Trip Report (Completed)We tried to walk but you walk like a sloth.

Our family is heading back to WDW!
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Top to bottom, left to right. Me, Hubby😍, Bear, Ninja, Jet and Handsome.

After a three year hiatus Paca and Grandma will be joining us again. We are all so excited!
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I never thought I would purposely plan a Spring break trip however with swimming, soccer, hockey, school and work to work around. It was the best we could do.

I had sticker shock when we looked at room and decided to do a split stay so we could get standard rooms at each resort.

April 8-12 Contemporary-garden wing
April 12-15 Yachtsman- standard

We are looking forward to walking to Magic Kingdom from the Contemporary. That’s our favorite part of that resort. The kids are SOOOOO excited for Strormalong Bay!!! We wanted to stay the whole trip at Beach Club but we waited too long so 3 nights at the Yachtsman was our compromise for my little fish!
 
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dovetail65

dovetail65

Well-Known Member
Sillysidewalker said:
Our loose plans (subject to change based on ADR’s)

April 8th- Arrival our flight lands at 7:30( Uber or reserve a car? Anyone have an opinion on which is faster?) we are hoping to quickly take our luggage to the Contemporary and hightail it to Magic Kingdom.

April 9th- Surprise exciting day that fingers crossed works out. More details in the next post.

April 10th- Hollywood Studios

April 11th- Epcot

April 12th-switch resorts/pool day

April 13th-Magic Kingdom

April 14- Animal Kingdom

April 15- Hollywood Studios flight home at 6:45pm
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I would Reserve a car with Budget, pricing is good(relatively) right now(use your amazon account discount). Make sure you have a "Fast break" account set up first too, then prepay and just walk to your car. Budget is a super close walk to baggage and it's fast. If there is a lot of luggage you can go grab the car, drive around and pick them up at baggage. I have done budget rental at least a dozen times. For our large family there is nothing faster or more convenient for us from the airport or even hotels to resorts or to the parks.
 
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erstwo

erstwo

Well-Known Member
Sillysidewalker said:
Our loose plans (subject to change based on ADR’s)

April 8th- Arrival our flight lands at 7:30( Uber or reserve a car? Anyone have an opinion on which is faster?) we are hoping to quickly take our luggage to the Contemporary and hightail it to Magic Kingdom.

April 9th- Surprise exciting day that fingers crossed works out. More details in the next post.

April 10th- Hollywood Studios

April 11th- Epcot

April 12th-switch resorts/pool day

April 13th-Magic Kingdom

April 14- Animal Kingdom

April 15- Hollywood Studios flight home at 6:45pm
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I agree with dovetail65 - Fastbreak with Budget (or any 'walk straight to your car' rental program) is usually the fastest way out of MCO for me.

Since you are are a family of 6 / group of 8 - you might have experienced this already, but I feel like during the pandemic it's been more difficult to find an Uber XL because groups of 4 now need XL to travel together (because most regular Ubers now only take 3 passengers so that no one is sitting the passenger seat next to the driver) so you might have a longer wait for an Uber due to your party size.
 
Sillysidewalker

Sillysidewalker

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
dovetail65 said:
Glad to see another larger party having fun. We alternated trips over the years going from 8 of us and as kids grew older to 6, then 4. My wife and I were lucky enough to be able to go ourselves many times in between the full family trips. We loved all the trips, but the ones where we just brought 4 of the kids and they were all teens were the best.

The memories you are making look fantastic and getting me pumped for my our next two trips. My wife and are going Feb 1 to March 4th and 4 of the kids became free to go May 16th to May 23rd. It is so weird going from coordinating taking 6 kids out of school(something we always found worked best for us verse School breaks) to now trying to coordinate all their jobs and college schedules with 3 kids living out of state.

Continue having fun and go as many times as you are able. I am sure many have told you this before, them growing up goes so very fast. The best thing to me is my youngest, the 19 year old twins, still get that gleam in their eye's at certain times when at WDW and the memories come flooding back.

I Hope your next trip is as great as this trip looked to be.
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The big groups make dining reservations and logistics difficult but it so worth it. We have so many fun memories from our WDW trips.

I love to hear about families who continue to make memories into adulthood together. You’re living the dream!
 
Sillysidewalker

Sillysidewalker

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
dovetail65 said:
I would Reserve a car with Budget, pricing is good(relatively) right now(use your amazon account discount). Make sure you have a "Fast break" account set up first too, then prepay and just walk to your car. Budget is a super close walk to baggage and it's fast. If there is a lot of luggage you can go grab the car, drive around and pick them up at baggage. I have done budget rental at least a dozen times. For our large family there is nothing faster or more convenient for us from the airport or even hotels to resorts or to the parks.
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I’ll check into budget. I like to use all the Disney transportation once I’m on site do I feel “in the bubble” but with Magic express gone I may need to pop the bubble.
 
