10 day trip with 8 & 1 year old, suggestions??

[kaceface00]

Hi there!

I'm Kacy and I am new to the boards, but not to Disney! I am planning (well have been for the last year... or longer :animwink a trip to WDW this summer 6/22/12 - 7/1/12. This will be my 5th trip to WDW and a first for DH and our kids (son, 8yrs and daughter will be 13 1/2 months when we go). We live in California, so DH and DS have been to DL plenty, but we have been waiting to take the baby to WDW first! And she LOVES and I mean LOOOOVES mickey and minnie. A lot!
All of my previous trips have been with my parents and my little sisters, with our last family trip probably being about 10 years ago. My parents and one of my sisters (22) SHOULD be travelling with us as well, but a recent illness is threatening my sisters abililty to travel. :veryconfu Our hands will definitely be more full without their help if they can't come, but we will make do...
Point is, here is the itinerary I had worked out assuming they are going (although they were planning on spending some days apart from us)... and it's pretty much the same itinerary I plan on going with if we are by ourselves. I'm looking for any opinions, helpful suggestions... anything would be greatly appreciated.

Here goes... (and we are staying offsite at our timeshare, the Shearton Vistana Villas)

Fri: arrive around 5, grab food, check in get settled, take kids for a night swim (we will be on CA time!), get to bed early for fun tomorrow!
Sat: Animal Kingdom all day
dinner: Yak & Yeti @ 6:45
Sun: early day at Epcot, spend half the day
explore at downtown disney
dinner: Planet Hollywood (my sons choice!) @ 6:30
Mon Typhoon Lagoon
dinner: Ohana at the Polynesian @ 7:00
catch the electrical water parade from Polynesian @ 9
Tue early morning at MK
stay through parade @ 3
head over to Epcot
dinner: Character dinner at Garden Grill @ 7
Wed breakfast: Character breakfast at Hollywood & Vine @ 8
stay at HS
late lunch: Mama Melrose (fantasmic package) @ 1:30
stay though fantasmic @9
Thu late start to MK (EMH that morning, so no rush for us)
no food planned all day at MK... letting the kids run the day for us
try to see electrical light parade and wishes fireworks at night
Fri HS in the morning... do anything we didn't do on wed
lunch: Sci Fi Diner @ 1230, then leave after lunch
head to Epcot, finish world showcase, etc
dinner: La Cellier @ 7 (this is the only dinner I'm considering
canelling if my parents don't come along)
Illuminations @9 (EMH that night so hopefully no huge exit rush)
Sat Breakfast: Chef Mickeys at Contemporary @ 9
Disney Quest all day
La Nouba @ 6
food is up in the air all day after breakfast...
Sun sleep in and lay by the pool in the morning
depart at 5:30 for home sweet home

Okay, that's what I have! I welcome your input!
Thank you!
Kacy

 

[SAV]

Let me preface this by saying our family doesn't like to spend a lot of time hopping around. We prefer to stay in one park for the day. We get there at opening and don't leave at all until it is closed. That said...

Looking at your listing, I see a lot of non-park time scheduled. And plenty of time spent traveling around. All of that is more difficult with 2 kids. Is that going to leave enough time in the parks for you? You are spending 2 split days at MK & 3 split days at Epcot, but an entire day at Disney Quest. In my opinion, that is cutting short your time in MK to spend a full day at an "arcade" so to speak. Then on your second day you are leaving a park to explore DTD. Why don't you consider doing your DTD exploration after your Animal Kingdom visit on the first day. Especially since you will still be on West Coast time. Is Planet Hollywood really that important of a visit?(Questioning, not criticizing.) If not, then you could always Hop over to MK to finish the night out. Many people consider DHS to be a half day park, so I am questioning the need to go back there after already spending a full day(from open to after F!) earlier in the stay. Personally, I would consider spending the entire day at Epcot instead of starting at DHS on Friday.

Then on your last day, you seem to be doing nothing Disney. In my opinion, you are there, so I would tack on another park day for the 3 bucks each. Even if you spend 5 hours in the morning, it is 5 more hours in the parks.

Whatever you do, it will be a blast.

 

[kaceface00]

Thank you for your input. That is exactly what I am looking for and I am taking into account everything you said... and I don't take anything critically! I am grateful for your help!

So these are my thoughts
You said I don't have a lot of park time scheduled, but other than the day we arrive (after 5pm) and the last two days, I have 7 basically full days of park planned... do you think I will need more? Actually, I guess only 6 if you don't count the day at Typhoon Lagoon....

As far as MK, we have one half day (open - 3ish) and one full day (i say late start, but by that, I mostly mean we won't be there right at opening.. maybe an hour later.. but we plan on staying ALL night so it will be a long day for the little one i think...) I know MK will be the best for my lil one, but almost everything at MK is at DL here in CA so my son has done it all many times so I just don't know if we will need that much more time... maybe we will return on Sunday if you think we need more time?

I agree with wasting time at DTD... I think we will stay at Epcot most of the day on Sun and just leave early enough to get over to dinner. I know Planet Hollywood is whatever but for some reason, it is really on the top of my sons list. He's 8... he has questionable taste haha. So it is kind of a must do but we can always walk around more after dinner or after AK like you said.

I also think the HS might be too much again on Fri, but my fam has a tradition of sci fi diner eating so it sounds stupid, but thats why we're going back. We'll play that one by ear.

And that last day at DisneyQuest is too much? I figure breakfast at 9:30 at the contemporary with the characters will take a while and by the time we get over to downtown it will be almost noon.... play a few hours, eat a light lunch, play a little more and it should be time to head over for the 6pm cirque show. So probably only like 4 actual hours of playtime.... I haven't been in years but I remember my Dad and sisters went wild for a while... This could be heaven for my son so I just don't want to rush him out. Am I still allotting too much time?

I appreciate all of your help and if you have any more thoughts, please feel free! Thanks so much!!!

 

[SAV]

I guess I am looking at it a bit differently. I personally don't consider the Water parks a "Park day"(just my opinion). By what I counted, I see 5.5 days of time in the parks. But then within some of those days you are hopping which can take an hour of your day away. Then your character meals are going to take roughly 1.5 hours per meal. It knocks the Park time down more.

I wasn't thinking about the fact you have been to DL many times, so maybe you have enough MK time...maybe not. Think about more Epcot time then.

And the way I see it, you will have Zero park time on the last 2 days of your trip. To me, that is a big deal. I go to WDW to be in the parks(Again, our style of touring).

You have to take into consideration things will be moving along at a much slower pace with 2 kids, especially a small one. The nice thing is, that you can adjust some of it along the way and do what is best once you are there.

Any way you slice it, you're gonna have a great vacation.