Easter Plan - Any suggestions?

[kjtinlin]

Alrighty, I'm going to Orlando from 2nd - 12th April, with my sister and two nephews (13 and 14). The boys have never been before, so we want to pack in as much as possible. My plan at the moment is this:

Fri 2nd - Arrive at MCO around 7:30pm, pick up car, drive to hotel (Holiday Inn Universal), eat and sleep

Sat 3rd - Take advantage of expected early rise and head to Universal for opening

Sun 4th - Early rise again and go to Island of Adventure

Mon 5th - SeaWorld - resting my weary feet at the shows, etc.

Tue 6th - MGM - as early as possible to get on ToT, etc.

Wed 7th - Kennedy - planning a coach tour with airboat ride add-on - has anyone taken this tour before? I figure it'll give me a day free of driving, but the tour lasts 11 hours in total, and I don't think we'll need all that time at Kennedy. Would I be better driving?

Thu 8th - Epcot and Animal Kingdom. Figure we'll get to Epcot early and fastpass Test Track, Mission: Space, etc., if possible, then head to AK and back to Epcot for Illuminations. If we don't have time for both, so be it - the boys can choose

Fri 9th - Magic Kingdom. It'll be Good Friday, so an early start to get everything in. If we manage to get on the rides fairly quickly, we can always hop back to Epcot or AK - the boys won't want to do anything other than the rides at MK, I don't think anyway - is there much else for teenagers?

Sat 10th - Kids choice. Possibly Wet 'n' Wild, but maybe Busch Gardens to meet up with some family in Tampa

Sun 11th - Kids choice - probably revisit Universal/IOA

Sun 12th - Maybe revisit IOA early morning for a couple of hours, then off to airport

So, what do you all think? I know I haven't scheduled in shopping time, etc. but I figure we can do that near the end on the Kids Choice days, as we won't take long - I have been to the US many times and know how to shop there. <g>

I'm not doing any priority seating, as one of my nephews only eats hot dogs/sausages and fries (as well as fruit for a slightly more healthy diet), so it's not worth it - I have a feeling it's going to be 10 days of junk food, though I might drag them to Olive Garden. :D

Any suggestions, tips, etc. are very welcome.

Kerry

[Anne]

Looks good Kerry- although you may need to be at a slower pace by about the third day otherwise you'll be exhausted. I know we did - our dd's were 13 and 11 - so we went shopping -lol

You must try and get to see the fireworks at MK - sure even the boys will like these. Wishes is a mind blowing display.

[signtalker]

Personally I would do Kennedy yourself rather than take a tour, 11 hours is along time, and to be honest its not that great!!!!

Worth going to say youve been,but not for 11 hours LOL.

Do it seperate, and do the airboat ride at boggy creaks.

Jules

[fumbo]

I would be tempted to fit MK in earlier. The parks get very busy towards the easter weekend ( I was told that americans tend to take the week after easter off so you are actually there the best of the two weeks) and so Good Friday is probably not the best day for MK as this tends to be the park that most people hit first.

Given the age of your kids they will probably enjoy the other parks more.

Get up early and make full use of fastpasses, and take a siesta back at the hotel if you can and revisit the parks in the evenings to make use of the longer opening hours in place at this time.

Your agenda looks pretty good but as suggested I would drive to Kennedy.

Wish I was going with you!

[kjtinlin]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Fumbo, you're right about the tour - when I checked the prices for Kennedy admission, I realised how expensive the coach tour was in relation and decided it's not worth it - I don't think the boys will want to stay there too long after they've done the sim rides, etc. so taking the car makes a lot of sense - we can go shopping on the way back too. <g>

As for MK, I may swap the dates around and go there on Good Friday and MK on the Wednesday, but will depend how tired we all are.

I will definitely be using Fastpass - I used it to great effect at Disneyland California last September, when the park was a lot busier than I'd expected.

Anne, I'll definitely make sure I check out Wishes - it's on at 10pm, so we can always go somewhere else and stop back.

Thanks again for all the tips - keep them coming. :-)

Kerry

[tiddles]

We went to Disney in Easter 2002 children then 7, 9 and 11. Our least favourite park (and busiest) was MK some good rides though. We did MGM on the Sunday before we came back which was a week after the Easter weekend and it was very quiet. We did MK twice trying early morning and late afternoon but we still didn't get everything in. We would go to a theme park one day and the next day we would do a water park or chill out day at the villa with possibly a touch of shopping!! We came back feeling that we had had a truly brilliant time and felt that we had had a holiday and were not too exhausted. One day we tried the beach but it was the only day of our entire holiday that it rained and boy did it rain!!! However, got talking to a really interesting tramp under the boardwalk at Clearwater!!!