Walt Disney World Vacation Planning Tips: PLANNING THE SCHEDULE
Note: This is part 2 of a 3 part article. If you’d like to read the first part, please click here.
- We are arriving on November 16, which is our actual anniversary. We’ll land around noon, assuming no delays, so by the time we get our luggage, get our car (this is still not a firm decision…we normally rent a car because we like the freedom and flexibility of having our own wheels BUT the smarter financial decision is to NOT rent a car and use Magical Express and all the free Disney transportation. Still deciding on this) stop and get water and breakfast foods and snacks and get to the hotel, it will probably be 2pm or so…
So I had a couple tentative plans initially:
- Check in and have a lazy afternoon at our Resort.
- MAYBE go visit the wedding pavilion and say hello to where we got married, maybe go inside if it’s open and take some pictures, maybe kiss on the spot where we kissed at the wedding, stuff like that.
- Have a nice dinner somewhere for our anniversary. Somewhere with fireworks views because HELLO first visit back in three years and we LOVE WISHES. Except that WISHES is gone. There’s a new show, Happily Ever After, which I’m sure will be amazing too…but {sigh} we loved our Wishes. Oh well, change is part of life. For this, I was thinking either California Grill at the Contemporary Resort or Narcoosee’s at the Grand Floridian. We’ve had great experiences at both of these, although California Grill gets a slight edge because we really love watching the fireworks there, and it’s a little easier for us to get to because Bay Lake is attached to the Contemporary. Pricewise, they’re both about the same…way more than we should be spending on one meal!
- Alternative to nice (expensive) dinner: Attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom. MVMCP is a special ticketed event. It officially starts at 7 pm, but you can get in the park with your MVMCP tickets as early as 4 pm. Generally speaking, the weeknight parties, especially early in the season, have lower crowd levels than a regular park day, and it can be a great way to see more attractions with shorter lines. PLUS, the Merry Christmas parade is one of my favorites (the Halloween party parade is better, though) and that happens twice during every party. There are special Holiday-themed fireworks (usually called Holiday Wishes, but I don’t know if that’s been re-themed as well since Wishes no longer exists…I will have to investigate that). They distribute free hot cocoa and cookies (well, “free” is a relative term since you are paying for your party tickets) and the party goes until Midnight. Oh, one more thing: It “snows” on Main Street frequently throughout the party. There are some cute little shows and dance parties that happen around the park too—and of course, special MVMCP themed merchandise you can ONLY get at the party.
I knew a couple of main things: I didn’t want to burn a park pass day on Arrival Day and I wanted to make sure we saw Magic Kingdom fireworks (and the CASTLE) on our anniversary. Of course, a couple other options exist. As DVC members staying at Bay Lake tower, we can go up to the Tower Lounge on the roof and watch the fireworks from there. They have appetizers and a bar and the view is similar to the view from the California Grill. Also, since we’re spending the extra points for theme park view, we could just stay in the room and relax and watch from there…assuming it’s a decent view. Third, we could go watch the fireworks from the Contemporary…there’s a large balcony of sorts right where the Bay Lake Tower walkway meets the Contemporary…we took a bunch of our wedding pictures there, so that would be a nostalgic spot as well.
I went ahead and made a dinner reservation at California Grill, figuring I could cancel if I decided to go a different direction.
- Planning the park days: Using the crowd calendar and taking into consideration our personal preferences, I started plugging in park days on our schedule. Assuming we’d either do the Christmas party at Magic Kingdom or at the very least see the Magic Kingdom fireworks Thursday night, I decided that Friday we would go to our second favorite park, Epcot and we’d return to Magic Kingdom on Saturday. A couple of factors: There’s another Christmas party Friday night, so I knew if we did Magic Kingdom Friday, we’d have to leave by 7 pm—I wasn’t about to buy tickets for a party AND burn a park pass day in the same day—it was either go to the party on Thursday night or not at all. I wanted to make sure we have at least one full day at MK so I decided Saturday.
- We generally like to visit all four parks when we visit, as long as we go for at least four days, so next I plugged in Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom for Sunday and Monday—primarily based on park hours and projected crowd levels.
- So current plan: Epcot Friday, MK Saturday, Hollywood Studios Sunday and Animal Kingdom Monday. We fly home Tuesday afternoon so Tuesday morning will either be lazy, pack, hang around the resort (Frank’s preference) or one last mad crazy dash to Magic Kingdom and then Disney Springs (Brooke’s preference). We’ll see how that works out….
- Once I plan my park days out, I start working on meal reservations. I actually started making reservations for meals mid-May—I think even before I bought our airline tickets. Disney lets you book ADRs (Advance Dining Reservations) six months out. A big part of our Disney experience is good, sit down meals in air-conditioned restaurants. We like the breaks to recharge our batteries, relieve our favorite moments from the day (so far) and talk about what we still want to accomplish that day. Yes, taking the time for a sit down meal “takes away” from time we could be visiting attractions, but I learned pretty early on that if I want my husband to actually ENJOY his trips, I need to build in lots of breaks and give him time to rest and recharge. An interesting side effect was that I learned how much more I enjoyed myself when I gave us those breaks. So for me, sit down meals are MANDATORY. Now, this trip we have some budgetary constraints so I may have to cancel some of these, and we may need to go off property and grab quick economical meals at someplace like Perkins (assuming we have a car) or just do sandwiches in the room—but I decided to make reservations initially and then I will cancel as we get closer to vacation if it looks like we won’t have the funds.
I hope my “real life” stories as I plan our trips are helpful to you as you plan your own vacations. My goal is to offer Disney vacation planning tips and tricks to my readers, and to help all of you navigate the sometimes challenging process of planning a Disney vacation!
Happy Dreaming!
Brooke
To continue to part 3 of this article, please click here.