I’m looking to see if there are any things that I’m not thinking about as far as planning a trip with some people staying on property and some people staying off.
My normal preference is to stay on property, but my husband and I have an RCI time share that no longer has access to DVC. We don’t want to do a trip like this and not use the timeshare when we have it. So we are staying at Wyndham Bonnet Creek with a 2bdrm suite. We have 2 kids that will be 4 and 6 when we go in August.
My parents are invited to stay with us, but do not want to stay off property, so they are staying at French Quarter. In order to get the most out of this, we have added the kids to their room. Especially with the kids eat free dining plan out there, this seemed like the best option.
My dad is very nervous about this, but we are experienced Disney goers (25ish trips for me and my dad), so I think we will be fine. My last trip was in 2022 and my parents went in 2024, so we have at least some experience with the lightning lane strategies. Also, this is my kids’ second trip and we will certainly be taking them more in the future, so nothing is truly MUST DO. We will be going the third week in August, so we don’t expect massive crowds, but also are aware that Disney has been getting better at evening out crowd levels over the year.
Some things we have thought about:
Dining at 60 days for whole trip - If memory serves from having guests eat with us before, my parents should be able to book 6 person dining reservations for their length of stay even though there are only 4 on their reservation. I don’t see this being an issue at all. Please correct me if I am wrong about this
Lightning Lane Single / Multi Pass at 7 days out vs 3 days out - Honestly this is probably what I think has the most potential for going wrong, but I think we can work around it. We can have 4 out of 6 of us at the 7 days, and I’m hoping I can just get close enough for the other 2. I’m pretty good at refreshing day of to move things around if we have to. Plus, I think between rider switch for the little ones and adults just not caring about a particular ride, we can make it work. My biggest worry is Slinky Dog here, which I know is hard to get and I think all 6 of us actually want to ride. Worst case is that my parents can ride things with the kids and my husband and I can just sit things out.
My one thought that I’m not sure if it will work or not - assuming we are all in the park (and therefore have activated our Magic Bands for that park), can we use each others? For example, I know my parents do not want to ride Guardians, but they can get the LL at 7 days out. Can we use their MBs to go on with my kids? I know the last time I went there was a finger print scan at the park entrance, but I don’t see how they would tell or why they would really care if I were using a different MB at the ride entrance.
Transportation – My dad is really gung-ho about riding the bus together. And honestly, I don’t love the idea of using the shuttle from our hotel or driving to the parks. My parents will be driving down and therefore will have a car registered to their room. My thought is that we can use their car to go back to our resort at night and drive it back in the mornings to French Quarter. This is probably not a typical use of their parking, but I can’t see why they would have an issue with it. As long as we can give the name and room number for my parents. Or would we have to be scanning a MB? And if we have to scan an MB, can we just take a spare from my parent’s room? Or do they also check ID with the scanned MB?
Early Entry – This is one I know we can do nothing about. My plan would be to get to the park together, my parents can go in and do a few rides with the kids, and my husband and I can just wait to go in at regular opening. That is if my parents get up early enough to actually take advantage of it.
Dining Plan – We normally find the dining plans to be too much food, but free dining for kids is hard to resist. Plus, I know in the past I have heard that the best way to use a dining plan is when you have multiple rooms of people and one room gets it and the other doesn’t and you just share meals. So since we will have 6 park days, 2 adults and 2 children in one room – we essentially will have 12 adult meals and 12 kids meals to split between us. I’m not so worried about having extra kids meals, especially since that part is free. But my assumption is that we can use those 12 adult meals for 4 of us at 3 meals instead of having to use 2 of them over 6 meals. Again, I don’t see why Disney would have a problem with this, but want to see if anyone has any experience that contradicts my assumption.
Am I missing anything that I should be planning for? Does anyone have an experience to confirm or deny any of my assumptions?
This shouldn’t be a problem at all. I’ve done it as most recently as November for Beak and Barrel.
