Please look over my touring plans

Walt Disney World Touring Plans
1

I’ll post them all here. Please give me your thoughts. We’re traveling last week of June (hot!), with two young children (8 & 5) both of whom have high-functioning special needs (Sensory Processing Disorder, Autism). We want normal bedtimes - which means we want to be back at the house by 8 each night. Staying off-site. My kids will go nuts over meeting characters, so while the main characters they want to meet are: (son): Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Minnie (daughter) Anna, Elsa, Cinderella, Daisy, Tinker Bell, Peter Pan, they’ll want to meet every one they can. So suggestions on how to work those in would be nice.

I’m not sure on how much down time, either. We plan on packing picnic lunches as much as possible. We don’t want to burn up a lot of time with long ADRs etc… yet, we need breaks too. We plan on probably just snacking around the WS in Epcot.

So, day 1, Epcot (we want the morning to sleep in):

http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=1394035

I’ve put most of the countries down twice, just to allow for a more realistic time alotment.

Day 2: Magic Kingdom:

http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=1348701

We plan on watching the FoF parade from Frontierland, so I figure the 35 minutes it’s giving us, plus the “12” minute walking time (since it assumes we’d be walking back up front) should be enough to snag a good spot?? We plan on eating our packed lunch on Tom Sawyer’s Island.

Day 4: Epcot

http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=1394294

Day 5: Animal Kingdom

http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=1394443

Day 7: Magic Kingdom

http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=1371640

Day 8: Hollywood Studios

http://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=1394337

Not sure if we should drop Voyage so we can fit in Character Palooza? We don’t want an early morning arrival since the night before we’re doing Wishes. Kids (we) will be exhausted. DH really doesn’t want today to be a long park day.

2

I have not yet had a chance to look at your plan in detail but I did read a post the other day by Kenny the Pirate that said that Character Palooza was changing.

3

I think they look reasonable. Problem is, you won’t know how your kids react until you’re there, so will likely end up doing a lot of changes on the fly. This isn’t a bad thing, just be prepared for flexibility. If your kids have a lot of stamina and are super keen, you’ll be okay, otherwise you may find you’re trying to pack in too much stuff. It’s totally okay to spend 3-4 hours at a park then call it a day. Lots of kids just want to go back to the room and play in the pool after a very stimulating, overwhelming few hours. (Our family typically does Rope Drop until midday, then the minions revolt.)

As for the nitpicky points, I think it’s pretty optimistic to think you’ll get A&E or 7DMT FPP staying off site, and you’ll probably get TSMM but the timing may not be what you want, or you may have to divide into groups of 2 with overlapping times. As for Epcot, if you have nerdy ASD kids like mine, they’ll want to spend all day in Innoventions. Sum of All Thrills (Innoventions East) is not to be missed if you have any math-lovers who can also handle a mini thrill ride. Also, they may want to do an Agent P adventure in World Showcase… helps to watch a bit of Phineas and Ferb before you go to have context, and makes it less boring for the kids than walking through gardens and around buildings.

4

A note on your first Epcot day. I’m going in late August. I had a similar plan to you (late start) for one of our Epcot days since it will be following a late MK night. I ran it by some Disney veterans. Someone pointed out that touring WS in the heat of the day in the summer from 1-5 is probably not the wisest idea. Very little shade in WS and lots of concrete. Bearing that in mind, I changed my plan. We’ll start with a few countries in WS from 11-1, lunch 1-2-ish at Akershus, Future World during the high heat of the day from 2-5 (most attractions are in AC). If we are up for it, back to WS after 5. Just something to think about.

5

Agree with this! We were there the first week of April and were miserable in the World Showcase in the afternoon. There is so much concrete and the heat becomes unbearable at times. We finally left the countries and headed back to Future World for an A/C break, and waited until later to return to WS. I would imagine if it was that bad in early April, it will be quite a bit worse in June. I would shoot for being in FW by 10:30 and head straight to the WS at 11 when it opens, then head to FW after a few hours. Good luck!

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We have all our FP booked, we booked a room for one night. So the FP in my plans are the actual ones we got.

7

Okay, I think I’ll change the first WS plan day to being in WS by 11.

1 Like
8

On your second MK day you have 4 FPs listed - are you splitting up, or are you thinking you’ll get Peter Pan as a 4th after you’ve used your other 3?

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Splitting up.

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I’m curious, given that we are traveling in summer when it’s going to be extremely hot and humid, does anyone think it would be better to, instead of planning entire days off, to instead do mornings only, every day. And then have every afternoon and evening off (with the exception of my 2nd day MK plan where we’re going back in the pm for BBB/CRT etc.)

11

The summer heat can be bad during the afternoon hours. Early morning and evening are much easier to tolerate. Common advice is to arrive at rope drop, tour for a few hours and then return to the resort for a swim/nap before you go back to a park after 5:00. Others have planned a long table service lunch from 1:30 or so, so that you can relax in an air conditioned building.

12

I would definitely do this. Use AM EMH if you can (or RD if offsite), leave after lunch, return around 5 and stay until close. Only way I would do WDW in the summer. Afternoon would be spent napping/resting in the air condition, and a pool break. Shower, and head back to the parks feeling like a new person. We didn’t take our normal breaks in April since we had a short trip, and we paid for it.

13

WOO HOO. Those are AWESOME FPP. :slight_smile: Very happy for you.