Tiki's Bogus Orlando Adventure (Trip Planning Phase)

[TheOriginalTiki]

Hey ya'll. I'm currently gearing up for what's shaping up to be the absolute most anticipated theme park trip of my life. I've been to Orlando a good number of times solo at this point, but never with my mother who is the person who introduced me to theme parks and gave me my love of them to begin with. She hasn't been to ANY major theme park since 2009 for my high school graduation trip to USH and Disneyland. The most current stuff she's seen is like...Midway Mania and The Simpsons Ride. She's NEVER been to the Orlando parks, and I'm really stoked to share them with her.

I had an idea to do a series of vlogs where I film her immediate reactions upon getting off all the most major attractions. They'll likely be posted as Instagram reels before eventually being made into a full length vlog. I'm totally aware this is an ambitious project and might completely fall through once I realize how much battery power and time it's going to take to actually do all the filming, but my mom is ABSOLUTELY down to be on camera and is excited about the project so I very much have that as a goal of mine throughout the trip.

We'll be staying at Cabana Bay and be doing mostly Universal with one day at Epcot. I decided to start this thread to not only share the eventual vlogs, but to loop you guys into the trip planning process and maybe have some fun with some "Question of the Day" type stuff. Honestly this thread is a vanity project on my end to help the 50 days between now and the trip go faster. I'm going to be sharing special theme park memories, doing Questions of the Day (which will probably be related to a certain element of trip planning), do various countdowns of anticipated attractions, and all in all have this be a cool little community project to share what will likely be a very special theme park vacation for me.

I could have posted this in trip planning or trip reports, but much like PerGron's Imagineering Movie thread I really wanted to bring this specifically to the Imagineering community. Most of you KNOW how stoked I am for Epic, and while that's obviously the thing I'm most looking forward to on the trip (besides maybe my Orlando Informer night) it's just the tip of the iceberg for all the new stuff my mom will be seeing. She's basically a cartoon character, so I expect her to have some really great on-camera reactions.

Here's our itinerary to start things out. I'll be posting various updates as we get closer to the trip.

12/1 - Arrival, Portofino Bay dinner
12/2 - Epic
12/3 - Islands/USF
12/4 - Epcot
12/5 - Orlando Informer meet up
12/6 - Volcano Bay
12/7 - Epic
12/8 and 12/9 - Islands/USF

Question of the day: Do you have a special "day of arrival" tradition you partake in? Something that's fun and memorable to do that's not just immediately going to the theme parks? For the last three Orlando trips I've been arriving in the late afternoon and taking the boat to Portofino Bay for dinner at Mama Della's. I find the arrival via boat to Portofino to be really cool, special moment that has very much become a "the trip has officially started" rite of passage for me, and I'm really stoked to be sharing that moment with my mom.

Coming soon - Top 20 most anticipated "mom" attractions: All the stuff my mother hasn't seen yet that I know will be particularly suited to her as far as IP choice, intensity tolerance etc.

This thread is very much a vanity project, but I'd still really like to share it with the community if only because participating in it is going to make the wait for the trip to get here go by a bit faster. I'm already in the mode of falling asleep to Universal Monster movies to prepare for Dark Universe haha. This trip will be...ahem...Epic.

 

[Pi on my Cake]

Hey ya'll. I'm currently gearing up for what's shaping up to be the absolute most anticipated theme park trip of my life. I've been to Orlando a good number of times solo at this point, but never with my mother who is the person who introduced me to theme parks and gave me my love of them to begin with. She hasn't been to ANY major theme park since 2009 for my high school graduation trip to USH and Disneyland. The most current stuff she's seen is like...Midway Mania and The Simpsons Ride. She's NEVER been to the Orlando parks, and I'm really stoked to share them with her.

I had an idea to do a series of vlogs where I film her immediate reactions upon getting off all the most major attractions. They'll likely be posted as Instagram reels before eventually being made into a full length vlog. I'm totally aware this is an ambitious project and might completely fall through once I realize how much battery power and time it's going to take to actually do all the filming, but my mom is ABSOLUTELY down to be on camera and is excited about the project so I very much have that as a goal of mine throughout the trip.