Yes. As far as LLs go, if SDD is the biggest concern, have them book it for mid afternoon or later. You will have a better chance getting that at your booking date, or modifying it day of at a drop. You could just book them all together. OR book a refundable stay at the Swan or Dolphin (CHECK CANCELATION POLICY). I know I have booked it before where I was able to cancel 48 hours in advance. But I can’t recall the rate or the details. This was Covid times. Had nothing to do with Genie+ or LLs, as it wasn’t a thing then. But covid very much was. if you can do this, just cancel at your 3 day mark. You should keep all of your LLs for length of ticket now.
I’ve had them do it both ways… I think they can add you as day guests though. That should get you into the property. FQ shouldn’t be very strict.
I would just preplan for everyone to do everything at the same time. If they aren’t early risers, why add that pressure.
You can not officially use the credits for other people. I would be surprised if the system readily allowed this.
My sister has a time share that she used to use RCI to exchange into DVC. Last few years tho she’s had to use Interval International for the exchange because Disney switched . I never recall the actual time share name. II dosn’t seem as good as RCI was.
Regarding the parking at FQ, we’ve done that sort of thing. If your parents get a paper to put on the dash, that would help get in the gate. More helpful would be if one of your parents had an extra magic band to go with the car. Then you just go in the returning guest lane and use the magic band. We’ve not had an id check when using the returning guest lane and a magic band of a registered guest
I think they do not check that the person is correct person. TS is what I was referring to. QS, I don’t think they even look or care. I thought as long as 4 adults were on the dining plan, you could use 4 credits but not 6 or 8 (assuming 1 TS meal). Are you saying in practice, this is not the case? In TA training (no longer doing that, don’t like people), we were told to make sure clients knew they couldn’t use more credits in 1 sitting than the amount of people tied to each reservation, that if you had 2 rooms you had to use the 2 different bands because they wouldn’t allow 1 reservation to “treat” TS credits for the other people on the other reservation.
Absolutely used to be possible - I just haven’t had a dining plan in years, so haven’t paid attention for awhile. Maybe someone else who has done it recently can chime in.
Of course there are always situations where you might run into friction, but there were whole threads in some groups dedicated to gaming phantom kids credits etc.
Found a reddit thread with a technique that might help if the CM does limit credits to the maximum people in the room at one sitting:
That sounds like a decent hack. And it follows what we were told that the max credits that can be used are the number of people in a room. So one person couldn’t exchange six credits on a reservation that had four people. It is supposedly something built into the system. I haven’t done the dining plan in years either. Never works out for me financially. Personally I think it’s silly. If you buy x amount of credits you should get to use them however you want.
25+ trips, so it appears you have it covered. The only thing I can pass on is we went last year the second week in August and never again - the heat/humidity was unbearable. We are rope droppers, back to the resort for a quick nap, and back to the parks until closing. But, this was our 1st August trip & we got wiped out by the weather.(plus the quick storms were inconvenient, but we managed) Just be prepared for that aspect.
Huh. So it does seem like this one has changed since I last even contemplated a dining plan. We do not usually even think of them either. But with free dining for kids and possibly sharing over the 4 adults it seemed worth it.
So it sounds like we could split the check and maybe send one half with my mom’s band and one with my dad’s and say 2 adults for each one? And pretend that one of the bands was for me and my husband? Would they even care at that point? Or maybe do I just drop the kids dine free and screw the dining plan. Sad to hear this one has changed.
Thank you for the heads up, but we are well prepared for that part! My mom is a teacher so 3rd week in August is our go-to time for a week that is not terribly busy but still on her school break.
I think they wouldn’t look that far into it. Each grandparent hands over a band and says 2 adult and 1 child’s credit for each one. That should do it. I wasn’t even thinking about splitting checks. I don’t think the wait staff cares at all.
One tip/suggestion: you might have your parents ask for room keys at French Quarter. As you may know, the room keys will be tied to their MDE accounts, and you can use them to check into Lightning Lane reservations under your parents’ names without having to take off and trade Magic Bands.
I tried this approach with my wife so that I could ride both versions of Mission Space at Epcot – using my Magic Band for Green and her room key for Orange – and had no issues with it.
) anyway. 