Starting to plan November 5-12

Walt Disney World
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Hello and thanks for reading my giant wall of text. I’ve been reading these and other forums, and greatly appreciate the passion you guys have for WDW! Please let me know if I need to shuffle anything around!

We’re a single family, DH (me), DW, DS8, DS9, heading to Disney for essentially the first time. Ages are at time of travel. DW & I took both boys in 2017 for one night/two days - they basically have no recollection of it, and we only did a few rides in MK. I’ve never been otherwise and DW has been as a young kid. We’re hitting all parks this trip and doing as many rides as possible with an emphasis on thrills.

We’re booked at Pop Century Preferred Room for Nov 5-12, with 7-day single park tickets. Would getting park hoppers make sense at all or are single park tickets fine? We’ll likely get G+ and use ILL every day in conjunction with the Lines app. We plan to head to MK soon after checking in, even if it’s only for a few hours. The price for the extra day of tickets is minuscule, and the wow factor of walking into MK that first night I think makes the trip and gives a “we’re here” moment. We’re treating this as a “once in a lifetime” trip, so want to experience the magic to its fullest!

Dining isn’t a priority for us, we don’t have any “must do” restaurants, but I’d really like to experience Space 220 and Oga’s. Our kids are regular kids and can exist on pizza, hot dogs and burgers; parents enjoy a nice meal so we’re trying to balance that out. We ate at Chef Mickey’s for breakfast on the previous trip and really enjoyed it, so we’d like to do that again. We’d also like to keep dining inside the parks as I think we’d be losing a lot of time trying to go back and forth. We’re looking at doing a longer table service lunch to have a mid-day break, and QS dinner most days. Also open to having breakfast at Caribbean Beach once or twice since it’s on the Skyliner route to EP and HS.

We’ll have one full day in each park, with two full days in HS and MK, plus a third evening in MK. AK and EP are going to be crammed days to try and get most of the things done, but we should be able to be more leisurely at HS & MK. Rope dropping

Schedule of days looks like this so far - I’ve created some TPs but it’s too far out to get any good scheduling.
Disney World November 5th - 12th 2022

Saturday Depart Chicago | Arrive Orlando
Car service to Pop Century Resort, Check-in, Evening at Magic Kingdom, Dinner at Cosmic Rays (open to other ideas!)

Sunday Animal Kingdom
Meals: Everything Pop - Breakfast, Yak & Yeti - long lunch break, Flame Tree BBQ - quick dinner
Rides: Avatar Flight of Passagem Na’Vi River Journey, Dinosaur, Finding Nemo The Musical, Discovery Island Trails, It’s tough to be a bug], Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safari, Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail

Monday Epcot
Meals: Everything Pop - Breakfast, Space 220 Lounge - long lunch break, Sunshine Seasons - quick dinner
Rides: Remy’s, Frozen Ever After, Guardians of the Galaxy(hopeful), Spaceship Earth, Test Track], Mission: Space, The Sea’s with Nemo & Friends, Awesome Planet, Soarin’ Around the World

Tuesday Magic Kingdom
Meals: Everything Pop - Breakfast, Tony’s Town Square - long lunch break, Pecos Bills
Rides: Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Haunted Mansion, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Barnstormer, Space Mountain, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, People Mover, Tron Lightcycle Run (hopeful)

Wednesday Hollywood Studios
Meals: Everything Pop - Breakfast, SciFi Dine-in or 50’s Diner, Docking Bay 7, Ogas Cantina
Rides: Rise of the Resistance, Millenium Falcon: Smugglers Run,Lightning McQueens Racing Academy, Rock n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Mickey & MInnies Runaway Railway, Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Mania, Star Tours

Thursday Hollywood Studios
Meals: Everything Pop - Breakfast, Mama Melrose’s, Rosie’s All American, Ogas Cantina
Rides: re-ride anything we really liked, ride anything we missed.

Friday Magic Kingdom
Meals: Chef Mickey’s - Breakfast, Friar’s Nook - lunch, Casey’s Corner - dinner (open to lunch & dinner ideas!)
Rides: re-ride anything we really liked, ride anything we missed.

Saturday Stupid MCO
Car service to the airport and hope the lines are terrible. We’ve had problems at MCO in the past, and aren’t fans, but I’ve heard they’ve improved since we were last there in 2018.

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Looks like an excellent plan to me. I like having park hoppers, but if you are using lunch as your long midday break I think it’d probably be fine to go without. You can always add them on your trip if you decide you do need them because you’d like more time at say Epcot on your AK day since they close earlier.

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Ohh, you can add them on the day of? Could we add them on just for the one day, or would it be for the whole trip? It might make a lot of sense to do park hoppers on the AK day and add in some Epcot time.

