How is this itinerary for a relaxing Disney Reboot trip in March?

[photogineer]

So, in March of 2016 I'll be heading on my Disney Reboot trip! What is a Reboot trip? Well, it means that I'm doing the World like I've never done before and I'm super excited.

Background: Me, Adam, Software Engineer, WDW addict and fairly veteran visitor. I go every year or two, I can navigate the parks by smell with my eyes closed and I still call it Countdown to Extinction. I am very gung-ho, rope drop to being shooed out by the janitors, multiple times on each ride, master of the original FastPass. I usually come home from WDW exhausted and need a few days of actual vacation before going back to work.

Amy, my girlfriend, preschool teacher, hasn't been to WDW in so long it's effectively a first time for her (about 15 years) and she is the slow and mellow type, likes to take in the scenes, likes to sleep in, doesn't know a FastPass from an EZPass , loves fine dining, enjoys some rides.

If I try to take her on a commando run of the parks, I will be finding out how comfortable the couches in the hotel lobby are for sleeping! So we are doing thing a little differently, I am planning on using FP+ as the brochure shows. Book our rides, sleep in a bit, enjoy the parks but not have them be the total center of our trip. We will see more shows than I've ever done before, we are on the Dining Plan which is totally new for me and we've scored lots of ADRs including the elusive Chef's Table at V&A. This trip will be just as much time in the parks as the restaurants, more time at Disney Springs and in the pool then I'm used to and hopefully a lot more relaxing. To that end I am out of my element, and would love it if someone could critique the itinerary:

Our dates at 3/5 to 3/12, one night at a DS/DTD hotel before moving in to POR for 7 days/6 nights. Our ADRs are done, our FP+ is somewhat planned in terms of what we want to pick, not times. We have a TS meal every day, QS we're going to wing, and we're doing up TS 1 night since we have V&A one night. We are also hoping to spend a fair amount of time at Flower & Garden since Amy is a gardening fan as well.

ALSO NOTE: This is my first trip with FP+ and MagicBands and all that so I probably got some of those details wrong! I am never sure I selected properly with tiering in DHS and Epcot so please let me know if I picked two things that I can't pick together

Here's what we've got:

3/5: Arrival day
Park: None
FPs: N/A
TS Meal: Dinner at Raglan Road at 7:00PM
Notes: Flying in mid-day to save some money, should be settled in to hotel in time for dinner and maybe some quick souvenir pre-shopping. (Amy would like to try and find a parasol), maybe if we're lucky we'll check out Jock Lindsey's at DS (it's on my bucket list!). Also note that we are planning an out of pocket pay on Raglan Road since we are meeting some local friends of mine there.

3/6: POR Check-in
Park: Epcot (first ride is always Spaceship Earth, my sister taught me that)
FPs: SSE, Test Track (No Soarin' on this trip), Mission Space (not sure about this one, but can't think of a convincing third)
TS Meal: Rose & Crown at 7:50PM, hoping to get a patio seat for Illuminations
Notes: We will be checking in to POR and then bugging out to Epcot once our bags are secured in the hotel somewhere

3/7: Studios day
Park: DHS
FPs: TSM, Rock'n'roller Coaster, Star Tours
TS Meal: Mama Melrose at 6:30PM, Fantasmic dining package if still available
Notes: We'd like to do both TSM and ToT, in my experience the standby for TSM is worse so I picked that for FP+ since we can't do both. I'm not planning on the whole day in the park so this will probably be a late start since we want to stay for Fantasmic.

3/8: Castle time
Park: Magic Kingdom
FPs: 7DMT, Space Mountain, BTMRR
TS Meal: Be Our Guest at 6:45PM
Notes: 7DMT is honestly not all that appealing to me, I tend to prefer meatier coasters, but it is new and I know I won't get to it stand by, nor will we spend only one day in MK, so I figured it was worth a shot once. The mountain range is a favorite of mine, as well as Space Ranger Spin, Pirates, Haunted Mansion.... so many options in MK! I'm hoping that this is the park we can put same-day FPs to use after the first three, but we are going at a busy time so I'm not holding my breath. We are probably looking at another late arrival and then we want to brave the masses to watch Wishes, probably from new Tomorrowland so I can run to Space Mountain once more...

3/9: Flowers and Gardens
Park: Epcot
FPs: Test Track, Living with the Land, Nemo
TS Meal: San Angel Inn at 6:30PM
Notes: I'm having a really tough time coming up with FP picks for Epcot, especially with Soarin' down, suggestions? We went with an early (normal-ish) dinner time here but we're considering moving it later to try and see Illuminations again, thoughts? Today will be spent mostly in WS for the festival

3/10: It's the ciiiiiiiiircle of life...
Park: Animal Kingdom
FPs: Safari, EE, Countdown to Extinction
TS Meal: Chef's Table at V&A at 5:00PM
Notes: I made this our AK day because for me in the past AK has always been a half day park. Were it up to me I'd almost skip the park, but Amy has never been and she enjoys animals (especially birds) so we're doing a day here. We are hoping to hit at least Flights of Wonder and Festival of the Lion King as well. Given the tight schedule and the two shows we want to see, Amy will concede an early morning to this one She is exceptionally excited for Chef's Table as well!

3/11: One more time around the Castle
Park: Magic Kingdom
FPs: Space Mountain, Space Ranger Spin, Haunted Mansion
TS Meal: California Grill at 8:45PM
Notes: So many great rides in MK, I'm once again hoping for same day FPs for some of them, there are way more than six we want to do! California Grill is something I'm really looking forward to, and we aimed for a late dinner once again trying to catch Wishes a second time. We are using 2 TS credits here since we didn't use any the night before. This is our last planned day.

3/12: See you real soon
Park: TBD
FPs: TBD
TS Meal: AIRPORT FOOD
Notes: This is a half day, it's also our return day, so we have Sunday to recover before we have to report for duty at our jobs. I have it easy in a chair all day but Amy has to chase toddlers and needs her rest. We haven't picked a park for this day because we figured we'd get up early and hit whichever park we felt like. Hoping an early arrival means we can bat clean up on anything we might have missed out on. By about 2pm we expect to be in the car on the way back to MCO. By this point I expect she will be well indoctrinated

Important extra details
Renting a car (my first time renting a car in the World, my parents used to insist on it) and no Park Hoppers. The biggest thing I'm having trouble with now is fitting in time for the resort and DS things we want to do (Staying at POR and loving piano bars, I feel the need to see Piano Bob, Amy needs to shop at DS a few times preferably!), and doing it in a manner that won't leave us completely exhausted at the end of the vacation. To that end I feel like maybe we are overloaded, so I turn to you all to help me refine the itinerary. Is it too much? Am I just not thinking creatively enough? Oh yeah and we'd like to swim in there as well, if possible. We are not opposed to afternoon breaks and in fact, would like to encourage them to avoid baking in the hot sun at the peak of the day, so I imagine we could fit resort time in there.

We are also waffling on MemoryMaker, and by waffling I mean she isn't interested and I am, because I want ride photos and photos of us as a couple. She hates having her picture taken! We are both avid photographer's ourselves as well and she feels like it's redundant. Any thoughts on that?

Adam

 

[Kosmo1986]

At DHS there is a tier system for fast passes and you cannot do both RRC and TSM. RRC has a single rider line that is pretty fast and sometimes standby is only about 30 minutes. It is rare that TSM has under an hour wait so I would Get the FP for TSM.

While she might like to sleep in. Rope Drop can be a fun experience at MK, with the show and everything. Maybe one day at rope drop would be fun.

Epcot also has a tier system and test track and living with the land are both teir 1 (only get to pick one of these). Epcot is the worst for fast passes.

Overall your plan is great! Sounds like a fun trip!

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Looks great to me. That's pretty close to how my itinerary usually looks. DAK is a day and a half for me, so my personal taste is to replace a second full Epcot day with a DAK-hop-to-Epcot day. Without a hopper and you not loving DAK, this looks perfect.

I don't think IllumiNations is worth doing twice in one trip if you're worried about getting to DS and whatnot. Second Epcot evening could be a good candidate to move the San Angel reservation to something at DS.

 

[photogineer]

At DHS there is a tier system for fast passes and you cannot do both RRC and TSM. RRC has a single rider line that is pretty fast and sometimes standby is only about 30 minutes. It is rare that TSM has under an hour wait so I would Get the FP for TSM.

While she might like to sleep in. Rope Drop can be a fun experience at MK, with the show and everything. Maybe one day at rope drop would be fun.

Epcot also has a tier system and test track and living with the land are both teir 1 (only get to pick one of these). Epcot is the worst for fast passes.

Overall your plan is great! Sounds like a fun trip!

