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I bet we will walk by each other at some point. I will be the idiot with an altenmunster in one hand and a huge pretzel in the other trying to figure out how to put mustard on the pretzel. Currently killing time at DHS while the wife and son go on tower of terror. My fast pass runner duties are complete.
Did touringplans a couple years ago when we were going to be there during a Somewhat busy time. Thought it was fairly accurate. Got it again for this trip because it was so short and wanted to maximize. It was terrible. Said Epcot was supposed to be 1.3 crowd level and it was pretty crowded for my standards. 25 minute wait for the maelstrom almost all day. Test track was at 80 for most of the day and all fast passes were gone by like 1. Soarin was 90 minutes and there were times in the world showcase that it was hard to move around. Tons of senior trips. They say today is supposed to be a 1.1 at Epcot so we will see. Long story short when you do your personalized plan put in lots of breaks. Because if they are off on one ride and you don't have breaks put in the whole schedule goes to crap fast and you are probably worse off.
So Far so good. Clouds want to burn off.
Good tip. We did have to begin putting in 10 minute "breaks" every 3 or 4 attractions. We haven't seen it miss crowd levels as drastically as you have, but we did encounter a problem when at MK and Splash Mountain had been closed down. It was supposed to be ~20 minutes on our Touring Plan, but the line was 75+ due to the closure. We just skipped the ride and shopped for a little bit to stay on schedule.
Nice. We are back in room taking break before Chef Mickey.
If you're a Verizon customer, the official Disney Parks app is by far the most reliable and accurate for ride waits and FastPass times. The Verizon one is wired directly into the park data, not dependent on crowdsourcing.
I think they have the same app for everyone now. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.uievolution.player.android.vzw.DisneyMobileMagic&hl=en That one works on my Sprint Galaxy S3.
for Animal Kingdom... Everest is the best ride with the most FastPass demand. If the kids are big enough, that's the FP to target. The Kilimanjaro Safari is usually better early in the day. If you don't mind a little running and FP kiosks are open by breakfast time, grab Everest FastPasses right before Tusker House. (This can get a little tricky, as part of the Tusker House wait is getting a family picture taken with Donald Duck in safari gear.) If you can pull this off, your Everest FastPasses should be live after breakfast, and you can grab Kilimanjaro FPs on your way to Everest and the Dinosaur section of the park.Grady Wilson said:
On behalf of YankeeFan23 and the other regular contributors to this thread... I approve of this message.
We are thinking about our next trip as a celebration for the end of CPA Busy Season 2014 at the end of April/beginning of May next year. We did a small one last week to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA for this year. I am trying to figure out when I would need to do my planning/purchasing.
A restaurant in the Grand Floridian. It's a two minute boat ride from the Magic Kingdom and the boat drops you off right at the dock behind the restaurant. Absolutely fantastic food.
there is a boat that takes you from wilderness directly to MK. But you will need a bus for HS and AK. You could probably jump on monorail for Epcot but it might take a while going boat to MK, MK to monorail to transportation center and then off at Epcot.
We stayed at the Wilderness both times we made the trip and LOVED it!!
Son is 5 and daughter is 2. I figured they'll have fun at MK the first two days. I'm afraid if we waited until later in the week they'll be too tired to really enjoy MK.How old are your kids?
For kids excited about their first trip to Disney, I suggest not blowing the Magic Kingdom wad right off the bat. Build up to it.
With your current plan Animal Kingdom may be a bit of a letdown after two days of MK.
Speaking of Chef Mickey how good is the place? We're going there tomorrow night. Also, what's the easiest way to get there from Coronado Springs?
Chefs Mickeys is a lot of fun. The food is decent and plentiful but is by no means gourmet. It is typical buffet food to me, maybe a notch above average. We only book a meal there if there are kids in our party.
I was there last Halloween. Was fun. They have a special Halloween ticket at night. We got it. My kids favorite part was the dance parties with the characters. We trick or treated at the Polynesian and Grand Floridian so by the time we got to the MK, our bags were full. That allowed us to only go to a few stops in MK and not all
Awesome time to go. Crowds will be moderate but tolerable, weather will be great. Definitely suggest you do the Mickey Not So Scary Halloween Party at the MK one night while you are there.
For the reasons you listed (weather, crowds and school), we go annually the week before Christmas and have really enjoyed it. Crowds are manageable then but are unbearable between Christmas and New year's day. If you can swing ditching extended family for Christmas for a year it's a good time to go. Really, i'd recommend any Disney fan doing Christmas there at least once.We don't do the meal plan because it's just too much food and money. If you get it discounted in a package its probably worth it. We do breakfast in the room, pack snacks/small lunches for the park and then eat like kings for dinner at epcot or downtown Disney.
We went in October and took the kids out of school for a week. If the crowds were only 1.5 times as much as we had when we were there I would not go. Not to mention the obvious heat factors. Your tolerance for crowds and heat may be higher than mine but I could not see going any where near a peak time of year. There is nothing there worth more then a 45 minute wait. At least very little. Take kids out of school for a week and have an adventure with them, they will most likely enjoy it more and think you are cool. They can make up a week of school no problem.
I've gone in March, May and July. March during the kids spring break, May (we took them out of school) and July.
on timing.
That's when we're going this year (7/3-7/13). But we are skipping Disney and doing Discovery Cove, Sea World and Aquatica.
I really want to get there during Xmas season, but with the kids school, we're pretty screwed.
I dont get it. If you want to take them out of school, do it. I teach and I cant tell you how often kids go missing for a week or two on vacation
Agreed. We always took our kids out of school for a few days on every trip and it never hurt them. We used to get their homework assignments and they would work on them on the trip there and back and an evening or two back at the hotel.
We do also...One time we caught some flack from the principal when we were doing a spring vacation. He asked "why don't you do your traveling during the scheduled vacations?" Our issue is the fact that my wife is a CPA in a public firm, and she can't take a vacation in 'busy season' between January and April 15. So we talk to the kids teachers, get as much work as we can, and go from there.
My kids go to a PA Charter School. Acceptance into the school is done by lottery. I was extremely lucky to get all my kids in there. It's a Title I School and in order for the school to recieve Title I funding from the State the school has to have a certain attendance threshold. If a student goes over the threshold, they are dismissed from the school. I would then have to send them to Philadelphia Public School (no way!) or Catholic School (with a $6000/yr tuition). When my kids went to Catholic School, I had no problem taking them out during the school year. If they went to public school, yeah, who cares. But a charter school, I can't.