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So it’s 1 fee and it’s good for the length of your ticket. I only meant that if you didn’t buy the add on before the trip and decided you did need it when you got there it is easy to add on. So whether you buy it on your first day or last day it is the same price and once it’s added you can use that option every day if you want to.

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I agree with @LTinNC82. You have really done your homework and your plan looks great. Good idea to wait and decide on park hopper. Based on your plan/goals - don’t think you will need it.

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Love your idea of hitting MK first evening to start vacay with a bang! I’m jealous you can go in off peak time. I’m always stuck with usual suspects. If 2023 goes the way of 2022 we will be there during CL 8-10 days in March. Boo. Have do much fun planning!

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Ahh - might not be worth the extra $360 for park hoppers for one night then. I think/hope we’ll be fine as planned. :slight_smile: :grinning:

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Thanks! Like most people, this trip has been planned, postponed, kicked down the road, and repositioned again and again. I feel like this attempt is going to stick!

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We originally planned to go spring break 2021, kicked it to November 21, spring break 22 and now back to November 22. Our jurisdiction uses the schools as polling places, so the kids are out that Monday/Tuesday and being absent the remaining three days was an easy decision after the last 2.5 years! It helps that they’re young enough that a few days here and there aren’t going to wreck their education or transcripts.

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We do this. It is a great way to start a WDW vacation.

You have great plans! For what it is worth, here are my thoughts:

Personally, I don’t like the food at Cosmic Rays (neither did my young kids). Columbia Harbour House is my favorite QS at MK.

AK is missing the Jungle Trek. Oversight? Or did you want to skip that trail? I think it is a great trail, and I love seeing the Tigers.

To manage exceptions, go into this knowing you may have trouble getting all those headliners done in MK and HS. It is good that you have a second day because then you can ride the ones you missed the first day.

You don’t list any nighttime shows or parades. I would recommend planning to watch the shows at MK and Epcot, and hopefully Fantasmic! is back at HS by November.

Oga’s is interesting/fun once a visit, but I wouldn’t plan on going both Wednesday and Thursday.

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I’ve seen the not-so-great reviews of Cosmic Ray’s, and I’m still debating if it would be worth it to do a table service this evening or not. Columbia Harbor is high up on my list, and not sure how it got left off!

Jungle Trek is an oversight, we’d like to do all the trails at AK.

We realize some attractions will be missed, but we’re optimistic with proper planning and good usage of G+ we’ll get most. The nighttime shows are totally a want, just need to hope we can make it to the end!

Oga’s is only one day, whichever one we can get a reservation for. Preferably the second day when we can be more leisurely.

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Personally, I have sacrificed many meals for the experience of the restaurant. While the food at Cosmic Ray’s is mediocre, witnessing the performance of songs like “New Nork” is not. :laughing:

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Agree. Do not go to Cosmic Rays for the food.

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With regards to “Stupid MCO” (funny btw!), Have you thought about TSA Pre-check? If you travel a couple of times a year the price is well worth it. It’s around $80.00 for 5 years. And a cool bonus is your kids can use Pre-Check with you (under your Known Traveler Number) until they are 12 years old.

My wife, two daughters, and I did this for our last Disney Trip (this past November) and we were through security in less 10 mins.

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Cosmic Ray’s food is not bad, but it’s also not great. It’s standard hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken fingers. Sonny Eclipse is fun and even my kids enjoyed watching him. He is the reason to eat there.

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That is good info about the kids. We plan on doing Europe next year, and the in-laws will be moving near MCO this year or next as well. Flight frequency could ramp up and justify the cost.

I think we’re just scarred from MCO due to a connection from Jamaica being bungled and another time arrive for a flight home the day Southwest launched a load of new flights and wasn’t prepared for the lines. It’s also the final sign that vacation is over. Our in-laws have a timeshare in Daytona so we’ve transited MCO often. It’s really not bad once you get through security.

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We’re simple folk, sometimes! Burgers and fries will be more than enough for the kids, and one of us can run over to Columbia for something interesting.

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I think Cosmic Rays is fine for a QS burger. Only other option I could think of is on MK day 2 maybe put Columbia Harbor House there in place of Caseys or Friars nook. Will give you a nice inside sit down break. They boys might like Indiana Jones at HS. I wouldn’t expect to get a whole lot out of G+, maybe shorter times on 2-3 rides, and a few more that are totally unnecessary in reality. I’m forgoing this if G+ is in it’s current state and will just pay for ILL’s.
November is just around the corner and forever away!

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Is there any reason to, or not to, start the online check-in process for the resort? The TP dashboard lists that as a day 60 activity.

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Something I’ve just cooked up after reading other people’s trip reports, is to move the Chef Mickey’s to our departure morning, assuming we get a later flight. Can we bring our bags and store them at bell services at CR while eating?