!st Time to Disney!!

[boysforme]

Hi! This is my first post - and I think I have come to the right place for help which I need a lot of!!

We are going to Disney September 25-30th. We are staying at the Port Orleans - Riverside. We got the dining plan and 5 day park pass, but not the hopper pass

I am trying to figure out dinner reservations first and building an itinerary.

I do not know where to eat with the kids (btw, 3 boys, 8, 6 and 4)

Here is what I have been thinking...

Sun September 25 - we arrive at 10am to orlando (figure by 12pm we will be at the hotel)
Goto Hollywood Studios after lunch
Dinner at Hollywood & Vine maybe 5:30 -any other ideas?)
Fantasmic show at 8:30 (is it worth it?)

Mon September 26 - MK - park opens 9am

Maybe Chef Mickey Breakfast (not sure what time - thinking either before the park opens or goto the park and leave for an 11 am early lunch) what do you think?
Counter Service for dinner
Electrical Parade - 8pm
Wishes parade - 9pm
Maybe since it is a long day we should go later in the am or go back to hotel and come back at night?

Tues Sept 27 - Animal Kingdom
Lunch, dinner? not sure
4pm - 12 am - not so scarry halloween party -

I figured that AK is not a bad park that day because we can stay for a while and leave early to relax and goto magic kingdom about 5 or 6pm

Wed Sept 28 - Epcot, lunch/dinner ??

Thurs Sept 29 - MK lunch dinner ??

Friday - home

Can anyone give me any advice? Thanks so much in advance!!

 

[scooter7487]

You have come to the right place. I will help with what I can. We have been to disneyworld around probably 16 times so hopefully I can give some good information.

The first suggestion I will make is do not try to do everything!


If you do not only will kids be exhausted and misearable but so will you. You have taken the first step in doing some planning.


You are a little limited because you are not doing the park hopper but you can still have a great dinning experience.

With the ages of your kids you can't go wrong with Chef Mickey, crystal palace, breakfast at the poly. These are all character meals so you will be able to do more at the parks vs standing in line to meet characters.

I have 2 boys 11 and 14 now but they love sci-fi at hs, chef mickey, crystal palace and we always have dinner at whispering canyon (fun family atmosphere) and Ohana which is our favorite dinning experience at the poly.

I would also suggest looking on these boards for menu's that way you can see what the kids will eat.

Our family is not a fan of hollywood and vine we would rather do sci-fi, mama merose or pasttime cafe at hs.

Epcot: for dinner you can't beat late seating at rose and crown then sit and watch illuminations. I have heard the same to be true for the new mexican restaurant but we have not eaten there yet. Kids also love coral reef under the aquarium but menu is somewhat limited.

Magic Kingdom: crystal palace (pooh characters) is our favorite but tony's and liberty tree are also excellent

AK: we usually only have lunch there and head somewhere else for dinner. We did eat at yak and yeti, food was great service was not.

I could talk all day about disney. 2 final tips and I have to go but will be back or is someone knows how to send a word document via pm then I could send you information I have typed out (no I am not a psycho I just love disney and my friends come to me to help them plan)

One thing we like to do is at Flame tree (ak) and Pizza planet (hs) with our counter service meals is we split a meal so that on the last day if we are leaving late we have meals left to eat before we leave or we pick up sandwiches from hotel food court and take with us to airport for lunch.

You will see that these places and main counter service area at mk starlight lounge (drawing blank on realy name) it is accross from race track has half chicken and rib meals that can feed 2 people.

Last thing and this has nothing to do with meals but take advantage of early openings. In the park hour before general guest enter. Also understand that just because the fast pass says return between 1-2pm does not mean you have to use it at that time. You can use it anytime after that time as well.

Ok please feel free to pm me if you have other questions. I will check back later.

Scott

 

[scooter7487]

Fantasmic is definately worth it!

It is a great Idea to take a break mid day. take a nap or use the pool and then return at night.

 

[boysforme]

Fantasmic is definately worth it!

It is a great Idea to take a break mid day. take a nap or use the pool and then return at night.

Thanks so much for your advice, I can't PM you yet, but any info you can send would be great. Have a great day!

