I really enjoy the more unplanned days as well. When I go solo I’ll have my FPPs for my “must do” rides and ADRs, but that’s frequently the only planning that I do. When I was in my 20s and 30s it was commando touring, but now in my 50s, and with the number of times I’ve been, if I don’t get to do something, there’s always next time…
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I’m sorry about the loss of your family friend. 
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Wednesday 4.12.17
I was so excited and nervous for this day! The touring plan I made was my crowning achievement and I wanted it to go well SO badly. I had made an 8am Start plan and a 7am Start plan, and everyone agreed to Go Big with the early start. So off we went, when the sun was still down, onto the bus for Magic Kingdom. There were a surprising number of people already waiting there - I think this was the first (and maybe only) time some of us had to stand on the bus.
I know everyone says this, but there is just something about entering the Magic Kingdom that forces a smile. Walking through that tunnel and being immediately surrounded by the quaintness and welcomed feeling of Main Street, and seeing Cinderella’s castle come into view is such a warm, happy feeling.
The lines were predicted to be very short so early in the morning, so I didn’t worry when my family wanted to pose for pictures in front of the castle. Also, my sister had paid for the Memory Maker and I know she wanted to take every opportunity for professional pictures to make it worth her money.
Our first stop was Peter Pan, so my plan had been to go left from the hub, through Liberty Square and hang a right up and around to Fantasyland. I didn’t realize that there would be only one “spoke” open for Extra Magic Hours, which was over by Tomorrowland. No big deal, we hoofed it back over and went behind the right side of the castle instead.
Our morning was a breeze! We did Peter Pan first (I didn’t want to use a FP for this one because I wanted to see the qeueing area), then Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, and Barnstormer. We had FPs for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad later in the day, but the line was projected to be short, so we headed over there, with a stop at Haunted Mansion on the way. After BTMR, we went back to Fantasyland for It’s a Small World, the Prince’s Royal Carousel, and the Mad Tea Party.
Next, we used our FastPasses for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Mom and Dad had sat out BTMR, but they were both up for this one. We basically walked right on. It was the first time for all of us, and it was a bit more than we were expecting! Very fun, though - we all enjoyed it. I definitely let the S word fly once (there was one random adult in the car with my parents and me), and that’s when the camera snapped our picture!
After 7DMT, we had a bathroom break, and then hit Under The Sea on the way to the Fantasyland Railroad Station. My dad loves trains, so I definitely wanted to fit this in. We took a nice ride around through the Main Street Station and off at Frontierland. I didn’t feel the need to do Big Thunder Mountain Railroad again, so my parents and I split off again. My sister and her family used the FPs for BTMR and then another FP for Splash Mountain. They watched a little bit of the noon parade, and then headed back to the French Quarter. My parents and I rode on the Liberty Belle and then headed out as well. It was a full morning and I was so glad that we were able to do so much is such a small amount of time.
Back at the hotel, we ate lunch and took naps (basically, all of the adults napped during our mid-day break every day - the kids did not!).
Because of the Morning Extra Magic Hours at Magic Kingdom, our plan was to hop over to Epcot in the afternoon. We had originally had dinner reservations at Via Napoli, but cancelled them the day before. My sister’s husband decided to hang out at the hotel with the two boys, while my sister, parents, and I went back over to Epcot. Our plan was to walk around the right side of the World Showcase, snack along the way, and catch the American Adventure performance. It was a very nice, relaxing, evening! We took our time, looking at the different topiaries and popping in to each pavilion. My dad had a frozen pineapple dessert, but it wasn’t called a Dole Whip, so I don’t think it was the same thing - he really liked it, whatever it was called. I got a Dragonberry Refresher cocktail, which was delicious. We made it around to France and then Italy, where we we thought we would get food. For whatever reason, we didn’t have much luck. There were plenty of options, but nothing that was really grabbing us. My mom got a small order or meatballs in Italy, which I “helped” her with (and I had a glass of wine), but that was it.
We did watch the American Adventure show, which was interesting and very well done, but I’m glad we took advantage of the kid-free evening for it. After that, we made our slow, leisurely way back to the front of the park to head back to the hotel for dinner at the French Quarter food court. My sister and I split the Shrimp and Grits (my second!). We turned in early that night as well. We were getting run-down by Day #5, and wanted to be ready for another day at Magic Kingdom on Day #6!
