Are you sure about these point values? Seems extremely low. Are you sure that is not just one way?
BTW - I do not know if you are aware of this but if you book your flight on Southwest using all points and the price (point value) drops, you can change your reservation to the new ‘price’ and get the difference in points back just about immediately. No waiting and no expiration date.
If you pay with real money you get a credit for the difference and have to use the credit within a year.
If I were you I would book with points when you have the price you want and then keep hounding the site for any price breaks. Once you get used to it it is easy to do real quick. I managed to get 30,000 points back on my flights doing this.
Oh no… that will not happen. I love my family but I want to enjoy this vacation too. Here’s my rules; Van leaves house every morning, Van returns to home everyday for midday break, Van returns to parks each day for evening touring. Exact times will be communicated once TP’s are finalized. Everyone is welcome to tour any or all parts of the daily plans I provide. I will explain Uber and it’s benefits to the group prior to our trip but as I said, they are not tech savvy and that’s putting it mildly. Lol.
Southwest will allow family boarding for the children under age 6 and their parents/guardian only. If sitting together is important to you, upgrade to early bird booking, or go with JetBlue so you can pick your seats.
Ok so SW flights for our dates dont open up til 3/8. I’ve been keeping an eye on JetBlue but no major changes. All my data indicates booking between 105-135 days prior will see the best pricing. So somewhere around June 1st- July 1st I should see the best pricing for my trip in mid October.
With no flights to tinker with I’m trying to work on some touring plans. The funny thing is I’ve never toured with a toddler before. I’m used to touring with teens, tweens and adults. I have little experience with what rides, attractions, etc…to include for my Dgd3. She’ll be almost 4 when we go and she loves princesses. I so despise waiting in lines for characters so I’ve booked character meals for each day in the parks. I’m booking BBB at the castle for one of our MK days. but not sure what else to include. Same goes for rest of parks. I know I can look at pre-made TP’s to get a good idea but looking for others experience… what are your must do’s for each park with an almost 4 years old.
Yes that one too! Definitely fast pass that!
When I get to my office, I can pull up my planning sheet from my daughter’s trip when she was 4, almost 5 yo. That will help I think
You are so kind again. Thank you. I could see the first set but it says i have no access to 2nd set. Not an issue. I’ve made some early plans and maybe I could just publish them ( never done it but can’t be that hard) and you could glance at them and give me advice.
I’m gonna go give this a try.
OK. after a major brain fart and help from @OBNurseNH I published one of the MK plans.
Breakdown: This will be our first MK day and 3rd park day overall. 1/2 group will RD BBB with Dgd3 and other half will RD frontierland. We meet up at Princess Hall at 9am.
Done with first 3 fpp’s by 1pm and hope to book 4th and 5th as sdfp’s prior to exiting park for midday break. Only half the group will be utilizing 4th and 5th for BTMRR and Splash so I will book 1/2 the group on BTMRR and the other half on Splash and just borrow the bands of the ones not riding or utilize change party if that’s an option. Getting 6th, 7th, 8th sdfp’s seems reasonable based on availability.
ETWB at 10:24pm may be a tad late.TP says it should only be an 11 minute wait. I may have to move this and utilize one of the 3 preplanned FPP’s. Not sure yet. I wanted to head to ETWB right after fireworks but meeting Minnie and friends at Pete’s silly sideshow ends at 10pm so we will head to that area first and knock out Dumbo and Barnstormer after the Meet and Greets.
Other notable is ETWB may be last attraction if Dgd3 and Dmil aren’t up to it. Willing to call it a night after Dumbo as well if we end up moving ETWB to earlier in the day. Ive factored in a 5 hour midday break and have scheduled no park days the following day so we can sleep in. I think it will be fine but prepared to abandon all plans after 10:30pm If needed.
These are my personal opinions. Take them as that!
Even with a nap, my daughter at age 3 would not make it that late. Not even 10:30pm. In fact, at 4 yo and 5 yo, she didn’t even make it to see the fireworks at MK. Every kid is different. Consult with the mom
FP ETWB earlier in the day. Any little girl who loves Belle will want to see this. And you will too, it’s a great show.
Ride the carousel later in the day. Not in the first few hours of park open. I would go from your Cinderella Meet and Greet directly to It’s a Small World.
Are you planning Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and 7 Dwarfs Mine Train at any time during your trip? These are also must do’s. Check height requirements for 7DMT.
Also, if it’s hot, bring her bathing suit and a towel and let her run around Casey’s. So much fun
How many total days are you going to MK?
If it were me, I would make a copy of this plan and remove your 4th,5th,6th fast passes. This will allow you to see what is possible in the event that you do not get those particular fast passes at the times you want. Additional fast passes are not to be expected. I have experienced days where I have had 8 total fast passes, and other days that by dinner time, the only thing available was Space Mountain at 11:45pm. You are at the mercy of crowds and Disney releasing FPs. I don’t like to leave my FB to chance.
Definitely have fun around Casey’s - and the towel is so important! It can be 100 degrees out and DS will get soaked in there and come out freezing. Every. Single. Time. I’ve been suckered into buying 2 towels at the cart in this area because I didn’t come prepared! But he loves running around there.
Yes. We are planning MK as our last day of parks. All research points to this being an EMM day. So we will have our fair share of those 3 rides.
Great tip on the towel and bathing suit.
As with any toddler, the plans will most likely revolve around her. All morning plans will be solid. For evening plans I will have a backup for each park that will be geared more towards adults in case she’s not up to going back.