We'll be staying at Cabana Bay and be doing mostly Universal with one day at Epcot. I decided to start this thread to not only share the eventual vlogs, but to loop you guys into the trip planning process and maybe have some fun with some "Question of the Day" type stuff. Honestly this thread is a vanity project on my end to help the 50 days between now and the trip go faster. I'm going to be sharing special theme park memories, doing Questions of the Day (which will probably be related to a certain element of trip planning), do various countdowns of anticipated attractions, and all in all have this be a cool little community project to share what will likely be a very special theme park vacation for me.

I could have posted this in trip planning or trip reports, but much like PerGron's Imagineering Movie thread I really wanted to bring this specifically to the Imagineering community. Most of you KNOW how stoked I am for Epic, and while that's obviously the thing I'm most looking forward to on the trip (besides maybe my Orlando Informer night) it's just the tip of the iceberg for all the new stuff my mom will be seeing. She's basically a cartoon character, so I expect her to have some really great on-camera reactions.

Here's our itinerary to start things out. I'll be posting various updates as we get closer to the trip.

12/1 - Arrival, Portofino Bay dinner
12/2 - Epic
12/3 - Islands/USF
12/4 - Epcot
12/5 - Orlando Informer meet up
12/6 - Volcano Bay
12/7 - Epic
12/8 and 12/9 - Islands/USF

Question of the day: Do you have a special "day of arrival" tradition you partake in? Something that's fun and memorable to do that's not just immediately going to the theme parks? For the last three Orlando trips I've been arriving in the late afternoon and taking the boat to Portofino Bay for dinner at Mama Della's. I find the arrival via boat to Portofino to be really cool, special moment that has very much become a "the trip has officially started" rite of passage for me, and I'm really stoked to be sharing that moment with my mom.

Coming soon - Top 20 most anticipated "mom" attractions: All the stuff my mother hasn't seen yet that I know will be particularly suited to her as far as IP choice, intensity tolerance etc.

This thread is very much a vanity project, but I'd still really like to share it with the community if only because participating in it is going to make the wait for the trip to get here go by a bit faster. I'm already in the mode of falling asleep to Universal Monster movies to prepare for Dark Universe haha. This trip will be...ahem...Epic.

Love this idea for a thread!

Being more local (grew up about 2 hours from Orlando) I never really had any "Day of Arrival" traditions because we usually wouldn't visit the parks unless we could do Annual passes (get it towards the end of one summer and then the tickets can be used for summer vacation two years in a row plus day or weekend trips throughout the year and then just take a year or so off until we could afford APs again). So, since it wasn't wasting a day ticket our park arrival day was usually just spent as a regular park day, we just wouldn't get in until noonish that day and then we'd leave slightly early to check in at our econolodge or whatever before the lobby closed.

The few times my family and I planned a specific park arrival day play, it usually involved Springs and/or resort hopping. Especially if it was around holidays that half day of arrival would be perfect for the Monorail loop and/or crescent lake loop hotels to see the decorations!

 

[ThemeParkPriest]

The last family trip with a visit to a theme park was in 2002, so it’s been a good minute. But I think the pool and something like Disney Springs (or maybe even better: Skyliner and Boardwalk) are a good first day move.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

I haven't abandoned this thread, just been busy and I did write up a long post about our Epic Universe plans that I lost by accidentally clicking away from the page. But yea, Epic rope drop seems SUPER stressful, no? Donkey Kong is my main rope drop target just because the capacity on it is so bad, but it actually opening for early entry or even with the park seems flaky at best. I don't mind using the early entry hour to queue up for it, but if the actual opening gets delayed past the regular park opening that's definitely going to veer into sunken time anxiety ESPECIALLY in a brand new park. I guess the attitude I need to have about it is that at the end of the day it's not really a "must do" as far as rides go. I love the DKC series but the responses to the actual attraction seem to be middling.

I'm definitely more invested in getting on Battle at the Ministry and will consider missing that a true loss, I'm just not interested in participating in any kind of rope drop for that especially because guests staying at Helios have the obvious advantage of their entrance being a lot closer. My strategy for day one is going to be hitting it closer to the evening, and if that doesn't pan out I'm just going to have to bite the bullet. The big anxiety with Battle is the sunk time anxiety of a break down in the middle of an already long wait.

