes more sense?

SotMK: we would just pick up cards after the first couple hours of riding rides on day 1, and when we get to the park on day 2, and do at our leisure. So i don’t really care where that is in our TP.

DS1 will likely pass out in the stroller whenever, and i can’t plan when he will. When he does, we’ll either rest ourselves, or check out Carousel of Progress, or Enchanted Tiki Room, or Main Street things. I cut out a lot of things from Day 1 to leave room for MIL to potentially head back in the afternoon to lay DS1 down for a nap and then come back after. But if he naps well in the stroller, we could feasibly stick around the park until around 6:00, and MIL and DS1 would then go back for bedtime.

I would love some input on my FPP choices and suggestions for what times i should shoot for. I would love to try using the "maximize your FPP strategy for Day 2. Not sure how (or if) to plan for that.

oh, and the “let the magic begin” show, is that the one that you see at the train station while you’re waiting to be let in to the main park? where the characters show up on the train and do a little show?

These are my plans, and i make them because they’re fun, but at the end of the day, i’m willing to throw them all out to do what’s best for my family.

Dang this trip is hard to plan.

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Doesn’t look bad. A little bit of back and forth, but not excessive.

I think SotMK is the one you need to have more time allocated for. Basically, you plan has 20 minutes allocated each day total…but you can invest a lot of time in it, so be ready for that. We got as far as doing one challenge, and found it took almost 20 minutes because we had to wait for others to finish up ahead of us.

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Oh and as far as FPs, BTMRR and Jungle Cruise for day one, and Peter Pan and Splash for day two, for sure. Once you have your FPs for those at whatever time you get them, you can try optimizing and evaluating again.

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You’re on the right “track” :wink:

They have moved this show to the front of Cinderella’s castle as the train is out of commission for the construction of the Tron coaster. WDW has decided that they like having here permanently as it eases crowd control and allows for shopping on Main St. before the park opens. So… before the show was “mandatory”, but now you can choose to walk to the section of the park where you want to start your day - being held out side of the Land - until official park open. Personally, I enjoy the show and think it’s a great way to start the day especially with small children.

Looking at your plans and I 100% agree about SotMK. It’s an activity that takes 3 - 5 hours to complete - especially with small kids. Even just getting the cards & being taught how to use them can take 20 minutes. It’s an activity you can really plan a whole day around. I really don’t recommend doing it on your first family trip. IMHO - it’s something for ppl who have been often and need something extra to keep the kids engaged.

May I ask why haven’t you put your desired FPPs into your plan? I know you haven’t gotten them yet, but by putting them in place you’ll see how much more time you have,

I’ve seen to many “perfect” plans that go from ride-to-ride nonstop - like this one. You really need to put a 10 - 15 minute break in your plan every 1.5 – 2 hours. I’ve had more than one person tell me, “I’m on vacation. I don’t need to schedule when I pee.”

These breaks are a buffer for unexpected Magic / toilet / gift shops / drinks / etc… or when Touring Plans has an inaccurate wait time in your plan. While TP is more often correct than not, it is only “predicting” the wait and you never know when a ride breakdown somewhere else in the park can send ppl flooding to the ride you were about to go on next.

I also think you’ve not given yourself enough time for your meals. Even when it’s just my wife & I, no kids, we can take 30 minutes to get our food, find a place to sit and eat. (You can save time using Mobile Ordering - which I strongly advise everyone to try!) However, unless you are shoveling food into your face in order to get out ASAP you should consider adding more time to your meals.

It’s always IMHO better to have the breaks and more time to eat & not need it than get behind.

With Pirate’s Adventure it’s also another game that takes you around Adventureland. It doesn’t take as long as SotMK, but probably 30 minutes. (An adult can probably do it faster, but with kids they’ll need a bit of patience.) Also, the “prize” for playing is a FastPass for PoC, but I don’t see you getting on that ride at all.

If you have any questions or want advice on an update to your plans just let us know!

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I ditto more buffer time and rethinking SOTMK (and even the Pirates game). They take up a lot of time. I’d budget more time for TSI as there are few areas for kids to explore and the ferry to/from the island takes up a lot of time.

I vaguely recall a play area at Splash from our December trip. I thought DS7 might like it as he refused to do Splash - nope. He did like the little play area at Pooh but to be quite honest it’s a blink and you miss it thing. IME that’s always the stuff I expect my kids to be done with in 5 minutes and 30 minutes later I’m still waiting for them to be bored.

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Thanks! Not having little ones around for nearly 2 decades you don’t stop to think about these things. I’m going to edit my post to not confuse OP. :smiley:

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Thank you for the FPP help! That makes sense. As far as SotMK goes, we did a few lands on our first trip there and loved it. This time, since we’re more focused on spending time as a family and our 2 year old is likely too young to enjoy/appreciate it, it’s really just an extra. Other than getting the cards, we might not do any of the lands. It’s on there to remind me to go get the cards, and then we’ll do it if/when we have some extra time, or when DH and I go back to the park after son’s bedtime.

