Thoughts on my 10 Day itinerary

Walt Disney World
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A very long read, but if you have the time I would appreciate it if you look over my 10 day itinerary. I have made my ADR’s and fastpasses so I probably can’t change too much, but any heads up or tips or general impressions would be appreciated.

First The Background Info:

  • First ever trip to Disney with my family of 4 (daughter age 6 and son age 8 ).

  • We are starting early and going late every day but we are going to take a mid-day break every day. This worked well for us on our last vacation. I’m allocating 4 hours in the middle of each day for the nap and if we have enough time a dip in the pool.

  • We have the regular dining plan (1 TS, 1 QS, 2 Snacks)

  • We are staying at Caribbean Beach Resort in a preferred room.

  • We like waterparks so ware planning to do both waterparks.

  • I have a list of 7-9 rides that are my priority at each park except for Magic Kingdom which we will be spending two days (both have extra magic) at. I want to do every single ride/attraction at Magic Kingdom if possible.

Day 1 (Tuesday) - Arrival
Unpack, explore resort activities, chill at the pool, eat dinner at the resort, watch a movie under the stars, Smores, etc.

Day 2 - (Wednesday) Magic Kingdom
Pre-park opening Bibbidi Bobbity Boutique appointment at 8:25 and then Cinderella’s Royal Table breakfast immediately afterwards. Rides until mid-day break. Return for more rides until Happily Ever After dessert party with garden view which gives us VIP viewing of the fireworks. Quick Service Spot: Columbia Harbour House or Pecos Bill
Fastpasses (we’re focusing on the left side of the park)
Jungle Cruise (11:00-12:00)
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (12:10-1:10)
Splash Mountain (1:20-2:20)

Day 3 - (Thursday) Hollywood Studios
Pre-park opening Hollywood & Vine Fantasmic breakfast at 8:10am. Rides until break time and then we return for rides until Fantasmic begins. Quick Service Spot: Woody’s Lunch box or ABC Commissary
Fastpasses (Could not get Slinky Dog, Family is passing on Tower of Terror & Rockin Roller Coaster)
Toy Story Mania (9:20-10:20)
Star Tours (10:20-11:20)
Frozen Sing-Along (12:00-1:00)

Day 4 - (Friday) Epcot
Pre-park opening Chip n’ Dale Harvest Feast at the Garden Grill. Rides until Nap break. Rides until Rose & Crown Illuminations Dinner at 8pm.

Quick Service Spot: None, with two table service meals I figure we can get a snack if needed but sounds like plenty of food.
Fastpasses (We plan to go on Soarin’ right after Garden Grill)
Living with the Land (9:40-10:40)
Turtle Talk with Crush (10:55-11:55)
Test Track (12:25-1:25)

Day 5 - (Saturday) Typhoon Lagoon / Wilderness Lodge & Storybook Dining
Breakfast at our resort, then off to Typhoon Lagoon. I reserved a getaway glen umbrella location and so we don’t have to be hunting for a spot. We’ll stay there for a few hours and if needed we’ll head back to the resort for a nap. After our nap we’ll use a mini-van or Lyft to get to Wilderness Lodge. We have a 7:30pm reservation at Storybook Dining. If we get there earlier I’d like to explore the resort with the family. Possible do the scavenger hunt. After dinner, I want to head down to boat launch/geyser point to see the Electric Water Pagaent (I believe it passes WL at 9:30).

Day 6 (Sunday) Resort Day / Disney Springs
Spend the day enjoying our resort pool. We booked a Caribbean pirate cruise for the kids that leaves from our resort. The wife and I can enjoy some kid-free time for 2 hours.
In the evening, we’ll head over to Disney Springs for shopping. I would like to watch Toy Story 4 at the Disney Springs AMC. We will get dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express.

Day 7 (Monday) Animal Kingdom
It’s an early extra magic hours day so I want to get there at 8am and go on Rides for 4 hours. We have a 12:30 lunch reservation for a River’s Of Light Tusker house package for lunch. Break. Return for rides until it time to watch Rivers of Light.
Dinner Quick Service Spot: Flametree BBQ or Satu’li Canteen
Fastpasses (We plan to do Navi during early extra magic hours)
Kilimanjaro’s Safari (9:20-10:20)
Expedition Everest (10:20-11:20)
Avatar Flight of Passage (11:25-12:25)

Day 8 (Tuesday) Blizzard Beach/Epcot Day 2

Breakfast at the resort. Check out Blizzard Beach for a couple of hours. Do Winter Wonderland mini-golf (if we have the time/energy) that is next to Blizzard Beach. Break. Spend our evening at Epcot. We have a 7pm Frozen Fast Pass and a “Late” 8pm dinner reserved at Akershus.
Fastpasses
Mission Space (4:30-5:30)
Spaceship Earth (5:55-6:55)
Frozen Ever After (7:00-8:00)

Day 9 (Wednesday) Magic Kingdom Day 2
Prepark opening Be Our Guest Breakfast at 8:20am. Rides until our 1:15 reservation at Tony’s Town Square (the package that comes with the reserved seating at the parade). After the parade do any last things we want to do at Magic Kingdom before we head back to the resort for a relaxed evening consisting of pool, smores on the beach, packing, movie under the stars.