Sillysidewalker

Sillysidewalker

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Alright Disney through a curve ball and changed the extended evening hours from Magic Kingdom to Hollywood Studios! Should I chase those extra two hours and switch our plans? We don’t plan on getting park hoppers this trip since we intend to use Lightening Lane. I need to draw the line somewhere! You could go broke with all these add ons.
 
dovetail65

dovetail65

Well-Known Member
Sillysidewalker said:
The big groups make dining reservations and logistics difficult but it so worth it. We have so many fun memories from our WDW trips.

I love to hear about families who continue to make memories into adulthood together. You’re living the dream!
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Yeah, larger groups are tough to get together as them ADR will say sometimes there is nothing avaible when in fact there is. They just do not have larger single tables and the system will not make two tables.

The answer was the wife and I break our account apart and put 4 and 4 or 5 and 5(depending on who went that trip) and then we made the reservations close together, many times at the same exact time. It was a hassle but best I could figure out.

When we travel with just 6 of us it wasn't and still isn't worth doing because we did everything we ever wanted for the most part. With Genie + splitting into two parties of 3 would make it a nightmare anyhow. The two accounts worked for us for ADR but would blow up the Genie+ and LL if want to be together, so we stick to one group now. Still, for Space 220 in May I might break it into two accounts, there is no way I am getting a 7 or 8 seat reservation. I remember for a couple years I could never figure out why I couldn't get a fast past for FOP. I stated I had tried over 40 different days for FOP. Someone here just about called me a liar saying they were getting FOP and I just had to be able to until they realized their party was 2, mine was 6 or 8. This limitation does not seem to have been addressed at all with Genie+ or LL either. I'll test in May when 5 of the kids will be with us making our party 7.

This is 2022 the system should take ADR reservations for up to 10 and just offer two tables, even if at different times.

Still, none of this made our trips any less fun in the moment!

Sillysidewalker said:
I’ll check into budget. I like to use all the Disney transportation once I’m on site do I feel “in the bubble” but with Magic express gone I may need to pop the bubble.
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Some people love the transportation and if it works go for you guys, go for it! From airport to hotel it's just a cost-convenience thing then.

Sillysidewalker said:
Alright Disney through a curve ball and changed the extended evening hours from Magic Kingdom to Hollywood Studios! Should I chase those extra two hours and switch our plans? We don’t plan on getting park hoppers this trip since we intend to use Lightening Lane. I need to draw the line somewhere! You could go broke with all these add ons.
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I agree! Forget the hoppers. We haven't used hoppers or available hopping on our AP's since pre-Covid.

In summer when WDW has longer hours like 8am to midnight etc park hoppers are more worth it, at least to us. If it is a cost issue I suggest paying for Genie + and LL and skip the Hopper, at least until WDW has the old feel. No matter what WDW tries to do lately it seems like they are more busy though there seems to be less total guests. Maybe WDW still needs more employees and/or to open the rest of the special tours/shows and such. If we check there are loads of things still not open. Until WDW gets back to everything 100% open and the pre-covid feel I would not pay for the hoppers.

Of course others may have a different view on anything I say, we all like what we like.
 
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C

CatesMom

Well-Known Member
Sillysidewalker said:
Alright Disney through a curve ball and changed the extended evening hours from Magic Kingdom to Hollywood Studios! Should I chase those extra two hours and switch our plans? We don’t plan on getting park hoppers this trip since we intend to use Lightening Lane. I need to draw the line somewhere! You could go broke with all these add ons.
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Watching this closely. I am tentatively planning to chase the extended hours if they switch for our week (the one following yours (post-Easter)). Would be an automatic change if they add MK extended hours on a different night the same week.
 
Sillysidewalker

Sillysidewalker

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
All sorts of excitement in our house today! We were able to book ADR’s for the first half of our trip and we got EVERY single one we wanted. We had to break up into two reservations for a few of them however they are close enough together I hope they will join our parties. Here is what we have so far.

April 8th- lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. A first for us. Dinner at Steakhouse 71.

April 9- Ravelo Goofy and His Pals breakfast.

The tour is officially booked for April 9th! We told the kids and they were bouncing off the walls excited.

After the tour we have a dinner reservation at Skipper Canteen.

April 10- Dinner at Sanaa

April 11- Space 220 lunch and Via Napoli Dinner.

April 12- Topolino Brunch, Dinner at Chef Al Smiths Homecoming

That is it until Thursday. Hoping our luck continues. Sometimes the split stays hurt us for dining reservations so far we are so good!!
 
Sillysidewalker

Sillysidewalker

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So we got EVERY single ADR we wanted. I don’t think that has ever happened to us before. I am wondering since Easter is so late if the Spring break crowds are really spread out?

Anyways here are the rest of our plans.

April 13- Lunch at Beaches and Cream and a 5pm reservation at Oga’s Cantina.

April 14th- lunch at Cinderella’s Royal Table and the Enchantment Dessert Party

April 15th- lunch at Mama Melrose

then we fly home at 6pm.

Now all that’s left it to wait the 54 days until our trip.

A picture of my new hat to keep me warm during this long wait.
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