So in other words, my current planning for Epic is basically turning into the Charlie Day at the conspiracy board meme.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

My "icebreaker" for the inevitable Igor interaction

 

[Pi on my Cake]

I haven't abandoned this thread, just been busy and I did write up a long post about our Epic Universe plans that I lost by accidentally clicking away from the page. But yea, Epic rope drop seems SUPER stressful, no? Donkey Kong is my main rope drop target just because the capacity on it is so bad, but it actually opening for early entry or even with the park seems flaky at best. I don't mind using the early entry hour to queue up for it, but if the actual opening gets delayed past the regular park opening that's definitely going to veer into sunken time anxiety ESPECIALLY in a brand new park. I guess the attitude I need to have about it is that at the end of the day it's not really a "must do" as far as rides go. I love the DKC series but the responses to the actual attraction seem to be middling.

I'm definitely more invested in getting on Battle at the Ministry and will consider missing that a true loss, I'm just not interested in participating in any kind of rope drop for that especially because guests staying at Helios have the obvious advantage of their entrance being a lot closer. My strategy for day one is going to be hitting it closer to the evening, and if that doesn't pan out I'm just going to have to bite the bullet. The big anxiety with Battle is the sunk time anxiety of a break down in the middle of an already long wait.

So in other words, my current planning for Epic is basically turning into the Charlie Day at the conspiracy board meme.

My first day at Epic I spent a total of about 4 hours in queue for Monsters Unchained across two different times waiting in the line and still didn't ride it. Would've been ed if I paid for the ticket (I have a team member friend and this was during previews so I knew what I was getting myself into, fortunately was able to do a second preview day and rode it: amazing! Easily best ride in the park thought tbf Ministry wasnt open yet so that might change). Long unpredictable downtime are par for the course with new rides and in a new park every single ride is a new ride. That being said, even with breakdowns the park is amazing just to vibe in and I still had a great day. Just a sad reality that there's the unavoidable chance of spending a lot of time in line for a ride you might not even get to ride

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

My first day at Epic I spent a total of about 4 hours in queue for Monsters Unchained across two different times waiting in the line and still didn't ride it. Would've been ed if I paid for the ticket (I have a team member friend and this was during previews so I knew what I was getting myself into, fortunately was able to do a second preview day and rode it: amazing! Easily best ride in the park thought tbf Ministry wasnt open yet so that might change). Long unpredictable downtime are par for the course with new rides and in a new park every single ride is a new ride. That being said, even with breakdowns the park is amazing just to vibe in and I still had a great day. Just a sad reality that there's the unavoidable chance of spending a lot of time in line for a ride you might not even get to ride

I totally feel you as far as it looking like an amazing vibes park. The character interactions alone look absolutely next level, let alone all the little details and Easter eggs to soak in. I guess that's where the "sunken time" anxiety is coming from. I'd much rather be out vibing in rhe park than stuck in a queue.

Do you think it'd be a good rule of thumb for my own sanity to just cut my losses and auto-bail when breakdowns happen? I feel like if I already have a rule in place it will make it less stressful than having to play the "how much time should I spend waiting for the ride to POTENTIALLY reopen" game...

 

[Architectural Guinea Pig]

I'm also thinking about a trip with my family to Orlando in April- one of my biggest concerns is whether my jumpstart plan also works:

- Plane flight to arrive on Monday, chill at Disney Springs in the afternoon, then do After Hours at MK (which is perfectly on a Monday to coincide with the schedule)
- Early Entry at Epcot the following Morning

Will an After Hours + Early Entry package be dangerous? Not sure if the sleep is worth the experience of After-Hours- we don't want to spend too long/an entire day in MK as we only want to hit the new rides/classics (Tron, TBA, Dwarves, CoP, People mover)

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

I'm also thinking about a trip with my family to Orlando in April- one of my biggest concerns is whether my jumpstart plan also works:

- Plane flight to arrive on Monday, chill at Disney Springs in the afternoon, then do After Hours at MK (which is perfectly on a Monday to coincide with the schedule)
- Early Entry at Epcot the following Morning

Will an After Hours + Early Entry package be dangerous? Not sure if the sleep is worth the experience of After-Hours- we don't want to spend too long/an entire day in MK as we only want to hit the new rides/classics (Tron, TBA, Dwarves, CoP, People mover)

Honestly, yea...that IS a lot. I could probably do it on a solo trip, but unless your family are all like...seasoned theme park sickos like us that intense of a schedule might break them. How long would the flight be? I'm looking at it from the perspective of a cross country, 5-ish hour flight which kind of knocks the wind out of me in its own right, but if you're only going to be in the air for a couple hours that might be more reasonable.