 

[ddluvsdisney]

I think taking a break to go swimming mid day when the parks are the busiest is the best tip I ever got. Especially with little kids- although my boys are 9 &13 we still do this! We get so much done by getting to the park at opening leave by 1:00 swim for a few hours change go back for dinner, parade and fireworks. My boys also love Sci-Fi Dine In at HS. Epcot has so many great restaurants we liked Teppan Edo, Coral Reef, Le Chefs de France (Has Remy the rat from Rattoutoile) Le Cellier, Fish and Chips in England. Chef Mickey's is a must if it's your first time. O'hana's character breakfast is very good and a lot of fun. BTW Fantasmic is definately worth it I might eat at Mama Melrose instead. When we did the Fantasmic dinner pckg. about 6 yrs. ago we ate at Holly. & Vine b/c it was the only one now they give you more choices.

 

[miprender]

 

[Metro West]

 

[Aliceacc]

Just a warning: we LOVED Fantasmic. But my 2 girls were TERRIFIED! (Ages 5 and 8 at the time.) It's loud. There's some fire right up close. There are villians. (And, in their defense, they were tired and they scare easily anyway.)

Definitely, go! But think about sitting further back, and know that one of you may have to deal with a frightened child.

What works best for us is getting to the parks before they open, every single day. But every single day, we also head back to the pool just after lunch. Then, at about 4, we start getting ready for dinner; we make early ADRs so we can enjoy the night in the parks. Your kids will want to swim in that great pool, so make sure you allow time for it-- it will also let them (and you) recharge a bit.

In Animal Kingdom, we have lunch at Yak and Yetti-- it's the only lunch we book. The food is GREAT, and it's nice to duck into the air conditioning there, since that park can get hot. But if you're planning to go from there to your resort to the Magic Kingdom, you WILL need those parkhoppers.

In Epcot, probably the kids' favorite meal is at The Coral Reef. One whole wall is the bottom of an enormous aquarium-- it's gorgeous. And we like the food

Enjoy!!

 

[MylilTink]

I went to Disney for the first time with our 3 year old daughter (at the time) this past September and I would suggest planning a break during the day. It was so freaking hot while we were down there and it exhausted everyone.

We didn't do the park hoppers; it was a lot easier to plan where/what to eat when we were only going to be in one park. Also, we did a lot of Character meals because we could take our time and it was just easier for our very picky daughter.

 

[boysforme]

Thank you for all your advice - I have been planning breaks now - last thing we need is for meltdowns in the middle of the park!! I am a bit worried about Fantasmic! being scary for the boys, they do get scared quickly and I know they will be tired so we will plan to sit further back just in case we need a quick escape! Thanks for the dining ideas, I was stuck on AK and Epcot - again thanks for all your help!

 

[DVCWDWMEMBER]

welcome:.

We started going to WDW when our youngest was 4 and have been hooked ever since. Best thing to do with your kids is take a midday break. When our kids were small we did that and found they enjoyed the parks at night. Hope you have a great time.

 

[pepe of ohio]

We're not advocators of the dining plan, yeah alot of people like that it's paid for up front but it's the pre scheduling that's the pain. Especially for a first timer...scheduling when you're going to be hungry and where....with so much to see and do....trying for a first timers to get it in and be at the proper place in time is tough. We go with maybe one or 2 ADR's and even at that....something has caught our eye and we end up canceling and doing a CS we've found.....our eating habits change when we're in Florida, all the walking and heat....most of the time we're not hungry or we just share a meal...being not delegated to a pre paid plan leaves the flexibility to change and even save money....we have groceries in our room for lunch and do pool picnics every day......hope all works out for you....we've been there and done that and I see from your itinerary, you're searching for food places...then comes times....see what I mean and with 3 children getting them to be hungry at the same time and on a schedule.......

 

[Corwin]

Hi! This is my first post - and I think I have come to the right place for help which I need a lot of!!

We are going to Disney September 25-30th. We are staying at the Port Orleans - Riverside. We got the dining plan and 5 day park pass, but not the hopper pass...

...Can anyone give me any advice? Thanks so much in advance!!

I think you are going to find that going from Sunday through Friday is too short. Assuming you don't work on weekends, I would consider staying through Saturday, at a minimum.

On our first visit, we planned to go from Sunday through Saturday (6 nights/7 days). On Friday, we were all heartbroken at the though of going home the next day, so I switched our flight home to Sunday, and extended our trip by a day.

On our next trip, to avoid a repeat of that, we went from Saturday to Sunday (8 nights/9 days).

We're now up to 11-day trips (Thursday to Sunday), but those include a 4-night cruise in the middle.