I'll mention it, she's not opposed to the occasional early morning if there is a good reason but I promised her I'd try to avoid them if possible. I knew I was probably confusing the tiering at DHS, Could we get TSM, ToT and Star Tours?

Is there a good list somewhere of how the tiering is implemented? Epcot is giving me a headache! Living with the Land was sort of a throwaway, has there ever been an actual wait for that? I don't mind surrendering that FP+ but I haven't the foggiest what to select for it as a replacement.

Looks great to me. That's pretty close to how my itinerary usually looks. DAK is a day and a half for me, so my personal taste is to replace a second full Epcot day with a DAK-hop-to-Epcot day. Without a hopper and you not loving DAK, this looks perfect.

I don't think IllumiNations is worth doing twice in one trip if you're worried about getting to DS and whatnot. Second Epcot evening could be a good candidate to move the San Angel reservation to something at DS.

That's a good idea, I'll see how Amy feels about it, I think she might go for it, the San Angel Inn was actually a pretty meh pick for us. It was mostly "We'll be in Epcot, what looks decent?" so I imagine she isn't too attached. She is very attached to F&G though, so she will want to spend a lot of time there that day. I'll pitch an evening at DS and see what she thinks.

Adam

 

[Tinkerkelle]

Plans sound fab. We are just back and enjoyed using snack credits in world showcase. There are outdoor kitchens at the flower festival that I'm sure do tasting portions that cost a snack credit - a bit like at food and wine festival. You could go that route rather than sit down in Epcot? AK is awesome and if you have limited time there I'd want to make the most by getting there for rope drop. Definitely not a half day for us. Like @CaptainAmerica said, day and a half!! Love the Nemo musical. Enjoy!!

 

[Kosmo1986]

here are the tiers http://www.wdwmagic.com/other/mymag...-for-epcot-and-disney's-hollywood-studios.htm

living with the land goes up to 30 minutes or so now since the FP+ has eliminated the wait on rides like test track.
My suggestions:
Day 1: test track, SSE, and the seas.
Day 2: Living with the land, mission space and character Spot.

Character Spot I think is overlooked but even without Kids, Meet and Greets can be fun (it's just DH and I and we like it) . This is a great chance to meet the classic Mickey and Minnie.

 

[Tinkerbell397]

Hey @photogineer ....we will be at Disney at the same time, but we will be leaving on the 10th so will not be visiting DHS.
obviously we do not have an FP's yet but here are our dining reservations:
3/5 Arrival
3/5 ADR Rose and Crown
3/6 ADR Coral Reef
3/7 ADR Captain's Grill
3/8 ADR Be Our Guest
3/9 ADR Tutti Italia
3/10 Leave Disney
We are staying at The Beach Club
Maybe we will see you there....

 

[photogineer]

here are the tiers http://www.wdwmagic.com/other/mymag...-for-epcot-and-disney's-hollywood-studios.htm

living with the land goes up to 30 minutes or so now since the FP+ has eliminated the wait on rides like test track.
My suggestions:
Day 1: test track, SSE, and the seas.
Day 2: Living with the land, mission space and character Spot.

Character Spot I think is overlooked but even without Kids, Meet and Greets can be fun (it's just DH and I and we like it) . This is a great chance to meet the classic Mickey and Minnie.

Thanks for the list! I will see what Amy thinks of Character Spot, seems worth a shot.

Hey @photogineer ....we will be at Disney at the same time, but we will be leaving on the 10th so will not be visiting DHS.
obviously we do not have an FP's yet but here are our dining reservations:
3/5 Arrival
3/5 ADR Rose and Crown
3/6 ADR Coral Reef
3/7 ADR Captain's Grill
3/8 ADR Be Our Guest
3/9 ADR Tutti Italia
3/10 Leave Disney
We are staying at The Beach Club
Maybe we will see you there....

It's always hardest to put the departure date in the calendar! Trips are never long enough are they?

Adam

 

[punkabella]

A few suggestions. We did Mama Melrose's for lunch on the fantasmic package. We LOVED doing it this way as we didn't feel rushed in the evening. It also gave us time to ride other rides in the evening while the first fantasmic showing goes on.

You may want to consider a Peter Pan fast pass.. I kid you not, that ride always has an hour wait until the last hour the park is open. We usually use one of our fast passes for this in the middle of the day. If you use all 3 of your fast passes in the afternoon, you can book a 4th (and even 5th) fast pass. You could probably get Buzz as the 4th fast pass. I wouldn't use a fp on it (it's one of my favorite rides).