I'm a huge, HUGE advocate for the vanilla "After Hours" events though. Can't stress that enough. They're so much better than the parties which have become overrun by AP "FoMo" culture. I imagine Tron will still have a considerable line just like Hagrid's still does during the Orlando Informer meet ups, but everything else should be pretty close to a walk on.

It's A LOT of walking though. You're basically just zipping through the park going to attraction to attraction with pretty much zero down time. Waking up early the next day is do-able and I've certainly done early entry the day after an After Hours event on solo trips before, but if your family isn't used to the freaking MARATHON that a theme park trip can be I could see it potentially becoming too much. Are you staying at a resort that's close to Epcot? Maybe just plan to rope drop early entry and then take a break to nap for a couple hours when the crowds start to roll in.

I'm definitely getting my mom prepped for the trip and that's been a fun experience. The biggest major thing with her is she's a big time cigarette smoker unfortunately. I keep trying to emphasize that there are NO smoking zones in the park and it's going to be a HUGE pain to walk all the way to the park entrance and then find the smoking zone. I certainly won't go with her when she feels the need to do that but it will certainly be a good test of just how far she can tolerate being away from the bad habit. The walking is another thing I keep trying to drill into her head. It's really hard to get a picture of just how HUGE the parks are until you're actually there. At least Islands and USF (which...let's face it, we'll MOSTLY be using almost exclusively for ET and The Mummy) are right next to each other and smaller in scale than Epic and Epcot. I keep telling my mom that Epcot is basically the size of two Disneylands stacked on top of each other. I actually think it might be even bigger at that as far as sheer square acres.

One thing my mom IS really good at though, is waking up early and sticking to a plan. I've done a lot of traveling with my grandma who's kind of hit or miss with waking up for rope drop (I'll usually go into the park ahead of her) and almost never wants to stay until park close but I know that's not going to be an issue with my mom. We'll certainly be taking breaks in the middle of the day during our Islands/USF days, but Epcot and the two Epic days are very much going to be "an hour before rope drop to an hour after park closing" affairs. My mom is already fully aware that if she's not up and ready to go for rope drop I am leaving her the hell behind.

I think I'll utilize the Islands of Adventure early entry time I have almost exclsuively for Velocicoaster marathons. It looks like the wait stays at about 15 minutes for the first hour or so, which would mean I can easily crack out three rides on that thing before it starts to build up a significant wait. It's far and away the best coaster I've ever been on, so I'm very much looking forward to getting as many rides as I can on it. I probably will try to rope drop Hagrid's with my mom the first day were there though. We definitely have the advantage of being able to walk straight to Islands and avoid the CityWalk security rush. It's crazy how Hagrid's is a ride that just seems to be getting even crazier wait times the older it gets. Frozen Ever After for example I've noticed has kind of hovered at around a nice 30-45 minute slot, which is nice for our purposes but really surprising as someone who was used to that attraction being a "wake up at 6AM to grab Fastpasses for it as soon as you hit 60 days out or you are NOT getting a Fastpass for it" kind of attraction.

 

[Pi on my Cake]

I totally feel you as far as it looking like an amazing vibes park. The character interactions alone look absolutely next level, let alone all the little details and Easter eggs to soak in. I guess that's where the "sunken time" anxiety is coming from. I'd much rather be out vibing in rhe park than stuck in a queue.

Do you think it'd be a good rule of thumb for my own sanity to just cut my losses and auto-bail when breakdowns happen? I feel like if I already have a rule in place it will make it less stressful than having to play the "how much time should I spend waiting for the ride to POTENTIALLY reopen" game...

Personally, unless it's a ride I REALLY don't want to miss I always have rule of 15 minutes waiting on breakdowns before I leave. As far as Epic goes, I can't really say. Last time I went was a month before it opened and I'm not planning to go again until annual passes are an option

I waited a long time for Monsters, but also at the time Ministry wasn't open, werewolf, Stardust Racers, Mario Kart, and Donky Kong were breaking down off and on too, and we already did everything in Berk. I wouldn't usually wait that long for a broken ride.

 

[Architectural Guinea Pig]

Honestly, yea...that IS a lot. I could probably do it on a solo trip, but unless your family are all like...seasoned theme park sickos like us that intense of a schedule might break them. How long would the flight be? I'm looking at it from the perspective of a cross country, 5-ish hour flight which kind of knocks the wind out of me in its own right, but if you're only going to be in the air for a couple hours that might be more reasonable.