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Did you do Mickey’s Philharmagic last time? If you didn’t I wouldn’t cut it - my younger son rates it as his third favorite attraction at WDW.

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:joy:i’ve seen you give this advice time and time again and i tried to avoid it by throwing in those 30 minutes breaks, plus the lunch break. i was not successful! lol. But you’re right, especially dealing with diaper changes, that’ll happen at least every two hours, so it would probably be better to add in more breaks, but shorter ones.

I"m not sure we’ll need more time to eat- unless getting our food takes forever, but i’m hoping to avoid that with QS and mobile ordering. Our kid doesn’t eat too much, and when he’s done, we’re all done, or he gets restless and it’s all downhill from there. Even going out to eat at home with TS as a family, we can be in and out in 40-50 minutes.

I didn’t add in my FPP times because 1) I don’t really know what times to shoot for. I hope to RD, but just in case we don’t make it, i probably don’t want a FPP earlier than 10:00 (side question, what happens if I make one for 9:00 and i don’t manage to tap in? will it count as used or will i not be able to make extra FPPs for the rest of the day?) and 2) Doing things like not adding FPP times and putting the walking speed on “very relaxed,” to me, are all little ways of building in extra time to our TP for things like diaper changes, snacks, extra magical moments, photopass photos, and all those other little things, as opposed to adding in specific extra breaks every couple hours. It allows me to know that i’ll be able to do all these things on this TP at the bare minimum, and most likely, with FPP wait times, even more. Does that make sense? Is there another way to accomplish this same thing that perhaps would work better.

I will go through and bump up eating times by 10 minutes each, and also add in more frequent breaks. I’m looking forward to scheduling my FPPs in two weeks, and maybe i can repost then.

And good to know about the morning show changes! That’s great that you can now RD at the land you want. We can probably do that the second day, since we’ll watch the show the first day.

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Thank you! I’ll add in more buffer times and increase time for TSI

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i haven’t done it before, no. Thank you for the tip! I’m hesitant because of the 3-D glasses- i’m not sure he’d like them and/or keep them on his face, and i’m not sure the value of the movie without them in case he doesn’t want them on his face. When i watch 3D movies without glasses, i tend to get a headache. Though he’d probably be fine… Any insight for me?

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Oh yeah…that can be a challenge. My boys have always gotten the 3D glasses thing okay - at least as soon as it starts making sense why they’re needed.If you decide to do it, get some gems for the Ariel scene. I didn’t have them last time so I found some on Amazon for this trip. I’m planning to “catch” a red one this visit.

There’s a picnic table on TSI that is near a pirate ship play thing so it’s a great place to take a rest for awhile.

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actually, i did bump up eating times to 60 minutes. you’re right, we don’t want to be rushed or end up behind because i didn’t put in enough time. Plus we’ll be changing diapers during these times and going to the bathroom - it’s not just the time it takes us to eat.

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a pirate ship?! how cool!! i’m looking forward to checking out TSI this time. Does 75 minutes sound more realistic than the 45 i originally planned?

Also, i have no idea about the gems or catching gems- could you explain that to me?

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Plans have been updated to include more frequent rest periods, longer eating times, and more time for TSI. I’m still considering getting rid of Belle. I don’t think my son will be into it at all. We go to library reading time every week and they do a march around the room and he never participates- just stares and watches. But I loved doing it my first time, and selfishly want to do it again, plus get some pictures with Belle. I’ll probably end up dropping it, but i’m going to hold onto it for now.

Thank you all for the input!

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Will I be able to get SotMK cards before official park opening? Since they let you into main street now?

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I copied my plans and added pretend FPPs. i like this Day 1 because it has 54 minutes of “free time” after Casey’s Splash area, which accounts for the hour or more i’m planning to spend there anyway. This is one of those attractions that i wish TP would allow you to edit the amount of time you want to be there.

https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=4085901
https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=4085937

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Enchanted tales with Belle takes a long time. And, you’re right that it might not be the most interesting thing to a little boy (but, it depends on the little boy). I did it once with my DD4 and had a great time but did not want to do it again with her as 7 yr old, sent Dad instead. I liked it, it’s just very long.

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i loved it! I was picked to be a suit of armor and had so much fun doing so. But Belle is my favorite. I’m pretty positive my son won’t be into it just because he’s not much for participating in things yet. But hopefully in the future :slight_smile:

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If you notice it’s literally the same sentence. I see the same questions so often that I have my own personal FAQ response document!

I know, for myself, what a big financial investment going on a Disney vacation can be. I’ve had both great & bad trips. I just try to pass along what I’ve learned so others don’t come back upset that they’ve “wasted” thousands of dollars.

I was just checking in before calling it a night. I’ll look over your updates in the morning! :smiley: