August 2020, first timers
We’re essentially first timers - the girls have never been, although DH and I both went to WDW as children. He can’t remember it at all, and my trip was very different from our planned 2020 holiday. (i.e. it was a 7 day trip to Orlando with 3 days at Disney, staying off-site and having the hotel buffet morning and evening with no meals at Disney, and it was over 30 years ago!)
Our 2020 holiday will be almost three weeks, staying on-site at Universal and Disney with the Disney dining plan while at Beach Club. There will be four of us - DH, myself, DD13 and DD9. We’ve made a rough plan, which seems to fit in well with the rides, attractions and restaurants we like the sound of, so I’d appreciate any input before we get into those details: Week 1 11 Aug - set off, Premier Inn at Manchester 12 Aug - (DH’s birthday) arrive MCO 6pm and check into Cabana Bay 13 Aug - Shopping, hotel pool, Universal 14 Aug - Volcano Bay, IOA 15 Aug - Check in to Royal Pacific. Universal 16 Aug - a.m. IOA, p.m. pool / rest time 17 Aug - Universal / IOA. Check into Beach Club late afternoon Week 2 18 Aug - Magic Kingdom 19 Aug - Animal Kingdom 20 Aug - a.m. free, p.m. Studios 21 Aug - (my birthday) a.m. Epcot, p.m. Disney Springs - Cirque du Soleil 22 Aug - a.m. Typhoon Lagoon, p.m. Epcot 23 Aug - a.m. Magic Kingdom, p.m. free 24 Aug - Epcot Week 3 25 Aug - a.m. Magic Kingdom, p.m. Animal Kingdom 26 Aug - a.m. free, p.m. Magic Kingdom 27 Aug - a.m. pack & check out of BC, midday Magic Kingdom, p.m. check into Art of Animation 28 Aug - a.m. Epcot, p.m. free 29 Aug - Studios 30 Aug - a.m. Blizzard Beach, p.m. Magic Kingdom 31 Aug - a.m. Animal Kingdom, p.m. set off for airport (flight at 8pm) Week 4 1 Sept - p.m. arrive home and collapse! The children bizarrely go back to school on Friday 4 Sept, so they only have to get through one day before the weekend! I’ve only planned half days for rest / pool time, but every two or three days, as well as being able to take a couple of hours mid-afternoon whenever we need to - is that too much rest or not enough? We’re used to doing DLP, full-on from 7am to past midnight, five days in a row, then going home to recover! We can’t keep that up for three weeks, but I don’t know if I’ve gone too far the other way. |
I think the balance of rest periods about right. The heat/humidity make it very hard to enjoy open-close park days in Florida, so part days is definitely the way to go.
MNSSHP will probably start mid August during your stay, so the evenings when you can do MK in the evenings will be limited. Also, I would concentrate on getting Epcot and HS done while you're at BC as they're so easy to pop in to from there, which is especially useful after the evening fireworks. Have a great trip. |
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That’s also a good point about MNSSHP, I’ll have to keep an eye out for the dates when they’re announced. I believe this year’s was on Tuesdays and Saturdays in August, so if it’s the same for 2020, our plan will fit in well. (We only plan to be in MK once on a Tuesday, and not at all on a Saturday, so we could just get tickets for the Tuesday - if I can convince DH! Been working on that one for a while now!) I’ll just have to be ready to make changes if it’s held on different days next year. |
Have you booked this DIY Elodie? Your trip seems very similar to one I'd like to plan for 2021, split stay USF/WDW and the same dates. Have only been in October twice before so also worried about August weather.
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As Mortimer Mouse said, MNSSHP may impact your MK days, particularly your first visit on the 18th - they start about Mid August, and in 2018/2019 they were Tuesdays and Fridays [edit, Tues/Sat in '19] (we went in our last week in our 2018 hol)... assuming they follow the same pattern in '20, that means parties likely Tue 18th, Fri 21st or Sat 22nd, Tue 25th, Fri 28th or Sat 29th (they may start as early as Fri 14th).
Party guests can get in from (iirc) 16:00, and non-party guests need to vacate by 19:00 (they do this slowly, but cast members at ride queues and at areas that transit between "lands" check for wristbands and generally do a fair job). Since you're on the dining plan (QSDP? DDP or above? Table service meals definitely need booking well in advance), you can do ADRs at 180 days out for your Disney stay. So your restaurant choices may impact your park choices. Looks a good mix though, enjoy :thumbs-up Edited to correct party dates from Fri/Sat 2018 vs 2019. |
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Also really hoping the weather doesn’t disrupt too much of the holiday - I’ve only been to WDW once, in November, and I remember the torrential downpours every afternoon. I can’t imagine how much worse August must be! |
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We’re on the free DDP, but DH wants to upgrade to the DXDDP (I think he’s genuinely planning to sit and eat throughout the entire holiday, but I don’t think the rest of us will have the time or appetite to benefit from the DXDDP, so we haven’t agreed on that yet.) Quote:
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We have done deluxe dining before for five days and we have upgraded to deluxe for the next trip of eleven days. It is not about having a big appetite, I don’t have a big appetite either. However I like signature dining so it means I can do more of them and signature meals are smaller than your average QS. Also I do not often eat desserts but I like a starter and the deluxe plan allows me to have a starter not a dessert (well it allows both but I don’t want both). The other reason I upgrade is that I don’t like the QS experience in the parks; they always seem so busy and it is hard to find a clean table or indeed any table at too many I have looked in. I prefer to know I will have a table. For the five day trip it was really easy to use up the credits, one breakfast and a signature each evening. It is harder for eleven days though and I think there will be some credits left over as we probably will not wish to have eleven signature meals in eleven days. I am happy to accept that I won’t maximise the value of the plan, but then I use snack credits on water, which I know is a Dibb crime. :d: Unless you think your family will want a lot of signatures, I doubt it would be worth upgrading to deluxe. It is a shame there is not something in between DDP and dxDDP. I don’t think there is any need to book TS well in advance. I always have as I like doing it, but once I arrive, I end up changing nearly everything anyway. There are a couple of places that can be hard to get more than a few weeks past the 180 day mark, but even these become available again as people cancel at the last minute. I have picked up hard to get Cali Grill brunch, Cinderella Royal Table, BOG pre park opening, Akershus pre park opening and Beaches & Cream all either on the day or the night before. |
Elodie, didn't want to quote your last, lest there'd be a wall of text, but I'd definitely agree with you regarding the DxDDP - we just do QSDP as we eat off-site a few times, and don't do enough Disney TS to justify an upgrade to DDP. The idea of two sit down TS meals a day would be too restrictive to me, but I'm sure it works for some.
For your first week at Universal, there are some great places to eat on City Walk - Margaritaville a favourite of ours, and Hard Rock Café, though pretty samey to anywhere else in the world, is consistently good. |
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As you say, I don’t think DxDDP is for us, and I agree it is a shame there isn’t a halfway point between DDP and DxDDP. We’re only planning / hoping to get one reservation for a 2TS credit restaurant (ie CRT) and the rest just normal table service, so it would mean a lot of meals. Like you, I’m tempted by the idea of being able to choose a starter rather than a dessert (wouldn’t manage both!) but that’s the only bit that tempts me, so I’d probably just pay OOP if there was a starter I really wanted. Same as you, I think we will just book whatever we can in advance, then alter reservations during the trip if necessary. When we go to DLP, I always like to ensure we have a restaurant booked every day. Then we can just change our reservations around once we’re there - it’s never been a problem to do that, but at least we know we’re guaranteed a table if there’s ever a problem with last minute availability. |
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