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Love this trip report!!! Makes me want to go back so bad! 
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Thursday 4.13.17
Even though there were Extra Magic Hours this morning, we opted not to try to get there before 7am. Our touring plan allowed us to get there later, but we ended up getting there at 7:30 anyway.
This morning, the focus was on Tomorrowland (at least for my sister’s family). So our first stop was Buzz Lightyear - virtually no wait. Everyone enjoyed it, but it really suffers by comparison to Toy Story Mania. Also, we got “stuck” on it, just like we did last year! No big deal, but I thought it was a pretty funny coincidence.
After that, we split up. My sister and her family went to ride Space Mountain while the line was short, and then again with their FastPasses. Turns out they were able to ride it 4 times in a row without any waiting. Then they did Astro Orbiter, Monster’s Inc Laugh Factory, and Tomorrowland Speedway (with a FastPass). They reported later that they had very little waits for anything.
Mom and Dad and I headed over to Carousel of Progress (no wait, needless to say), which we enjoyed with a handful of other people. I’m glad to hear they’re updating the last scene, because it needs it. I still love seeing the old-timey stuff, and singing that song over and over, but virtual reality and voice-activated ovens are no longer a thing of the future. I don’t envy the people charged with engineering it all, though!
Next, we headed out of Tomorrowland toward Main Street. Along the way, we stopped to watch the new Welcome show at the castle. I had never seen the original show at the train station, so I can’t compare, but I loved it. Such nostalgia and goosebumps. After that, we hunted down the Dapper Dans and finally found them. We enjoyed them for 5 or 10 minutes, one of them flirted with my mom, and then we were on our way to Fantasyland for our Peter Pan Fastpass.
Somehow, I had written down the wrong time, so we showed up too early for Peter Pan. So we went over to the Chesire Cafe to wait for my sister’s family to finish up with Tomorrowland Speedway. Mom got an iced coffee, and I ran over to the Lunching Pad to get another Mickey pretzel to split with my dad (this time, we got the cheese sauce). After a nice, relaxing break, my sister texted that they were finished, so we walked over to meet them.
Now that the gang was reunited, we got on the People Mover. It’s pretty exciting when you’re sitting facing backward and can’t see the sharp turns coming up! If you’re ever with anyone who complains that it looks boring, tell them to sit facing backward 
After that, we went back to Fantasyland for Mickey’s Philharmagic. Everyone loved it, of course!
Next up was lunch at Be Our Guest. My sister’s family decided to sit this one out, so it was just my parents and me. We had to forego our Peter Pan FastPass, but we had ridden it the previous day, so it was okay. I’m really glad we got to experience Be Our Guest. The checking-in process was interesting and pretty easy. It was rather crowded, though, and we had to wait in line for longer than I expected just to place our orders. There were some placards that looked like kiosk in the queue and I embarrassed myself my poking at it as if it was a touch-screen. But then a lady who was a few parties back did the same thing, and I didn’t feel so bad.
We loved the atmosphere of the ballroom. The decor was great, and we were right by the back window that showed the “nighttime snow” outside. The food incubator carts were pretty cool, too. But the food was nothing to write home about. My dad and I both had sandwiches, and my mom had the quinoa salad. I didn’t feel like my croque monsieur was any better than what I could make at home, and I am no skilled chef. I’d be interested to see how much better the dinner options are, and have the chance to see the Beast, too. Unless I was with someone who was dying to experience the atmosphere, I don’t think I’d return for lunch.
After lunch, I got an ice-cream cone at Storybook Treats, and we headed back out to the hotel for our traditional mid-day break.
Our afternoon plan was back at Magic Kingdom and then Epcot. We took the bus to Magic Kingdom and went straight to Pirates of the Carribean. It was crowded at this time of the day (about 4 pm), but we had FastPasses, and had no problem. We used the restrooms nearby, and then went over to Swiss Family Treehouse.
I can’t believe people skip this one - it was one of my favorite memories from my two childhood visits. I’ve always been fascinated by survival stories, and also love home design, so it’s right up my alley. At least one of my nephews was pretty into it, too, and had a lot of questions about the Robinson story (our last name is Robertson, so that may be part of the appeal!). My dad sat this one out due to his feet hurting a little bit. He had developed some blisters, but was a real trooper day after day.
