No, your rambling is great. And MK redundancy is the best kind! We did lots of repeats in January with our toddler. My parents took my brother and I to MK once when we were pretty young and DH’s parents have never been, so I guess our plan is to do all the things. I really want to start grilling them about their must dos already but DH won’t let me even mention the trip to his parents until we’re less than a year out. 
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So, it should go without saying that the EEMH announcement changed my plans a bit. Fortunately, the ADR situation didn’t change too much. The only PPO breakfast I had was GG in Epcot on a non-EMH day, which is still a non-EMH day (at this time at least). Feels like I dodged a bullet there.
Update on ADRs and my plan below. I don’t expect anyone to read this, I’m just writing it all out in hopes of some catharsis from a personal s*storm I’m dealing with.
Oct 26 (Arrival + MK)
- 4-5PM(ish) arrival
- Setup/activate AP, TiW, DAS, SotMK, get “First Visit” buttons
- Meet Mickey & Minnie
- Casey’s and poporn cart for dinner/snacks (get popcorn buckets!)
- First Disney rides: Carousel and IASW
- 7:30 HEA Dessert Party
Oct 27 (MK)
- 7AM – RD Peter Pan, Pooh, maybe something else we can fit in during EEMH; I know this will be difficult after HEA the night before, but we are all early birds and its the first park day, so I think we have a shot
- 8AM? “Let the Magic Begin”
- Under the Sea + Meet Ariel, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Hall of Presidents (short nap for kids?)
- Snacks and potty break
- RS Splash + Tom Sawyer Island (short nap for kids?)
- 11:20 DD1’s 1st haircut @ Harmony Barber Shop + Main St. Philharmonic / Dapper Dans
- 12:20 ADR at Tony’s w/ parade VIP package
- Parade
- 3-5PM Naps & Rest @ WL/BR
- Geyser Point for dinner
- 6PM(ish) Campfire & Smores @ WL
Oct 28 (AK)
- 7AM – RD Na’vi River and Safari
- FOP for adults (if FPs), Gorilla Falls then Discovery Island trails for kids, setup Wilderness Explorers
- Snacks and potty break
- Tough to Be a Bug, Meet Mickey/Minnie
- 10:20 ADR at Tusker House w/ ROL dining package (hopefully get seated in time for breakfast buffet, and get the lunch buffet after)
- FOTLK
- 1-4PM Naps & Rest @ WL/BR
- Nemo Musical (last show @5PM), then dinner @ Flame Tree
- FOP/EE for adults (if FPs), and Boneyard for kids
- 7:30 ROL (VIP seating) and TOL Awakenings
Oct 29 (MK)
- 7AM – RD 7DMT and other Fantasyland stuff we can during EMH; this will probably get scratched if we do ROL the night before
- Jungle Cruise, POTC, Tiki Room, Magic Carpets
- Snacks and potty break
- Swiss Family Treehouse, BTMRR, and Splash (if DS4 wants to ride again)
- 11:35 ADR at Chef Mickey’s
- 1-4 PM Naps & Rest @ WL/BR
- Beauty & the Beast Evening: ETWB, Gaston’s Tavern, etc. then 5:50 ADR at BOG
OCT 30 (Epcot) – move from WL/BR to BWV today
- 8:00 ADR at 1900 Park Fare
- 10(ish) arrival @ Epcot – Nemo attractions, SSE, Meet Mickey, and Agent P Signup
- 12:30 ADR at Biergarten
- Walk clockwise around WS (so skipping Mexico, Norway, China) and hopefully kids nap in strollers
- 5:50 ADR at Via Napoli; we may cancel this on-the-fly if no “stroller naps” occur and we just want to go to BWV when our room is ready
OCT 31 (HS)
- ? 6AM visit SW:GE ? (I may do this with my dad, but not the kids)
- 8AM(ish) Toy Story Land and Frozen sing-a-long
- Snacks and potty break
- Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid shows
- 12:35 ADR at Hollywood & Vine w/ Fantasmic! VIP package
- 2-6PM Naps & Rest @ BWV + Boardwalk Halloween events
- Lightning McQueen show
- Fantasmic! (VIP seating)
Nov 1 (Epcot & MNSSHP)
- 8:00 ADR at Garden Grill + RD Soarin’ and LWTL
- Finish up FW (SSE, M:S)
- Snacks and potty break
- Norway: FEA, Kringla Bakeri for lunch, Meet Anna and Elsa?
- China and Mexico
- 1-4PM Naps & Rest @ BWV
- MNSSHP
Nov 2 (MK)
- 9AM arrival (I’m running W&D 10k this morning, so 9AM is probably a stretch)
- Tomorrowland & Casey’s for lunch
- 12-4PM Naps & Rest @ BWV
- 4:35 ADR at CRT
- Final rides at Disney (FPs for PPF, 7DMT, iasw)
- 7:30 HEA Dessert Party; only if DW decides to repeat this with my parents, I’ll be going back to room, running the W&D Half Marathon the following morning
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This entire thread makes me feel so under-planned. 28 days is enough time to figure it all out, right? Right?
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Don’t worry about it too much, a close friend of mine took their kids to WDW last year without planning much beyond a few ADRs and they had a great time. Planning is just a core part of my personality, and I love building out spreadsheets and analyzing things in extreme detail. In my mind, I’m striving for perfection, or at least optimization. But my plans change all the time, so I’m obviously not achieving much. 
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Everytime I look at my plans they change.
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It’s just part of being a Liner
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What do you call yourself if you check for wait times, FP availability, and attraction closures now but you are still 75 days out. I tell my kids I am looking for patterns that might affect our trip. 
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I’d skip this on the morning on your first full day if you would like your kids to fall in love with Disney World … only 1/2 joking.
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LOL! I’ve been waiting for you to come here and tell me that I’ve packed too much into my days! I’m hoping Hall of Presidents will put my boys to sleep for a few minutes so they can make it to the parade without meltdowns. We shall see… If nothing else, HoP is a good time filler on my TP to give us some flexibility that morning.
I’ve mentioned that part enough on your other iterations that you know my feeling on it. In all seriousness, I just want you and your family to have an awesome time whether you get to everything in your plan or only half of it, and to the extent my experience from last fall with my DD3 and DS1 can help toward that goal, I was sharing what I learned. Seeing my kids at Disney World for the first time last fall was awesome … I can’t wait to go back this fall.
Also, so fun that you will get to see SW:GE with your Dad. I am a huge SW fan, but we are going to skip SW:GE this fall because of the kids. Maybe we will go to SW:GE the following year.
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This is all I really care about. I can’t wait!
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While I tend to agree with @davej’s assessment that the plans are packed, I do know that there was no way you could’ve convinced me to choose ahead of time what to abandon & what to count on.
(Who knew that my kids would fall in LOVE with play area at the exit of Mission Space & that I’d feel like the worst parent ever dragging them out of there when I felt an hour was more than sufficient so I could take them to go finish my collection of photos of them in front of the Flower & Garden Topiaries).
But even though we really only followed the plan about 50% of the time and left without doing a lot of what I had spent detailed time planning, we had a fantastic vacation & left with amazing memories & hopes & expectations already formulating for a return trip.
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inpressive. well at least our families might be able to meet on the 27th…only days/parks we overlap… i thought my 20 adrs were a lot
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Fair point. I rode the carousel many, many more times last visit than I ever planned or expected last visit.
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My kids were all about all the play spaces/playgrounds. They are still convinced (3 years later) that any ride on Dumbo at WDW without getting time the play space first is a waste of that attraction. And Epcot had several playgrounds setup during the F&G that they requested to visit multiple times in our 2 days, in addition to the aforementioned hour at the Mission Space play space. And then the Boneyard, oh the Boneyard. If I didn’t have the promise of collecting every single Wilderness Explorer Badges possible to lure them out of there, I don’t know if we would’ve made it out in under 3 hours! 
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Our planned trip overlaps most days with Prophet Paul AND we are almost the same demographic group, minus a 1 year old - my grown DS and DDIL, their 26 month and 4 year old sons and my DH and I (the grandparents!). I have enjoyed reading all the plan updates and have a lot of the same elements in my own plans, but I have to echo davej here - I worry Paul, that your plans are a bit aggressive.
I’ve done DW about 14 times but this will be the first time with our grandchildren. I’m doing all the planning for our group and have left most days open past ~2 or 3pm (except for 5:30ish dinner ADRs) and have only planned 2 evening events out of 7 nights that include the kids. (One night is before a late start day and the other is our last night.) We plan to have the adults take turns going back to a park some nights (two stay with GSs, two go have fun). We are focusing on keeping the kids well rested so we can RD each morning and have (hopefully) relatively happy kids. They normally don’t stay up past 7:30pm so we worried we’d really be pushing it with going back to parks at night. Maybe they will nap in the strollers but we didn’t want to count on that or it being enough. And don’t forget, many of those afternoon breaks end up being only an hour or so once you factor in the transportation.
Now - of course you are a runner so I assume you have a ton of energy and must be skilled at parenting 3 young children (and one with health challenges) so obviously you know your own kids. I just worry your trip may become too stressful for you - don’t forget it can be hard to cancel events at the last minute (hopefully Bump & Dump continues to work). Maybe consider dropping the early morning Chef Mickey’s, for example and sleep in? (You have plenty of other character meals.) And your first day - everyone will be up really early to make your flight I assume, so do you really want to start your vacation with the kids up late that night for HEA? We plan to just pool it and then get the kids settled in that first night.
Anyway, please accept this unsolicited advice from a total stranger - for what it’s worth It’s obvious this trip means a great deal to you so I really hope it is truly magical for you and your family. We should look for each other on the 27th when we will also be at MK - with an 11:35 Parade package at Tony’s!
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Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice. I value your input greatly. I will probably end up gambling on an evening activity 2 or 3 nights, and will plan the remaining to be super flexible in case we don’t return to the parks after naps. I’m confident DS4 will be able to do the later bedtimes, just not sure about DS3. We will probably just split up in the evenings, and having the grandparents with us will give us even more flexibility.
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Please keep us updated on your plans though! I love reading them and it’s helpful to see what you will be doing over our same dates!
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I agree with one of the posters that slimming it down a bit is wise. It is a very, very, very ambitious plan with three kiddos under 4 and grandparents in tow. I know it’s just a plan/sketch at this stage with lots of time for tweaks, but you have RD/early AM plans every single day of an 8 day trip AND also late evening plans (FEA, Illuminations, Halloween party, s’mores etc on most days too) Plus: table service ADRs with 3 kiddos, 2x/day and even 3x/day.
On your first night you will get back to your hotel at 10pm (or later depending on when FWs are) and then have to turn around the next AM and rope drop, then rinse/repeat. I went to WDW with a DS6, DS 9 months and 3 grandparents plus spouse and they would have staged a coup had this been the schedule but they admittedly have lower park stamina than some. But, i also went to DLR with a DS2 and DS7 with my active Mom and ditto. I’m now planning an 8 night trip for my DS5 and DS11 with spouse, and am planning 4 RD days (which is probably two more than my family would prefer) and 4 very late start days (ie, 3pm). I can foresee you having to nudge your family along from one ADR to another, worried about cancel fees if you miss, although the bump and run is s good back up in case.
Two things stand out to me that might be helpful to think about:
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I You are looking at 3-4 hours a day sitting at restaurants. I find TS service at WDW and DLR to be very slow, especially dinners. Someone needs to walk around the baby, someone needs to play games with older kids… you might want to pare back.
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very likely many in your crew will not have your stamina to return to parks in evening after an exhausting late night/RD schedule (I’d join you though! My husband tells me that only my Mom and I get more energy from parks as the day wanes, and everyone else just gets plain tired!) . We did two straight days at MK (first day RD to 6pm, no return to park, and the second day RD to 2pm, with return to hotel for naps and then 6pm Thanksgiving reservations. We all overslept we were so tired. Great dinner but then only 3 of us (DS6, me and spouse) returned to parks for HEA, even though the next day was completely sleep in with no plans till afternoon. Everyone was TIRED with a capital T but grandma graciously offered to put down our little one for a good night’s sleep so my husband and I could take our DS6 back to MK. Memorable evening and SO happy we went back!
Some things to consider:
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you should have a HUGE advantage on FPs with rider swap and such a large group (5 paid tickets). When we were there with our 9 month old, we split up our FPS into pairs for headliners with Rider Swap, Ie. 3 SOarin FPS, with rider swap turns into 6 FP. Not sure if it still works that way but if it does, you shouldn’t need to RD Soarin. DEF go in with a RS FP advance planning.
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I might suggest doing Halloween party when kiddos get older or just have grandparents babysit for a parents night out.
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I’d consider dropping GG and either Chef or Park for breakfast. Give yourself s break in the AM from having to rush out door.
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Epcot is a great park to do a half day TP (ie: TP has an afternoon plan in future land as well as a WS one), and thus it’s a great park to put following an HEA evening or F! Evening, especially so since you already plan to go twice. Both days in my plan where we stay out late the night before we have a late start in Epcot, easy to do when you do two days and easier for you b/c you have the golden ticket Rider Swap set up! You could let kids have pool time AM, get them down for an early nap, then head over and stay thru illuminations. You’d still have to choose FEA Tier 1 for a different day but you could do 2 FPS for Soarin, and 2 for Test Track …read up on tips for this.
In the end, have fun and please post back here. I personally LOVE your take the WDW hill mentality, but you may have to postpone a few things for when your kids are much older or on an trip sans kiddos!
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