imolaragazzo
New Member
So it seems like we've got people on board to start booking our September 2019 trip. I'm going through all the planning and figured I would share my experiences here and also ask for some advice with some of the gaps I'm trying to figure out. First time with a group of this size/multiple families.
The Cast
Me (27) + the Girlfriend (GF, 22): I have been about five times throughout my life, most recent being last October when I took my girlfriend for her first time. My favorite past time is planning so I’m undertaking planning out this next trip. Last trip all the research and planning I did paid off with us not having to wait more than 15 minutes for any ride in the park we did (even getting fast passes for FoP). I like to have major things of the day planned out in advance and just be knowledgeable enough through all my research that I can go with the flow for the “in between times”.
My Parents (M1 + D1): My parents have taken me several times when I was younger, last time was when they had the fast pass system. They have never stayed on site and never experienced Food & Wine.
GF’s Parents (M2 + D2): The girlfriend’s parents have never been to Disney. This will be a brand new experience to them.
My sister and her boyfriend may possibly join but that is yet to be determined. Either way, 6 or 8 people, is going to be a little bit of a new challenge juggling all the ADRs, FP+, and general activites.
Background
No one has experienced the full magic of staying on site. GF and I stayed at the Dolphin last year so we did get some of the perks but didn’t get to try DME and really did not spend much of any time at the resort since we were there for a short amount of time. This time we hope to have everyone experience the magic, between me having everything planned out for them and them not having to worry about luggage or driving I think it’s going to be very magical for all of them.
Last I went I fell in love with the food and wine festival. The parents might not be as much into the hardcore Disney part of going to WDW so I think this along with the resort and relaxing will really appeal to them.
Learned a lot last trip that I will be applying here. Ordering supplies to be delivered by Amazon again is a must do. I never eat breakfast but for those who do can eat breakfast before leaving the hotel. Also ordering snacks and things like gu chews were great to have on those long days. Already have a good packing list to bring in the parks in a bag that worked well last year which included things like ponchos, cooling towels, etc.
Onto some of the details:
Dates: Sunday Sep 8 – Sunday Sep 15, 2019
Resort: Caribbean Beach Resort
As for the daily plan, I’ve started to get a good idea of which parks for which days but I still have holes I need help filled. Last year when we went we did every park from park open (sometimes earlier with a PPO breakfast) to park close and there is no way all of the people on this trip will be able to handle that so I’m trying to make sure we have some rest time put in there. I looked at historical park times and determined which ones would have EMH and MNSSHP and actively chose to avoid those so we don't have lots of long days.
Sunday – Arrival Day
Planning on a morning flight which should have us arriving around 8.15 in the morning. If that’s the case then I think the plan will be to take our swimsuits as carry-on and hit up the pool and relax for a while until our rooms are ready. Early afternoon, hopefully, we will get our rooms and freshen up and head over to Disney Springs to spend the afternoon/evening. Could also swap this and do DS first and then come back to the hotel.
Monday – Magic Kingdom
Meals Plan:
Breakfast: PPO Be our Guest
Lunch: Free for all
Dinner: Free for all
I think a pre park opening breakfast at Be Our Guest will be a pretty magical way to start off the first day at the park for everyone. My GF and I did that last time and it was amazing having an empty park and hitting up 7DMT and other rides without anyone else on the ride. Other than that meal I am not planning on having any other ADRs that day as none of the restaurants really appeal as being must dos. Sidenote: my family is vegetarian while my girlfriend’s family is very much not so we have to balance the restaurant choices. Hopefully keeping lunch/dinner a free choice everyone can just grab things as they are hungry or snack on things they bring. I'm probably going to suggest different things everyone would want to try like Dole Whip and the regular snacks and between everyone I think we'll be able to try a lot of must try items. Personally I fill up the popcorn bucket every chance I get...I have a slight obsession with popcorn.
Plan is to be at MK from open to close and watch the fireworks. With what crowd levels are at this time of the year I'm expecting to be able to complete everything we want at the park and probably even ride some rides multiple times.
Tuesday: Hollywood Studios
Meals Plan:
Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: Woody’s Lunchbox
Dinner: ??? (Thinking of leaving HS early, maybe freshen up and then hit a resort restaurant. Need help figuring out what though)
I haven’t been to Hollywood Studios since I was probably a toddler and we all want to go there at least for a bit. Will want to hit up ToT, Slinky Dog, and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Train for sure and some of the shows. I’m thinking this only being a partial day with us leaving sometime in the afternoon. Because of that I need to figure out what to do for dinner. I’m thinking this might be a good chance to hit up a lounge or chill restaurant where we can unwind. Any recommendations for this?
Wedneday: EPCOT (Day 1)
Meals Plan:
Food & Wine
After two days of doing rope drops I’m planning on keeping our first of two EPCOT days a little lax. We will wake up a little later and casually make our way over to the park a little before lunch. Since we are doing two days at EPCOT I think I can get fastpasses for everything we will want between those days. This day I’m thinking Soarin’, Spaceship Earth, and Mission Space. No hard plans for this day besides that, just enjoying F&W.
Thursday: Animal Kingdom
Meals Plan:
Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: Satu’li Canteen
Dinner: Free choice wherever in the park
Parents have never been and mom has been wanting to visit AK for quite some time so this should be a good one. I put it towards the end of our park days in order to get fastpasses for FoP (although I don’t know how busy it will be at that time). We will probably spend all day at the park, although it seemed like we had a lot of down time when I went last year. Top priorities are seeing all of the shows and hitting up the major attractions.
Friday: EPCOT (Day 2)
Meals:
F&W
After another long day this will be a casual day. I’ll get fastpasses for most likely Test Track and not sure what else. I’m planning on everybody just making it to the parks whenever they feel and we can meet up at certain points and just enjoy F&W at our leisure. Since it’s a Friday I think I’ll try to leave a little earlier to avoid the weekend crowd. Probably no plans for the evening, just relaxing? Hopefully everyone fills up so they don't need a dinner outside the park. Again that's why having snacks ordered from Amazon will be good.
Saturday: ??
Saturday is a no park day. Thinking of keeping it pretty open, maybe one of these plans:
1) Outlets in the morning/afternoon. Come back and freshen up and do some resort hopping.
2) Relax in the morning and start resort hopping earlier in the afternoon and hit up more places. Maybe some nighttime entertainment on our last night? Disney Springs or Boardwalk area?
I haven’t explored all the resorts before so this would be great. Still have to figure out which ones we want to go to and how we will do meals.
Sunday: Traveling back home
Won’t plan anything for our travel day back home.
So that's the plans as of now. We want to get the hotels booked here soon just to take that next major step. Next post I'll post some pictures from our last trip.
The Cast
Me (27) + the Girlfriend (GF, 22): I have been about five times throughout my life, most recent being last October when I took my girlfriend for her first time. My favorite past time is planning so I’m undertaking planning out this next trip. Last trip all the research and planning I did paid off with us not having to wait more than 15 minutes for any ride in the park we did (even getting fast passes for FoP). I like to have major things of the day planned out in advance and just be knowledgeable enough through all my research that I can go with the flow for the “in between times”.
My Parents (M1 + D1): My parents have taken me several times when I was younger, last time was when they had the fast pass system. They have never stayed on site and never experienced Food & Wine.
GF’s Parents (M2 + D2): The girlfriend’s parents have never been to Disney. This will be a brand new experience to them.
My sister and her boyfriend may possibly join but that is yet to be determined. Either way, 6 or 8 people, is going to be a little bit of a new challenge juggling all the ADRs, FP+, and general activites.
Background
No one has experienced the full magic of staying on site. GF and I stayed at the Dolphin last year so we did get some of the perks but didn’t get to try DME and really did not spend much of any time at the resort since we were there for a short amount of time. This time we hope to have everyone experience the magic, between me having everything planned out for them and them not having to worry about luggage or driving I think it’s going to be very magical for all of them.
Last I went I fell in love with the food and wine festival. The parents might not be as much into the hardcore Disney part of going to WDW so I think this along with the resort and relaxing will really appeal to them.
Learned a lot last trip that I will be applying here. Ordering supplies to be delivered by Amazon again is a must do. I never eat breakfast but for those who do can eat breakfast before leaving the hotel. Also ordering snacks and things like gu chews were great to have on those long days. Already have a good packing list to bring in the parks in a bag that worked well last year which included things like ponchos, cooling towels, etc.
Onto some of the details:
Dates: Sunday Sep 8 – Sunday Sep 15, 2019
Resort: Caribbean Beach Resort
As for the daily plan, I’ve started to get a good idea of which parks for which days but I still have holes I need help filled. Last year when we went we did every park from park open (sometimes earlier with a PPO breakfast) to park close and there is no way all of the people on this trip will be able to handle that so I’m trying to make sure we have some rest time put in there. I looked at historical park times and determined which ones would have EMH and MNSSHP and actively chose to avoid those so we don't have lots of long days.