My family is unfortunately does not consist of a bunch of theme park sickos I live near SF so it should be the 5 hour flight you mention. We prefer the price of red-eyes so that could be an option, then just taking the best afternoon nap before heading to after-hours at 7:00.

I'm a huge, HUGE advocate for the vanilla "After Hours" events though. Can't stress that enough. They're so much better than the parties which have become overrun by AP "FoMo" culture. I imagine Tron will still have a considerable line just like Hagrid's still does during the Orlando Informer meet ups, but everything else should be pretty close to a walk on.

Yes!! I've never done an After Hours before so it's definitely going to be a completely fresh experience- along with the fact that I've never been to EPCOT and Epic Universe and Veloci Coaster and Tron and TBA - so many new things so it's definitely going to be great. It would perhaps be more feasible to just arrive on Sunday and take a nice break before jumping into the parks.

It's A LOT of walking though. You're basically just zipping through the park going to attraction to attraction with pretty much zero down time. Waking up early the next day is do-able and I've certainly done early entry the day after an After Hours event on solo trips before, but if your family isn't used to the freaking MARATHON that a theme park trip can be I could see it potentially becoming too much. Are you staying at a resort that's close to Epcot? Maybe just plan to rope drop early entry and then take a break to nap for a couple hours when the crowds start to roll in.

We rope dropped rise at DL on a crowded summer day in '22 and were one of the first in line! We should be good but waking up early is definitely going to be difficult. We'll be staying at the Hilton Palace hotel which is one of the only neighbor hotels with the early entry amenity which is great- it's also a short 5 minute walk from Disney Springs, so transportation shouldn't be an issue.

Your trip sounds pretty fun! Best of luck with the Epic rides- if your Day 1 doesn't go well perhaps you could save up for an Express Pass to guarantee you get onto everything you want to get on.

 

[TheOriginalTiki]

My family is unfortunately does not consist of a bunch of theme park sickos I live near SF so it should be the 5 hour flight you mention. We prefer the price of red-eyes so that could be an option, then just taking the best afternoon nap before heading to after-hours at 7:00.


Yes!! I've never done an After Hours before so it's definitely going to be a completely fresh experience- along with the fact that I've never been to EPCOT and Epic Universe and Veloci Coaster and Tron and TBA - so many new things so it's definitely going to be great. It would perhaps be more feasible to just arrive on Sunday and take a nice break before jumping into the parks.


We rope dropped rise at DL on a crowded summer day in '22 and were one of the first in line! We should be good but waking up early is definitely going to be difficult. We'll be staying at the Hilton Palace hotel which is one of the only neighbor hotels with the early entry amenity which is great- it's also a short 5 minute walk from Disney Springs, so transportation shouldn't be an issue.

Your trip sounds pretty fun! Best of luck with the Epic rides- if your Day 1 doesn't go well perhaps you could save up for an Express Pass to guarantee you get onto everything you want to get on.

If I'm spending Express Pass levels of money, it's definitely going to be on that sexy, sexy extra Orlando Informer night that I'm VERY on the fence about splurging on.

Yea, a red eye flight and then power napping until it's time to hit the parks sounds like a good way to go. You should be able to get into the park a couple hours before park closing and I'd very much reccommend doing stuff like Country Bears and Carousel of Progress during that time as they might not be open during the actual event.

 

[Disney Dad 3000]

I'm also thinking about a trip with my family to Orlando in April- one of my biggest concerns is whether my jumpstart plan also works:

- Plane flight to arrive on Monday, chill at Disney Springs in the afternoon, then do After Hours at MK (which is perfectly on a Monday to coincide with the schedule)
- Early Entry at Epcot the following Morning

Will an After Hours + Early Entry package be dangerous? Not sure if the sleep is worth the experience of After-Hours- we don't want to spend too long/an entire day in MK as we only want to hit the new rides/classics (Tron, TBA, Dwarves, CoP, People mover)

It is doable, and I've done it, but was solo and without family. I know for my fam the next morning would not go over well. If you were staying at a skyliner resort id be more inclined to say yes.
I had this same discussion with a client a while back and recommended they not, but their family makeup also played into that. They ended up doing it anyway and the text I got that day from the mom was hilarious.
Id say just have a good discussion with the family about it and expectations, etc. You can always break at lunch time to get some rest.