We visited WDW last week! My party was 4 (2 adults, DS14, DD8) for Epcot on Sunday, 6 (added in nephew 17 and niece 15) for AK and MK on Monday and Tuesday, a resort day on Wednesday, and HS on Thursday, and back to original party of 4 for MK Friday.
I have enjoyed reading your tips but honestly don’t care for the TP program because no matter if I put in that we are slow walkers and want to walk the least amount of distance, the computer overlords were always going against my own logic to do the rides that are nearby to each other. So, I wrote out my own plans for each park day.
We stayed at Beach Club, ropedropped Soarin’ at Epcot, went on Livin with the Land, tried Spaceship Earth but that line said 20 minutes and bumped up to 50 so we ducked out, then went to our fastpasses for Nemo and Crush. I’d go on, but just to summarize, we enjoyed all the rest of the things. Teppan Edo was great. TIP - Fast Pass for Frozen Ever After is the only good way to do that. I enjoyed Epcot forever! And then the cousins arrived.
We went off early to AK on Monday to not ropedrop FOP. We went to Dinosaur to avoid that FOP stress and my vertigo. Then to Everest BUT IT WAS BROKEN.
Here’s my tip. We spend our time carefully planning out each day BUT I NEVER PLANNED for what to do when the next thing is broken, and the next next thing isn’t open yet.
We didn’t want to waste our precious EMH, so we hustled over to the KS. It was amazing. The best safari we’ve been on. We went to the Gorilla trail and again, the best Gorilla watching we have ever had. Then to Rafiki’s and we saw a cheetah getting a CAT scan and we drew hyenas. The morning was amazing. So, while I was upset at myself for not having a backup plan, it worked out for the best experiences.
Our day went on pleasantly from there, too. We just walked a whole lot more than I had planned, we saw the Finding Nemo show that I hadn’t planned to do (and it was really weird) and missed the UP and Festival of the Lion King that I had planned to do. We finished up our day earlier than planned, too, and so the kids decided to go ahead and wait in the FOP line. They loved the ride and didn’t complain about the wait. DH always complains about the lines and hates fastpass, by the way. The people in line in front of us pulled out cans of beer from their backpack about 45 minutes in to the line and we were all surprised. Anyway, I waited through the queue and didn’t ride and the CMs were happy I didn’t barf all over their ride.
Tuesday, MK at 9AM. We headed to BTMRR and waited about 7 minutes and it broke. MK is so much easier to recover from the unplanned. We headed over to Haunted Mansion. I was a little worried because Pirate’s was also down and Jungle had a 35 minute wait or something like that. But it was great. Then iasw, gaston’s tavern, Gaston himself, PPF -which gave me vertigo, I took a pill, and I can’t remember the rest of the morning so well. But I do know we had FP for Space, and the kids really enjoyed the Pirate adventure scavenger hunt to get the FP for Pirates (that we used after dinner).
On our day off, we went to character breakfast to be with Rapunzel. DH of course taken aback by the price. But it’s fine. Went to the pool. Had lunch in the room, headed out for a Riviera DVC tour so as to get more FP, but disaster…
My daughter got ill, we had to take her to the ER and she was admitted to the hospital, transported up to the main hospital in Orlando.
My tip here is that the ER in Celebration was great. Really great. And their customer service we’ve had (so far) had been up to the same level as we would expect from Disney. They knew we were just visiting and worked hard to get her to a point where we could return to the resort as soon as possible.
Anyway, we left those 3 teenagers at the hotel because we were not anticipating her getting admitted. We were expecting a shot of med, and little monitoring, and we’d be on the way. Not what happened.
Again, my tip is to plan for the unexpected.
We wanted the teenagers to enjoy their Thursday at HS despite us not being there. But they hadn’t set up their own MDE. We sent them to the front desk for help, explained the situation, and I was so worried at 7AM. BUT THEY DID IT. All on their own. They got their boarding pass, and I had seen a tweet later that day the passes were gone in less than a minute again.
Tip- I will always recommend the Photo Pass Memory Maker whatever it’s called. All day while DH, DD, and I were at the hospital, we saw the teens’ photos come up. They went on the rides and had fun! They even stopped to have photos taken because they knew I would be a happy mama. Love them. They stayed for Fantasmic and saw the fireworks at Epcot from the skyliner on the way back to the Beach Club. How magical is that!
Tip - when you run in to problems, the cast members are there to help you.
We got back from the hospital late on Thursday. Disney provided a taxi voucher for us. We worked with the Front Desk Thursday and then Guest Relations on Friday and we were completely satisfied.
We ordered the kitchen sink at beaches and cream on Friday afternoon- we weren’t sure if we were going to a park at all. TIP - The Kitchen Sink is ridiculous and FUN and a better value than ordering 4 separate sundaes anyway, so you might as well get it.
My daughter decided last minute she did want to try and catch Fantasmic! before we went home on Saturday morning, and DH decided if we were going to use up the park day, we’d better get on some rides. The Front Desk had given us some extra fastpasses to be sure we’d squeeze in the most fun before we left. We got to HS at 5:30. Went to Smuggler’s Run, then TOT, then RNR, some quick service dinner, and Fantasmic! Perfect, right? I mean, given the circumstances.
Anyway, there you have it.
I’ve enjoyed reading all your insights, tips, tricks, referral to Josh at easyWDW, because all that help gave me the confidence to plan each day and figure out how to recover when things didn’t go as planned.
Oh wow, how stressful to have your child hospitalized while on vacation. It sounds like you did really well rolling with the punches.
Good job to the teens getting their own BG’s and all of the photos for you!
It’s always great to hear that a family enjoyed their trip despite a major hiccup. Teenagers can surprise us sometimes with showing how capable they can be. Congrats!
Just an FYI for your next trip - you can make your own personalized plan and drag everything to the order YOU want steps in. Then you evaluate to keep things in the order you want them. I always do my plans that way so I am touring in a logical order. 
All of your kids sound wonderful! So glad your daughter was able to have some fun when she returned! Nice job the others did while you were gone!
First of all, glad to hear that your DD is feeling better. It sounds as though you took many obstacles in stride that others would have just thrown up their hands and said we are going home. You make the excellent point that no matter how much you plan, you have to BE FLEXIBLE. Sometimes the TP (to be honest, I don’t do TPs) blows up and you have to wing it. Last May was my DD19 & I’s first mom & DD trip to WDW. Our first full day was spent at AK. I had anticipated rain (with disposable ponchos packed) because it’s Florida but I hadn’t anticipated that the skies would literally open deluging us with with waterfalls of rain, thunder, and lightening. The spacious AK was suddenly reduced to the masses hovering under any cover they could find. Gift shops, QS, and any place with a roof became crowded and claustrophobic. When the heavy rain subsided, me’d move on with our plans, and then the rain would come again. My “favorite” memory was waiting under a tin roof in Asia…a metal roof while lightening was abundant…smart move…My DD19 started laughing because we saw a guy with no rain poncho quickly walking backwards to protect the 2 soft serve ice creams he had just purchased! What an afternoon? But you know what? We experienced everything we wanted to that day. Thank goodness for those anytime Fps that you get when attractions go offline.
The memories of a rainy day in a park seem to last longer.