Sunday – Arrival Day
Planning on a morning flight which should have us arriving around 8.15 in the morning. If that’s the case then I think the plan will be to take our swimsuits as carry-on and hit up the pool and relax for a while until our rooms are ready. Early afternoon, hopefully, we will get our rooms and freshen up and head over to Disney Springs to spend the afternoon/evening. Could also swap this and do DS first and then come back to the hotel.
Monday – Magic Kingdom
Meals Plan:
Breakfast: PPO Be our Guest
Lunch: Free for all
Dinner: Free for all
I think a pre park opening breakfast at Be Our Guest will be a pretty magical way to start off the first day at the park for everyone. My GF and I did that last time and it was amazing having an empty park and hitting up 7DMT and other rides without anyone else on the ride. Other than that meal I am not planning on having any other ADRs that day as none of the restaurants really appeal as being must dos. Sidenote: my family is vegetarian while my girlfriend’s family is very much not so we have to balance the restaurant choices. Hopefully keeping lunch/dinner a free choice everyone can just grab things as they are hungry or snack on things they bring. I'm probably going to suggest different things everyone would want to try like Dole Whip and the regular snacks and between everyone I think we'll be able to try a lot of must try items. Personally I fill up the popcorn bucket every chance I get...I have a slight obsession with popcorn.
Plan is to be at MK from open to close and watch the fireworks. With what crowd levels are at this time of the year I'm expecting to be able to complete everything we want at the park and probably even ride some rides multiple times.
Tuesday: Hollywood Studios
Meals Plan:
Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: Woody’s Lunchbox
Dinner: ??? (Thinking of leaving HS early, maybe freshen up and then hit a resort restaurant. Need help figuring out what though)
I haven’t been to Hollywood Studios since I was probably a toddler and we all want to go there at least for a bit. Will want to hit up ToT, Slinky Dog, and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Train for sure and some of the shows. I’m thinking this only being a partial day with us leaving sometime in the afternoon. Because of that I need to figure out what to do for dinner. I’m thinking this might be a good chance to hit up a lounge or chill restaurant where we can unwind. Any recommendations for this?
Wedneday: EPCOT (Day 1)
Meals Plan:
Food & Wine
After two days of doing rope drops I’m planning on keeping our first of two EPCOT days a little lax. We will wake up a little later and casually make our way over to the park a little before lunch. Since we are doing two days at EPCOT I think I can get fastpasses for everything we will want between those days. This day I’m thinking Soarin’, Spaceship Earth, and Mission Space. No hard plans for this day besides that, just enjoying F&W.
Thursday: Animal Kingdom
Meals Plan:
Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: Satu’li Canteen
Dinner: Free choice wherever in the park
Parents have never been and mom has been wanting to visit AK for quite some time so this should be a good one. I put it towards the end of our park days in order to get fastpasses for FoP (although I don’t know how busy it will be at that time). We will probably spend all day at the park, although it seemed like we had a lot of down time when I went last year. Top priorities are seeing all of the shows and hitting up the major attractions.
Friday: EPCOT (Day 2)
Meals:
F&W
After another long day this will be a casual day. I’ll get fastpasses for most likely Test Track and not sure what else. I’m planning on everybody just making it to the parks whenever they feel and we can meet up at certain points and just enjoy F&W at our leisure. Since it’s a Friday I think I’ll try to leave a little earlier to avoid the weekend crowd. Probably no plans for the evening, just relaxing? Hopefully everyone fills up so they don't need a dinner outside the park. Again that's why having snacks ordered from Amazon will be good.
Saturday: ??
Saturday is a no park day. Thinking of keeping it pretty open, maybe one of these plans:
1) Outlets in the morning/afternoon. Come back and freshen up and do some resort hopping.
2) Relax in the morning and start resort hopping earlier in the afternoon and hit up more places. Maybe some nighttime entertainment on our last night? Disney Springs or Boardwalk area?
I haven’t explored all the resorts before so this would be great. Still have to figure out which ones we want to go to and how we will do meals.
Sunday: Traveling back home
Won’t plan anything for our travel day back home.
So that's the plans as of now. We want to get the hotels booked here soon just to take that next major step. Next post I'll post some pictures from our last trip.
