There and Back Again - a couple's first journey to Disney World

[Richard M Nixon]

Such excitement

 

[NobleAlyssum]

You are an excellent planner. I want to visit DisneyWorld and you've inspired me about what can be accomplished. I've actually done a "warm-up" by planning Valentine's Day.
I will be watching your thread and your progress.

 

[Richard M Nixon]

Could you pass the FastPass (plus) please?

Ah, yesterday (actually, Monday night) was our 60 day mark. That means it's time for FP+ booking!

As exciting as Disney planning is (as Kim rolls her eyes) I found FP+ booking to be pretty boring. I've been playing with TouringPlans for the past, oh, 8 months or so. I have developed multiple iterations of each day in the effort to find the best plans for us. Come FP+ day, I was equipped with my list of three FPs for each day with my preferred times from my custom plans @ TouringPlans. My general plan is to arrive at rope drop and spend 30 minutes to an hour doing an initial wave of standby queueing, at which point I'll start in on a series of three FPs. The three "other" parks (anything that isn't MK) don't really seem to be much of an issue with FPs. There aren't many rides that seem to really need them, so I can space my FPs out across the day and I don't really need more of a strategy than that.

The only day that is going to be complicated is our big MK day, where we'll be spending over 13 hours in the park. For that day, I've been trying to come up with a creative plan to really maximize the FP+ system. I have been watching same-day FP+ availability at multiple times over the last month or so. When I have a minute at work, I'll open the Lines app and see what availability looks like. That has given me three categories: 1) always available - these rides always have FP+ available within about an hour, so I could book one and start walking to the ride, 2) available later in the day - these rides do have a chunk of FP+ available, but they're 3-4 hours in the future. These guys will be the rides to try and standby for, if possible, as they'll lock me out of any more FPs while I wait, and 3) big-time FP+ - these guys are either totally gone either before the park opens or within a few hours (A&E, Wishes) - these are the rides I booked FP+ for.

My plan is that on the big park day I will do three big FP+ first thing in the morning so we become eligible for out 4th and up. Then we'll go to a FP+ kiosk and grab a FP+ that's for the ride with the highest standby queue time and FP+ availability within an hour. In the meanwhile, we'll eat, do non-FP+ rides, and shop. Then repeat until no more FP+ are available.

Here's our FP+ lineup:
Sunday 4/12
Animal Kingdom
Kilimanjaro Safaris - 9:20
Expedition Everest - 3:05
Meet Favorite Disney Pals at Adventurers Outpost - 5:00


Monday 4/13
Magic Kingdom (Wishes dessert party)
7DMT - 9:05
Peter Pan's Flight - 10:30
Enchanted Tales - 11:30

Tuesday 4/14
DHS
Toy Story - 9:25
Star Tours - 10:25
Tower of Terror - 2:25

Thursday 4/16
Epcot
Spaceship Earth - 11:30
Turtle Talk - 5:30
Illuminations - 8:30

Friday 4/17
Epcot
Test Track - 9:15
Mission Space - 11:15
Figment - 2:05

Saturday 4/18
Magic Kingdom (half-day)
Big Thunder Mountain - 11:05
Splash Mountain - 12:45
Festival of Fantasy - 02:45

Sunday 4/19
Magic Kingdom (half-day)
Haunted Mansion - 02:30
Tomorrowland Speedway - 3:30
Space Mountain - 4:30



The last thing we're waiting for is BOG to be added for lunch ADRs on the 25th! Then planning will be done

Coming up next: finalized in-park touring plans, Magicband customization, and more.

 

[skier_pete]

Hmmmm...works for me. I personally wouldn't book any FP+ before 10 AM. But your strategy might be to use these FP towards the end of the window,which would work fine. Can't disagree with any of the picks except maybe for Figment - I've never actually waited more than about 30 seconds for that ride. There are dozens of different strategies for FP+, and it's more of a "whatever works for you" as opposed to "this method works best". (Unlike the "get to the park at rope drop" which is without doubt a more succesful strategy than "show up at noon".

More exciting than the FP+ is that you have only two months to go. This window is always to me the toughest, where the planning is done, but it's still far enough away you can't start actually packing for the trip. Ah well, it will probably go by quickly.

 

[Richard M Nixon]

Yeah, the Figment FP+ was more a "oh, I have to pick a no-line attraction for a FP+ so let's pull one out a hat". For the pre-10am FP, I'm planning on using it near the end of the window, but booking it earlier means I can book the next one earlier, so it all works out.

Once I get Kim involved and agreeing to the individual daily touring plans, I'll post them here. She's the girl who will want to immediately stop on Main Street and start checking out the buildings, the stores, everything as soon as she sees the stores, rope drop day one. So I've got to make sure that she knows we will have plenty of time to go back and enjoy the ambiance and the shopping but the rope-drop procedure is important and must be followed.

