We’ve only been to WDW once and it was 5 years ago! I’d love to know how you guys have made the Touring Plans work best for you. Any little change I make and re-optimize and it’s a whole new plan, sometimes with longer waits…
What non-party Christmas stuff will be worth catching this week? Are these included in the plans?
Also, we are doing our first ever character meal at 7:40 am Bon Voyage (at Disney Boardwalk), and plan to go to Epcot that day. We will likely miss rope drop either way, but what’s the best way to travel that day? We are staying at All Star Movies, and have a rental car. With 4 littles (ages 2-10) we want to minimize walking outside of the park so we can enjoy more of the actual park. Any advice on the speediest way to do our traveling for the day? Also, is there specific parking for the International Gateway?
Thanks for your help! And any last-minute advice is totally welcome!
I make a copy of my touring plan and optimize that copy - not my original.
Non party stuff at MK or everywhere? Touring the deluxe resorts to see their holiday decorations is a good idea. Animal Kingdom really stepped yo their game this year with decorations and they added puppets called the Merry Menagerie. Last I checked MM wasn’t in touring plans yet.
All the Epcot stuff was being added/updated once the TP team got the official day guide. Haven’t checked but I think that should be updated now.
There is no parking for international gateway. It’s essentially the rear entrance to Epcot and served just the Boardwalk, Beach/Yacht Club, Swan and Dolphin until recently. Now the Skyliner also delivers guests to IG.
If you have a reservation for breakfast, you should be able to park at Boardwalk and then you can walk over to the IG after your breakfast. I have no clue if you’ll have an issue parking there all day.
I only optimize at the beginning to get an optimized plan for walking, to see what is recommended. But after that, I start tweaking things manually and then just use evaluate.
Once I have a plan I am happy with, if I want to play around with other options, I make a copy of the plan and use that, leaving my “perfected” plan untouched.
I also generally modify my plans starting from the beginning of the day (including Fast passes) and keep evaluating after each change to see how it impacts the rest of the day.
So far, I have never kept a plan that was just optimized.
We just got back and there’s one thing I really regret not seeing: the Sunset Seasons greetings at HS. This is the holiday projections on TOT. The paper they gave out said it would go until park close, then a cast member told us it would end at 10. It turned out to end at 9 so when we went to see it after JBJB it was turned off. I did see it a little from afar and it seemed really good. With kids as little as you have this would be easy to see because it starts early, around 6 usually. Also in AK the Tree of Life Awakenings are the same thing with similar start time. We loved that. AK at night with holiday decor was wonderful overall.