What about the extra hour magic hours at night? My dh and I like to sleep in too.. we consider it an early day when we are out of our room by 10am-11am.

And then your epcot day, I understand that SSE is a must do first thing, so be sure to get the fast pass for that time, otherwise it's a PITA. I'd also call San Angel Inn meh.. and consider other dining places (look at Italy or France). Also, for your Rose & Crown ressie where you want to sit outside (we do this almost every visit), get there by at least 7:30, and ask them kindly and suggest you wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer to get an outside seat. We've become very close to some of the cast members there and most people will ask to sit outside at that time. You may want to nicely mention you want to surprise your gf who has never seen the fireworks there.

 

[photogineer]

A few suggestions. We did Mama Melrose's for lunch on the fantasmic package. We LOVED doing it this way as we didn't feel rushed in the evening. It also gave us time to ride other rides in the evening while the first fantasmic showing goes on.

You may want to consider a Peter Pan fast pass.. I kid you not, that ride always has an hour wait until the last hour the park is open. We usually use one of our fast passes for this in the middle of the day. If you use all 3 of your fast passes in the afternoon, you can book a 4th (and even 5th) fast pass. You could probably get Buzz as the 4th fast pass. I wouldn't use a fp on it (it's one of my favorite rides).

What about the extra hour magic hours at night? My dh and I like to sleep in too.. we consider it an early day when we are out of our room by 10am-11am.

And then your epcot day, I understand that SSE is a must do first thing, so be sure to get the fast pass for that time, otherwise it's a PITA. I'd also call San Angel Inn meh.. and consider other dining places (look at Italy or France). Also, for your Rose & Crown ressie where you want to sit outside (we do this almost every visit), get there by at least 7:30, and ask them kindly and suggest you wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer to get an outside seat. We've become very close to some of the cast members there and most people will ask to sit outside at that time. You may want to nicely mention you want to surprise your gf who has never seen the fireworks there.

Thanks for the tip about Peter Pan, I was considering swapping that for Buzz but I worried same day FP+ availability will be slim pickings in March and I didn't want to chance not getting on Buzz (I have to show Amy I can be her Galactic Hero, you see how this could be important!), perhaps I will reconsider.

Late nights generally aren't a problem but I always found EMH somewhat crowded in the past so I tended to avoid it, has that changed? How does EMH work with FP+, if it all?

That week is my birthday celebration, so we were going to tell them that at Rose & Crown, along with asking very nicely and being willing to wait. My TA also put a note on the reservation about it, so I'm hoping... As far as San Angel Inn, we are considering the option of making that a DS night instead, but Amy has to pore over the menus before she gives me the OK

Big question here, for everyone, does this itinerary still seem good for downtime and not being exhausting? I promised her relaxing!

Adam

 

[punkabella]

You will have many opportunities for Buzz.. I promise you! My DH and I promised each other this last trip to make it relaxing. And we did even with FP+ and ADRs. One thing that made us a little more easy going was the intentional avoidance of photopass opportunities. We still had a ton of pictures from our trip, but it did impact our flow of just walking, talking, and relaxing with a "oh wait.. let's get them to take a picture of us.. then stand in line behind a few other families/groups and wait" that we had done before. I let my DH decide a few of the places we went to eat, even if I had had them before and hated them.. so, I totally get what you're saying and let her pick out a few. There is a disney food blog website that shows lots of pictures (and helped us pick a few places we wanted to eat).

Always remember to try to get your FPs as soon as possible, and then switch them around as you go. My DH let me switch things around when we decided to do one thing over another. It was no big deal. I go by which fast passes I can get that will eliminate the longest wait, not which rides I like the most. It looks like you have a great plan ahead of you, just remember to take it a day at a time, review the next day's plans incase you need to switch some ADRs at the last minute (this WILL happen).

 

[photogineer]

You will have many opportunities for Buzz.. I promise you! My DH and I promised each other this last trip to make it relaxing. And we did even with FP+ and ADRs. One thing that made us a little more easy going was the intentional avoidance of photopass opportunities. We still had a ton of pictures from our trip, but it did impact our flow of just walking, talking, and relaxing with a "oh wait.. let's get them to take a picture of us.. then stand in line behind a few other families/groups and wait" that we had done before. I let my DH decide a few of the places we went to eat, even if I had had them before and hated them.. so, I totally get what you're saying and let her pick out a few. There is a disney food blog website that shows lots of pictures (and helped us pick a few places we wanted to eat).

Always remember to try to get your FPs as soon as possible, and then switch them around as you go. My DH let me switch things around when we decided to do one thing over another. It was no big deal. I go by which fast passes I can get that will eliminate the longest wait, not which rides I like the most. It looks like you have a great plan ahead of you, just remember to take it a day at a time, review the next day's plans incase you need to switch some ADRs at the last minute (this WILL happen).

Amy is the foodie in this relationship so she has picked pretty much everything food wise, I'm very easy to please so I'm happy to let her. The only thing I picked was surprising her with the V&A reservation. Thanks for the tip about FPs, I was definitely thinking in terms of favorite rides instead of time saved, sometimes I forget stand-by riding is a thing!

Adam

 

[MickeyMomV]

OK, I'm looking at your layout and the WDW official calendar and can't help but notice you are not taking advantage of any Extra Magic Hours. Is there a reason for this? We try to hit them every time we are there. If your girlfriend is a late morning person that would be perfect for evening EMH's.

 

[photogineer]

OK, I'm looking at your layout and the WDW official calendar and can't help but notice you are not taking advantage of any Extra Magic Hours. Is there a reason for this? We try to hit them every time we are there. If your girlfriend is a late morning person that would be perfect for evening EMH's.

You are correct! I avoided EMHs because morning ones are too early for us and I was afraid the late night ones would burn up too much non-park activity time as well push us from relaxing to exhausted. I was also under the impression that EMH is still pretty crowded and has no FPs still so it seemed like more hassle than value.

Adam

 

[MickeyMomV]

You are correct! I avoided EMHs because morning ones are too early for us and I was afraid the late night ones would burn up too much non-park activity time as well push us from relaxing to exhausted. I was also under the impression that EMH is still pretty crowded and has no FPs still so it seemed like more hassle than value.

Adam

You are correct that there are no FP's, but as for them being pretty crowded is not always the case. EMH's themselves are great and proved a great opportunity to get a few extra rides in that you can walk onto or come close to walking onto. Where the crowds come in is that if you do morning EMH's once the park opens you will see a heavier traffic volume starting about an hour after park opens than a day without EMH's. On the other hand, evening EMH's are great. Most everybody with kids and non resort guests start to leave after the last event (parade or fireworks at MK, illuminations at Epcot, or Fantasmic at HS). This leaves a much smaller crowd of mostly older kids and adults. The wait times fall drastically! If there is any wait at all. Two weeks ago during evening EMH's we did the 7DMTR with a 26 minute wait!! If somebody would have told me this was possible before the trip I would have laughed.

 

[photogineer]

You are correct that there are no FP's, but as for them being pretty crowded is not always the case. EMH's themselves are great and proved a great opportunity to get a few extra rides in that you can walk onto or come close to walking onto. Where the crowds come in is that if you do morning EMH's once the park opens you will see a heavier traffic volume starting about an hour after park opens than a day without EMH's. On the other hand, evening EMH's are great. Most everybody with kids and non resort guests start to leave after the last event (parade or fireworks at MK, illuminations at Epcot, or Fantasmic at HS). This leaves a much smaller crowd of mostly older kids and adults. The wait times fall drastically! If there is any wait at all. Two weeks ago during evening EMH's we did the 7DMTR with a 26 minute wait!! If somebody would have told me this was possible before the trip I would have laughed.

That's incredible, the last trip I did any EMH on was 2009 and I remember being dumbfounded and frustrated that the waits were still really high. If what you say is true than it's definitely worth one or two late evenings, but I'm not sure about shuffling our park days around at this point (It took a lot of finagling to get our ADRs just right after all) so it might be a moot point. I'll take a look, unless anyone has suggestions for how to fit them in?

Adam

 

[Kosmo1986]

I did late night EMH at EPCOT recently and it wasn't that great. Soarin' said 20 minutes and we ended up waiting for an hour. But MK is great for night EMH, Many of the dark rides were walk on.

 

[photogineer]

I did late night EMH at EPCOT recently and it wasn't that great. Soarin' said 20 minutes and we ended up waiting for an hour. But MK is great for night EMH, Many of the dark rides were walk on.

This might be the key, I distinctly remember Epcot being the park I was frustrated with. I will consider tagging an MK EMH evening on if possible. I have to look at my dates and see if any of our MK days line up with an evening EMH, we don't have hoppers.

Adam