I agree that the planning was such fun and now that it's ending there is a void to fill.

 

[skier_pete]

For the pre-10am FP, I'm planning on using it near the end of the window, but booking it earlier means I can book the next one earlier, so it all works out.

That's what I figured! Makes sense!

She's the girl who will want to immediately stop on Main Street and start checking out the buildings, the stores, everything as soon as she sees the stores, rope drop day one. So I've got to make sure that she knows we will have plenty of time to go back and enjoy the ambiance and the shopping but the rope-drop procedure is important and must be followed.

Whooo...good luck with that one! Actually my DW is very good about rope drop procedures. Even after all these years I am very insistent on a "Rides First!" mentality. I always say the first two hours are devoted to rides, then after that we relax. It works well for us.

I obviously don't know you or your wife, but my recommendation is to ask her to "go with it" for the first few days. I would then recommend on your first day at MK, head across the hub around 10:30 - 11 AM, and watch the people STREAMING into the park and tell her "see, this is why we are here for rope drop". If that doesn't convince her, nothing will. But make you give her that time to look around. That's part of the fun too. Don't get into the trap of "go-go-go".

 

[Richard M Nixon]

I'm going to try and show her the touring plans, let her see right where the free time is built in, and do a 'what-if' where I move the rides a few hours later and our wait times go through the roof. As long as she sees that we'll be taking the time to look around at some point, I don't expect we'll have differences of opinion. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I've been managing expectations at home for the last few months to slowly prepare her for the guerrilla planning!

 

[disnygirl55]

Following - I'm so excited to hear about your trip! I want to hear all about your Chef's Table experience. We'll be following behind you a month later - so promise me you'll write your trip report quickly!

 

[Richard M Nixon]

It's happening!

Our flight leaves in just over five hours. Our first challenge of the trip will be to make it from our landing at 8:15 to California Grill at 9:20. We have the will, so let's hope the airport and roads provide the way. I'm seeing some kind of construction on I-4 which concerns me a bit. We'll just have to see.








I'll get this moved over into the active trip reports soon. I won't have a laptop on the trip so I won't be posting pictures until we return home, but I'll try to do some liveblogging while in the parks if time allows.




Check out our daily touring plans to see the mess I've packed in to each day.
Sunday: Animal Kingdom
Monday: Magic Kingdom - Fantasyland
Tuesday: Hollywood Studios
Wednesday: Downtown Disney & La Nouba
Thursday: Epcot - World Showcase (Gardens of the World in the morning)
Friday: Epcot - Future World
Saturday: Magic Kingdom - Adventureland & Frontierland (and V&A's!!!)
Sunday: Magic Kingdom - Tomorrowland & repeats of favorite attractions (Keys to the Kingdom in the morning)

 

[skier_pete]

Never did manage do get you to join overplanners anonymous. Hope you enjoy your trip and please, please, please don't stress if you can't do everything you set out to do in your plan.

 

[Richard M Nixon]

We arrived at the airport 45 minutes before departure. Tsa has nobody in line, we were through in five minutes. I didn't remember to take my electronics and liquid bag from my carry on and nobody said anything. Now we're waiting to board.

Oh yeah, we're only taking carryon bags for nine days. Kim was amazing at packing everything so tightly.

 

[Richard M Nixon]

I'm posting from 30,000 feet using jetblue's awesome free WiFi. If anyone is wondering, the connection is decent. 700ms ping to California with 18mbps down and 2 up. We're on track for an arrival of 8:05 local time. From there it's a quick jaunt to the parking garage to pick up our rental and off to the California grill.

 

[Richard M Nixon]

I should have known better.

Orlando thunderstorms made the plane divert and refuel, bringing us to land at mco at 9:50, almost two hours late. The airport itself was a breeze and we were out in 20 minutes. Alamo was out of our rental car class so we're upgraded to the next tier.

Dinner was mcdonalds, shamefully, and we're going to sleep for the first night at maingate Resort right outside property. It's a pretty nice place, surprisingly.

Tomorrow: animal kingdom

 

[disnygirl55]

Awesome - keep the updates coming! So sorry you missed California Grill. Let me know whether your cancellation fee was waived for weather-related delays!

 

[skier_pete]

Sorry about your delay. We learned early on no ADRS anywhere near scheduled landing. (We missed ours our first trip too.) They should refund your deposit if you call and let them know your flight was delayed.

On the bright side..you're at Disney World!!!! Have a blast!

 

[NobleAlyssum]

I'm sorry about the weather related delay, but at least you made it safe and sound! Hopefully you got all the bad luck out of the way for this, so the rest of your trip will go smoothly and beautifully!

 

[skier_pete]

So - how was the trip???