Fastpasses (We’re focusing on the right side)
Seven Dwarf’s Mine Train (9am-10am)
Peter Pan’s Flight (10:15-11:15)
Space Mountain (11:15-12:15)

Day 10 (Thursday) Departure Day
Pack up and check out. Say goodbye to Disney at the Lilo &Stitch Breakfast at Ohana. Back to the resort and wait until Magical Express picks us up. I’m factoring in that Magical Express will pick us about 3-4 hours prior to our departure time.

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Look’s great. So glad you are sensible enough to take breaks and not drag your children on an all day march.

Day 2 - Try to see either Country Bears or Tiki in that area. Or even play the Frontierland Arcade. These are attractions ppl often skip because they aren’t “E-Tickets”. However, they are so cute and fun - especially for kids!

Day 3 - Didn’t see a travel date. Will you be there when SWGE opens? (I’m guessing not as you didn’t list it.) Check out Muppet Vision 3-D (Another sentiment favorite / show of mine. Even if your kids don’t know the Muppets they’ll get the humor.)

Day 4 -Epcot has a surprising amount of character M&G. I actually prefer to do my characters there. Example - Much easier / quicker to meet Belle in in Epcot than in MK - plus has has her blue dress on (my favorite!)

Day 5- looks great. I’m a fan of both water parks

Day 6 - Is The Void an option for you? It’s simply indescribably incredible. It’s everything I wished VR was growing up. I’ve only done the Star Wars one, but am planning on Wreck It Ralph next time. (My wife isn’t as passionate about the parks as I am. This is the only attraction she wanted to do over & over.) It is expensive though.

Day 7 - This looks like your only AK day. No DinoLand USA attractions? If your family can handle Star Tours & Mission Space then Dinosaur! shouldn’t be an issue. At least try Primeval Whirl.

Day 8 & 9 - Nothing to add.

Hope it’s Magical for you & your family

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Day 9 MK: There is no seating for the parade viewing package, only standing in the hot sun.

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I think it’s a good plan overall. Would love to have a nice, long trip with this much time to pad everything. I’ll warn on that first day that the lines will have started to build pretty good by the time you get out of the Cinderella breakfast. What time is the breakfast, maybe you have time to hop on a couple of things before breakfast? If you will swim that first day at MK, I’m not sure how the hairstyle will hold up. Maybe ok, maybe not. Someone else here would know better, my daughter has never gotten the chance to do that.

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I think its great you are using the first day as a resort day, after travelling I feel like with kids it could be a waste of a day trying to jam in a park visit. One think i would consider is maybe moving one of your resort days to earlier in the trip. I know you are taking breaks during the day but you have three days in a row of parks. My kids were younger than yours (4 and 2) when we went last Sept and I felt like after two days in a row they were pretty burnt out.

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This looks like a good plan and you obviously know the stamina and interests of your family best - the following comments are based my experience from when our girls where a similar age

  1. we found that early mornings and late nights for more than 2 days in a row was difficult. This was a combination of tiredness, over excitement and (in our case, jet lag). The actual tipping points varied by trips, so we always had a view of what we would change and what were the most important things to keep

  2. our girls loved swimming, so they wanted to play in the pool and make new friends, so we built time into the schedule for this

  3. on The MK day you will miss the RD benefit due to the breakfast etc. Your plan sounds like fun, but just be aware that the rides may be quite long by the time you ge to them.

  4. on the HS day you may be done in most of the rides by lunch time (if not doing RnR and ToT). This may make your evening more relaxed.

  5. For the evening shows I think your children may find RoL a little dull - no reason not to try it, but have something to distract them just in case.

  6. I think your meal choices are solid.

Overall, a really good pla. - my only concern is the overall pace and you have options to-amend that if you need to.

Have a great trip and do a trip report letting us know how it went

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We have a trip planned this summer and we are planning on RD everyday (except one). We’ve done it in the past successfully but our success was, in part because we don’t plan the afternoons/evenings at all (except for TS ADRs).

I think RD multiple times works best if you can allow your afternoons/evenings to be more spontaneous. When we had the energy and desire to go out at night…we did but we got so much done with RD choosing to stay at the hotel some nights (after dinners) didn’t feel like a loss.

Enjoy your trip, I hope it is everything you wish it will be!

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I agree with a couple of others here. We have done disney twice and universal parks twice. We have been every other year or so since my son was 4yo. He’s now 10years old. While we love going to the parks, my son (and his friend last year who went with us)loved the “lazy days.” We slept late and ate out, swam, went to movies or went to mini golf. My son wanted to look at our schedule this year to make sure we had lazy days! He wanted to make sure we had two in our 8 day. vacation! You know your family best though. I’m sure it will be awesome no matter what!

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No comments past what others have already said. It sounds like you’ve planned a thoughtful trip for your family!

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At Animal Kingdom, we have seen more animals on the Safari ride late in the evening, at dusk.

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kiligi - this is exactly our strategy for our planned trip in late October - except for our last night when I booked the dessert HEA package. Our DGSs will only be 2 and 4 and are early risers so we are hoping/“assuming” rope drop will work well. We have one late day planned but will still be back to hotel by ~7pm. I honestly don’t think we will bring them back to the parks in the evenings (except for the last night). We hope to have the 4 adults swap off some nights going out, 2 staying with kids, two going to a park.

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Looks great. My only comment would be to really think about whether you want all those PPO character breakfasts. Unless you eat really fast, you may miss some prime park time from 9:00 am to 9:30 am. What time is your Garden Grill PPO?

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