The next item on our plan was to get some Dole Whips at Aloha Isle, but the line was longer than we were willing to wait in. It was crowded in the park and it had gotten hotter as the week wore on. They need to offer FastPasses for popular snack items. We didn’t end up getting one on this trip, but as soon as I got home I ordered a soft-serve ice-cream maker and the Dole mix that WDW uses to make our own at home. It was supposed to be for Dad’s birthday next weekend, but I couldn’t wait and gave it to him early.
So we skipped Aloha Isle and went over to Country Bear Jamboree. It was enjoyable, but mostly for the nostalgia factor. My dad has randomly started taking banjo lessons in the last year, so this show was definitely planned with him in mind. After the show, the kids decided to forego Tom Sawyer’s Island and head over to Epcot (we had Rose and Crown reservations for dinner).
They (and their dad and mine) had been asking all week about whether we’d be riding the monorail, so I was glad that I had included a MK-to-Epcot trip in our plans. We had to wait a bit for the monorail, but nothing unbearable. It was really neat to see the stops at the Grand Floridian and Polynesian. I had hoped to find some time during our week to explore the other resorts, but we couldn’t fit it in. Hopefully next time, we’ll have some attractions that we can cut out and will have more time for new things. Transferring at TTC was super-easy, and then we were off to Epcot. I really liked the way the track brings you into Epcot and then back out to the station. You get a nice little preview of Future World before disembarking.
We ended up getting to Epcot earlier than we had planned, so we rose The Seas with Nemo and Friends, which we had skipped earlier in the week. I could not believe how long the queueing area was! Do they really get long enough lines there to use all of that space? There was virtually no line, and we zipped through the endless queueing area and right on to the ride. I think everyone thought it was cute, but by then, the boys had been on all the thrill rides and definitely prefer those. All of the cute stuff pales in comparison to them. To their credit, though, they went along with trying everything and weren’t whiny or negative about anything we did, even if they didn’t find it super-exciting.
From there, we had a leisurely time to spend before our 7:50 reservations at Rose and Crown. We spent some time in the gift shop at the Nemo exit, and made our way to World Showcase. The boys were interested in the little playground just inside WS, so my sister and brother-in-law hung out with them there while my parents and I went on. I made a beeline for the stand that was selling the Dragonberry Refresher cocktails. We found a bench at people-watched while waiting for the others to return. I spend a chunk of that time trying to take a selfie that had the Flower and Garden sign and some lovely flowers in the frame. I have taken only a handful of selfies in my life (I only realized last Summer where you’re supposed to look!), so it took quite a few tries.
Once my sister’s family rejoined us, we made our way toward Rose and Crown, stopping to take pictures along the way. It was a nice time to enjoy the topiaries and the lake and it was all just lovely. We got to Fake England early, so we hung around the tea gardens and hedge maze until about 7:40.
I didn’t want to check in too early and screw up the timing for Illuminations. I did not get up at 5 am in October to make these reservations for it all to fall apart. I went up and asked how likely it would be that we’d have a good view for the show, and the hostess was very gracious in letting us know that “as you can imagine, everyone is asking the same thing”, and that she’d make a note of our preference. Fifteen minutes or so later, we were called and led to a table on the patio (the upper level), which was perfect! I was seriously giddy that all of the research and planning had fallen into place so nicely. We would have been fine wherever we had been seated, but especially since Illuminations was the only nighttime show we would end up seeing, I’m thrilled that everything worked out so we for us to see it. All thanks to the Unofficial Guide and all of the great advice on this site. We had a great waiter, Jack, from Glasgow, and enjoyed a nice, leisurely-paced meal, including appetizers, drinks, and dessert. Illuminations was great, and now I’m excited to see the others shows on my next trip(s).
My sister and her family left immediately after the show was over, while my parents and I stayed back to settle up with Jack and walk more slowly to the front of the park (hoping to miss the crowds at the bus). It was still crowded when we got to the stop, but we were able to get on the first one that came by. So home and to bed we went! Dad and I had a big day ahead of us the next morning - the Keys to the Kingdom Tour!
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I couldn’t agree more. Beautiful restaurant, so-so lunch food. I’ll probably try it for dinner, but lunch was one-and-done…
Really enjoying your trip report! I like your touring style, planned but flexible. It’s good to do all the rides/shows, but also good to immerse yourself in the Disney experience and take note of all the small (but delightful) touches.
Thanks for sharing.