I’m going to change the ETWB to earlier in the day as well.
My thoughts re your MK plan. I’d start with the short rides around Fantasy land, PP, Winnie, Mermaid stuff, Dumbo, you could do 5/6 things in the first hour and stay together, then see SW & HH, and FP 7DM, splash mountain, BTMR for everyone except DgD and 1/2 adults, but go with them to the entrance and pick up the rider swap. For DgD I’d FP ETWB, Cinderella and whatever else you think she’ll love. On your second day I’d start with Buzz, then split up, Mountains for some, and probably Fantasy land again plus Aladdin for DD4, then FP Pirates, JC. Are you going to Akershus or CRT, if so do you need to meet Cinderella again? After BBB you could go meet Ariel instead. Can you do BBB without an appointment? I bought fake large gems beforehand and during the Mickey 3D show I pretended to catch them, my girls loved that. My DD5’s favorite things at Disney was the Carousel, swimming and playing in the sand. She loved all the parks but by lunchtime she’d already asked a few times when it would be time for swimming. I would also mix up your daily schedule, but I think you’ve said previously that park rest park works well for your group. I’m not sure you’re DgD will want to go out again in the evenings, but as long as you take a buggy, she can always sleep.
Thanks for all the tips thus far. Been tweeking MK TP’s but havnt decided on a solid plan just yet.
My countdown is 223 but ive never stopped planning since we decided on a date over Thanksgiving. My latest planning involved scheduling my day off weeks ago to coincide with Southwest’ release of our travel dates which is later this morning. Gotta see what they have to offer thos morning.
Ok so SW day was a bust. Nothing I’d consider a deal or even waking up early for, nevermind scheduling a day off around it. I’ll chalk it up to experience.
As for the MK plan. I’ve abandoned it for now. You guys made too many good points about the plan i posted and I need time to reconstruct it again. Still have plenty of time. I’m just trying too hard. Need to relax the plan so I’m not cramming it all in.
Anyway, decided to relook at my Epcot day as it will be our first park day. Figured its an easier plan anyway. I totally dismantled it and came up with this. https://touringplans.com/plans/print?id=2973002
Let me know what you think.
Personally, I would do Frozen ride before the meet and greet. I think the wait times for all of the rides are drastically underestimated in your plan. This is not something you did, but rather the software. It’s still very early in the planning process. Reoptimize regularly between now and your trip.
I’m so glad to see Living with the Land in your plan. I like that attraction. :).
It’s so funny you brought up doing FEA before M&G. I made a post in chat yesterday regarding this. I made duplicate plans switching up the order of the 2 rides and the TP with M&G first shows it’s better by a few minutes. It didn’t make sense to me either. Figured I’d post in chat to see if anyone had personal experience.
As for wait times… I’m with you. Doesn’t seem plausible. However, we did the morning EMH @ Epcot last May and we were able to RD Soarin, TTx2, and still had a little time before regular park opening at 9. The whole day we never waited for anything. If it had a wait, I was able to snag a sdfp for it. I know those days are probably over but I can dream…
This trip I will have 9 and not 3 and I’m sure that played a huge roll in the ease of touring at EP. And yes Lwtl is definitely on the list. I’m trying to do rides that we can all do as a family. To me, Epcot is one of the better parks for that. Besides Soarin and TT, everything else is pretty much family friendly ( excluding Mission Space, which nobody in our group will do anyway) haha.
Looking forward to our Epcot day and this TP. The nice long break in the afternoon & It’s not as rush rush as some of the other plans I’ve been tinkering with. It seems more relaxed other than the bouncing around at RD.
Just updating the planning process. Trip count is down to 190. Meaning 10 days til I can make ADR’s
Still no progress on flights other than I have decided that we will be flying in and out of Tampa vs. MCO. Will add time to arrival and departure but much better options for flight times and better pricing. Although we will not be doing parks on arrival or departure days We have all decided we want earliest flight in and latest flight out. I am contemplating adding early check-in and late check-out to our house rental. This way we can enjoy the home just a little while longer.
I have decided to switch up one of our MK days. Originally we were doing a day that had AM EMH with a midnight closing and a predicted CL of 8.
I instead chose to switch it to a day that has no EMH and MNSSHP. Park will close at 7 for us and we will miss HEA but the predicted CL is a 4. Too many of you made good points about DGD3 not making it back for night touring after midday break. Instead we will RD the CL4 day and call it quits at 4pm when they start letting the party people in.
Well that’s where I am for now. Finalizing the ADR plans over the next few days. Here’s what I’ve decided on for now:
All breakfasts
Epcot day = 10:45 GG
HS day = 10:45 H&V+F!
MK day 1= 10:45 CP
AK day = 10:45 TH
MK day 2= EMM w/PVH
I’m also looking to reserve earliest BBB on MK day 1 for DGD3.
Ohana late breakfast for non park or departure day. (Our favorite)
HDDR or SoA in case EMM is not scheduled.
Possibly MBYBBQ for arrival night
I don’t think I’ll be booking any extras/alternates like some do. I’m banking that even park hour changes won’t alter my schedule much. I also feel these times work best for us. I should not have a problem getting 10:45’s @ 180 days.
RD - up to 10:45am is productive time. We can get a lot in. Although I see the value in PPO ADR the one thing I despise is feeling rushed while I’m eating and watching DGD interact with characters. The last thing I want to do is say, “c’mon now, hurry up and eat” or " we already hugged Mickey enough, we’ll see him later, we have to go now"…
I’m a nerd.
I almost forgot how much fun we had!