I kind of teased it in the Marathon Weekend Thread so here's a little more detail, without revealing too much (I'm pretty sure this whole journal thing breaks that rule), on my upcoming trip.
We are driving down, in a few different groups, to arrive in Orlando on Thursday the 28th. We are staying off-site at a rental property in Champions Gate. We stayed there (different house, same layout) last year and had a great time. We have a lot of kids in the group and having a private pool and hot tub at the house and a larger facility pool with slides and a lazy river works really well for us. Plus, we will be starting our stay with 5 people and ballooning to 13 or 14 at times. That would have been a logistical nightmare and very expensive to figure out how to stay at a Disney Resort.
We will be going to parks early in our trip to allow for a little less structure and rest, if needed, on race days. Our schedule is Dec. 29-Hollywood Studios, Dec. 30-Epcot, Jan. 1-Magic Kingdom, and Jan. 2-Animal Kingdom. I have an AP, as does my sister, so there may be more park-going later in the trip, but that is undetermined right now. I've been planning the FP+ and a few ADRs (some ADRs were done well in advance) the last couple days and am pretty pumped about how things have worked out so far. Here are our specific park plans and some short thoughts:
Hollywood Studios (5 people)
Fastpass-Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror (3) & Voyage of the Little Mermaid (2), Star Tours
ADR-Mama Melrose Fantasmic! dining package
We will likely head over to RnRC first with the two who have no interest in thrill rides going to Beauty and the Beast. All FP+ will be done before 1 PM, but we like to hit all the shows and might wait in some lines since the park is currently pretty limited. We learned last year the importance of getting Fantasmic! seating early. It should be in my earlier report on that trip, but we thought we were plenty early and ended up having half of our group stuck in a standing room only line for an hour and barely making the show. This should make things a little less stressful on that front.
Epcot (5 People)
Fastpass-Soarin', Spaceship Earth, The Seas with Nemo & Friends
ADR-Boma
Again, we will be making a beeline for something to begin the day. Likely FEA, but possibly Test Track. I had to go back and confirm what I used our other FP+ on after Soarin' since it is rarely important. As I knew was likely, we didn't have the option to do FEA so we chose Soarin'. It is the first time my niece and nephew will go on Soarin' (we've always used FP+ on FEA or TT and aren't big enough fans of Soarin' to wait in line). Will be nice when Epcot has a few more large attractions. We've seen IllumiNations quite a few times, so we didn't prioritize it this time and we will be heading out for dinner at Boma. We are trying Boma and Sanaa for the first time on this trip and I'm pretty excited about it.
Magic Kingdom (11 People)
Fastpass-Space Ranger Spin, Peter Pan (7) & Space Mountain (4), Splash Mountain
No ADRs for MK and I'm sure it's going to be a madhouse since it's New Year's Day, but it's what worked for our group. I was very happy with how the FP+ worked. We will be done before 1 PM and I made Splash Mountain the latest in hopes that it would be warm for anyone who gets wet. Some of the group won't be able to do Splash, but it wasn't worth planning a separate FP for them. Splitting Peter Pan and Space Mountain made a lot of sense for the group though. We knew 7DMT wasn't an option and there's a pretty good chance some of the group will leave early. I'm very interested in seeing Happily Ever After, so I plan on this being a long day.
Animal Kingdom (12 People)
Fastpass-Festival of the Lion King, Expedition Everest (6) & Finding Nemo (6), Kilimanjaro Safari
ADR-Tusker House
Of course, nothing in Pandora was open for us 30-day window stragglers. We knew this and at least one vehicle will be heading in early to rope drop Pandora. It might only be me, but I did it in September and plan on it again this time. I know the degree of difficulty will be increased this time, but it should be doable. The other FP+ should fit our group well and I'm good with doing Pandora early and enjoying everything else afterward. Tusker House was a big revelation for us last year and we will be doing that as our character meal for the group this time around. Some would say we're overdoing it with Boma, Sanaa, and Tusker House in one trip, but I think it will be fun. They offer the type of cuisine that it is the hardest to find in the midwest.
So that's the skeleton plan we have. Should make it easier to enjoy the day. We just go with the flow outside of our FP+, but it's always nice to have some things planned so that we don't spend the whole day standing in line. We plan to go to Disney Springs (I called it Downtown Disney and had to replace) on New Year's Eve at opening and walking around and getting some lunch and maybe seeing a movie before it gets crazy. Only other plan is Sanaa after the Expo on the 3rd. I'm sure we will be adding more plans before we get closer to Marathon Weekend.